It's not a rip off, it's an homage

So when I'm writing games, I rip other people's stories off a lot. But it's for the best, trust me.

Maybe I can't write like Shakespeare, but he ripped off most of his best ideas, and I can certainly follow in those footsteps.

To be honest, I mostly steal concepts, ideas, character archetypes, and themes. I recombine them, recycle them, and re-use them. I'm an ecologically-aware writer, if there's ever a world-wide idea shortage, I will be on the forefront of the idea recycling movement!


You only have so much time to tell a story and you have to share it with the players and what they want to do. If I need to spend a lot of time establishing a particular character, or society, or bit of technology, that's basically just me sitting at one end of the table narrating to my players. It's not really interactive and unless I'm a really good storyteller, it's kind of boring. Heck, sometimes even I get bored of doing all the talking. Every word I can avoid saying is another word my players can jam in edgewise. Believe me that's a good thing.

Ripping off somebody else's idea - especially a well-known idea that is shared by most, if not all of my players - saves a lot of time. For example, if I base a society on Imperial Rome and drop a few not-so-subtle hints about it, all of my players have a big leg up on the story I'm telling and they can then cooperate by contributing their own bits if they choose to. If I want to introduce a character with crazy-advanced technology and I have them whip out what is obviously a sonic screwdriver, the players are likely to recognize it, even if their characters don't. It's a short cut and it puts everyone on more or less the same page. Now I can move the story along and give my players some well-deserved spotlight time.

This is even more useful in a one-shot game. When I'm writing a character sheet for a 4 hour live action game, I like to keep it under six pages, including abilities and contact list (the ever-popular 'Who You Knows'). That doesn't leave an awful lot of room. If I could make the sheets shorter, I would. Most people won't memorize much more than two pages, so every page I go longer is that many more times a player needs to whip out his character sheet and bring the game to a screeching halt while they 'search their memories.' I like to keep things moving and minimize character sheet checking, so I keep the sheets short.

The best method I've found for having well-rounded and fleshed-out characters that can be written in under six pages is stealing referencing other people's ideas. I don't always copy a character outright (but when I do, I do it like an internet meme) but if I can get the basic concept across in a paragraph or two instead of a page or two, that's a big space saver. How many pages would it take me to describe Darth Vader or Wolverine? Answer: a whole lot. But I can convey to a player that a character is 'just like' Vader or Wolverine in less than a page. Plus it gives them some potential ideas on how to portray the character and what his or her motivations might be. Even better, if the player does choose to portray the character as strongly reminiscent of the inspiration, the players who interact with the character will also benefit from the reference.  Of course, this brings up the question of player knowledge versus character knowledge, but that's a subject for another blog.  Short answer, I tend towards revealing as much as possible to the player in the hopes that it will inform their portrayal of the character and I leave 'firewalling' to the player. Besides, this incarnation of the character is very likely to have an entirely different set of dark secrets to discover so knowing an 'alternate universe' version of the character isn't as much of a leg up as one might imagine.

Characters aren't and shouldn't be static things. Even a concept that began as a point-for-point rip off homage to another character can and should evolve and grow beyond its origins. Campaigns are excellent for that sort of thing. But starting off with a good point of reference and a well-known media touchstone is a great start. One of the best characters I've ever seen started off as a fairly blatant clone of Battlestar Galactica's Starbuck (the modern one). The character went through a lot of changes, situations and challenges and ended her run three years later as a fully-realized, unique and compelling character that would have graced any series she appeared in. Would the character have gone as far without literary shoulders to stand on? Maybe, maybe not, but it worked and ripping off things that worked is what this blog post is all about.

Taking other people's characters and putting them into new and different situations is nothing new, fan fiction has been doing it for decades, taking other people's ideas and expanding on them or re-combining them in new and different ways isn't new either, it's called 'genre.' But using it as a short cut or place holder for character development is a powerful application for both players and game masters of tabletop and live action games.

There are other ways to go, of course. I've gotten more than my fair share of twenty page character sheets, I've seen a lot of bold and unique characters, in fact some of the best players, writers, and game masters insist on creating entirely new and original characters every time. Some situations call for originality and others call for a reference.  Keep a large toolbox and steal use the right tool for the right job.

Nuts and Bolts

With the recent (and long-awaited) release of Verdigris for the Droid platform I thought this would be a nice time to talk about my approach to writing multiple choice interactive fiction in general and Verdigris in specific. I grew up on the Choose Your Own Adventure game books as well as great computer games like Zork and its many cousins and descendents.

These games were and are great fun and I cannot recommend them too highly. Actually that's not quite true, if I were to say that playing interactive fiction games would forever end the threat of nuclear war in our lifetimes, I would be recommending them too highly. But short of that, they are pretty dang nifty. The thrill of interactive fiction (hereafter occasionally referred to as IF to save space and delay the inevitable onset of carpal tunnel) is much the same as that of role playing games like Dungeons & Dragons and all of its cousins and venerable descendents: Stepping outside of your own head and your own life, creating an alter ego and having adventures, solving mysteries and just generally dealing with problems that aren't the same old mundane ones you have to deal with in Real Life. As most people who have met me know, I am no great fan of Real Life.

The problem with a lot of interactive fiction games is that they are mostly constructed out of frustration. Many IF games require you to learn the language and structure of each game. That takes time and can be painful and - wait for it - frustrating. Anyone who has played an IF game has had screaming arguments with their computer that go something like this:

Computer says: You see an interesting umbrella, you should pick it up
Player types: Pick up umbrella
Computer replies: I don't see an umbrella here
Player types: Pick up parasol
Computer replies: I don't see a parasol here
Player types: Look around
Computer replies: You see an interesting umbrella, you should pick it up
Player types: Pick up the freaking umbrella!!!!!
Computer replies: There's no need to get upset here, I'm just doing my job. Did you want to pick up the umbrella?
Player types: Yes!
Computer replies: I don't understand what you mean.

At this point, Player often throws his computer through a convenient window. But once you get the hang of each program's specific quirks and requirements they're a lot of fun. Trust me here. But what Team Verdigris wanted to do was create a vibrant interactive world with lots of real choices and real consequences that was as close to frustration-free as we could manage. Unfortunately, that meant front-loading all the frustration onto ourselves. We used a structure that allows the players to choose whatever missions they want in pretty much any order they choose, and because it's all multiple choice, there was no need to learn the program's idiosyncratic language.

The consequence of this choice was what we began calling zombie chips. Small spoiler here: the consequences of your choices in the game can lead to the deaths of some of the characters you interact with. The problem with this is that some players will move forward in the game with a particular character being alive and others with that same character being dead. This was a ticklish logic problem that led to a bit of a walking dead problem, or in some cases, a bit of a lying down living problem. It's hard to keep a good character down in Verdigris, even when they're dead.

The other problem we had was the vanishing button conundrum. Many of the missions in Verdigris feature several different investigative paths that all lead to the same conclusion (more or less, your choices matter) but some require that the player follow every lead to piece together all the information. For these, we created structure that lets the player follow the leads in any order they choose, mostly because it's more fun that way. When each track was completed, the player is sent back to a central screen where they report back and then choose the next track. In theory, the button that leads to the tracks they've already completed will no longer appear. This is all well and good, but sometimes it led to a player getting back to a screen that had no buttons at all. There was literally no way out other then jumping around using the map mechanic or actually restarting your game. This may be my first game, but I rapidly concluded that this was a design flaw.

Tracking down the logic errors that causes these vanishing button dead ends was a mystery as challenging as any in the actual game. Some of these central screens have over 60 discrete code elements and figuring out which one is buggy ... well Dear Reader, it ain't easy. Team Verdigris has spent hundreds (and hundreds, and hundreds) of hours playing the heck of the game trying to find and fix all of these pesky problems. Did we get them all? Probably not. Will we fix them when players find them? Absolutely. Will it be easy? That would be a big nope. Is it worth it? I said is it worth it? Hello? Is this thing on? Anybody? Is it worth the late nights, the early mornings, the lonely SOs, and the crushing poverty?

...

Only you, Dear Reader can answer that question for us. Play Verdigris and let us know. That is all.

March 23, 2012
Chelmsford, MA

It's all part of The Process

Sometimes it is difficult for the untrained eye to spot the difference between a working writer and a lazy slacker. I'll admit that there are certain similarities, so I'm all too willing to forgive the error. I have a lot of conversations that go a lot like this:

Her: What are you doing?
Me: Writing.
Her: You're playing Facebook games.
Me: It's all part of The Process.
Her: Are you sure?
Me: I'm sure.

Time passes.

Her: What are you doing now?
Me: Writing.
Her: You're watching Farscape!
Me: If you already knew what I was doing why did you bother to ask?

More time passes.

Me: Before you ask, yes I'm writing.
Her: You're getting drunk.
Me: It's part of The Process.
Her: Are you sure?
Me: It is crazy, how sure I am!

So there it is.

Can you, Dear Reader, spot the differences? No? To be honest ... some days, neither can I. There's definitely something to be said for keeping the conscious mind occupied while letting the 'boys in the basement' (to pilfer a line from Stephen King) do their work. I personally find that some level of distraction and refocusing is absolutely necessary to do creative work. I hear that Neil Gaiman likes to go for long drives. Jennifer Pelland does belly dancing (and she does it quite well.) And it is crazy how many authors like to get blasted out of their minds on the controlled substance of their choice.

But on the other side of the keyboard, there are countless authors who fritter away their days goofing off, waiting for the muse who never comes, and building social empires out of Twitter accounts. Most of these authors don't get enough written. And I, Dear Reader, am very much one of Those Authors. There are many different jobs that a writer needs to get done. Some of them require some goof off time, many others require a whole lot of focus, dedication, and time in chair. For every hour I spend day dreaming about plot, I need to put in 6 more on writing and 20 more into editing.

Creating plot is the fun part for me; it's the bold and exciting part of any project where there are no wrong answers and everything is possible. Then there's the nuts and bolts writing, worrying about word choice, timing, continuity, style, and character. And then comes the dreaded editing. Punctuation, spelling, grammar, typographical errors, and all the other hobgoblins of good writing are the anchor that drags me down.

Which just makes it all the more exciting when I flex my mighty metaphorical thews and stand proud, lifting the anchor above my head and howling the author's fierce victory cry, "The End!" Somewhere between the slacker gazing out the window and the head's down keyboard cowboy, I get my best work done.

None of this is easy on my writing partners, most of whom have much, much better working habits than I do. Through clever planning and unearned audacity, I have multiple deadlines all converging right about ... now. Feverish typing at 3 in the morning has become pretty normal for me, and my collaborators are probably getting equally used to seeing my latest work first thing in the morning. I hope that working with me is rewarding on some level, because it surely frustrates on more than one.

For those of you out there looking forward to the final session of Serendipity Station and Feast of the Minotaur at Intercon L, please say nice things to my co-writers about how patient and considerate they have been. For those of you patiently waiting for my next interactive smart phone app and novel, that is still a way's off... For those patiently waiting for my next blog posting, here it is! How do you like it so far?

It has been said that writers wear many hats, the mind set, skill set, and temperament required for getting a rough draft out of your brain and onto the computer screen is entirely different from the hats you have to wear during later phases of any literary project. Switching gears is very hard for me, and I'm sure it's just as challenging for most other writers. But the rewards are pretty great so I'll keep doing it as long as I can. Because, frankly, I suck even worse at most everything else.

President's Day 1/20/2012
Chelmsford, MA