I play a game called Dungeons and Dragons. I've blogged about my frustrations with my players in Durban, and now I'm going to blog about it again, here in Johannesburg. Here is a game that I love playing because it's an interactive story telling exercise, and wonderful couple of hours of pretending to be in another world.
And yet I keep finding myself at odds with people I normally wouldn't be at odds with. In Durban it was players who used the rules to control my game. Up here it's players demanding that I read the rules so that I can control my game. Rules, rules, rules. And why don't I read the rules I hear you ask? Why not just pick up the 1000's of pages of rules and commit them to memory? Well... there are 100's of pages to start with. I've got the core mechanics down, but all the little extra bits...
Why is it that I don't care about the rules in this game, and yet others are so obsessed by them? To me, if something is dramatic then that is great. Forget if rule X says that I must multiply 3.4 by the number of orcs to get some kind of ratio to work out how much gold its got. But it leads me to ponder: Why don't I want to read the rules? The more these poor players demand that I read them, the less inclined I am. The more they complain about me not knowing the rules, the more I refuse to know the rules.
Why? It's got to the point now where things that were leant out in friendship are being returned, money owed repaid, and all ties of friendship seem to be breaking apart. For me this means fairly little. I'm old enough to know who my true friends are, and cynical enough to not care about new ones that don't last because there are always more. It's sad because these particular 'mates' I really felt I could be friends with outside of 'the game'. But that doesn't answer the question as to why this simple little thing - the rules of a make-believe game - can be so important to people.
And more importantly why I am so flatly refusing to learn them. I was trying to think about it this morning, and then again after squash this evening and the only thing I can think of is that I'm afraid that even after I learn all the rules I still won't make a good game master. Perhaps I am using the rules as a defense? I'm not very good because I don't know the rules... not I'm not very good because I'm just not very good. Know your level of incompetence a cameraman once told me.
He feels that everyone has levels of incompetence - the point you reach when you are no longer competent or capable at a given task. Is my level of of incompetence so low with regards to this game that I am ashamed of it? Is my level of incompetence as a story-teller low? Am I a bad storyteller? I cannot believe so, although I was told by someone that I am a better actor than a director or writer... was that a compliment to my acting, or a serious dig at me as a storyteller?
Perhaps I am? Perhaps I am not a very good storyteller, but a better performer? Is this a bad thing? Should this stop me from trying to be a good storyteller? Should I look at my career and move from behind the camera to in front of it? John Candy made a fortune as the fat man in all his films. So perhaps I should. But at what point does one stop trying to reach ones dreams and go in a different direction?
Do I dream of getting an Oscar for playing a mental wheelchair-bound apartheid victim? No, but I do enjoy playing the various roles in dungeons and dragons. Putting on an act. Showing off my many accents, and breathing life into my characters. God is that it? Is that really it? Am I a Quinton Tarantino? A wannabe actor who needs to write his own material in order to get into a film?
I'm not convinced of it as a totality. I want to write my various documentaries and films because I feel they are an amazing subject that deserve to be told and recorded. But perhaps I should look at moving into the other side of the screen. I do enjoy the sound of my own voice, I must admit. I like the way it sounds, how it modulates, and can, at a thought shift and convey a totally 'different' me. It's one of the few things about myself that I can actually say: Fuck, I'm good at that. Hmmm....
This is an interesting place I find myself in. Secretly I get a rush out of people being entertained by me. I think I've even blogged about it before, but perhaps that is really where I want to be? Or is it simply an easier route? I think it is immeasurably easier to act than to write/direct/edit a film. Am I just trying to bow out? Again I don't think so. Have I been using my D&D groups all these years as captive audiences to my performance? No wonder they - most of them - got tired and frustrated. The Actor does not need to know the rules! The Actor must simply Act. Everyone else must just watch. That may be painting too heavy a portrait of my game, but I think it paints a fairly complete one.
So now that I need to question my career and start to look at moving outside of my world, I ask you reader - are you following your true calling or are you simply playing to a different captive audience? Begs a thought doesn't it?
3 comments:
Rules. Yeah. Interesting question. I think it's simply a question of different priorities - you get your enjoyment from the storytelling. Breaking rules -- delivering surprises -- is the essence of good storytelling.
In games, rules are kind of important -- chess, for example. But chess is a deterministic game. RPG's, with their reliance on dice, are not.
The problem really arises when people who are playing the games to the letter of the rules encounter someone who isn't. There is an unspoken feeling that you are cheating, in a sense. The dichotomy arises from why people are playing the game. You're playing for the epic-fantasy thrill. Others are playing to win. And you can only 'win' if you're following the rules -- the rules are precisely what allow you to determine if you've won.
And you're a good actor, but you're also a good director and (with occasional assistance) a good writer.
Its called a Handicap... When you cant hit the ball with the crooked stick and walk after it into the wilds...
Seriously though, the rules are there to guide and structure the experience. However, you are not a person for structure, logic and progression in the strictest sense. The players play the game to see what happens to everyone in the end, the finale so to speak. I think you enjoy the trip more, in the storytelling you also mask yourself in the characters you portray, hence why you are a better actor than director. You can play what you want, where a director has to take responsibility for being shite or not getting the best out of the actors and sets etc.
I do believe that rules are necessary, since anarchy is only as much fun as when you are doing it and not on the receiving end of somoene's anachranious behaviour (is that even a word?).
I believe that a good story and a good journey is better than the rules that govern it, that is what entertainment and enjoyment comes from. However, the rules are what defines the "game"... if you dont like it, make a derivative without the rules then you will not be bound by them.
Funny how you don't like the rules of RPG's - yet you have many a time tried to adapt the rules to make the gaming experience more to your liking. But all you were doing is simply making new rules for you to follow?!
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