Do we see the sun rise? Or does it just rise?
All right, luvvies? There's not a huge amount to announce since last issue, so I'm using the space to set down some thoughts I've had bubbling, about the stock phrases we use when roleplaying for an audience and how they affect the performance.
Coming right up
Lights Out
Project Tallneck
Actual play techniques
Bears you can wear
If you missed Lights Out
live on stage at the London Horror Festival at Hallowe'en, you can now catch the audio recording on the Merely Roleplayers podcast.
We knew when we staged the show that not everyone who enjoys the podcast would be able to make it. Not all of our audience is even in the UK, let alone in the London area. So while we did create Lights Out as a theatrical show, and it was definitely best experienced live, I'm still really glad to be able to bring it to the rest of our audience in some form. For the first time in Merely Roleplayers history, enjoy the sound of other people laughing at our gags (and gasping in horror at unfavourable card draws).
And then this coming Tuesday:
https://twitter.com/MerelyRoleplay/status/1468258044052230148
Project Tallneck
is the codename/working title I'm giving that cyberpunk audio drama I mentioned last issue, about resistance in the shadow of a space elevator. I put pen to paper on this while staying in a restored Tudor house in Devon, and finger to keyboard once I got back, and some characters and scenes are taking shape and assembling themselves into a pilot script.
I haven't written drama (or much of anything other than prep for roleplaying game sessions) in quite a while, so it's taking some coaxing, but I like what I've got so far. That's something to celebrate; it's always a challenge to keep up enthusiasm about something at this stage, when you first turn it from a beautiful ungraspable idea that exists in perfection in your mind, into a messy first draft that needs a ton of polishing.
The day this newsletter comes out is the day of the Podmas dinner for the London audio drama community; it'll be nice to be able to tell the folks there honestly that I'm working on something I'm excited about!
Actual play techniques
So I listen to a lot of actual play podcasts, and it's interesting to notice the stock phrases that pop up in more than one.
I've said before that actual play is a new/emerging storytelling format. The conventions of the format are still raw and mouldable. But they are taking shape. People who make actual plays probably listen to them as well, so ways of doing things will propagate and cross-pollinate as people mimic the shows they aspire to, or splinter as people experiment or deliberately push back against shows they think are doing it the 'wrong' way.
This is an early (and not particularly scholarly or scientific) attempt to pin down some of those conventions and how I hear them being used. This is the kind of thinking that goes on in the back of my head a lot of the time, as I'm thinking about new ways to make Merely Roleplayers the best it can be (or to use as the foundation of future projects).
Some of these are general roleplaying game techniques as well as actual play techniques. Also, by putting these things down here, I'm not trying to say any of them are the right or wrong way or doing things (even if I have opinions about which I would and wouldn't use myself) - they're just things people are doing, which may or may not one day end up being considered 'how it's done'. I suppose my thinking is that if we do end up with some kind of consensus, it would be nice if it was discussed and consciously chosen, rather than people just sort of arriving there because it's how the big players do it.
"We see..."
I've noticed that most recent episodes of Monster Hour start with these two words. It's interesting to consider the difference between, say "The sun rises over City Hall" versus "We see the sun rise over City Hall". On the one hand, "We see..." puts an extra layer between the audience and the scene; instead of just being invited to imagine the sunrise, we're invited to imagine ourselves witnessing said sunrise. There's a potential distancing effect there.
But that "We" is important. It connects the narrator/gamemaster, the players they're presumably narrating to, their characters, and the non-player audience. Feeling like you're at the table with friends is one of the reasons people tune in to actual plays, and "We see..." brings you, the audience, into the same magic circle of imagination as the performers. "We see..." says the players aren't imagining something, packaging it and presenting it to you; it says we're all creating the scene together.
Shot calling
"The camera pulls back to reveal..." "The camera pans across..." "The camera zooms in on the villain's face..." "This shot is from below..."
I've said before, and don't mind saying again, that this technique doesn't work for me as an audience member. It knocks me out of the story because it asks me to imagine myself watching something on a screen, instead of inviting me to imagine the scene itself. But it is widely used, notably in Campaign: Skyjacks (which I otherwise adore), so it's worth including here.
What effects does this have, other than the distancing thing I don't enjoy? First of all, I think it's a way of setting tone, announcing that the cast want their actual play to feel cinematic and high production value. (Which perpetuates the idea that being adapted for the screen is the ultimate goal of all other storytelling media.)
It's also a way of controlling viewpoint. The advantage screen productions have over, say, theatre is that cameras and screens have very tightly controlled viewpoints. In a theatre, the audience can look wherever on the stage they want, and it's up to the performances and direction to guide their attention. Screens only show you what the director decided to point the camera at. They can focus on small details to make them seem significant, or hide things out of shot for dramatic reveals. By describing shots instead of just describing what's happening, actual play performers are tightly controlling and directing the audience's imagined viewpoint.
There's nothing wrong with that intention. The issue, to my mind, is that there are perfectly good ways of getting that effect without putting an imaginary camera between the audience and the action. If you describe a character's brooch in great detail, that directs the audience's focus to the brooch; you don't have to say "The camera zooms in on the brooch" first. If you say briefly what each character in a scene is doing, you get the effect of an establishing pan or tracking shot without needing to pretend you're on a film set.
"I think..." and the future tense
We became very conscious of this one while rehearsing Lights Out. For that specific show, we had to train ourselves out of using it as much as possible, because it didn't chime with the conceit that we were divining the actions of real people. But in a less heightened roleplaying game situation, "I think..." is incredibly valuable
Compare "Indy swipes the idol" with "I think Indy swipes the idol" - or even "I think Indy's going to swipe the idol". One's a done deal, while "I think..." and/or putting the action in the future tense leaves space for negotiation or for enthusiastic consent. It tells the GM and other players that you're open to collaboration on this part of the story. If Indy swiping the idol would step on something another player had planned but hadn't voiced yet, or it would make another player uncomfortable, or another player's character might intervene in the fiction, you've left space for that player to say so.
What about in an actual play? "I think..." can be a reminder to the audience that the story isn't planned, a confirmation that it's emerging collaboratively. That's one of the joys of actual play compared to scripted drama: knowing that the players' decisions are having a real moment-to-moment influence on the way the story unfolds. "I think..." lets you know you're hearing a decision being made in the moment, rather than a performer acting out something planned in advance.
First, second and third person narration
Say a player's character, Vic the Chosen, tries to parkour around a wall to cut down a chandelier, rolls poorly, and gets tangled and hoisted by the rope as the chandelier falls.
Vic's player has a choice between first and third person narration: "I parkour around the wall and slice the rope" vs "Vic parkours around the wall and slices the rope".
The GM has a choice between second and third person: "the rope tangles around your leg and yanks you into the air" vs "the rope tangles around Vic's leg and yanks her into the air".
First and second person signal that the players are immersed. Vic's player is embodying Vic, not just telling a tale about her. The GM is talking to Vic, not to her player (many Powered by the Apocalypse games explicitly instruct the GM to do this). For the audience, this can make the characters feel more real, like they're the ones making the decisions and taking the consequences.
I feel like first and second person are also the norm in home games. At least they are in my experience. So using them in actual play once again helps the audience to feel like they're sitting in at the table with friends playing a game that just happens to be recorded/broadcast.
So what about third person? This form of address can make an actual play feel less like a game and more like a production, a performance. It can also make things easier for the audience to follow. It makes it clear which utterances are the players out of character and which are the characters in the fiction - good for bringing in audiences who aren't so familiar with roleplaying games - and helps people keep track of who's doing what to whom.
It also forces the performers to regularly name the characters, which I know I find useful as someone who listens to a lot of actual plays. It usually takes me several episodes to straighten out which character belongs to which voice belongs to which player, so "I parkour around the wall" sometimes isn't enough information. "Vic parkours around the wall" not only tells me that, well, Vic parkours around the wall; it also reminds me that that character's name is Vic, and that that voice belongs to Vic's player. Third person narration is a clear concession to the fact that the game is being performed for an audience other than the people around the table.
In practice, most actual plays end up with a mix of first/second/third, but it's interesting to imagine what sticking only to either first/second or third would do. I suppose broadly speaking, first/second person lets the audience identify more with the players and characters (provided they can keep track of who's who), while third person can be clearer but could also feel more performative. As with any of these techniques, what to do all depends on the effect you want.
If, like me, you follow possibly too many actual play podcasts/streams, and there are obvious techniques I've missed, tell me so! You can reply to this email or @ me on Twitter, @merelymj.
Bears you can wear
Left: a black and white sketch of a bear in a hat hiding in long grass, but in enamel pin form. This is the Honey Heist bear, the one that's proverbially to beat in the itch.io physical games category, from Rowan, Rook and Decard.
Right: a large enamel pin of a girl in red riding a polar bear through a snow globe, with "His Dark Materials" written on the base. BEARS! This is actually two pins - you can separate Iorek and Lyra from the snow globe and wear them separately. This one's from the lovely Bloomsbury Nook.
Stay safe as you lope through the wintry end of this year, and I'll talk to you again in the cyberpunk year 2022.
Matt x