Hi, my name is J. Vandel and like so many others want to try to do a Hack of AW. Neither am I convinced that I am a great writer nor a briliant gamedesigner, but I am motivated to create a game that I can enjoy and build it on my personal experiences and motivations. If I handle the writing of a RPG as a literary tradition, which is comprises of writing-conventions, philosphical views and the aesthetic (philosophy of art) of narrations, I have to define my own standpoint within this literary/design movement, which is AW (and in similar terms of influence DW).

So, ok, where is my starting point? Obviously it should be AW or? Nay, its starts a bit earlier for me.
I first take a look at the basics of my understanding of narratives. The "Iconologia overo Descrittione Dell’imagini Universali cavate dall’Antichità et da altri luoghi" was a highly influential emblem book based on Egyptian, Greek and Roman emblematical representations, written by Cesare Ripa in 1593, which got me interested in our understanding of Archetypes, which were broadly populised by the theories of psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung. Another startingpoint is the understanding of Aby Warburg's System of the Mnemosyne, which combines a collection of images and texts, representation of classical motives into a hypermedial network of interpretations, an extraordinary novum in the field of arthistory.

The core of my theoretical foundation will implement the theories of Josephe Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces", the monomythos, and also the expansions of his work by Christopher Vogler. In my understanding, the bonds of AW resembles the interconnection of the figures in the journey of the archetypal hero found in world mythologies, described by Campbell, aswell as the moves as an integral tool of a flexible narrative while still binding it to a structure of choices. The Playbooks are serving as a minimalised concept of Archetypes, constructing them by aplying bonds and moves, which navigates the character on a choosen path, which is, arguable, similar to Champbells thesis about the monomyth.

Dreadfull Worlds is my trial to create a Hack which can implement my philosophical viewpoints into my gamingexperiences. If I didnt bore you to death with namedropping by now, I hope for productive discussions in this thread, about ym project and about the art of making games and narratives.

Edit: As it may be obvious, I am no native english speaker, actually german, so I hope for your understanding.