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Problem #5: Writing Art, Technically
121 Plays8 days ago
In this episode, Kristian and Tracy are joined by Jennifer Sutcliffe, Kristian's partner and the other half of the Immaterial Plane, to talk about a fascinating problem inherent to RPGs: the unlikely marriage of technical and creative writing. What are the differences? Why do we need both, and how can they compliment each other and meld together in the creation of your games, settings and adventures?
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome to the Designing Problems RPG podcast, where we explore RPG development and all the intentional and unintentional problems we create along the way. I'm Christian Serrano. And I'm Tracy Sizebourne.
Episode Title & Guest Introduction
00:00:16
Speaker
We're your hosts for this creative banality. And this week, we're going to talk about problem number five, writing art.
Jen Sutcliffe's Expertise
00:00:43
Speaker
And to help us with this discussion, we've brought in my partner in life, my partner in crime, and my partner on the immaterial plane, Jen Sutcliffe. Welcome, Jen. Thanks. Great to be here. So Jen, what makes you an expert for this topic? Oh, yes. That's a good question.
00:01:02
Speaker
I mean, don't pick me. No, don't give the look like I'm the expert on this topic. What are you talking about? No, no, no. We are not experts, Jen. I mean, you should be telling me because you asked me to be on the show. um Well, so i am I work in instructional design as my full-time career. And I also have been a freelance writer for 15 plus years, and I was a journalist. so I've got a lot of different experiences with writing and structuring content. so um and Whenever I read board game rules or a tabletop role-playing game book,
00:01:43
Speaker
um I notice things. I notice things that, you know, maybe I would organize differently or structure differently. And I also notice things that I really like that I'm like, wow, that was a great way of explaining that or that I really ah appreciate.
00:02:01
Speaker
this chart or how this content was put together in a certain way. So um I think that just because of my career background i and experience in tabletop gaming, yeah I've seen and seen a lot of things and um I have opinions, so. See, that's a good answer. That's a great answer. That's what makes you the expert. That's right.
Creative vs. Technical Writing in RPGs
00:02:30
Speaker
So yeah, so as as Tracy mentioned, we're talking about writing art technically. um Really what we're diving into here is the distinction and the roles that ah both creative and technical writing play in RPG design and development.
00:02:49
Speaker
And when when we say technical writing, instructional writing kind of falls into that category as well, because really what we're doing in a lot of the content we're writing is instructing ah the GM or instructing the players on a variety of things from creating a character to how do you execute the subsystem mechanic thing, or how do you run this encounter, whatever, so on and so forth, right? That's where we write the, I don't want to say dry,
00:03:17
Speaker
Stuff that tells the person how to because it can still be flavorful, right? it's It's not you know, dry and flavorless It's it's just a little bit more Cut and dry we'll say in that context. Yes a dry again, but whatever anyway it's dry not dry it's it's dry but it's not dry right So so What is technical writing? I think people have an idea of what that is and in ah in a loose sense. Some people might know more concretely because maybe that's what they do for a living. um But just for the sake of setting a baseline for our audience.
00:03:52
Speaker
When we say technical writing, what we mean is something that is very clear, that is very ah presented in a very concise way. It's very structured also, and the intent is to ensure understanding, right? You've seen technical writing, whether it's a manual for a book, whether it's character creation rules, whether it's, you know, a textbook even, right? that Those are all examples of of technical writing.
00:04:23
Speaker
Whether you realize it or not, as a game designer, you're probably doing technical writing already, but it's not necessarily something that comes easy. Just like creative writing isn't necessarily something that comes easy. We're actually going to talk about that a little bit later on in this episode, where you know what comes easier for us as individuals and what is takes a little bit more work for us. And as I said briefly,
00:04:47
Speaker
Technical writing isn't flavorless necessarily. You can still do the instructional stuff with a little bit of flavor. um A good example, if you've read Deadlands, right, Tracy, you've seen this, Jen, you've seen this where they use like the the ah sort of colloquialisms and the terms and things like that, like amigo, like they, it refers to you as first person as, hey, amigo, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? And that's kind of a fun way, partner, right?
00:05:15
Speaker
It's a fun way to draw that setting into what would otherwise be very dry. So so the two things are not mutually exclusive. So let's make that clear. But those character creation rules, right while it has some flavor, it is precise. right It is concise. It is clear on what you're supposed to do.
00:05:36
Speaker
and Tracy, you feel free to expand on this as somebody who's written for Savage Worlds. right One of the things that Peg does that I admire, they are very specific with their word choice and how they describe rules and they don't repeat themselves. right A lot of books, a lot of our RPGs may may have like three different sections throughout the book where they re-explain the same rules, but Peg's like very much like, we're we're saving page count. yeah you know so can um If you don't mind, can you can you speak to that a little bit? Yes. so sometimes it's not It's not cut and dry that they don't repeat themselves. It's not a rule, right? There are certain things worth repeating on occasion. um But for the most part, yeah, they they they don't
00:06:25
Speaker
cash over things again and again. They don't subscribe completely to the rule of, you know, you have to say it three or five times for people to get it. They say, we're going to say it here and you can reference it here. You know, it's always here, right? um Generally, not always, but generally. um But yeah, the
Inclusivity in RPG Writing
00:06:45
Speaker
peg style guide and the sort of idea behind the way peg writes is very precise.
00:06:55
Speaker
And I think it's important to be precise because Peg's rules are sneakily persnickety, right? Who the actor is, who the target is, um you know, what the penalty is, who gets the penalty, who gets the bonus, who you know, all that stuff. We're very, very careful to ah write in such a way that it is clear as much as we can.
00:07:25
Speaker
Now, sometimes it doesn't it doesn't completely work. um And we've had people complain about these these individual times where a rule is written in such a way that the clarity is not quite the best it could be. um But for for the most part, you know i have adopted I adopted that quickly because I wouldn't say I'm a technical writer. I certainly wasn't trained in technical writing.
00:07:53
Speaker
But I'm definitely an analytical thinker. And so i get if I get confused, I feel that that stress, right? that that That, oh my gosh, what am I supposed to do here? um And so as a writer, I really try to be very clear. And one of the things in Hahn cluster is, this is sort of off the point, but i think it's I think it's a little bit to the point, is I have a note about pronouns.
00:08:23
Speaker
Peg has a very specific way of dealing with pronouns, and they alternate he, she throughout the book. That's what they do. they um Peg itself, and and the people behind Peg, Shane, has no problem with they as a personal, individual pronoun. But when you start, and this is what I wrote in Honcluster, is when you're starting to try to be very specific about rules and who the actor is and who the target is.
00:08:49
Speaker
they them becomes a little bit of a problem. ambiguous yeah So my solution for HongCluster is not to be the strict he, she alternating thing that Peg does, but to say when I can use they them in a way that is not ambiguous. I will.
00:09:08
Speaker
right? But right sometimes on occasion, I may use he, she because I need to be specific. right you know And that's the kind of aspect of technical writing of of that of that. We need to be analytical and clear, very precise about our rules integrating with our narrative.
00:09:28
Speaker
it's It's all part of that, right? So that's how PEG handles it. It's how I handle it in HAN cluster. um I'm more permissive and I'm very clear.
Instructional Design in RPGs
00:09:38
Speaker
i make I have a specific sidebar about why I do these things. yeah And generally I use they or I use you. I'm not afraid to use you either. PEG doesn't like you, but I use you because it's clear.
00:09:51
Speaker
And it's okay. If I'm talking about a character, I'll reference you and that's okay. And when I can't use they, I use it. Right. And I think what what you're doing there is is you're you're erring on the side of clarity. Yes. By including that sidebar. What I say is like i so in the sidebar, I say, um in short, we understand that both inclusiveness and clarity are important while also acknowledging that on both sides of the coin, the temporary sacrifice of one goal sometimes must be made to service to the other.
00:10:23
Speaker
So, there has to be a balance. For me, for me, for HonCluster, there has to be that balance. So, Jen, I introduced technical writing. I wanted to know if there was anything as in terms of like say instructional writing or even technical writing you know in and of itself that you think I overlooked. Is there anything that you would like to add to that ah explanation or definition?
00:10:47
Speaker
Well, I realized I didn't really explain what instructional design is. and So go ahead. Yeah. So essentially it's um design for courses, so online courses or multimedia that might be incorporated in the course. And um you know a lot of that, some of that work involves scripting in a way that that is like somewhat like storytelling and creating video um that has a narrative, but also is very clear.
00:11:27
Speaker
And with instruction, I mean, I think, you know, it's with strict technical writing, it's hard to really make that super creative and exciting, you know? um I mean, it's possible, but it's kind of hard. um But that's actually and instructional writing or and and sort of instructional design work where you're trying to engage students, you're trying to motivate learners to and and help them, you know, find a hook that will be interesting for them and relevant too. There is creativity in that. So I think instructional writing actually incorporates both
00:12:18
Speaker
technical and creative writing, but again, k needing ah focusing on that clarity because you don't want things to be ambiguous. And so one thing one of the driving principles of instructional design work is the idea of learning objectives. And that is um that's really a baseline of where you start when designing any kind of learning experience is defining and in action verbs what you want the learner to be able to do after they have had the learning experience.
00:13:03
Speaker
So, very specific definitions of um what are the what do we want the result to be after people have read all the text and watched the videos and completed the quizzes and done the projects.
00:13:20
Speaker
And I think that writing for games can benefit from thinking in those terms, in the sense that um you want to write, especially when you're talking about stat blocks or abilities. you know not necessarily the lore stuff, but you know the ah rules people will need to be able to apply in order to make the game work. um you know You want to keep in mind, okay, when I'm writing this, what do I want people to be able to successfully do after reading it? And I think that that is that applies to game writing because
00:14:09
Speaker
um You know, you need to have those things at the ready, whether you're a game master or player, you're not going to memorize all the rules. And I think that, um you know, being a everyone's going to go back and reference the rules multiple times. And so if you
Structured Content for Comprehension
00:14:29
Speaker
if you're in the middle of the game, you open the book, you find that piece of information, you'll be being able to use it ah right away is ideal.
00:14:39
Speaker
right So so having having the content where, like like you said, when you open the book and you're looking at it, if you can parse that information quickly and easily, yeah you've succeeded. Yes. yeah and And I would like to add that I don't i think it's still possible to infuse some creativity into that. I think that creativity, though, also should be concise.
00:15:05
Speaker
um And the sense that, you know, if you have, say, like in Savage Worlds, you're looking up an edge that your character has. It might have some flavor, and that paragraph might have some flavor in the way that it's worded, especially if it's setting specific.
00:15:26
Speaker
um But ultimately, you don't want too much of that creative language to cloud the um you know clarity of of the technical information.
00:15:43
Speaker
And again, that does that applies more to specific cases of you know this is how this thing works in the game. When you're talking about writing lore or you're talking about um you know things that are more narrative focused, that um yeah but has a different flavor and and style, I think.
00:16:08
Speaker
I think there's still elements of it though. oh yeah for sure like for sure say like um If you're writing an adventure and and there are nonlinear components like the players or the PCs can go off in this direction, this direction, or this direction, or they can so they can investigate any anyone anything they want, but here are a list of things they might get from that investigation. right and so there's There's the combination of that we're talking about of technical writing versus creative writing, which is you want to organize it in such a way that a GM can get it fast while also giving the flavor of what they're giving the players. you know like Here's a clue.
00:16:52
Speaker
And here how here's how I'm going to organize these clues. Here's how you can adjudicate how the players or the PCs get these clues. And and that is that is a real challenge, especially in adventure design, because it's so easy to say, well, I'm going to just write this linear linearly, right? And we see it in some in some books out there where you're just seeing a block of text after block of text in paragraphs with no real formatting that gives you any clue.
00:17:22
Speaker
about what's important, how to parse this information out and you know give it to players so that so that the GM can do it quickly and not have to like scan through paragraphs of text and the players can understand it in a way that's fun and interesting. you know yeah That's really challenging.
Balancing Creativity and Clarity
00:17:41
Speaker
It's part of the huge challenge of adventure design when you start to get into some of the nitty gritty of it.
00:17:48
Speaker
i do I do some you know teaching at work. I say teaching, but it's it's like guiding content, people who who contribute content to our website on how to write for the web. And one of the things I i often emphasize is structure your content, right? Don't be afraid to use headings and subheadings and ordered or unordered lists or things like that that can help the person one scan the content quickly and easily to know what to expect on the page.
00:18:18
Speaker
Uh, and to, you know, be able to get the, the, you know, if you're listing like multiple ideas or things or whatever it might be a bullet, or you know, bulleted list or a numbered list helps with that because they can easily just parse out but what are the things yeah and italics size, uh, text size. Um, yeah, anything you can do to, um,
00:18:42
Speaker
at least draw attention to terms and names, places, anything like that, when you're talking about, know yeah yeah like anything you can do to visually give clues to how this is organized.
00:18:58
Speaker
draw the draw the eye to the information they're seeking. right and um you know and and i was thinking to where We were just talking about the combination of creative but instructional writing and the recent Necessary Evil but books. right um They do a good job. I say recent, some of them were re-published.
00:19:18
Speaker
they do a good job when they talk about like say the districts or the important people and things like that where they have these clearly marked headings and and they're and they're grouped and they're sectioned and it's easy to find that information for quick reference, you know, to quickly skip skim and and see, you know, and get the information you're looking for when when you need to call on it, you know. Yeah. And I think this sort of relates to layout too, because, um,
00:19:47
Speaker
one of the One of the first things that new people to layout come in and make a mistake on is making these huge paragraphs. So it could be it could be, you're used to writing five to six to seven sentence paragraphs, right? But in layout, that turns into a wall of text. yeah And so you start to realize, oh, I need two to three sentence paragraphs in order to make this like visually acceptable, like something that i can yeah I can consume. And then like Jen was talking about so headings, subheadings, all those things, you're going to use those way more often than you think you are when you're first coming into layout design.
00:20:30
Speaker
way more often, because they will give you very specific clues about what section you're talking about, what you're talking about in that section. And then even within those is bulleted lists or bold, or even a header four on occasion, like Pinnacle usually only uses three headers.
00:20:47
Speaker
um plus the chapter header, but occasionally there's a reason to use a header for it too, right? Yeah. Or you'll see like the, I call it and like an inline header, you know, where it's like, you know, it might be like a bulleted list and then you have like a header colon some text or something like that, right? And that's, that's still, they're landmarks. They're landmarks for the content. Digital landmarks. Digital landmarks. Help you understand. Yeah. and And I'm, I'm a little fascinated, Jen, cause I, I've always thought of,
00:21:12
Speaker
the rules stuff has really technical writing, but I think you're right. I think it's really closer to instructional writing because it does have that ah little bit more flavorful, approachable you know method of writing or style of writing. Right. And we're talking about an activity where we're supposed to be having fun. So I don't think you know most of us... We want to be reading things that are, you know, pretty enjoyable to experience. Yeah. We're going to get into that too when we get into our design part. ah What else are the creative part, right? What else about technical writing? Jen, do you have any other other things about instructional design or anything else about this? So I know that we talked about not repeating content, and I think that generally that is a good rule. um But I think even,
00:22:07
Speaker
ah and correct me if I'm wrong, I know some other systems, is I think Peg does this too, where um you know having like charts that have a summary of you know like edges or yeah um yeah yeah powers and things like that. um I think that is really important and to add to the instructional design angle.
00:22:34
Speaker
um you know and instructionctional design It's It's actually considered a good thing to repeat content, and especially in like a different format where um you know you can get like a different perspective on it. So like you know it's it can be nice to just sit down and read a TTRPG book,
00:23:02
Speaker
just, you know, flipping through it and seeing what the story is. um And then, you know, if you are reading through that information, but you want to be able to recall it,
00:23:17
Speaker
it might and or and like and or see how it all connects together, whether it's for quick reference or you know seeing what relationships are between things. Like I've run so many and D and&D adventures where I'm like, can I please just get a list of all the characters in this entire campaign and like how they're connected to each other? Because that's a lot to keep track of for the purpose of running a game, you know, versus reading a book. Yeah, right, yeah. It can be, it can feel like that. Without a wiki in front of you. Right, exactly. exactly right I love wikis. That's a good point because a lot of times, I mean, I know some adventures will have like notable NPCs at the beginning of the book, but you're like, yeah by the time you encounter them though, you know, you're, it's so disconnected from, you know, what you read before or whatever. And it just feels very like,
00:24:13
Speaker
removed from its context. you know yeah and i don't know I don't even know the answer to how I would design that, but it would yeah wouldd be nice to have some sort of visual representation of the relationships um between or and among these these characters or something, or or even the characters and the elements in
Creative Formats for RPG Content
00:24:34
Speaker
the story. Yeah, like who they are, how they relate, right? And right that's really, I was looking at one of the D and&D adventures, 5e adventures, the Giants one.
00:24:43
Speaker
forget what it's called, but they have a list of of characters at the very beginning of the adventure, like a big you know page long or to one page and a half long table with them. yeah's That's a good idea. know they're like So helpful.
00:25:00
Speaker
you know the It's a good idea. I don't know if I have room to do it myself, but it's a good idea. That's the other thing. It takes up more room.
00:25:11
Speaker
It's nice to be able to do everything, but usually you can't do everything. sad know yeah I think Leslie Jones can't do everything. yeah But, ah well, you know, what would be intriguing is like, you know, I'm thinking about like the status cards, for example, right? That's a good, it's like flash cards when you think about it. I mean, you're not studying and prepping for a test, but it is a quick reference that you can have in front of you of these conditions or statuses that you might, you know, need a reference, you know, or the edge cards or the power cards or any of those things. On Hong Kong Drive Ally cards. Right. Yeah. So the NPC cards might be a good way to to have that quick reference in front of you for when you need it. It's readily available. You don't have to flip through the book or lose your place in the book, yeah yep you know or flipping your PDF on your tablet or whatever. It's yeah it's there.
00:26:02
Speaker
And those kinds of those additional formats, different ways of ah presenting information can also reinforce the you know learning those concepts. So having the cards, having the charts, having like different um you know points of reference can actually help you, especially as a GM, to just remember those things off the top of your head better eventually. I think the the new player box that Peg did with the fold out cheat sheet thing with the combat options and all that. I forgot what else is on it, but it's
00:26:44
Speaker
I remember being really impressed with that. I thought that was a perfect resource. I think it has the general power modifiers too. Yes, that's what it is. It was the general power modifiers, which I always thought should have been in the deck of power cards for reference, because it's such a handy... I think a lot of people forget about those general power modifiers because they're not... When you're looking at the power, you're just looking at the modifiers at the bottom of the Yeah. The power description. And all it is, is it's just one place in the book. You got to know where to look. One place in the book. And so having that as like a... I almost wanted to cut it out as a card and have it separated. But I think that's the kind of stuff that can make it easier for us to convey to
00:27:26
Speaker
um our our readers and our GMs and our players um and also not have to necessarily take up space in the book. Yeah. One thing I am proud of that I did do the thawing cluster. I didn't do my list of NPCs in a table, but I did do the videos. Yes. And I've got two of them out right now and and it's Like Jen was saying, it's a different medium with which to show the players really important, iconic things about the setting. And it's presented in a way that's fun and funny and with a different character voice. And so it it gives a much more entertaining way.
00:28:09
Speaker
for the players to understand some of these concepts that are important like X-Ghost and X-Bonding and Draxels and all that other stuff without having to read the book to get it. I mean, they can they can do both. it reinforce They reinforce each other. And I think that was important to me because I know these are new concepts. I knew that people were going to have a hard time wrapping their head around them because of all the play testing I've done.
00:28:33
Speaker
So I'm like, I would really like to have a video to be able to show these players like yeah to just get the high level sort of overview and then get into into the detail yeah in the book once they have the base concept. Exactly. Right. One of my, one of my favorite, um I know I reference Eberron so much, but the between non cluster all the time. So yeah, well there's that right. So there's, um, between third and fourth edition, they did a sort of coffee table style book called the adventurers guide to Eberron.
00:29:02
Speaker
And it is mostly images from all throughout third edition Eberron stuff and some from like Dragon magazine, whatever, but it' short bits of texts talking about the different concepts and elements of Eberron.
00:29:17
Speaker
And i when I first read that, I'm like, this is the perfect introduction to e everyone to get people a base understanding of the world. And then they can go and dive deeper into these subjects you know by referencing the source books. But it was such a great tool for just like, here are the different religions, here are the different people, here are the different countries, here are the different Dragon Mark houses, you know here are the different factions, and you know so on and so forth. And some of them are even just concepts like magic in Eberron, like talking about all that. And I thought that was a fantastic approach. like It's a great lightweight, and it's all lore. it's there was There were no mechanics at all. It's just lore. And and I thought it was perfect. And i would I think that would be a cool way
00:30:05
Speaker
to introduce a setting you know that's new you know to players and whatnot. Not that we have all the time in the world to produce yet another book. exactly Well, I did a glossary.
00:30:16
Speaker
You did do a glossary. That's right. yeah yeah Yeah. It's in the book and it's on the website. So that's right. Cause it's so weird that I want to make sure people yeah have lots of access to these things. I love a glossary. And I could, I could see you taking that content and putting it in a coffee table style book with images and so on to, to illustrate these ideas. yeah yeah Yeah, exactly. That'd be very cool.
Challenges in Creative Expression
00:30:37
Speaker
I know this is like not about writing, but talking about different formats. There's some board games that have videos that will show you you know how to play and um those can be extremely useful. I mean, I think that is um I haven't personally really seen that in TTRPGs and of course we have actual plays, right? um But in terms of like how how rules work or how how the story pieces together, um I think the some interesting things could could be done with video format. I'll challenge um challenge what you said in that that is writing because you have to write a script for that.
00:31:24
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And you have to write it in a way true yeah that is going to be you know consumable and and easily understood. I mean, yeah, that goes back to and instructional design. In a way that doesn't like take up 15 minutes, you know? that Yeah, exactly. right Part of the Honfoster video challenge was to do this in three minutes yeah know for each video. And it's dense. It is dense. It is meant to be watched multiple times so that you see. Yeah, I remember that when I watched the first. I was like yeah like, oh, let me pause.
00:31:54
Speaker
yeah yeah Yeah. And that's okay. like i That's how I made it. Yeah. say it like Shorter is definitely better um for you know learning about something. It's less overwhelming. No more than 10 minutes, ideally. Sometimes going over if that's okay. That's generous. I can't even do 10 minutes. Yeah. you know i I wonder too then if an audio format, like short audio podcast kind of thing,
00:32:24
Speaker
you know, do like five minute. elements of your setting that people can just, you know, listen to one piece at a time or something. I wonder if there might be room for something like that. I'm brainstorming here. I know. I feel like now we could go a lot of directions with that, like, you know, doing a let's play series for a system or a setting where there's, you know, short videos on different aspects of it. Um, saving throw did that. Savage 60 seconds.
00:32:57
Speaker
where they were doing that that series of like you know here's the basic rules. in sixty seconds Literally, 60 seconds on the dot, they would they would be able to convert you know cover a concept like you know the wild die or yeah initiative or whatever. you know Up to four players did their comic too. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Comic. That's another medium, creative and instructional indeed at the same time. The epitome of no, it is. I actually use that sometimes. I'll send that to people be like, here, here's Savage worlds in a nutshell. yeah Um,
00:33:33
Speaker
It's hard though, as we like to say on the show.
Enjoyable RPG Writing
00:33:36
Speaker
As we like to say on the show. ah It's hard being able to cover both because you're you're you're shifting gears from, you know, you maybe you're maybe you're initially a creative writer and you just want to write all the colorful words that are in your head and and all the feelings and feels and and and flavor that you want to get out. But you might forget to think about, is this easily consumable?
00:34:03
Speaker
right Is this easily understood? Or you might be really good at like writing all the instructions and then somebody else comes along and says, like this is is lacking flavor altogether. you know and And so finding the balance I think is tricky. I actually had somebody tell me that one time where they they I wrote up like all these things for like a zombie game that I was designing at the time. And they were just like, you need to punch this up. And I was like, I don't even know what that means. like What do you mean punch this up? like you know and And part of the difficulty I was having with that particular project was my inspiration. We talked about inspirations last episode.
00:34:42
Speaker
my inspiration for that was not, um, the typical walking dead or anything to that effect. It was actually Max Brooks zombie survival guide. And it was supposed to be very like instructional like, you know, in that, in that, straightforward like matter right like here's how you survive in a zombie apocalypse. Here's what you need to know, you know, this is important, you know, kind of thing. So yeah, so it was the intent of it was to be, you know, that sort of instructional type of of format. But, um,
00:35:11
Speaker
You know, I think though that maybe it went a little bit too far in that direction and that maybe it did need a little bit more excitement in it, you know, to, to, to keep the reader engaged. Yeah. So that, that brings up the opposite side of the coin, right? Which to, to me, and I don't know that everybody, I don't think this is a universal feeling, but, but for me and for a lot of people that I work with, um, we know as, as,
00:35:40
Speaker
RPG designers that a certain pretty large percentage of people will never be able to play your game. They may buy the game, they may cherish the game, may they may love the game, but they'll never be able to play it. Whether they don't have a home group or they don't have anybody to play with or whatever, they buy these things because they just want to to to experience it, right? And so part of the job, I think, as a designer is to create this game in such a way that those people who are reading it
00:36:17
Speaker
will be able to sort of live vicariously through it. Like to if if they're reading through a plot point campaign, they're gonna want to be able to read it and feel like, oh, that's really cool. Like that would be really neat to go and play that. Like what a neat story.
00:36:34
Speaker
Yes. It's like they're experiencing it through the reading itself. Exactly. They can imagine it. And you want the GM to feel that way too. Right.
Adventure Writing for Engagement
00:36:42
Speaker
So there's that balance between pure, get the GM the information so that the players have the information so that we understand the mechanics, all that stuff. But there's also an element, and I'm really big on this, an element of rhetoric, an element of style, an element of creativity that goes into the actual writing itself so that the writing isn't boring, so that we have transitions between paragraphs, so that we are are calling back things and alluding to things and doing all those literary things as much as we can so that somebody who's reading it can enjoy it from a story perspective as well. yeah
00:37:25
Speaker
and there are Again, we can talk about audiences too. like There are certain games that are more, we're going to play this game. and There are certain games that are more, this is meant to be enjoyed in a different way. you know and what's your as as it As a designer, as a writer, you have to kind of know what where you fall on that on that continuum when you're writing for it. right now So anyway, that's that's just an overview. I'll let you guys comment on that. I i think you're right. I think, you know especially when you're talking about... Tracey, you know I talked about Harry Potter before.
00:38:08
Speaker
you know When you're reading, ah let's say you were reading an RPG about that, there's an amount there's a significant amount of entertainment that needs to be provided in that a beyond just the, you know what's the adventure, what's the rules and so on. you know I think the same is true really for a ton of settings, really. like you you want to like you know avatar I have the avatar RPG.
00:38:31
Speaker
I don't know if I'm ever going to run it, but I want to read it yeah because ah i'm get I know I'm going to be entertained by the lore that's in there. Right. I want to see what that series that I love looks like in this yeah different format. Yeah, absolutely.
00:38:47
Speaker
you know, and and the one ring, same thing, right? I get, I have this, I basically have a lore manual on Rivendell or whatever, you know, like that I can use. And and so I think you're right. I think i think that is an important thing to note. I think also there is a distinction between writing an adventure that's entertaining to read, but then also writing the lore of the world in a way that's entertaining to read because those are those are two different things too. yep um You don't want to be dry like an encyclopedia when you're writing your lore.
00:39:20
Speaker
but you don't want to be too prosy to where you're, you know, maybe you can't find anything. You can't find anything, right? I don't know where that is. When you're writing a draft of your story, I think it's totally fine to write like that. Like when you're in the stage where you're just telling the story to yourself, where you're just sort of like doing that. I like to because I work in academia and you know I find it easier to write academic papers than I find it to write creatively because writing creatively is hard. um But I
00:40:05
Speaker
I like to say it's kind of like doing research like within your creative mind when you're writing the first draft. And it might not you know be super cohesive or coherent yet. It might use too much flowery flow flowery language. um And that might even be true of when you know when you're writing more technical things like that blog um But then, you know, so I think, you know, it can be okay to write however you write best for your first draft of things. But then keeping these some of these things we're talking about, some of
00:40:52
Speaker
best practices and, um you know, as far as organiz organizing content and making things enjoyable to read but still clear, you know, done going back and refining with those things in mind, you know, because sometimes you just have to like get out.
00:41:11
Speaker
your thoughts, oh yeah you know, and the way that works for you. when When you have that initial, like you just got to get it down, right? You need to capture that lightning somehow yeah and and and just get it on paper and then you can, you know, massage it, edit it, reorganize it, structure it, you know. Yeah. I mean, it's completely different in the final product. Exactly. I find revising way easier than creating. yeah That first draft is rough. It is hard to do, especially when you're doing an adventure. yeah Once you've got that first draft, that overall like trajectory of how the adventure is going to flow and all that stuff, revising it is a joy. that's it that's to To me, that's sort of a technical challenge.
00:41:56
Speaker
and kind of fun because I'm like, okay, I've got the i've got the idea and how this is going to work. now Now the challenge becomes how can I make this um coherent to people to people other than me?
00:42:10
Speaker
yeah and And that's fun to me. That's fun. it's It may not be fun to everybody, but it is fun to me and it's easier. I like to think of it as like mo molding clay, right? Like you have, you have a general shape that you see, you know, what's in that shape, yeah but you really got to start like, you know, like carving the edges and, and you know, really getting the the ah shape and the form and the details so that others can see it. Right. and So that's, it's kind of like that. i think that marriage, of like we were talking about before, the marriage of creativity with the the analytical or the technical or the instructional design is most apparent in in places like when you're when you're in an adventure and say, okay, there's a dramatic task here. You can say, it's a dramatic task, blah, blah, blah, it's a minus two, it's blah blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, you're gonna you you'll youll you'll convey your technical information there.
00:43:09
Speaker
I like to go further than that and say, okay, here's the thing that's happening. Whatever stakes it is, right whether it's low stakes or high stakes, it's still going to be stakes because it's a dramatic task. So let me explain the stakes. Let me give you suspense.
00:43:25
Speaker
while i'm while I'm describing how this dramatic task is gonna work, right? It's little bits like that and saying, here's how you do it. Here's what they're facing. Oh my gosh, this is gonna be super hard. And then here are the results and start with the worst worst possible result, right? Like you don't get any tokens. Here's what happens.
00:43:48
Speaker
you don't You get like between one and three tokens. here's You're painting the picture of that tension. Exactly. right and then if you If you succeed, you go to this and and you read this and or express to your players what happens here. It's a suspenseful, fun, interesting,
00:44:07
Speaker
mixture of mechanics with with with adventure, with lore. and i think i saw That's the way I like to write, that's the way I like to read it, but it has to have that balance between the two, I think. I think i think that speaks to what we were talking about earlier, where where reading it then becomes entertaining.
00:44:24
Speaker
Yes. yes you know It's like you're you're feeling the tension when you're going through that, you know how the how to set up the dramatic task. And injecting a little humor now. Yeah, humor is this clutch. um ah So something that if you're that is different about writing for a game than if you're writing a novel is that when you're writing for a game, you really have to write in a way that you're not just telling the reader the story, but you're enabling the reader to retell the story. o good And so that but I think is what makes it especially tricky.
00:45:06
Speaker
This is why I married her because she's so smart. so I think you're right. like Like I've said before, adventure writing is reinventing the wheel every time because of stuff like that. Because like, what's the best way to express this setting to a GM so that they can re-express it to the players? Yeah.
00:45:29
Speaker
And sometimes it's it's giving the GM a little bit of that suspense. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes you want to just like, okay, GM, here's what's going on, right? Here's the whole story. You know it. We know it. Players don't yet. But there's no right way to do that. And I really want to emphasize that because a lot of people say, always do this, always do that. Always put everything up front so the GM knows what's going on, right?
00:45:55
Speaker
I, not necessarily. I mean, yes, there's there's absolutely good reasons for that, but in some cases, that suspense can be fun for the GM.
00:46:07
Speaker
You know, like, here's what's really happening, GM. Now that I've given you this introduction, I do this in the hot cluster jumpstart. I give you this introduction with a GM. I haven't exactly told the GM what's going on yet. But here's the introduction anyway. This is all you need to know. And now i' good now that you're now that you're wondering, here's what's really going on. And then the GM is clued in, and now we continue the adventure.
Encouraging GMs with Writing
00:46:29
Speaker
And now the GM is like, all right, and now I understand. Of course, the GM is going to read all this beforehand. So they're going to be clued in any anyway.
00:46:36
Speaker
But they get that suspense just along with the players. Yeah. Like what's going on? Yeah. I don't know. Let's find out. Let me read further. You know, I think there's, I think there's benefits in that too. I think, I think that's kind of the one of the cool, we we talked about plot point campaigns in the past.
00:46:53
Speaker
That's one of the cool things about them is like, yes, you have the baseline, you know, like the Visori have invaded the super villains are going to fight them and, you know, so on. Yeah. But it's, it's the little elements that you reveal throughout that is not just entertaining to the players, but entertaining for the GM. Yes. As they're going along. And that we're hoping to achieve that with Explorer.
00:47:14
Speaker
you know, with with some of the reveals that we have, you know, in ours. But yeah, it's pretty cool. Pretty cool. Yeah. Giving those um like rewards, those things that like as a player yeah feel really, or an NGM too, you know, to to deliver it, it's just really satisfying.
00:47:32
Speaker
You know, in last episode we talked about inspiring the GM, and in a way that's that's kind of doing that. It does. It's inspiring them to keep going, to like get excited and and to feel that excitement. So, yeah.
Closing & Community Engagement
00:47:45
Speaker
Anything else, some Jen, that you have to say that we've stepped all over you on or anything, any insight that you have as a as a learned person in this, because short of getting a degree in in instructional design, like we're just going to be able to We're going to do our best with the conversation. Gosh, I can't think of anything else to add. i think we yeah ah I think we will always be learning how to do it better. Yes, for sure.
00:48:17
Speaker
Well, thank you for listening to the Designing Problems podcast. We want this to be more than a podcast. We want it to be a community. So if you'd like to engage directly with us, share your creative triumphs or roadblocks, or simply interact with a cool group of supportive people, we have our own Discord server. Please come by, join the discussion and share some inspiration. Until next time, keep designing your problems because you're bound to solve a few along the way.