I want to thank the club for the wonderful challenge you provided me last night (May 5). I have done the Q&A project before, both with real things I actually knew about (in fact, as an expert witness, this is what I did for a living on the witness stand, with real dollars on the line), and some which were completely open to the audience’s whim, but one’s where I could simply answer whimsically –
“Can you explain Calculus?”
“Yes, I can. Next question.”
But, this one was an interesting challenge, needing to stay in character and realizing that while I was making things up, I had to be true to the role and story, and I would have to live with what I said (unlike Table Topics, where there are no repercussions for just going wild).
When I started, I wasn’t sure how it would go, but, I used the techniques I had learned as a witness to prepare. Still, when Andrew told you all to go hard on me, and you did, I knew I was up for a challenge.
It was a lot of fun. Thanks everyone!
Many of you will recall that a few meetings ago, in Table Topics, I (as Thorn) asked the fortune tellers questions designed to advance the story. My idea was that we could get (or create) information that the GM’s had not had bandwidth to create or to share, which would enrich the experience. It would also let us fill in backstory and become involved in a new way with the story.
My Q&A session was the flip side of that. It struck me that normally an adventurer says, “I want to research [fill in the blank].”
The GM says “Give me a D20…” and then gives the players information (or not) based purely on a roll.
But, as someone who does research in real life, I know there is more to it. I have to find books, look things up in the index, scan, (or ask Chat GPT the right prompts), and try to organize everything I see/read. I also know that some of the things I find will be wrong, so I have to check for inconsistencies. A Q&A with a GM could be like that (although he might roll the D20 for you and then decide whether to answer “information not available,” or to give you a bogus answer (hopefully one which will lead the adventure in an interesting and fun way, not just get you killed…)
The general idea, here, is that we can use Table Topics and Q&A to change the nature of the game. In the future, the VPE and a small committee will be looking at other ways to take the club past simple “Icebreaker” style storytelling and into the full Pathways experience, but with the idea of gamification, and using Pathways to advance our role-play, and role-play to educate us about how to do well in the real world at the same time.
Until later, may you always make your saving throws against ignorance.
You can view a recording of last night’s in-character “Q&A” session below: