Starting at the End
It's been a very long time since I've written a game product to a specific length. It was probably World of Darkness, and even that was pretty flexible. It was also three years ago already. Since then, the only game things I've really worked on were Book of Experimental Might I and II, and Dungeonaday.com, all of which could be characterized by being "as long or as short as they need to be." In fact, that's one of the many, many things I love about working on Dungeonday.com. I am utterly unfettered with the restrictions so often found in adventure writing.
But now I'm working on a short Pathfinder adventure for Paizo. It's a 32-page adventure, a format with which I'm very familiar. I've done enough of them, in fact, that I know that the major pitfall isn't filling the pages, it's cramming a whole adventure into that space. It always seems like you're going to have a lot of room, but then you get to the climactic finish and you're practically out of space and you either need to shortchange it (which is awful), cut earlier portions of the adventure (not fun, and sometimes downright painful), or beg your editor for more pages or a smaller font in the finished product. The latter choice works when you're also the publisher (as I was with Malhavoc Press), but it's not at all endearing if you're not. It's a rookie mistake to think that overwriting is a good thing. Somehow, writers think that if they're commissioned to write 20,000 words and they turn over 30,000 words they're doing someone a favor. It's not like if someone asked you to clean up the kitchen and you also clean the bathroom. More is not better in this case. You're not getting extra credit here. Actually, all overwriting does is make more work for the editor who has to cut the manuscript down to size. And making work for your editor is never a good idea.
So with Curse of the Riven Sky, I wrote the ending first. From a design point of view, the most important part of narrative adventure* is the end, followed closely by the beginning. The end is the climax, the culmination--it's where everything comes together in one exciting, memorable game session where the PCs are pushed to their limits. In this kind of adventure, the last encounter is usually the first one that I plan out, and in this case, it's the first one that I wrote as well. I wanted to make sure that I had the space for every last word it needed to be exactly the ending I wanted to give the adventure. It also turned out that the adventure needed two endings, based on potential player actions and choices. I probably wouldn't have realized that until I got there, had I wrote the adventure in order, and then I would have been in real trouble space-wise.
Next came the beginning. The beginning, to quote Princess Irulan, is a very delicate time. It's how the PCs get drawn into the story and it sets up the whole rest of the adventure. Like the ending, you don't want to short-change the beginning. You want to provide as much detail as you can for the DM to get things going, and cover all the bases regarding what choices the PCs have and what happens if they make each one.
The middle, obviously, is important too. It's the meat of the adventure, after all. In a 32-page adventure, it's all important. You can't really waste a word. But the middle's the most flexible. Basically, it expands or contracts as needed to fill the remaining space. So I've chosen to work on that last. So if you'll excuse me, I have a middle to write.
*Not true with a purely location-based adventure, like a dungeon crawl. That's another kettle of fish.
It's been a very long time since I've written a game product to a specific length. It was probably World of Darkness, and even that was pretty flexible. It was also three years ago already. Since then, the only game things I've really worked on were Book of Experimental Might I and II, and Dungeonaday.com, all of which could be characterized by being "as long or as short as they need to be." In fact, that's one of the many, many things I love about working on Dungeonday.com. I am utterly unfettered with the restrictions so often found in adventure writing.
But now I'm working on a short Pathfinder adventure for Paizo. It's a 32-page adventure, a format with which I'm very familiar. I've done enough of them, in fact, that I know that the major pitfall isn't filling the pages, it's cramming a whole adventure into that space. It always seems like you're going to have a lot of room, but then you get to the climactic finish and you're practically out of space and you either need to shortchange it (which is awful), cut earlier portions of the adventure (not fun, and sometimes downright painful), or beg your editor for more pages or a smaller font in the finished product. The latter choice works when you're also the publisher (as I was with Malhavoc Press), but it's not at all endearing if you're not. It's a rookie mistake to think that overwriting is a good thing. Somehow, writers think that if they're commissioned to write 20,000 words and they turn over 30,000 words they're doing someone a favor. It's not like if someone asked you to clean up the kitchen and you also clean the bathroom. More is not better in this case. You're not getting extra credit here. Actually, all overwriting does is make more work for the editor who has to cut the manuscript down to size. And making work for your editor is never a good idea.
So with Curse of the Riven Sky, I wrote the ending first. From a design point of view, the most important part of narrative adventure* is the end, followed closely by the beginning. The end is the climax, the culmination--it's where everything comes together in one exciting, memorable game session where the PCs are pushed to their limits. In this kind of adventure, the last encounter is usually the first one that I plan out, and in this case, it's the first one that I wrote as well. I wanted to make sure that I had the space for every last word it needed to be exactly the ending I wanted to give the adventure. It also turned out that the adventure needed two endings, based on potential player actions and choices. I probably wouldn't have realized that until I got there, had I wrote the adventure in order, and then I would have been in real trouble space-wise.
Next came the beginning. The beginning, to quote Princess Irulan, is a very delicate time. It's how the PCs get drawn into the story and it sets up the whole rest of the adventure. Like the ending, you don't want to short-change the beginning. You want to provide as much detail as you can for the DM to get things going, and cover all the bases regarding what choices the PCs have and what happens if they make each one.
The middle, obviously, is important too. It's the meat of the adventure, after all. In a 32-page adventure, it's all important. You can't really waste a word. But the middle's the most flexible. Basically, it expands or contracts as needed to fill the remaining space. So I've chosen to work on that last. So if you'll excuse me, I have a middle to write.
*Not true with a purely location-based adventure, like a dungeon crawl. That's another kettle of fish.
- Music:Built to Spill: There is No Enemy
Nicked from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
burger_eater, I give to you Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice in Emoticons
One of the things that strikes me about this emoticon tour de force is that it's such a complete and total proof that yes, there really IS a good use for emoticons, and so THERE on those hoity-toity purist types who railed against their use. :)
burger_eater, I give to you Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice in EmoticonsOne of the things that strikes me about this emoticon tour de force is that it's such a complete and total proof that yes, there really IS a good use for emoticons, and so THERE on those hoity-toity purist types who railed against their use. :)
Meanwhile, back at the Sphere...
( DuQuesne, bearer of wierd tidings... )
It's tough to prepare for a journey that could be to ANYWHERE, really.
http://twitter.com/mouseferatu
I probably won't be doing much tweeting, other than professional announcements--which you can also see here, or on my web site--but if you're interested, come on over and follow.
I probably won't be doing much tweeting, other than professional announcements--which you can also see here, or on my web site--but if you're interested, come on over and follow.
Speedie Sees The World! , the adventures of a diminutive cheetah with a heart as big as africa... living in So Cal.
Go! Read and spread the word! Go! Go!
Go! Read and spread the word! Go! Go!
... is there a simple way to take a single image and associate it with a piece of music (thus producing one of those YouTube videos which consists of a piece of music with a labeling image)? At the moment the only way I've found that works is to create a Quicktime video which is the length of the musical selection, said video consisting of many, many duplicates of the original image, then import the video and add the music track.
I'm a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants GM. I've run one-shot games at conventions with no premade map. I've done one-shot games with no monster stat blocks, just determining approximate ACs, hps, and attack values for the monsters. I'm pretty good at "faking it."
A published adventure typically has MUCH more than this. Certainly it has stat blocks, but it gives you the plot in detail, with a background to what's happening, information about if the adventure plot goes off the rails here or there, descriptions of stuff that isn't directly related to the adventure (say, a subplot about a blacksmith in town, or full room descriptions of every location in the dungeon), a clear map to get you from Point A to Point B to Point C. This is because (in theory) the target audience for a published adventure is mainly people who don't have time to come up with their own adventures, and appreciate the drag-and-drop ease of a published one.
But is that the only adventure audience?
Somewhere between "make it all up yourself" and "provide me everything I need," is there a middle ground of "take care of the maps, stat blocks, and general plot that makes it cool, and let me take care of the rest for my campaign"?
I ask because while I can write complete adventures--it's how I got started in this business--but I don't necessarily want to do all of that. After all, I suspect that in many cases, an experienced GM is going to have to fiddle with a published adventure anyway, customizing the introduction to motivate the specific PCs in the campaign, changing names and locations to fit where the campaign is, and so on.
Anyone can design an encounter site, whether that's a single encounter (like a random or wilderness encounter or a boss battle) or a group of encounters in the same area (like a dungeon). It's not hard to create a 2,000-word chunk of text that's some neat encounters linked by a map.
Somewhere beyond that level of design work is a 10,000 word skeleton-and-gristle adventure--the basics of a plot that doesn't rely too much on a specific world or culture or country or evil cult, something a GM can use to build a few sessions within the framework of an existing campaign, but doesn't require you to tear down and rebuild much.
Beyond that is a 20,000-word fully-fleshed-out-with-some-fat-to-boot complete adventure, with all the stuff I mentioned before (side plots, fully-described locations, advice on steering PCs back to the adventure's plot, and so on).
Of course, beyond that is a complete campaign, like one of the campaign box sets or a Paizo Adventure Path--multiple adventures over many levels, with a ton of support material.
Personally, I'd rather write two 10,000 word skeleton adventures than one 20,000 word fleshed-out adventure (in fact, that's why Baby With the Bathwater has been on hold--the extra effort to fill in all those details, details I'd normally sketch out and fill in on the fly if I were running it). I wonder if there are enough people out there looking for something in that middle ground, more than the bare bones of a packaged encounter or group of encounters, less than a finalized adventure--a plot, a few maps, important and strategic encounters, a conclusion to that part of the story.
What do you think? Would you be interested in a "middle-ground" or skeleton of an adventure instead of a fleshed-out adventure? It would be shorter, but cheaper, too.
A published adventure typically has MUCH more than this. Certainly it has stat blocks, but it gives you the plot in detail, with a background to what's happening, information about if the adventure plot goes off the rails here or there, descriptions of stuff that isn't directly related to the adventure (say, a subplot about a blacksmith in town, or full room descriptions of every location in the dungeon), a clear map to get you from Point A to Point B to Point C. This is because (in theory) the target audience for a published adventure is mainly people who don't have time to come up with their own adventures, and appreciate the drag-and-drop ease of a published one.
But is that the only adventure audience?
Somewhere between "make it all up yourself" and "provide me everything I need," is there a middle ground of "take care of the maps, stat blocks, and general plot that makes it cool, and let me take care of the rest for my campaign"?
I ask because while I can write complete adventures--it's how I got started in this business--but I don't necessarily want to do all of that. After all, I suspect that in many cases, an experienced GM is going to have to fiddle with a published adventure anyway, customizing the introduction to motivate the specific PCs in the campaign, changing names and locations to fit where the campaign is, and so on.
Anyone can design an encounter site, whether that's a single encounter (like a random or wilderness encounter or a boss battle) or a group of encounters in the same area (like a dungeon). It's not hard to create a 2,000-word chunk of text that's some neat encounters linked by a map.
Somewhere beyond that level of design work is a 10,000 word skeleton-and-gristle adventure--the basics of a plot that doesn't rely too much on a specific world or culture or country or evil cult, something a GM can use to build a few sessions within the framework of an existing campaign, but doesn't require you to tear down and rebuild much.
Beyond that is a 20,000-word fully-fleshed-out-with-some-fat-to-boot complete adventure, with all the stuff I mentioned before (side plots, fully-described locations, advice on steering PCs back to the adventure's plot, and so on).
Of course, beyond that is a complete campaign, like one of the campaign box sets or a Paizo Adventure Path--multiple adventures over many levels, with a ton of support material.
Personally, I'd rather write two 10,000 word skeleton adventures than one 20,000 word fleshed-out adventure (in fact, that's why Baby With the Bathwater has been on hold--the extra effort to fill in all those details, details I'd normally sketch out and fill in on the fly if I were running it). I wonder if there are enough people out there looking for something in that middle ground, more than the bare bones of a packaged encounter or group of encounters, less than a finalized adventure--a plot, a few maps, important and strategic encounters, a conclusion to that part of the story.
What do you think? Would you be interested in a "middle-ground" or skeleton of an adventure instead of a fleshed-out adventure? It would be shorter, but cheaper, too.
- Mood:
curious
Well... it can be saved. I am confident that... A base of Clay Grass, and a little super glue to reattach the fallen off ears, and it'll be fine... ... and just don't ask about the tail...
... but it frustrates me that polymer clay just seems so fragile at times...
Maybe I should just start over, but I hate wasting clay... even if it is somewhat cheap.
... but it frustrates me that polymer clay just seems so fragile at times...
Maybe I should just start over, but I hate wasting clay... even if it is somewhat cheap.
Figures...
I got the cutest little sculpture... but it tiled back and landed on it's back...
Well, maybe I can glue the legs back on and save it... it's just disappointing.
Well, I can make a new one... or make new legs. That works, too...
I got the cutest little sculpture... but it tiled back and landed on it's back...
Well, maybe I can glue the legs back on and save it... it's just disappointing.
Well, I can make a new one... or make new legs. That works, too...
And finally a chance to relax and reflect...
( Read more... )
Yes, that will be difficult, but are there any better choices?
Do you have a "dream car"? If you had money to spare, would you buy a new car? If so, would you be more likely to get an eco-friendly vehicle, a vintage model, or a luxury sportscar? Submitted By |
My dream car is 100% rustproof, is the size of a full-size van, and runs on nothing but tapwater, getting 100mpg.
If I had the money, yes, I'd buy a new car, probably a full-size van, because I've got a family of 6.
Taken, in entirety, from Platitude of the Day
Just a quick reminder to everyone, under no circumstances whatsoever should the cartoon below appear on any of your social networking pages or blogs.
It gives the impression that Islam drives some people to become fanatical, violent and intolerant, and it makes some Muslims very unhappy. We all know that in real Islam, proper Islam, which is after all the Religion of Peace, Jihad is about an inner spiritual journey.
Islam didn't spread throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Asia by attacking it's neighbours (anyone who says this is clearly ignorant of history). Islam spread because of its internal beauty, consistency and logic. No one, anywhere on Earth, is forced to be a Muslim because, as everyone knows, there is no compulsion in religion. Even today, where Islam lives in peaceful coexistence with its Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Buddhist neighbours throughout the world, Islam is admired by all.
So in the interests of respect, human rights and freedom of speech, I implore you all not to show this cartoon or give it any publicity.
I understand some of you didn't care for Tennant's final episode.
It must be hard going through life without a soul. :-P
It must be hard going through life without a soul. :-P
- Mood:
emotional
Prior to last night, the last part of Doctor Who I'd seen was the Planet of the Dead (Bus in another dimension) special, so I caught up with it last night with Waters of Mars and End of Time.
( Cut for spoilers, obviously... )
So, in summary, not bad, some neat stuff (some of which will undoubtedly be driving fans to frothing rants), and sad, as it's an exit of one of the best Doctors, and one that I'd hoped would continue for years. Doesn't come near the epic coolness of a couple of the other seasons, especially The Stolen Earth and Journey's End, but it's a good, serviceable Doctor Who story. Alas, I was severely disappointed by this season in that it wasn't a season -- just a few specials. Hopefully this will not be the case with the new Doctor's first appearances. I wish that RTD didn't have what appears to be an impulse to do Bizarre Sh*t for no reason other than that he can; it makes some of his stuff less than it might otherwise be.
... You don't live in America.
The graphic below shows the comparative cost of healthcare in many countries cross-referenced with life expectancy.
The UK is dead average, costing a modest $2992 per person per year for a life expectancy of 79 years.
Compare this to the USA with a spending of $7990 for a life expectancy for 78 years. However, go further south to Mexico, and just $823 will get you 75 years.
Source: The Cost of Care
The graphic below shows the comparative cost of healthcare in many countries cross-referenced with life expectancy.
The UK is dead average, costing a modest $2992 per person per year for a life expectancy of 79 years.
Compare this to the USA with a spending of $7990 for a life expectancy for 78 years. However, go further south to Mexico, and just $823 will get you 75 years.
Source: The Cost of Care
Looking over the past year and seeing some of the other posts, I realize that while when I was younger I read NONSTOP (I averaged one book per day for many years), these days I hardly read anything at all (aside from Usenet, LJ, things like that). I think I read five books this year outside of "stuff for work". So I will try to read more books this year.
I finished out the year weighing in at 216.8 pounds. My high had been ~230, my low about 206, I think. So I have kept more than 10 pounds off from my starting point, despite a rebound that began once things really started getting hairy around here with health, etc. So I will endeavor to do at least as well this year, beginning 2011 at 205 pounds or less.
I have started a website -- with the help of a number of other people -- for Grand Central Arena and my other books. I will endeavor to increase the material on the website and to push forward with as many reasonable methods for gaining more publicity for my novels as I can. I will take this seriously as a second career. I will finish at least two more novels this year, preferably three.
I will try to watch our finances more closely and improve our financial position.
I finished out the year weighing in at 216.8 pounds. My high had been ~230, my low about 206, I think. So I have kept more than 10 pounds off from my starting point, despite a rebound that began once things really started getting hairy around here with health, etc. So I will endeavor to do at least as well this year, beginning 2011 at 205 pounds or less.
I have started a website -- with the help of a number of other people -- for Grand Central Arena and my other books. I will endeavor to increase the material on the website and to push forward with as many reasonable methods for gaining more publicity for my novels as I can. I will take this seriously as a second career. I will finish at least two more novels this year, preferably three.
I will try to watch our finances more closely and improve our financial position.
Page Summary
- seankreynolds : update: Monster Flash Drive Sculpting Project [+2]
- montecook : Starting at the End [+4]
- seawasp : GODLIKE. [+1]
- seawasp : GRAND CENTRAL ARENA: Chapter 29 [+5]
- mouseferatu : Okay, I've succumbed [+1]
- kensan_oni : I pimp, because I care... [+1]
- tregenza : Suffer from too much nocturnal spam? [+3]
- seawasp : Silly iMovie question... [+3]
- seankreynolds : Incomplete Published Adventures [+13]
- kensan_oni : Tada! I got a Carrot! [+3]
- kensan_oni : Well... [+0]
- kensan_oni : *headdesk* [+0]
- seawasp : GRAND CENTRAL ARENA: Chapter 28 [+9]
- seawasp : Writer's Block: Baby, you can drive my car [+6]
- tregenza : Platitudes [+0]
- mouseferatu : The End of Time [+14]
- seawasp : Gloom and Doom! [+2]
- seawasp : Doctor Who, the just-Past season... [+21]
- tregenza : Reasons to be Cheerful ... [+2]
- seawasp : Sorta-resolutions... [+3]