Six words to tell a story in ...

Wired set a group of well known writers a challenge, could they tell a story in six words or less?

I've reproduced a few of my favourites:

Computer, did we bring batteries? Computer?
- Eileen Gunn

Gown removed carelessly. Head, less so.
- Joss Whedon

Machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time
- Alan Moore

Epitaph: Foolish humans, never escaped Earth.
- Vernor Vinge

Lie detector eyeglasses perfected: Civilization collapses.
- Richard Powers

K.I.A. Baghdad, Aged 18 - Closed Casket
- Richard K. Morgan

Dinosaurs return. Want their oil back.
- David Brin

Deadline postponed. Five words enough...?
- David Brin

Please, this is everything, I swear.
- Orson Scott Card

Finally, he had no more words.
- Gregory Maguire

Leia: "Baby's yours." Luke: "Bad news…"
- Steven Meretzky

They also created some interesting graphics to go with these micro-stories:

The DM of the Rings

Shamus Young had created a most excellent comic interpretation of how a 'normal' D&D party would tackle the Lord of the Rings. If you've ever played D&D (or any of its many siblings) then this is sure to cause you to lose it, so do not read this whilst drinking, eating or in a place where loss of composure could be seriously embarrassing (like work).


In the words of the creator of this misadventure:

Lord of the Rings is more or less the foundation of modern D&D. The latter rose from the former, although the two are now so estranged that to reunite them would be an act of savage madness. Imagine a gaggle of modern hack-n-slash roleplayers who had somehow never been exposed to the original Tolkien mythos, and then imagine taking those players and trying to introduce them to Tolkien via a D&D campaign.

That sums up the comic nicely, and explains why I kept having flasbacks to the various times when I tried to get my hack-n-slash friends interested in my latest campaign, based on {insert seriously good scifi/fantasy novel, film or comic name here}.

Blow-up Space Station

I missed this when it occurred, but Bigelow recently launched their blow-up space station into orbit:



Personally, I think this is cool. The fact that the Russian missile rocket launches from underground must cause some administrative headaches, but then it probably also protects it from inclement weather as well.

Brust: Plot, a Bourgeous Luxury

So what does Steven Burst think about plot?

"The Thing That May Become A Book now has seven pages to it. Email still isn't working, for those who care. Also, I still don't have a plot, but that's okay; I've always felt plot to be a bourgeous luxury."

David Gemmell Dies, Age 57

One of my favorite authors, David Gemmell died a few weeks ago, on the 28th July 2006. His death was due to coronary artery disease, probably brought on by his heavy smoking. Dying at age 57 is far too young, and cut short what could have been an even more prolific career as he came to complete his Troy series. His publisher said he was "writing at the peak of his powers".

Looking at the Wikipedia entry above, I realise that I've only ever read three of his series:

1. Drenai Series:
   This was the first of his series that I ever read, and the stirring heroes of individual brilliance still resonate with me.
2. Sipstrassi Series:
   This series mixes Wild West with a post-apocalyptic world with linkages to lost Atlantis (the Drenai series actually has similar 'memories' of a lost technological civilization, although less obvious). I appreciate the religious gunfighter anti-hero much more now than I did when I first read these as a teenager.
3. Greek Series:
   This 'alternate history' series is interesting, but has a disturbing twist on traditional Greek mythology. I have not re-read these since I first bought them, unlike the other series.

I never bought the Rigante series - it just seemed too much a copy of the Drenai - and the rest of his work also seemed less interesting. I think I'll have to at least hit the local library for them though as there will be no more Drenai novels coming.

It is interesting for me to compare the heroes of Gemmell's worlds with main characters from another of my favorite authors, Steven Brust. Brust's series of books about his reluctant hero Vlad Taltos (assassin, witch, criminal boss, sorceror, psychic, human) and the Khaavren Romances set in the same world of Dragaera, have a very different style to Gemmell's work, but are similar in that they inhabit a consistent world over a long period of time, with the history in some books making reference to events from others, and a similar hint that this 'fantasy' world is simply in the future of our own.

Gemmell however has an unshaking belief in the ability of one man to sway a crowd of enemies, consistently his work shows single heroes standing off much larger groups due to their lack of fear and willingnes to die - which paradoxically guarantees their life.

Brust shows his heroes as far less effectual, for them the crowd will charge and not be stood off - the heroes will triumph through other means, often after an initial setback - usually through the bold application of their wits, or magic.

The difference may be put down to the backgrounds of the authors. Gemmell had a much more rough and ready youth, expelled from school for organising a gambling syndicate and working as a bouncer and then later a journalist. Brust is a musician and plays up his Hungarian descent, almost dressing as one of the characters from his books - he also likes poker. Gemmell was 6'4" tall and looked very much like one of his craggy heroes.

Anyway, as an aspiring writer, I like hearing where characters really come from, here is what Gemmell wrote in 1995 about the genesis of his Jon Shannow character for the Sipstrassi Series (emphasis mine):

Of the many characters I have created over the years, few have
captured the imagination of readers as powerfully as Jon Shannow, the Jerusalem Man.

Alan Fisher, the award winning author of 'Terioki Crossing', and a fan of the film Casablanca, has a phrase that sums up characters like Shannow. "They walk out of Rick's bar, fully formed and real. The author doesn't have to work on them at all. There is no concsious act of creation. One moment they don't exist- the next they stand before you, complete and ready."

I remember the moment Shannow walked out of Rick's bar. It was at the end of a miserable, wet day in Bournemouth at the start of autumn in 1986. I was the group managing editor of a series of newspapers stretching from Brighton to Portsmouth on the south coast. The previous week I had a call from my father to tell me that my mother was in hospiatl and that the surgeons feared she had terminal cancer. They were right. A year before she had suffered the amputation of her right leg, and fought back to make a dramatic entrance at the Christmas dance. This time there would be no fightback.

I had visited her in London, and then driven to Bournemouth for a business meeting, concluding it at around ten that night. I was staying in a small hotel of remarkable unfriendliness. The kind of place- as Jack Dee once said- where the Gideons leave a rope! I hadn't eaten since the previous evening and I called the night porter. He said the kitchen staff had gone home, but there was a plate of olives someone had left at the bar. Nursing the olives and a very large glass of Armagnac I returned to my room and opened the Olympia portable typewriter.

I was at the time preparing a Drenai novel, featuring the Nadir warlord Ulric, which my publishers had commissioned. According to the contract the book was to be called 'Wolf in Shadow' and was, lossely, a prequel to Legend. I had completed around sixty pages. They weren't good, but I was powering on as best I could.

Sitting by the window, looking out over Bournemouth's glistening streets, I tried to push the events of the week from my mind. My mother was dying, I was waiting to be fired, and staff, who had joined my team in good faith, were facing redundancy. After the fifth large Armagnac I decided to continue work on the book. I knew I was drunk, and I also knew that the chances of writing anything worthwhile were pretty negligible. But forcing my mind into a fantasy world seemed infintely more appealing than concentrating on the reality at hand.

The scene I was set to continue had a Nadir scout riding across the steppes. The intention was to follow him to the top of a hill and have him gaze down on the awesome army camped on the plains below. I focused on the typewriter keys and typed the following sentences...

'The rider paused at the crest of a wooded hill, and gazed down at the wide, rolling ampty lands beneath him. There was no sign of Jerusalem...'

The walls of the mind came crashing in as I typed the word 'Jerusalem,' thoughts, fears amd regrets spilling ver one another, fighting for space. There followed a bad hour, which even Armagnac could not ease. But after midnight I returned to the page and stared down at it. It called to me. Who is he, I thought? What is he looking for, the Jerusalem Man?

And suddenly he was there. Tall and gaunt, seeking a city that had ceased to exist three hundred years before. A lonely, tortured man on a quest with no ending, riding through a world of savagery and barbarism.

The story flowed in an instant, and I wrote until after the dawn. Through all the despair that followed in those next painful months I found a sanctuary in the company of Jon Shannow. Through his eyes I could see the world clearly, and understand how important it is to be strong in the broken places.

As a result Shannow will always be one of my favourite characters. For a while back here he was the best friend I'd ever had.

Here's to you David Gemmell, may you find the spiritual city that calls to you, and if you do, then save me a place at your table for a drink or two.

Ariel Atom - Nuclear Missile on Wheels

Speaking of great gear - this little car is one heck of a supercar, bearing in mind that it does seat two, is roadworthy and even has a (tiny) boot/trunk. The best bit is the price, around US$50k. See more at the Ariel Atom website.



Surely this car needs to be in the next James Bond movie? And if you're running a spy RPG you would have to also consider this little beast as a great getaway car for the heroes (or badguy).

Found via Signals vs Noise.

Lego Robo Power!!!

Lumpley Games have a new (free) game called Mechaton up on their website. Now the problem with most tabletop mecha games is the scads of money you spend on buying miniatures (Battletech anyone?), or on unsatisfactory standup card versions of them.

The nice feature here is that they've got rules for making your mecha out of Lego. The abilities your mecha has are dependent upon how you build them. here are some examples:


Pics courtesy of Ninja Monkey J

Apart from the sheer genius of tapping into the combined geek-power of Lego and mecha wargaming, this game is also great because it allows easy customisation of mecha from the same set of parts, so puchase costs are minimal. In case you're wondering what kits you might be interested in, some basic research has shown me that some of the best kits are Exo-Force, Robo Platoon, and Robo Pod. You might also find Dino Pod, Mythical Creatures and Motion Power interesting for the walking and sundry bits.

My son is just getting into Lego now, and I would love to have a game we could play together, or that I could set up for a silly afternoon with a bunch of beer-toting mates.

By the way, for the ultimate in Lego mecha figures, go no further than NeutronBot.com, with Soren's models being the most mecha-like.

The Iron Code

I've been re-reading my Druss the Legend books this week, somehow I'm missing Legend, which is the first one I read (and the first written). One of my favorite bits of prose is the Iron Code that Druss is taught by Shadak, one of his first mentors:

“Never violate a woman, nor harm a child. Do not lie, cheat or steal. These things are for lesser men. Protect the weak against the evil strong. And never allow thoughts of gain to lead you into the pursuit of evil. Never back away from an enemy. Either fight or surrender. It is not enough to say I will not be evil. Evil must be fought wherever it is found.”

The Iron Code

I love the uncompromising quality of that code, the assumption is not that all fights will be won, but that no fights will be shirked. I would be the first to say that sometimes discretion is the better part of valour, but that is something that does not fit in the simple black-and-white world of Druss.

However, author David Gemmell is not soft on Druss, he admits that the courage of a father that backs down from a fight to protect his family may well be greater than the man that allows his ego to lead him into confrontation. So the code provides a moral compass for a character that admits it is not the only way to live - in Druss' terms he would simply see one rule for himself and another for others with different needs. Seeing Gemmell handle Druss as a father figure would have been interesting, but as he is first introduced facing his death it would require an alternate timeline to work.

Hmmm ... I'll have to see whether Gemmell makes any of his other heroic figures fathers.

Setting and Source Material

There is a great discussion about Setting and Source Material at the anyway blog. The most interesting bit for me was:

Last summer sometime Ninja J and I spent a whole afternoon walking all the heck over Northampton. Among many other things, we talked about a beloved old game he'd GMed; particularly, we talked about how rich and alive its setting was, how detailed. His players ate it up, he said, they'd go on and on about how compelling, complete, fully realized the setting was.

Then he told me how he'd done it. He'd taken three principles - I wish I could remember them in particular, J please step in here, but they were like "nobody thinks that they themselves are evil," "the Grand Galactic Empire is procedurally conservative," and "nobody really enjoys their job" - three principles something like those, and whenever any of his players asked him about anything in the setting, he'd simply apply those principles to create the answer.

Now that is a cool tip. it basically fits the idea that Ron Edwards pushes for Setting, which is to take a leaf from the dramatic writing how-to's and determine your game's premise - i.e. the philosophical idea it is wrestling with.

The punchline is: most RPGs' setting material (along with all primary source fiction, like Firefly or The Lord of the Rings) is the end product of a creative process. What do we roleplayers need? We need the starting point of the creative process instead.

Later in the comments Ninja J steps in to clarify his rules, and adds:

It's how I've run games ever since. Characters have motivations and anytime the protags do something, I ask myself what the NPCs would do in this situation, given their resources. Sometimes it's simple: "Queen Elizabeth's agents will never betray her because she's got something on them." "Jean-Renard is a coward and will funnel his resources into violence only as long as it will keep him out of danger." Along those lines.

I've found that you wind up with NPCs that seem really real because they're not prescripted. You have a world that seems real because, even when you don't know what's under every rock, you know the kind of thing that should be there.

Sydney summarizes with:

I'm really wondering now if the Technique we're trying to isolate from various specific instances actually involves combining

(1) seed crystals: highly specific, concrete, vividly visual images -- but with plenty of complexity and ambiguity to stimulate and allow growth in multiple directions [Angus: Characters, Ideas, Gadgets, Locations, Organisations]
(2) generation rules: simple, clear, abstract principles that guide how new specifics are derived from existing specifics.

This gives me some things to think about, I'm not sure what these should be for my own game, but I'm sure thinking about them will be more fruitful than working out yet another set of NPCs (and maps, and plot points, and ... etc) that my players never go anywhere near!

Viking Battle at Whitby Abbey

A reenactment of a skirmish between Anglo-Saxon and Viking forces circa 1066, reenacted by warriors of Regia Anglorum.

The 13th Warrior

Check out some more viking goodness from 13th Warrior.

Roleplaying Theory - GNS

I've been doing quite a lot of web-surfing recently looking at Vikings, as background for my upcoming Iron Heroes game, and a theory about roleplaying called GNS.

Along the way I found a problem with my game prep for Iron Heroes, and the possible solution in Ron Edwards' GNS. For an easy introduction to GNS, try Ben Lehman's post "An Introduction to Forge Theory #7". If GNS is new to you, you might want to go read that now, because I'm going to assume you've read it. I'll link to the full theory at the bottom of this post, but don't jump straight there, Ben's summary is enough for starters.

My basic problem is that I was brought up on the increasingly Simulationist RPGs of the 80s and 90s, I even wandered the halls of the odd Narrativist game. I thought that clearly all the troubles we had in our gaming groups could be solved by adopting game systems that more closely simulated the genre we were interested in, so as to avoid game-breaking, powergaming and wimpish play.

At the same time, I felt that I was the only person who could be trusted to run such a game (since my good friend Shan had moved to Melbourne), which meant assuming the burden of both generating comprehensive Simulationist background, and hacking rules to get a better fit to my ideal system (my personal Mission Impossible). In a comment on Ben's blog I put it this way:

My personal preference is Sim, and that explains why I can find it hard to enjoy running a heavy Gamism game, because the way I run it (Gamist) and the way I prep for it (Sim) are in opposition. I find lots of what I prepare doesn't get used, and I rarely want to return to prep for the next session - yet the players loved playing it.

To aggravate matter, game sessions run by others always left me wanting more out of them. The solution seemed to be more preparation and more work up-front, with increasingly less payoff at the end.

I think the solution is that I need to embrace the essential appeal of Gamism, keep enough Simulationist in there to establish an enjoyable theme, and make the point of the Gamism be competition in ways that satisfy my Narrativist bent. In other words, stop layering rules on D&D that ratchet up the Sim level, and look for ways to use Gamism to keep in-game competition where it belongs.

As a concrete example, I've always enjoyed the little bit of Pendragon I've played. In hindsight that was because the game rules encouraged us to play knights that matched the mythic stories of Arthur's knights. If you wanted you could slide towards magic and paganism, or be a virtuous Christian knight, or pursue the ideal of romantic love, or be fairy-touched.

Because the Pendragon system channelled our Gamist tendencies towards building characters that better engaged in the game world, it both fostered Simulationism and created the sort of investment in premise that Narrativism seeks. It is however (IMHO) a game heavily weighted towards Gamism. Character advancement was less about combat effectiveness, and more about engagement with the game world (becoming recognised as a virtuous knight) - although that brought it's own advantages.

So why don't I just start a game of Pendragon? Partly because I am less interested in that theme than I once was, and mostly because of the heavy financial investment my gaming friends have already made in D&D (of all versions). Getting them to play some sort of d20 game is easy enough, having the selected game system poit us in the right direction is harder.

Iron Heroes has some good ideas about making combat the center of attention and making all aspects of a d20 character impact upon it, through stunts and zones. I have some ideas about linking that with some house rules to encourage the sort of play I'm interested in - but I think I need to examine that in more detail before talking about it.

I'm interested in your ideas, so feel free to comment!

---

As promised, here are links to the original GNS articles:

GNS and Other Matters of Role-playing Theory

Gamism: Step On Up

Narrativism: Story Now

Simulationism: The Right To Dream

Tags:

• roleplaying
• theories

William Shakespeare in Code

William Shakespeare's 18th Sonnet has been ported to ActionScript 2.0 by Satori Canton. It loses something in the translation, but I'm sure that it meets the original's meaning exactly (at least at a quick glance it seems to).

RPG Class Test

Smart Paladin 81% Combativeness, 26% Sneakiness, 76% Intellect, 55% Spirituality

Valorous! Noble! Or possibly just a self-righteous jerk (but with the brains to keep you alive!)... You are a Smart Paladin! Paladins are holy warriors. They are valorous defenders of the light. Unfortunately, most of them are so ardent in their defense they tend to meet sticky ends faster than you can say "rampaging red dragon." Many people look up to Paladins, while others just consider them stuck up, overbearing, or self-righteous. Fortunately for you, unlike most Paladins, you're pretty smart. Which means that you're more likely to fall into the "admired" category, rather than the "obnoxious" or "dead" categories. Much like the crusades, you manage to combine violence and religion, though unlike the crusades, you add a healthy does of intelligence. You may be a staunch defender of the faith, a valorous champion of the weak, or the stuff that jihads are made of. Which ever one you are, just be happy that you've got the smarts to back it up and make it work.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 90% on Combativeness You scored higher than 34% on Sneakiness You scored higher than 56% on Intellect You scored higher than 63% on Spirituality

Link: The RPG Class Test written by MFlowers on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test