Exchange of Realities

(For a more writer-centric look at this, check out this Capturing Fantasy post. Since James is more eloquent on the subject than I’ll ever be, I’m going to be putting a heavier emphasis on the gaming side of the topic. Writers can still get use out of this, though!)

So here we are, making worlds. And yet, despite the difficulty of our job and the fact that it inherently works better if you can convince yourself of mutually conflicting worldviews, many of us, particularly the GMs, really don’t think to ask for help.

While this is understandable (I’ll get to reasons why someone would work solo soon), it’s pretty much shooting yourself in the foot. There are many more reasons why:

• Catching oversights. Logical, right? Sometimes you’re so busy with your minutiae that you leave an opening just about anyone could exploit (for instance, not expecting that the compassionate, freedom-loving and tactically decent heroes, when they start causing trouble, are going to free that bound elemental powering their enemies’ citadel. Yes, this really happened). This is where your second is for: to be the average five year old child in the Evil Overlord’s circle of advisers, and let you know when you’ve got a hole in your plan a dragon could fly through.
• Shoring up your weaknesses. This one’s one of my major reasons to use collaborators. I, personally, have no sense of mass tactics whatsoever, but I occasionally get pestered for plotlines that would require a mass battle or two. But fortunately, I have a friend in Mins—oops, wrong song—there’s an alum from my college whom I used to game with who is as big a military geek as anyone I know and will cheerfully advise me on such matters.
• Dealing with opposing viewpoints. Have you ever tried motivating both sides of a deadly argument in such a way that the argument keeps going? Particularly when one side is closer to your viewpoint than another? But if you get a second person there to help you shore up that other side, it’s a lot cleaner, and you may find an angle to it that you wouldn’t have gotten to it on your own.
• Dealing with large numbers of people. Again, part of it is the different viewpoint thing. Another part is just the fact that they’ll come up with people you won’t, on general principle. When the object of the game is to fill a crowd in ten days or less, more minds means more efficiency. Granted, not knowing the character inside out can be a bit of a catch, but if you’ve got a good enough outline you can probably fill in the rest pretty quickly.
• Dueling conspiracies. This I’ve always wanted to do; get an “opponent”, set them up with a couple of conspiracies that are going on above and beyond my main storyline, and play chess with our respective factions around the group as they try to figure out and/or use both sides. Hasn’t happened yet, though. My last two finked out on me.
• Renewing interest, or just for the fun of it. There is nothing quite as much fun as bouncing ideas back and forth with someone and seeing what sort of monstrosity emerges from the synergy—having someone to work with can make even the most tedious prep or worldbuilding minutiae a lot less grueling. (If nothing else, because you’re coming up with stats for how boring the project is.)

And of course, combinations of the above.

Now, granted, it’s not always easy to find them, but it’s worth it. More on the finding soon.