Huh? What?
Uncle Chu: China is here Mr. Burton. The Chang Sing, the Wing Kong; they’ve been fighting for centuries.
Jack Burton: What the hell does that mean? Huh? “China is here”? I don’t even know what the hell that means. All I know is this Lo Pan character comes out of thin air in the middle of a goddamn alley while his buddies are flying around on wires cutting everybody to shreds, and he just stands there, waiting for me to drive my truck right through him, with light coming out of his mouth!
When it comes to Story Games I sometimes wonder if I’m in the right place talking roleplaying with folks. The feeling comes and goes, but it’s never stronger than when I run across one or more threads that read like total gibberish to me. An example: “Keys, aspects, beliefs, etc — are they really all that?”
I have no idea what anybody’s talking about in that thread. I haven’t played the games, am not familiar with the concepts… it’s like a foreign language. A friend of mine to whom I recommended the site had the same problem; if you don’t have at least a basic grounding in the “new wave” of roleplaying, you’re quickly going to find yourself adrift.
I’ll freely admit that I’ve been more or less out of the roleplaying scene for ten years. My last regular game was a D&D Third Edition campaign that, to put it mildly, didn’t go particularly well. I certainly don’t have experience with the narrative-heavy games that dominate the discussion at Story Games, ones that give over substantial portions of control to the players to do with as they see fit. The kind of games I do understand are what the Story Gamers dismiss as “trad,” for traditional.
