Anoki, my Amberite character, who was raised in a society like Native Americans is always telling stories to ilustrate points. (He is a shaman/storyteller for his people, so this comes natura for him.) Luckilly, most of the play in the game is by email, so I don't always have to come up with his stories on the spot. Last year, I was reading some Lakota stories and some Buddhist parables when he needed to tell some of these stories, so they came pretty natural. I just wrote this one for a reply today. I wrote it quickly and haven't been reading as much lately, so I don't think it's up to his usual standard, but felt I should share it for the people who read my blog that were in MK's previous game. (Anoki's father was Alexander, my PC in MK's "Methuselah's Children," and this story in particular ties to that background.)
From the email:
"There is a story among the Anishinabeg about how the village fire went out and the Raynay died. It is said that the bird-people were given powers by a sacred pattern of fire. They could fly through the world tree and, with their mind set on what they were looking for, they would always find the branch they were seeking. Noone was sure how the fire gave them that gift. Some would say that the world tree, recognizing the power of the fire, would grow new branches to please the birds, while others argued that the tree guided them to a branch that was already there. Only one person truly understood the fire, Raven, who stole the Serpent's Eye from the beasts countless winters before. Raven was old and his mind was fragile. He had spent so many years tending the sacred fire, that the fire was all he knew. He had tried to teach the others about the sacred fire, but none of them would listen. They were too busy exploring the world tree."
"One day, Raven was gone...and noone noticed. Life went on, and the sky-kingdom was happy. Then, one day, the fire went out. The birds gathered and tried and tried to relight the fire, but noone knew how. The village grew cold without the fire and the birds panicked. They fled through the world tree looking fo help. Raynay, a small bird with golden feathers, was never known for his bravery. So noone expected him to leave, but Raynay, clutching his few belongings, went to the most dangerous place any bird would ever think to go. He flew to the very bottom of the tree to the village of the beasts. Luckilly for the bird people, one of the beasts, a friend of Raven's from the days before the war between beasts and birds, was able to help the bird people. A beast as wise as Raven, a deer with wings offered to help them, but he had not forgotten how Raven had fooled his brother, serpent, years before. This winged deer, Peryton, demanded a great sacrifice for his help, a price so great that no bird would ever think to pay it. Peryton demanded that one of the birds tear off his wings and stay with the beasts. That bird would offer himself as the meal at the next great feast. Raynay, this most selfless bird, made the sacrifice and the village was saved, but at what cost?"
Di Another Day: That's the title of Peter Milligan's upcoming storyline of X-Statix, the "edgy" spin-off of X-Men. In it, he introduces the newest mutant to the Marvel Universe, Princess Diana. It's not a joke and he's getting a lot of backlash for it. I've never read X-Statix but I've read some of Milligan's other stuff and this is not that suprising. He's replied to the critics in an editorial for the Guardian.
I don't know what to think of this. I don't believe that because someone is dead that they become hands-off for writers and if he tells a good story by this, what's the harm? Is this any different than Saturday Night Live's episode of the X-Presidents where the X-Presidents (G.H. Bush, Reagan, Carter and Ford) were traped by evil aliens and summoned their secret weapon back from the grave, Dick Nixon? Maybe people are more appalled because this isn't a spoof or maybe it's OK to use Nixon because he was such an asshole. I can't see people getting this pissed off about someone doing a story about Abe Lincoln returning as some sort of superhero, so what is it about Princess Di? She's loved by the masses, but so was Elvis Presley and that hasn't stopped writers from using him. Is it because she's "royalty?" Something about this seems wrong to me as well, but I can't say why.
[edit- It seems Marvel chickened out and has pulled the Princess Di story at the last minute.]
This weeks WISH asks:
Robin Laws identifies several types of gamer in his book of GM tips: The Power Gamer, the Butt-Kicker, the Tactician, the Specialist (plays one type only), the Method Actor, the Storyteller (plot and pacing fan), and the Casual Gamer. Which of these types do you think you are, and why? Most people aren’t pure types, so multiple choices are OK.
I like coming up with bizarre characters and making them work. In many ways, I could be a "method actor", except I don't actually do a lot of acting. I'd like to, but usually when I get together to game, I am so tired from everything else that I don't feel like "getting into a character." Still I try to have some of my character's personality come through in what he's doing I guess I could be a mixture of "method actor" and a type I'd like to add, a "tinkerer." I love tinkering with the rules and character generation to come up with new powers and abilities (one of the things I like in Champions), but I don't approach the rules from a "power gamer" angle. My characters are not built to "win." Instead they have just been tinkered with to do something different. Besides my character sheet, I like to build up my characters place in the world. I also love to explore the unexplored corners of the world, the elements of the setting that may not be currently integral to the plot, but I find interesting...because I want to know how the GM's world works.
As a GM, I know that the tinkerer aspect comes through a lot. In any diced system I have ever ran, I've felt the need to tinker with the rules and improve any flaws I felt were there. (GMing White Wolf games have kept my hands full because the games are so flawed.) I also tinker with the worlds. I'm constantly creating new elements of the game world, many of which may never come out in-play. If it's a published setting, like White Wolf, I immediately put my own twist to it...something to make the world more to my...and hopefully my player's likings. I know that this can be a downfall of mine. My world often end up so complicated that I have problems keeping everything straight. How can my players ever hope to?
I've been thinking about starting an Amber campaign lately. As much as I've played and GMed Amber-system games, I've never run a game set in the Amber universe, besides two one-shots I ran at Ambercons that were hardly typical Amber games. (One was a light-hearted LARP, "Amberites and the Chaosians Who Love Them,"and the other, "The Heist" was a game where players were not Amberites but thieves attempting to steal the Jewel of Judgement from the Amberites.) One of the thing that I've realized is that Amber would give me both an unlimited world tinkering potential with all of shadow to play with along with a strong centralized focus- Amber. It also gives me a system that I wouldn't need to tinker with and would allow me to just focus on the story ideas. I've come up with a really strong plot idea.
The problems with running an Amber game is that many of my Amber playing friends are getting tired of playing Amber...at least in the Amber setting. Many of them have been in campaigns that have lasted for years, myself included, and want something new. There is always the option of using the Amber system to run something in a setting that is equally open, but something new. Moorcock's Multiverse comes to mind. No suprise there. Of course, there is also Nobilis. I could run a game that focuses less on earth and more on the world tree as a whole. The problem is that I haven't hit on a really good idea for an ongoing Nobilis gampaign. I have a whole ton of one-shot plot ideas, but when I try to think of something that could be made into an interesting ongoing campaign for a bunch of minor gods, I pull a blank.
What are three movies whose mood and/or situations you’d like to emulate in a roleplaying game, and why?
Well, this is what I lost yesterday. So, I'm typing it up again.
The Matrix OK. This one's a bit obvious for me. The feel that I try to emulate from the Matrix is the pacing. The slow buidl up at the beginning...the little bit of philosophy and foreshadowing of things to come....revelations....and the big explosive ending. I think I did a pretty good job in the "Morpheus Calling."
Dark City I use this movie as an example of a style of movie, which includes Fritz Lang's Metropolis, Batman, The Crow and Bladerunner. In those movies, the visual style gives the city a life of it's own and the background, the city, actually feels like a character in the movie. This is how I want "The Dreaming City" (link to the right) to feel. I hope that I've managed that a little in the Dreaming City games I've run. This was also some of the feeling that I was going for in "The Kingdom of Lost Children," although I think I was less successful there.
Record of Lodoss War OK. So, Ginger already mentioned this one and it seems kind of cheap to use someone elses idea, but I have to completely agree with her choice. Record of Lodoss War is an anime that I've often described as everything I've ever wanted out of a D&D game. A group of different characters band together on an epic quest to save their homeland. The mix of character types never seems forced like it seems in some of novels I've read. The story is excellent and the "NPCs" (Ashram, Pirotesse...) are very interesting without overshadowing the heroes.