thread: 2009-07-13 : How About Some Q and A
On 2009-07-17, Bwian wrote:
Hi Adam,
This is quite a tangent to your point, so please feel free to ignore it.
At 43 above you said:
'But I get that nothing happens in an RPG without the character. When I say there's rain, it's rain that affects the character. When I say there's a monster, it's a monster that threatens a character. The character is the lens through which the fiction matters at all to anyone.'
I'd just like to speak up for the (perhaps minority) who sometimes want the whole imaginary universe to keep grinding on even when no-real-body is playing. Part of the enjoyment can be the idea that this 'imaginary place' and its imaginary inhabitants exist (like the sources of the Nile) and have lives of their own (like Princess Di).
But probably you intended to include that anyway, and I have misread your text.
At risk of taking things too far...
I guess you could say that the existence or non-existence of squirrels in The Deepdarkwood - even though no 'character' has ever entered The Deepdarkwood - still 'matters to a character' because some hypothetical character say - who had heard of the place might wonder about it sometimes ('I wonder if there are squirrels in The Deepdarkwood, mused Thorg Squirrelsbane as he drifted off to sleep.') ;i
Cheers
Bwian
