I finished red Dead Redemption 2 on Thursday night, or at least all 6 chapters and 2 epilogues that make up the story. There are still some things I want to do in the both the open world construct of that story and I want to check out more of Red Dead Online, but for all intents and purposes that game is “finished.” I’ve sat down to write about some powerful, conflicting feelings I have about the game and the experience, but the right words and format and paragraph structure and coherent ideas just won’t come no matter how many times I restart or try to piece together bits I’ve drafted. My whole weekend has been kind of like my Red Dead writing - drifting, aimless, unfocused.
Beyond my daily few games of MLB The Show 18, I haven’t been able to muster up a real burning desire to play anything. I did fire up Mutant Year Zero and enjoyed the first few missions, but this general malaise had me looking to move on quickly. I was lucky that my Gloomhaven group was able to get together Saturday and kill most of that day, even if I felt like I was playing like shit trying to really understand a new-ish class after months of playing the Brute. But that was Saturday and left me with 24 hours to kill today.
Lacking spark or motivation, I decided to try to get back into the main Friends at the Table arc, Spring in Heiron. Friends at the Table is an “actual play” podcast (focused on critical worldbuilding, smart characterization, and fun interaction between friends” if you listen to the start of any episode) featuring 8 really talented story-tellers and role players. It’s also…dense. Their last season took a sci-fi look at what a utopia can be and what it is to create and maintain that. Episodes usually run 90-120 minutes and really spend a lot of time on the minutia of worldbuilding and characterization through play. Even action sequences, where one character needs to make a split-second, life-or-death decision can take 30 minutes and involve discussions of two players’ motivations, googling strange animals, the characters’ motivations, and other random asides. It’s a big ask and a commitment, but one I’ve found rewarding.
But I just couldn’t get into this season until this weekend. I’m not sure what official “Season” they’re in, but it’s their third season with this set of characters and is part of the Heiron arc: Autumn in Heiron, Winter in Heiron, and Spring in Heiron. I had slowly worked my way through Episode 1 of Spring and just wasn’t as committed to the story as I had been in prior years. But thankfully this weekend I needed something that was more passive than a video game but more active than just watching tv or a movie, and this fit the bill perfectly. Roughly 7 hours and three episodes later, I’ve been reminded that it’s okay to let things sit. Not everything has to be consumed and critically appraised immediately. The cast of Friends at the Table aren’t my friends, but it was refreshing this weekend to have real friends at one table and these podcast friends waiting to provide a brief escape from my own indecision and listlessness.