Create a menu to customize your character's look in-game.

absurify

---
title: absurify
description: Create a menu to customize your character's look in-game.
thumbnail: /posts/tutorials/character-customization/images/thumbnail.png
draft: false
---

## Heightening

We use Heightening to build on the First Unusual Thing, to turn it into a pattern of increasingly unusual behavior (The Game). Each heightened game move deviates further away from the expected pattern of reality, we repeatedly hit the comedic idea, making the scene progressively more absurd.

<Collapsible title="How to Heighten">

To Heighten, ask yourself **“If this unusual thing is true, what else is true?”**, “What are the possible consequences of it?”. Repeatedly answering this question creates a comedic pattern.

It is important to heighten the absurdity that already exists in the scene, rather than adding more random absurd elements (which will make the scene chaotic and non-sensical).

</Collapsible>

<Collapsible title="Exercise 1: What if?">

- Player 1 makes a statement about something unusual or surprising - describes an unusual belief, behavior, or a premise.
- Players take turns heightening his idea. Each response should be in this form: "If [the thing the previous player said was true], then [another thing that would be true about this scene/character/world]".

Focus on heightening the unusual thing introduced by the first player, avoid introducing ideas that are unrelated to the original premise.

Alternative:
- Player 1 says the first line, trying to establish a very ordinary, normal, boring, unremarkable Base Reality.
- Player 2 replies with the most unusual and surprising thing they can think of.
- All players in the group take turns heightening this idea, as described above.

Alternative:
- Two players play the "Accusation" or the "Premise Lawyer" game.
- All players in the group take turns heightening this idea, as described above.

{/* 
 Accusation, Premise Lawyer, 3 line unusual things - all that generates the unusual things quickly and easily.

 "What if?"
This is a simple but effective improv game in which players take turns asking "What if?" questions, and then answering them with a scenario that is increasingly absurd or unexpected. For example:

Player 1: "What if we were all penguins?"
Player 2: "What if penguins could fly?"
Player 3: "What if penguins could fly and also shoot lasers from their eyes?"

"What If?" In this game, one player starts by making a statement about something unusual or surprising, and the other players must build on that statement by asking "What if?" and adding their own unusual or surprising details. For example, if the first player says "What if everyone in the world had three heads?", the next player might say "What if they also had three sets of eyes and three sets of ears?", and so on. This game encourages players to think creatively and come up with unusual ideas.

*/}

</Collapsible>

<Collapsible title="Exercise 2: Tall Tales">

- Two players tell a story in the style of Baron Munchausen’s tall tales, each player telling one sentence of a story on their turn.  
- The story should start out ordinary and very believable. Then the first unusual/unrealistic thing the players mention should be progressively heightened to become outrageously unrealistic and hard to believe.  
- When the story becomes too unbelievable, a 3rd player should say “No way!” and challenge them to justify, clarify, add details, explain why it’s actually true.  
- Keep telling the story until you can’t think of a way to heighten it any further, or can’t justify the absurdity in a believable way anymore.  

</Collapsible>

<Collapsible title="Exercise 3: Pitching Scenes">

- Start with a suggestion for a character, a location, or an action.  
- Player 1 describes the Base Reality (characters in a situation doing something).  
- Player 2 comes up with the Unusual Thing, a behavior or a piece of information that breaks from the expectations set by the Base Reality. Think about what you’d normally expect to see in this Base Reality, and come up with a way to subvert it, do something different. You can introduce an unusual or exaggerated behavior, an unexpected line of dialogue, a surprising emotion, a weird character trait, a wildly inappropriate response to this situation, an unexpected relationship between the characters, a character or an attitude that doesn’t belong in the scene.  
- Player 3 justifies it, by answering “If this Unusual Thing is true, then why is it true?”.  
- Then players take turns Heightening this Unusual Thing, by asking "If this is true, then what else is true?". Heighten it 3 times, make the last one as absurd as you can.  

> #### Suggestion
> Birthday
> 
> #### Player 1 - Base Reality
> A kid celebrating a birthday party.
> 
> #### Player 2 - Unusual Thing
> The birthday cake is made out of broccoli.
> 
> #### Player 3 - Justification
> Because the parents want to help the kid to lose weight.
> 
> #### Player 1 - Heightening
> The gift is gym membership.
> 
> #### Player 2 - Heightening
> “Go on, Toby, jump in a bouncy castle, do you know how many calories ten jumps can burn?”
> 
> #### Player 3 - Heightening
> The birthday wish is “I wish I had better parents.”

</Collapsible>


