One of the great advantages of gaming is that it allows you to spectacularly, gloriously, cock-up.
In your creative career, you are going to have some bad ideas. That’s fine. Good, even! Everyone has bad idea. Look at your heroes. Those paragons of story who inspired you when you’re at your lowest.
They had some truly horrendous idea. Indiana Jones in the fridge ideas.
You have to go through those bad ideas to find the good. As “Ratatouille” teaches us, you have to be fearless.
A great example of this can be found in, ironically enough, the transcript of the story meeting for “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. Go give it a read — Lawrence Kasdan, Stephen Spielberg, and George Lucas sitting around the table brainstorming ideas. And they have to fearlessly plow through some TERRIBLE ideas.
But it is not an easy thing, to be fearless. Courage is not bestowed by the spirit of a mystic lion. It is learned.
As Teddy Roosevelt, kick-ass President and all-around ultra-man once said: “There were all kinds of things I was afraid of at first, ranging from grizzly bears to ‘mean’ horses and gun-fighters; but by acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid.”
When you play games, you can play whoever you want. You can play a brave warrior, a fearless monster hunter. And you can try your weirdest, most unusual ideas. And if they go wrong? Well, nothing really bad happens. Four or five people see it.
When you play games, you can play whoever you want. You can play a brave warrior, a fearless monster hunter. And you can try your weirdest, most unusual ideas. And if they go wrong?
Well, nothing really bad happens. Four or five people see it. Hopefully, your good friends who you can trust with such things, and who will themselves, screw up and do something dumb in due time. Courage and compassion have always gone hand in hand.
Remember Your Dice 