12/4/08

Story When?

"You can't tell the story you want to tell, you have to tell the story you're telling."
"Nobody sacrifices the integrity of his or her character for the sake of staying together as a party or solving the GM's mystery - the action comes right out of the characters' passions."

This might not be a surprise to some people, but I figure some folks might not know. So here's the big thing for me: The majority of what's going on in a game should, in fact, go on during the game.

We need to start spending less time before and after a game making stories and enjoying it. We need to focus our fun and attention and creativity on the game.

This is nothing new, folks. Vincent Baker wrote an excellent (in my opinion) article entitled "Pre-Play / Play / Post-Play" in '04, and I think I first read it in... I dunno, '06 maybe? You can read it yourself; I won't retype it all. But the point is, we (my gaming group) have been doing pre-play and post-play for a long time now. And... I think it's time to change. And I'm trying to do that.

This small thought was provoked by Have Games, Will Travel: For A Few Games More #4, which mentions improv and story now, for a good few minutes. It is in turn sparked by an interview with Ron Edwards where he mentions "Story Now", in Theory From The Closet #8 (which I have not listened to, yet).

I'm just trying to spread awareness, here.

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