Letting That Character Go

Okay, this one is for the gamer geeks... or the people who are curious about the way a gamer geek's mind works.

Or the people who THINK they're gamer geeks and need a serious re-evaluation of their gamer geek status... as well as, possibly, their lives.

I've been involved in the same ongoing Dungeons & Dragons campaign for the last six years.

...man, look at you all scatter.

For those who don't know, Dungeons & Dragons (or D&D) is a table-top role-playing game. What that means is, simply, a group of people sit around a table with some pens, some paper, and some dice. One of them, the Dungeon Master (DM) creates a story to tell -- sort of like a choose-your-own-adventure book -- and everyone else creates a character to play, who will live through the events of the story.

Imagine your favorite movie. The DM is the bad-guy, the supporting cast, and the world-shattering events... the players are the heroes.

The DM is Sauron, Saruman and an entire army of orcs... the players are the fellowship of the ring.

The DM is Darth Vader, the empire, and the ewoks... the players are Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie.

Make sense?

Okay.

I've been playing one of these games for six years.

It has been, at turns, the most riveting, mind-blowing, frustrating, emotionally draining, and creatively satisfying experience of my life, so far. In many ways, it has been like a marriage; albeit one of creative synergy. I imagine it must be like the writers room experience on a great TV show. Except, in this, we are the writers, the actors, the directors, and composers. Six people sitting around a table to tell a story together, feeding off each other's ideas and passion to create something singular and amazing. I have had the privilege of sitting along side five of the most talented writers and actors to never see screen or print.

Certain creative professionals often talk about those projects that will stick with them for the rest of their lives. The ones they felt lucky and blessed to have been a part of. Peter Jackson & Co. have the Lord of the Rings... Joss Whedon & Co. have Firefly... Simon Pegg & Co. have Spaced...

We have this. And we didn't even get paid for it.

The game is going to be ending soon. In a matter of months. Two of us are moving to another state (that'd be me and RC), two of us are getting married, and the DM is preparing to draw to a close the story he's been building in his head since he was a kid.

Our characters have been put through every dramatic wringer imaginable -- and if you'd ever doubt how much of a strain that can be on the player, imagine the work of every actor who's ever shed real, honest tears for the camera, just to make that fictional scene as real as possible. We can go through that every time we play, except the audience is only ourselves. We're not performing for the millions, we're performing for the six. Our reward is the creative charge, the inspiration, the knowledge that, as storytellers, we can give as good as we get.

I don't know that ANY gaming experience has ever been as intense as this one has been for us. There are times when I feel like we take it a little TOO seriously. We place too much weight on the outcome. We can fight and argue and offend each other while discussing the most insignificant of details. We've had screaming matches -- actual screaming matches -- about the exact wording of a rule. There have been tears shed over the outcome of a dice roll. There are times we've gone WAY beyond reason and far over the falls of depression, because this fictional universe was just a little too real for us.

Sometimes, we have to step back and remind ourselves that it really is just a game... that the level of unhappiness it can breed is often far outweighed by the joy we feel between spats. We remember that we love this thing. That we only fight because we care so much about the story and the characters.

Like I said, it's like a marriage.

And it's ending soon.

I've already said goodbye to one character -- yes, in this game, we have left the main characters behind to play entirely new ones, because you don't just follow Frodo and Sam all the way to Mordor... Aragorn and Gimli have to have their say too -- and the feeling is bittersweet. Like any writer would, I had to get inside this guy's head, get inside his heart, and figure out exactly what made him tick... and though I played him the LEAST amount of time, I still get that hollow feeling when I think about not playing him again.

His name was Caid. He was a musician, and during the game just prior to the one where his part in the story ended, he played, literally, the performance of his life.

One of the many things that makes our game special is the emphasis that's placed on music. The DM combs meticulously through his music collection to compile a list of songs that complement not only the characters, but the scenes, the themes, and the overall arch of the story. Each character has their own band (or bands) to act as their musical "voice", and during the game, the effect is often like living inside a movie with the perfect score. Our DM uses music the way an expert filmmaker would -- to touch the audience on a level that the action and dialogue can't. It makes the experience that much more rewarding.

For Caid's final performance, I was challenged to compile the list of the songs he would play. What I put together seemed to tell a story at the time, but it wasn't until after the game that I realized that, in their way, the songs actually told the story of Caid's life. It was a brief life, for reasons only five other people know.

This is the list of songs I've been sharing with you.

Hope you enjoy them.

And a special thanks to Dave Grohl and Tim Reynolds for giving Caid his voice.