Two Related Design Decisions

Today I want to ramble about two closely-related decisions in RPG design, both relating to Hammondal.

A couple of months ago, I realized that a significant portion of the city, especially among the Boranese mercantile cultures, are living puppet-people called the Mantoche, the "cloth-hearted," and other assorted slurs (some Imperials still call them Dudmen, an old name for scarecrows).

These people are, physically/visually, like the puppets of Avenue Q, or Meet the Feebles, or of course Henson, etc. Anyone who's known me for a long time will recognize that this isn't a new interest for me in a fantasy context (going back to the early days of the Blue Room and even before that) but it's just that ... some things come into their own, on their own time, and in this case, it's time to get things started.

Thematically, those who know me also know how critical "scarecrows" are to me in RPG design, and the Mantoche manage to be scarecrows on multiple levels, and I've really loved writing about them, designing their many roles in Hammondal and in the larger mysteries of the Candle Islands and of the hidden kingdoms of the Thrice-Nine Lands.

But even over the course of the last couple of months, my design intentions toward the Mantoche have changed. Initially, I was (seriously!) considering just stealthing them into 20% of the city's population, describing them in a roundabout way that could be interpreted as living puppet people ... or not interpreted as living puppet-people ... depending on the reader. I was going to imply, in a deniable way, that they are what they are.

But here I am talking openly about the Mantoche. You've perhaps caught the prior glimpses of their existence in the development snaps, but I wasn't being explicit about who they are, as I am right now.

So that's decision one. Decision two:

For a long time I had considered writing Light of the Candle Islands entirely in-voice, which is to say: entirely in multiple voices from within the game world, where every page is a translated artifact of some fictional document, shedding varied and contradictory light on the experience of the setting.

I have long since stepped back from that. While in-voice writing is an excellent way of presenting some parts of RPG design, it's not the best method I have for presenting every aspect of RPG design, and Hammondal is full-bore RPG design that needs every tool I have in the box. It'll do me no favors to force myself into constrained design as a matter of vanity.

There are a dozen reasons behind each design choice, and these two choices are pretty different, but there's one point of overlap, which is just boring old efficiency.

Writing around the Mantoche takes roughly four times the wordcount of just writing about the Mantoche, openly and directly. The direct approach lets me underline their thematic and tactical importance, and lets me get right to the fun of playing them, whether as PCs or NPCs, and there's a lot of fun to get to.

Similarly, for many crucial points about the city, an in-voice method of describing a given piece of design takes from four to eight times the wordcount of just writing it as me, as S. John, and delivering the same payload. I like my books dense with gameable material, even if that makes me more than a little old-fashioned.

These are not new lessons. Every fantasy GM who ever decided to include a pterodactyl but not come out and just say it's a pterodactyl knows the drill, and every RPG writer who loves to indulge in in-voice work does, too. Sometimes, both are worth it (Hammondal still includes in-voice sections).

Sometimes, the decisions, and exceptions, will merge. The Mantoche are, in many circles, a disrespected and distrusted minority, and that is the kind of thing that in-voice writing can express in ways that omniscient writing can't.

Anyway, like the bit about mercantile law, this is what I mean, when I talk about RPG writing and design. Hope this finds you well, and gaming.

Workshop 002 Results

I'm pleased to present the results of Workshop 002: The Summer of Love. This exercise had eight entrants, up one from last time. And what courageous entrants they are. Hats off to everyone who dared step into the ring, because this time around I tightened the screws, demanding the writers describe an undeniably upbeat thing (a summer festival of shopping, music, food and free healing) in grim and downbeat terms, using only their powers of word and phrase.

I've presented the entries in random (die-rolled) order, without the authors' names attached. I've done my best to preserve the original spelling, punctuation, and formatting of each entry, to the extent possible in the space between Blogger's WYSIWYG HTML and my own lunkheaded formatting skills.

Whether you're one of the authors, or a reader following along: thank you for being here! As ever, I think just observing the workshops has value. My advice for studying the entries is just: take your time. If need be, lay this blog-post aside for later, when you can really pay each writer's efforts their due attention. After the entries, I'll offer some closing notes.

Entry #1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . On Midsummer’s Eve, an inconsequential field to the west of the king’s tower in Carrenwald is draped in the facade of joviality and celebration for the annual Midsummer Fair. It’s branded as a market fair; merchants from Carrenwald and the neighboring kingdoms boast the sale of their purportedly unique products, hawked to those attendees who have money to waste. For the common folk, there’s plenty else to do besides greedy commerce. Trumpet-heavy music blares throughout the fair, driving crowds to wild dancing and overindulgence on food and strong drink, with raucous sporting events hosted for those with competitive tempers. As Midsummer’s Eve corresponds to the end of the decimating Firehand Plague, the king himself supplies the real reason the fair is swarmed with local and distant visitors. King Volus II pays an excessive amount from his personal coffers to host a cadre of healers for the fair’s attendees, in remembrance of the plague’s elimination. Any caste of healer is welcome, from mundane sawbones to wild-eyed mystics, their craft offered freely to all. Many make a desperate visit to this fair, seeking remedies for persistent illness, damaged sight, severed limbs, and all other ailments endemic to fragile, mortal existence.

Entry #2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carrenwald’s annual Midsummer Fair is a chaotic, indulgent display, organized by the Church as a self-congratulatory memorial of the eradication of the Firehand Plague. On Midsummer’s Eve—the anniversary of the triumph of the Council of Healers—eager hordes from Carrenwald and beyond descend on a muddy field west of the Wooded Tower to gorge themselves on food and drink. Trumpet players entertain drunken dancers while athletic contests disintegrate into bloody brawls. Compelled by the will of the Church, merchants from Carrenwald, Valtis, Erinar, and elsewhere bring the unique wares of their kingdoms, and spend seven rainy days defending their booths from raucous peasants. It is said that the local pickpockets see better profits than the merchants, and perhaps the only lasting benefits of the fair come from the trained physicians and miracle-healers hired by the king. Echoing the legendary efforts of the Council of Healers, these well-paid savants treat fair-goers gratis, restoring lost limbs, giving sight to the blind, and snuffing out diseases that might otherwise bloom into a new pandemic. Thus, wine, orgies, and penicillin keep peasants docile for a season or two, while the Church renews its glory.

Entry #3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Come, one and all! Be healed! The Midsummer’s Fair sees the blind and maimed restored! Diseases cured!” That’s all true. “Today, I bring tears of our god, Olin. This tincture can cure any ailment! Simply apply it everyday of the fair, Midsummer’s Eve ‘til the fair’s close!” None of that is. I could never be a real healer. I don’t have the stomach. A crowd lines up, though. Eager faces from three kingdoms or better attend this festival every year. Looking out over the field – folks feast and drink, they dance to the raucous of trumpets, they throw hammers or horseshoes or joust – it almost warms my heart. Almost. “Wellness! Yours at no cost! Our King, honorable, compassionate Volus, pays for you in memory of that Midsummer’s Eve so long ago – The Firehand Plague extinguished! What ailment of yours could endure!? Step up! Be healed!” Indeed. Volus will pay well, me and the actual healers and physicians he’s invited. But think of what he gains – the influx of commerce, the exchange of specialty good from three kingdoms. Volus is no fool. Out to the East, I see storm-clouds over the Wooded Tower. I smile. “Step up!”

Entry #4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For seven days each year, the peaceful field west of the king’s tower devolves into a carnival maelstrom in the display of debauchery known as the Midsummer Fair. Greased with funds from the King’s own pocket, physicians and healers use their magic to pervert the natural order, curing diseases as well as granting sight and restoring limbs with little consideration of adverse effects. This seems only fitting for a festival that hearkens back to the apocalyptic Firehand plague, as Midsummer’s Eve is supposedly the day the plague was cured. The festival itself is packed with sick, desperate peasants who’ve come from all over the lands, hoping to get a moment with one of the witch-doctors. Drunken revelers leer at those who pass, stuffing their faces, gambling on sporting events, and awaiting the sexual frenzy that commences after dark. Vendors from Carrenwald and several neighboring kingdoms hawk their wares over the braying of trumpets as the hypnotic swirl of dancers distracts visitors from the thieving hands in their purses. Some years bring torrential rain, others bring lost children and frantic search parties, and throughout it all the grotesque cacophony of the market fair continues unchecked.

Entry #5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Every year, Carrenwald hosts the Midsummer Festival, a week-long market fair that begins on Midsummer's Eve. The beginning of the fair marks the night that the divine punishment known as the Firehand Plague, which decimated the kingdom, was finally cured by the Council of Healers. In a way, it also observes the end of the schism and bloody war that ripped apart the church. In acknowledgment, King Volus pays through the nose for skilled physicians and miracle-healers to provide free healing in the field west of his tower. Though typically curing disease, the restoration of sight to blind orphans and missing limbs to maimed warriors has been performed in past fairs. In addition to the featured sporting events, trumpeters and other performers bring song and dance to the festivities. The fair draws folk from around Carrenwald as well as the surrounding former enemy kingdoms to trade food, booze, and specialized goods. Of course, the popularity of the event makes it a magnet for pickpockets and swindlers.

Entry #6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Midsummer Fair: On the anniversary of the Firehand Plague's being cured, the eve of midsummer, crowds gather in the shadow of the Wooded Tower for a week of sustained revelry. Although exotic wares can be found in the market stalls and exotic music at the dances, pride of place belongs to the crafts and trumpets of Carrenwald. The King himself pays for doctors and faith-healers to heal anyone at the fair – treating incidental injuries and curing recreational diseases, but also mending limbs and restoring sight to the blind. The days mostly belong to legitimate merchants, healers, dancers, bards, and pilgrims. The nights are also a time for grifters, thieves, and visitors seeking wilder pleasures. Beyond the lantern light, the faint luminescence of violet butterflies guides debauchery and dark rituals.

Entry #7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The annual Midsummer Fair sprawls across the the field west of the king’s Wooden Tower. Commoners, vagabonds, merchants, and healers from Carrenwald and the surrounding kingdoms make the pilgrimage here to commemorate the date on which  the devastating Firehand Plague was cured. Mobs of sick, blind, and broken bodies seek solace with the physicians and miracle-healers King Volus II pays to offer free care to fair-goers (when they aren’t spending their generous windfall on less-charitable indulgences). The fair offers diversions for everyone: food and spirits, dirge-playing trumpeters, subdued dancing, grim tests of physical prowess, and merchants hawking distinctive merchandise from Carrenwald and nearby realms (both above board and under the table). Swindlers find gullible marks aplenty and pickpockets reap a lucrative harvest from the ample, distracted crowds. Many stumble off into the nearby woods or private tents when the children succumb to sleep and the barrels run dry, seeking to lose themselves in the arms of amorous partners.

Entry #8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Roll up for the Carrenwald Midsummer Fair! Celebrate the end of the plague with us, and the Church of Olin Firehand united evermore. Eating and drinking to excess! Shooting! Wrestling! Music and trumpets! Midnight romantic pleasures! Goods from Carrenwald, Valtis, and Errinar. Free services from Council of Healers. They cured the plague! They reattached the famed Sir Baleor's legs! They restored the sight of the seven orphans! Come on Midsummer Eve, and stay for seven days. You'll regret it when you leave! Messengers deliver the king's invitation to the people of Carrenwald and its neighbours, and palace slaves prepare the fairground west of the Wooden Tower. The notice is accurate, but doesn't mention the thieves, or the isolation of being abandoned in a crowd of strangers. It doesn't mention that drunken guards will hinder, not help, those lost or robbed. King Volus sends personal invitations to the physicians and miracle workers at the fair, and pays them well from his own funds. But amongst them are charlatans and failures thrown out of the Council of Healers. Such people are happy to relieve the suffering from excessive funds, or worse, try out experimental cures.

• • •  The Roundup  • • •

This workshop was tougher than last time. While the design-facts were a bit simpler, the word-count was notably tighter and the whole make-a-nice-thing-sound-nasty (without changing how nice it is) is torturous contortionism in RPG form. Consequently, we can observe a higher rate of gnawing the design arm free; several entrants couldn't resist the urge to invent a detail or two. As always, I leave the flagellation (either kind) to the self.

While this exercise is nuts, it's the echo of a pretty common situation in RPG freelancing, where the demands of the editor and/or publisher and/or line chief and/or licensing approvals department and/or coauthors conflicts with one of the other demands, and you find yourself needing to satisfy contradictory interests. This exercise (indeed, every one of these exercises) is a warped replay of actual stunts I had to pull in my freelancing days, and this kind of contradiction is something we'll see more of (in different ways) as the workshops progress.

This is a small part of why my freelancing days are behind me, but it's a big part of why I'd never trade those days for the world, and why I still freelance now and again: meeting these kinds of demands is challenging, and educational, in a way self-publishing can't be, in a way I still draw lessons from.

Here in the workshops, we get to learn from each other, without risking the rent. Some of my favorite moves from this time around:

• Entry #1: Draped in the facade. "For those with competitive tempers." Well-placed use of "sawbones," one of the least-pleasant terms for a physician.
  
• Entry #2: "Eager hordes descend" on a "muddy field." Disintegrating to bloody brawls. Especially vivid: merchants defending their booths.
  
• Entry #3: The crooked perspective of the narrator turns wide-eyed words of praise like "honorable, compassionate Volus" into injections of ironic venom.
• Entry #4: "Devolves" for the gathering, "greased" for the payment; "pervert the natural order" for the miracles; leering and frenzy and cacophony and grotesque.
• Entry #5: The phrase "divine punishment" casts a nice bit of shade over what's being celebrated. "King Volus pays through the nose."
  
• Entry #6: Not merely west of the Wooded Tower, but in its shadow. "Recreational diseases" is a nicely-gritty merging of the orgy-note with the curative services.
  
• Entry #7: "Mobs of sick, blind, and broken bodies" cuts nimbly to the heart: a festival of healing is, by definition, a festival inviting those who've suffered.
  
• Entry #8: "You'll regret it when you leave!" put a curly Grinchy smile on my face. "Relieve the suffering from excessive funds" is juicy irony.
  

Thanks again, to every author who participated, every author who meant to, and everyone reading along. While I'll never reveal the participants' identities, they're welcome to do so, if they'd like to 'fess up or brag! This has been one entry in a series of RPG writing workshops, each designed around different (and comparably specific) challenges. Whether you're a hobbyist or a career RPG writer, I welcome you to participate in future exercises as they appear.

Workshop 002: The Summer of Love

It's Interactive Sunday, and it's time for another RPG Writing Workshop. Join us! But, please read the orientation article if you haven't already, or take a peek at last month's workshop and results to see how it all goes.

The context for today's exercise is a traditional fantasy world with the usual elves and things living in quasi-medieval pseudo-Europe. The book is a setting resource describing the Kingdom of Carrenwald. The section you'll be writing describes Carrenwald's annual Midsummer Fair.

This would be straightforward in a sane contract, but sanity has passed this project by. You've been given a rundown on the facts of the design from the designer, and they're upbeat. The Midsummer Fair is clearly a positive event, overall. Your editor, meanwhile, delivers some distressing news: the publisher has decided that Dark & Gritty Sells this season, and has insisted that the artwork and writing be as gloomy and dismal as humanly possible, emphasizing themes like failure, isolation, abandonment and regret. The art director is already busy lining up illustrators who specialize in charcoal on scratchboard. The writing is up to you.

Note from the editor: "Hey there writer. I'm so sorry. I know it's pretty much impossible to make this fair sound as dark as the publisher wants, so I'll go to bat for you no matter what you come up with. But, please, help me out, and inject as much gloom as possible without screwing with the designer's details. Any darkness you can give me, I can do my best to talk up. I'll owe you one."

The Facts of the Design

All these facts must be included.

• Carrenwald hosts an annual market fair.
• It begins on Midsummer's Eve.
• It's called the Midsummer Fair.
• It takes place in a field west of the king's tower.
• The fair attracts the folk of the kingdom.
• The fair attracts the folk of several neighboring kingdoms.
• The fair features sporting events/sporting opportunities.
• The fair features alcoholic beverages.
• The fair features food.
• The fair features the music of trumpet-playing musicians.
• The fair features dancing.
• The fair features the unique products of Carrenwald.
• The fair features the unique products of several neighboring kingdoms.
• Midsummer's Eve is, by tradition, the night on which the Firehand Plague was cured.
• The King invites skilled physicians to the fair.
• The King invites miracle-healers to the fair.
• The King pays the invited physicians and miracle-healers from his own funds.
• He pays them very well.
• He invites them and pays them as a celebration of the plague cure.
• The invited physicians and healers provide free healing to anyone at the fair.
• Their services include the restoration of missing limbs.
• Their services include curing disease.
• Their services include restoring sight to the blind.

Optional Facts

Use or omit these facts as you please, but do not contradict them.

• The fair features other music beyond that of trumpet-playing musicians.
• The fair lasts for seven days.
• Some visitors journey weeks to get to the fair.
  
• Confidence artists take advantage of the fair's popularity.
• Thieves take advantage of the fair's popularity.
• Last year, the healers cured seven orphan children of blindness.
• One of the orphans ran off, inspiring search-parties to seek her out.
• The child was found, safe, delighting in her restored sight, staring in wonder at butterflies.
• The butterflies of Carrenwald are a brilliant violet color.
  
• Two years ago, the healers restored the severed legs of the hero Sir Baleor.
• Approximately 1 Midsummer Fair in 6 suffers from the early arrival of the heavy summer rains.
  
• Despite the rains, these fairs are still beautiful and beloved.
• When the weather is warm and dry and the children are asleep, overnight orgies are common at the fair.

Pre-Established Facts

The reader already knows everything on this list from prior sections in the same book (or the core setting book to which this is a supplement) but feel free to refer to them as you like, provided you do so in a way that respects the reader's existing knowledge of them. Do not contradict these facts.

• Carrenwald's monarch is King Volus II.
• Volus is well-regarded.
• The king's tower is called the Wooded Tower.
• Carrenwald is a tiny, forested kingdom.
• Carrenwald is landlocked, and sits in the center of a continent of many kingdoms, large and small.
• One of the nearby kingdoms is the Kingdom of Valtis.
• One of the nearby kingdoms is the Kingdom of Erinar.
• Carrenwald was ravaged by plague many generations ago, and nearly depopulated.
• This was in the midst of a cross-continent war between the four schismed churches of the god Olin Firehand, and the kingdoms allied to each church.
• The threat of the plague had a chilling effect on the war.
• Sages declared the plague a sign of Firehand's displeasure at the schisms and the war.
• Hence the plague's name: the Firehand Plague.
• Wise healers from all four churches got together and found an herbal cure for the plague.
• Several of the herbs used in the cure grow exclusively in Carrenwald.
• The healers who cured the Firehand Plague are sometimes called the Council of Healers.
• The cure is widely credited with healing not only those afflicted, but the spiritual life of the kingdom.
• The church united, and now proudly proclaims it has known no schism since the curing of the plague also cured the faith.
• More accurately, it's known no schism that couldn't be quickly murdered out of existence.

Exercise Goals

Write a brief entry (100-200 words) imparting all of the Facts of the Design, while doing your best to fulfill the condition handed down from the publisher's crass attempt at cashing in on a perceived trend: make it gloomy, dark, gritty, emphasizing the themes of failure, isolation, abandonment and regret. Since the standard rules apply (click here to refresh on those), you may not invent any facts to support those themes, so you must support them using only your writing: your use of the language, your choice of words, your choices of structure and emphasis. Write with the Game Master of a traditional fantasy RPG as the target audience. Engage the Game Master’s enthusiasm for including the Midsummer Fair in a campaign. Use any format, tense, perspective, structure, etc. that might serve these purposes.

. . . . . . . . . .

Deadline had been 4:00 AM, Mountain (Colorado) Time, 6/13/2018. This exercise has ended. Click here for the roundup!

Warm & Crinkly

“In this replacement Earth we’re building they’ve given me Africa to do and of course I’m doing it with all fjords again because I happen to like them, and I’m old fashioned enough to think that they give a lovely baroque feel to a continent. And they tell me it’s not equatorial enough. Equatorial!” He gave a hollow laugh. “What does it matter? Science has achieved some wonderful things of course, but I’d far rather be happy than right any day.”     “And are you?”     “No. That’s where it all falls down of course.” – The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams

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I picked up my first copy of Hitchhiker's at the "Seven-Day Store" on Quantico, a convenience shop where Marines would go for Doritos and beer. They had a wall-rack of paperbacks with distinct leanings for the target audience: science fiction, spy novels, self-help books. They stocked the whole trilogy (this was in the last few months of it being a trilogy in the mundane sense), and after reading the back covers, I knew I wanted them. After begging a couple extra quarters from my father, I had just enough for the first one; I'd get the others as soon as I could.

I met Slartibartfast that night as I raced through the book, addicted from page one. Like that X-Men Annual that would show me a magic item before I needed magic items, Slartibartfast taught me fjords and "lovely crinkly edges" before I needed fjords and lovely crinkly edges. Later on, when I'd sit down to draw my first coastline for an RPG fantasy world, I'd settle for nothing less than a lovely baroque feel, and I knew I wouldn't care how equatorial it was.

Slartibartfast is the source of my obsession with crinkly coastlines, but that's just one facet of warmth, a quality I treasure at every level of RPG creation.

When I wrote about the basic qualities of good RPG writing, pre-blog readers may have noticed the abridged version of my usual laundry list, with "warmth" conspicuously absent. There are three reasons for that. First, that article was focused on RPG writing, while my love of warmth extends also into design and production. Second, warmth thus rated a place in the RPG Lexicon series, and here we are. Finally, and importantly: some genuinely good RPG writing is ice cold, and while my love of warm design is absolute and eternal, it would be unfair to include it on list of fundamental RPG writing ingredients.

Warmth in RPG design is something I love, design toward, seek out, and talk about. What's more, I'm often stopped mid-rant and asked to explain it, because I seem to be simultaneously describing a game's systems, worlds, adventures, cartography, typography, illustrations, page design, themes, philosophies, morals, politics, history and resources. But that's only because I am.

The version most people understand immediately is warmth as it applies to color: the red/orange/yellow side of the color wheel is traditionally the "warm" side, with the green/blue/violet side traditionally "cool." I'd love to tell you this stems from some deep spiritual properties inherent in the magic of color (because that would be romantic, and romance is warm) but the ice-cold truth is that of simple association: yellow with sunlight, red with blood and red-hot iron, flames with all three, and so on, while blue and it's neighbors evoke cool water, cool evenings, cool forest glades and death by frostbite. It's not magical or mysterious, but the emotional and thematic impact of color choice is difficult to overstate. It's more than just hue, too. Saturation connotes more warmth than de-saturation: the greyer a color is, the cooler it is, even if it's orange fire greying to cooler ash. Brightness, too, tends to connote more warmth than cold darkness, so this hits every part of the HSB graph (translate to RGB or CMYK at need).

In other graphic terms, straight lines and sharp corners are frosty; wavy and curvy are warm. The same associative logic applies to arrangements and spatial relationships: a perfect line is cold, but perfect parallel lines are even colder (distance is cold, too, so if they're parallel but far apart, that's even colder). A row of perfectly spaced, perfectly-aligned boxes may as well be ice cubes, especially if there's lots of cold air between them. Warm elements relate imperfectly and hug closer; they're too alive for symmetry (life is warm and death is cold). A hand-drawn line is the warmest line, because it feels more human, more organic, more personal, more likely to collide with something or even trip over itself. A perfect vector line is cold because it's mechanical, devoid of individuality, devoid of texture or deviation. Idiosyncrasy is warm.

Warmth is casual and playful; formality and conformity are cold. Warmth relaxes, kicks off its shoes, but it loves socks, because softness is warm. Fluffy is warm. Warm reclines by the fireplace, because actual warmth is warm. Sensuality is warm. Blankets and rugs, slippers and towels, warm from the hot dryer on a cold day. That's one of my favorite little ironies: if your RPG setting is wintry, it's more likely to have warmth, because if it's ice-cold (hard, sparse, dark) outside, a lot of the imagery will be about cozy coats and bulky sweaters, Viking halls with firepits, welcoming inns with hearthside ale, yellow light in frosted windowpanes, the life-saving guts of a light-sabered Tauntaun. Norway is cold but it isn't cold, because Slartibartfast gave it crinkles and Norwegians keep it cozy.

All these things bridge toward emotional and conceptual warmth, because home is warm. Home is lived-in, used, rumpled, messy. Home smells like cooking and pets and grandma's farts, and all those are warm. Brewing coffee is warm, baking bread is warm. The word WELCOME on a mat is warm, and the sentiment "welcome" even moreso, because sentiment is warm. Hugs are warm and love is warm and comforts are warm. The past can seem warmer than the future, partly because familiarity is warm, but the quality isn't limited to the past. Serenity is a warmer starship than Enterprise precisely because it feels so lived-in, homey, messy, imperfect, dirty. It wears its past on its sleeve so the heart rides with it. Fortunately, Leonard McCoy brings the warmth of a thousand suns, so Enterprise is fine.

Fallibility is warm; awkwardness is warm. Cold speaks to the intellect but warmth to the heart, so failure is warm, yearning is warm, well-meaning mistakes and embarrassment are warm. Sincerity and hope: warm. Sympathy is warm. Friendship is warm. Variety is warm. Humanity is warm. Fear is cold but every cure for it is warm. Courage is warm. Passion is warm. Contradiction is warm, and that's a good thing, because if you're designing for warmth, you'll meet more than a few contradictions, because this stuff isn't algebra (math is cold!) There are times when, according to context and connotation, any of these observations gets flipped on its ear. That makes it unpredictable but, that's okay. Unpredictability is warm! Just, not consistently.

This term is crucial to the lexicon because warmth is one of the stars I steer my work by: a core design ideal. That's not to say I don't also work with ice. Like with Norway, ice provides the contrast that makes the warmth brighter. Plus, sticking purely with warmth would be homogeneous, and that's cold. See? It's an excellent source of your daily irony.

It's also, as a gamer, a quality I crave, and I frequently go hungry. For a variety of cultural reasons, cold is the predominant temperature in RPG design, writing, and production, and has been across the hobby's history. There are, of course, many delightful exceptions, and I search them out, scoop them up, hug them, and game with them.

If you've been following this series, I'm sure you can't help but notice that the Invisible Rulebooks have a hold on me, in part, because they're rich in warmth and warmth-potential. The gaming territory they represent is the messy place outside the vehicle, as it were. It's about putting your feet on uneven ground, where the rules aren't just unseen, they're soft, malleable, irregular, contradictory, and ultimately down to the natures of fictional characters and the idiosyncrasies of a human GM. The resulting form of play is so frequently marvelous it kind of spoils me, on both sides of the screen, because that arrangement only works when there's a powerful mutual confidence in everyone's intentions and abilities. A confidence that, when it's present, warms the bones of every piece of related game design.

I'm sure there's a word for that, somewhere down the winding back-country road of the lexicon.

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Workshop 001 Results

I'm happy to present the results of Workshop 001: The Haunted Attic. This exercise had seven entrants: a mix of newcomers, occasional writers, and seasoned professionals. These filtered in from (at final count) 24 interested writers, a few of whom I'm sure we'll see more from.

A round of salutes, please, for those who made it all the way! This is fairly tough stuff: a purpose-built exercise which takes a doughty band of writer/designers, straps their designing arms behind their backs, removes their shoes, and asks them to scale this ridiculous indoor rock-climbing wall, two to three hundred words tall.

I've presented the entries in random (die-rolled) order, without the authors' names attached. I've done my best to preserve the original spelling, punctuation, and formatting of each entry, to the extent possible in the space between Blogger's WYSIWYG HTML and my own primitive grasp on tweaking it.

Whether you're one of the authors, or a reader following along: thank you for being here! I think just observing the workshops has value, too. My advice for studying the entries is just: take your time. Don't skim. If need be, lay this blog-post aside for later, when you can really pay each writer's efforts their due attention. After the entries, I'll offer my closing notes.

Entry #1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The attic is mostly filled with forgotten, worthless junk. The only notable features are an empty chair, and next to that, the dry, misshapen corpses of Abigail Whitehouse and her dog, Bo. Abigail died, 91 years old, after she (with her faithful hound at her side) had finished killing her family. After her murderous task, she and her dog retired to the attic – it’s a comforting place for her, a favored place to hide as a child, and now, a place to rest content. She fed morsels of her slain granddaughter's flesh to her dog as she awaited the reaper. Once she was gone, with no other food or means to leave, Bo took to feasting on Abigail’s corpse until he too died, curled up to his beloved owner. Abigail’s desiccated corpse still shows signs of Bo’s voraciousness. Exploring the attic’s contents will awaken Abigail’s spirit. She will appear in the chair and, after a moment, notice her own corpse. Unfazed by her own demise, she’ll seem troubled by the corpse of her cherished pet. She’ll regard the PCs passively, responding only if spoken to or threatened. If spoken to, Abigail is willing to describe and confess to her grisly crimes, in casual, conversational tones. Any other lines of questioning will be politely ignored. If threatened, Abigail will call on Bo, who’s ghost will readily appear to protect her. Abigail herself lacks the ability to cause any harm, but Bo has a freezing, spectral bite that causes paralysis and potentially fatal tissue damage. The ghostly pair can only be harmed by magical or psychic means. Bo’s only other weakness is the hunger he still feels – his aggressions can be deterred with an offering of meat.

Entry #2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Read or paraphrase the following. At the top of the pull-down stairs, you peer into an attic strewn with broken furniture, and a single intact chair. Oh, and two bodies on the floor. One body is human, and looks partially eaten. The other is a dog, curled around the remains of the other form. At least the bodies are dry and twisted from the passage of time rather than moist and noisome. If the player characters poke around the room, a ghostly presence appears in the chair. An old woman, looking content. They might recognise Abigail Whitehouse, the family matriarch, from portraits. She died at the age of 91 at the same time as the rest of her family. The solution to the entire mystery of the house could be here! Abigail looks at her corpse, then the dog. "Poor Bo! He must have been terribly hungry after I died. Still, at least he enjoyed the last meal I gave him." Abigail will cheerfully elaborate if asked questions. Bo's last meal was the hand of Abigail's sweet granddaughter. Indeed, Abigail killed her entire family. After that, the matriarch was able to rest, satisfied, in the attic where she so often hid back when she was a child. At this stage the player characters might seek to do Abigail harm. As a ghost, she is invulnerable to physical attack, and cannot hurt the player characters. She is vulnerable to magical and psychic damage, and if threatened she calls upon her faithful hound Bo. Bo died hungry, and unlike most ghosts is still able to affect the material world. His bite causes cold damage and potential paralysis. Bo still believes he is material. He can be distracted by meat. The meat doesn't even have to be human flesh.

Entry #3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Entering the Attic After climbing the creaky pull-down stairway, the characters will find a dimly lit attic room. A shaft of light from a small window shines down on two bodies laying in front of a dusty chair. It is the body of an woman in a tattered house dress slumped over and a large hound curled up next to her. The dry attic heat has mummified them, stretching their skin tight over their desiccated corpses. Looking closer, the characters will find tears near the hem of the woman's dress and cavities on her legs where chunks of flesh have been torn loose, exposing the bone. A steamer truck and various boxes of knickknacks line the perimeter of the room. The sill of the attic window is covered in animal scratches. Stirring the Spirits Should the characters disturb any of the items in the room, the apparition of Abigail Whitehouse suddenly appears in the chair. She looks down at her body with a crooked smile, and speaks in a scratchy voice, “Oh, Abigail. After 91 years, you are finally ready to meet your lord and join the rest of the family. But, where is Bo? He is always so hungry? I thought a piece of the little one would tide him over.” If the characters inquire about her family, the ghost describes in shocking detail how she murdered them. Otherwise, she watches them impassively with her wild eyes. Should the characters try to disturb or attack her in any way, the ghost of the hound appears from the shadows and attacks. Its bite stabs into the flesh like icy needles, paralyzing with a shock of pain as it freezes and tears the flesh in gruesome fashion. Being incorporeal, the ghosts may only be harmed by supernatural means. The characters cannot physically interact with the spirits.

Entry #4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The first character climbing the folding stairs to the attic comes face-to-face with the smiling, desiccated body of an old woman sprawled on the floor...presumably Abigail Whitehouse. The shriveled body of her faithful hound, Bo, snuggles in the twisted comfort of her body. Closer examination reveals something long ago gnawed portions of her arms and legs; crusty blood mattes the fur around Bo’s muzzle. An upholstered wing-back chair looms in the center of the room. Gnawed bones, possibly the arm of a little child, lurk under the chair. A heavy blanket of dust covers everything: the chair, bodies, and the piles of rag dolls, dilapidated puppet theater, and the decrepit dollhouse stacked under the eaves. Anyone rooting through the attic contents rouses Abigail’s ghost. It appears seated in the chair, swaying contentedly. She gazes at her own body on the floor, but her brows twist in sadness when she notices Bo’s lifeless form. She peers at the characters inquisitively. Attempts to speak with her ghost only draw memories of her crimes: “Abigail took care of them all,” she rasps. “Needful sons, nagging spouses, spoiled children, cursed Whitehouses. Throats slit, nice and neat, stacked in the basement like so much meat.” She ignores all other topics, preferring to dwell on her butchery. Should anyone threaten Abigail’s ghost (verbally or physically) she calls for Bo. The dog’s spirit coalesces in front of her, sniffs at the bones beneath the chair, licks ghostly Abigail’s legs, then turns to growl at the characters. Physical attacks don’t harm either ghost, though both remain vulnerable to psychic and magical attacks. Bo snaps at anyone seeking to harm his mistress. His ghostly bite stings with sharp cold, possibly paralyzing characters and draining their life-energy without proper psychic treatment.

Entry #5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cluttered with worthless junk, this attic contains nothing of interest, except for a gnawed corpse on the floor and the dog carcass curled up next it. Both are shriveled with the passage of more than a century, yet the corpse still bears a satisfied grin. This was Abigail Whitehouse's favorite hiding place as a child, but she had lived 91 years when she returned here to die, just after murdering her entire family. Her hound Bo became trapped with her, and though recently fed on the flesh of her granddaughter, starvation drove him to feed on Abigail as well. Exploring the junk will cause Abigail's ghost to appear, seated in the chair she died in. She will study her own remains, lamenting for Bo, then turn her gaze upon those who have awoken her. She will only respond if asked about her crimes, confessing them in detail. If she feels threatened she will rouse Bo's ghost, though he can be distracted with meat, as he can never forget his hunger. Abigail and Bo cannot be physically harmed, but are vulnerable to psychic and magic attack. While she is harmless, his bone-chilling frost-bite can injure, paralyze, or kill.

Entry #6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The attic is a dusty hodgepodge of items stored and forgotten, none of particular value. Near a chair to one side of the entrance, the bent and dessicated body of an old woman lies on the floor. Something has taken a few bites of her arms and waist. Curled next to her is the body of a hound dog, similarly dry and twisted but fully intact. If the player characters explore the stored items, the spectral form of an elderly woman appears, seated in the chair. The ghost looks at her body, and then the body of the dog, and shakes her head. "Poor Bo," she says. "Guess he got a little hungry a'fore the end. Pity he couldn't find a way out on his own." Then she looks to the PCs. She responds if spoken to, though she only speaks of her last day and ignores questions on other topics, humming cheerfully to herself. Abigail Whitehouse died in this very chair, very pleased and content, at age 91 years. This attic was her favorite hiding place as a child — "her little refuge" — and the place to which she retired after murdering her entire family, root, branch and twig. (If pressed for a reason, she says only "It was the right thing to do.") She led Bo upstairs to keep her company to the end, using a granddaugher's left leg as enticement. If Abigail's ghost feels threatened, she whistles up Bo's ghost to defend her. Neither ghost can be harmed physically, but both are vulnerable to psychic and magic attacks. Abigail's ghost can do no harm, but Bo's intangible bite can freeze limbs or hearts. Bo's ghost still remembers his final hunger and so can be distracted by meat.

Entry #7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What happened here: At the age of 91, Abigail Whitehouse murdered her entire family, then withdrew with her dog Bo to the attic, which was her childhood hiding place. She fed Bo a little flesh from her granddaughter’s body, then sat down in a chair and died, content. Bo, unable to escape the attic, fed on Abigail’s corpse, and eventually died. Immediately visible: This is a small attic, choked with the smell of decay. Abigail and Bo’s corpses lie on the floor, side by side, dry and misshapen with age. Hunks of muscle from Abigial’s arms and legs are missing, torn away by canine jaws. Household clutter collects dust in the corners, and a single chair sits in the center of the floor, underneath a long-dead incandescent bulb. Abigail: If someone disturbs the family possessions stored here, a figure of wintry mist will coalesce in the chair, taking the form of an old woman who resembles the human corpse on the floor. She’ll see the two bodies and will regard the dog with fond sorrow. “Such a good dog,” she’ll say, in a nearly inaudible voice. If questioned, she’ll willingly confess what she did to her family, in calm, painstaking detail. She’ll ignore any other topics. She cannot affect the material world and cannot suffer physical injury, though supernatural forces can harm her. Bo: If Abigail feels threatened, she’ll call to Bo, and he’ll manifest as a savage wolf-like apparition whose growls rattle the house. Like Abigail, Bo’s ghost is immune to physical violence, but vulnerable to supernatural forces. Once awakened, he’ll attack all trespassers, and though he has no physical strength, his bite lands with a sharp chill, intense enough to paralyze and potentially kill. Bo died hungry, and the sight of meat can distract him.

• • •  The Roundup  • • •

Did some of the participants get their designing arm wriggled free, just a little? Absolutely, those straps were designed to loosen in event-legal ways, so that the writers might constructively waggle their elbows: the contents of the attic, for example, were left for the writer to determine or ignore. Abigail's sentiment about Bo was defined, but not scripted, and more. There's also a general allowance on details which follow inevitably from established facts.

Did some wriggle a bit freer than that? Yes, alas. But we caught it all on camera. Each RPG-writing athlete will decide for themselves if they made the climb to their satisfaction, and challenge themselves with more discipline in future exercises. It's a given that these writers could do more with more words, could do more with more design freedom. But I hope they were happy to discover what they could achieve with less.

Which brings us to the broader topic of judgement. In this series of exercises, that's not what I'm here to do, despite my established nature as an opinionated so-and-so. If it pleases you, enjoy this guide to roleplaying as me, and apply my exacting standards to the work shown here. More to the point, apply the standards of the workshop and the rules of this particular exercise. As author or reader, ask yourself how well each entry delivers on the needs of the piece: does it get you, as the GM, in the right mindset for creeping out your players? How does it achieve that? By creeping-out the GM out in advance, to set a mood? By highlighting the mood-potential of what's in the attic? Both? Does each piece deliver all the required facts? Does it deliver them with clarity? Could you find them easily in play? How does each piece serve different GMs' prepping styles? How would it serve yours?

What would a version assembled from the best of all of these look like?

If you're inspired to share your take on any of this, on social media or your own blog, let me know! I'd love to read it, and (with your permission) link to it in a future post so others can enjoy it, too. There's a lot left to unpack here once the roundup is done. Note also that while I'll never reveal the participants' identities, they're welcome to do so, if they'd like to 'fess up or brag! None of the authors know the identities of the other authors, so they can only "out" themselves.

I believe each of these writers has something to teach us. Here are some of my favorite bits from each entry:

• Entry #1:  Awaiting the reaper. "Feasting" and "beloved" in such near proximity. The framing of Bo's distractibility as a "weakness" highlights it well, and I like the phrase "an offering of meat" a lot.
• Entry #2:  "From portraits." The choice of the granddaughter's hand as the meat Abigail gave Bo. The wry note about which meats might distract Bo. The use of boxed text gives me a nostalgic grin.
• Entry #3: Tattered house-dress. "Mummified." The tell-tale scratches from Bo's clawing. Delivering the granddaughter detail via Abigail's musings. "Supernatural means."
• Entry #4: "Twisted comfort." The bloody muzzle. Shamelessly exploiting the traditional creepiness of dolls and puppets. Ghostly dog behavior, with the sniffing and licking. Abigail's rhyming confession.
• Entry #5:  Exceptionally tight discipline. The enduring "satisfied grin." Use of "study" for Abigail looking down at her body. "He can never forget his hunger." Very nice use of "frost-bite."
• Entry #6: "Dusty Hodgepodge" is my next character's name. Describing Abigail's body as "bent;" that's a choice word in this context. Leaving the "something" that chewed Abigail's body implicit. Abigail's dialect. "His final hunger."
• Entry #7:  The bulb. The "nearly inaudible" note for Abigail's comment to Bo. "Supernatural forces." Overall sense of organized presentation. The balance of mood-setting approaches.

Thanks again, to every author who participated, every author who meant to, and everyone reading along. This has been the first in an intended series of RPG writing workshops, each designed around different (and comparably specific) challenges. Whether you're a hobbyist or a career RPG writer, I welcome you to participate in future challenges as they appear. The next one planned will have half the target wordcount as this one.* That should make it easier ... right?

* Half-ish, says S. John From the Future.

RPG Writing: The Ground-Floor Basics

These are some of the qualities I admire in RPG writing, and the ones I demand as an editor:

Good RPG Writing is Clear

Without clarity, writing fails. It's the most critical quality, in most respects.

But it's also something most medicine labels can manage. If the highest praise I can muster is "that was clear," it's a bit like saying to an illustrator "That painting of your sister reminds me of your sister," or to an interior designer "This new living room really contains chairs." Like, high-five. You've achieved the rudimentary.

Good RPG Writing is Informative, Lean, and Confident

These are three facets of the same diamond. By informative, I mean it doesn't just communicate clearly, it communicates with a lot of bang-per-buck, a lot of stuff per word. It's not uncommon for RPG writing to be so empty it takes 2,000 words to communicate a single gameable idea. I expect from four to twelve, interwoven with many dozens of subordinate ideas, in that same count.

Leanness is about how many channels you're broadcasting on. Poor writing plods along on Channel One, relying on the literal definitions of words, strung in a series, to putter out the payload. Good writing delivers on several bands at once, leveraging connotation, context, arrangement, and what I like to call shapely silences: communicating in the logical space between other assertions.

Confidence is the crucible for the others. When a writer lacks a sure hand, that's when things get flabby: spoiled by qualifiers, stray adjectives, ornate puffery, artless redundancy and desperate pretense.

Good RPG Writing is Layered

Here, leanness strides the fourth dimension. In the name of clarity, the writing must deliver the payload without ambiguity ... and in the name of leanness, it needs to do so using the full force of available channels. Good RPG writing soars beyond that, providing more to enjoy as the text is digested.

Layered writing isn't about holding back or obscuring information; delivering the payload is never optional. Layered writing is about shining a light on ramifications, themes and perspectives to enrich characters, adventures, gameplay and the process of reading. The payload is the design; the layers reveal the design's possibilities.

Good RPG Writing is Surprising

I mean in the smallest moments, in the gentlest ways. I don't expect RPG writing to make me go "HOLY FUCKING SHARKSHIT MY LIL' MIND IS BLOWN" four times a page or even at all, necessarily. When it does, that's about design rather than writing, and I'm not talking design here.

What I'm talking about is dexterity with words and structures, and the artistry of tickling a reader's short-term expectations. I'm talking callbacks, ironic twists, turns of phrase, simile and metaphor. We can name a dozen devices, but they each deliver surprise, and not the SHARKSHIT kind, the tiny-inward-smile kind. When you're writing, you're laying racetrack, and that means mixing the straight-aways with little dips, lifts and the occasional hairpin. Make me feel it.

If you're spotting more and more overlap between these qualities, you're getting the idea.

Good RPG Writing is Musical

While we're at it, bad RPG writing is musical. All writing is musical. So what I mean is the music of an able musician.

With a few exceptions (some speed-readers, a few others) people hear the words they read. When I make a parenthetical remark (this one, for example) you hear a shift in tone. When I punctuate or italicize, you ... Hear. These? Changes! Every sentence has a cadence, every paragraph collects them into a composition, and the reader knows the difference between a concerto and some jackass, stumbling in the orchestra pit. Cacophony can be music too ... just make sure it's deliberate.

Good RPG Writing is Inspiring

Information and inspiration are the products of the trade, the one-two punch of game-writing justice. The best RPG writing is celebratory, flush with the fun living in this book and waiting to POUNCE at the gaming table.

I don't mean it's all unicorns doing rainbow glitter-farts; even the grittiest dystopia can be celebrated in the language of gritty dystopias. The idea is: this shit is fun to make characters for. This shit is fun to adventure in. This shit is the shit, and the GM is gonna rock it and the players are going to roleplay the fuck out of it and we're all going to be so hyped and dehydrated that these Doritos are going to taste ten times better after we've gamed all over them.

Or maybe don't sell it so hard. But as the writer, it's absolutely your job to sell it. This is a relay race: you hand it to the gamers, and the gamers run with it, and they'll run it to places far greater than we've ever seen in the playtest rounds, more amazing than our fondest hopes for the material.

Unless we give them no reason to.

Good Writing is Clear

Full circle. All these qualities contribute to clarity, to render the payload not only accurately, but indelibly. Good RPG writing doesn't sacrifice clarity, because it doesn't have to. Good RPG writing achieves each of these basic qualities ... or it goes back to the writer in a bath of blood-red ink ... and the next draft begins.

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Long-time fans may notice I left a few of my favorite rants out of this article. Not to worry, I'll be writing about (for example) the importance of warmth in future installments. I'll also re-explore some of the above in greater detail. Remember that my inbox is always open if there's something you'd like to see examples for or expansions on; I love hearing from others who care about good RPG writing. I promise I'll write about RPG design sometime, too!

Workshop 001: The Haunted Attic

It's Interactive Sunday, and it's time to get these RPG Writing Workshops underway. Join in! Our first exercise is dead simple: we’ll be describing a room, with a body or two. Please read the orientation article before you proceed!

The context is a haunted-house fantasy/horror adventure. The house is the final resting place of a family murdered more than a century ago. You’ll be writing the entry for a single room which shares the space with a few dozen others. We can suppose that the others are just as cliché-ridden as this one. This is a systemless module so there are no statblocks or rules, just general references.

Optional Fact

The room has a single door leading down into a corridor below, a pull-down stairway. Opening and climbing that stair is how the PCs will enter the room (it’s the only way in or out). The GM is presumed to already know about the door from the text on the module floorplan, so you needn’t mention it, but you can refer to it if you’d like.

The Facts of the Design

• The room is an attic.
• The room’s contents are mostly junk of little value or interest (specify as needed or leave vague).
• There is a chair here.
• Abigail Whitehouse died in the chair.
• Abigail was 91 when she died.
• Abigail died happy and satisfied.
• The attic had been her favorite hiding-place as a child.
• Abigail had just finished murdering her entire family.
• She had her hound with her.
• Her dog’s name was Bo.
• Before passing, she fed Bo some flesh from the body of her murdered granddaughter.
• Bo otherwise had no food.
• Bo had no way to leave the room.
• Bo fed on Abigail’s body before he died.
• Her body is on the floor.
• Her body is dry and misshapen from the passing years.
• Signs of Bo feeding on her are visible.
• His body is on the floor.
• His body is dry and misshapen from the passing years.
• He is curled up next to her body.
• Abigail’s ghost will awaken if the PCs explore the attic junk.
• Bo’s ghost will awaken only if Abigail’s ghost feels threatened.
• Abigail’s awakened ghost will be visible in the chair.
• She’ll look at her corpse first, and express sadness for Bo.
• She’ll look to the PCs next and respond if spoken to.
• She doesn’t mind confessing to her crimes.
• She doesn’t mind describing her crimes.
• She ignores other lines of inquiry.
• She cannot harm, or be harmed, physically.
• She is vulnerable to psychic and magic attack.
• If she feels threatened she will rouse Bo’s ghost.
• Bo cannot be harmed physically.
• Bo is incorporeal but can “bite” with cold, causing potentially-lethal injury.
• The cold of Bo’s bite can cause paralysis.
• Bo is vulnerable to psychic and magic attack.
• Bo believes he is still hungry, and can be distracted by meat.

Exercise Goals

Write a brief entry (200-300 words at most) imparting all of the supplied facts. The standard rules (click here if you need refreshed) apply. Write with the Game Master of a traditional fantasy/horror RPG as the target audience. Engage the Game Master’s enthusiasm for running this room in a way that the players will find entertainingly creepy and evocative. Use any format, tense, perspective, structure, etc that might serve these purposes.

. . . . . . . . . .

Deadline had been 2:00 AM, Mountain (Colorado) Time, 5/16/2018. This exercise is complete. Click Here for the final results!

Workshop Orientation

If all goes well, I'll be posting new RPG writing workshops to Rolltop Indigo on a regular basis. All of them share a few ground-rules and basic ideas. This article explores those. Read this before your first exercise, and revist at need.

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This is an RPG writing workshop, not an RPG design workshop.

In real life, RPG creators are often writer/designers, blurring the line between two interlocking, but distinct, skill-sets. In this workshop, there’s no design allowed, because we’re isolating and exercising our writing muscles. For that purpose we’ll draw a bright white line instead of the usual blurry one.

Designers determine the facts. ALL the facts. Doesn’t matter if it’s a fact of the rules, a fact of the gameworld, a fact about a particular NPC or that NPC’s third cousin’s left sock. The facts are, collectively, the design.

Writers express the design, delivering the facts to the reader, in a manner suited to the book's mood, themes and intended audience.

Without the writer (or without the writer side of each writer/designer), RPG books would be bone-dry lists of facts. Kind of like those science-fiction food pills with all the essential nutrients, but none of the flavor, texture, sauce or heat. Each workshop exercise begins with a deconstructed food pill, like this fragment of an NPC:

• Captain Burns serves in the Patrol
• His duties focus on lethal combat with the Zarg.
• He’s served for nine cycles.
• It's been difficult.
• He’s come to doubt his own worth as anything more than a killer.
• He hates the Zarg.
• His hatred helps maintain his devotion to duty.

Which could be expressed like this:

For nine grueling cycles, Captain Burns has served the Patrol, exterminating the hated Zarg … and doubting what remains of himself.

… or maybe like this:

Captain Burns has endured, for duty’s sake, nine cycles of killing the enemy, of hating the enemy. But as the Zarg die, he feels himself die with them. For duty’s sake, he endures.

… or ... if we must:

Duty, and hatred. The twin suns searing at the heart of Captain Burns. Duty, to the Patrol! Nine cycles of dutiful slaughter! Hatred, for himself, for his adversary. He’d been a man once, more than just an instrument of death. As each foe falls, they bear witness to his hatred, bone-cold and soul-deep. They see hate for the Zarg, oh yes, but hate, too, for himself, for living to kill again.

Each of these delivers the same design, the same facts, whether implicitly ("endured") or explicitly ("nine cycles of killing the enemy").

The first is straightforward, the second reaches for a bit more drama, and the third one is desperate, pretentious and hokey, but … still delivers the goods, eventually. Any of them might be right, depending on the book's intended tone. Consider the choices on display here, in wording, structure, and emphasis. Note the "bookend" repetition in the second example. Note the economy of the first.

None of the three introduce new facts, though the third trowels on lots of characterization and opinion and just a hint of speculation. That’s fine. Characterize, opinionize as much as you need to. Metaphorical twin suns aren’t added facts; the reader isn’t expected to treat them as gameable, literal suns.

Captain Burns is presumably human. We could say that he's feeling the loss of his humanity, if we wanted to phrase it that way. That’s fair-game embellishment. We don’t know if a “cycle” is more like a year or more like a month or maybe some kind of military tour, but nine of them are clearly too much Zarg-popping for one well-meaning Captain. We know he’s well-meaning because wrecking Zargs is wrecking him. He’s got a conscience.

Embellishing is fine when it’s based on that kind of inference. Don’t beat yourself up on that point, play to the spirit of the rules. Nobody wins or loses in this workshop, so you can only cheat yourself. Write, don’t design. I understand how difficult it can be to suppress the natural tendencies of the writer/designer, how unnatural it feels. That’s not accidental.

The example above is also unfair. We could do so much more if we knew the contents of prior passages! Which we would totally know! If we knew why Burns hates the Zarg, we could call back to that. If we knew something of Zarg religion, we could allude to sending them to the smoking tunnels of Glurth or whatever they call their post-war afterlife (maybe it’s more like churning their soulmeats back to the astral meat-mountain). There’s a lot of unfairness baked into this brief example. I promise: there'll be room for much more in the actual workshop.

In each exercise, the imaginary designer remains unapproachable, absent, uncooperative, inflexible. What a tool. I mean literally it’s a tool.

Will these exercises feel like real RPG writing? About as much as a treadmill feels like a real hike. It’s exercise, not a holodeck. But it will isolate and work those muscles, and offer some perspective, too.

Submissions and Results

When I post an exercise, everyone has 72 hours ‘til deadline: three calendar days to write and send me a short passage per these general rules, plus any specific rules attached to the exercise. Every exercise is open to every reader. There's no sign-up sheet, and no obligation: just an open invite. You can just decide to join in; please do!

Email submissions within the body of an email to blogmail@cumberlandgames.com with the word WORKSHOP somewhere in the Subject header. No file attachments. If you don't use Rich Text email, that's fine: indicate italics and boldface (if needed) with any normal kind of plaintext markup, whether it’s <B>bold</B> or *bold* or what-have-you.

I reserve the right to reject or ignore any submissions, but I can’t imagine I’ll ever need to. That's not a dare.

A few days after posting each exercise (sometime past the 72-hour deadline), I’ll post the results. They’ll be presented anonymously, with no names attached. I’ll write a bit about them, but my comments will be parsley compared to the steak of the submissions. You’ll see what I mean. Just participating, then observing the differences, will show you more than my critiques and labels will.

How do I know? I’ve done these a few times before. It began with live workshops at cons (which worked well, but were limited in scope) then moved to experimental online versions (which worked well at first, but required too much commitment across multiple exercises … not unlike an RPG campaign losing players to real-life scheduling). This new version is identical at the core, but it’s now zero-commitment (you can participate in just one, or none, skip a few, come back, doesn’t matter), and totally anonymous rather than the semi-anonymous approach of prior versions.

As long as I get at least five submissions per exercise, I’ll keep ‘em going for the foreseeable.

And that's it! That was a lot. Sorry. I’m excited. You excited? See you in the exercises!

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The Legalese: participants retain all rights to their own submissions. By submitting, participants grant me (S. John Ross) perpetual permission to post them as anonymous results of the exercise, here on my blog or on my homepage (The Blue Room). No further grant of permission will be presumed (for example, I’d need to approach you separately to beg permission to use your examples in a book about these exercises, and you’d be under no obligation to grant it).