Let's Play Adventure!

I have a cousin. He is in kindergarten. He is confident, athletic, and bright. Whenever I saw him, he used to say, "Let's play adventure!" As he's gotten a bit older, he has become slightly more polite: "Uncle Ryan, can we play adventure?"

Let me explain.

At some point, in the not-too-distant past, I decided to entertain my cousin by going on a make-believe adventure in the backyard. It involved some convoluted story involving a sacred sword, evil wizards, monsters, merchants, comedic sidekicks, and magic items.

I didn't realize that I was unintentionally committing myself to a long-term contract. Since then, every time I've met this cousin, we've played "adventure". We must've played it at least 25 times; I've lost count.

The goal of this was to stimulate his imagination. I don't know if it's worked -- sometimes, I try, with mixed success, to get him to come up with the storyline. I'm hopeful that he'll play adventure with his friends at school.

Also with mixed success: crafting stories with enough moral ambiguity that it doesn't boil down to killing the bad guys. At least he knows that not all monsters or witches or ogres are evil.

Most recently, given a particularly intellectually bankrupt day, I ripped off The Oregon Trail and took a group of cousins on a long and dangerous journey through a cul de sac in Monterey Park on the way to the Willamette Valley.

It was unusual, in that the cousins included some older folks - one about eight or nine. Initially, a ten-year old girl was part of the party, but she decided to quit early. In revenge for her rational decision to drop out of a kid's game, she became the first person to die of dysentery.

When asked what dysentery was, I explained that it involved nonstop diarrhea. The eight year old boy was delighted.

I'm not a particularly great storyteller, especially when forced to improvise. I think, when I finally find a Toastmasters club I like, I'll choose the storytelling module once I complete the basic one.

But I do think storytelling, and imagination, are tremendously important.

It's a lot of work - more work than playing a game with established rules, or watching a TV program. So why do I do it?

Growing up with a busy single mom and non-English speaking grandparents, I found myself alone a lot. (I'm an only child, and the youngest grandchild in my family.) I did watch a lot of TV -- a lot of "crap telly". But I also spent a lot of time wandering around in the backyard, making up things with dirt and bugs.

Whenever my mom went shopping, I would also try picking up random bits of debris and make up an adventure, hiding in the circular racks and assembling equipment.

I never became a LARPer; again, possibly because my isolation never put me in contact with that culture until college, at which point prejudices and the demands of study discouraged it. And I don't know that an obsession with D&D's modern ruleset would be all that helpful in cultivating genuine creativity and imagination among the young -- to the contrary, it might be borrowing someone else's word of fantasy.

Here's the point of the story: when my cousin asks other adults to "play adventure", they don't really know what it means. And when they do, they often make the excuse that they don't know how.

I worry, deeply, that it's not an excuse, but an accurate statement of fact.