The Dragon's Talon

Herein, I will go off on one about writing in a stream-of-consciousness oupouring.  Feel free to tune out, I won’t be offended.  Or hitch a ride in my fevered imagination and thought-processes…

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I try to be a writer, good or bad, and I even manage it from time to time. The trouble is that I procrastinate and fail to finish, or else I get something out that I am almost embarrassed to show people.

I think this needs to change, so I need a deadline and a nudge.  I get these enough at work, but let’s not get into that; I like having an income…

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This is something I wrote about a month ago as an example of an interactive script.  It is not great, but it was done in one night and I am quite happy with the female protagonist.  The prompt was “realistic, maybe slightly gritty” and I think I am quite happy, considering this is outside my normal style.

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This week, I think I will not have a writing exercise up .  As an apology, I offer you an older story; this is actually a prologue of sorts to a D&D campaign that was originally started in second edition and later played for a time in fourth edition.  I confess that it is fantasy, my default ‘go to’ genre, but I hope it serves as an example of my style which is not so formal as A Prince of Shadows, nor trying to be self-contained when it clearly is not.

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The fourth in a series of articles chronicling my output from writing exercises, this is less about ‘good writing’ and more about working to constraints without over-thinking them.

The aim this time was to finish a 750-word exercise with the words “…and I realised how lucky I was” by any means necessary.  The opening was actually taken from a notebook of mine.  (like any good writer / designer, I always keep one handy)  It was a line that came to me three or four years ago while waiting outside a library for my wife to finish work, but I never found a story to go with it.

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The third in a series of articles chronicling my output from writing exercises, this is less about ‘good writing’ and more about working to constraints without over-thinking them.

The aim this time was to finish a 750-word exercise with the words “…and he watched.  What else could he do?” to help get these words (paraphrased from a children’s book my daughter loves) out of my wife’s head.  I am not sure how much help I was, but it also gave me the chance to get Jack Flint down on the page before he finished driving me crazy.  I managed to restrict myself to only 49 words over the target, but I am treating these targets as being more like guidelines than rules or limits.

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The second in a series of articles chronicling my output from writing exercises, this is less about ‘good writing’ and more about working to constraints without over-thinking them.

This exercise was a repeat of the earlier brief to write 750 words or more in under an hour starting with the words “The book fell to the floor…” and ending with “…and then he saw the light in the window.”  This time, I have had a couple of days to think about the challenge.  Where the first went over the 750 word target by about 50 words, this one steams on ahead to surpass 1000 words before finally coming to a close.

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This is a response to a blog post on Gamasutra by a man named Steve Mallory, a designer I know through the ‘net who makes some good points about narrative design; read the original post here…

True authorial control… Now there is a scary phrase to use in front of your producer…

True authorial control is taking your player and asking them what they want to do today, rather than telling them what they are allowed to do.  Is that wise? (continue reading…)

As a bard, one single tale can be made to fit a wide variety of different uses. Certain elements can be built up or glossed over depending on your audience and the message that you are trying to convey.

This goes beyond stories having multiple interpretations and actually hinges on changing the story to suit your purpose; you reduce a tale to its skeleton and then flesh it out in such a way that it conforms to your vision.

As a writer, it is typical to build the story to meet the structure of the medium and suit your own strengths, but the story is fixed in both of these cases, with the same events being told in the same way. As a games designer, you can often drop in multiple endings or optional side-quests, but you are essentially just writing static chapters which you can swap in and out.

This is a far cry from a bardic tale, where the same story can be told a hundred ways to reinforce a hundred different moral truths or to better suit your audience. The tale of Romeo and Juliet, for instance, could be told as a bawdy commentary on the rashness of youthful love or a sombre account of how true love requires great sacrifice. Alternatively, you could go with Shakespeare’s version and put it all in.

The point is that a game requires that the developers make a single choice from the list and stick to it, but is this the only way? Can we not give the player a choice of tales and let them pick one? Since games are so interactive, why not let them change their minds as the game progresses?

As long as Verona looks the same way and Romeo does not suddenly change gender or species, we are not looking at any new art-assets. The dialogue might be problematic, but only if you decide to give the whole game VO.

Perhaps the trick is not to shoehorn this adaptive narrative into a game, but to create the game and the games story around it. Minimise or even remove dialogue and you suddenly remove a large stumbling block. Without any dialogue, it suddenly gets easier to localise too. The onus is suddenly on the writer and the narrative designer, rather than the artists. The central narrative, the skeleton if you will, is just a series of narrative checkpoints, with the player taking an equal role to the writer in choosing their path.

It sounds a little complicated, but does it sound that new?

No… The more I think about it, the more I see that it has already started. Left 4 Dead was the first step in this direction and suddenly I get the feeling that it will not be the last…

If you read this blog, you probably know me and what I do for a living.  For the last three years, I have been working on computer games, working my way up from a level designer to a mighty designer and then even specialising somewhat into Narrative Design.

I make games, I live that dream.  I even do some writing, so I must be doubly-blessed.  I have had the chance to pass on my knowledge of games and writing to students and even to other industry professionals as an expert in my field apparently.  What have I to complain about?  I even draw a wage, so I have a constant income and a secure future; my manager even mentioned that my job was more secure than his, since a games company can live without middle-management more easily than without designers.  The benefits are great too, with company sponsored paint-balling and karting, activity adventures and even paid sick leave if you happen to do something stupid like break your coccyx falling down the stairs.

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