If I was a little more au fait with audio tech then I'd probably do podcasts rather than a blog. After a day spent writing, a blog post is often the last thing I feel like buckling down to. And podcasts are a natural fit for me anyway; I much prefer talking to writing, as anyone who's sat at a table with me and some wine bottles can attest.
My appetite for podcasting whetted by the Fictoplasm special about Lyonesse, I welcomed an invitation from the good folks at the Tekumel Foundation to appear on the Hall of Blue Illumination. We talked about my early roleplaying experiences, about various game systems, a little bit about Fabled Lands, the design choices in Tirikelu, and of course extensively about MAR Barker's amazing creation, Tekumel.
You can download or listen to it here.
Your comment in the podcast about Fabled Lands having "too much" freedom and players wanting to know what "the" quest was struck a chord. I work in a grocery store. Sometimes we get children and parents in line and the check-out lines have individual candies in them. So parents tell kids "Pick any candy you want." But the kids are sometimes paralyzed by the sheer number of choices before them that they can't pick. So, parents will point out "You like that one and that one," at which point the kids can sort of make a choice.
ReplyDeleteGood analogy, John. I note also that back in the mists of time when I was a kid, we'd spend our summer days running off into the woods and making up our own games. Nowadays friends' kids are continually asking their parents to play with them, otherwise the cry goes up: "We're bored!" So I guess FL was freeform because I come from a generation that liked to make up their own stories.
DeleteHowever naively and incorrectly, I'd always assumed there would be some long-game story arc that would come to a head in book 12. Perhaps it was just the whole last book expectation, or a title that seemed to promise a climax, but I was surprised to learn it wasn't the case. Makes sense for there to not be in the spirit of the series, but I'd bet most fans would prefer for something like this.
ReplyDeleteIt would be possible to build some kind of long term story conclusion into the final book, though we'd have to start building in codewords to point to that from the next book on. There'd be the problem of what happens to a character who starts in book 12, though, or who hasn't experienced all the earlier threads of that storyline. Aesthetically I don't like it -- I like my roleplaying to be freeform, like life, not story-shaped -- but as John points out, for a lot of players that can be a case of too much choice.
DeleteOr somehow make use of the existing codewords used for other purposes in the books to date. I'll bet somewhere at the back of his mind, Paul Gresty has begun thinking about this. And God knows, he'll have the copious notes so far to effect it.
DeleteIncidentally, I've secured a dozen copies of your wife's latest book for the Auckland (NZ) libraries, to help spread the word to the Antipodean masses.
My take is that Fabled Lands is already about a long-term story through all 12 books along related books like "The Keep of the Lich Lord." The long-term story is the story of your character's life. Fabled Lands is essentially a biography that you write as your character lives it.
DeleteThat's much more interesting to me than "Finally, noble quest-seeker, you have arrived at the Underworld! Now you are ready to face the ultimate evil, Brrappp Grakenfart, the Demon Lord of Intestinal Gas. Now, equip yourself with the Match of Hope, the Phazyme of Power and the Noseplugs of Shielding. Then, go forth and do battle in this, the culmination of your adventures!"
I remember your description of how you strung the FL and other titles together into a generation-spanning epic from another post a while back, John. I'm sure Dave would approve of the freeform approach.
DeleteMaybe I'm just too old-school, but I liked the idea of a quest which tied the books together in some way. It doesn't have to be a fight (in fact, I'd prefer it weren't), and obviously it wouldn't have to be mandatory, but could be something that underpins the world without dominating it. Of course, recognising the effects of succeeding in the quest within the constraints of the codeword system would be extremely difficult, so maybe it's something best saved for the app one day - or indeed ignored completely.
John, you're right about Jamie's and my original intentions for FL. It was supposed to be an antidote to those authored quests. Our roleplaying games are freeform and PC-driven rather than "narrative style" and FL was designed to be the same.
DeleteBut we've handed over to Paul Gresty now, and he seems keen to do FL8 too, and I have no idea what kind of roleplaying style he favours, if any. Judging by his Choice of Games apps he prefers to have a specific storyline in mind, so it could be you'll get your wish, Michael. But me, I'm sticking to my unauthored RPGs.
Of course, if you are looking for an epic quest there's always Blood Sword. Unfortunately it ends in the Rowan & Martin version of Judgement Day, but nothing's perfect.
Michael, so far there actually is a quest that ties several books together. In Book 4 you can rescue a sailor who tells you to come to the South section of Yarimura. You find a body and note which sends you to Kunrir in Book 5. From there you go to Dunpala where you find yet another murdered body and are ultimately sent to speak with somebody whose name starts with a Z.
DeleteThe way I look at it, I could write up my character's adventures in the Fabled Lands from arriving at the Isle of the Druids to becoming Keeper of the Spire in such a way that every action I took lead inexorably to the next. I joined the Cult of Badogor (shh! Do not speak his name!) so I could befriend Screaming Owl to gain the Dreamcatcher to...etc. Except that in that moment what really happened was I was playing a new Mage with a Combat of 2 and no special equipment, so joining with cult was the way to survive the encounter. Any insight, pattern or stories come after the fact in hindsight.
I could not have put it better myself, John. That is indeed the whole design ethic of Fabled Lands in a nutshell.
DeletePlease do keep ‘smuggling’ things like this into the blog Dave; and you should definitely do your own podcast. I could see you as the Frasier Crane of roleplaying radio repartee ; )
ReplyDeleteAs long as I'm not the Howard Beale, John. Or the Howard Stern, come to that.
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