Storytelling

My father recently sent me an email reminding me of the old story-telling habits I had back when I was younger. Up until four years ago, I think. And most of the time, my audience would only be my brother. Mostly because I was a loner until late in primary school, and also because our cousins didn't come around enough or have similar contexts we had to join.

Actually, to call it storytelling wouldn't be fully correct. It was more like roleplaying.

Back when he and I were both a lot younger, it was a lot simpler - I'd give a basic premise, say, a day at Taronga zoo, and we'd start acting and create a story together. One of us (usually me, I think) would be the narrator, the other would be a supporting actor. For instance, with the zoo, I could be a visitor or a tourguide, and my brother would play out the animal (although probably not quite as accurate as desired). I can't remember whether we ever ended these little episodes, but I'm pretty sure every now and again we'd piss each other off by not cooperating and end up doing something completely different. Like act out a different scenario and get pissed off again. Haha. Occasionally one or more of our aunts (both sides of the family had multiple daughters) would indulge me and join along. We were close back then. Still am, actually. They would be both audience and actors, playing along but also watching and laughing with us. I can still remember that, even if a little hazy.

As we grew up, my new knowledge was almost directly represented by the additions I made into the stories. Instead of simply 'being', I formed goals. Exposure to RPGs and videogames helped me form a flexible, albeit oft frustrating, guide by which we'd start our adventures and progress. For inspiration I drew upon the books that I read. Mythologies, fantasy, and medieval history I can remember quite well. The villains were admittedly poor copies of DnD monsters mixed with an unhealthy dose of mythological figures. Quests would be mostly the "go here - kill that - go back and level up" variety. By this stage, I was in early primary school, and we met our cousins (codenamed V and R to protect their posteriors) a lot more often. So we occasionally had more players to go by. The aunts were getting busier, and I usually didn't want them around for these roleplays, anyway. So our adventures turned from solo-questing to group roleplaying.

Hold the phone, was I born a LARPer? Oh, sorry.

Anyway, just to illustrate on what I mean by that, here's one scenario I can remember quite well. Which is more than can be said about the more important things I could've been remembering.

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This one is very...er...Van Helsing-y. Get quest, fight monster, go home, get cash. Rinse and repeat.

The usual format was that I'd be the narrator, dungeon master, every single NPC, and every single monster throughout the entire game. My brother and cousins (or cousin, depending on who was there at the time) would be the heroes. For some reason, they always ended up overpowered with everything going their way. Blame it on my shoddy DM skills. The scenario normally begins, as any generic RPG does, in a village.

The 'Village' is the one-stop place, filled with taverns, doctors, and as many NPCs as the players wanted to interact with. Which was usually just the barkeep (quest-giver), blacksmith (of course), pharmacist/item storekeeper (for those potions), and occasionally the clients who gave 'hints' - not too subtly, of course, considering the players were still in kindergarten - and a little bit of backstory as to why they'd want some yahoos to go out and kill a rare specimen. No morals necessary - it's all black and white (later on to be revamped after gaining the nuances of treachery and gray areas).

The thing that separated my protagonists from other, more conventional plays was the fact that they fought hand-to-hand. They were just that butch, going into battle with some horrendous foe armed with nothing but a magical Dragon Gauntlet (they aren't that stupid to go without some kind of mystical artifact) or something similar and an assortment of potions which would in reality kill them sooner than their wounds. Well, partly. The main reason was that we didn't have any adequate substitutes for toy swords/shields/spears, so we made do with pummeling and kicking each other. In retrospect, probably not a good way to spend my childhood. But I digress.

Once supplies and orders were sorted out, it would be time to move into the 'action' section. Those of you familiar with MMORPGs should know the drill. Go to some spot on the map, kill a few random under-beastlings, fight the big kahuna, win, divide the spoils. So it was that I had to narrate the entire journey to my budding heroes, keeping them awake by throwing in some surprise ambushes by the side of a cliff of something. Then it was the boss.

Ah yes. The boss. The climactic battle. I'd shed the role of narrator and fully (probably unsuccessfully) turn into the behemoth I thought up of. Nothing terribly twisted or original, just reworked versions of long-recycled villains in stories past. A minotaur, a giant bug, a golem of some sort...standard boss fare. And nothing too difficult either - being a boss is pretty tiring stuff. Not only did I have to flail around or walk on all fours, I also had to make sure the kids could beat me with some measure of difficulty. Usually after knocking them about, I'd break the 4th wall and tell them where the secret spot was. Then, with all their power, they'd coordinate an attack (surprisingly) and wail on me with their magic/fists/magical fists.

End of mission, go back home. The client or barkeep would be waiting (looking quite tired indeed) with a sizable lump of gold, the sum of which was negotiated beforehand and divided among the two. Then they'd go off into town, looking for food or going up to find a new technique I'd thought up of barely five minutes ago (Flaming Dragon Hook, anyone?).

Rinse and repeat, until a) the narrator runs out of ideas or breath, b) the protagonists get far too powerful and end up bored, c) someone has to go home, or d) we happily conclude the game, save it, and wait for the next time around to continue.

The part I liked best of this whole ordeal was keeping the records and making up new stories. We actually kept track on what we did, how much gold was negotiated, the prices (not yet reflecting knowledge of real-world trade) for goods and services, how much HP was left over after that particularly long fight, what techniques had been learned and how to use them...the list just goes on and on.

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Hmm, probably a tad revealing of my true leanings back in those innocent days.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have indeed realised that I have been, and perhaps always will be, a roleplayer. Not a very good one, perhaps, but a roleplayer nonetheless.

Just a second though, wasn't this supposed to be about storytelling?

Why, indeed it was. But then one can argue that roleplaying is but an extension of storytelling, where the audience is directly pulled into the events transpiring rather than as para-omniscient observers forming images from printed letters. Whether or not I was consciously aware of it, I was still fundementally telling a story to my younger kin. The goal was the same, to entertain.

In some ways, I still do that even now. Well, not the roleplaying, unless you count kendo as roleplaying. No, ever-changing perspectives on the world and its workings have hindered my ability to create worlds without boundaries. Of course, back then I also worked with boundaries - limits set by conventions in the books I read, fences that often my younger players could walk through while I denied my innate ability to do so as well. Now, it just becomes too complicated. Scenarios become convoluted, grim, pseudo-noir affairs where nothing is what it seems, no-one is who they appear to be, and morals are always in question. It just gets so tedious sometimes. This new approach has, however, helped me in writing with my erstwhile collaborator Pepen, as both of us apparently share similar views.

There was also a time where I dabbled in an RP forum, using that complicated, intricately detailed, and grim realism I came to appreciate. This, on the other hand, allowed me to create completely different characters to the others playing. It might help form the image to know that this was an anime forum (yes, I also enjoy anime, what of it?), so most of my fellow RPers had characters who were...well...more or less predictable. Avatars of masculine or feminine (or multispecies) perfection, nice hair, either eternally youthful or incredibly old (yet still looking like a sprightly young thing), and well-sculpted faces (occasionally with tasteful scarring to give that 'brooding hero' look). Oh, and don't forget overpowered, with a tendency to destroy any opposition within three posts. Not all, but some.

Then there's me, and my host of characters. Pretentious, some might say, trying too hard. My characters were to the threads I frequented either a completely average everyman (no good anime looks, almost painfully bland, stuck in his own little mortal drama)...or a homage to Frank Miller's antiheroes that would probably prompt him to send a letter asking me to please stop using his gritty characterisation. Of these, I was most fond of a character that I named Sal.

Sal's role was the loner. [Don't snicker just yet, there's worse to come.] He's an independent operative that works outside of any legal governmental body in a world divided between utopian rule (non-human) and a dystopian empire (human). [Not yet...] He's human, but has Spec Ops training and physiobiological implants that makes him harder to kill than any other person. He's also the only human in the hero roster, everyone else being powerful non-humans (dragons, animated dolls, and werewolves just to name a few). Not having supernatural powers, he relies on contraband/stolen weaponry, survival skills, mixed martial arts, and a grimly pessimistic demeanor which speaks through action. In a word, he's a pseudo-Batman, minus the cape and cowl. [Now you can laugh] Replace the costume with a tired brown trenchcoat with dusty jeans and utility belt with a large duffelbag, and you've got a substandard stand-in for the Dark Knight. Or Hartigan. In that sense, he also brings a kind of balance to the players. He's the only one who's grounded to any conventional rules governing humans, he's not completely made of stone or a tragic hero, he's just there. Eccentric enough to be realistic, concerned with things that would not register with non-human characters.

Then strange thing happened; I began to write a backstory, which suddenly grew and formed into the universe the RP is set in.

It's not brilliant, I can give you that. It takes so much out of post-apo and alternate reality literature that I scoff when I read it myself. Again, lots of influences from history and mythology. Sal became the connection between that world and the other players - he provided the story for the other side. Thus I set about ambitiously forming that world, making the intricate details I love so much in stories; politics and backstabbing, ancient cultural references, alternate history...all these things which the others could interpret into their own contexts and flesh out their characters. Sure, you can have a werewolf not like a vampire just because, but what if there's a long history of hatred and backstabbing, even if they're supposed to be allies in a utopian government? Little things that help people imagine things better (if under my hand, come to think of it).

Unfortunately, I never got around to rejoining the RP after going on hiatus two years back. I still regret it, though new activities have led me to spend my time in other places. The last time I checked it was still going, now having moved on to a separate thread after maxing out the reply quota. They're still using Sal's backstory, though all other things have grown to become something completely different to what I planned to make it. Nobody else, including the ones who joined after the first three arcs that I helped co-plan, has made a human character as of yet, and Sal's name is still on the roster though inactive. Forgive this writer for feeling a hint of pride towards the recognition and thought that his is a character no-one else is willing to emulate.

It was after quitting the RP abruptly that I began to write up a story with Pepen, and that's still undergoing a lot. A lot of changes, messes, dead ends...a lot. Again, intricately detailed, forming a convoluted mess that neither of us can grasp as of yet. Whether or not it's a plan to be realized, that's only for the future to know.

So from all this, I gradually understood one thing; storytelling, like life, is a whole lot more interesting when more than one person tells it. I don't mean that solo writers don't make interesting stories, but everybody needs inspiration, almost always from other peoples' ideas and opinions. Without supporting cast members or even the mention of an indistinct character, a monologue, no matter how beautifully worded, will still sound empty to me.

Creating stories with others seems to be a part of me that survived childhood (idealism is sort of ill and groaning in the background these days). It not only relieves me of the burden of having too much to think about, but also it adds new insights and pathways with which I can further my stories. And since I'm no Tolkiens, Gaiman, Murakami or any of those people whose imaginations and determination are the envy of so many others, myself included, I am more than happy just to write and expand my knowledge with someone else. I doubt personal success in writing as an occupation, but it is something I take much pleasure in. That's all.

And the connection to life? Well, we're all playing out our own stories, personal dramas and adventures, where we're the main characters. Yet we are each also supporting characters to someone else, even to someone who we may never meet. And all of us connect in a gigantic web to create this one multi-thread story of humanity.

Ah, well. It's about damn time I finished off this post. It's taken approximately three hours which I could've used to sleep or write up something I was supposed to write, rather than this brainfart.

Konbanwa, and good luck.

[end transmission]