It's a conversation that ebbs 'n flows. We've come back to it lately, the question of whether we've lost "The Tribe" elements that drew us to this rpg in the first place.Valid question. Our game's been 2 years & 4-plus seasons in the making. Present time in-game is almost 3 years after the Virus outbreak & the death of all the adults. And while it would seem that the Virus defined both "The Tribe" & our game ... well, I would disagree with that wholeheartedly.
Yes, the adult-killing Virus was the beginning of everything -- the tv show, our appreciation for the creative ideas the show brought us, and KTDARPG -- but ONLY the beginning.
"The Tribe" was not about a Virus. After the show's Season 2, it was hardly ever mentioned again. Actually if I remember right, it took Our TV Heroes just one year to (a) lose the adults, (b) start organizing into tribes, (c) suffer a recurrence of the Virus, (d) discover an antedote for that (e) find out what caused the original Virus, and (f) deal with it & move on.
Let's not rush too fast past that "moving on" part. See, for me? That is what "The Tribe" was all about. How do you survive this catastrophe? How do you move on? How do you make a life when everything you depended on is gone? And most especially, how do you do all that when you're only 13/14/15 years old?
Those are exactly the things I find in KTDARPG. Those are the questions that our characters struggle with day to day, building lives for themselves the best way they know how.
I think I know where the question's popping up from. I could be wrong, but ... After 4 game seasons where the driving plot had to do with Big Enemies, Big Battles, Hurricanes & drama of the highest order, today we've brought the plot down to the personal. So far this season, our characters are more involved in just living. We're re-defining ourselves, meeting new people, developing relationships & discovering life on new terms.
Ok maybe that sounds tame after what we've been through, but it's really not. Go back & remember what scenes stayed with you from "The Tribe." For me those had to do with Bray & Amber finding each other, Salene's struggle with bulimia, Lex's drunkenness, Alice's doomed love, the Jack/Ellie/Luke triangle, Ebony's fears, Taisan's spacy ways, Dal's little trees. A hundred moments, all small, all very special AND all very personal to the characters.
Oh, the conversation will go on backstage among our players, but I'm not too worried about it. I think KTDARPG is as "Tribal" as it's ever been. Maybe even more so, since our timeframe has gone past what the tv show lived through ... and we're still here. :)
-Chyna
Photo source: copyright Cloud-9 "The Tribe", courtesy of "TribeWorld"
((posted for Sable))
ReplyDeleteOnce again, I would to post a reply to your blog-Tribalness. It got me to thinking, about our characters and their conversations. I kinda feel a void reading some posts. Are the characters floating in space, or are they in some sort of bubble.
I don't know how to explain it, but where is the background noise? Its really cool, for those upclose like camera shots which are the one on one conversations. Arianna, and Scarecrow with their intimate moments, and Krystal and Jason in their cell. I could feel the cold surroundings of their cell. I could picture the guards walking away down a gloomy hall way. There is dimension.
I guess, it would be cool see more descriptions of the enivornment around the characters, smells, etc. Its something, that I am going to try and work on anyway.
Just a thought,
Sable