thread: 2009-06-17 : Secrets
On 2009-06-19, valamir wrote:
Its not ALL in people's heads. But much of the best parts are.
Here's an exercise. Next time you roleplay wait a couple days. Then think back on the session. Try to play the scenes in your head as if they were a movie. See the characters, see the city streets, smell what the vendors are cooking, feel the pounding of the pavement under your feet as you run. See the faces of the extras in the crowd, see what's on display in the store front windows as they flash by.
I guarentee the majority of those details were NEVER shared. I guarentee that each and every other person at your table doing this same exercise would have a totally different movie in their head. They'll agree that you were there, they'll agree you were running. They MAY even agree there was a crowd and street vendors. But all of the rest of the details—the sights the smells the stuff that makes the scene pop and come alive—not shared.
Sooomtimes they're shared. You might be in the havit of doing the "say what you do and add a detail" trick. But the reality is that a picture is worth 1000 words...and the picture in your head has a 1000 details...and only some tiny fraction of those details are ever actually spoken.
But I believe that its THOSE details that make roleplaying worth doing. Its THOSE details that make it a rich, exciting, vibrant experience. Its THOSE details that (if I may wax poetic) cause the imagination to soar and the heart to beat faster. Those details...the ones that are hardly ever spoken...that's where I find the biggest thrill.
The next time someone says something at the table that makes your mouth go dry and your throat constrict and your gut tie up in knots. Spend some time to solidify every detail of that scene and burn it into your brain. Then later think back on it and count how many of those details were actually shared and how many were added by your own imagination. Then reflect how much of the gut twisting was caused by what was actually said and how much was caused by the details your imagination added; details that no one else but you will ever be privy to.
To me THAT'S the good stuff. That's the stuff that makes that scene memorable. That's why *I* roleplay. If you don't have that...then its just a bunch of people talking. And if you DO have that...then this emphasis on the right ward pointing arrows...is not only not really needed, but often...actually gets in the way.
