Care about the community.
- Principle
- Care about the community.
- Type
- Core Principle
- Primary Agenda
- Hunt the wild story.
In a single tale, we focus on a few characters. But over the course of a saga, which characters we play might change from tale to tale, allowing us to see the community as a whole as the true main character. In our world, we often think of the individual and the community as having opposing needs that we must balance, but people in the Fifth World would not understand this idea at all. They understand themselves as dividuals, defined by how they relate to others, rather than as individuals wholly separate from the rest of the world. The standard of personal autonomy in the Fifth World sits somewhere in the most radical dreams of modern anarchists, but they understand that they can only achieve this with the help of the community. Personal autonomy grows out of a healthy community like a tree grows out of good soil. The community exists to foster each and every person within it, and so each and every person does everything she can to help the community in turn. To enjoy the ongoing story of this community and its people, you’ll need to care about it. You’ll need to care about whether or not it prospers, and what happens to the people in it.
#Examples
- If you care about your character and feel a connection to hen, then you’ll care about hens community by extension. People in the Fifth World don’t see the individual and the community as existing at odds with one another. They have a dividual (rather than an individual) point of view. Where individualists see a collection of individuals, and secondarily the connections between them as something those people might have, dividualists like those in the Fifth World see the web of relationship first, and recognize persons as the points where those relationships meet. In this context, tension between the individual and the community makes as much sense as talking about the tension between roots and soil.
- Better yet, look for reasons to care about all of the main characters, not just your own. We see characters as cool, smart, strong, wise, etc., not because of how we play them, but because of how others respond to them. If you focus on your own character, you’ll have one person at the table focused on making hen look strong or brave or wise. If you all focus on each others’ characters, though, you’ll each have several players focused on making your character look strong or brave or wise, and they’ll each have many more opportunities to effectively do so, too.
- Beyond your main characters, though, the community also has many supporting characters. They have their own concerns, and their own stories. Look for reasons to care about them, too.
- If you play where you live, then the community’s territory includes the places where you live, work, and play. If you care about those places, then that means caring about the stories those places have to tell, and the people who will one day succeed you in listening to and living out those stories.
- Ultimately, main characters can change with each tale. Across a saga, we notice that our story really focuses on the community as a whole.