Yes, my Master

Today's post is about themes and what it can do for your story. A definition I quite like for a theme is "a unifying idea that is a recurrent element in literary or artistic work" (thanks Google). E.g. The boy gets girl theme. A theme used in your story can be broken up into multiple sub themes. To further the example...Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl.

White Wolf published games tend to go bananas over the idea of themes and even prescribe certain ones you should use when running your games. Try reading the books if you dont believe me. J Sometimes its a bit easy to get lost in the game and forget about the theme but I feel that not using them loses a sort of unification to the story. While the plot can remain intact and logical, each session or story within the plot can feel disjointed as if not part of the whole story.

Moving on to actually implementing a theme in the story, I will apply one to my Star Wars campaign. A theme I've really wanted to explore in Star Wars is the relationship between a master and his apprentice which immediately made me think of Jedi. However only exploring the Jedi aspect of this would make for a rather boring game, especially for any non-Jedi. To broaden this and provide more opportunities for diverse adventures we can expand the theme to include the relationships between Mentor and Protégé, Jedi and Padawan, Sith Lord and Apprentice, Commander and Soldier. All of a sudden we have a lot more to work with.

Some of the seeds of this that I want to include in my game are:

• The student/teacher relationship between a Jedi Master and his Padawan
• The authority a commander has over his soldiers
• The tight bond between a captain and his crew
• The evil manipulations of a Sith Lord through his proxy, his apprentice.

The Sith Lord/Apprentice makes an especially interesting dynamic to explore as a villain. Even if the PCs get rid of the apprentice they will still probably have to face his master. If they do it the other way round, the apprentice might want revenge. Also having the Sith Lord berate the apprentice infront of the PCs, and basically showing how mean and bitter the relationship is makes the villains more deep. The Jedi Master/Padawan is an obvious one with a Jedi in the party and the Jedi Master being around as an NPC. Does he treat his padawan kindly? Would he sacrifice himself for her. Would she sacrifice herself for him? What inspires that sort of loyalty? Working all these aspects together can give the overall story a cohesive feel instead of having each adventure stand alone.

Homework for the followers...can you list 3 themes you think of when you think Star Wars. I'm going to shamelessly steal them. For those of you that run games (or are preparing to run games) what do you think about using themes in other systems like D&D? Do you use them or just go with the flow?