{"id":15213,"date":"2016-02-04T14:46:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-04T19:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/hameblog\/2016\/02\/04\/stories-play\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T07:50:35","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T10:50:35","slug":"stories-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/2016\/02\/04\/stories-play\/","title":{"rendered":"Stories & Play"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amazing as it was to live in the Highlands, it didn’t turn out to be the haven for creativity that I expected. All that time and space — surely I’d write and produce all kinds of books. But no, I didn’t feel like it, and life there was about other things.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Now that I’m here in Toronto, though, something has awakened inside me: a burning need to play and to tell stories<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I’m reading a book called Playful Parenting<\/em> — an approach I can get my head around! — and it strikes me that play is an essential, vital part of life, yet one we neglect, thinking it’s a pointless luxury. Play, says the author of this book, is how children practice experiences, and thus learn about the world.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The things I’m dealing with in life right now are kind of Big and Important (potentially becoming a father, illustrating a long series of books, adjusting to an international move, &c.), so I love the idea of having a parallel play-world of my own in which to try things out, dabble with outcomes, and just\u00a0pretend!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I’m wondering if, ultimately, we really need to take anything seriously. I mean, this life is all made up, and we don’t survive it, so why not<\/em> make light of it and have fun? As Kurt Vonnegut said, “I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.” <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I loved writing novels, because it was such a great chance to exercise my imagination like that — to\u00a0create worlds and figure out what I think.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

So I’ve started a few projects that give me a chance to do these things — and, of course, use my skills to create literal products of my imagination<\/em>. As I said about my project-management materials, I’m drawn to use things that I created.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

One of the projects I’ve been working on is a role-playing game. Over the holidays, I did\u00a0a ton of reading and research, and there’s a ton of great material out there about creating games to play on your own (like Solo Roleplayer<\/a> and DriveThru RPG<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

From all this, I derived a\u00a0very simple gameplay system that works for me, and my first campaign (story setup).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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It’s just like writing a novel — setting up a premise, characters, and potential conflicts, then following the storyline along — except here it’s just for fun!<\/em> No worries about being original or interesting.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

(This story is about a cartoonist who’s just landed a job in a\u00a0satirical\u00a0magazine while a dangerously inflammatory politician rises to power. Think Charlie Hebdo<\/a><\/em> meets The Dead Zone<\/a><\/em>.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

So I look at the situation, decide what action my character wants to\u00a0take, then roll a die. The result can be:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n