I’m only likely to review games that I get excited about on this blog. Discovering Helmmade me scrap my next planned blog post and write this review instead, pausing my own game design work to fully absorb its influence.
Helm conjures a variety of ideas to me. Its resemblance to the Middle Ages is more historically grounded than most, with popelike figures prominent in its timeline. There is a smattering of Mork Borg in its sense of impending doom, but this seems more end of days as depicted in real world theology. There are Warhammer’s brutal limb-specific combat injuries. But the whole thing feels more anti-imperialist, than some sort of doom metal glorification of death and destruction.
There are a few reasons this Brecht play stands out to me for a post on the connections between RPGs and theatre. Firstly, it’s an important transitional work in the development of participatory theatre – a form that has much in common with RPGs. Secondly, it’s very short and freely available on the web, so short that you could probably read it the time it takes to read this blog post.
It doesn’t stop there. He Said Yes/He Said No (HSY/HSN) was itself adapted from a fifteenth century work of Japanese Noh theatre. That play, The Valley-Hurling, is even shorter (about 1000 words, available here). So you could read both, and see how made Brecht made this very conservative spiritual play “participatory”. And then separately, you could consider how Brecht’s participatory form relates to RPGs.
Obviously, you may not want to read or think about any of this. But the possibility of reading about a play and the play itself in a similar timeframe seems fairly rare to me.
