Alright, so studies have show hundreds upon thousands of old tales and stories that match the Hero's Journey outline. Whether you really noticed or not, a bunch of your campaigns that you probably felt went really well probably had elements of this in it.
The real question is why aren't you using this to your advantage when running a campaign?
Here is a website describing the chart for the hero's journey:
http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero's_journey.htm
Think back to your previous campaigns, which ones are you just now realizing follow this?
Because the Hero's Journey is the narrative equivalent of the Four Chords of Pop.
It's not the only possible template, it's not the reason why any of those stories are great, and over-reliance on it just makes everything sound similar.
gb2tvtropes
>>45490375
im pretty sure the concept is far far older then tv tropes anon.
>>45490352
Not the only template, but one that works well and has a lot of flexibility for whatever you want to do with your story.
it is not the only way, but a good start.
>>45490193
>How it can be helpful
Stuck? Analyze your story according to the Monomyth. It might uncover directions you had not considered. More likely it will justify a direction you previously thought unfitting.
>How it can be harmful
If you TRY to make things conform to the Monomyth from the start then your story will be bland and predictable. This can be fine if your game shines in other dimensions. But it will gut your story's relevance if you rely on it to drive the game forward.
It remains an oversimplification. Its resolution of detail is too rough to be inspiring. It's more helpful when structuring pace and tension. The Monomyth represents audience expectation. Completely fulfill that, and you had nothing to contribute all along.
Take Star Wars.
It shines with cinematics, FX, and an outlandish setting. But the story doesn't become interesting until we find out the twist of Empire. And that twist isn't in the Hero's Journey. It's The Ordeal, but the shape it takes is entirely against archetype. Usually the morality of the Oedipal myth is reversed.
>>45490193
>Ordinary world
Sure if you take local orcs pillaging and raping the populace, dragons burning fields for no reason, and people roasting catds and dogs ordinary. Sure
Also that fucking chart reminds me of weeb shit about reincarnation and transported to another world shit.
>>45492019
It's from an mythologist who analyzes stories like the Odyssey, the holy books of several religions, and all kinds of stories that have persisted in some form or other. He looks for things they have in common.
What counts as ordinary in your story depends on your setting.
>>45492019
Gee, anon, will you teach me to be edgy like you?
>>45492140
You can start by not sleeping for three days or more then get to writing.
>>45490352
>Because the Hero's Journey is the narrative equivalent of the Four Chords of Pop.
Or the litterary equivalent of Guns, Germs and Steel.
It's an elegant, all-encompassing explanation that doesn't hold all that well to scrutiny but has gained more mainstream attention than it deserves.
>>45492300
>It's an explanation that doesn't hold all that well to scrutiny but has gained more mainstream attention than it deserves.
wut?
>>45494880
The reason the monomyth is said to apply to everything is that it's so uselessly general that it can't actually describe anything beyond "This story is a story". Even then, it's pretty easy to point out stories that completely diverge from the monomyth without torturous interpretations of the monomyth.
It's a flashy unified theory of literature, which the media and people who want to sound smart love, but it's not really a working descriptive theory.
>>45490479
>>45491302
>>45495104
I was about to make a post about the monomyth is very helpful in setting a relationship between character and structure, as well as world building (which is one of the weakpoints of most DMs here) how Campbell is one of the few men who dare to tackle and try to define the black knight archetype decently without using the antihero crutch or the "evil,edgy" descriptor (and probably the only one who does it directly outside of psychology), and how even with seeming contradictions with the "base" structure he can well explain how each story fits in the model, as well as posting a link to the >>45491999
star wars power of myth video interview; but instead of being a contrarianfag, I'd rather listen to any explanations you might have on more complete theories about myth and better tools that could be used for a similar purpose.
(I still think Campbell's failure is on how wide his scope is, but the application is still good IMO)
Not even trolling, not even the OP, I'd like to know. There must be something I'm losing here. Pleeze giev book titles and authors and if possibru a brief explanation on what you might use them for, this thread might have huge potential.
>>45495639
It's a useful tool and it has many valid purposes, but it's simply not what it's often purported to be. It's a model that's often accurate, not the one true all-encompassing model.
I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just saying it's a hammer and we aren't only working with nails.
>>45495706
Ye, that mostly ok analogy, but do you use any other tools, like Lacan, Foucault, Eco, or dramatic analysis tools for doing your pen and paper roleplaying or any similar creative endeavors?
>>45495740
Can't say I use any, I haven't DM'd since high school.
>>45495740
Can't say that I do much more than feel my way through the plot.
In games the resolution detail is much smaller, you go scene to scene. Any myth arc or act plot you may have had planned easily goes out the window as soon as players encounter it. A GM has to write on the fly. There's no time to go meta.
And the perspective the Monomyth offers is already in there with countless stories from movies, shows, books, the news, Wikipedia, /nosleep, /x/, etc. Stories trend towards resolution of tension and closure, no matter what abstraction you apply. And I usually don't have time to apply abstraction.
Also in my main story driven campaign I co-GM and my partner has studied literature among other things. So mentioning the Monomyth gets much the same reaction that D20 Modern gets around here. If you want to compare works, compare works. Don't generalize over large portions of creative product. The Monomyth generalizes over ALL creative product, and this tells you how precise it can be.
>>45495740
>Foucault
I can imagine how that would go.
>>45490193
Hero's Journey a Shit. A SHIT.
>>45490352
And this guy knows why.
Of course, this is just a subset of Reductionism A SHIT.
If you insist on only looking in the most blurred terms (and ignoring data that doesn't fit) you can fit anything to any pattern whatsoever. It's the reason Flat-Earthers still exist. And when you use that blurred viewpoint as your a primary world understanding, you miss all the important bits: the way the stories are different, the parts that don't fit.
Sure, you can make art with 5 crayons on a paint-by-numbers board. But insisting that all artists down the ages had been following a platonic-ideal of crayon-ness in all paintings and sculptures? Rubbish.
What if you do the Hero's Journey backwards?
>>45496509
Okay, lets work this one out:
12) Dude is the provider of unearthly power to community, but doesn't fit in because of that. He is different from the ordinary: the others need him, but neither understand the other. He is Immortal. He is alone.
11) Dude kills himself.
10) Dude journeys into the light/dark(?), taking his gift with him
9) Dude places unearthly power in it's rightful place in the heavens.
8) Dude goes through painful trial to gain mortality.
7) Dude slowly exits cave, explores his new frail mortal form.
6) Dude meets other mortals on an equal footing for the first time. Learns meaning of freindship etc.
5) Dude emerges from light/dark back to the mortal world.
4) Dude meets another immortal: he recommends giving it up.
3) Dude accepts his place in the world.
2) Dude sends out a message to other immortals: it's not worth it.
1) Dude returns to first community. No-one recognises him, he fits in, he is among freinds. Dude is happy.
Fin.
>>45490422
>im pretty sure the concept is far far older then tv tropes anon.
When you're born in the nineties, nothing exists before the Internet.
>>45496684
Wouldn't it just be a descent from happiness to solitude/anger/sadness?
>>45496684
What if it's just the villains path?
>>45490193
My experience: 3 is bullshit, it needn't show in media and should never in gaming since players enter the campaign to enter the campaign. 8 is often excessive as described: there will be a "final" test, but not everyone is fucking jesus. See also 11.
The other points are the outline of a generically good plot structure: start small, get a hook, learn what to do, do it while being opposed by outside forces, succeed after the most intense trial, then apply your success.
Some plots skip everything after 9, needing only a brief denoument. Elements of 10-12 are absolutely optional if the story continues (as it often does even after a major climax in RPGs) 6 is the meat of a good story and probably 90% of an RPG campaign (1-5 spanning session 1 with occasional returns to 4, 6 action punctuated by quick 7-8-9 climaxes that then return to 4/6 -- maybe but maybe not by way of 10&12 for the next adventure, never really descending all the way back to needing 1&2)
>>45496721
>>45496746
>the villains path
>a descent from happiness to solitude/anger/sadness
Neat.
>>45496684
Planescape: Torment?
>>45496721
>>45496746
these two seem to understand - the rest of you need to go back to class, because you missed the point...
>>45496746
The villain path is the same as the hero's with different results. In his own world the villain is the hero and the hero is the villain.
>>45497759
I dunno, i like >>45496684.
Besides, villain's path can too be described by straight hero's journey.
>>45501068
but you're perceiving the final result of the hero's journey as some sort of failure - he is not integrated into his community, in your view. That is wrong. That is a fundamental misunderstanding of the heroic tale. A 'villains' path CANNOT be described as the heroic journey - you are mistaking 'hero' for 'villain' because, thanks to the moral relativism of our times, you think the two terms are interchangeable - they are not.
Please don't mistake me - I ain't hacking on or attacking you; i'm just trying to describe the hero's journey accurately so we all understand.
The terms 'hero' and 'villain' in the context of the hero's story, are societal terms - they aren't how the protagonist sees himself, but how his society sees him. And the whole thrust of the tale is man's individual integration with his society. Villains are always against their society in harmful ways; heroes live within and work with society to advance it and those within it.
>>45501301
In naive fiction, yes.
>>45490193
It's an interesting idea, but it's in no way universal, and it was never meant as a tool for struggling writers. Stop pushing it as such.
>>45491999
>But the story doesn't become interesting until we find out the twist of Empire.
If you're a grumpy twat who hates fun, sure.
>>45501301
That was my first post in this thread, so i'm not sure what are ou talking about.
If we take villain's path as inverse of hero's journey, it still can be described in roughly the same steps with one difference - while hero's journey is about obtaining force and returning to ordinary, villain's path is about obtaining Force to elevate him above the peers and advance one goal.
As for >>45496684, it's more of an interesting result of reversing the direction of journey. The story about one realizing otherworldly power cannot solve everything and returning it to rightful owner.
>>45490193
Because it's an idiotic post-facto justification made to link things that don't belong together. Only the most pretentious pseudo intellectual ingnoramuses actually take it seriously.
>>45501432
oh, anon! you should really study all of the tales that have lasted in human memory longer than ten years. you will find, if you endeavour hard enough, that ALL of them share the features of the hero myth. you have been befuddled by your teachers, anon! you have listened and learned at the feet of the ignorant, who have shilled you their personal opinions instead of objective fact. people who teach writing are not, ahem, writers; you should establish some opinions of your own before spouting some english professor's self-serving garbage.
>>45501574
it IS universal, and it was never meant as a tool for tools.
>>45501604
you are taking this notion of otherworldly power too literally, anon - too too literally. wake up to reality: THAT is what the hero myth is about.
>>45501859
no. it does not 'link things that don't belong'
sigh. it is an observation of fact. it is a simple observation. these twelve things can be found in whole or in part in virtually all mythic stories worldwide. It's a simple observation based on studying all of our mythic stories. Why does it intimidate you so much? Why are you afraid?
>>45502051
>you will find, if you endeavour hard enough, that ALL of them share the features of the hero myth
Karl Popper hates you, Anon.
>>45496684
Pretty cool story. Someone who genuinely wants to be nothing special, and not in a "I'm so awesome, my life is so hard" Mary Sue way, would make for an interesting character.
>>45490193
Shut your fucking mouth you dropout manboon.
The Hero's Journey is a falsified simplification of Joseph Campbell's monomyth theory, itself derivative of Carl Jung's shared unconsciousness and psychological archetype theories. It was created by Christopher Vogler, some greedy, lazy spec screenwriter who couldn't convince his staff to read Campbell's "The Hero With a Thousand Faces" and so cherrypicked the parts he liked and arranged them into the stupid 12 steps you just posted.
Joseph Campbell never, ever wrote about mythology as writing advice. None of his books are about telling better stories, only observing tendencies in human cultures. It's like saying the Communist Manifesto or The Wealth of Nations are about how to run countries - they only observe tendencies of human nature and only idiots prescribe their observations as gospel.
Read a book, nigga.
>>45502216
Jung's conception of shared unconscious is just wonky german metaphysics - campbell's monomyth doesn't really fit in with strictly jungian ideology. Campbell's position is more simple - he simply posits that, generally, all people in all places are more or less alike, and therefore come up with similar responses to similar situations. He's not invoking some mystical field of shared subconsciousness.
Your screenwriter story is interesting, but the steps listed by op are, more or less, in fact found in Hero with 1000 Faces.
You are absolutely correct about campbell's writing advice.
glad you read - keep it up
>>45502216
BTFO
I've found Campbell useful for understanding my psychosis.
>>45502623
>self-diagnosis
You haven't made progress.
>>45502723
No, I have an actual diagnosis. I had to take a Rorschach test and an IQ test. My Rorschach test scores were near the 100th percentile on strangeness, and on the WAIS, I have one inventory at 144 and another at 80.
>>45502787
>My Rorschach tes
There's no one left that's even qualified to give those reliably
>>45502879
*shrugs*
>>45502787
you need help from real professionals. pseudo-science will not help you.
>>45502968
Psychopathy isn't recognized in the DSM anyway
>>45502968
I don't even know what this means
>>45502787
you need desperately to read Hero with a thousand faces - read it and become it
>>45503004
Good thing I said psychosis then and it's something completely different
>>45496684
plot of the original mr. deeds.
>>45503006
rorschach tests and iq tests are subjective - they do not provide objective facts. real professionals use tools which are objective when they make mental health assessments. the anon needs a real doctor with real objective testing methods to come up with a real diagnosis.
>>45503022
My Holy Guardian Angel is a dragon and I accidentally made her go away
>>45503022
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manual_of_the_Warrior_of_Light
>>45503069
>real professionals use tools which are objective when they make mental health assessments
Name one objective mental health tool.
>>45503176
just one? okay!
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
it's the gold standard
get a doctor to run you through that
>>45503078
No anon, no you didn't - she's still hooked into your thoughts, whispering your secrets into everyone's minds - and everyone is laughing at you.
>>45496684
you mean Dicken's Christmas Carol?
or the subset of Odin's story regarding his death and resurrection?
>>45503278
I did I think, it was the first test I took. We just did the Rorschach and IQ test afterwards for additional confirmation.
>>45502879
There never ever was. The Rorschach test is entirely subjective.
The normal results are determined solely by what is the most common answers in a given area.
A normal scoring person in from america might score 100% abnormal giving the exact same answers in a different country.
>>45503334
Say one of my secrets then
>>45503335
yeah, the anon hasn't realized that it's the same journey
>>45503337
no no - there is no confirming objective tests with conman tricks
>>45503364
already done, did you miss it? it's in this thread
>>45503393
Well fuck I don't know, I'm not the therapist. I don't know what his rationale was, just what we did. I also know that antipsychotic medication helps a lot.
>>45502562
BTFO
>>45503409
Oh, you mean >>45503078
That wasn't her though, that was just me being stupid on the internet because there are no consequences.
>>45503411
see, now i wonder about you , anon - no one ever said that about their meds ever
