Creating imagery in roleplay
These days most roleplay concentrates on visual variants with avatars, full motion video and 3 matrix like effects. Although I am not completely absent in the technical ability department, roleplay for me always started with pen and paper. Whether round the table with friends in a form of improvisation theatre led by a master of ceremonies or in simple writing. It is a style I for one am more comfortable in and to an extent I believe allows the others one interact with to express themselves in an intimate manner that is far more personal than any snazzy avatar can be. It’s why writing can be the source of such deep-seated frustration, anger and depression – when someone reads what you write they scry your soul and the manner in which they answer can grate on your ego.
The creation of roleplay in text online relies on written based plans and exchanges. We do a form of improvisation theatre set against some grandiose or plain background and create imagery, plot, twists, turns and skullduggery. This is actually quite hard, really hard, and it’s even harder to keep going with a story or a plot once something was planted that grew. What should be remembered is that we write is ephemeral, most of it lost forever the moment we hit that x-button. Longer plot lines are hard to develop without coordination of the players behind the scenes – and whilst there is nothing specifically against that – but we often lack the time and ability or even desire to do so. The more complex setups tend to founder due to the escalating difficulty to maintain the illusion of reality, the suspension of disbelief, whereas the more mundane solutions tend to falter in the dull predictable repetitiveness with an abuse of words like ‘glowing eyes’ or ‘swooning desire.’
For my part the plotless (or lightly plotted) roleplay tends to be more effective allowing creative players to react in para style to an imagery no matter how ephemeral evoked by the writer. A device for this is the creation of a concept, often no more than a pair of words or a paragraph, that projects an image of depth and stimulates the creativity whether of yourself or that of other players. You read something that makes you go: ‘Hey whats that?’or ‘This creates a whole line of ideas in my mind.’
Oracles of old whether from Delphi in Greek antiquity, classic Tarot card or the I-Ching of China, they use imagery meant to invoke an emotion in the reader and thereby jumpstart his mind and answer the question it has posed to the oracle. To give an example, the I-Ching makes you cast what they call a hexagram, basically a set of 6 lines either whole or broken together they give you a reference in the oracle. So here is hexagram #12 Standstill:
The official reading of this from the I-Ching book is:
The Judgement
Standstill. Evil people do not further good
The perseverance of the superior man.
The great departs; the small approaches.
The Image
Heaven and earth do not unite:
The image of Standstill.
Thus the superior man falls back upon his inner worth
In order to escape the difficulties.
He does not permit himself to be honoured with revenue.
On an interpretative website the explanation that was given for this hexagram was:
In a time of standstill nothing can withstand submission.
To quote another, is the 14th hexagram: Possession in great measure
The Judgement
Possession in Great Measure.
Supreme success.
The Image
Fire in heaven above:
The image of Possession in Great Measure.
Thus the superior man curbs evil and furthers good,
And thereby obeys the benevolent will of heaven.
The same interpretative website this time gave the following interpretation:
The master said: “Do not play the host, but become the guest.” If you can transcend your need for control, you can become the recipient of the subtle treasures that life has in store for you.
Now any Gorean roleplayers out there can envision a myriad plots from these few words above. ‘In a time of standstill nothing can withstand submission.’ Some reference to a subtle value of the kajirae whose submission will force an end to stalemate? Or is it a subtle hint that a slave holds a Master up as much as the Master holds the slave down? Neither existing without the other and so the base gift of submission is what gives the strength to the Master? The second quote quite similarly implies that only the Master that is able to let go of the need of control can be truly in control. Or perhaps you see something quite different and we might debate this at length or not at all. The point is that the words created an easy imagery that could be played off, no interpretation is necessarily right or wrong it is just a background for stimulating the greatest organ that we have, the brain.
The main trick to create an illusion of depth with few words is to find word combinations that are somehow striking and create vivid images. Thus you can create a short story for two or more people based on very little and yet create the impression that something profound was experienced. The absolute master in plotless books with vivid imagery is Jack Vance. His books comprise an absolutely bewildering amount of worlds, science and magic which yield the impression of incredible depth, and yet like a painter hinting at wild winds on his canvas the words are a mere few brushstrokes. Consider this descriptive he gives of a fish on the world Aloysius, a fish that plays absolutely no role in either the narrative of the plot of the book – it simply creates for us a perception of the richness and depth of the planet Aloysius that is being visited by the main protagonist of his story:
Gaid, also known as The Night-train: this is a splendid fish, of a lustrous black color, often reaching a length of twenty feet. The body is exceptionally well-shaped, with an almost round cross section. The head is large and blunt with a single visual bulb, an aural pod and a wide mouth, which when open displays an impressive dentition. Immediately behind the head and almost to the tail grows a row of dorsal spines, to the number of fifty-one, each tipped with a luminifer which at night emits a bright blue light. By day the gaid swims beneath the surface, where it feeds upon wracken, borse and similar creatures. At sundown the night-train rises to the surface and cruises steadily with all lights aglow. The pelagic voyages of the night-train remain a mystery; the fish peregrinates on a direct course, as if to a specified destination. This may be a cape or an island or perhaps an unmarked station in the middle of the ocean. Upon reaching its destination, the night-train halts, floats quietly for half an hour, as if discharging cargo, or taking on passengers, or awaiting orders; then it swings about with majestic and ponderous deliberation. It hears a signal and sets off once more to its next destination, which well may be five thousand miles distant. To come upon this noble fish by night, as it cleaves the black waters of the Aloysian oceans, is a stirring experience indeed.
The key device here is the word ‘Night-train’ which Vance has allowed to roll over in his imagination into a fish. The rest I am sure he wrote quite fast as the moment you imagine such a thing it takes easy shape in your mind. He additionally uses some other devices; words he creates or finds in the deep depths of his trusty Thesaurus. They give an impression of richness and alieness even when they sound familiar. The words lumnifer and wracken do not exist even if intuitively one understands that lumnifer must be some part of the fish that gives off light. A borse is a small purse in old English and yet does not seem out of place with wracken which are supposedly creatures the Night-train feeds upon. Vance served in the merchant navy and was an avid sailor so the connection to fish and water are natural for him. Whilst one can only aspire to his degree of skill in painting a depth of exotic marine life forms on a planet that plays a minor role in his book, the device that he uses can be put to use in roleplay.
Although this method will not work for everyone – indeed for the duller minded action roleplayers it may seem overly complex – what is described below has served me well over the years. Furthermore it provides a pleasant pass time when one has a few moments to kill waiting for a train, plane or whenever you might find yourself confined.
The method is fairly simple – develop a couple of word combinations and then find occasion to use them. Simply take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle (I know I am showing my age here but you can do the same on your PDAs or phones). If you do it in MS Excel it’s even easy to create a function that will combine the words for you. On the left side write down adjectives and on the right side nouns, it doesn’t matter what really. In fact it’s better if at this stage you write down whatever springs to mind or even what you might see in your surroundings. Any noun or adjective can be jotted down in line with the mood you may be in. So for example consider the following list:
Adjectives Nouns
Grey Father
Slender kajira
Swanky chimney
Gorgeous wrist
Cranky saddle
Lucky Candle
Puny pearl
Classy powder
Real Status
Ranking Sergeant
Now simply start combining every single adjective with every single noun. It’s worth pronouncing them out loud to see if they will create an image in your mind. So in the list given above this would yield:
Grey Father, grey kajira, grey chimney, grey wrist, grey saddle, grey candle, grey pearl, grey powder, grey status, grey sergeant.
Slender Father, slender kajira, slender chimney, slender wrist, slender saddle, slender candle, slender pearl, slender powder, slender status, slender sergeant.
Swanky Father, swanky kajira, swanky chimney, swanky wrist, swanky saddle, swanky candle, swanky pearl, swanky powder, swanky status, swanky sergeant.
Gorgeous Father, Gorgeous kajira, Gorgeous chimney, Gorgeous wrist, Gorgeous saddle, Gorgeous candle, Gorgeous pearl, Gorgeous powder, Gorgeous status, Gorgeous sergeant.
Cranky Father, Cranky kajira, Cranky chimney, Cranky wrist, Cranky saddle, Cranky candle, Cranky pearl, Cranky powder, Cranky status, Cranky sergeant.
Lucky Father, lucky kajira, lucky chimney, lucky wrist, lucky saddle, lucky candle, lucky pearl, lucky powder, lucky status, lucky sergeant.
Puny Father, puny kajira, puny chimney, puny wrist, puny saddle, puny candle, puny pearl, puny powder, puny status, puny sergeant.
Classy Father, classy kajira, classy chimney, classy wrist, classy saddle, classy candle, classy pearl, classy powder, classy status, classy sergeant.
Real Father, real kajira, real chimney, real wrist, real saddle, real candle, real pearl, real powder, real status, real sergeant.
Ranking Father, ranking kajira, ranking chimney, ranking wrist, ranking saddle, ranking candle, ranking pearl, ranking powder, ranking status, ranking sergeant.
Now just let these roll off your tongue many are obviously rubbish, others are just existing terms and not really exciting or in the least interesting. To me at least a couple do raise an immediate image, introducing that word in a roleplay could give many easy lines of posts that are totally separate from cookie cutter serves or the ‘Tal, Greetings Master – smoky eyes’ fare that we frequently get.
Grey kajira for example conjures up an image with me of a self effacing girl – not yet been made to blossom perhaps something an experienced Slaver might be bargain hunting for on a market.
‘The slaver is always on the lookout for the grey kajira, the non-descript seemingly plain girl that just requires the right training to be brought to blossom. Bought for copper tarsks and sold for gold tarns.’
That is a term easily woven into a roleplay and can be used to create a story line from. However one can have a totally different reaction to Grey kajira , it is perhaps a pinnacle of self-effacing service only attainable by the most gifted intuitive girls:
“The grey kajira is never heard or seen unless needed – she is a treasure.”
A ranking saddle is perhaps something of a special order that leatherworkers make for high caste or renowned warriors and leaders of men. Similarly the swanky sergeant conjures up an image of a rather fashion prone guard at a city gate whose over jovial attitude borders upon insolence or to the contrary is utterly boring.
Real powder – perhaps pronounced REAL like in Spanish could be some kind of fancy cosmetic brought at huge expense by a Perfume Merchant of the Tahari. The kind of thing that would draw kajirae sighs of desire and FW envy. Puny powder by contrast might be a cheap knock off that gullible persons would mistake for the Real powder. It should be noted alliterations generally work well – alliterations in ‘p’s however usually sound vulgar.
Now the above may not seem like a large crop from such a large list but honestly I didn’t even try very hard, I am sure I could come up with many more from that list alone. The other advantage is that this is something you can do at any time, it requires almost nothing and is satisfying even if you do it only for yourself. Years and years ago I hit on the term ‘the undefeated army’ it conjured up an image of an army driven to bay inside an impregnable mountain fastness. Their lands in the valley occupied by the invaders - their women and daughters enslaved and their country raped. But yet they held out in their fortress aging – growing grey and weak neither strong enough to burst from their fortress but able to defeat any frontal assault. Made for a great setting which I then worked on with others to expand it to a real setting within which we roleplayed.
Throwing in little gems like that tends to pique the interest of other players and because the imagery is powerful they are able to respond with creations of their own in a more natural flow than the stunted cookie-cutter responses. It doesn’t always work it is true and some people will just be all like ‘WTF is that?’ but even that reaction shows that you pushed them out of their normal comfort zone into considering something new. It’s a form of word association pulled into a broader context because we only examined here what these words might mean in a Gorean context, we could as easily transplant to real life or other roleplay venues.
In a ‘Forgotten Realms’ roleplay, I once created a baddie which – in my opinion – had a really corny name: ‘Cold Hand of Cyric’. To the players however this (originally) quite unremarkable character took on scope and influence just because of his name far beyond what I expected. They gave him a wide berth as they instinctively feared him. Obviously we then played into that and he remains now decades later a favorite memory of my group; even the children of my friends are told about the frightening ‘Cold Hand of Cyric’ whose touch their parents feared to find resting on their shoulders.
These are the words of
Wayland’s typist
And as an addendum another of Vance’s masterful creations:
Erdenfreude: a mysterious and intimate emotion which dilates blood vessels, slides chills along the subcutaneous nerves, arouses qualms of apprehension and excitement like those infecting a girl at her first ball. Erdenfreude typically attacks the outworld man approaching Earth for the first time. Only the dull, the insensitive, are immune. The excitable have been known to suffer near-fatal palpitations. The cause is the subject of learned dispute. Neurologists describe the condition as anticipatory adjustment of the organism to absolute normality of all the sensory modes: colour recognition, sonic perception, Coriolis force and gravitational equilibrium. The psychologists differ; Erdenfreude, they state, is the flux of a hundred thousand racial memories boiling up almost to the level of consciousness. Geneticists speak of RNA; metaphysicians refer to the soul; parapsychologists make the possibly irrelevant observation that haunted houses are to be found on Earth alone.
