The Hero's Journey

...From One Fool's Perspective.

The tabletop-roleplaying experience has at times been compared to the mythic "hero's journey" (see the works of Joseph Campbell and others if this topic intrigues you). My fool's understanding of the epic hero myth is that our hero starts small, learns from failure, then grows in stature so as to be able to achieve a great task. It is a story of metamorphosis, "from zero to hero" as it is often described in classical tabletop gaming circles.

A slight variation on the Journey theme is known as the "Fool's Journey", which is the journey from ignorance to enlightenment. Again our protagonist or "hero" starts as something small, a foolish person in this version, and through various adventures learns wisdom so as to eventually be redeemed and usually accomplish some good in the world often in spite of a poor understanding of the situation. In my eyes the two journeys are closely related.

So how is this discourse connected to tabletop gaming you may be asking? Our paper heroes are essentially on an epic journey to better themselves, to right wrongs and perhaps to save others from a dastardly fate that is being plotted by an evil villain. There are successes and failures along the way, but our paper hero, should they survive danger, will grow in stature and power so as to eventually be prepared to take on the "big bad evil" and through heroics, save the world. It is essentially an exercise in turning the "Journey" into a game.

With its roots (arguably) in literature, tabletop role-playing games have drawn inspiration from many versions of this classic myth cycle. Tales of King Arthur, the works of Professor Tolkien and the pulp adventure stories of authors such as Fritz Leiber and Robert E. Howard are all recognizable in the classic editions of the game (and specifically named in the Appendix). CRPGs often draw heavily from the TTRPG traditions and have frequently repeated this rags-to-riches character progression. The Hero's Journey is a concept that plays well with an audience who can imagine that a humble beginning is no barrier to a life of high adventure and heroic questing.

So my question today is what happens to the game when the journey ends before it begins? What is there to accomplish when our hero starts life as a nearly invincible protagonist, can easily defeat all challenges and when our "story" becomes a laundry list of various messes that we have cleaned up. The spectacular (and heroic) become the mundane?

Sometimes it feels just so.