Mythic storytelling

[RangerWickett]

Myth is a powerful part of every society. Some myths we know are false -- these are mythic stories that are entertaining, and that fit into our worldview or reflect our fears, like iconic superheroes, or all the UFO conspiracies of the 90s -- and some myths are simply ways of viewing the world, neither right or wrong -- like the belief in the value of celebrity, or that taboo parts of the body are sexy.

But what's more interesting to us, as gamers, are the classic myths. Monsters, magic, gods, prophecy. Fey, spirits, ghosts, albino crocodiles in the sewers, women who cut out their husbands hearts and hide them in tiny boxes, children abducted at birth and replaced by changelings.

In what kind of ways do you integrate myths into your games? If you were creating a setting, or running a game in a mythic version of a real-world culture, what elements of myth and folklore do you think would be most important to know about? How do heroes interact with myths, and when do you stop encountering myths and start creating them?

For instance, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, regardless of what your opinion of it is, really created a mythic figure in The Slayer, a woman with strength to fight monsters. She's one of the latest superheroes, and she's been fairly iconic for nearly a decade now. When the show first started, though, she was just a girl who encountered all sorts of monsters from classic and modern folklore. I don't know quite when she transcended to being a myth in her own right, and I like that it's a mystery.

Before Buffy, you have that lovely Joseph Campbell textbook case known as Star Wars.

You can't create myths and expect them to stick. But you can create cool ideas, use elements of existing myths presented in new ways, and hope that they resonate with people. What I'm curious about is, What myths resonate with you?

 

[Henry]

The one that resonates with me most (and most people, I suspect) is the Everyman Hero. That Iconic character of Luke Skywalker (in Episode 4, before he morphs into the "Chosen One" type), of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, Peter Parker, Daniel Boone, etc. Not only does it fall into vicarious living and wish fulfillment, but it also gives the reader/listener a method to connect into the story, to offer a window to connect better to the situation and action.

In fact, Everyman Hero is probably my favorite character Archetype in Feng Shui, and why I play one in recent Mutants and Masterminds games.

 

[William Ronald]

I think that several mythic themes can register in a campaign. The war between good and evil, redemption, the heroe's journey, life, death, and resurrection/rebirth, as well as the nature of divinity and the universe can figure in a campaign.

Currently, I am working on a homebrew setting, which has many elements drawn from real world cultures. I am still figuring some things out, but I have referenced a tale of creation in an overview that I wrote to crystalize some ideas.

In a past campaign that I was involved in, there was a heavy influence of Norse and Celtic mythology. So, we had PCs see the Bifrost Bridge and visit Asgard. (Some heroes of the Elder Eddas adventured with deities like Thor and Frey, but this was mostly for roleplaying purposes... receive a quest.) We saw the World Ash Tree, and the World Mountain. We also had characters travel to Tir nan Og and seek the counsel of their gods. (Generally, this involved a few quests and other things for enterprising mortals to do.) We also encountered other wondrous beings, including some truly horrific ones. At its best, there was a sense that reality was full of countless wonders and horrors.

On these boards, I would say that Sepulchrave's Wyre story hour threads have many mythic elements -- the war between God and Evil, self realization and a search for enlightenment, redemption, and sacrifice.

By the way, I also recommend Campbell's works -- especially A Hero With A Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth. (The last one was also a PBS series.)

 

[RangerWickett]

Some might not approve of it as real art, but of the three media I like to entertain in -- the other two being prose fiction and comics -- I believe the third, roleplaying games, are the most experimental and interesting, because of their interactivity. The drawback is that you can't really make tons of money telling stories through roleplaying, because at best you'll have maybe ten players, and trust me, your friends aren't going to pay to listen to you tell them stories.

But roleplaying is wonderful because it lets you shape the story much more organically than if you crafted a novel whole cloth. It has randomness, a life of its own. One day I would love to write a scholarly book on the artform of roleplaying. Like poetry, there are many, many forms, and the structure and subject matter of roleplaying games has, to my knowledge, never really been discussed academically.

Today, though, my interest is in myths. I'm writing a 70-page rulebook on new magic rules that hopefully will lend themselves more to the style of magic seen in myths and folk tales, and less to that seen in, well, D&D. But I don't want to just have rough mechanical elements; I want to at least dip into a discussion of what myth means, how you can use myths in your game, and how inspirations from real world myths can be fit together in a lovely post-modernist narrative.

Here's the introduction I have so far for the chapter on myths in modern games.

The world is home to thousands of cultures, and each culture has given birth to its own mythos, populated by gods, spirits, tricksters, creation, flood, and apocalypse. Modern culture has its own myths, many of them the surprising children of these historical mythic and religious traditions, but be they ancient or modern, these myths have compelling similarities because of deeply innate elements of human life. Curiosity about the nature of the world, fear of the unknown, the need for social structure and cultural heroes, and the natural desire for entertainment have led widely disparate cultures to give birth to shockingly similar myths.

I've done research, and I've got a list of two dozen really common elements of myth. What I'm curious about is how to present that to gamers so that if they want to play a game grounded heavily in Incan myths, they know how much they have to learn about Incan myths for the game to really feel Incan.

Any advice?

 

[William Ronald]

I think Henry brings up a great point. There are various heroic archetypes that players can try to connect with. Some of these include the Everyman, the Chosen One, the Prince in Exile, and the Sage. So, I think that these archetypes can serve as inspiration for players, and a character may go throw many of these archetypes over time. So, an Everyman hero may eventually become the sagacious elder who shares his wisdom with young heroes, completing the cycle.

 

[Acquana]

Well, well well. This appears to be my territory. *cracks knuckles*

When I was working on my setting, High Fantasy, I was using just about everything I'd learning about myth up until that point. A lot like ... I hate to make the comparison, but like Buffy I was having mundane people run into my favorite monsters. Though honestly, if you want to see where my first real inspriation came from, check out Matt Wagner's Mage (in a complete trade now! It friggin rocks!). My favorite theme is magical races and their dealings with normal humans. Brian Froud, Matt Wagner, to a lesser but still notable degree Neil Gaiman ... It's just uncanny how nearly every culture around the world has had some equivilant to the faerie. Spirits in North America or most of Africa, trolls in Scandinavia, "hidden ones" in Japan (I don't know the actual word, just the translation), fey all across western Europe ... The list goes on and on.

So I like running my games on an Earth setting (kinda sorta d20 Modern but not) and having people run into these things.

Well, really ... High Fantasy is just too much to get into. I mean, the whole setting is about myth, from fey to urban ledgends. I love me some myth.

 

[William Ronald]

Today, though, my interest is in myths. I'm writing a 70-page rulebook on new magic rules that hopefully will lend themselves more to the style of magic seen in myths and folk tales, and less to that seen in, well, D&D. But I don't want to just have rough mechanical elements; I want to at least dip into a discussion of what myth means, how you can use myths in your game, and how inspirations from real world myths can be fit together in a lovely post-modernist narrative.

I've done research, and I've got a list of two dozen really common elements of myth. What I'm curious about is how to present that to gamers so that if they want to play a game grounded heavily in Incan myths, they know how much they have to learn about Incan myths for the game to really feel Incan.

Any advice?

I think you should include Joseph Campbell's definition of myths as a story that explains how we live our lives and explains how that influences a culture. For example, the ancient Egyptians believed in an afterlife with some sort of physical form. This lead to even poor people making some provisions to preserve a body (even if it was just with desert sand), and the placement of some items to help the deceased in the next life. As the Pharoah was considered to be a divine being, ensuring his place in the afterlife became a national priority -- less the gods be angered at the ill treatment of their representative. This attitude probably helped explain some of the cultural stability of ancient Egypt, where there were often long centuries without internal dissent.

Among the Incas, the emperors were considered to be descendants of Viracochoa. One can imagine that the conquest of the Incan Empire by the Spaniards was a great cultural shock -- as the divine representative on Earth was defeated by strangers from a far land.

Or consider the world views of the Celts and the Norsemen -- with a belief in multiple worlds, nonhuman inhabitants of those worlds who would interact with our world, and a sense of a world where the fantastic lay just over the next hill (if not in the hill.) Perhaps one way to get into this mindset would be to try to imagine what it would be like for us to know there was intelligent life in the universe and that they could come to our world and vice versa. I think we also need to remember that the medieval mindset in Western Europe a millenia ago also included concepts of various nonhumans and other worlds/dimensions but from a much more monotheistic bent.

I believe that Green Ronin's Testament and Hamunaptra show how belief can influence cultures. RangerWickett, I hope these musings help you.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

The one that resonates with me most (and most people, I suspect) is the Everyman Hero. That Iconic character of Luke Skywalker (in Episode 4, before he morphs into the "Chosen One" type), of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, Peter Parker, Daniel Boone, etc. Not only does it fall into vicarious living and wish fulfillment,

I think it's this last bit which explains why I've never cared for the Everyman Hero.

 

[Turjan]

The one that resonates with me most (and most people, I suspect) is the Everyman Hero. That Iconic character of Luke Skywalker (in Episode 4, before he morphs into the "Chosen One" type), of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, Peter Parker, Daniel Boone, etc. Not only does it fall into vicarious living and wish fulfillment, but it also gives the reader/listener a method to connect into the story, to offer a window to connect better to the situation and action.

Henry's answer already showed the way . Although I think that the theory that all successful stories from Gilgamesh to Star Wars or Buffy follow the monomyth is an oversimplification, I agree that the basics that Henry said are true. I'm not so sure whether this is applicable to a good RPG, though. A good RPG campaign features also sidequests in order to make things more varied, but sidequests are somewhat detrimental to the story, and I suppose that's why game sessions seldom reach good myth qualities (which is fine because this is not their goal ).

That said, there are lots of myths resonating with me . I think that Star Wars (the original film, now dubbed 'A New Hope' ) had a lasting influence on me, and it is still a very good basis for a game. I didn't mention Gilgamesh for nothing, and also some of my favourite Greek myths, like the 'Argonauts', the 'Odyssey' or the 'Orestes' stories, are always present, although the last one might already be too modern and sophisticated to be called a myth .

 

[Speaks With Stone]

I like the sound of what you are doing RangerWicket.

I've never actually been fond of the DnD handling of magic. I would much prefer magic to be more powerful, more difficult to cast and a little less predictable.

As you noted, magic in myth and fantasy literature generally doesn't map well to DnD mechanics. Merlin's magic was rarely as simple as a magic missle. The celtic druids required long rituals and cauldrons to brew storms. Faustus had to sell his soul for magic power.

As for mythic resonances I like - Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. I wrote a thesis on that back in college. Batman is represented as a shamanic figure, while Superman is like a solar god. Both are larger than life and the world around them is effected just by their presence. Batman doesn't just hide in the dark, the dark gathers around him. And Superman is just the opposite.

I think that powerful magics should warp the environment. Make reflections move independently. Strange creatures gather around the magic or slip through the cracks of the universe as the magic warps reality. Anything that makes magic seem unique as opposed to mundane. Ho, hum. He casts lighning bolt? Well, then I charge!

Other sources I would cite are the classics of literature. The League of Extraordinary Gentleman (the TPB not the movie) explored this very well. They are classics for reasons very similar to the myths were repeated.

I like Tarzan b/c its back to nature, the wild child. Dracula shows that the darkness should be feared, just like we knew when we were kids, but then shows we can fight our fears. Robin Hood is free from the rules of society and work and he's a good man.

I would also say that Babylon 5 had great resonance with me. It had fate, honor, Faustian deals, good vs evil, chaos vs order, sacrifice, a hero returning from the underworld with new insights - all that Hero With A Thousand Faces stuff.

Just some late night thoughts. Sorry if I rambled over much. Good luck with the endeavor. Sounds like something I'd really like to check out.