Thoughts in Darkness

[jburneko]

Introduction

I figure I should post an introduction. My name is Jesse and I'm a professional video game developer living in Long Beach, CA. Despite it being my career I don't actually play a lot of video games (though go play Pentiment or Disco Elysium, they're amazing). What I do play is a lot of is tabletop role-playing games. I also make them and write about them. My stuff tends to have Gothic and psychological horror themes. I publish them under my personal imprint: Bloodthorn Press. If you're interested in my work, you can find it here: Bloodthorn Press @ itch.io I also have a podcast where I interview people with whom I play rpgs: The People I Play With

[jburneko]

From an RPG perspective, I've been struggling for years to explain that "playing a character in a myth" and "treating a mythic world as if it were real" are two fundamentally different things. A part of this frustration is that I want a whole lot more of the former and a whole lot less of the later.

[iojg]

okay alright. can you elaborate just a bit? particularly on how specific you are about the meaning of "myth", as it throws me off

[jburneko]

So, I'm sure scholars probably have a more technical definition of "myth" than I'm using. I'm primarily talking about when elements of a story are meant to be received and processed emotionally rather than logically.

For example, we might have a character that wears jade armor and sits on a throne of ruby. Now if your mind starts thinking things like what the implications are for the culture and economy of a society that uses jade for armor and ruby for furniture design then you're thinking in the wrong direction. Same if you start thinking about the actual real world properties of jade and ruby and what you could possibly make with such a large and plentiful supply of it. No. Just. Stop. Don't do that. Instead, be *emotional*. What *feelings* does such an image/character invoke you. Disgust at their opulence? Awe at their power? Respect for their commanding presence? Fear? Now have your character react *to that feeling*. What emotion do YOU want your character to reflect back. In an RPG, your character TOO is a pile of evocative aesthetics in both image and action. Do a thing that will evoke a feeling IN ME as a fellow player at the table. You can't control WHAT feeling I have, but you can do something evocative, "logic" of the situation be damned.

[agathathevelvetlady]

This feels like a false dichotomy, and ignores the fact that the feelings inspired are in part dictated and/or strengthened by the "logical" implications underpinning the imagery. A character who is sitting upon a throne of precious jewels wearing armor made out of decorative stone is a striking image precisely because those things are understood to be highly valuable. But we didn't simply decide they were valuable out of nowhere. Those impressions come in part from the physical properties of the actual materials, which have dictated their history and shaped their perception. Should you be disgusted at this character's opulence and wastefulness, that feeling is almost certainly coming from a subconscious understanding of how these materials normally work. Seeing armor made out of a mostly cosmetic material (we are ignoring the multiple types of Jade here) only suggests opulence because it is a material which normally does not function effectively as armor. Seeing a chair made not of the typical wood or steel, but instead ruby suggests power because such a chair would typically require the sitter to have access to either great wealth, political capital, or some other measure of power which allowed them to obtain the presumably expensive and large quantity of ruby required to make the chair in the first place.

I feel like for this to be true, you need to treat imagery as though it exists in a vacuum. Which doesn't quite sit right with me.

[jburneko]

I'm not suggesting that feelings occur in a vacuum. Of course, whatever reaction you have is informed by your understanding of the world. What I'm saying is that you don't have to interrogate, articulate, leverage or otherwise "dig into" the underlying reasons. You can just react from the gut.

Nor does your reaction have to be constrained or informed by the "implied reality" of whatever it is you are reacting to. If you're reading beyond the feelings invoked by surface aesthetics of the situation (and the basic shared understanding of the world like, like gravity) into "Well, given X, I should do Y or I probably can't do Z"

You can react to "rich guy" without digging into "Well, given such a large mineral rich environment, he'd probably have need for a labor force capable of.... blah blah blah..... implying that there's probably a strong presence of..... blah blah blah.... so he's probably got a deficit of...."

[jburneko]

From an RPG perspective, I've been struggling for years to explain that "playing a character in a myth" and "treating a mythic world as if it were real" are two fundamentally different things. A part of this frustration is that I want a whole lot more of the former and a whole lot less of the later.

[iojg]

okay alright. can you elaborate just a bit? particularly on how specific you are about the meaning of "myth", as it throws me off

[jburneko]

So, I'm sure scholars probably have a more technical definition of "myth" than I'm using. I'm primarily talking about when elements of a story are meant to be received and processed emotionally rather than logically.

For example, we might have a character that wears jade armor and sits on a throne of ruby. Now if your mind starts thinking things like what the implications are for the culture and economy of a society that uses jade for armor and ruby for furniture design then you're thinking in the wrong direction. Same if you start thinking about the actual real world properties of jade and ruby and what you could possibly make with such a large and plentiful supply of it. No. Just. Stop. Don't do that. Instead, be *emotional*. What *feelings* does such an image/character invoke you. Disgust at their opulence? Awe at their power? Respect for their commanding presence? Fear? Now have your character react *to that feeling*. What emotion do YOU want your character to reflect back. In an RPG, your character TOO is a pile of evocative aesthetics in both image and action. Do a thing that will evoke a feeling IN ME as a fellow player at the table. You can't control WHAT feeling I have, but you can do something evocative, "logic" of the situation be damned.

[jburneko]

From an RPG perspective, I've been struggling for years to explain that "playing a character in a myth" and "treating a mythic world as if it were real" are two fundamentally different things. A part of this frustration is that I want a whole lot more of the former and a whole lot less of the later.

[jburneko]

The People I Play With: Tea on Ex Tenebris

Tea and I talk about Ex Tenebris a derivative of Brindlewood Bay. A chunk of what we talk about is what the GM does and doesn’t have to work with when there’s no fixed solution to a mystery.

[marisatomay]

I was talking about this with a friend but a really interesting cultural shift over the last ohhhhhh ten years maybe is that many people in fandoms view themselves as stakeholders and not audience members. Because of that, they think that the fandom should be running things, or at least have an acknowledged say in how something is run. And every reminder that they are not in control, no matter how small, bothers them.

[jburneko]

The People I Play With: Tea on Ex Tenebris

Tea and I talk about Ex Tenebris a derivative of Brindlewood Bay. A chunk of what we talk about is what the GM does and doesn’t have to work with when there’s no fixed solution to a mystery.

[jburneko]

My hottest commerce take is that we need a crowdfunding site that does not allow you to offer the project itself as a "reward". That makes it clear that you are funding a project, not pre-ordering a product.

If a crowd funded project is not allowed to fail without threats of legal action then it was never about funding the project. It's just a store.

We need a real crowdfunding site divorced from the assumption of purchase.

[jburneko]

The Extraordinarily Horrible Children of Raven's Hollow (Bare Bones Edition) by Jesse Burneko

A Storytelling Card Game

I’m kind of sad. Ten years ago I would pitch this game at conventions and fill multiple tables of 8-10 players. Now when I pitch this game I get virtually none. Where have my gothic creepy murderous children fans gone?

[jburneko]

The Extraordinarily Horrible Children of Raven's Hollow (Bare Bones Edition) by Jesse Burneko

A Storytelling Card Game

I’m kind of sad. Ten years ago I would pitch this game at conventions and fill multiple tables of 8-10 players. Now when I pitch this game I get virtually none. Where have my gothic creepy murderous children fans gone?

[jburneko]

The Extraordinarily Horrible Children of Raven's Hollow (Bare Bones Edition) by Jesse Burneko

A Storytelling Card Game

I’m kind of sad. Ten years ago I would pitch this game at conventions and fill multiple tables of 8-10 players. Now when I pitch this game I get virtually none. Where have my gothic creepy murderous children fans gone?

[jburneko]

I think it’s okay to treat historical and fantastical settings as just vibes and aesthetics to tell stories about people with contemporary values and concerns or even to have those values and concerns also be vibes and aesthetics based as long as they are relatable.

This is because I believe the emotional resonance of a story comes from the plight of the characters, what they choose to do about it, and how they relate to each other more so than the “lore” or the “logic” or the “history” or the “culture” they inhabit.

Note: If you WANT to ground the characters in those things that’s fine as long as at the end of the day the story is about the characters and not the backdrop that’s fine. Maybe it even makes for richer stories. That’s a different topic.

I’m just saying it’s no crime to write a story with a vibes/aesthetic based backdrop with no basis in reality if the foreground character drama is compelling.

[iojg]

it sure is no crime, but you are right about richer stories. consideration and good storytelling are correlated. many of the most resonant stories come from being specific, from getting deep into something. historical context is one thing you can get into, to almost like, infinite depth, and it's gonna be a depth very directly relevant to very human concerns. i've been reading a lot of and on a. s. byatt and she really goes deep with her neovictoriana, and you can just tell how all the stuff she researched is *important* to her and her characters, how their story just can't be told without that detail, how the emotional/dramatic core doesn't make sense otherwise

[jburneko]

And I’ll counter with Tanith Lee’s “Night’s Master” which takes place no where or when I can recognize and is raw passion from start to finish.

[jburneko]

I think it’s okay to treat historical and fantastical settings as just vibes and aesthetics to tell stories about people with contemporary values and concerns or even to have those values and concerns also be vibes and aesthetics based as long as they are relatable.

This is because I believe the emotional resonance of a story comes from the plight of the characters, what they choose to do about it, and how they relate to each other more so than the “lore” or the “logic” or the “history” or the “culture” they inhabit.

Note: If you WANT to ground the characters in those things that’s fine as long as at the end of the day the story is about the characters and not the backdrop that’s fine. Maybe it even makes for richer stories. That’s a different topic.

I’m just saying it’s no crime to write a story with a vibes/aesthetic based backdrop with no basis in reality if the foreground character drama is compelling.

[jburneko]

The Extraordinarily Horrible Children of Raven's Hollow (Bare Bones Edition) by Jesse Burneko

A Storytelling Card Game

I’m kind of sad. Ten years ago I would pitch this game at conventions and fill multiple tables of 8-10 players. Now when I pitch this game I get virtually none. Where have my gothic creepy murderous children fans gone?

[jburneko]

Sometimes I listen to what people in my “indie” RPG circles are playing and think, “Hey, remember when indie RPGs were about things?”

[greyplainsttrpg]

Themes

[teomos]

Meaning is mortal. The children yearn for the Simulacra.

[jburneko]

You misunderstand my meaning. I’d take solid simulacra of anything substantial.

What I’m seeing is the RPG version of Dada-ism or abstraction (without the expressionism). Pantomimed non-sense.

[jburneko]

Sometimes I listen to what people in my “indie” RPG circles are playing and think, “Hey, remember when indie RPGs were about things?”

[jaztice]

Oh hey btw, you can now buy physical copies of my games Extra Ordinary and Down the Road Through the End of the World on IPR!

IPR also sells to friendly local game stores, so ask your store to put my games in stock if you’re so inclined! Okay thanks bye ❤️

https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Sundered-Weave-Publishing/