William H. Johnson, Temptation of Christ (c. 1945)

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Multiuser role-playing games are an emerging form of literature. They intrigue me in many ways, especially the way they seem to fulfill the formal and thematic agendas of Postmodernism. Here's what I mean.

Modernism was about epistemology. Modernist authors employed fictional strategies which emphasized questions such as, "How can I interpret this world of which I am a part? What am I in it? What is there to be known? Who knows it? How do they know it, and with what degree of certainty? How is knowledge transmitted from one knower to another, and with what degree of reliability? What are the limits of knowledge?" And so on.

By contrast Postmodernism is about ontology. Postmodernist authors employ fictional strategies which emphasize questions such as, "Which world is this? What is to be done in it? Which of my selves is to do it? What is a world? What kinds of worlds are there? How are they constituted? How do they differ? What happens when different kinds of world are placed in confrontation, or when the boundaries between worlds are violated? What is the mode of existence of a text, and of the world(s) it projects? How is a projected world structured?" And so on.

(I didn't make this business up; it's borrowed from Brian McHale's waycool Postmodernist Fiction.)

These Postmodernist questions are, of course, exactly what RPGs are about. The problem has been that until now RPGs tended to be trivial romantic-Medieval kill-the-dragon style games for teenage boys. What happens if we take them seriously as a literary form, and use them to explore more sophisticated themes? I believe that if we do this, RPGs will grow up to become the locus classicus of Postmodernist fiction. It's exciting to help realize that vision.

The little company I helped form to explore these ideas is SmartMonsters, where I'm "Cyberbard". I love SmartMonsters and am very happy to be helping to invent the new medium's characteristic idioms and techniques. Thank you for checking out TriadCity, experimental Postmodernist fiction disguised as a role-playing game.

The links that follow are to smaller projects based on the techniques I've experimented with in the Workbook, which hopefully goes to show that it's good for something. The first is a collection of found stories with a loose thread of common themes. The second is a collection of blog pieces on the theme of loss, grouped in a way which implies a longer narrative. The third is a kind of character study. The fourth is a traditional Modernist set-piece, satirizing the theatricality of right-wing politics and generally being silly. The fifth is simply a collection of blog pieces that seem to me to be more successful than others. All are posted here as works-in-progress.

Found Stories, a themed microfiction collection.
Loss, a different themed microfiction collection.
Nothing is Possible, yet another themed microfiction collection.
After the Holocaust, on Gilligan's Island, a satire.
Agoraphobia, a non-themed microfiction collection.

Here's the publication history.