- Pronouns
- He/Him
Now that the story is formally over (outside of Bonus Round 2: The Mario Partying), I wanted to give my out of character thoughts on the thread for this month.
I didn't go into this thread thinking that I would participate as much as I did. I already am not the most active poster in the general threads (even my own!), and turning it into a game could mean a lot to track and consider when trying to join in. There were factions to choose! ACTIONS to perform! Potentially many players! Random actions that could sway huge chunks of the play! But I loved the meta-textual nature of the groups as aspects of the forum and I was excited to see the story unfold.
I chose BOOKS because it reflected my thoughts the best. While I am looking forward to the next Nintendo console (and I want that next 3D Mario game!), I am generally content with the games I have and try to focus on the present. But within that, seeing a game that encouraged competition and conflict between the factions in a shitpost-y kind of world, I wanted to try and find a peaceful solution that united the forum. This meant avoiding STRIKES except when absolutely necessary and focusing on, in practice, EMPATHY GAMBITS. And baking - lots of baking! It meant playing around the many frequent STRIKES and GAMBITS that focused on attacking the other factions, but I think it made for a fun dynamic where there was at least one peace seeking player who kinda took things earnestly amongst all of the chaos. And I'd like to say it made my STRIKES against Sus.wav and Road Meat more impactful.
My focus on EMPATHY and trying to find solutions to the existing conflict ended up making me the perfect target for interaction with 2uswave. I was initially driven here by that mystery. Something was up with Suswave, and working with 2uswave was the key to finding that solution. We had lots of shocking twists and turns. There was a mysterious interloper behind the scenes that 2us wanted us to stop! She had to come up with increasingly wild ways to share information with us, each setting further seeds and leaving more questions! When she finally got to come out of the shadows, I found someone...like me. I'm decently active on the forum, and I can talk a lot when I'm comfortable, but I am also someone who can be pretty reserved, especially in unfamiliar situations. I can be awkward, I doubt myself plenty, and I'm probably doing more self-discovery in my 20s (and arguably late 20s!) than I got to do as a teenager. I played a version of myself, one that is bolder and more action-oriented and probably more patient, but I tried to incorporate my real self into that where I could. That real part of myself connected with 2uswave. It's amazing how someone who started out as a joke concept and palette swap of Suswave ended up leaving such an emotional impact on me.
Not too long before this month's thread, I watched the Critical Role Exandria Unlimited Calamity campaign. I don't watch a lot of CR, nor have I played much Dungeons & Dragons, but when my partner put it on, I was hooked. It was such an clear demonstration of how RPGs like D&D can be effective storytelling mediums. It's not just the rolls or the mechanics, it was how GMs create scenarios, how players interact with these scenarios, and that constant back and forth, where players give opportunities for other players, or how the GMs bounce off of the actions and desires of the players to push the narrative forward together. I felt like I got that out of this story. I got to see themes unfold and how we interacted through them, I got to follow the bread crumbs Suswave left and discover their consequences with a whole host of members, helping to bring a sort of shared vision of this story to life. While I would never ask for this to be the norm for the general discussion thread, I do admit that, after investing so much of myself into this narrative and this alternate world, it'll be a bit tough to go back to the usual. Part of me wonders how my game self would feel about it, too. Would he be able to go back to normal? Maybe he'd make some distance from it all for a time, get away from the violence and the chaos to reflect. Find some way to remember and honor his departed friend. I'll certainly be back for next month as the usual VolcanicDynamo, but this story will stick with me far beyond this month, and I think that makes it an unquestionable success.
To give a tl;dr: @Suswave, you did an incredible job with this thread. It's some of the most fun I've had on Famiboards. What could have been just a silly story focused on shitposts had a lot of emotional weight behind it, and I'm glad that I could be a small part of making it a reality. If you ever do any other GM or shared storytelling stuff in the future, sign me up.
I didn't go into this thread thinking that I would participate as much as I did. I already am not the most active poster in the general threads (even my own!), and turning it into a game could mean a lot to track and consider when trying to join in. There were factions to choose! ACTIONS to perform! Potentially many players! Random actions that could sway huge chunks of the play! But I loved the meta-textual nature of the groups as aspects of the forum and I was excited to see the story unfold.
I chose BOOKS because it reflected my thoughts the best. While I am looking forward to the next Nintendo console (and I want that next 3D Mario game!), I am generally content with the games I have and try to focus on the present. But within that, seeing a game that encouraged competition and conflict between the factions in a shitpost-y kind of world, I wanted to try and find a peaceful solution that united the forum. This meant avoiding STRIKES except when absolutely necessary and focusing on, in practice, EMPATHY GAMBITS. And baking - lots of baking! It meant playing around the many frequent STRIKES and GAMBITS that focused on attacking the other factions, but I think it made for a fun dynamic where there was at least one peace seeking player who kinda took things earnestly amongst all of the chaos. And I'd like to say it made my STRIKES against Sus.wav and Road Meat more impactful.
My focus on EMPATHY and trying to find solutions to the existing conflict ended up making me the perfect target for interaction with 2uswave. I was initially driven here by that mystery. Something was up with Suswave, and working with 2uswave was the key to finding that solution. We had lots of shocking twists and turns. There was a mysterious interloper behind the scenes that 2us wanted us to stop! She had to come up with increasingly wild ways to share information with us, each setting further seeds and leaving more questions! When she finally got to come out of the shadows, I found someone...like me. I'm decently active on the forum, and I can talk a lot when I'm comfortable, but I am also someone who can be pretty reserved, especially in unfamiliar situations. I can be awkward, I doubt myself plenty, and I'm probably doing more self-discovery in my 20s (and arguably late 20s!) than I got to do as a teenager. I played a version of myself, one that is bolder and more action-oriented and probably more patient, but I tried to incorporate my real self into that where I could. That real part of myself connected with 2uswave. It's amazing how someone who started out as a joke concept and palette swap of Suswave ended up leaving such an emotional impact on me.
Not too long before this month's thread, I watched the Critical Role Exandria Unlimited Calamity campaign. I don't watch a lot of CR, nor have I played much Dungeons & Dragons, but when my partner put it on, I was hooked. It was such an clear demonstration of how RPGs like D&D can be effective storytelling mediums. It's not just the rolls or the mechanics, it was how GMs create scenarios, how players interact with these scenarios, and that constant back and forth, where players give opportunities for other players, or how the GMs bounce off of the actions and desires of the players to push the narrative forward together. I felt like I got that out of this story. I got to see themes unfold and how we interacted through them, I got to follow the bread crumbs Suswave left and discover their consequences with a whole host of members, helping to bring a sort of shared vision of this story to life. While I would never ask for this to be the norm for the general discussion thread, I do admit that, after investing so much of myself into this narrative and this alternate world, it'll be a bit tough to go back to the usual. Part of me wonders how my game self would feel about it, too. Would he be able to go back to normal? Maybe he'd make some distance from it all for a time, get away from the violence and the chaos to reflect. Find some way to remember and honor his departed friend. I'll certainly be back for next month as the usual VolcanicDynamo, but this story will stick with me far beyond this month, and I think that makes it an unquestionable success.
To give a tl;dr: @Suswave, you did an incredible job with this thread. It's some of the most fun I've had on Famiboards. What could have been just a silly story focused on shitposts had a lot of emotional weight behind it, and I'm glad that I could be a small part of making it a reality. If you ever do any other GM or shared storytelling stuff in the future, sign me up.
