Rip it & Run! The Stoker Gambit

This is the first of a new range of articles that I’ve been thinking about. The concept derives from the notion that, in most long-running TV shows, there are plot features and story arcs that are pulled into service to keep the show simmering, not allowing it to boil dry of ideas or explode into some kind of meltdown. These are called ‘tropes’ and, believe it or not, if you’ve been a fan of any TV show since the ‘70s, you’re aware of at least some of them.

The most obvious one is the “Christmas Episode”: these are always cheesy and annoying, especially if they show up on your viewing schedule when it’s obviously not Christmas. Another favourite often used to pad out a series when the number of episodes falls short of what the stations demand, is the “Clip Show”, those episodes when the main characters sit around and reminisce about old events by means of repeated flashbacks. These are even more annoying because nothing new happens and you have to wait another day (or week, or whatever) to get the next actual episode of your favourite show. There are others: the episode where the bad guys take on the appearance of the main characters; the one where minds and personalities get swapped; and, in more recent shows, the “Groundhog Day” episode.

What does this have to do with gaming? Well, looking at these kinds of gimmicks in the context of roleplaying games gives you a means of coming up with story arcs for your players that will keep them guessing and make your games more satisfying and adaptable, keeping them running for a good long time.

Obviously those tropes that TV shows fall back upon are unique to the television medium and adapting them for a roleplaying format is largely impossible (unless, of course, you’re playing “Teenagers from Outer Space”). There are others though, that can be easily brought into play, and most of these are to be found in the literature from which a lot of our gaming springs.

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To kick off this series, I want to take a look at a writer whose style and stories loom large in horror and gaming circles: Bram Stoker. Most of you would have read Dracula (and if you haven’t, shame on you!), or at least seen the movies. Stoker’s books strike directly into the heart of a Victorian fixation, a “love that dare not speak its name” which was a kind of fantasy among male readers of the time. This is the notion of the Fallen Woman. Socially, a woman who was “no better than she should be”, even if her circumstances were not of her own making, was to be avoided at all costs by polite society: to be seen in the company of such a person brought shame and scandal. However, there was a frisson of excitement involved in damning convention and going against the herd that was a source of allure for many Victorian and Edwardian men.

In Dracula, Mina Harker (and Lucy Westenra before her) becomes a Fallen Women through her contact with the vampire. Ordinarily, she would be expunged from the human pack, driven away as a source of uncleanness and danger; however, a band of dedicated young men gather to her and defend her cause, even at the cost of their own lives. Trimming away the supernatural elements, we can read Mina’s circumstances through a different lens: in a novel by Dickens or Hardy, for example, she would be a young woman of gentle birth fallen into poverty due to the mismanagement of her family’s fortune by a relative or guardian; her essential goodness would be indicated by her gentle nature and beauty and the inner strength with which she accepts and endures her lot. This stereotype was not new for the Victorians either, as it forms a strong element of an earlier story-cycle which they embraced wholeheartedly:

Sir Thomas Malory’s La Mort d’Arthur was a favourite read during Victoria’s reign and it was used as a guide-book for people engaging in romantic life. The behaviour of the knights, as the champions of the weak and strong in the cause of Justice, is obvious, as is the role of the Lady, to be the object of the Knight’s quest and the one for whom he strives and risks all. For the most part, women in Malory represent everything noble and pure; but there is one instance where this notion becomes corrupted and leads to tragedy. This is the Trial of Queen Guenevere.

This is a pivotal point in the love triangle of Lancelot, Arthur and Guenevere when she is wrongly accused of poisoning a Knight of the Round Table and she is put on trial. Arthur is forced to act as judge, unable to intervene; Lancelot falls into a difficult situation where he must act openly in support of the Queen, thereby confirming all of the local rumour concerning the exact nature of the relationship he has with the King’s wife. It’s a tricky moment that tarnishes everyone’s reputation and signals the end of the Good Times.

Stoker fixed on this notion of the heroic Fallen Woman: she who has valued, even treasured qualities, but whose circumstances have placed her beyond the pale. Those who flock to champion her are noble due to their conscious decision to support the insupportable, to defend the indefensible: for love alone, they make the ultimate sacrifice. In Dracula, Mina becomes the object of the quest and is surrounded by her coterie of “knights” – you’ll remember that the latter part of the book has repeated instances where the men periodically form tableaux of devotion around her, as she falls deeper into the vampire’s thrall.

Heady stuff for the average Victorian male; you can see why Dracula was an instant success!

Interestingly, it’s not the only time that Stoker used this device: in The Jewel of Seven Stars the concept is hard at work once more, although the ‘taint’ afflicting Margaret Trelawney, the Fallen Woman, is that of reincarnation and manifests as a fight against the will of an ancient mummified princess who tries to subsume the personality of the body into which her spirit has been re-born and to resume her own life in the modern world. Again there are “knights” – Malcolm Ross, Doctor Winchester, et.al - who band about the victim united by their love and pity for the distressed young lass, each of them willing to die in her cause.

The Stoker Gambit works in the following way: a character is afflicted by a curse that requires others to rally around and help in order to see it removed. In Dracula, it’s Mina’s impending demise and conversion to un-death if Dracula isn’t destroyed first; in The Jewel of Seven Stars, it’s the reincarnated spirit of Princess Tera that has to be stopped from assuming control of the victim’s body. Whatever the affliction, it has to have an obvious cure, although “obvious” should never equate with “easy”.

 

The Stoker Gambit is a mainstay of mummy horror flicks: in almost every one, there’s a young lass who resembles some long-dead hussy with whom the reanimated high-priest wants to ride off into the sunset. Usually, the band of “knights” who try to prevent this are her father (often the one who dug the mummy up in the first place), other members of the archaeological dig, and her boyfriend. The Creature of the Black Lagoon is another example, although here, the “curse” is simply that the victim of the Creature’s obsession is the only female present.

Of course, in these enlightened times, the afflicted member of the party needn’t be a woman. One of the best examples of the Stoker Gambit I’ve seen was actually a Donald Duck comic, wherein Donald resembles the bridegroom of a resurrected Sumerian princess who jilted her in antiquity and whose resurrected father fully intends to see nuptial attainment after a 5,000 year hiatus.

In establishing this trope in your game, you need to focus the action onto a player who will be able to shoulder the responsibility of being the cursed character. Ideally, the character so afflicted should be one that doesn’t perform a majority of the party’s logistics and planning – the action-types are not suitable for this kind of passive role. Being the object of the quest gives an otherwise thumb-twiddling character a lot to do and to focus on, while the “knights” take care of business around them. Of course, no player wants to be sidelined every time the action heats up either, so a range of competencies outside the areas of expertise shown by the “knights” – and many occasions to use these skills – are crucial. Are the “knights” social boors? The victim can smooth the way for them in society gatherings. Are the “knights” illiterate? The cursed one can impress with their academic background. It’s all about balance.