The distinctions between branch points allow us to analyze source narratives (fiction, TV shows, movies, comics etc.) and place them on a continuum between procedural and drama. Whether its interaction scenes are primarily persuasive or dramatic* also helps us identify its predominant structure.

Indulge me as I define as follows:

A procedural is a story in which a character, often an iconic one who changes little over the course of a series, overcomes a series of pragmatic or logistical challenges. It is about how the character does things, and its set pieces make us wonder whether he will succeed.

A drama is a story about people transformed by personal conflict.

Few narratives are purely one thing or the other. The core Law & Order is aesthetically radical in its austere avoidance of true character drama. It strays occasionally but many episodes are 100% procedural. Without breaking it down, I’m ready to guess that Long Day’s Journey Into Night is pretty much purely dramatic.

Most pieces are mixed. House is mostly procedural, with a side dish of drama. Dramas often eschew procedural elements until the end, then add suspense points to heighten their climaxes: the duel in Hamlet, the race to the church in The Graduate.

Decision branch points and dramatic interaction points predominate in drama. Suspense branch points and procedural interaction points are the signposts of the procedural.

As almost all roleplaying games are procedural, it is little surprise that they concentrate on procedural interactions and suspense branch points, and deemphasize decision branches and dramatic interactions.

---

* I’m not happy using the term “dramatic” twice, to describe both the narrative structure and the type of interaction. So far I haven’t found a better alternative in either instance.

Tags: gaming hut, turning points

The first two days worth of items on my virtual yard sale have gone through. I have to say, I'm a little surprised at how well things are going ... and, as a result, I'm going to EXPAND the yard sale.

I've pulled out a bunch of game material that I have no real use for (other than making sure my bookshelves and closet shelves don't float off the ground) ... lots of 2nd Edition AD&D stuff from MOST of the TSR game worlds (and I mean LOTS of it). And it's all going to go up on eBay just as soon as I can process it ... and can figure out how many auctions a day I can handle. So far I've been doing about 15-30 ... and that seems to be feasible. I may try upping it to 40 or 50 and seeing how that goes.

Anyway, look to my eBay page over the coming week to see what sorts of goodies I'm putting up for sale.

This is about as un-Stan!ish a dragon as I think I've drawn in a long while ... and yet ... it STILL looks like I drew it. I was thinking a lot about Todd Lockwood's dragons, and how much I love how he gives them such bearing and charisma ... yet they're still CLEARLY monsters, and GIANT monsters at that. They aren't anthropomorphized ... they just have their own kind of draconic personality that comes through as clearly as if they were standing in front of you.

I got a chance to chat briefly with Todd at SD Comic Con this year. It had been TOO long since I'd had that pleasure, and his overwhelming popularity made it only too brief. If I do end up relocating back to the Seattle area, I have to MAKE time to hang out with Todd more frequently than I did during my last stay there.

Silly Miscellany

1. Marley caught a rabbit. We have a lot of rabbits around our house, probably because our neighborhood is filled with dogs and not cats. They seem to particularly like the sanctuary of our fenced in back yard. We don't mind (I like bunnies) except in the winter when they wreck our shrubs. Anyway, when I let Marley into the back yard, there's always a rabbit or two back there. And she always chases them. Well, the other night, despite all probabilities, she caught one. Well, to be more accurate, she caught up to one. The rabbit was slow to start running and Marley had no idea what to do when she was basically on top of it before it really got going. So she head-butted it. It was pretty funny. The rabbit got away, of course, likely scared and confused. Marley was just confused.

 

2. We finally figured out how to read the clock and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Good movie.

 

3. It’s started to get cold and so I put away my summer clothes and brought out my sweatshirts, sweaters, and other fall/winter stuff. None of it fit anymore. Not even close. So yesterday Sue and I went and bought all new clothes. Not my favorite way to spend an afternoon (lots of trying on stuff to figure out what size I am), but it’s nice to have new stuff. I lost 4 inches off my waist size, and went from an extra-large to a large or even sometimes a medium in shirts.

 

4. I’m in the home stretch of my book. My deadline’s at the end of the month, and I’m almost done. Just a couple more chapters and a fun couple of appendices left. One about creating your own conspiracy theory (along with random tables to help you!) and another with a big chart showing how all conspiracy theories are linked. It’s the Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory!

 

5. I’m a guest at Pure Speculation in Edmonton, Alberta this upcoming weekend. If you’re in that area, make sure to come by. I’ll be giving a couple of seminars, doing some signings, and running a game where the seats are auctioned off for charity.

Tags: games, life, marley, movies, silly, writing
Current Music: Rogue Wave: Asleep at Heaven's Gate

Just. Wow. Thanks, April!

Since June I've been kind of cagey about my thoughts on the new 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons. I've done this for several reasons, first because I know that I am not what you would call a "typical" D&D player. My relationship with the game has run hot and cold over the years, and what I like and want out of the game does not always synch up with most other D&D fans.

But I DO consider myself a D&D fan. I like the game. I've been playing it since 1979 and I expect to KEEP on playing it in one form or another. Actually, more truthfully, I expect to keep playing it in MULTIPLE forms. I still occasionally play 1st Edition AD&D and sometimes even Basic D&D ... given my druthers, I'd run a form of 3.X D&D (mixing and matching to suit my taste) ... and I have played and expect to continue to play 4E D&D. Each edition has, I think, many things to recommend it ... and each is suited to a slightly different style of game (sometimes not so slightly).

My post on Doodle-A-Day yesterday gave, I think, the incorrect impression that I HATE 4E D&D and, even worse, that I am somehow mad at the folks at WotC who are currently on the RPG R&D team. Nothing could be further from the truth. I do NOT hate 4E ... and I still consider the folks at WotC to be not only among the most talented game designers at work in the industry today, but most of them are people I consider close personal friends. We may disagree on some aspects of game design and what is in the long-term best interests of D&D and WotC ... but it's not a personal or acrimonious disagreement.

So ... yesterday I talked about one of the things that bothers me most about 4E: The interpretation of gnomes and, in a less direct way, my dissatisfaction with the branding, messaging, and marketing of the game as directed at gamers like me ... who have longtime associations with D&D and strong opinions that may be in conflict with the goals of the current business plan.

I also specifically said that 4E is not what I personally want out of D&D.

That was probably the thing I said that was easiest to take out of context ... so let me start there.

4E does a lot of things VERY well. I would go so far as to say it might be the most tightly designed, balanced, and clearly expressed version of D&D ever published. HOWEVER, it is also a very restrictive interpretation of D&D. Each of the classes and races are created to fill one particular niche ... a specific iteration of what it means to be a "fighter" or a "rogue," rather than be open to interpretation by the player creating a character. A fighter now ALWAYS does certain kinds of things ... and they aren't always the kinds of things that D&D "fighters" used to do ... nor, indeed, what "fighters" in fantasy fiction do. The "fighter" is now a "D&D Fighter" ... or, rather, it is a "Defender."

A "figher" in 4E will never be about dishing out massive amounts of damage ... at least, not in comparison to the other characters. The fighter will be about SOAKING UP massive amounts of damage while other characters ("Strikers") dish out the damage. Before I go any further, let me again say that I UNDERSTAND and APPRECIATE that this creates a strong and interesting balance between the character classes and the strategy employed by the players both individually and as a group. It is definitely a strength of 4E as a game ... but it is a failing in making D&D what I personally want it to be.

Really, this one "flaw" (from my perspective) is at the heart of MOST of what I dislike about 4E. The niche my character fills is determined by the game. The history of the races and their place in the world is determined by the game. The RULES for how my character acts are intimately tied to the backstory of the presumed world. In SOME games this is a good thing ... but for me (and remember, I am JUST talking about ME), that is a WILD departure from what D&D as a game has represented for almost 30 years.

D&D for me has been the game you use to roleplay just about ANY fantasy setting you can imagine. Not just the worlds created by TSR and later WotC ... but personal creations and adaptations of the fiction of Robert E. Howard, J.R.R. Tolkein, and Stephen R. Donaldson and movies like Krull, Clash of the Titans, The Dark Crystal, and The Princess Bride and TV shows like The Legendary Adventures of Hercules, Xena, Warrior Princess, and Roar!. In other words, D&D was what you used for EVERYTHING. It was the game the everyone played because it could be used to create whatever world you wanted to play in.

Other games came along and tried to do that better. I'm thinking about GURPS and RoleMaster specifically, but there were many others over the years. None of them usurped D&D's position, though, NOT because they were lesser games ... but because D&D didn't give them an opening. It was the easiest thing to use because most people knew it and, with just a little bit of fudging, it could be made to do almost anything the players wanted it to.

To my mind, 3E D&D did this better than ANY edition before. It refined the core mechanics to make them even EASIER to understand and to tinker with, making it even easier for a DM to create and personalize a homebrewed world that still used the core mechanics ... and it increased the ability for a player to personalize his or her character to a new height. If you could conceive it, pretty much you could build it ... and you were STILL playing the same game as the majority of gamers out there.

Was 3E a perfect game? Certainly not. There were some real mechanical stumbling blocks ... and as you learned it better, and tried to make more intricate use of the various sub-systems, it tended to bog down in frustrating ways. The much quoted problems with grappling are perhaps the best illustration, but there were certainly a list of others.

And, to its credit, 4E has some ELEGANT solutions to many of those problems. The game runs very smoothly. And it brings a new level of mechanical interaction to the characters and the combats as a whole. You need to pay attention when playing 4E because every other player's actions have the possibility of affecting yours. And if you can coordinate effectively, your characters can achieve incredible results.

But here's the thing. THAT sort of play style is NOT what I want when I'm playing an RPG. That's what I want from a minis game, or a tactical board game. And, to my mind, 4E D&D might be the BEST tactical minis game I've ever played. It gives me everything I like about games like Descent only it does it BETTER and with significantly more options. But, again, that's NOT what I want from an RPG.

And, more importantly in the long run, I think that making D&D this specific is BAD for the brand as a whole. I understand why it is tempting ... and what many of the "up sides" are. WotC has created more a more "ownable" intellectual property. They can now more clearly say, "THAT is a D&D fighter (or rogue, or gnome, or many other things) ... and it belongs to us" THAT is what business people understand is the "value" in a property like D&D. But by making it that specific, they are cutting off the very thing that made it so broadly popular. They are making it harder and harder to create personal interpretations of D&D ... more and more difficult to use their game to roleplay MY vision. And, I think, in the end that will be their downfall.

People will NOT stick with D&D if it doesn't do what they want it to. They will play it ... it will remain the most popular RPG by virtue of its history and its place in the market. But it will no longer be the game of choice for homebrews and adaptations. People will leave if ever they want to do something different than play core D&D ... and some OTHER game will become their default RPG, with only occasional forays back into D&D when they specifically want to play THAT kind of game.

And I'm ALREADY there. For me, an RPG is about being able to make the character I want or, if I'm DMing, create the world that I want (within reasonable limitations of the system) and for the focus of the game to be on SOCIAL interaction rather than MECHANICAL interaction. THAT is why 4E is not what I want out of D&D. And THAT is why I also think it's important to point out that 4E is a REALLY GREAT GAME ... it's just not what I want when I sit down to play my weekly RPG.

Having said that, I'm moved to point out that it seems likely that I'll be moving back to the Seattle area soon ... and my old gaming group is now fully immersed in 4E (not surprisingly since they are the designers and editors who make the game) ... and I VERY much want to re-join the group. If ANYONE can get me to understand what I'm missing about the game ... why it IS a great vehicle for the kind of RPG gaming that I like ... why I'm pigeonholing it unfairly ... it's that group. And I KNOW that playing with them, I'd have a GREAT time ... and THAT is what D&D is REALLY all about, anyway.

It's a lovely Saturday ... the kind where families think, "Wouldn't it be nice to go out and do something peaceful and relaxing together. Like a walk in the woods or by the beach or out on the nitrous-oxide fields of Sestus XVII. Yeah, THAT'D be great!"

Well, that what ALIEN families would think! I'm certain of it!

Also, remember: If you can stand the rigors of an absolute vacuum, you never have to HEAR to your guide drone on about whatever it is you're seeing!

 

I have an old green t-shirt that came to me while I was working as the story writer for L5R’s Gold Edition. It’s a picture of giant Japanese goblins swarming King Kong-style over the Space Needle. The shirt’s logo says Emerald City Mujina, on the back it’s got my name in black letters. The shirt was some sort of exclusive identifier-badge put together by Mindy Lewis or Andy Heckt or someone else on the L5R support team, I remember being told it was a special honor to get hold of one.

 

Lisa hates the shirt and always wanted me to get rid of it. So a few months ago I finally threw it in the trash. Only to find it on my shirt shelf a couple weeks later, miraculously undamaged. Lisa had noticed the shirt in the trash and took it out to use it as a rag. Apparently it swiftly migrated to the laundry, cleaned up well, and rejoined the wardrobe.

 

So I kept it.

 

The other day I wore the shirt to play soccer and ended up explaining its story to a friend who wondered how I got a shirt with my name on the back and space needle goblins on the front.

 

 “I don’t want to throw it away again,” I said.

 

She raised her eyebrows to say “Why not?” and I tried to clarify. “I mean, it’s kind of crappy, but there aren’t that many of them around.”

 

“That’s how I feel about my parents’ genes,” she said.

 

Tags: dialogue, l5r, parents

There is a thin line between genius and insanity - this young man walks that line.