Subversion Through Inversion

Lavishness is often the way, as exhibited by The Great Gatsby both in film and in Fitzgerald’s words from so long (and not very long, after all) ago.

There is something to be said for sublimity. For letting a thing just be, in its space. There’s a bravery found in its nakedness, for just letting a thing be what it is without any garnish or garishness or distractions. Form following function in the proper order of things.

While this can serve one well in game design, it also follows that extrapolating it outward enables one to create a resonance in scenario design. Think of shadows on the cave wall, if you will. It’s impossible to pin anything down in words or rules or pictures if one succumbs to the easy out of perceptual differences and the like. There is a commonality in the games we play. In the myths we make. In the stories we tell and emulate.

There are tropes, tried and true which we often shun, yet we find ourselves knocking at the door of the easily achieved plot or thread at three in the morning when are bodies are exhausted and our minds need nourishment. It is only human to succumb on occasion, and it is more than acceptable to let one’s reach exceed one’s grasp, and yet, and yet, I think, we can approach these matters from another angle altogether. We can subvert are art by doing the unexpected.  Sometimes, we succeed. Sometimes, we fail. We don’t know how far we can take things until we take them too far.

Make your play sessions memorable. Aspire to twist time about and create a shared experience you and your friends talk about for years. Don’t fall into the trap of the mundane. Turn things inside out. Take a curve too fast. Relinquish control of all the detail, and get your players more involved in the entirety of it all. Aspire to transcend.

Until next time, I bid you, dear reader, adieu!