My Dreamation schedule

One of my favorite conventions is next weekend. Dreamation, to me, marks the beginning of a long stretch of conventions and good times that stretches from now until November at Metatopia. I've been attending Dreamation now for a few years, and never had a bad experience, felt unwelcomed or generally thought it sucked.

So, I urge you to attend. Come to panels, come play games, spend four days embracing your inner nerd/geek and make yourself happy. Although my stuff is only on the weekend, I WILL be there all four days.

Let's cover the big one first:
D814: "The DREAMATION 2013 Writer's Workshop" presented by John Adamus. A discussion and workshop of what's needed to take your ideas and make them practical - turning your imagination into a real game or book. Join John Adamus in this discussion of what you can do to make your creation come to life, while avoiding typical pitfalls, stumbling points and roadblocks along the way. 
Sunday, 12:00PM - 3:00PM;

Okay, this is huge. THREE HOURS?! It's going to be awesome. This year's topic is

"How to use Fate Core, Cortex-Plus, GUMSHOE and D20 To Write Your Story/Novel/Game/Whatever"

Go sign up! You WILL NOT regret it.

This year I'm being more ambitious than usual - in addition to the Writing Workshop, I'm running two games. Here are all the details:

Game I: R248: Night's Black Agents; "The Paris Sanction" presented by John Adamus. A deadly strain of the flu is up for auction, and plenty of terrorists have converged on Paris to bid. A week ago, a team of agents was dispatched to impersonate Basque separatists, but they haven't been heard from. Now it's time a replacement team to find out what happened, and hopefully stop the bio-terrorist weapon from getting into the wrong hands. Saturday, 9:00AM - 1:00PM

Why should you play in this game? How about PASSENGER JET CAR CHASE? It's early, I know, but it's going to be worth it.

Game II: R330: Night's Black Agents; "The Budapest Disaster" presented by John Adamus.  There was a terrible accident in Budapest. Two trains collided, a tragedy of epic proportions, killing hundreds. Lost in the twisted wreckage though were some precious cargo - a suitcase full of diamonds en route to the Queen of England, and the launch codes for a portable nuclear device. A team of agents has been dispatched to recover at least one, and it's up to the team to prioritize. Will it be the diamonds or the nuke? 
Sunday, 10:00AM - 11:59AM

Okay, I know the schedule on the website says until 2pm, but since I have not yet mastered quantum physics (Note that I go from Night's Black Agents to the Writing Workshop, back-to-back), I can't be in two places at once, I'm shortening this game. Also, this is more a playtest of some new mechanics I'm checking out, but I'll explain all that on Sunday.

Other places I'll be this weekend:
L040: The Dresden Files; "Dog Days" by Phoenix Outlaw Productions. The New York supernatural scene has been rocked by territory disputes, wars, and battles in the last few years. A great warlord, Raoul Ortega, has fallen and now his people are trying to put the pieces back together. Rising in the ranks? The werewolf and wereform population. Years ago there was nearly a were-form revolution and some believe it might be time yet again for people to be afraid of the tooth and claw. When the sun comes up, who will rule the streets? "Dog Days" is a live-action roleplay event set in the Dresden Files universe run by Phoenix Outlaw Productions. This event will also be the playtest of a brand new adaptation of a LARP adaptation of the popular FATE system. New players encouraged; previous players of the New York Dresdenverse games most welcome! 
Saturday, 8:00PM - 12:00AM

Shameless confession - I co-wrote the plot and mechanics. I'll be on hand to make sure things work, and/or fix them on the fly.

I'll be popping in on my other friends/clients/projects too (Project Ninja Panda Taco, Revelations, the Fate Core games, etc).

Also, I'll be tweeting the hell out of things. You are following me on Twitter, right?

Hope to see you there, would love to meet you and say hello.

How You Can Use Fate Core to Write/Design A Game

Yesterday I wrote about how you can use Fate Core to write a novel. Today, I'm going to tell you how you can use Fate Core to write a game, or a setting, or a scenario, or a campaign...even if that game doesn't use Fate.

Now, I know what you're thinking - that sounds crazy. But really it's not. We're just going to look at the applications of what we talked about yesterday, and leave the mechanical constructs (fate point economy, dice rolling, etc) to the side for now, else we'll muddy waters and confuse people (including myself).

Note though, this is how I design things, and my design style may be an entirely different approach than what you do, what you like or how you go about even starting it. I say this not to ward you off, but rather tell you to make this method your own, and that you're free to change elements to suit your tastes, rather than clone me.

A brief overview is in order:

1. Characters and scenes have aspects.
2. There are four actions - overcome, create an advantage, attack, defend

(see, wasn't kidding when I said that was brief)

To start this discussion, we have to pick a thing we're making. Let's say you're making something that you can run with your weekly group, but something that if you polished it up enough, you may consider releasing for profit if all goes well. This way, we'll keep the conversation "local" and free from business-y distractions.

Now we take our first steps and decide what sort of genre this game is going to be in. Will it be steampunk? Will it be swords and sorcery? Will it feature struggles against zombies?

Step 1:: If you haven't already, write down 1 sentence or phrase (try and center it on the topmost line of the legal pad, if you're like me) that summarizes the experience of this yet-untitled-game.

Here's one straight from my little blue notebook of designs --

Prison escape, investigation and catching of real culprits 

Already from this one sentence expression we can pull out concrete requirements for the game. Mine will need a prison to escape from, some badguys to catch, and good guys (the players) who will try to clear their names (suggestive of drama, tension and investigation).

Yours may have aliens, trolls, clowns, goat-bartering or vampires. Whatever you've got on your paper, look for the concrete elements. If your sentence doesn't have any, give it more thought, and write a different sentence.

When you've gotten that down on paper, we go forward.

Step 2:: For each concrete thing you can pull out of that sentence, create three to five aspects for each element.

For mine, I divide the legal pad into 3 columns: Prison, Badguys, PCs

Note: I don't want to dictate what aspects the PCs have - because I want my players to have some creative ability and input in my game. But I can create a loose framework for what sort of aspects work best...essentially crafting boundaries for the field the players operate on, and later (as we'll see) giving me sentences that I can use to describe the game to others.

Prison
Formidable
Thought to be inescapable 
Made of the best materials available
Heavily guarded
Wretched hive of scum and villainy

Badguys
Veterans of crime
Scarred and broken people
Rough and tumble
Thick
Hungry

Players
Innocents among the guilty
Never going back
Always on the run
Schemers, Fighters and Planners
Adjusting to life on the outside

Step 3:: Using the Aspects as a reference, apply your mechanical base to your elements In my case, that's NPC(s) and location(s).

Here is a point where we may go down radically different paths. Depending on what mechanical engine you're using, this step might take some time. That's okay, this process isn't quick. Think about how you've described the elements of your game, and using your best judgment, convert the words into numbers.

If the Prison is formidable, how many feet thick are the walls? Does your game have an armor rating? Maybe the walls rate a large number. If the badguys are veterans of crime, just how good are they at the criminal skillset your game may have?

When this step is done, you should have stats for some of the components of the thing you're creating. Over time, as you give this more thought and as we get to applying the four actions, you can flesh out the rest of the stats.

Step 4:: Find the adventure's best starting point. 

Whether you've got adventurers meeting in a tavern, intrepid reporters responding to a Craigslist ad, or a bunch of mercenaries gathered on Gamma Beta Seven, every adventure has a starting point. Now if this adventure is a campaign, then we're looking for this "episode's" best starting point.

Starting points are most often exposition dumps, where everyone goes around the table and says who and what their character is, and it can be WAY boring. There are ways around it, by intermingling the backstories of characters (as in Fate games) or by withholding backstories and focusing on the task at hand (as is done in Call of Cthulhu). Keep an eye out for boredom generators (far too much talking, not enough doing, the players don't engage the mechanics right away), and the adventure can start before you know it.

Step 5:: Map out the adventure, using the four actions of Fate.

Every type of scene the players get into can be expressed as one of the four actions.

Overcome Scenes are those scenes where there are skill-based challenges or puzzles that require the players make use of the mechanics of the game. This could be a sphinx's riddle, orchestrating a jailbreak, sweet-talking guards instead of fighting them, or anything where a player uses skills or abilities against opposition but doesn't get into combat.

Advantage Scenes (scenes where the players create an advantage) are those scenes where players use the environment or story detail to improve their situation(s). A super scientist spending time in the lab to create power armor, a thief spending time with the local guild, a cop shaking down informants -- all are situations created because the world/environment of the game has made them possible. Yes, the line may blur a little between overcome and advantage scenes, but to distinguish between the two, look at your focus -- is the focus on the skill-check? Then it's an overcome scene. If the focus is on the end result, or you're likely to handwave the roll, then it's an advantage scene.

Attack Scenes are combat, most often initiated by the players, where they brandish sword, fists or guns and take on enemy forces. Most often the climax of an adventure is an attack scene or "boss fight". It doesn't have to be that way, if your game centers more on investigation (as in Gumshoe) or in self-discovery ("I learned something new about myself!"), then your climaxes aren't going to be fight-y. Attack scenes are also opportunities for the mechanics of your system to be tested, so if you're home-brewing, make sure your combative ducks are in a row.

Defense Scenes (scenes where players Defend) are NOT just part of combat. Yes, defense is inherent in combat, as a reaction to a fighting action, but Defense scenes can also lay the groundwork and advantages for future scenes. In an investigative game, these scenes pit clues against reality - as players work to rectify what they know already with new information just acquired (it was old man Jenkins who killed Robbie!) Defense outside of a combat scene is most often a narrative experience, giving characters a chance to explore feelings, situations and experiences to find their place in-game.

There is no standard formula for how many of each scene you have to have, or that every sixth scene must be a combat. But there is a progression within a story of scenes, as tensions rise and build to climax.

Often, Attack scenes sit atop the pyramid, having been set up by Overcome Scenes and Defense Scenes, all predicated on the work established in Advantage Scenes, and lesser Overcome Scenes.

Let's come back to the earlier prison game example...

I want my players to start by escaping from prison (Overcome scene), possibly fighting their way out as needed (Attack scene), and making their way to an established safehouse (Advantage scene). From there they'll investigate the crime that sent them to prison (Overcome scenes, Advantage scenes, Defense scenes), ultimately confronting the real villains (Attack scene) and getting them to confess before escaping the pursuing prison forces (Defense scene, Advantage scene).

That's episode one of my campaign, or if this is a one-shot deal, that's the adventure as a whole.

Step 6:: Prepare anything you may have missed, now that you have an outline.

Going now scene by scene, give each scene the needed details. Write in those clues for the investigators to find. Fluff up that flavor text that you can read to players so they'll know what to expect. Make sure any opposition the PCs will face has proper stats and equipment and make sure any treasure available is appropriately balanced (or wildly off-balance, if that's your preference). This is also a chance to read over the work as a whole and make sure that scenes connect to each other, either for narrative reasons (one scene comes as a result of the previous) or mechanical reasons (you need a hospital after getting beaten near to death).

Step 7:: Go play your game.

Enjoy yourself. Change whatever you need to, on the fly, to make sure you have the best time possible. It doesn't matter that the players totally skipped the sweet action you had planned on page 4, the bottom line is always this -- have the best time possible with your friends. Rules and games change accordingly.

See you next time, happy writing and gaming.

Using Fate Core To Write Your Novel

Good morning, strap in and let's get to work. We start today with a story.

I was having lunch with someone yesterday and over the course of our discussion (which naturally covered what he could do to bolster his newly rejected novel), I began describing how he could flesh out characters to make them less static and make them multi-dimensional.

As I was talking and gesturing, I used the word 'aspect' a few times, and realized that there's a way to meld my two great passions, gaming and editing/helping people write better, and that aspects are the key.

Everyone go look at your most recent copy of your favorite Fate product. (There's still a week on Kickstarter! Get to it!) Now, go get a legal pad. And a pen.

For today we use Fate Core to write your novel.

We'll start by identifying what "aspects" are. For the purposes of our discussion, let's use this definition --

Aspects are phrases or sentences that express some element of the character, either physically, mentally or emotionally.

For example, that tall nervous blonde you work with has the aspects "Tall" "Blonde" and "Nervous Wreck".

So, how does this help you? Let's look at step 1.

Step 1:: Identify (and write down) 5 Aspects your primary character(s) has/have. (A primary character is your protagonist, your antagonist and anyone you spend more than 45% of the book describing)

Yes, five. I like to do them in some combination of physical and emotional/psychological descriptors, usually three and two. I'd stay away from a 4-to-1 ratio (particularly 4 physical and 1 emotional/psychological), because that may lead to your character looking pretty, but being sort of hollow inside. (This may or may not be called 'Kristen Stewart Syndrome')

What does this look like on paper? Here, let's talk about Batman.

Batman
- Forever avenging the death of his parents
- Rich & handsome playboy
- The greatest detective in the DC Universe
- Master martial artist
- Has a Rogues' Gallery (translation: lots of enemies)

Here I mention who he is - a rich & handsome playboy, master martial artist, and the greatest detective in the DC Universe - but also what he does - forever avenging the death of his parents - and what that brings him in return - lots of enemies.

What we've got is a snapshot of the character, and ideally something that isn't *only* a physical run-down of traits. This isn't a dating profile, we don't need to go on and on about someone's appearance in a superficial or sexist way - this is a chance to distill character down to key emotional hooks and connect the character to both other characters AND their world.

Just as character have aspects, so too do scenes. Most of time, scene aspects in novels are expressed as tension-beats, creating dangerous complications like a building burning down or a badguy about to shoot or a bomb about to explode. (They don't always have to be melodramatic like that, it can also be an uncomfortable conversation between two characters or something.)


Example: Barry is trapped in a burning office building. He can hear the sirens, so he knows that at some point, he'll get rescued. But until then, he's stuck in a smoky room that's growing progressively hotter and hotter. It's getting hard to breathe. He's not a strong man, but he's got to at least to try and make a break for it - maybe out the window before it's too late? 

In this example, the building has the aspects "burning down", "getting hotter and hotter" and "slowly suffocating in a growing furnace". Barry has the aspects "not the strongest" and "not quite Hero material".


Step 2:: Identify (and write down) how the character(s) make use of the 4 Actions. 

Fate Core has four key actions available to players. They cover a multitude of possibilities. Admittedly, I'm tweaking them here for our purposes.

a) Create an Advantage -- This is the ability of a character to use their skills and talents to take advantage/make use of the environment or situation they're in.

The ability of an author/creator to conceive of a scene's aspects (the elements that describe it physically, emotionally or psychologically) and parse them into phrases or short sentences is an invaluable tool for world-building, tension-crafting, or general descriptive capacity. Thinking about what goes down on paper and being able to think about it in an observational way, allows you to control and shape the scene more to your liking in a more intimate way.

So, look at your characters and look to their aspects and skills. Now look at your scene and its aspects. How can the character, in this one particular situation, use their aspects and skills to partner with a scene's aspects to reach the desirable outcome? Note: The desirable outcome is not always the same as the perfect outcome - the character's best option may not be coming out of a scene unscathed.

Now, you may be tempted to change aspects to suit the scene. Take caution - you're doing yourself a disservice (and creating a crappy character) if the character's aspects change at the start of every scene, just so that they come out smelling like roses and being perfect. Here's the rule - if you've got to change aspects, change it AFTER AND BECAUSE OF the scene that just happened, and remember, keep it to five.

To continue our previous example....

Barry has to smash a window to escape the fire. He realizes that he doesn't have the brute strength to smash the glass by hand, but if he can pick up one of the chairs, he can hurl it through the window. Summoning courage and strength, Barry wades through the smoke, grabs the sturdiest looking chair he can find and in a run, sends it hurtling through the window, raining glass down onto the street!

Here, the scene aspect "full of chairs and desks" is created so as to provide Barry the tools he needs to make good his survival. This is justified because the building is an office building, so it's reasonable to assume it has office equipment in it. So while Barry isn't Hero material, in a survival situation, he takes the initiative and creates an advantage for himself - allowing him to make it to the next scene.

b) Overcome an Obstacle -- This is where the character(s) face down a challenge that requires them to use their skills. This is a test of the character's ability. And with that test comes risk - often injury of a physical, mental, emotional or social nature - but again, it's what makes the scene compelling to both read and write.

We keep with our example...

Barry finds himself looking out the hole the chair created. Yes, he thinks, this is where he gets out of here, but look down, it's higher up than he thought. And he's no athlete, but the fire's getting worse and if he doesn't jump now, he might not last long enough for the firefighters to rescue him.  So, he backs up as far as he can into the room and makes a run for it, jumping out the hole and into the alley.

Barry's obstacle is both internal (his fear) and external (he's got to try and run, then jump out of a burning building).  It's through these overcome scenes that we learn what sort of characters we have. Are they brave? Will they do the right thing? Are they capable? Are they cowards? Overcoming obstacles should be a challenge, not in some great Herculean way, but some element of who they are or what they can do should be tested.

Success brings the reward of character growth. Failure can also trigger growth, but carries with it consequences - the character ends up hurt in one way or another.

c) Attack -- Note: Because we're writing a story and not rolling dice, I'm changing the nature of Attack. My apologies to my Fate Core friends. An attack action is anything the character(s) do(es) to change the status quo or current situation. (Also, this can cover fights) This definition may seem a little broad, but coming off the heels of overcoming an obstacle, an attack action may partner up nicely here.

Whatever occurs in the scene, characters are going to react to it, because of it and through it. They are going to attempt to alter it, changing the circumstances and possible outcomes so that they're more favorable...and so that they can then go ahead and create more advantages. (See how this is starting to come together?).

This is NOT a call to make your characters more selfish, this is a raising of awareness that characters are a part of the scene, not always at the scene's mercy. Flat, one-dimensional characters can get tossed around the scene like red-shirted crewmen on Star Trek. Characters with some heft to them can weather the scenes, and push back.

Our example marches on...

Barry has jumped out the window and luckily avoids breaking both his legs when he lands. He separates his shoulder, probably fractures some bones in his foot, but for the most part, he's going to make it out of here alive. Thankfully, the firefighters arrive and the blaze is contained. We then join Barry getting interviewed by a cop, who believes Barry started the fire and got trapped inside. Barry has to change this situation, so Barry stands up for himself, saying that he knows who started the fire because he heard Larry talking about it the day before. 

Barry attacks the situation by challenging the cop's assumption that Barry is the culprit. (For the game mechanically minded, this is Rapport). The revelation that Larry is a suspect both moves the story forward by introducing new character Larry, but also introduces Larry's plot...setting up Larry as the likely antagonist if we haven't done so already.

d) Defend -- Again, I'm really sorry, Fate Core friends, I'm changing this. A defense action is when the character must preserve themselves from harm or preserve the status quo for the continuation of the story.

Our example...

Barry confronts Larry, just as he's about to set another fire. They tussle, but not before Larry reveals every detail of his master plan. Barry manages to get the upper hand for a moment, long enough to press Larry's hand into some freshly spilled paint, leaving palm prints all over the room. The police arrive just before the fire is set, and combined with the palm prints, Larry's going to jail. 

Here Barry has to use a combination of attack and defend actions, both during the altercation (obviously) but   also in a test of wills to coerce Larry's villain monologue out of him, which Larry was happy to do, because Larry was a jerk.

It's the synthesis of these four actions that tells the compelling saga of Barry and Larry. Story is about expression of aspects through challenges, created advantages and the attack and defense of the characters along the way.

It's my hope that this quick-and-dirty toolkit is helpful when you're writing. If you have any questions, please let me know. (Twitter, G+, email)

Happy writing.

What Total Recall Taught Me About Storytelling and Gaming

I just came home after seeing the new version of Total Recall. I will avoid spoilers and will avoid specific commentary on the film, but before I go into what the movie taught me, I'd like to make a few points:

* I tire of the idea that the only way to demonstrate a "strong female character" is to give them a gun, get them bloody and occasionally make them grunt. There are many kinds of strength, and I am eagerly waiting for the next batch of media creators who realize that "strong women" aren't limited to action beats.

* I do not like Kate Beckinsale's nose. It seems quite shaved and pinched, and I'm concerned that she's not taking in enough oxygen. It was rather hard to look away from it, since 90% of her shots were facial close-up. (That's not a spoiler, just look at the trailers)
Note - for those who think the above point was too dysmorphic or sexist, my intent was just to point out that  it bothered me, much the same way people pointed out Christian Bale's moles in Batman.

* I'm beginning to conclude that lens flares are used to conceal green screen composite shots - and are used to distract from what I call "blurry CGI motion syndrome", those parts of scenes where suddenly a character moves too fluidly and hurriedly, seems to bleed a little (colorwise) on film and looks...sometimes cartoony. (See: Legolas in LOTR, several stunt-beats in the early Harry Potter movies and some parts of Twilight.)

Now, onto what I learned.

I. Subjective Reality

At its heart this movie (and the short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale) plays heavily with the questionable nature of reality, of what's real and what isn't, and what/who you can or can't trust. This concept is often a goldmine when done well and lazy writing when executed poorly.

In writing, this idea is explored most often as an unreliable narrator, so that it is more often the audience and not the narrator who must navigate the blurred lines of truth and untruth. (In film this task often falls to the protagonist who is also the audience surrogate.)

In gaming, it's a lot harder to pull this off, because most people want to play characters that have much of their facets already in place and seek only to improve upon them. Reality is expected to be somewhat dictated as a response to mechanics, as well as what (if any) expectations the players have based on what they bring to the table in terms of character ideas, themes or concepts.

A game that toys with this idea to my great satisfaction is Rite Publishing's The Demolished Ones - a game that takes the idea of "I don't know my character" (thanks amnesia!) and allows you to have an absolutely present-tense experience because you "remember" things in order to put them on your character sheet. So at once, the player is co-conspirator in the unreliability, having to choose whether or not a particular item, idea or moment is one they will use to their advantage for character improvement.

In my own writing and gaming, I tend to avoid explorations into what is and isn't the case - this is in part because I doubt my ability to keep a daisy chain of misdirections going long term, and also I find it grating trying to figure out just how long a narrator is supposed to be unreliable, or if the degree I'm being uncertain is strong enough. Too many questions cross it off the writing list. In gaming, my players, well they get testy when they can't figure out what is and isn't happening.

The strength of subjective reality is not the adversarial nature of I-know-something-and-you-don't, but rather the idea that whatever story you're telling, you can throw a wrench into the chronology. Changing the "when" component of an event allows you to constantly reshuffle the order of development around, freeing you up to tell the best story possible.

Also, it allows you to play with the nature of expectation...but we'll talk about that next.

II. Expectations

Expectation is one of the three E's that you manipulate to create tension (the other two being Emotion and Excitement). Expectation what drives play and storytelling forward. We expect the protagonist to win, we expect the "boss fight" to be at the end of the film, book or adventure, and we expect three-act structure to permeate our experience.

In same cases there's a spin on it (Nolan's Memento presents the end of a story at the beginning, so the Third-First Act creates a sort of mobius loop, Leverage presents a heist or caper through flashbacks that bend the Second Act into the Third Act based on the lead-out of the First Act).

But expectations are not just macro views of story development. You can change expectations in-scene as well. The most common version of this is the betraying-character, who turns against the protagonist(s) when either the reasons are valid or when the story gets tired and needs a perk (I'm looking at you, Crystal Skull)

The same is true of objects. A gun can malfunction at the worst possible moment, the bomb could fail to detonate (or detonate too soon) or the printer could run out of paper just when you need it the most.

No expectation should be permanently set in concrete - it's your story, do all that you have to make it the best story you can.

III. Psychic Distance

I talk a lot about Psychic Distance in Workshops. It's the imagined camera between audience and character - zooming in for close-ups and emotional display, pulling back for exposition and demonstrations of scope.

Understanding that as a creator (author, game designer, GM, Storyteller, Director, etc) you control the speed of the "camera" by parceling out what and how much detail you give to your characters and non-player characters makes storytelling that much more a richer experience.

Remember too that players (and the audience, for you book types) will respond sympathetically rather than quantitatively -- they'll respond to a positive emotion positively and a negative emotion empathetically -- rather than assess the situation mathematically and end up with emotions going to 11 as if to complete an equation of solving for X.

* * * 

Think of these elements as sliders, with the creator of the story able to ramp them up and play with them throughout the experience of the story (don't think this is something you set once and then walk away from) - in fact, I would go so far to say that 'riding the levels' will keep the story experience fresh and evocative for the audience/players/readers.

Happy writing.

What I Learned This Week At DexCon

This week was DexCon, the annual summer gaming convention that happens between Origins and GenCon (the two other big summer conventions). And if you've been anywhere near me lately, you likely got sucked into the tornado that was John-prepping-for-a-convention.

This year I was assisting in the running of a Signature Event, a tournament of Night's Black Agents where the winning team scored a $1,000 for surviving and discovering the conspiracy unfolding around them. I am forever grateful to the tremendous assistance and support of Ken Hite, the game's creator as well as Bill White, the third GM for their enthusiasm and patience with me -- I have no doubt I was an over-compensating buzz of frantic anxiety, and they were masterful in keeping me on track and keeping everything moving forward.

Granted, my job seemed easy - I had to create the 30 characters for participants to use, as well as develop adventures designed to both give the players clues as well as winnow down the 30 players to a final round. We were successful, and I felt a tremendous sense of relief and adrenal relaxation (I suddenly lost an invisible 60 pounds of "what if this sucks?" I had been carrying). And the whole event, which mauled my Saturday, taught me A LOT.

Combine that with likely one of my top-four workshops (which is no longer at midnight, and comes with coffee for the morning crowd) and I am deeply happy man. That also taught me a lot.

I list those things now. When I talk about "it" (whatever "it" is) just replace that word with your book/game/project/thing you're doing).

1. It doesn't have to be perfect, it has to be the best you can do, and you have to give a shit about it. When I said yes to the opportunity to co-run a tournament, and once I got past the excitement of "I'm going to play one of my all-time favorite games with one of my favorite people who happens to be the guy who wrote the game!" and I saw the amount of work I had to do, it was tough not to get immediately paralyzed.

Create 30 characters that were pitch-perfect, interesting and accessible to players as well as seven scenarios that would weed through players and characters all within a 6-or-so-hour block? Gulp. I have experience making characters, I've even thought at times I was good at it, because I'm really just filling out an excel sheet, but this....this is serious! I can't just have "my" kind of characters, I need to have Grade-A characters (kudos if you just caught the implication that I doubt myself sometimes).

And I just can't have decent or average plots, I have to have plots good enough for the guy who wrote the game will respect and enjoy and not scowl at me all the way through. I can't suck at this. (Cue anxiety, nervous stomach and panic sweats)

So, I sat down, talked myself down off that ledge and got to work.

a) I know how to do this.
b) I do this for my friends all the time.
c) I'm not working in a vacuum, I have people (like the game's creator, duh) who can help me
d) and if it all goes pear-shaped, who cares, it's a game, not nuclear disarmament talks with the Iranians)

And I did it. It was time-consuming, and it was essentially its own clinic in game design, story development and how-John-deals-with-the-spotlight, but I did it. Likely, when I tell you that I had also dropped about $90 at Staples to get pencils, erasers and folders, you'll tell me that I overdid it, but the fact remained that I put all these things together. I don't say that so that people say "Oh wow that's amazing." I say that so that I get it in my own damn head that I took on a big project and kicked its ass.

Was it perfect? Nope. Characters were under-powered, plots had holes, and my printer is low on toner, but all those things are fixable, despite my frustration and guilt that I didn't do a perfect job, what I got was teased, not yelled at for the errors. And the errors got fixed, and a good time was had by all.

2. There are few things as nerve wracking as watching someone else go through your work with an audience, especially when they're the developer of the game upon which your work is based. I'm used to people critiquing my writing. I go to meetings, I share my work with a lot of people, and they give me feedback (usually it's "keep writing this!" and "stop thinking that you're not good at it!" etc etc), so I have no problem sharing my work when my work is prose - someone reads it, they make comments, I'm used to that.

But it is wholly a different beast when what you've written is something interactive. When you watch someone at the top of the field take your work and make it come alive for an audience in a way you didn't realize possible. It wasn't just roll a few dice and say something, it was a moving, near-theater experience. It was as gaming should be - a dive into deep waters of imagination and story-telling where everyone is equally invested and equally enraptured by the tale and their contributions to it.

So I'm sitting there in the back of the room, watching Ken lead the final table through the plot. I know where the monsters are. I know where the red flags are. But what Ken did was transform them from simple encounters and bullet-points on page 4 into a story, and he painted (I mean like Van Gogh) a picture of an adventure and enemies and tension and excitement that I had some inkling of on the page...but Ken filled in the dots in a way that I don't think anyone else could. He made my words not suck. He made them awesome.

That is scary though. While the other people in the room are listening to the players gasp and laugh and cheer and panic and play, I'm listening to the plot, I'm waiting for "Okay, does this monster kill them?" and "What about the clue?" That tension goes far beyond I-hope-there's-a-winner and turns into oh-god-I-hope-this-doesn't-suck-for-people. But...we made it. Hooray!

3. The biggest interference in a plot are the characters. The plot for the tournament, I felt, was one of the cleanest and jaw-dropping-est I-can't-believe-that's-a-thing plots I've ever worked on. It was so not a "go to Place A, retrieve item B, fight enemy C" affairs, but it rather intricately wove about 2 dozen clues together so that people could follow along.

Of course that somewhat assumes they will follow along. When one character takes the lady he's supposed to protect and seduces her, then knocks her unconscious and throws her out a window into a pool (so the badguys can't get her), that's both one hell of a mixed message as well as something I wouldn't think to do.

Likewise when characters are marshaling their forces and say "We need a flamethrower", that's not really something you can plan for. And no, you cannot plan for everything. The characters will surprise you when you leave them open-ended and provide fertilizer for the seed beds of imagination. (No, this isn't the time to get into that discussion about whether you or not you "let the characters dictate the story as you write it", this isn't the place for that.)

I'm not saying that people are going to sabotage the plot, but you just have to roll with the punches when characters decide to make a hard-left out of the story and take it in a new direction. Granted this weekend we had neither time nor energy to vamp for 3 hours to get them back on track, so there was a huge margin of flexing, but as the developer of content, much like Moff Tarkin, you can't hold too tightly to your plans, else things slip through your fingers. And I guess your British accent will come and go. Or something.

4. You need to take care of yourself. So I worked on this tournament and then decided that a six-hour marathon game wasn't enough, that I would pull myself to my feet and play in another game that went from midnight until about 2am or so. Because that's the healthiest response I could make, right? So by the time I fell asleep it was around 3:30 and I had to be up at 8:30 and ready to give a workshop at 10.

Also, if you're scoring along at home, I am not 22 with a super metabolism and incredibly springy immune system. Oh, and I've fractured my ankle recently, depending on which medical authority you talk to (sprain, fracture, break, microfracture, these terms are but commas in medical sentences), so I'm gimping along on one leg and doing my best to pop Advil here and there and rest whenever possible. So what's more restful than gaming for 12 hours straight?

On Sunday I had a GREAT, SUPER AMAZING WORKSHOP with a fantastic and detailed discussion of writing - covering discipline and habits and goal-setting and related ideas. I also answered a ton of questions (there were some wonderful questions this time), but I was so tired, I wanted to be more enthusiastic and answer more questions and get more into how to individually help people....but I just ran out of gas. I was tired and worn down and needed to rest.

It should be mentioned that this whole weekend it was hot. Like crazy living-in-a-furnace hot. Like 89 degrees at 2am hot. Hydration was the order of the day, and when I was hydrated, I felt great, I was awake and my foot didn't hurt. When I was way behind in my waterload, I was sluggish, tired and a little babbling.

Those times when I stretched out in a chair, put my leg up and drank water? Incredibly restorative. I didn't feel like I needed to be go-go-go all the time, I was better for not pressuring myself to do more.

So, summary time:

Take good care of yourself, and it makes stressful high-energy times worth it.
You're going to end up stressing yourself out trying to be perfect, you'll be much better off trusting yourself to do the best job possible.
More than you realize, there are very likely a lot more people who support you and actually like you, rather than who just tolerate your presence.

Happy writing. Later this week, I'll do a post about how my writing has changed because of this experience.

Some Kickstarters You Should Support

For those that don't know, Kickstarter is a crowd-funding website that allows people to make financial contributions to projects they want to see become real. And that could be inventions, television shows, books, games, movies, fashion....pretty much anything.

I list today a few Kickstarters I think you should take a look at, and support. Now, I know the tiers say specific value amounts, but once you click to donate, YOU CAN NAME YOUR OWN AMOUNT. So yes, even $1 helps.

Disclosure - I helped with these Kickstarters.

Guide To Village By The Sea by Lillian Cohen-Moore (@lilyorit on Twitter) For those that don't know her, you should. She's a wonderfully talented editor, a marvelous person and very nice. She even interviewed me once.

Her project is a sourcebook (an informational resource) that you can use in your gaming, your fiction and your daily life, and you can find content in that will make an impression, because the Village By The Sea is an evil and scary place. So if you like horror, you like being unsettled and you want to make this project into something tangible, donate!

Project Ninja Panda Taco by Jenn of The Jennisodes (@jennisodes on Twitter). If you've ever wanted to take over the world, this is the game for you. Be a nefarious Mastermind. Be a helpful Minion. Conquer Earth. Have fun doing it.

Jenn and I know each other. We game together. We're friends. She's interviewed me. I've played this game, and it is better than a lot of the games I have on my shelf (I'm looking at you defunct publishers who don't support their back catalog). I edited this game, and can tell you that it really is a lot of fun both to just read through and play. (It's one of a handful of games: Ticket to Ride, Gloom, Forbidden Island come to mind) where I learned the whole game's mechanics in about 3 minutes (however long it takes to re-heat food) and have not tired of the nuance or play.

BONUS Kickstarter! Race to Adventure by Evil Hat Productions(@evilhatofficial on Twitter) If you love pulp then this board game is for you. Based on the Spirit of the Century game (a game very near and dear to me), this board game allows you to be pulp-hero and travel the world in search of treasure. Also, it's way more fun than a board game should be. I'm serious, it's obnoxious fun.

I mention this because one of the Unlockables (I love the way Evil Hat runs Kickstarters) is a Dinocalypse Expansion Pack....based on Dinocalypse Now, which you may remember is the book (the first of a series) that I edited. I really want to see this expansion happen.

DexCon happens later this week, and I've got two events on the docket:

1. The $1,000 Nights Black Agents Tournament -- Saturday afternoon, Ken Hite (he wrote the game Nights Black Agents) and I will put 30 superspies (including Sydney Bristow, Jack Bauer, Sean Connery, Ethan Hunt and someone named 'Codename Mario') through a gauntlet of challenges and scenarios as they attempt to confront a Conspiracy of supernatural horror and world-in-danger-ness.

2. The Writing Workshop At DexCon -- This panel is Sunday morning at 10am (NOT AT MIDNIGHT!! YAY!!) and I'll be speaking for about 2 hours on: "The -ations: Getting Your Project Off The Ground" as well as answering your questions about writing, editing and developing novels, games, and anything with words.

Aside from that, I'll be around all Convention (at Ken's panel Friday Morning, all over the Con all weekend, holding a discussion-breakfast Sunday morning pre-writing workshop (details will be on Twitter), so if you're in the area, come say hello!

Turning Obstacles Into Cheerleaders

Imagine this scene - You want to produce a play or write a book or paint or learn how to tattoo or make jewelry....something that is fun and rewarding but hardly super lucrative. Maybe you want to be an editor or play some role in the game design field. You'll be happy, you'll have fun, but you won't be swimming in a money vault anytime soon. And maybe upon the announcement that you're going down this new path, a whole chorus of voices is going to pop up and express their disappointment, or their doubts or their fears or guilt that you're doing something "not on the plan". Hearing these voices, seeing their faces, realizing that while you're doing this creative thing you aren't at some other job, or you're not working with a whole lot of security or wealth options,  you get scared and call yourself "stuck" and don't do anything.

That scene, in some way/shape/form happens to everyone who wants to deviate from the path other people have laid out before them, and everyone who wants to do their own thing, be they recent college graduates, new parents, new creatives or newly awoken from the Matrix. 

Lots of people feel "stuck", which is just another word, a more muted word for "afraid". 

It's time to get unstuck. 

Now I can talk about this because I've been stuck before, and was often stuck for years on end, so it's not like I'm speculating here. I'll spare you the grim personal details (they're more boring than melodramatic), but really it just comes down to some fears, which I'll talk about first, then I'll talk about the solution I found -- it may not be your solution, but maybe in my sharing it, you'll find your own solution.

So here now are some of the fears that get you "stuck":

Fear of Rejection -- Whenever we do something that goes out into the world and other people have the opportunity to see it, it is possible that some people may not like it. And from that idea of "some people", we explode and expand it to all people, so basically "everyone" hates that thing you did. You start thinking to yourself "No one's going to like this/ buy this / enjoy this / watch this / read this, so why the hell do I even bother doing it?" And then you don't do it. 

Fear of Exposure -- If you're doing something, maybe a group project on a job, or maybe something with some partners, or you're doing something with a hint of competition, you might run the risk of "being exposed", which is a nice way of saying "People are going to figure out that I'm not as good at this as other people. They're going to see I suck." so either you don't contribute or you pipe down about your contributions and play a bit part. You hold yourself back, sometimes going so far as to say that if you didn't, people would see how much better you are at this, and think you're an arrogant jerk. 

Fear of Disappointing Others -- If you go do this creative thing, there's a possibility your spouse/significant other/children/co-workers/friend(s)/loved ones/parents may not like it. They may scoff and tell you that with every step you take away from some other course of action, you're failing them. So, in order not to avoid letting these people you love down (because you're not supposed to let them down, right?), you don't do the thing you want to do.

Fear of Failure -- Sure you might go do something, but you might suck at it. Your products may not sell, people may hate you, they may sue you when your creation doesn't do what they thought it would, they may chase you out of town with pitchforks and fire....so to avoid the inevitable fall of Camelot, you don't undertake that creative endeavor. 

I'm sure there are loads more fears out there, but these are the ones I can speak of from personal experience. But, if you're following me on Twitter or reading this blog, you've likely noticed that I am currently not-stuck in any facet of my life. Now before you get mad that there's some sort of sorcery afoot, let me tell you that there's two things I'm doing:

a. I'm not giving up

b. I'm turning obstacles into cheerleaders.

I think we can all understand not giving up. I'm a stubborn, obnoxious, bristly person at times, and when I lock onto something (a project, a goal, a desire) I do not easily let it go. And often I remove the chance to give up by running down the goal at a jillion miles an hour so there's no hope of me slamming on the brakes and giving into the above-described fears. When there's something you want to do, you just can't give up. How else were you planning on getting the results you want?

As for that second bit, I can't take credit for it. I learned it from an Australian DJ once. So just imagine item (b) with an Australian accent. (for the curious, it's something like 'Opstackels inna chairliters, mate') It refers to the idea that when you're surrounded by a crowd of doubt (real or imagined, actual people or just thoughts), you can turn that negative into a positive -- you can make those fears into motivators.

Sure the easy way is to take on the fear as a challenge and say, "Oh yeah? Watch me!" and then you sort of compete against your fear, proving it wrong as you go forward. There's nothing actually wrong with that, but it's way draining to sit there and have to prove something to the people you love or the faceless "audience". 

I say skip the competition. Involve those that hate or dismiss in your efforts, or cut them out entirely. There's even a John Rule (#6) about it: "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."

Okay, not everything's a joke, but you can just swap out "joke" for "success", because to them, the possibility of your success may be a joke. If people are really committed to disliking your work or your efforts, no amount of success-in-their-face is going to dissuade them. You could offer favors, barter, beg, give them whatever profit you make, you could give them the moon and stars, and they'll still not like your stuff. Hell, some people won't even LOOK AT your stuff and they'll dismiss it like you just pooped on the Thanksgiving turkey.

Turning an obstacle into a cheerleader isn't magic, or a trick or even manipulative. You don't even have to talk to that obstacle at all for this to work. You just need to do the following:

i. Complete your project

ii. Be excited/happy about your project

iii. Share your project with interested people

iv. Repeat i - iv.

Rather than deal with the haters, the doubters and those who would guilt you, find the people who would support you. (You may call them "friends"). If you can't find someone to support you (now admittedly I'm assuming that your creative endeavor doesn't include making sacrifices to pagan gods, kidnapping babies from hospitals, robbing the elderly or kicking puppies), I'll support you, just send me an email with 'Support Me!" in the subject line (seriously, try it out.)

Let's look at the steps.

i. Complete your project - This will abolish that fear of failure, because if something's done, you haven't failed at it. You did it. It's the total opposite of failing. 

ii. Be excited/happy about your project - This will nuke that fear of exposure, because if you're happy, there's nothing to expose. What are people going to do, be happy with you? Your excitement is a powerful infection vector, and your job is to share your Outbreak monkey with the world. 

iii. Share your project with interested people - This will crush the other fears because people who like the thing you do aren't going to reject it (or you) nor will they be disappointed because you're giving them something they like. Key here is "interested", so it helps to know a little about the sort of people you want to see your completed project (this is also called 'knowing your audience').

iv. Repeat steps - Originally this idea was "Repeat as needed", but "needed" says to me that you don't always want to share cool things with cool people, and I've never met a situation where cool people didn't want cool things. Also, by repeating these steps you're creating a new path of thoughts in your brain (that thing you're in charge of) and training yourself to accept a new philosophy, one built on being happy and loving yourself for your successes, not living in fear of not-succeeding. 

If you do these things, and you don't half-ass them, the things (the doubts, the people) who oppose (or who you believe oppose) you will transform into people who support you. I didn't believe this at first, and thought  I had just found a Jedi Mind Trick (this is not the failure you're looking for)...but really what I had stumbled into was a universal truth.

Here's the universal truth, as I've found it -- Your loved ones just want you to be happy and successful. They're going to have their own views of success, as tempered and developed by their experiences, but their experiences aren't your experiences, so they're going through this with you (sometimes for the first time) too. If you show them the positives (the happiness, the success, the pleasure), they'll support you. The people who bitch or dislike what you're doing? They just wish they had the courage to do the same, or they're mad because your success (even your efforts) has challenged their world view that you-can't-succeed-and-be-happy-it's-one-or-the-other. And since people don't like getting their views challenged, they fight back.

So for me, it was my family and my relationships. I thought that if I really committed to doing what I wanted to do, they'd hate me for it. Now, yes, some of those relationships did hate me for it (because I didn't have to commute to work, and because I didn't/don't deal with projects that aren't interesting, because I'm going after my dreams rather than sitting in a crappy job or that I'm doing, rather than thinking/wishing/envisioning, what I want). But my family, they just wanted to make sure I had enough money to get by in the world and that I wasn't killing myself a minute at a time in some depressed state. 

And every other fear lived in my head. I fostered these thoughts by being sort of a dick to people and making really bad choices that led to crappy consequences because I was more interested in appearing "the way other people do" rather than just being me. Now, looking at everything, it is SO MUCH easier to be me, and I'm way happier.

Does this system eliminate all the obstacles? Nope. I still run into bills that need to pay, clients that need to pay me, weird situations that I can't fix, and roadblocks to awesome that are out of my hands (like seriously, I can't do anything about the factory in Singapore going on strike and therefore not producing ink). But I'm able to get past the obstacles because I'm doing what I love, so as long as I can do that, I get sort of Teflon-y and everything slides off. 

No ink? That's cool, I'll just work on the digital version.

No extra cash to take a lady to dinner? No problem, let's just stay in and cook. 

Company X didn't send me a check? Company A, B, C and D did though, so it's alright.

I leave you with this. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlBiLNN1NhQ

and 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bta00Hp4gho

Happy writing.

Writing/Gaming - Show versus Tell

Time for a classic debate. Time for some good ol' fashioned barroom brawling over what-to-do-when-and-what's-better. Time to roll up our sleeves and get really INTO our work.

Today we're talking Show versus Tell.

I haven't brought this up on the blog before, but I think it's time. Now I'm going to come at this first for the book people but then for the game people, because while many of those elements overlap, the game design aspects have a spin on them that changes the nature of the debate. Let's introduce the sides of the debate...

Show 
This is more explicative, and treats the reader as more of a current viewer of the story. Also, this gives the reader the sense that the story is unfolding AS they read it, which helps make them feel like they're more a part of the story, and they enjoy it more, so they read more, so in theory if you've written more, they'll buy more. This is also a slower approach to developing characters, scenes, settings, and actions.

Were I to show you what I'm doing now, I have the option of treating your eyes like a film camera and zoom you all the way in to show you my fingers striking the keys on my awesome ergonomic keyboard. Or I might show you the room I'm writing in, describing it as the stunt double of a book and game store right now. Or I might start you in from above the scene, and sweep you into the office via the window, past the curtains and in over my shoulder to watch me write this sentence.

Regardless of how I choose to do it, the important thing is that the action and the character and nature of what's going on is unfurling around you in a relative real-time. I'm showing you that I'm writing this, because...that's what I'm doing now. I'm showing you the laundry basket of clothes I need to sort together for this weekend, because it's relevant to the distracting thought I'm having while I write.

Remember Rule #1 - Writing is the act of making decisions. And I, the author, am deciding to give you a view of the action AS it happens, so that you feel like a part of it, so that you can take advantage of all the details I'm providing, so that you have the most complete picture on your mental canvas.

Showing can consume more space, use more details, take more time and tax a writer more (because there's more work to do) than Telling, but the payoff is greater. Even on a egoic sense, through good use of Showing I can show-off (see what I did there?) my ability to write pretty sentences or describe things really well or demonstrate just how much "in charge" I am while you're reading.

Tell
Telling is more direct, but it does require the assumption that the reader trust the author. The author is giving specific details and specific explanations of details so that the reader knows what went on and what is on-going. It's a little more clinical, but also more subjective (if the voice doing the telling is biased or unclear or not omnipresent).

If I were going to tell you what I'm doing now, I can start in any fashion I want - If I want to set a tone that I dislike my work or my day or whatever, I can tell you that detail while I tell you what I'm doing. I also don't have to describe or paint any picture outside the relevant facts to what I want - When I tell you that I'm really sort of worried about X because of Y reason, I don't need to involve the awesome description of the wind chimes out the window if I don't want. (Remember, decisions)

Also, telling compresses time. It's fast-forwarding through actions you may not want to dive into, it's speeding through the lulls in action. This is particularly true if you go so far as to tell me that time has passed. (Two months went by...)

Telling allows the world to pass by, change, develop and grow outside of the bubble of the story, which we can cut back to when the action/story/drama/stuff resumes.

So What's All The Fuss About?
People, books, careers and media outlets make a huge fuss over showing and not telling. Yes, it's a problem. Yes, it's something a writer should be aware of. Yes it often requires a writer work harder to paint the picture for rather that telling me about the picture they're seeing.

Telling when you should be showing IS NOT a sign of a "wrong" writer. It's a mistake, for sure, but it's not enough to ban you from all forms of communication and shun you to some weird leper colony.

Like so many things, there should be a balance between the two -- you shouldn't be all one-or-the-other, and I'd be a little leery of anyone who advocates so strongly to exclude one side too often.

There are going to be things you tell, and things you show, and it's important that you figure out which is which in your story.

What Can I Do?
If you're expecting a checklist here, there isn't one. I'm sorry. But since we're all telling stories differently, the checklist is too circumstantial. But what I can tell you to look for are some key elements:

1. How close (or far away) do I want the reader to be in this scene? Do I want them over the shoulder of a particular character? Do I want them floating above the entire scene? Where do I want them focused?
2. What's important in this scene? Is it one character more than another? Is it the environment around them? Is it some tension that's conveyed without speaking?
3. What comes AFTER this particular scene? Where are we going from here? Do I have to ratchet up the emotion/action to get things rolling forward? How can I help this scene go into the next one?
4. What do I want the reader to take away from this scene when they're done? Should they have gained plot-critical information? Should they get some character-developing info? Are they just going to read that same description about the same chair over and over? Is anything new here?

In a later post I'll likely explore specific examples of each. Right now, authors, tell your stories. Get them all out of your heads, past the scratch notebooks and into some drafts. Just produce material for now. There's a whole other round of editing and developing that can happen AFTER you get the story out. But that's later....go tell me the story first.

Authors, happy writing.

Gamers, you're up.

For you, this debate has all the elements discussed above with the added issue of mechanics.

Because a game has to on some level be instructional, and teach the players what they can do, mechanics have to SHOW you HOW and TELL you WHAT.

Show me (the player) how to adjudicate different situations. Do I roll dice? Which dice? Show me the examples.

Tell me how to handle combat. Is there one mechanic I apply repeatedly? Are there steps? What am I allowed to do? What can't I do? (And why, don't forget the why).

There's still a blend required, still a balance to strike in the economy of show-and-tell, but you can use the mechanics as a lens and a bridge to walk the reader/player through the base of the story so the players can expand it as they see fit -- and yes, you do have to let them.

(Note - I really thought it would take me longer to say all that, but I'm satisfied.)

Happy writing.

Writing/Gaming - Roles!

So somewhere on the internet right now, a lot of people are very very upset about the loss of "roles" as a component to the next edition of Dungeons and Dragons.

Oh right....yeah...disclaimer time....


DISCLAIMER! This post is going to start off a little nerdy, but I promise you, it'll get back on track shortly, just ride the dork-wave back to shore. 

Now in the 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons, there are these things called "roles", which were card-based pieces of organizational material that helped players figure out what their characters could and couldn't do. (Yes, gamers, I'm way simplifying that for the reading audience, but today's post isn't ALL about gaming.)

And that is a terrible idea.

Your Character Is Not A Note Card
Let's try an experiment. Go get your favorite book and go get a note card. If you really want to, go get the HUGE note card that your grandmother used to keep track of what pies she had to make for which social event, you know, those big huge ones that are practically half a page unto themselves.

Now, label the note card with the name of the book's protagonist, or your favorite character or the antagonist or whatever - just write down a character's name. And then all over that note card, I want you to write down all the relevant NOT-BIOGRAPHICAL facts about the character. This isn't a space for a history of their life, this is where you can write down a list of their attributes and qualities, write down their skills and what makes them awesome, write down any relevant story actions (like "saved a cat out of a tree" or "totally defeated the bad guy in Book 2").

It doesn't have to be pretty, it just has to be a list. Here, I'll do one too with the first thing I grab off the shelf -- The Complete Third Season of Night Court (what, you guys don't have DVDs on a shelf in your office?) And from that cast of characters (which I own strictly for research purposes, I swear), let's look at Harry Anderson's character of Judge Harry Stone.

Judge Harry Stone

He's a Judge

Comedic

Caring

Tall

Likes magic

Only child, broken family

Unlucky in love

That list has left my indie-gaming-senses tingling, because from that list (which I know is totally incomplete), I can generate a lot of Aspects (FATE), points (GUMSHOE) and verbs (Technoir).

But by no means did that list of seven lines sum up the character that is Harry Stone. And at no time should anyone think that a well-defined character can be completed summarized by half a note card. Yes, sure, we can do our best to find the right words that cover the most real estate of who the character is and what they stand for, but at some point, we cross a threshold of who they are and what they do.

You Are Not Your Khaki Pants
One of my great peeves in writing and gaming is that people have characters and define them by what they do. "Oh, he's a wizard, so he's some sort of Gandalf clone with a great sagely beard and staff." or "He's a detective, so he has to be a boozy, plodding womanizer."

This is where roles are more harm than good.

There's nothing wrong in summing up what a character CAN do in a few words or sentences - it's nice and helps other characters know how best to coordinate and collaborate. But there is a difference between "can" and "only".

If you've got a character with one particular skill, let's say they're the best chef in the county, are you only going to put them in situations where cooking is what gives them an edge? How many times are you going to imperil them with a mega-dangerous chili cook-off?

Just because a character has a go-to skill, it doesn't mean they have ONLY that skill. Come back a minute to the best chef in the county. Sure, they make a mean lunch, but cooking also means they know how to boil water, work a knife and prepare lots of different dishes. "Cooking" is a broad term for a whole suite of skills.

So too must the role of the character be bigger than their best or strongest skill and attribute. It's that fixed thinking that they're all one-trick ponies that developed the great cliches and tropes of our time:

Barbarians are stupid, fur-wearing, berserker thugs.
Blondes are stupid.
Women are secondary citizens, good only for birthing babies
Librarians are dotty old ladies.
No McFly ever amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley.
Clerics are just walking first aid kits.
All detectives need to have a drinking problem
Brown-skinned people are property and inferior.
Every cop is either on the take, or they're the only good cop in a world gone bad.
Wearing a hoodie makes you a criminal.
To work in a cafeteria, you must have at least three moles with hair on them.
Bad guys will always tell you their plan just before leaving you cornered in an easily-escaped trap

When crafting a character, it is paramount that you get away from these thoughts and craft a character that exists OUTSIDE of these structures, not in defiance of them (because a defiance-built character is just a one-trick pony in the opposite direction).

So What Is My Role?
Gamers, your role is to participate at the table. Gamers, your character's role is to make the game enjoyable for the people to your left and right.

Writers, your role is to produce the best story possible and practice your craft to the best of your ability.

That's it. No pigeon-holing. No limitations. No restrictions based on personality, preference, or philosophy.

Gamers: Don't let your characters be pigeon-holed by anyone, anything or any arbitrary or capricious sentiment. Note: This is NOT permission to act bat-squeak insane all the time, but this is a permission slip and big thumbs-up to acting how the character would, based on philosophy, desires and interests.

Writers: Don't let the characters lapse from your creations into the commonplace templates of your literary forebears. Let them stand out, in their own ways, as you intended.

And with that definition of 'role' in use, that can never be taken out of a game. (Just like it never should have been adjudicated in the first place.)

Happy writing.

Writing/Gaming - Hooks!

What's a hook?

It's a critical pirate element.
It's one half of Velcro Theory.
It's also what gamers need to feel like what they do matters at the table, that it's not just rolling dice, scribbling pencils and a way to spend an evening at a friend's house.

What I'm going to talk about today is types of hooks (for different types of players) and how to figure out how to hook whoever you have at your table (or your future audience).

Now, a disclaimer - I broke gamer-types up into 4 types, just for the ease of writing this blog post, it is BY NO MEANS CONCLUSIVE. I just picked 4 because 4-is-a-nice-number-that-satisfies-my-OCD-eccentricities-no-don't-make-that-face. You may not have ANY of these players at your table or in mind for your audience, and if you have a group that isn't listed here, leave a comment below and/or send me an email, I'll do a follow-up.

I'm supposing here that you're designing your own game, or you've recently picked up a new game and you want to bring players into it.

What do I do for a new player, someone whose never played this game (or any game like it)?

For new players you want to create what I call 'Hooks of Ease'. Regardless of whether or not the player has ever played a game before, you want to make sure that this experience (the experience of playing YOUR game) is easy, so that they come back, or want to play it more.

Hooks of Ease are anything that makes play EASY to do, EASY to understand and EASY to repeat. On a mechanical level, this may be reflected in a lack of complexity or in a straightforward and unvarying checklist of steps.

Example: The GUMSHOE engine uses a six-sided die, terming a roll of 1-3 a failure and 4-6 a success. 
Example #2: Most board games have a roll dice/spin the wheel mechanic that doesn't change as play advances. 

Hooks of Ease are anything (mechanical, narrative, etc) that create a sense that "I can do this", because encouraging action is the first step to securing enjoyment and immersion. People like to do things (and repeatedly do them) if the task was not complicated, produced a result without too much effort and had a benefit for them.

The vulgar version of this is "If they get it, they'll do it, and want to do it again."

What about rules lawyers who are used to a very literal interpretation and strictly go by-the book?

I know, they're tough. I play with a few, and they can leech the fun out of the room faster than a bad cabbage fart.

The first step is realizing that for ANY type of "difficult" player, you have to remember you are NOT at their mercy. They are not the boss of you, and you cannot let their existence act like an unseen hand in crafting the overall game. In short, you're not playing FOR the rules lawyers of the world, they just happen to be a part of it, like midgets, clowns or the strange guy at the supermarket who talks to the produce as he bags it.

Chances are the rules lawyer is looking for control of the experience. In bad cases, this means they want to be "the guy" at the table (this is not a sexist thing, you can be "the lady" too), meaning all the plot and the decisions of the table go through them. This is likely because outside the game they're unhappy with something, and in this fun-time, they get to correct their unhappiness, even if they do so somewhat obliviously to how the rest of the table may feel about their bluster and possibly douchebaggery.

Hooking the rules lawyer involves Hooks of Consequence. This isn't consequence like punishment, more like an understanding of Newtonian laws -- what the players do will generate reactions/ripples within the world. Knowing that following the rules and still creating good experiences will pacify even the most crusty of rulesmongers.

Narratively, this applies as well. When the player cries foul because the NPC has done X Y or Z, which may be mechanically supported, but not what they're counting on having happen because it means the player(s) (read: they as individuals above all) won't "win", point to the actions that caused the response -- and take note that their narrative argument, the fact that they're bitching at all about what's done, has proven them to be engaged.

Note -- Just remember you don't have to cow to the rules-lawyer or rules-lawyer-bully both at your table and as a designer. Stand up, put down those things at the ends of your legs (we call them feet) and have fun, above all else. 

What about the other end of the spectrum, the player who isn't so rules conscientious? 

Someone who's just sort of at the table, interested in having a good time but not too terribly invested in knowing that the particular combat mechanic is on page 44, second column 3rd paragraph, or that you can't roll d10 for damage with a short sword, is a good person to have a table, because like the new people, they're often malleable. (Unlike the aforementioned rules-lawyer or the later discussed jaded player who both may just be curmudgeonly or creatively-sedentary). With a good experience you make a light player into someone more serious or more invested, and that's a great thing for your gaming.

What you need to offer them are Hooks of Potential. Like the line in the Aladdin song, you can show them a world...(I'll let you keep singing). By showing that the game has a lot of opportunities to do things (both narrative options in-game and mechanically in-system), you spawn a stream of opportunities and if you pair these with a Hook of Ease, make these opportunities into easy decisions. 


Easy decisions become fun decisions very quickly, because they generate consequences and feedback (Are you starting to see how these things all come together?).

Help! I have jaded players (or "I'm writing a game that has a lot of competition in the marketplace!")

I am apparently, a jaded player. I work in the industry, I write/edit/play games with designers and writers, I play multiple games a week if I'm lucky. No, I'm not bragging - I'm telling you that overexposure has dulled my sense of newness. I don't get all aflutter over prestige classes and skill suites. I'm not entirely too jazzed about a constant evolution and progression of medieval and Renaissance fantasy. This tiredness is what drove me towards "indie" gaming - where settings, mechanics and play types are vast and hugely different from game to game and session to session.

I've asked Mike my GM about this, and he's often expressed a concern that I'm bored with traditional model gaming, and I keep telling him I'm not. It's not the game itself (because that's inert), it's how it gets developed at the table. This is the attitude I want to impart to all the designers who think about their game getting into the hands of people who have played more than half their lives or who are developers themselves. What brings the jaded to your game with a spark and interest is a Hook of Demonstration. When they see the game DO something, handle something mechanically, resolve a crisis narratively, introduce elements a certain way, they will sit up and take notice.

This is what happened to me at my first Dresden Files RPG game - I arrived early, and was still eating my turkey club. The GM (not Mike, this was another group) laid out the books and gave each player a legal pad. No dice yet. Just pad and pencil. He also didn't let me crack open the books. Now, this was not typical of this group, who normally get very handsy with materials.

The rest of the players arrived and we got started. And our GM led us through City Creation. (We made some sort of amalgam between Newark, Elizabeth and Hoboken with a smattering of Atlantic City and Cape May -- very different cityscapes within NJ). We consulted no charts, we made no rolls. We did however do a lot of Googling and Wikipedia reading (yes, it's a credible source! Ask your local rockstar librarian!).

I took notice because this allowed me to combine my passions - storytelling, writing, creating with gaming into a new synthesis of awesome. I was no longer jaded (and many months later enjoy the game still).

So we have Hooks of Potential (show them what the game can do), Hooks of Consequence (show them that what THEY do has ramifications, responses and reactions), Hooks of Ease (that it's not hard to try/do these things), and Hooks of Demonstration (show them how the game does something in a way that others don't).

Remember: Hooks are not only mechanical, but can and should also be narrative tools as well. Remember also it is the combination of narrative and mechanics that create the game experience.

Happy (game) writing.

What Dreamation Taught Me About Writing, Editing and Business

This weekend, I attended Dreamation. Similar in some regards to Metatopia, this was a much bigger and broader-themed event, tending to be more about playing games and LARPing, rather than designing them, improving them or making an industry rock. 

But it was a good experience on the whole, and I come back to the blog a little dehydrated and sleep-deprived, but a little more savvy than when I was last here. I'd like to share some observations I made.

1. I am 100,000% doing the right thing by shifting my focus more and more into helping game designers and moving out of less-than-satisfying "traditional" novel-editing experiences. Yes, the game industry pays about half (or less) than the usual editing rate, but the upside of it is a far better experience and better turnaround. I know that I can expect quality and commitment from the jump in gaming (I might just be lucky and be surrounded by the greatest people and have the best experiences), and that there's very little to none of the "throw-the-editor-under-the-bus syndrome" I see in traditional publishing. I'm still getting my feet under me as an industry editor, and working on my tone has SUPER helped, (as have many other changes), but I really feel good about this move. The lesson here - It's totally awesome to pursue what you love to do (editing for me) in a field you love to be a part of (gaming).

2. Even at midnight, with very little buzz, I can turn out one hell of a seminar. If I were to speak ill of Dreamation, it's that I shuffled off to one side. I'm not saying I need or warrant celebrity status, and this is not me playing the don't-you-know-who-I-am card, this is me saying that I deserve the same opportunity, and the same publicity as anyone else who's put together a presentation or a game or a whatever. A midnight to 3am slot Friday night into Saturday is great if we're all hopped up on Red Bulls and we're seventeen and the world is our oyster. But that's not the case.

I understand the issue - that people shouldn't have to choose between a passive sit-in-a-chair panel and an active game experience, and I respect that, but...what about the people who actually wanted a panel? I don't teach...basket-weaving, I help people write better, and that's not a very passive experience for them when I take questions throughout the seminar and give people really (well, I think) practical advice in a palatable way.

So ok, I had to jump on Twitter and do some in-person leg work to get people in seats. Yeah it was super late and people were super tired. But I had quite a few people (a lot of them shocked I was actually doing something both at the hour and about the topic) who I think really benefited from it.

The lesson here - I don't mind doing the legwork to promote myself (I'm always happy to talk about myself, even if I have to work on my tone while I do it), but more important is the idea and actions to back up that I deserve the fair shake. I am good "enough"/ capable "enough" to do what I do, regardless of hour or audience. 

3. When I feel passionate about something, I should commit fully to it. I have a deep love affair with a game called "Night's Black Agents" that runs about as deep for my love of superheroes, Doctor Who, the Dresden Files and peanut butter. I did my best to squeeze a 4-hour game into a 2-hour slot with a group about 3 players too large...and the results were not (in my opinion) the best. Yes, people had fun, but my concern is that they walked away from it with entirely the wrong sort of feeling for the tone of the game. Oh, and I'm way rusty on running a game. The plus side here? The brownies we ate were delicious. The lesson here - Had I just had trusted myself to do a better job, had I been a little more confident in something not-editing/writing, I could have asked for a slot to play the game, and really made a good show of it. Confidence and passion are going to carry me far, when I admit them and let them help rather than hold me back.

4. When in doubt, I need to go back to "fun". I can, at times, take myself way too seriously. (See the above item where I just bitched that perhaps people didn't play a game the way I thought they would). Sure, sometimes the world is all serious-and-business-face, but other times the world is all goofy fun with loud obnoxious barking laughs and imagination and helping each other have a good time. I didn't play many games this weekend, both because I didn't want to expose myself to "con crud" (happy to report that aside from tiredness and dehydration, I'm healthy) and also because nothing really jumped out at me - because I was taking myself WAY too seriously. The games I did play (Champions of Midralon, Technoir) were AMAZINGLY FUN TIMES, once I lightened up. The lesson - Stopping and laughing and enjoying myself is NOT an indication that I'm incapable of hard work, or somehow showing disrespect to the people who pay me to help them. I'm allowed to take days off and relax.

Okay, I've got about 70 pages left to edit today, so I'm wrapping up this post here.

Tomorrow, we'll talk about cliffhangers, ribbon endings and how to tie pieces together.

Happy writing.

PS - I've started using a new hashtag on Twitter lately "#helpushelpyou" aimed at freelancers to give advice to future clients/employers on how we can all make our lives easier working together. I strongly recommend it.

Writing/Gaming - Character 101 - Part 4 - Morality

Good morning everyone. We're continuing Character 101 today, so if you need to catch up on the previous posts, go here and here and here.

Today's a little crunchy, so you might want to get a glass of water and read this a few times.

We've so far looked at what can best be described as external qualities. We've talked about the world, some character description and some character abilities. Let's get into this though, let's be serious about our craft and our characters and make these creations live and breathe. I mean, you don't have to, but I think it'll help you out.

Today's Character 101 rule can be expressed like this:

A clear and distinct morality, set of principles and philosophy that an audience can see tested and explained throughout the story

Keywords:

• clear and distinct morality
• set of principles and philosophy
• audience sees it tested and explained THROUGHOUT the story

When I was a young writer, I was mentored and taught by a great man, fiercely brilliant, absolutely not governed at all by anything other than his own rules and one of the most encouraging teachers I've ever experienced. He's long dead now, but this lesson, and most of Character 101 is my homage to him.


We start with a quote of his.
"Characters have beliefs; even if they are not expressed by the author or conceived of in great detail there exists within each character a philosophy, even if that character is built with a single purpose or for a single instance. "


What I didn't understand about that quote, where the magic trick is in that quote is the idea that characters have beliefs even if I (the guy who wrote the character) didn't flesh them out.

Hearing that as a punk kid, that sounded stupid. Characters are things I made up, right? They occupy the spaces I give them, do what I tell them? Sure, they can do that. They can be puppets who follow scripts and linear actions like stiff automatons. And when you're a bit of a control freak, or scared to do anything other than express control, that's great for characters.

Move your chess pieces. Watch them dance on your strings.

Over time, with practice, with experience, with heartache, with passion, you don't have to control them. They're more than just extensions of a single part of your personality or just creations who follow some simple program. They are partly fueled by your imagination, and when you take that off the leash, you'll be amazed by what you can discover characters do.

I didn't get that when I younger. It sounded florid and spacy and I probably said it was "kinda gay". And then I grew up and learned that there's more to writing than sitting in place and typing for six hours, but also that there's nothing less than that too.

That quote clicked for me when I was reading a comic book. I was upset, I was alone, I was pissed off, and I was reading Batman. And for whatever reason, perhaps because it was a visual medium, there was more said in a look between characters than you can ever do in a block of text.

It was like the story was occurring even when I wasn't reading the comics. Like the characters had things happening while I was reading Superman, watching TV or wishing I was anywhere other than where I was.

Big click.

When that quote says“explained” it certainly does NOT mean that the simple statement of beliefs is given in exposition, although there are times when it can be advantageous, depending on style or nuance -- But you don't have to have some big block of text saying "THIS IS WHAT I BELIEVE IN" because you're supposed to be better than that.

Leave it for dialogue; leave it for the emotions and subtext. Making it too clear, too visible, when the story by nature does not support it, cheapens it. It turns characters, who you create to be as close or better than humans you co-exist with, into caricatures and parody. And in gaming for example, it makes you sound like one of those bad RPGs where people only can say things like "It is nice day here yes in City?" and other Engrish.

No genre is spared the necessity of characters with morals. Not even in the most lowbrow crude comedy is there a character devoid of ambition based on a belief, even if that belief is something as small and finite as “I’m going to lose my virginity before the end of the school year.”



Everyone believes in something. Figure out what, and you'll also discover how to express that belief to the audience.

So, the question then becomes, how do you create that morality? How do we develop philosophies for characters?

Here are two methods, described below:

Actions -> Reasons for Actions -> Philosophy

(What)      (Why Do The What)      (What Gets Believed)

&

Stated belief > Action in defense of position

(Say It)             (Do Something About It)

First we have an action-oriented approach, something that works best for characters of  small purpose or minimal import. By looking at their actions, we can develop reasons for the actions, and from those reasons, create a philosophy.

The guy/NPC/background mook who cheers on the heroes during a fight, does it because it shows that the heroes have support. The random person who tells the detective something in passing that resonates seven chapters later. That's an action provoked by a reason that in turn becomes a philosophy. 



This is a clear, causal relationship that we can understand especially when not all characters have more than one or two things to do or say.

However, as we add complexity and depth to the characters and situations those characters find themselves in, we must shift from the clear A to B progression and try the reverse: that a stated belief leads to an action.

While this is more complex in a writing capacity, it is more intuitive as people, because we interact with people based on their statements and pursuant to their actions.


You go out with the guy because he makes you laugh because he does what he says he does. You married your spouse because she made you feel something positive on a consistent basis. You hang out with those people because you all share a hobby or believe in the same principles. You think that librarian is great because they helped you when no one else would even give you ten seconds of attention.

You decide what you believe in, then you go do something about it. (Here again, we see Rule #1 - Writing Is The Act of Making Decisions) If you do it, the character(s) can do it.

To reach these decisions, you must BE the character, giving them full faculties and capabilities independent of the story and the context of the story. Yes, you can argue that it is the story that shapes them, therefore you must put them into context, HOWEVER you must divorce the character from the story and the plot when you create the character. The proximity to the current story, and the temptation to use current-story material is too great a risk for the writer: how easily our characters become malleable when viewed only in the current plot.

Because our characters are our reflections, shadows and desires put into text, we must make all efforts to see them as living breathing beings that only happen to exist in our minds. I am not advocating schizophrenia, but rather a full-fledged imaginative experience, creating an idea so complex and rich with detail that it exists for more reasons than a single plot warrants.

Remember: This is a cooperative process, a great contract you’ve entered into with your reader, so please, do your part and make your end as interesting and exciting as possible.


Gamers embody this in the most obvious of ways, assuming to even ACT as the characters to drive the interactions. I do think writers would be well-served to try a little role-play now and then...and if not, at least go talk to people who excite you about whatever you love. It's a lot easier to do this when you're fired up than when you're dreading it.


So what can you do about it? Have you ever tried writing down what you believe in? Get that legal pad, get to writing. Do the same thing for the big characters. Try to do it for the small characters, even if it's just one line (the politician wants to win the election at all costs, the grocer wants to retire happy) related to the plot. The more you can list, the richer that character becomes and the less 'like a character' they are.


I end today with another quote (Sid had great quotes)

"Characters, John, are what we have when we're not thinking about what WE can do but what WE want to make happen."


Happy writing. Enjoy your weekends.