There are three kinds of darkness: darkness of sight, darkness of psyche, and darkness of spirit. In
the hands of a truly skillful Game Master, Referee, or World Player, darkness has the potential to become a
conflict of truly artistic proportions. Taken
for granted most often, darkness of sight is “The Dark” of our most
primal fears. In prehistoric times, it was the place wherein the unseen
creatures that stalked our ancestors lurked; the sounds of their growls
or their twig-snapping paws were enough to chill the blood and summon
the paranoia that is the feeling of imminent death. Fire could
illuminate only so much, and, until the sun’s return, soundly sleeping
was a risky proposition at best. In our RPGs and story games like World vs. Hero, darkness of sight is a ubiquitous convention and is the reason that torch allowances are a given in dungeon-delving games. We expect the heroes to work at illuminating the darkness or else fall prey to the Big Bad with Infravision watching their every bumbling step. However, darkness ought to be an opportunity to truly test the heroes, to compel their player(s) to reconsider an “obvious” action when confronted with that-which-cannot-be-seen. “Paint” with the darkness of sight. The Dark is not always a blanket of solid blackness that engulfs an area in perfectly even gloom. Rather, consider it an “atmospheric pigment” into which a GM or World Player might dip the brush of scene creation in order to consciously and conscientiously render mystery upon a physical space. Instead of making a forest or a room or a passageway entirely dark, create pockets of darkness, some that even defy the logic behind the absence of light. Force the heroes to think before they act by conjuring a structured blending of light and dark that hints at your calculated hands at work. Perhaps there is nothing lurking in the shadows…or perhaps that’s what you are hoping the heroes believe. Either way, when you let them know that you have been as attentive to the absence of light as you have been to the placement of your tricks, traps, and monsters, you will have amplified the suspense of the story in a way that hearkens back to the primal paranoia that there is something in the darkness waiting to strike. Consider also that the Dark also creates shapes. Light cannot do the same. Once an area is illuminated, the elements within sight become the dominant shapes impressed upon our visual cortex, and we naturally devote our meaning-making processes to comprehending the objects within the light rather than the light itself. The “shape” of the light – if there is any shape to it at all – is typically secondary to our processing of a scene and, thus, becomes a less useful tool to a scene-creator attempting to stylize an encounter. On the contrary, The Dark can be given a distinct shape without fear that anything within its inky mystery will detract from its dominance. Some will argue that it is light that gives The Dark its shape, and, surely, light does frame The Dark. However, when shaped in thoughtfully-crafted shadow, The Dark “stamps” itself upon the light, making it the better medium for a scene-creator who wishes to confound the seekers of truth, foreshadow impending doom, or symbolize malevolence’s supremacy. The darkness of sight has great potential beyond simply making it hard to see stuff. Darkness of Psyche Like
the shapes of shadows crafted out of The Dark, the darkness within a
person’s mind may similarly be sculpted by an adept GM, Referee, or World Player to increase the tension of dramatic moments or rock the
fortitude of a hero’s certainty. This mental darkness is not doubt nor is it ignorance, for ignorance is the absolute absence of
intellectualized facts, concepts, or beliefs. This mental darkness is
the tangible wrongness that is erroneous information,
misinterpreted truths, or inadvisable assumptions – a veritable “shadow”
cast over the hero’s ability to sort out reality. Intelligent beings,
whether proactive or reactive, behave in accordance with the data
presented to them, and when they are guided by “The Wrong,” their
actions are flawed because their data is wrong. The “light” that dispels
this kind of darkness is the realization of the failed understanding of
what had once been believed to be the truth, but how one comes to that
realization – and in what timely fashion it occurs – may be an integral
part of the hero’s challenge. Of course, it takes little for a GM or World Player to feed falsehoods to a player, and without careful consideration, such a course of action could be unfair, unproductive, and potentially damaging to the game and the trust between players. However, when The Wrong is crafted as thoughtfully as a shape of The Dark, it becomes an essential conflict in the series of tests that face the hero during an adventure. Well-crafted, deliberate disinformation should retain a connection to the themes and motifs of the adventure. Shape The Wrong to make the inexorable revelation of the truth much more momentous not simply because the truth is shocking, but because the lie that preceded it is also revealed to be decidedly ironic, poignant, or is a clever distortion of the truth. If done right, players will sense that something is amiss and they will be more cautious about their actions just as they would be when entering an area shrouded by a physical darkness that implies some meaning behind its unusually attentive creation. In fact, the entire mystery genre is built upon this kind of foundation of “fair lies.” In World vs. Hero, a World Player could create a concept for The Wrong even though he or she does not know in advance what the truth behind it really is! As the Hero Player navigates the narrative competition, the World Player can take the time to develop meaningful connections between the lie and a truth that is fabricated along the way. To those who have never tried a game with that level of improvisation, this may not seem like a sensible strategy, but for a storytelling game like WvH, it can actually add to the excitement of playing! Taken to an extreme, The Wrong can be a complete break with reality itself – a darkness of dysfunction that leaves the victim trapped within his or her own mind, unable to ever discern the truth. Though some may find this notion intriguing, I liken such a scenario to heroes engulfed in The Dark with no light source and no opportunity to find one or have one find them. It’s not fun. An artful use of The Wrong should be an enriching part of a mutual creative process, not an impenetrable barrier. Darkness of Spirit The
most abstract shadows are the ones cast upon the spirit of a hero, but,
often, they can be the most rewarding to a narrative. First, it is
necessary to identify whether that “spirit” is the source of courage and
righteousness in a person or if it is an “actual” soul by the
definition of the mythos of a setting. In some games, the concept of spirit is expressed as a quantitative value measuring willpower, resilience, and bravery. In other games, a hero’s spirit or soul is a very real thing and may be the source of the hero’s divinely-inspired powers or the target of attacks by adversarial conflicts such as magic or monsters. In either case, the spirit is that spring of internal guidance that helps to direct the hero toward his or her goal of upholding what is right – whether or not the rest of society agrees with the hero’s particular definition of “right.” Therein resides the potential to darken the hero’s spirit. Like The Dark that obscures what we see and The Wrong that obscures what we think, The Deviant is that which gives us pause before we take the next step in an act that defines what we are at our core. Though in reality the “paths” we walk aren’t always perfectly distinct, those paths are often exceedingly well-defined for our fictional heroes. The spirit – in whatever form it takes in the game world – guides the hero on that path toward existential success or failure. To cast darkness on that path is to potentially deviate it, leading a hero to violate his or her own deepest beliefs – the very essence of what he or she IS. To do this, a GM, Referee, or World Player must have a keen sense of the hero’s past and present and must be very aware of the hero’s motivation for living a life of adventure. Heroes that are mere stat blocks with no genuine narrative substance won’t be good candidates for this application of darkness, but even those with a minimum of notable belief-based direction, such as a character identified as a “paladin” or one with a vendetta against those he or she considers to be evil, can be targets of this sort of conflict. The Deviant of the spirit is, once again, not doubt; it is the certainty, metaphorically speaking, that all paths have branches without guaranteed direction or that different paths might lead to the same goal or that some paths require the paying of a toll while others do not. In essence, The Deviant troubles the hero by darkening his or her chosen path while illuminating others that are not necessarily consistent with the character’s beliefs despite leading to the same outcome. It is a crisis of character, conscience, faith, or anything internal that defines a hero AS a hero. Altogether, darkness is a powerful tool not to be overlooked by a scene-creator. It is a level of detail that will unnerve players of traditional RPGs and storytelling games alike when they realize that another player has gone to the trouble to command the darkness to some insidious end - JF |