Chuck Dee

Give the Skeleton Jewelry

This was quite an interesting entry. How do you give enough details to run the adventure, but not so much detail as to make it (a) too much on the GM and (b) too railroad-like? You want to keep your adventure skeletonized enough while leaving them with the tools and hooks to make the adventure memorable not just to the player, but to the GM. I've struggled before with giving too much or too little detail, so this was of particular interest to me.

Try this exercise: write a paragraph about one key moment of your adventure that you love. Write for all 5 senses. Write about what it’d feel like to be in that space as a character. Write about the tension of what’s at stake. Write about how NPCs would react and feel in those moments. Write what the sky looks like overhead, and how the ground feels.

Now. Pull your favorite phrase out of that paragraph. Just one. That’s your jewelry for that scene. One sparkling element that sets the tone – something the DM will remember to mention and the players will never forget.

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The Westreastan envoy was everything that they could have asked. Knowledgeable, personable, agreeable and the perfect diplomat. He deferred to their wishes as they chose the best route to secure the elements of the artifact that they'd been sent after. He never addressed the auxiliary troops, thus they never worried that the troops were anything but theirs. He was handsome, but not too handsome- a slight imperfection of the nose or something around the eyes marred his look. His dress was low-key, and he never complained about the rigors of the journey. It seemed that they should trust him. But, there was something about him- the feeling of decay clung to him and a musty aroma followed him as he moved about the ship. Not unpleasant, just... discomforting.

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That seems usable. But looking back at the instructions, I don't think that I adequately described what they wanted. Space.

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The ship was what they would refer to in the history books as a carrack. A medium-sized ship with 4 sails, sleek lines, and a chocolate brown wood. Stepping onto the deck, they could see that it was well made, and the wood was sturdy beneath their feet. The smells of the sea wafted on the wind, blending with the smells of the ship itself- brine had recently washed the decks, but there was the odor of a lived-in ship, not on its maiden voyage. The same could be said of the crew as they cast wary glances at their new passengers. The captain was on the quarterdeck looking down on the deck as the first mate moved among the crew, admonishing them to keep working. The sky was clear, which boded well for their journey, but there was a tension in the air that had nothing to do with the weather. A gentle rolling tide rocked the ship as it set on the waters next to the docks. The captain waved for them to join him as he descended to the main deck.

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That whole bit looks good- so not sure what I'd cut. Perhaps the middle part about the smells- it looks forced. But it leads into the bit about the crew, and that part is at least important in establishing the environment. I'll have to think more on this one as I move on with the adventure.

I've fallen a bit behind on this, between work and the extensiveness of the next lesson on Outlining and Mindmapping. I normally fall somewhere between a pantser and a planner in my writing; I have the general notes of the plot points sketched out, but nothing so intricate as an outline or a mindmap. I've also tried some other templates for getting things done, but it's usually fallen back after a while into just bullet points in a notebook or a markdown document, and everything has come from there.

I have a few different software programs for Mind Mapping and Outlining; Aeon Timeline, Noteliner, Storyboard, Index Cards, the boards in a couple of my writing software packages, etc. But two that I've wanted to come back to and have thought of for these things are Scapple (by Literature and Latte) and Gingko. I decided to use those for this exercise.

Scapple is good as a mind mapper but doesn't have the features of a few that I've tried- one of the ones I missed was the ability to auto-link new notes in the mindmap; you have to manually link them after the fact. But I ended up with quite the tree- and I didn't even finish the whole map for the whole scenario! It's turned out to be a campaign rather than just a one-shot, but I can finish the first part of it for this particular exercise.

Gingko is a different sort of outliner; it's horizontal instead of vertical. I've used it to a limited extent before, but in using it for this exercise, I've found it very robust. It's a combination of using index cards and a multi-level outline, and I find it more intuitive for how I think; I can be on one portion of the outline, and the others are visible but greyed out.

It's been an interesting exercise – the telling point as to whether this was just an exercise or is going to prove useful to add to my workflow is how much use I get from it in later steps in the process.

On to the second lesson- one about Moodboards and Playlists. I was somewhat skeptical, but talking with my daughter, she already does it and ascribes to the idea that it does help her get past writers' block and into the writing mode.

But, since we haven't come to a part that explicitly talks about formulating what we're going to write about, I had to come up with that first.

I'm creating my own system and some more or less generic settings in support of it. The first setting is tentatively called Gods of the Star's End. I'd envisioned it as a setting that would start in an advanced but stagnant empire, unchallenged in its supremacy for eons. The primary form of entertainment is live-action adventures, where people are sent to a world on the other side of a rift to adventure in a wilder, less advanced civilization. A fantasy world, full of magic and other wonders, this world had been protected by beings that called themselves gods, but these beings disappeared long ago. The world was worse off for it and was a prime ground for dangerous adventures. The characters are adventurers, and this would be the introduction to the setting, as they are chosen by unknown powers to be the new gods of the world.

I plan for the PCs to be over the top representations when in their deific forms, so my Bloodforged MoodBoard is all about the characters that the PCs can portray

I want my playlist to be an epic work to detail galaxy spanning and world-spanning adventures. I actually have the perfect playlist in a single song- one that I play at times when I exercise. It's called the Epic Heroic Motivational Badass Workout Mix. I did want to add something else to mix it up a bit- I chose CRONOS – Epic Powerful Orchestral Music Mix. As a last one to mix it up, I chose the song mix that I actually already use for work – Samurai☯ Trap & Bass Japanese Type Beat ☯ Lofi HipHop Mix

I just signed up for the RPG Writer Workshop that runs for the month of July. It was a last minute decision based on the fact that it showed up in a thread on RPGGeek, I failed at Game Chef this year, and wanted some other writing exercise to hold myself more accountable.

I'll be writing and taking notes elsewhere, but I'll also be documenting the process here for the purpose of holding myself accountable, to review the course, and to document the process. Hopefully it goes well!

Exercise

In the writing app/service/tool of your choosing, write out responses to the following questions:

• What is the main writing tool you plan to use for the next four weeks?
  • Sublime Text, using my Keybase git repo for versioning/backup.
• Where do you plan to do the majority of your writing?
  • My home office for the most part, but I might try to get out if I need to for inspiration.

I read a lot. And when I read and I'm writing, it's hard to keep my reading from either (a) influencing my writing, or (b) taking me off on a tangent, wanting to start something new. Because of this, when I read, I have to have a notepad nearby. If I exorcize the thoughts by writing them down, I can take ideas from them later for new projects without them derailing my current project. And when I write, I have to have a solid outline. That constricts me sometimes, and I have to find the fine line between rigidity in structure, and allowing constructive creativity to inject itself into my ideas.

What am I currently reading? Lately, I've been on a 40K binge, finally starting the Horus Heresy, and trying to devour these huge tomes. I had to take a break from that when Tiamat's Wrath was published, and now after that, I'm taking a moment to read the next in the Iron Druid series, Hammered. Just from those two books, I've shifted my narrative on the campaign that I'm working on- mostly from the dose of the Expanse. 40K has found itself embedded in the campaign more than a little also.

I figured I'd kick this blog out with the A-to-Z Challenge for April. I'm not real good at posting regularly, so hopefully this will help to kick it off, starting with...

A is for About

My name is Chuck Dee, and you can find me at http://www.chuckdee.net. I also maintain a where to find me page since the G+ shutdown that has a variety of places to find me hanging out.

By trade I'm a software architect, specializing in Microsoft solutions, though I have to dip my feet into other areas as a matter of course. I've been working in the field for many moons but have always had a desire to write, stemming from my love of books and reading. I'd love to become a professional writer, but for now, content myself with freelance work and contests, honing my craft. I've heard it said that when you put pressure on your hobbies to make your living, they cease being your hobbies, but it hasn't proven true with development, so hopefully, it will not prove true for writing.

My genre for writing is Science Fiction/Fantasy, though I often mix it up a bit with other genres. Being a gamer, I also write gaming materials for tabletop roleplaying games.

Other than games, I also collect and build mechanical keyboards, and have a presence in those communities. I am a passingly fair guitarist, pianist, and vocalist. For exercise, I walk, cycle and swim.

On this blog, I hope to ruminate on my writing: goals, excerpts, design notes, and just work on my craft in an open forum. I hope you'll go along with me for the ride!