Английский язык. Рассказы. Уровень В2+ - стр. 16

19. What did the storyteller bring into the story?

20. Why was that game such great fun?

21. What did Nick have to do when he played the storyteller?

22. What was one adventure he created about?

23. What was the setting for that story?

24. What was the moral of that adventure?

25. What is the difference between learning from a book and learning from a fantasy game?

Fantasy Games

Training 1

Nick’s first contact with fantasy role-playing games was in school. He immediately got deeply involved in them. He started off by playing around a table, with one person acting as a storyteller, and the others playing characters in the story. They can change the outcome of the story by their actions. So, all the players interact within the story.

Training 2

Then Nick heard about similar games which are played in some atmospheric places. The participants play the part of their characters, wearing costumes and carrying pieces of equipment and weapons that they might need. You stay in your role for a period of time, and for all of that time you act out your character. It’s like living in another age or another world.

Training 3

The type of characters depends on the setting and the story. You might be a knight, a thief, a magician, an elf, a monster, or a character from Alice in Wonderland. They use many themes, such as space, stories from Tolkien’s world, or various periods in history. When you’re playing a character, you really become him or her, and you feel the consequences of your actions.

Training 4

Last year they used a castle in Wales as a setting, and the story was from the Renaissance times. Some people played members of the military or politicians from that time, and they set up the historical situation, but the outcome was not fixed. The storyteller of that game brought a little magic into the story, to spice it up a bit. It was really interesting to try to make every aspect of the game as authentic as possible, including what they ate and the way they talked.

Training 5

When Nick writes adventures, he likes to put a moral into the story. Once the characters were all magicians and their objective was to build up a tower of power. And the moral was that the source of the magic is a dark source. In the end the story didn’t end well because the dark power awoke, and some characters died. You could learn from those events, but it wasn’t like learning from a book, they just started to feel the moral.

I recall a time in my teenage years when I was walking in the mountains, the eastern edge of which roll down into the east coast of Ireland to a place called Newcastle, in County Down. I wasn’t walking to get somewhere, I was just walking for the sake of walking through the mountains for four days, because I enjoyed being alone. There were many very magical places, and they all had strange and beautiful names, the cliffs and mountains and rocks. It was a very beautiful place. After four days of just walking in the hills, I felt very clear headed, very cleansed, and when I returned to the so-called “civilized” world it didn’t seem so civilized any more, but very dark and dirty instead.