writing
Gaming & writing
I found this interesting wee article today in Clarksworld magazine. It’s all about the role that RPGs play for fantasy writing and writers, interviewing China Mieville amongst others. Mieville says
What we love about Cthulhu is that it is beyond our ken, as Lovecraft repeatedly points out. Then, in an act of Promethean heroic vulgarization, the Call of Cthulhu RPG neatly laid out Cthulhu’s ‘Stats’ – Str, 100, or whatever it is. This is not a dis of RPGs. My point is that that desire to systematize even the fantastic, the point of which is to evade systematization, is a kind of geek honor, a ludicrous and incredibly seductive and even creative project, an almost majestic point-missing, that in missing the point, does something new.
Which is an interesting point. I often read a genre novel and think ‘I’d love situations like that in my games’ and then realise that games just don’t work that way – scenes don’t get constructed perfectly. They’re messy and unpredictable. It’s also why I don’t like the ‘shared story’ approach to RPGs – it tends to elevate predetermined plot over spontaneous reactions of characters. As author Tim Waggoner says:
So many writers plot out a story, march their characters through the plot, and then reach the outcome. They forget to leave room for the unpredictable, for the joy of surprise. Gaming taught me that what goes wrong for characters makes for the most interesting stories.
Some interesting stuff.
Writing better scenarios
I’ve got an interest in writing scenarios for RPGs, as may be apparent with a section dedicated to the ones I have written on this site. So I was happy to find this essay (opens a pdf) by Gregor Hutton (game designer extrodinare and writter of Best Friends and 3: 16) on a 4 point plan to writing better scenarios.
It doesn’t add anything overly new (though it may have when written) but does give some nice concise points to think about when planning a scenario.
Some nice links
Chris Pramas announces that the A Song of Ice & Fire RPG has finally been given approval by George R. R. Martin.
According to Kotaku, the Chicago Tribune has asked if GTAIV contains the century’s best writing. Clearly the answer is no – I can think of 30 or so things that are better written from the last 8 years, including some other video games. But interesting the question is being asked.
It’s either fun culture jamming or annoying viral marketing, but they have some funny road signs in Austin.
And continuing on from the other day’s theme, the Guardian has some commentary on the unrepresentativeness of a lot of SFF. This was sparked by a post by Elizabeth Bear on how to produce more representative genre writing. All good stuff and thanks to Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist for the heads up.
Race, genre fiction and roleplaying
Larry, at OF Blog of the Fallen, has written a really interesting post entitled ‘Whitewashing Diversity‘. It’s all about the lack of diversity in science fiction and fantasy writing and about the way that this is never interrogated, let alone noticed.
Too often in the SF that I have read (perhaps a couple hundred of books over the years, so it is very possible that I might not have read the right sorts of SF), way too often are the issues surrounding diversity/Otherness presented from the dominant culture’s point of view. While many SF authors over the years have taken great pains to avoid the “White Man’s Burden” point of view dominating their stories of First Contact, all too often the notion of “discovery” that creeps into these tales is that these Others (perhaps analogues for Africans, Asians, Latinos, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, etc. in US society today?) is that these “discovered” peoples (aliens) are ciphers, are often dangerous or at least potentially threatening, and that too often there isn’t a concerted effort even to “understand” these alien groups.
Book on female gamers
The Stupid Ranger blog have posted about a new book they are writing on female gamers. They need both male and female gamers to respond to their surveys. Go here to check it out!
Creating adventures, with a little help
I was sent a link by my brother for a little process a guy from the interwebs has come up with to help formulate adventures. He calls it the Adventure Funnel.
The process that you run through is a quick and easy one that helps you sort your thoughts out and get them down on paper. Worth a look if you run adventures often. I sure wish I’d been aware of this when I was running my long term DnD campaign!