You are excrement, now what?

There is one undeniable truth about Alexandro Jodoworsky's films El Topo and Holy Mountain, they are mind altering. I went in to a double feature of them, presented by exhumed films (way to rule guys!) at the International House in Philly, all cracked out on Coffee not remembering what i was truly in for. Within minutes i was wrapped up in Jodoworsky's fevered imagination watching a little naked boy shoot a wild west villain in the chest. At first I was astonished by the little boy's nakedness, but within moments the fact that said little boy shot someone at his fathers behest didn't seem at all strange.

It's that kind of suspension of disbelief that is so rare these days. It's like reading Dune for the first time, you're just swept away and the rules you've established for yourself are gone. I think of this as the Holy grail, or holy mountain, or excrement into gold, of story telling. It's so rare as to be almost alchemical.

As a role player, especially one who crafts games and designs systems, I'm constantly seeking it out and i'm not sure i've ever achieved it. I know of only one time where i was so into the game i was playing that it took me by surprise that my character was no longer acting on my wishes as the player, he was simply doing what made sense to him, he ended up summoning a demon and going insane, but it was as though i had no control over him. I couldn't tell you what about that game elevated my play to that level, There was no mood music as the books suggest, there was no candlelight or incense burning, it just happened, it was alchemical or hermetic, the stars aligned...i just don't know.

I think part of the equation, an element for the crucible, as it were, is a sort of abandonment of system. I don't just mean mechanically based on dice and such, i mean an overall system wherein the players know just as well what travails await them as the story teller. Jodoworsky achieves this in El Topo, he eliminates a system, "here is a western..." but from there god knows whats going to show up, a lesbian version of himself, a wierd cossack sharp shooter and his gypsy eagle mother, a pile of rabbits that burst into flame. If this were a V:TM game you would be able to read the books and say, "oh thats the flaming rabit pile, 3d10 damage, and it's fire so it's extra damagey". You'd know it was coming, or at least it could show up, and the magic the spirit of it is gone.

The act of watching an event changes it.... physics is everywhere!

I feel bad for my players in my upcoming western if they are unprepared. It will be impossible for me not to incorporate some of this surrealism into the game, to make it more of a spiritual journey than a dungeon crawl. At the same time i hope my forays into surreality will perhaps effect a loss of system and help suspend disbelief. We'll see.

Until then,

If nothing else, Conquer the holy mountain horizontally.