I don’t usually talk about non-writing
hobbies of mine on here (or at least, I try not to) but yesterday something
happened that made me want to talk about it.
I have been a pretty avid gamer since my
late teens, 20 years or so now. The latest incarnation that I play with my
friends is Pathfinder, the non WotC successor to Dungeons & Dragons. Soon
after I started playing, my boyfriend (now husband), suggested I try to run a
game. With the amount I read, he thought it would be a good fit. He was right.
I’ve always been creative and while I
haven’t always proven up to the task, I am very good at the games part. I
prefer running open world adventures, where my players have their own stated
goals and I simply match the world to their desires. This isn’t to say that my
players aren’t adequately opposed, but I have a knack for creating and
encouraging conflicts and resolutions that my players may not have considered.
For this reason, whenever I’m running a
game, my players get nearly (and sometimes more) experience and wealth from
talking down the monsters or dealing with them as business associates than they
would from simply yelling “Attack” and slaying all-comers.
Adapting on the fly is something I’m good
at, but there are times when my players will confound me. That’s what happened
yesterday.
I’ve been running my players through a book
adventure (the last one for a while I think) called Mummy’s Mask. While some of
the Pathfinder adventures are well-written and entertaining, some are
distinctly more lack-luster than others, being just a general slog of “I hit it
until it dies of it. What did it have on the body? Alright, every silver piece
has been counted, let’s go… Oh, it’s a what? And looks, like what? Cool, I hit
it until it dies of it. What did…”
I’d have honestly stopped playing it ages
ago, but my players do like finishing campaigns, rather than leaving them
hanging, so we’ve been bravely soldering on. The bad guy told them that to get
to him, they’d have to go through the “trials of the pyramid”… and my players
just lost it.
What started out as a rant from one of the
players turned into an actual discussion of whether or not it was feasible,
with the tools they had on hand to burrow their way past the defenses. I
insisted they do the math to prove that it was, but when they had, I agreed
that nothing in the game said they had to run on rails to get to the last bad
guy. They’d figured out a new way through. I adapted.
Which is something that you have to be able
to do in writing too. People always get so frustrated when they’re writing and
you’ll often hear the lament (if you know a writers) that the characters,
“aren’t doing what I need them to do”.
This always makes me laugh, since for the most part, my characters
aren’t as separate from me as they are with other people. Not to say that they
always do what I want them to; they often don’t and it’s usually my mind giving
me a hint that the original idea is unstable or unfinished.
Learning to adapt and going with it is a really
important part of writing, obviously. Fortunately, as with most writing, it’s a
skill that can be learned – even taught, to a certain degree.
My first suggestion would be to try improv.
There are usually comedy clubs around most cities where adults can get together
to try it out. If younger, check out your local school activities. If you don’t
see one, create one. Another suggestion is to try your hand at gaming. Whether
on computer or in person, creating stories in your mind about your character is
not only a darn fun way to pass the time, its teaching you to react with the
punches that come your way.
When we’re only dealing with our own
selves, we can feign surprise, fear, gladness and sketch out what our
characters would do, but only with other people will you be able to accurately
put that learning into use.
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