More Love

Still thinking about Love in the Time of Seith.  First a bit of a digression though.

I read a comment recently saying that Shakespeare only gave each actor their own lines and cues, but no-one got to see the whole play.  According to the commenter, the idea was "[t]o keep his actors on their toes" because they didn't know the whole story until it unfolded.  It went on to say that later editors of Shakespeare's works not only collected all the parts together, but added the dramatis personea and in the process spoiled the drama.  According to the commenter, the short descriptive tags next to the character names ('exiled duke' or 'drunken butler', etc.) made "the play [..] pregnant with plot and the story ahead almost self-fulfilling."

While I think the actors did (and do) commonly just get their own lines and cues when learning a part, it is hard to imagine that after rehearsals they won't have picked up the whole plot.  So I don't buy the idea that the practice was something to keep the story fresh.  Other web pages suggest that in Shakespeare's time the practice might have helped ensure that no one actor could take the play to a rival company before it was performed.  Or maybe it is just a way to avoid distractions while learning a part.

What I really objected to was the idea that a list of characters with short descriptions was a bad thing or that it made the story a self-fulfilling prophecy and so boring.  The commedia dell'arte survived for hundreds of years (approx 1550 - 1800) using a list of stock characters is various situations and semi- or fully improvised interactions.  

Which gets us to role playing games.  As we start a role playing game -- whether it is a one-shot or the start of something longer -- we only know a quick description of each character.  To make it work, we have to go beyond those descriptions -- and the associated stereotypes, character tics, and assumptions -- to the actual characters at hand.  Even just expanding the tag just a bit helps.  A "hot shot pilot" might be anything:

• a farm boy who dreams of being a hero and meeting his father
• a smuggler with a heart of/for gold
• a good soldier who bends the rules because she knows she's safe
• a young guy desperate to live up to expectations, his reputation and his father
• an ordinary guy who would be happy in a boring job but loves his wife enough to follow her anywhere

The short tag at the start of the game gets expanded, maybe during character creation, maybe during play, probably during both.  The mixture of the expanded tag, the initial situation and the interactions between the characters gives us the story.  Not self-fulfilling at all. 

Which gets us back to "Love".  It uses generic descriptive names, "themes" for each character and some preset relationships.  Together they a list of characters:

• The aging King.   (Ancestors and Law) 
• The rebellious Princess. In love with the Knight.  (The Gift and Rebellion)
• The Seithkona.   Seductive witch, teaching the Princess magic.  (Sexuality and The Gods)
• The foreign Earl.  Prospective husband for the Princess (Treachery and The Eastern Kingdom)
• The Knight who is not as he seems.  Spy for the Earl and in love with the Witch  (Nature and Lycanthropy)

Ok.  Lots of stuff there, but also some threads that don't lead anywhere. (yet).  Certainly the story to come out of that group of characters is not pre-ordained.  The question is whether 5 players from more traditional (i.e D&D like) role playing games can sit down and build a story from those characters during play without having to have a DM guide them.