The Beginning

It was a dark and stormy night...

Cliché or Classic?
Either way, it's unmistakably an opening line.

Every story has a beginning... and stories are what I'd like to dedicate this blog to but a blog also needs an opening post... and I never know where nor how to start.

I've been running roleplaying games since I was thirteen. Although there were periods of time when I wasn't running anything, it was always a matter of time before I picked up a pencil and started rolling dice again.

Lately, something occured to me. Whether you're going through a dungeon looking for monsters to slay, hacking the virtual systems of a megacorp or trying to survive in a world hidden away from mortal eyes, the games that we play are riddled with a narrative.

I doubt this is a coincidence. Many games that I've played had chapters in their corebooks on crafting a story and some had it as their main selling point, being a system made specifically for creating stories. I suppose it harkens back to those mythic times when a community would sit down by the fire late at night and listen to one person telling stories.

Roleplaying games are similar in this way. We sit down and create a story. The main difference here is that everyone has a say in crafting a shared experience in an imaginary world. We take on the roles of heroes, anti-heroes or even villains and go through our own stories together.

This story aspect is a defining characteristic of roleplaying games that differentiates them highly from video- or even board-games. In neither of those mediums can you freely experience a narrative all of your own choosing and act out your own character. Yes, there are limits to what you can and cannot do, but they're all part of a story.

This is what I want to write about.

I want to write about games.
I want to write about stories.
I want to write about narrative.

So I made a blog...