DarrellHardy.com

Pre-failing

While the One Game a Month project has its own, optional theme each month, my personal theme for the project every month has been “failure.” Whether I embrace it or narrowly dodge its fail-soaked bullet, failure looms over every month I try to make a game — and May is no exception.

This month I found a whole new way to fail.

I thought I’d try something different for May. Rather than a video game, I’d cheat a little and whip up a bite-sized, old-school-simple tabletop RPG. The idea of roleplaying in a Lovecraftian post-apocalyptic setting has long appealed to me, and I had some new mechanics I wanted to try for the system.

But then I did a little research and discovered that this sub-niche has already been done. And done again. And yet again.

Now, just because a theme or setting has been used for one RPG doesn’t mean it can’t be used again. But working in such a well-tilled field means finding your own personal sub-sub-niche, and some way to differentiate your work from what’s already out there. It’s certainly doable… but not in the 10 days I have left in May.

This month, I may have failed before I’ve even started.

But I’ve still got 10 days. And those new mechanics I’ve been tinkering with are still perfectly cromulent. Who knows? I might dodge the fail-bullet yet.

Storyworld Tip: Feature the Creatures

You know Dune, right? Sci-fi epic, desert planet, and… what else comes to mind? That’s right: giant freaking sandworms. Are they characters or character archetypes in the Dune stories? No, not really. They don’t make decisions or drive the plot. They aren’t overcoming obstacles in a way that’s entertaining to the audience. No one sits down to play the long-out-of-print Dune RPG and says “I want to play a sandworm!” So if they’re not characters, what are they?

Sandworms are creatures.

Like landmarks and rituals, creatures are elements of a storyworld’s setting. Like all good elements, creatures help define the setting’s unique look and story potential. And like all good elements, they’re at their most useful when they help seed stories by enhancing conflict and characters.

Enhancing Conflict

Here are a few ways that creatures can enhance a storyworld’s conflict:

They can be at the center of the conflict, and the things the characters are fighting over. (Sandworms, for example.)
They can be a conduit for conflict. The Orcs from Lord of the Rings definitely fall into this category, as do the stormtroopers from Star Wars. While they might individually have intelligence and ambitions, as a group they’re just a weapon to be wielded in a conflict much larger than themselves.
They add uncertainty to the conflict. Unlike other elements, creatures have a certain amount of self-direction. They are a force of nature, and aren’t necessarily under any character’s complete control. For example, just because the Ministry of Magic stations Dementors at Hogwarts to keep it safe doesn’t mean those creatures won’t turn on the students at any moment.

Enhancing Character

Creatures associated with a certain character (or archetype) help define that character’s strengths, goals, and place in the world. For example, creatures may be:

Assets such as faithful steeds, valuable livestock, or hordes of minions for characters to use as needed.
Mcguffins such as prized butterflies or giant worms that secrete magic space-spice, for characters to chase after.
Predators such as zombies or killer robots, for characters to run away from and fight against.

As you can see, the value of a creature is defined by its relationship to the conflict and the characters. Like all setting elements, creatures have a job to do. If they do it well, the story-seeds will practically plant themselves.

Storyworld Tip: The Magic of Rituals

Could you help me out for a second? Stand right here, in the middle of the circle. Great. Now, hold this goat skull and close your eyes while I fondle this weird-looking dagger and talk about the magic of rituals.

Ha! Just kidding. The dagger is actually rubber. The skull’s real, but it’s a rental, so please be careful with it. I’m such a kidder! But I do want to talk about rituals and how they can add depth to your storyworld.

When I speak of “rituals” I mean any recurring scenario or sequence that’s a part of your storyworld. This could be…

a literal ritual (such as the swearing in of a new member of the Nights Watch in Game of Thrones),
a more metaphorical ritual (such as James Bond checking out this movie’s gadgets in Q’s lab),
a running gag (such as pulling the mask off the monster at the end of every episode of Scooby Doo), or
any other sequence of events that keeps showing up (such as the arrival of the first-year students at Hogwarts — complete with the Sorting Hat, or the TV show forensics team sweeping the crime scene for DNA).

Rituals help establish order and set up audience expectations. They tell us about the setting (hey, there are cool gadgets here!) and, once we’ve seen it performed once, it creates expectations for the next time (I wonder what gadget he’ll get this time?).

Unique rituals are important elements of a storyworld’s setting. As such, they might be cool, but if they aren’t helping you create stories, they’re not pulling their weight. A good ritual should be able to do one or more of the following:

Add Tension: Rituals set expectations for both the audience and characters. When we as the audience have a different expectation than the characters, that leads to tension. During the Reaping at the beginning of Hunger Games, for example, the characters have certain expectations about who’s going to be thrown into the arena. But the readers, who’ve read the back of the book, have a different idea, which leads to suspense. Likewise, there’s bound to be tension if we have no idea how the ritual is going to turn out — even if the characters do.
Reveal Character: Different people react differently to the same ritual, and how they react tells us a lot about them. Think of Harry Potter under the sorting hat, choosing his house. Or Katniss at the Reaping (sorry, no spoilers). These rituals forced them to make decisions, and those decisions drove the story forward.
Reveal Conflict: Sometimes rituals are a good time and place for a conflict to be revealed and resolved (think of any wedding scene in any movie or TV series). The ritual itself may highlight an established conflict (as the Nights Watch swears to oppose those on the other side of the Wall) or foreshadow a conflict to come (“I’ll bet James Bond will have to burn something with a laser before the movie’s over”).

Does every ritual have to check all these boxes? Not necessarily. Sometimes a cigar-lighting procedure is just a recurring cigar-lighting procedure. But if there’s a chance to turn it into something richer, consider doing so. Your future self will thank you.

Storyworld Tip: The Power of Landmarks

Landmarks have power. I don’t mean just those landmarks lying atop ancient burial grounds at the intersection of three different ley lines. Sure, those suckers are crackling with arcane energy, but when it comes to crafting a storyworld, they’re no more powerful than the Empire State Building, Castle Grayskull, or the Great Sept of Baelor in King’s Landing.

When designing a storyworld, if you include a number of unique landmarks, you can harness their power to help define the world around them. Here are just a few ways:

Establish a Mood: Geographically, a landmark can set the mood the region around it. Likewise, a landmark casts a long shadow over any scene in which it appears. It can even shape the mood of a whole story if you let it. (A story revolving around the inhabitants of the Tower of Blood will probably have a different feel than a similar story focused on the people of the Sun-sugar Valley.)
Establish Conflict: Yes, yes, here I go on the importance of conflict yet again. Landmarks may be cool, but they don’t drive stories — conflict does. Landmarks might be explicitly the center of the conflict (the ruined keep at Moat Cailn that keeps changing hands), imply a past conflict (the space station is decorated in the skulls of its inhabitants’ fallen enemies), or hint of a conflict yet to come (the cultist compound where two factions have each taken over one of the two dormitories and stopped talking to each other).
Establish Character: A landmark can tell the audience much about the people who live there. Behold: wise, kind King Randor. So noble, so brave. And sitting atop a throne of skulls in the Hall of Bones, where the skeletons of his fallen foes suggest there might be more his character than wisdom and kindness.
Establish Location: Okay, I’m sort of cheating with this last one. But the point is that once you’ve set up a given landmark in the minds of your audience, you can use it as shorthand to create an “establishing shot.” If we start a Star Wars scene with a shot of the Deathstar, you have a pretty good idea of what sort of scene is coming up. This can be especially handy when working in transmedia, where the different platforms dictate how much detail you can include.

What if your storyworld is based on the normal world around us? You’ve still go landmarks, and they’ve still got power: The police station? The mayor’s mansion? The boarded-up gas station at the edge of town? Once could argue that these “mundane” landmarks might have even more power, since they automatically resonate with your modern audience… But that’s a blog post for another day.

Storyworld Tip: Three Reasons to Embrace a Genre

Some creators shun genre labels. “Just because there’s elves in the story doesn’t mean it’s a fantasy world. They’re cyborg vampire elves! It’s totally different!” This, in my humble opinion, is dumb.

When creating a new storyworld, it’s in your best interest to choose what genre you want to be in, and claim it. Embrace it. Wrap your sweaty arms around it and drag it home to live with you. It’s your new best friend.

Here are three reasons why:

Reason One: Accessibility

Genres exist for a reason. Labels are handles; they let us take hold of things. I might have the coolest storyworld this side of Westeros, but if it doesn’t belong to a specific genre (“It’s kind of fantasy, but with some horror elements — oh, and lizard politicians”) it’s hard for people to describe. And the harder it is to describe, the harder it is to talk about it or tell their friends about it.

Genre also establishes certain expectations. If the audience goes in expecting fantasy, they won’t balk when the elves solve a problem with magic; a space opera audience isn’t going to worry if the Flux Terminocity FTL drive is scientifically accurate; a mystery audience won’t think twice if there’s a murder in town every week.

Reason Two: Discoverability

Audiences who like a certain genre actively seek out more stories in that genre. If you storyworld doesn’t have a genre, those audiences are more unlikely to stumble across your stories. Yes, this means that people who don’t like that genre may actually avoid it, but it’s better to grab one segment of the audience while alienating another than to ignore them all and hope they show up anyway.

Reason Three: Owning It.

If you don’t pick a genre, someone will pick a genre for you. Guess what? Your storyworld of cyborg-vampire elves is now “urban fantasy” because an influential blogger said so. Maybe that’s okay. Or maybe the “urban fantasy” purists will be up in arms because your world is full of cyborgs, flying cars, and 60 foot-tall robots.

Perhaps your storyworld really does defy genre labels. That’s fine. Make up your own genre! Create a unique niche within a larger genre. (“Dystopian techno-fantasy” is the perfect world for undead elves with robotic limbs.) Just make sure whatever sub-genre you come up with is distinct enough that the audience knows what it’s getting into, and can easily share it with others.

Game of the Month: Out of Sight

It’s the end of the month, and that means two things: (1) The cable bill is due. You’d better pay that sucker, or you’ll be stuck plugging your ears and going “La la la” when your friends talk about last night’s episode of Game of Thrones. (2) I’ve designed and finished a new game.

This latest entry in the One Game a Month series is Out of Sight. As I previously threatened, it’s a Twine game, which mean it’s a text-based story game. I didn’t have time to really put Twine through its paces this month, so it’s little more than a short “choose your own adventure”-style experience. Now that I’ve got my hands dirty in the program, however, I think I might try something more ambitious for next month’s game.

Oh, right. I should note that Out of Sight is set in the world of Mind Strike, the new roleplaying game I’m working on. So if you’re curious what that world might look like, here’s your chance to live in it for ten minutes or so.

Finally, I really need to throw a link out to the central One Game a Month website. There are some amazing game developers on there doing great games each month. Check ‘em out. You might find your new favorite game.

One Quarter Down, Three to Go

Back in January, I wrote the obligatory new year forecast post, listing stuff I had brewing for 2013. Now that we’re a quarter of the way into the year, it seems a good time to pause and check in on that lovely list:

Karthador – While there’s little to publicly show for it, I assure you this swashbuckling sci-fi setting is quietly simmering along. I’ve been developing new material and running it at local conventions to great reviews (from the 18 players at my table who’ve seen it), and can’t wait to unleash it upon the larger world.
Mind Strike – This tabletop RPG of psychics in a dystopian near-future America was almost done… and then I let other people see it. Thank God for playtesters! While I’d hoped to have it out in the first quarter, I’m sticking it back it the oven to add more setting details and completely revamp the psychic power system. Because if a game about psychics can’t get the powers right, that game should just go back to pumping gas.
One Game a Month – In three months, I finished two games. By the end of this month, I will have finished a third game (it’s a Twine project that I’ll be showing here next week). The next couple months are looking to be crazy, though, so don’t be surprised if they’re new chances for me to embrace failure.

Of course, the list from January didn’t include the exciting new projects that have cropped up since then:

“Project: Steel” – It’s a video game. It’s a board game. It’s got steampunk samurai and techno-ninjas. It’s not actually going to be called “Project: Steel” but will have a cooler name — with a logo and everything — when we launch the Kickstarter. Stay tuned for details.
Video Game Writing – My mad game writing skillz have attracted some local video game developers, so my words are now infiltrating Throne (on Kickstarter now from Lightning Studios), infesting Flytrap (a retro console arcade game), and itching to spread themselves even further.
Ryu X Chun Li – I have mentioned that I write comics, right? No? Well I do. Which is how I landed the cool new gig as script consultant on this dynamic fan-comic that celebrates everyone’s favorite Street Fighter power-couple. Strictly non-canon, of course, but an excellent chance to help tell a cool Street Fighter story.

Not bad for three (okay, almost four) months. Now I can’t wait to see what the rest of this year has in store.

KidCon 2013

You know how you get a song stuck in your head, and you just can’t shake it no matter how many times you slam your skull in the door? I had that. Except it wasn’t a song, but a terrifying idea: my daughters had a day off school coming up; I should have them invite their friends over to play games all day. Yes! A houseful of 8-12 year old girls rolling dice and flopping cards! What could possibly go wrong?

We found out last Friday. Spoiler alert: It went surprisingly well.

The day’s schedule looked something like this:

Slot 1: Watch Adventure Time (to get us in the fantasy adventure mood) and eat donuts
Slot 2: Play the Quicksand board game.
Slot 3: Paint Miniatures
Slot 4: Eat Lunch
Slot 5: Play the Once Upon a Time storytelling card game.
Slot 6: Play Microlite20 fantasy RPG (a stripped-down version of D&D third edition)

I didn’t actually have times linked to any of these slots, aside from the whole game day starting at 7:00 AM (because I’m a masochist, and our guests’ parents were going to work). I figured we’d just do whatever the thing was until people were tired of it, then move onto the next item on the schedule.

Everything went more or less as planned. They enjoyed Quicksand, but were really really psyched about painting minis. Pink dwarves, cotton-candy cowboys, rainbow soldiers… What the girls lacked in experience they made up for in surreal color schemes.

Some girls drifted away from the miniatures table and started playing some LARP-like thing in which they were soldiers. As more girls joined them, they formed factions and built blanket forts in the living room. Then went to war! Suddenly, it was Lord of the Flies in stocking feet!

As the final painter turned soldier, the schedule completely broke down. The girls took their war outside, where it evolved into a challenge to survive in the wilderness. They collected water. They fought off bears.

I looked at my schedule, the clock, and the gorgeous spring day outside. Nope. I wasn’t about to make them come in and play games around the table. Instead I made lunch, and let them eat it in the yard.

When the war for survival wound down, I invited the girls in for some roleplaying, and had each of them grab their favorite miniature that they had painted; these would be their characters in the game.

One guest grabbed a werewolf. Another a pastel-colored cowboy. I’d been planning to run a straight fantasy game, but… whatever. In a dungeon-crawl, an archer with a 1d6 bow is the same as a cowboy with a 1d6 six-shooter, and a werewolf’s just a fighter whose sword can’t be taken away.

We rolled up characters at the table. The M20 system is quick and easy, but it still took a while to finish all six characters. (I could have gone with pre-gens, but by rolling their own based on their miniatures, the girls were a lot more invested in the game.) In the end, we had six new heroes ready to explore the kobold caves. It wasn’t until it was over that it occurred to me — SIX PLAYERS!? I hadn’t run a game for that many people since the last game convention.

Thirty minutes and 10 dead kobolds later, we started losing players as their parents came to pick them up. I sent them on their way with their character sheets and hand-painted miniatures.

I figured with these particular party favors at home, it’ll be that much easier to set up KidCon2 in the summer.

Twine Flu

It’s halfway through the month and it occurs to me that I still haven’t started my One Game a Month entry for April. (I’m not being lazy. I’ve just been busy working on Mind Strike, doing a tour of local doctors’ waiting rooms, and fighting off yetis armed with nothing but a snow shovel.)

As much as I enjoyed working with Stencyl for last month’s game, I’m thinking I might want to use a tool that’s more suited to my strengths. I’m thinking about Twine.

Twine is described by its maker as “a tool for creating interactive stories,” which seems as good a description as any. Specifically, its simple interface lets you create “choose your own adventure” style games that track variables and export as HTML. Working with such basic building blocks, you can create some pretty amazing games. (And if you actually have programming chops, the guts of the thing are lying open for you to dig around in.)

At first glance, Twine looks pretty similar to Inklewriter, which also lets you create interactive text games (and I’ve used before). But games you create on Inkle stay on Inkle, and people have to visit that website to play them. (Unless you shell out $10 to have the fine folks at Inkle convert your story to Kindle format, which seems like a reasonable way to monetize the thing.)

If Twine sounds like something you’d like to mess around with, here are a few links to get you started:

Download it here.
Read a simple tutorial.
Play a bunch of other people’s games to see what it’s all about.

I’m downloading Twine now. If it’s as easy to use as they say, I should have a story-game thing by the end of the month. If not… well, I’m still learning to accept failure — and to start my games before the middle of the month.

Planting Story Seeds part 3: Consistency

Today I’ll be wrapping up this series of posts on creating stories for storyworlds with a few notes on consistency. (And I’ll not even mention hobgoblins, except to point out that “Consistency Hobgoblin” would make a great band name.)

It almost goes without saying that any stories developed from a storyworld should be consistent with what’s been established for that storyworld. If we’ve established that the lizard-headed politicians eat babies, they should be baby-eaters in your story. If the special crimes unit is known to be feuding with the mayor’s office, it should be awkward when they’re all forced to join the same intramural basketball team. If you’ve told us the the Force is a “energy field created by all living things,” you should think twice about making it the byproduct of microbes in your next story.

Most of this is continuity. Once you’ve established the mechanics of a storyworld element — what it is, how it works, how it smells, its relationship to other elements — those things should remain consistent across all stories from that storyworld. You might think it doesn’t matter, but in this age of wikis, messages boards, and the tightly woven network of people who love your stuff enough to meticulously pick every nit, it matters a lot.

Beyond continuity (which I’ll admit is pretty obvious), stories from the same storyworld should have a consistent genre, tone, and theme.

Consistent genre means that if you’ve established your storyworld as one of science fiction, your story shouldn’t feature unicorns and elves. And if it’s based on the real world (but with more serial killers and grizzled FBI profilers), you’d best avoid vampires, witchcraft, or elves. Know the genre of the storyworld, and don’t include elements from other genres — especially elves.

Consistent tone is a bit trickier, as tone is harder to pin down than genre. (“It’s horror, yes, but it’s slapstick horror: bloody, but funny-bloody, not dark-bloody.”) Once you can define your storyworld’s tone, make sure your stories match it or you audience will be confused and possibly irate.

Consistent theme requires you to identify your storyworld’s themes — which can be tough, since themes sometimes stay hidden until they’re drawn out through the creation of the stories themselves. (And forcing a theme from the beginning can come off heavy-handed and, well, forced.) It’s okay to let the themes develop organically, but as they do, roll them back into the storyworld so the stories that come after remain consistent.

Consistency can be a challenge. But it’s a lot easier if it’s something you plan for from the creation of the storyworld itself.