User:Spazalicious Chaos/Darwinian D&D- Evolution of a Thought Form

For those of you who have no clue what a thought form is, | educate your self before reading any more or commenting least ye sound like an idiot. Now, lets begin.

Origin of the Genus
While arguably every RPG results in a thought form of somekind or another, we are going to use D&D as a sample. While the idea of RPGs originated from war games | like thisl, it was Gary Gygax who first expanded on the idea, being the first man to evolve the thought into the RPG genus. From there we hade a massive expansion in RPG thought forms, and while they all originated from one source, the evolution is constant.

Benefits of a Thought Form

 * A more sychronized and immersive group that will stick to one another through both the fun times during the game and when shit hits the fan.
 * A more realistic seeming world/characters/situations that seems to react to actions with consistancy and realism, at least as far as your mindscape is concerned.

How a Thought Form Works
It starts with an idea. Thinking is the environment of a thought form, thus it always starts it's life via thinking. However, this fledgling idea must still survive the hostile chemcial cocktail that is the mind. You know which ideas will have the potential to be thought forms because they are the ideas you come back to,; they aren't just laughed off or go away. An idea must stick in ones mind to begin.

Now, just one idea is not a thought form, and I mean it when I say they evolve like organisms. Once the idea is rooted it is like microbial life; just a simple little thing that just happens to be more robust than a typical idea. But the more you think about this idea, the stronger it becomes. It can reach a point where it affects your other actions, and you might find that you always have at least one train of thought each dya that just naturally runs to that thought.

This covers how it becomes headspace, but a thought form is a living thing that seeks to expand. This is where other people come in. By getting a group of people focused on this idea it becomes stronger exponentially and starts taking a life of it's own. This is the important part for us RPGers, because for our hobby to work a thought form has to be created. While it is not limited to anything in any sense of the word (music, politics, religion, card games, televised sports, etc. all produce thought forms), the nature of the cooperative storytelling (role-playing) must result in a thought form, a living and breathing idea, in order to work at all. Many thought forms created in D&D in particular are limited to small circles, though massive networks can and do form if a thought form is powerful enough to survive a variety of mindscapes (the RPGA and Camarilla, for example) or is strong enough to create control over those it inhabits, like Scientology.

D&D as a Spiritual Exercise
If you have any religious arguements brewed from the title alone, stop reading now and disregard this section.

Now that we have (hopefully) weeded out the biggots, you may realize that the above process can be a dangerous one. And it is. If your are sitting down to play D&D, you are making an agreement to create an entity that you and your fellow players will explore, create, and grow into something entertaining, if not worthwhile. Thus, this has a tendancy to form powerful bonds between people as the thought form grows stronger, and it will become an active and unifying force in your life. The strength is up to you, your group and how seriously you take it.

Because of this, below is my list of things you should watch for when joining a group. This is not just for gaming, as this list can save your ass in regard to anything where a thought form is a factor.
 * 1) If you feel the slightest twinge of negative emotion, run! If you are going to sit down an build a spiritual entity with a bunch of people, at least make sure they are good people. To determine this use your lizard brain, which is optimized for survival and more should be powerful than your social monkey brain. If it isn't, your fucked. Signs your are dealing with a bad group include feelings of fear or mistrust, cold sweat, hairs rising, and other general fight or flight physical responses. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES TRY TO RATIONALIZE THESE! This is your survival instinct screaming "fly you fool!", and should be heeded. HOWEVER, notice that I did not include the signs of shyness or nervousness. Most of us have poor social skills and will fall into nervous patterns and demonstrations of lack of self-esteem when around new people. This is fine and natural for unsocialized geeks and has everything to do with our social brains being gimpy, not our lizard brains trying to save us.
 * 2) Feel for a synch. If you really want to make this a major bonding exercise, try to get everyone in synch with one another. Do not force it, otherwise the synch will be malign and can result in a mishapen monster of a thought form. There are a multitude of ways to learn how to synch, but I recommend watching an acting class or talking to your friendly local wiccan circle if you honestly have no clue on how to forms a group rhythm. If you feel a complete lack of synch, move on. It is perfectly okay to hang out with people and not game with them, and they may still invite you on as an observer. But if you want a fully powerful thought form to result from your games, go for a group that you can easily get into the rhythm of. Of course always keep your comfort level your comfort level; I have gamed with people who are terrified of my ability to read them and I find it disturbing if a group can finish eachothers sentances.
 * 3) Flow. If both of the above conditions are met, flow with the energy and don't fight it. If you get off focus, it is because you need a break. If everyone is suddenly deathly serious, it is because the needed concentraition has become intense. Granted, sometimes the group will scare you. Have boundries and have safe words for is things are too high strung. Things like an argument time limit and an established break rule can proove vital to the groups harmony. And harmony is what is needed for a strong thought form, and thus a strong game, to grow. Also, don't be afraid of being "trapped" in a role. It used to piss me off that I somehow always ended up as the GM in my old group no matter what we agreed on, but I came to understand that out of my group I was the world builder and the needed neutral energy to balance out everyone elses. However, I also found that the pressence of my mother and father severely destroyed my GMing, pertially because of my so-called "need" to rebel, dispite the fact they are awesome people. As a result I am much better for the group energy as a player than a GM when they are involved.
 * 4) Separate. Now that you and your group can form a collective entity that has taken a life of it's own and is growing, break from it frequently. Seriously, if you meet with your group more than 1 a week for gaming you start to enter the creepy hive-mind/cult stage tha enough of us gamers are already getting flak for. You don't have to game everytime you meet up and there are plenty of other things to do. In addition to my own twisted version of gaming, I enjoy long sword fights on the beach, hiking, climbing, helping random people, people watching, general exploration, anime, drawing, immersing in gothic culture, practicing spellcraft, reading, and making fun of actively stupid people, like most politicians and people who use existing belief systems to push their own small minded bullshit. Despite a recent move away from my gaming group, I'm still in contact with them, though apparently I was the glue keeping that particualr group together. Sigh... Still, my point is that if you aren't careful and spend time on other things, your thought form will get more powerful and begin to control you. Noone wants to be controlled, least of all by a game, thus this part is the most vital.