Last night, like millions of smoke monster haunted island fanatics, I watched the series finale of Lost. Lost hooked me with the first episode, which I didn’t catch until it came out on DVD. I know not everyone feels the same about the series. Now don’t worry, I’m not going to spoil anything. I’m also not one of those fans that’ll talk your ear off about every little detail and whether or not it’s important enough. I’ll absolutely admit that there were big chunks of the show that basically spun its wheels to keep us all watching and I always knew that not every question would be answered. I like Lost for some different reasons. First and foremost it was a great character-drive drama and I have a keen interest in those. Second, I’ve always been fascinated with the structure of Lost as a narrative device.
One of the great narrative devices of Lost was the ensemble cast. With a variety of personalities and background among the characters, there is at least one character you can relate too. The two characters that resonate with me are Sawyer and Hurley. I’m a bit of a wisecracking asshole (with pony hair, as my friend Jason Bulmahn likes to point out) with a big dose of well-meaning and befuddled nerd. RPGs have an easier time with character resonance, since you audience gets to create their own characters in the drama, making the connection more visceral and enduring.
Like all forms of narrative entertainment, RPGs are about illusion. Every instance of game play you have to transport your audience (the players) to a world much like ours but also very different. You have to do this without special effects (sort of) or an army of screen writers (sort of) and thankfully without commercials…unless you count someone goobing out on the latest movie they saw, book they read, or tech gadget they bought during a game lull. Like any other form of narrative entertainment RPGs have tropes and assumptions. Some of these are dictated by the game rules, but others are determined by the setting, the actions of the various characters in your drama, and the common language of action adventure as a genre, which is constantly expanding as it is affected by the various mediums of the genre, be they novels, movies, TV shows, or comic books, to name just a few.
Every hour we, as DM, spend on story and set-up, and every tool that we use for prep and at the game table is used in the unending effort to communicate the reality of the narrative construct we’ve created. And quite often we have to roll with the punches. The illusion of realism is often important, but creating and the progression of the narrative construct is even more so, and just as illusory. That means you’re going to have to make adjustments when a player moves away, when the characters kill an NPC that they weren’t “supposed to” or make a choice that you didn’t consider when you were preparing the week’s session. And that’s where I’ve learned a lot from Lost.
Last year, I attended a Lost panel where one of the executive producers (Carlton Cuse) and a couple of the writers (Eddy Kitsis and Adam Horowitz) were talking about their experiences working on the show. Strangely they had to deal with many of the same things. Actors had scheduling conflicts, at least one actor who played a popular character (Mr. Eko played by the fantastic Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) decided to leave the show for personal reasons, and often they would have to rearrange the plot based on these realistic incursions into their narrative structure. There were other constraints as well. Budgets (though compared to other shows Lost’s budges were vast), the Hawaiian weather, and having to deal with actors getting arrested, not to mention the constant constraints of Lost’s constantly growing and evolving storyline are just a few. As I sat and listened to the series creators I realized that there were a lot of similarities between a TV show like Lost and a home campaign. In fact, the chief differences are merely a matter of scale and resources.
Like us, they have to juggle the precarious path of the real world partners in the narration. Like us, they use tools and technology to get their story across. Like us, they have their story revelations that they often unfold slowly, keeping the audience drawn in. And like us, they often will throw in a bit of action and narrative devices meant only as an entertainingly stale the story for a little while and to keep the audience coming back for more (enter the “random” encounter). Sure, there are plenty of differences too. Even with the changes in cast and actors injecting themselves into characters, the writers and producers of Lost had much more control over their plot and characters than any DM will ever have. Our storytelling is much more uncertain. We only have our best guesses at character actions based on past decisions and our knowledge of their player’s personality and common emotional triggers to go on. But that’s one of the fun parts of RPGs…at least in my opinion. That said, Lost and other forms of narrative entertainments are basically treasure troves of storytelling exercises that we can learn from and steal from, because in the end we have the same goal—to entertain an resonate with our audience. Not learning from them because they not fall into your own strict interpretation of what an RPG-ness is just silly.
A couple of weeks ago we shared some of the technology that helps a couple of the DMs in the group present their stories. Didier showcased his computer-driven game table, while Jeff showed us his impressive projector game table. My table, surprisingly enough, is more analog than my fellow Neogrogs. I use cards, handouts, and elaborate miniature set-ups to get my point across. My iPad is there mostly for music, reference, and note taking. In the end we use the tools that we are most comfortable with in order to tell our collective stories. Each DM must learn to use the tools and resources he or she has available in order to present and move along his or her story. But the process of finding those tools and seeing if they sing to us never stops.
Just like we can learn from Lost, we can also learn from each other. In the next couple of weeks we would like to hear from you. Feel free to drop us a line at srm@neogrognard.com. Share your name, a short description of your play group, and tools and tricks you use to move your game along. Please feel free to send some pictures to help illustrate the particulars of your game table or tools, and we will share them here. After all, I’m sure there are things we could all learn from you!
Oh, and feel free to share which Lost character or Lost character mix you identify most with.