Emily Care Boss, is a professional in forestry, and a trail blazer in indie game design. She has done something that nobody before her has really done well; that is to make not one but, three rpgs about love and relationships with the Romance Trilogy. To be clear, there have been attempts all the way back to the hoary days of 1980's D&D to gamify sex, with tables to randomly define brothels, types of prostitutes, tables for physical assets, and chances of as well as effects of pregnancy on characters. Other games have dealt with it in their own systems, and whole manuals have been made to bring every deviant and perverse activity to your simulationist gaming table. Boss, has (I like to think) burned all of them down by actually making love and relationships the thing the mechanics are about and making the gamified porn irrelevant.
Why does this matter? Aside from the fact that it is a really innovative piece of creative art in gaming by demonstrating clever ways to solve a problem (what to do when you don't want to murder-hobo), she demonstrates that another problem (why aren't there more women in gaming?) might be solved by appealing to other realms of human experience.
I really love the kind of output by the indie game community, because, while I was on a gaming hiatus during the years of the Forge, I nonetheless was on my lonesome trying to puzzle out other ways of telling stories through games, and asking questions; how could I get past the grind of die rolling in a fight to get to what the meaning of the fight was narratively? How could I get to the grit of risk without having to deal with pages (and many procedural minutes) of consulting tables? How could I make the psychological, social, and spiritual harm of a life of murder-hoboing have real meaning in the game? How could I make the flaws of a character something that the player did not compete against, but relish to season a story? My questions have multiplied since my fairly recent resurgence into gaming, and the questions and stories are more interesting than ever.
But the flip side of the indie community is the repellent and overwhelming commitment by so many of the designers that I really respect creatively, to the leftist political dogmas of "social justice". In fact, it is so common that, I have often felt (*gasp!*) marginalized, or triggered by the unquestioning rhetoric and invective that flies just because I don't agree with the intellectual premises upon which those views rest. That merely questioning them has made one of the most prominent indie designers go from calling me "my friend" to a fascist "nincompoop", and a civil question to another whose games I really love leading to a near hysterical screed about ignorance and hate on my part demonstrates, and yet a third from one of my favorite games continuously demonstrating the very definition of prejudice, racism, and sexism while virtue signalling and demanding that racism, sexism, and prejudice stop makes it clear to me that the indie community is far from being the tolerant safe space that it insists it is.
It really came as a wake up call when while regularly participating in a G+ community, I saw someone who clumsily but not hatefully questioned how realistic it was for a wheelchair bound individual to be the chief engineer on a submarine in a game setting that included lots of dangerous physical risk. It was a question that seemed to me to be mostly a matter of not injecting a little creative story crafting on the part of player and GM, and I really had nothing to say to it. It however quickly invited a dog-pile on the person who asked as a hateful, intolerant, and privileged jerk. Two... only two people bothered to actually address the question intelligently and thoughtfully. One to simply ask why people couldn't just let the fiction allow for that, and just let everybody have the fun they wanted. The other was a woman and an engineer who proceeded to discuss how it might be achieved from a technical perspective. She did not resort to name calling or accusations. The questioner (a very active and regular poster of many amiable discussions) ended up being banned from the community, and the record of the thread deleted entirely. This is exactly the sort of revisionism and heavy handed, echo chamber dogma that the game community does not need.
This dogma is rooted the fashionably left handed theory of intersectionality which some know about and many do not. One wonders... if you are "woke" but don't know it... are you just really dreaming? And if you are aware of the issues as described but question their analysis or demonstrate problems in their assumptions that the advocates deny, are you actually more woke than them? If they demand that you endorse an issue even when the facts are against them, is this actually just an effort to socially put you to sleep so that you can become part of their nightmare? And if questioning, no matter how civil, is prejudicially assumed to be an assault worthy of summary exile, can we even really call it tolerance anymore?
But I digress...
I think it is great that Emily Care Boss has created new ways to play stories. What I question is the assumption that she is a shining figure against the oppression of privilege under the dreadful history of (numerically majority) white males in the hobby of gaming. Was the very cool Mike Pondsmith of Cyberpunk 2020 fame oppressed because he was not a white guy back in 1988 (or before that with his earlier games)? I think not. I think that the truth might be found in a different narrative...
D&D came out of miniatures war gaming. This was a hobby with a long tradition in drawing rooms throughout western Europe (not to be too obvious, but racially mostly white) in the century following the Napoleonic era. War has been, until very recently in the age of increasingly remote warfare, largely conducted by males. As such, miniatures war gaming in the west is probably most likely to have been a practice of white males. I suspect that it was of significantly less interest to non-white non-males because it was not so immediately connected to the activity that those other people might be conceivably doing (fighting wars). As such, culturally I daresay that Gary Gygax (a white guy by no choice of his own) living in mid-west America (demographically mostly white) just happened to be interested in zooming in on the stories of individuals on those miniature war game battlefields. Did his race matter? I doubt it... but maybe his social awkwardness that made him prefer indoor war gaming to outdoor team sports did. Had he been from a very wealthy family, perhaps we would not have had D&D because he might have taken up yachting, or collecting Feraris instead. But as a middle class, middle American nerd, he and his friends invented D&D, and other nerds like Greg Stafford brought us other worlds. Numerically, there have always been more white people, so the odds are that there would be more chances of a white person inventing D&D. The fore mentioned Mike Pondsmith, obviously puts paid to the notion that gaming was for white people and took his interest in Japanese anime as well as science fiction, and made a game that has gone on to this day. I don't see him whining about being oppressed.
What I see is a hobby that has begun to refine into an art form, that is barely over four decades old in human history. Leftist thinking is long on empathy, but short on depth in time...
Why has it escaped the left handed thinkers of the indie game community that it is in fact girls who have been role playing as a hobby since time immemorial? The men who took their boyhood imagination with them as adults like Gygax and Stafford, did so perhaps because they were the vestigial ends of a tradition of human warfare, who had less social or athletic prowess than intellectual and imaginative. That many other kinds of people followed that creativity just is. So why have there been fewer girls joining the gaming community in the past or designing games? Maybe because they already were... in different ways. Maybe it took three decades to show us the ends of one way of story telling to raise the question of how to really start asking different questions about how to make games. I believe that Emily Care Boss was one of the original leaders in the Forge, and has a fair bit of status as a designer having been critical in the development of indie thinking. Is she more oppressed, or more privileged? Or is that a stupid question? If one happens not to care for playing an rpg about falling in love, does that make them an oppressive person? Or is it only oppressive to not want to play that game if you happen to be of a particular race or sex, and exercising free agency if you are the other race or sex?
Does Emily Care Boss make interesting, cool, and fun games? That is, I would argue, a better question. I don't care that Emily Care Boss is a female any more than I care that Mike Pondsmith is not white if what I want to do is play a game about love or one about street samurai.
Games should be judged on the merit of the design, not on the color of the designer's skin. Social justice (double-speak by any other name) does not help that.
24 January, 2018
23 January, 2018
More on the Stability of Societies
In thinking about how to attack a stable society, both for serious policy discussion as well as within a game, here are some articles related to the issue.
HERE is the grand old primer on ruthlessness, The Prince. The summary is HERE.
HERE is one of the most poisonous primers for giving a society hell on earth. The summary of Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals is HERE.
HERE is a discussion of how identity politics undermines social unity.
And HERE is a discussion about how we got to this point.
As I noted previously, I have tried to find ways to turn complicated issues into models in order to better be able to understand and articulate them. It has concurred with my game design thinking which, I suppose makes the unpalatable reality less awful to swallow.
But looking at the factors of unity and the things that assault those unifying factors, I have to also think that the more I see calls for growing gaming by being more diverse and more inclusive, the more it occurs to me that the intersectional philosophy of so many talented designers is bad for this as it is bad for the societies that suffer from intersectional division. Not that diversity or inclusion are bad per se. They can be either good or bad depending on what diverse idea you include, and that is the rub... there seems to be a high ideal with a really shoddy understanding of the words that shape the ideas that shape the behavior. But I suppose that begins to deviate toward another discussion, so I will leave this today with the links above.
Those and this thought: we don't need more intersectionalism to bring justice to societies (or games)... we need more fidelity toward objective Truth and it's source, and more love toward all persons. The ruthless division should be reserved for the ideas that we discard.
HERE is the grand old primer on ruthlessness, The Prince. The summary is HERE.
HERE is one of the most poisonous primers for giving a society hell on earth. The summary of Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals is HERE.
HERE is a discussion of how identity politics undermines social unity.
And HERE is a discussion about how we got to this point.
As I noted previously, I have tried to find ways to turn complicated issues into models in order to better be able to understand and articulate them. It has concurred with my game design thinking which, I suppose makes the unpalatable reality less awful to swallow.
But looking at the factors of unity and the things that assault those unifying factors, I have to also think that the more I see calls for growing gaming by being more diverse and more inclusive, the more it occurs to me that the intersectional philosophy of so many talented designers is bad for this as it is bad for the societies that suffer from intersectional division. Not that diversity or inclusion are bad per se. They can be either good or bad depending on what diverse idea you include, and that is the rub... there seems to be a high ideal with a really shoddy understanding of the words that shape the ideas that shape the behavior. But I suppose that begins to deviate toward another discussion, so I will leave this today with the links above.
Those and this thought: we don't need more intersectionalism to bring justice to societies (or games)... we need more fidelity toward objective Truth and it's source, and more love toward all persons. The ruthless division should be reserved for the ideas that we discard.
19 January, 2018
Essential Elements for Stable Civilizations
My single longest game design project has been political.
That is to say, that since 1993, morphing through three different game systems, and seeking inspiration from many others, I have been seeking to make a game about civilizations and politics in order to make it possible to more easily wrap my head around why people (as groups) do what they do. Certainly, all the standard adventure, mystery, and horror stories that have informed my gaming across those years has held my interest. Hero stories are, I believe, essential to inspire living a rich and full life. But heroes do not exist in a vacuum. They live connected to societies, and though they may end up not quite belonging because of their experiences, they are heroes because of what they have sacrificed for their societies. The cowboy, the ronin, the knight errant... these are the essential characters that societies can neither live without, nor allow to live within them. But I am also interested in the drama of humanity, and it is the interplay between societies that has in many ways fueled academic and personal study of history, geography, and culture.
Most of my political reading is poured after the fact into the stew of my game design brain. I am really just trying to make thought models to understand and communicate ideas like serious political scientists, anthropologists, and historians... I just want to have fun with it too.
That said, one of the issues that has simmered over time, is the foundational question:
What is essential to make a group of people draw together and become a cohesive society?
Having revised and revised this list, and pared down continuously over time, I think that the following has sufficiently held up as a rubric in my brain to warrant a formal list (bum, buuumm!).
1) Language
2) Race
3) Religion (or Worldview)
4) Culture
5) Social Structure
6) Strong Government
These are all elements that draw groups of people together, and they go from the most cohesive element to the least. They feed or draw from the other elements up and down the chain, and for every element missing, the society is weaker. From a game design standpoint, they might be viewed as the thing that holds the place of hit points for a society, as they make the society resilient.
Language
This one is the foundation for the rest, since a society that cannot broadly and effectively communicate with itself will fall apart in confusion. Those who have resources (material or immaterial) and know how to speak the language will be able to get things done while those who cannot speak the language will at best be isolated and left to whatever comforts their resources can provide. Thus it is essential that a society be able to speak together from bottom to top and across any functional divisions.
Race
This is the most paradoxical element, being both extremely superficial and at the same time a critically instinctual marker that identifies who is part of the group from who is not. In very basic biological terms, the human animal is distinguished by physical traits of size, shape, and coloration that in simple terms are what we call "race". Those traits provide an easy marker for who is related and who is not, and therefore who is safe and who might not be. As such, this is an element that on it's own, is perhaps the most ingrained to the human animal for bringing together a society. However, as human interaction between races blurs lines, other elements make this potentially a very superficial element if there are explicit mitigating factors to make it so. But lacking those other elements, race is an extremely powerful force for pulling societies into distinct, cohesive groups.
Religion (or Worldview)
This is a powerful element because given the fundamental ability to communicate, the worldview of the society provides the basic thought framework for the beliefs and values the society holds. What they believe to be true and good informs behavior of the individual and the social pressure to reinforce it. The most basic type of worldview is now and has been Religion in one form or another, and this has been the most durable, since religion not only answers where we come from and where we are going also what it all means. Non-religious worldviews have also existed (e.g. communism/Communism) and held together states even when they have not done so as durably as ancient and still extant religions. However, unlike language or race, worldviews may cross groups and provide a unifying force where the others are lacking. I would suggest that lacking the language to communicate however, two groups with a like worldview are more likely to separate for more practical reasons, namely the inability to work out basic things like how to conduct trade among persons, or when one can go to the well.
Culture
This covers the day to day practices that are not necessarily explicitly and exclusively covered under the purview of another element and includes, at least, such things as the clothing, the food, the music, the art, the traditions, and the holidays that a society holds. There is clearly overlap with Religion here, but many things (like chord structure in music) are not addressed in moral or theistic terms, but nonetheless matter to identifying a culture. and culture is very much influenced by it's geography (Polynesians lack the iron culture that the ancient Persians had, but were consummate navigators). I suggest however, that culture is primarily about the hundred comfortable, familiar things that are shared by groups in common which act as a unifying force. Without them, a society has to work harder to come together.
Social Structure
This is about the organization of roles within a society that make it run smoothly as a unit. Who has authority and responsibility over the activity, procedures, and production required to make a large group function over time. It is concerned first with horizontal social relationships, and second with vertical relationships in the society. This element, like race, is a two sided issue and can be either unifying or divisive since it has built into it who has material and social resources. Furthermore, it also overlaps with religion and culture, with those potentially informing roles and responsibilities. If this element is not strong, and the society members feel it is an unfair social structure, then it becomes a liability. Note that a broad range of social structures is possible, and can well include everything from a very egalitarian society in which everyone has some authority in social decisions and shares similar wealth levels, all the way to extremely stratified societies in which a single ruler possesses 90% of the wealth and legal authority over the masses of the rest. If the individuals of the society perceive that their needs are being met, social structure can be highly diverse. Conversely, human nature can corrupt the most idealistic social structure if the people give in to their baser instincts.
Strong Government
A fair bit of overlap exists between the government and the social structure, but this is distinguished by a narrower function. While social structure is primarily horizontal, this is mostly vertical, and has little necessary relationship with the other elements. It is unlikely to be sufficient alone to maintain a lasting society, but may act where a vacuum exists in another area. It is about defined authority from the top, not about assumed or understood social contracts, and is enforced by the sword tacitly or directly. In concert with the other elements of society where they are strong, this is a far less necessary element, but where they are weak, this can act as a unifying force even if it is a unity woven of fear, desperation, and defeat.
Using this set as a touchstone, I have been able to see how the pursuit of or eschewing of each of these elements has strengthened or weakened societies that I have studied in history or observe in today's news. While not a perfect, or all encompassing model, it is nonetheless a model I have found to be consistently accurate in the broad strokes.
Seeing that, I am working on how to use it to create verisimilitude for the political game I have been looking for for decades.
HERE is my current thinking in action.
That is to say, that since 1993, morphing through three different game systems, and seeking inspiration from many others, I have been seeking to make a game about civilizations and politics in order to make it possible to more easily wrap my head around why people (as groups) do what they do. Certainly, all the standard adventure, mystery, and horror stories that have informed my gaming across those years has held my interest. Hero stories are, I believe, essential to inspire living a rich and full life. But heroes do not exist in a vacuum. They live connected to societies, and though they may end up not quite belonging because of their experiences, they are heroes because of what they have sacrificed for their societies. The cowboy, the ronin, the knight errant... these are the essential characters that societies can neither live without, nor allow to live within them. But I am also interested in the drama of humanity, and it is the interplay between societies that has in many ways fueled academic and personal study of history, geography, and culture.
Most of my political reading is poured after the fact into the stew of my game design brain. I am really just trying to make thought models to understand and communicate ideas like serious political scientists, anthropologists, and historians... I just want to have fun with it too.
That said, one of the issues that has simmered over time, is the foundational question:
What is essential to make a group of people draw together and become a cohesive society?
Having revised and revised this list, and pared down continuously over time, I think that the following has sufficiently held up as a rubric in my brain to warrant a formal list (bum, buuumm!).
1) Language
2) Race
3) Religion (or Worldview)
4) Culture
5) Social Structure
6) Strong Government
These are all elements that draw groups of people together, and they go from the most cohesive element to the least. They feed or draw from the other elements up and down the chain, and for every element missing, the society is weaker. From a game design standpoint, they might be viewed as the thing that holds the place of hit points for a society, as they make the society resilient.
Language
This one is the foundation for the rest, since a society that cannot broadly and effectively communicate with itself will fall apart in confusion. Those who have resources (material or immaterial) and know how to speak the language will be able to get things done while those who cannot speak the language will at best be isolated and left to whatever comforts their resources can provide. Thus it is essential that a society be able to speak together from bottom to top and across any functional divisions.
Race
This is the most paradoxical element, being both extremely superficial and at the same time a critically instinctual marker that identifies who is part of the group from who is not. In very basic biological terms, the human animal is distinguished by physical traits of size, shape, and coloration that in simple terms are what we call "race". Those traits provide an easy marker for who is related and who is not, and therefore who is safe and who might not be. As such, this is an element that on it's own, is perhaps the most ingrained to the human animal for bringing together a society. However, as human interaction between races blurs lines, other elements make this potentially a very superficial element if there are explicit mitigating factors to make it so. But lacking those other elements, race is an extremely powerful force for pulling societies into distinct, cohesive groups.
Religion (or Worldview)
This is a powerful element because given the fundamental ability to communicate, the worldview of the society provides the basic thought framework for the beliefs and values the society holds. What they believe to be true and good informs behavior of the individual and the social pressure to reinforce it. The most basic type of worldview is now and has been Religion in one form or another, and this has been the most durable, since religion not only answers where we come from and where we are going also what it all means. Non-religious worldviews have also existed (e.g. communism/Communism) and held together states even when they have not done so as durably as ancient and still extant religions. However, unlike language or race, worldviews may cross groups and provide a unifying force where the others are lacking. I would suggest that lacking the language to communicate however, two groups with a like worldview are more likely to separate for more practical reasons, namely the inability to work out basic things like how to conduct trade among persons, or when one can go to the well.
Culture
This covers the day to day practices that are not necessarily explicitly and exclusively covered under the purview of another element and includes, at least, such things as the clothing, the food, the music, the art, the traditions, and the holidays that a society holds. There is clearly overlap with Religion here, but many things (like chord structure in music) are not addressed in moral or theistic terms, but nonetheless matter to identifying a culture. and culture is very much influenced by it's geography (Polynesians lack the iron culture that the ancient Persians had, but were consummate navigators). I suggest however, that culture is primarily about the hundred comfortable, familiar things that are shared by groups in common which act as a unifying force. Without them, a society has to work harder to come together.
Social Structure
This is about the organization of roles within a society that make it run smoothly as a unit. Who has authority and responsibility over the activity, procedures, and production required to make a large group function over time. It is concerned first with horizontal social relationships, and second with vertical relationships in the society. This element, like race, is a two sided issue and can be either unifying or divisive since it has built into it who has material and social resources. Furthermore, it also overlaps with religion and culture, with those potentially informing roles and responsibilities. If this element is not strong, and the society members feel it is an unfair social structure, then it becomes a liability. Note that a broad range of social structures is possible, and can well include everything from a very egalitarian society in which everyone has some authority in social decisions and shares similar wealth levels, all the way to extremely stratified societies in which a single ruler possesses 90% of the wealth and legal authority over the masses of the rest. If the individuals of the society perceive that their needs are being met, social structure can be highly diverse. Conversely, human nature can corrupt the most idealistic social structure if the people give in to their baser instincts.
Strong Government
A fair bit of overlap exists between the government and the social structure, but this is distinguished by a narrower function. While social structure is primarily horizontal, this is mostly vertical, and has little necessary relationship with the other elements. It is unlikely to be sufficient alone to maintain a lasting society, but may act where a vacuum exists in another area. It is about defined authority from the top, not about assumed or understood social contracts, and is enforced by the sword tacitly or directly. In concert with the other elements of society where they are strong, this is a far less necessary element, but where they are weak, this can act as a unifying force even if it is a unity woven of fear, desperation, and defeat.
Using this set as a touchstone, I have been able to see how the pursuit of or eschewing of each of these elements has strengthened or weakened societies that I have studied in history or observe in today's news. While not a perfect, or all encompassing model, it is nonetheless a model I have found to be consistently accurate in the broad strokes.
Seeing that, I am working on how to use it to create verisimilitude for the political game I have been looking for for decades.
HERE is my current thinking in action.
18 January, 2018
Story Planner Tools for Games
So this took a bit because in explaining how I use this tool, I thought I might also explain _why_ I use this tool in preference to another. This is more about designer explanation than player explanation. If designer thinking is not of interest to you, skip down to the paragraph headed "ADVENTURE PLANNER IN PLAY". I am going to explain a little about my design thinking first, and then I will use two examples to illustrate my tools in action, one that is familiar (Star Wars: E IV), and then an adventure that I plotted.
Seriously... if you are not really interested in design theory, or games as art discussion, SKIP this part. For theater, TV/film, or literature geeks, there is nothing new here, move along. Otherwise, proceed.
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OK... rpgs have in their DNA a little of oral folktales, a little of literature, a little of theater, and a little of TV/film. Modern games often use the vocabulary of TV/film to discuss play, and as such, it is worth understanding what is in the DNA. So... there are lots of dramatic structures through history. One act, two act, three act, four act, five act... beyond that you get something that is more episodic than serial, and might find literature scholars and critics who delve into really really abstruse discussions on structures that are distinctly "art-house" in character. I won't even go into that playground because very little of the adventure fiction that 90% of rpgs are inspired by follows structures remotely resembling them. To reiterate, there are some great stories that have something other than three acts (e.g. all of Shakespeare, many of Spielberg's films, a lot of Hitchcock), but three acts is quick, easy shorthand for providing structure, and one of the reasons I have turned to Fate as my first choice game system, is that it is built on quick easy shorthand that is very suitable for telling powerful narrative stories. Further, because three act structure is what most genre films (and much of television) that gamers are familiar with and use in their own cook books, it provides a very accessible structure to work within.
Is it the only structure? Nope. Is it the best? If you are an avid student of Blake Snyder who wrote Save the Cat which is practically the required playbook for Hollywood writers, absolutely... if you look at the rest of story telling history from Homer to about 1980, then poppycock. Some literary snobs are adamantly against three act structure for just that reason. Rigidly codified three act structure is what has given us such films as Battleship, or The Amazing Spiderman, Transformers 2, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and X-Men: Apocolypse (all very formula though not especially good). Snyder is still following the same basic structure introduced in antiquity, and you can take as much of the skin of his formula as you like and leave what you don't. See, while the above examples are Snyder playbook scripts, so are the latest Bond films, the new reboot of Star Trek, The Avengers, and the Captain America movies. The key is the basic structure as an organizing dramatic principle, with the willingness to weave a little when the mood strikes. But a little more on formula.
Formula is everywhere in genre films now. This tends to take the principles of structure and make them rigid rules, at which point creativity is more likely to break than not. Sometimes it gets pulled off well but often not. Escalation of conflict is something that is a principle assumed in many including the standard three act structure, as it tests the resolve of the protagonist to act within a story. If the protagonist just gives up and goes home, the story tends to fall flat, so an escalation of conflict in pursuit of what is at stake should make both protagonist and antagonist commit to see a dramatic conclusion. Done as a principle rather than a hidebound exact formula, this can be done in a host of creative ways. But forced into the exact formula, it gets predictable and lazy.
Case in point... a tired trope, that absolutely should not be, is blowing-up-the-world threats in every single film of a series (X-Men: Apocolypse ... the most exciting piece of boredom in years). It's only slightly less obnoxious sibling is the threat more-is-better problem. Pirates of the Carribean for example, is a good film. The stakes matter to both the protagonists and antagonists, and you curiously, don't find the rest of the world shaken. But by At the World's End, the stakes have become global, and while not a bad film per se, it is weaker because in part, there is too much going on and it stretches too thin. Same for all of the most recent X-Men (and other superhero) movies, and oh so many of the Bond films. Regarding the last, look again at the Craig Casino Royal. Excellent movie, with stakes serious enough for the characters to commit everything, but without blowing up the world.
Finding ways to provide dramatic interest in talky rather than fighty ways between hero and villain provides another creative challenge, because on the one hand it allows a slower but continuous escalation, and reveals things that are more personal to the characters than you get when they are busy punching. One particular plot device that feels very de ja vu is common to The Avengers, ST: Into Darkness, and Skyfall (all made about the same time)... they all have a formula plot in which the villain gets caught on purpose. We can argue that this was done well or badly (IMO, Avengers pulls it off, the other two not so much, and that partly because Loki should be a trickster which is not the same as criminal mastermind). For that matter, Dark Knight does it too very well. There are other examples in the last two decades. The reason for this plot device is to allow hero and villain a justified talky scene rather than a fighty scene, but as some have pointed out, the problem when used as a hidebound device, is that it ends up being predictable, and lazy. Indy and Belloq have a perfectly talky scene in Raiders in the bar... the original Wrath of Khan has plenty of talky scenes via view screen... Die Hard has plenty via radio. This is where hard formula is proven to be unimaginative.
All of this is to point out that structure makes a stronger story than no structure, but following that hidebound formula can also lead to the horrible no-no of "railroading" . The basic framework helps clarify how to both allow player agency in an emergent story (I won't argue with the people who think emergent story is an invisible unicorn) and a dramatic arc that serves both plot and character.
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ADVENTURE PLANNER IN PLAY
This is the first page. This should be filled out not in full before a campaign starts, but rather as story emerges through play. So at the start of a campaign, the Title, Story Question, Themes, and Tone would be noted, and the Teaser and Inciting incident of Act I summarized. The rest is only filled in as subsequent sessions are played.
For example, The Herald or Threshold Guardian might be alluded to in the first session of play, but not defined till after the session, and then introduced in the second session. The rest of Act one might be very simply outlined and prepared for before the second session based on what the players do in the first, and then the player's actions of the second session suggest what would be planned for and outlined in Act two, which would also take about two sessions. Act three would follow a similar model, though it might be resolved in one session, as the resolution might best be summarized by the players after the final climax. The point of using this to structure things, is 1) to keep track of where the story has been, and 2) to try to focus the direction it is going while trimming off things that are emerging as superfluous.
This is the second page, and is likewise updated throughout play. It is a quick recall tool of the things that need to be included meaningfully in the story. If it is on here, it probably needs stats. If not, things that come up in play can be thrown out on an ad hoc basis in play and only upgraded to mention here if they become important to the players.
This one drills down to individual scenes. Here is where notes can be made for specific elements that will keep the action focused on driving the main story forward, and making clear what the scene is for, and what consequences it might have later.
And this supports the previous page by essentially breaking the scene into a fractal of it's own with a sort of three act structure.
So there they are. They are not the only ones I have worked on, and they are still a work in progress. I will undoubtedly continue to work on and revise them, as they are a little cumbersome at this point. I would ideally prefer to cut down the set by at least half, and if I can find a satisfactory way to make it work on a single sheet, I will. But here is this version.
Cheers.
Seriously... if you are not really interested in design theory, or games as art discussion, SKIP this part. For theater, TV/film, or literature geeks, there is nothing new here, move along. Otherwise, proceed.
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OK... rpgs have in their DNA a little of oral folktales, a little of literature, a little of theater, and a little of TV/film. Modern games often use the vocabulary of TV/film to discuss play, and as such, it is worth understanding what is in the DNA. So... there are lots of dramatic structures through history. One act, two act, three act, four act, five act... beyond that you get something that is more episodic than serial, and might find literature scholars and critics who delve into really really abstruse discussions on structures that are distinctly "art-house" in character. I won't even go into that playground because very little of the adventure fiction that 90% of rpgs are inspired by follows structures remotely resembling them. To reiterate, there are some great stories that have something other than three acts (e.g. all of Shakespeare, many of Spielberg's films, a lot of Hitchcock), but three acts is quick, easy shorthand for providing structure, and one of the reasons I have turned to Fate as my first choice game system, is that it is built on quick easy shorthand that is very suitable for telling powerful narrative stories. Further, because three act structure is what most genre films (and much of television) that gamers are familiar with and use in their own cook books, it provides a very accessible structure to work within.
Is it the only structure? Nope. Is it the best? If you are an avid student of Blake Snyder who wrote Save the Cat which is practically the required playbook for Hollywood writers, absolutely... if you look at the rest of story telling history from Homer to about 1980, then poppycock. Some literary snobs are adamantly against three act structure for just that reason. Rigidly codified three act structure is what has given us such films as Battleship, or The Amazing Spiderman, Transformers 2, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and X-Men: Apocolypse (all very formula though not especially good). Snyder is still following the same basic structure introduced in antiquity, and you can take as much of the skin of his formula as you like and leave what you don't. See, while the above examples are Snyder playbook scripts, so are the latest Bond films, the new reboot of Star Trek, The Avengers, and the Captain America movies. The key is the basic structure as an organizing dramatic principle, with the willingness to weave a little when the mood strikes. But a little more on formula.
Formula is everywhere in genre films now. This tends to take the principles of structure and make them rigid rules, at which point creativity is more likely to break than not. Sometimes it gets pulled off well but often not. Escalation of conflict is something that is a principle assumed in many including the standard three act structure, as it tests the resolve of the protagonist to act within a story. If the protagonist just gives up and goes home, the story tends to fall flat, so an escalation of conflict in pursuit of what is at stake should make both protagonist and antagonist commit to see a dramatic conclusion. Done as a principle rather than a hidebound exact formula, this can be done in a host of creative ways. But forced into the exact formula, it gets predictable and lazy.
Case in point... a tired trope, that absolutely should not be, is blowing-up-the-world threats in every single film of a series (X-Men: Apocolypse ... the most exciting piece of boredom in years). It's only slightly less obnoxious sibling is the threat more-is-better problem. Pirates of the Carribean for example, is a good film. The stakes matter to both the protagonists and antagonists, and you curiously, don't find the rest of the world shaken. But by At the World's End, the stakes have become global, and while not a bad film per se, it is weaker because in part, there is too much going on and it stretches too thin. Same for all of the most recent X-Men (and other superhero) movies, and oh so many of the Bond films. Regarding the last, look again at the Craig Casino Royal. Excellent movie, with stakes serious enough for the characters to commit everything, but without blowing up the world.
Finding ways to provide dramatic interest in talky rather than fighty ways between hero and villain provides another creative challenge, because on the one hand it allows a slower but continuous escalation, and reveals things that are more personal to the characters than you get when they are busy punching. One particular plot device that feels very de ja vu is common to The Avengers, ST: Into Darkness, and Skyfall (all made about the same time)... they all have a formula plot in which the villain gets caught on purpose. We can argue that this was done well or badly (IMO, Avengers pulls it off, the other two not so much, and that partly because Loki should be a trickster which is not the same as criminal mastermind). For that matter, Dark Knight does it too very well. There are other examples in the last two decades. The reason for this plot device is to allow hero and villain a justified talky scene rather than a fighty scene, but as some have pointed out, the problem when used as a hidebound device, is that it ends up being predictable, and lazy. Indy and Belloq have a perfectly talky scene in Raiders in the bar... the original Wrath of Khan has plenty of talky scenes via view screen... Die Hard has plenty via radio. This is where hard formula is proven to be unimaginative.
All of this is to point out that structure makes a stronger story than no structure, but following that hidebound formula can also lead to the horrible no-no of "railroading" . The basic framework helps clarify how to both allow player agency in an emergent story (I won't argue with the people who think emergent story is an invisible unicorn) and a dramatic arc that serves both plot and character.
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ADVENTURE PLANNER IN PLAY
This is the first page. This should be filled out not in full before a campaign starts, but rather as story emerges through play. So at the start of a campaign, the Title, Story Question, Themes, and Tone would be noted, and the Teaser and Inciting incident of Act I summarized. The rest is only filled in as subsequent sessions are played.
For example, The Herald or Threshold Guardian might be alluded to in the first session of play, but not defined till after the session, and then introduced in the second session. The rest of Act one might be very simply outlined and prepared for before the second session based on what the players do in the first, and then the player's actions of the second session suggest what would be planned for and outlined in Act two, which would also take about two sessions. Act three would follow a similar model, though it might be resolved in one session, as the resolution might best be summarized by the players after the final climax. The point of using this to structure things, is 1) to keep track of where the story has been, and 2) to try to focus the direction it is going while trimming off things that are emerging as superfluous.
This is the second page, and is likewise updated throughout play. It is a quick recall tool of the things that need to be included meaningfully in the story. If it is on here, it probably needs stats. If not, things that come up in play can be thrown out on an ad hoc basis in play and only upgraded to mention here if they become important to the players.
This one drills down to individual scenes. Here is where notes can be made for specific elements that will keep the action focused on driving the main story forward, and making clear what the scene is for, and what consequences it might have later.
And this supports the previous page by essentially breaking the scene into a fractal of it's own with a sort of three act structure.
So there they are. They are not the only ones I have worked on, and they are still a work in progress. I will undoubtedly continue to work on and revise them, as they are a little cumbersome at this point. I would ideally prefer to cut down the set by at least half, and if I can find a satisfactory way to make it work on a single sheet, I will. But here is this version.
Cheers.
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