Noodling around in gopher-land, I have noticed a lot of
different people have writing about table-top RPGs (or
computer implementations of games in that style). Well, like a
great many things I write about here, I have a relatively
recently acquired [1] and surface-level understanding of what
others know, but often see a niche to write about that is
different from the existing discussion.
I want to start what will probably be a phlog series by writing
about an odd little book I read this year called *Top 10 Games
You Can Play In Your Head, By Yourself,* which is supposedly by
J. Theophrastus Bartholomew and only edited by Sam Gorski and
D.F Lovett, but ... that part is a joke, as is much of the book
(although many reviewers don't seem to get the joke). I don't
want to get too bogged down on the tone, but I think the book
could take itself a tiny bit more seriously, as many people
really do need a manual for reclaiming the imagination. I know I
did.
Here's some ad copy for the book:
| Top 10 Games You Can Play in Your Head, by Yourself is a
| collection of visionary author J.Theophrastus Bartholomew's
| most cherished mind games, edited and updated by filmmaker
| and storyteller Sam Gorski and author D.F. Lovett. No
| peripherals needed. No controllers. No pens. No dice or
| boards.
With the header of:
| Your mind is now the ultimate gaming engine.
So what are the details of the making the mind into a gaming
engine? And can it really lead to dynamic game play? The best
explanation I can give is to explain the book's opening
activity, which is to imagine walking through a field and seeing
your shadow. Next, come to a place, a place of your choice, an
ideal place for you... a Sanctuary. You leave your shadow, who
now is your Shadow Self outside and explore/build your
Sanctuary. It should be "mostly how you imagined it would be
before you arrived but when some differences." Take as long as
you want to know the place, "but remember that your Shadow Self
waits outside and it grows impatient."
You are to leave, and when you do the Shadow Self will have a
turn to rearrange the place, subtly or not, and try to steal an
object, and in a way that you do not notice. It is your ("your")
turn to wait outside while this happens... When the Shadow
returns you are to go in and investigate, and figure out what
item was stolen. Quoting the book again:
| Only when you have found what it was -- found which object is
| now missing -- because you stole it without letting yourself
| know this -- there in the building you built, can you
| consider the game complete.
I honestly couldn't do the exercise the first time [2]. But the
book speaks to that:
| If you had a hard time with the game above, try playing it
| again! And again! It's not going anywhere -- just like your
| own fractured self.
In essence the book is a series of prompts for sustained
daydreaming. It should be approached by someone wanting to
prioritize the image part of imagination over depth of game play
because in practice, at least my practice, fragmenting the self
only goes so far as a gaming engine. (But have you tried
Nethack? Holy shit is that some great depth of game play... I
refer again to note [1])... Curiosity struck while typing that,
so after a duckduckgo search ('nethack depth of game play'), I
have the quote from Erik Reckase:
| The depth of gameplay in NetHack is nothing short of
| miraculous, a standing testament to what can be accomplished
| by a community of gamers working towards a common goal.
And the website? www.thegreatestgameyouwilleverplay.com (!!)
Life is kinda neat sometimes... You cannot make this stuff up.
I didn't know where else to fit this in, but thinking about
fragmenting the self reminds me of just about the most
interesting stray thought a student ever shared with me. He
wondered how come when you are dreaming you can't read the
thoughts of the other people -- after all, it's your brain
thinking them up at the moment.
Other than that being a cool thought, it illustrates that
fragmenting yourself is a pretty natural thing, and the
characters you imagine can very easily end up taking on a life
of their own, if you let them.
=
[1] In this case, it was very recently. I played NetHack some
last month as I tried to get through the last soul-crushing
weeks, days, hours, minutes of my previous job. I mostly just
mucked around and only used the extensive wiki when curiosity
struck, which was usually after I died. I was trying to use the
game as additional imagination fuel, not get a grad-level
understanding of item analysis and inventory management... Not
at this time, at least. Too much inventory management becomes a
subset of too much calculation -- which (at least in us normies)
is the enemy of imagination.
[2] I had to play through this exercise twice before I felt
ready to go. I'm probably limiting this too much to quirks of my
psychology by revealing that the first time, I made too small of
a space, really just a tiny hut. I have always had a fascination
with minimalism and really small spaces. Anyway, the Shadow did
surprise me at least ... the place ended up with all kinds of
pastel paints and streamers... Not really in the spirit of the
exercise, but I was at least amused. My Sanctuary now is a tower
with two levels and a garden on the roof (but still places where
archers can duck behind after they fire. Yes, it does look like
a rook).
=
This work is hereby in the public domain.
Do what you want with it.
