by William D. Tucker
You will need something to write with, and something to write upon, anything will do. Pens. Pencils. Paint. Crayons. Voice dictation. Paper. Canvas. Napkins. Toilet paper. Stone tablets. Whatever works for you.
You must think of an imaginary setting you would like to roleplay within, either of your own creation or an established world you like from gaming, fiction, myth, TV, cinema, etc. I think it's always more interesting to create your own world, but I leave it up to you.
Now, create a character for you to roleplay within this imaginary world. Once again, you may use a character that already exists, but I recommend you create an original. Think of how your character exists in this world, and how they perceive the world around themselves. What are their likes? Their dislikes? Their abiding loves? Their undying hatreds? Do they live inside their heads? Do they have a strong connection to the land? Are they a robot? Do they know their creator? Do they live as an outsider? An insider? Are they the ruler of this world?
On the basis of your world and your character write a scene in first person perspective that ends with them having a choice of what to do. Even if you already know what you want your character to do you must write down at least one other option. And then you decide which way your character goes. Remember, even if you already know, you must at least consider one (or more) other option(s) and write them all down. Once you've made your decision, you write down the next scene which must also conclude with at least two choices for your character to make.
Once you’ve written down your third scene, you must now write an X-Path Scene before you make a decision about the fourth scene. This X-Path Scene must be in a completely different spirit than your character up until now. If your character is violent, they must be peaceful. If peaceful, then violent. If they are contemplative, now they are brash; or if brash, now contemplative. If they happen to be a cyborg, then their X-Path version could be a plant person, or vice versa. If flying, now burrowing. If burrowing, now flying. Once you have written this X-Path Scene, you may now return to your third scene, make a choice, and proceed to the fourth scene. However, your character must incorporate some awareness of this other self from the X-Path Scene, perhaps as cognitive dissonance, or as someone they hear about on the radio, or even as someone they meet in real life. It isn't so much that your mainline character changes into this other X-Path Scene person, so much as there is bleed from this other realm of possibility. Even if you are to encounter this other character along the mainline path, you must maintain a state of tantalization as opposed to certainty about who or what this other is in relation to yourself.
You must create an X-Path Scene for every three mainline path scenes you write, incorporating more elements from the X-Path Scene as you go along. Do this until you are no longer having fun. Or, if you prefer, you may flog yourself with this process well past the reasonable as a kind of Protestant Work Ethic torture regimen disguised as something enjoyable.
If you find your way to a satisfying conclusion for your character, then you may stop. Or, alternatively, you may proceed as follows:
Once you have concluded your character's story, return to the first scene, read it over carefully, and now write a New First Scene that views your character from the perspective of an omnipresent surveillance system that is tracking your character for some reason or set of reasons. This could be an undercover police operation. A repressive secret police scenario may be appropriate, including the assessment of various social credit rankings and privileges. Perhaps, your character is being tracked for marketing purposes, the better to sell them-or people like them-products and services. You could just be a stalker creep. Or this could be a scary slasher and/or giallo scenario. If you're super-ambitious you could attempt to combine all of these possibilities-and more-into one Ultra-Stalker Scenario in which the state, the "Free" Market, idiosyncratic psychopathic obsessions, and a burning need to punish the character for real and/or imagined sins combine into one very complicated situation. You could do this, or opt for a more streamlined rationale for surveiling your player character. In any case, you must write up a detailed surveillance chronicle in the voice and style of whatever you choose-secret police, creep, slasher, Satan, marketing robot, recruiter for a cabal of masked heroes who combine into a larger masked and/or unmasked hero, etc.
Once you have written your surveillance report, you have some decisions to make. First, if the character died as a result of their adventures you must determine if this is acceptable and/or permanent. If death is irreversible, then you must write a conclusion as to why this perma-death is or is not acceptable. If death is reversible, then you must write a compelling argument either in favor of leaving them in the grave or bringing them back to life.
If it is possible to bring the character back to life, you may write a scene in which this happens, and you are now 'operating' your back-from-the-dead character in either a first person POV of the surveillance master or a third person narrative voice. You get to write a Second Adventure, a kind of New Game+ in which you decide what purpose the surveillance entity/entities wish to impose upon the resurrected character and if the resurrected character goes along with your schemes. If you like, you may roll a six-sided die to determine if the resurrected character cooperates each time you make a choice. A one, two, or three means cooperation; a four, five, or six means disobedience.
You may also decide that this resurrected character now has the qualities of the X-Path Scenes from the First Adventure. You may write an explanation for this, or allow it to go unexplained.
If the character did not die during the First Adventure, then you must describe the process by which you approach this person and use your surveillance chronicle to coerce/convince them into working for your operation. Be sure to use your comprehensive knowledge of them to appeal to what you have come to understand as their core values and/or deepest desires. You may also use shame and/or threats. Appeals to patriotism and/or nationalism may also be appropriate. Maybe it's all about money. You may incorporate dice rolls to randomize this process however you see fit, or not at all. Write down the details of their resistance and/or compliance. They may resist you on some demands, and comply with you on others.
When you arrive at a reasonable and/or unreasonable conclusion for your surveillance/stalking/recruitment project you must do the following:
Consider deeply what you, yourself, have lost and/or gained by surveilling/stalking/recruiting the target character. Write down what you think and feel about all this. And then think about what your life would be like if you had chosen to leave this person alone. Describe in detail what you would do instead, how you would spend your minutes, hours, days, weeeks, months, and years if you were not obliged to pursue/surveil your target. Once you have done all of this, you must do the following:
Gather all of your writings you have done up until now, and read them over. Think about them. And then, make a huge cartoonish explosion sound effect, or you can just imagine it if that's better, or you can write the words 'KABOOM!' or 'KER-FUJA-BLAST!' or whatever suits you-'BLAMMMO!' is also acceptable-and this is meant to simulate global nuclear annihilation.
If you wrote down everything on paper or notecards go ahead and rip them all to shreds and scatter them about, then start picking up the pieces. Every other piece you must permanently discard. With the pieces you have left, put them inside a hat, mix then up, and then draw them out at random. This randomized succession of fragments becomes the New Order. Make of it what you will. Use it as the world setting for a post-apocalyptic survival combat game, or a new religion, or a magic liturgy that, when recited, returns you to the Real World, whatever that may mean to you. The point is that Things Have Been Lost and, also, Things Are Different Now. You are free to continue on with this New Order, or end the game however you see fit . . . GAME OVER. OR NOT. PLAYER'S CHOICE.
If you wrote everything down in electronic format then pretend that all your writings are totally obliterated without trace . . . GAME OVER. YOU ARE FREE OF HISTORY. MOVE ON TO OTHER ACTIVITIES.
If you wrote nothing down, just kept it all in your head, then think thoughts of peace and serenity . . . GAME OVER. YOU ARE FREE OF HISTORY. MOVE ON TO OTHER ACTIVITIES.
. . . in any case, however it ends-or doesn't end-you will probably be left wondering, "How could it all have played out differently? Where did it all go wrong and/or right?"
This, of course, is the nature of Advanced X-Path Tantalization . . .
