Begin and end with the Fifth World.
- Principle
- Begin and end with the Fifth World.
- Type
- Core Principle
- Primary Agenda
- Hunt the wild story.
When you play a board game and you take your turn, you pick what to do from a list of mechanical options, usually based on the best strategy. A story could emerge from this, and you might even play into that, but you still play the game by choosing from a list of which mechanics to engage on each turn. In a roleplaying game, you begin with the story — in this case, the story of things happening in the Fifth World. You don’t choose from a list of mechanics to engage, but in terms of what your character will do next. That decision might engage some of the game’s mechanics if someone chooses to use a ritual phrase, but they can only make that decision based on what your character does in the story. Those mechanics all bring us back to the story unfolding in the Fifth World. These mechanics can get in our way, slow us down, keep us from our goals, and introduce dilemmas that none of us wanted — as they should! We want to see how these people will overcome such challenges and setbacks. But rather than a puzzle that might produce a story, a roleplaying game plays more like a story with mechanics that keep any of us from knowing quite where it will go next.
#Examples
- The mechanics of this game engage when people ask certain questions or invoke specific ritual phrases, meaning they come into play when someone at the table feels that they should. You choose to bring the mechanics into play as part of your own sense of dramatic and creative expression. You should invoke them honestly, when you really feel they apply, but ultimately it comes down to the people at the table and their collective sense of the story. You’ll find your own standards of what seems easy, what seems difficult, what seems safe, and what seems dangerous. In particular, if you narrate something as difficult or dangerous, follow through with that. These decisions only make sense in the context of the story, though, making it literally meaningless to try to play to the mechanics. You have to begin with the Fifth World in order to know what mechanics will even apply.
- The ritual phrase “That sounds difficult…” introduces difficulty when you try to do something, but using it only makes sense once we’ve established what you want to do. After all, what sounds difficult for one person may not for another. Making your first arrowhead as a child sounds difficult, but for the person known for hens skill in knapping arrowheads, it comes easily. When your character becomes an expert in something, you don’t get bonuses to doing those things; instead, the other players should take that into consideration when deciding what sounds difficult for you or not. The game reflects your expertise in all the things you can do without difficulty, that others would struggle with.
- Likewise, “That sounds dangerous…” introduces risk and danger when you try to do something, but this only makes sense once we’ve established what you want to do. Just like difficulty, what sounds dangerous for one person may pose little risk for another. It depends on the specifics of the things happening and the people involved.
- You have to begin with the Fifth World — with the things happening in the story — to know if you want to spend a moment of awareness to ask an attentive question or invoke a ritual phrase. Something in the story prompts us to use a rule or deal with tokens on the table in front of us, and then those things in the real world lead us back into the story, back into the Fifth World. The answers to our questions tell us more about the story, or the ritual phrases add some new development to it. Then we might repeat the cycle again, with something new in the story leading us back to the game rules
- Sometimes, you might feel uncertain about what to do next. When that happens because you can’t see the situation clearly, try asking immediate questions. These cost you nothing, but should help you sort out the basics of the things going on around you. When it happens because you face a conundrum or a dilemma, try talking to other people about it in-character. Those moments of indecision can provide great moments to explore your character, what hen thinks and feels and values, and deepen hens relationship to others. Who does hen turn to in situations like that, and what kind of advice do those people offer?