labcats | The Tale is Not the Thing -- the Letter is the Thing

batyatoon and I were kind of stumbling around in the epistolatory game. We each had a character of sorts on the scene -- I considered mine a convenient NPC -- and we were sending out magical notes about what we were doing every couple of minutes. A bit too Blair Witch jerky realism, letter style.

mnemex pointed out that the text of the game isn't the events as they unfold, as it might be in an ordinary rpg. It's the text of the letters. The letters can be -- generally should be -- written after the events they chronicle. Remember your Sorcery and Cecelia -- or read it, if you have not done so. The letters are generally written in the lulls.

"Dearest Cousin, I was almost killed today ---"

"Darling, I had the strangest adventure ---"

"I fear I cannot visit you, for I am laid up with a broken leg. Here is what happened --"

"I am stuck in the hospital. Do visit me! Here is what happened --"

Or, given the magical element, "We are currently huddling inside Belvedere Castle, holding out against the fanged squirrels. It all began to go wrong when --"

Or, if you want to do something more sophisticated, check out Steven Brust and Emma Bull's Freedom and Necessity, where I may well have missed the fine philosophical points, but was on the edge of my seat for one character's reaction to a fairly nasty letter that another sent, and where the characters did not write the truth all the time.

Now, pulling this off in rpgs may mean a bit of finessing the interface. That is, batyatoon and I send email to each other deciding what we want to have happen, and then it hits the interface. That is, it becomes an official post on the game mailing list, in character.

This may parallel some of the indie games where a result is determined and then the scene is played out, something that can be fun when everyone is on the same page, or can result in "Where did my roleplaying go?" when they aren't.