Kalpa I: Campaign Frame
I love Kalpa Imperial by Angelica Gorodischer. It is my favorite book. It's a mosaic of different perspectives and stories revolving around the greatest empire that never was. There is so much in this collection of short stories losely connected through a poetic, anachronistic style that is so common with storytellers.
I love it. Go ahead and read it, if you are able to. I often think about the book and lately went to the web to read some reviews of it, to get an idea on why this might be my favorite book. The reviews of Sofia Samatar, John Garrison and Simon Petire gave me some good points. Though I think I might never be able to fully understand, why Kalpa Imperial echoes so much within me. But that's fine.
Have some qoutes from that reviews:
- By “temporal entanglement” I mean that Gorodischer’s sentence tells us there is nothing we do that does not have a history. Teaching and archiving, sure, but also arguing, singing, fishing—each has a past. Every now is a now that. (Samatar)
- But although Kalpa Imperial contains many fascinating human characters, it’s the cities, in all their unchecked growth, and the empires, as they rise and fall, that provide the real drama of these stories. (Samatar)
- She’s made me think about repetition—for Kalpa Imperial is embroidered with patterns that echo each other like arabesques. But most of all, she’s made me think about entanglement: how the past knots itself into the present, and how tightly form and content can be bound together. (Samatar)
- At the same time, the presence of these ruins also alludes to the mystery of the past: there may be as many stories before the start of this book as there are within it. (Garrison)
- Unlikely ascensions to power, new cities built on the ruins of others, and the colorful narration of the storyteller. (Garrison)
- Each one presents a new fable in which everyday folk -- a thief, a dancer, or a gardener -- alter the course of an empire. (Garrison)
- This not only communicates for us how differing perspectives can impact what's recounted in oral history, but also how seemingly major events may have little effect on many people's lives. (Garrison)
- the book offers seemingly simple stories about how grand events are ultimately made up of people's actions, inactions, emotions, needs, and wants. (Garrison)
- The partial histories embedded within each story, always overlaid by the storyteller’s observations on the human foibles of the protagonists and the audience, are so tenuously connected to each other that the overall arc of the collection might best be described as a ‘mosaic epic’ (Petire)
- There’s thus a sense of stream-of-consciousness, of surrealistic anachronicity between (but not within) the various stories. (Petire)
- Gorodischer’s stories are carefully obscure, and with a much broader sweep (Petire)
Me being me, I thought about how to use the feelings I get from Kalpa Imperial for roleplaying stuff. I'm aware of Ben Robbins' Microscope and I like it. But I think Microscope doesn't quite manages what I'm looking for. So, I tinkered around with some things (The Venusian Job's Surprises, Microscope's Legacy and Brindle Wood Bay's Unscene). And this is what I got so far. It's still a work in progress. We'll see how it will evolve or be abandoned as I'll be trying that stuff in practice.
Kalpa I
Basically the frame is built on two different gaming modes, the connections between them, and the collective weaving of a setting.
First decide of what the main CARRIER of your setting is, the character background for your campaign, if you will. (E.g. the fictional history of an Empire, the stories of a certain sector in space, the happenings in the occult underground of your city)
To explore the premise of the carrier, we will use two different gaming modes:
- CHARACTER: Being your standard RPG session. Building characters and playing situations regarding a certain scenario tied to the carrier
- PANORAMA: Collectively creating and narrating details/story bits for a certain element of the carrier (e.g. "Everybody names one of the Great families of the capitol and tells how they hold power." or "Everybody tells us about one of the many moons of the forbidden Gas giant.") The PANORAMA is meant to create additional ideas and creative input that the GM and the players can use in further Character scenarios.
These two are connected through STORY KNOTS:
- After a PANORAMA session is finished, the players go revisit what has been created and everybody chooses one specific detail from it. Can be something you've created, or something from another player.
- This detail, will be turned into a KNOT. (E.g. Another player was narrating a detail about an old witch that sells potions in the streets of the capitol. I pick that detail and turn it into the KNOT "The potions of Mother Bronze")
- When playing a CHARACTER session, players can use KNOTs to create something within the fiction. Every KNOT can only be used once and it can only create something that relates to its detail.(E.g. I use the KNOT about mother Bronze's potions, to say that my Character has one of Mother Bronze's famous poisons in their pocket).
- Don't think to much about an in-fiction justification. KNOTs are meant as lateral connections between different parts of the setting that you create while playing. Recurring names and echos of former themes will help to get more fun out of your game.
- OPTIONAL: If you want to give players the possibility to create KNOTs in CHARACTER sessions as well, you could allow them to turn a passed risky situation for their character into a total failure and create a KNOT regarding a detail of that scene instead.
Depending on your chosen kind of CARRIER, I recommend you to jump a bit around with the cast of the CHARACTER scenes. Play different characters in different scenarios to dive into different corners of your setting. The use of KNOTS should help to loosely tie them back together. You could also have a main cast that you regularly come back to, but break off from now and then to have one shots with "side characters". (E.g. Playing a cast of Paranormal Investigators as the main cast, and playing some slasher like Horror one shots in between) Don't get to hung up about the chronological consistency or the "canon". Your setting won't break if different sessions condradict each other in certain points. Actually these condradicting perspectives can create a very special fun on their own. Leaving you crickets wondering after a session "But what has really happened?".
But to give you somewhat of a consistent feeling of achievement, even though you might be hopping between characters and scenarios, we will also use something called HIDDEN THINGS:
- HIDDEN THINGS are certain parts of the setting that are hinted at, but cannot be the center of a CHARACTER or PANORAMA session right away. To create a HIDDEN THING, the GM comes up with the general concept for it (e.g. a distant land in the south, a cursed carnival, a sect of interstellar nomads) and then creates a PANORAMA-prompt for it.
- Then they give it a rating (maybe something between 4 and 12). Now, everytime a player uses a KNOT to establish something in a CHARACTER session, they have to assign the used KNOT to one HIDDEN THING.
- Once the HIDDEN THING has as many KNOTs assigned as its rating, it becomes revealed. The next PANORAMA session must be focused on the prompt of the revealed HIDDEN THING and the players have to tie at least one of the assigned KNOTs into their created details.
- Afterwards the HIDDEN THING can directly be used in sessions (e.g. you finally can play a voyage to that land in the south or confront that cursed carnival).
- OPTIONAL: If you like, the GM can always narrate a little "foreshadowing" scene for a HIDDEN THING if one or more KNOTs have been assigned to it in a session.
Alright, to sum up the basic CAMPAIGN LOOP:
Agreeing on a CARRIER.
Opener: A CHARACTER session without KNOTs and an easy premise to introduce the players to the basics of the CARRIER (OPTIONAL)
PANORAMA session: Exploring an element of the CARRIER and narrate details about it. Every player creates one KNOT afterwards, regarding something that was narrated in that session
CHARACTER CREATION: Create your PCs for the next CHARACTER scenario, if you're not using already established characters.
CHARACTER scenario: Play characters and explore the setting from that perspective. Either by following a defined scenario premise or by running around sandbox style at a specific location until you've had enough. Can be done in one or multiple sessions.
--> Use KNOTs to establish things in the fiction and connect different parts of the setting with each other. Assign used KNOTs to a HIDDEN THING of your choice.
--> Create new KNOTs by turning a success into a dramatic failure (OPTIONAL).
Foreshadowing: If one or more KNOTs have been assigned to a HIDDEN THING in a CHARACTER scenario, the GM narrates a short foreshadowing scene for it (OPTIONAL).
Next PANORAMA session
--> If a HIDDEN THING has been revealed, the PANORAMA session will revolve around its prompt and at least one of its assigned KNOTs has to be used in the narrations by the players.
--> If the session answered the prompt of a revealed HIDDEN THING, the GM will introduce a new HIDDEN THING afterwards.
Next CHARACTER scenario...
Repeat as long as you like.