Second Person singular
It’s official: I’ve had an RPG published by MIT Press.
My author copy of Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media (ed. Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin) arrived today, and it’s a goodie. Four hundred pages of essays and discussions on all aspects of interactive narrative, story-telling and character in games and games design, written by a veritable B to Z of industry notables, from Ian Bogost to Eric Zimmerman.
In between there’s the likes of George R. R. Martin, Kim Newman, Jordan Mechner, Chris Crawford and Steve Meretzky—and old muckers of mine like Greg Costikyan, John Tynes, Jonathan Tweet, Ken Hite and Rebecca Borgstrom. (In fact, harking back to the last post, there’s two Diana Jones winners in here, and five members of the DJA committee. Go us.)
I have two pieces in Second Person: a paper on a design methodology for games that create stories as part of their gameplay (e.g. Dark Cults, Once Upon a Time, The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen), and an abridged but playable reprint of the latter game. In fact there’s three RPGs in the book: Greg Costikyan’s Bestial Acts is also included, alongside John Tynes’ Puppetland which I had the honour of publishing as a New Style game, back in the Hogshead days. In fact John, Greg and I wrote the first three of the five New Style games. Excuse me if I grin like a Cheshire cat.
Before I saw the book I was a little afraid that its tone would be as dry as First Person (MIT, 2004) which is hard work for those of us who’ve been out of academia for twenty years, and that my piece would make me look like a yokel as a result. I’ve only dipped and skimmed so far, but it all looks accessible for those of us who don’t speak fluent academe, and with really meaty thought-provoking content. I seem to have more pages overall than anyone else in the book—it’s not just Munchausen‘s fault, my paper is one of the longest too—and I’m not yet convinced that I’ve avoided yokel status. But Second Person will still be taking pride of place on my Shelf of Smug for some time to come.
Second Person is probably the definitive work on the development and state of the art in narratology (plus some guff about games that make stories). If you take games seriously then you should at least check out the book’s website which… uh, doesn’t seem to be up yet. Okay, then you should definitely drop $40 on this handsome 400-page hardback. Amazon.co.uk has it for £20.50.
(List of contributors here; introduction as downloadable PDF here.)
Categorised as: narrative
I found the first volume on the dry side as well. This one, so far, is fantastic. I’m still in Part One but am enjoying it thoroughly.
James:
Thank you so much for the recommendation for SECOND PERSON (on Boardgamegeek, where I am “Hotspur” and you replied to an old email of mine). I blanched at the prospect of dropping forty bones for the book (MIT Press is not cheap, even through discount outlets), but the fact that Munchausen was included sort of drove me over the top. Oddly enough I’ve not cracked the appendix yet and have been completely enthralled with the nuggets inside.
Soon, I will be attempting to run Munchausen in the virtual world of “Second Life” (SL).. assuming you don’t have a problem with the idea (I do own the game twice over, and will give you the credit). Virtually, I plan a setup similar to how I recently ran “Ripper” in SL, in a victorian simulation called “Caledon”. Details here: http://mrnizz.blogspot.com/2007/03/ripper-in-second-life.html
Seeing as SL will pretty much allow anything to happen, within the limits of the technology, the idea of creating an 18th century tavern with 18th century AVIs is not so hard to imagine. I shall get the seamstress who made my Rifles uniform to devote her fingers to that project, next…
I shall devote an AAR post to the success or failure of the experiment, and if you are interested, I will send you the URL.
V/R
Walt (hotspur on BGG)
Walt,
I’m really glad you’re enjoying Second Person, and am overjoyed that you’d like to extend Munchausen‘s range into the world of Second Life.. Let me know when the project is going to go live: I know at least one Munchausen player who works at Linden Labs.
[...] The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen will be re-released in the next two months, through my new imprint Magnum Opus Press. There will be a limited-edition hardback for collectors, a regular hardback, a regular softcover, and a PDF—which will be available through Warehouse 23. Previous offers I’ve made to send out PDFs of the original game (a game I now realise is woefully incomplete) to interested parties are withdrawn, with regrets and apologies. And as previously noted, a shorter version of the game appears in the recent MIT Press anthology Second Person. [...]