My Writing Process - Part of the BlogTour!

There's this thing going around on the bloggosphere, a chain letter of sorts, where bloggers who write describe what they're working on and their writing process. Last week, Robin Triggs wrote his entry as part of the Blogtour, and forwarded writing duties on to me. I've known Robin for many years from the old "reading group" I used to run at Ottakar's Bookstore, where instead of reading a book and then talking about it each month, we'd try a different roleplaying game. He later joined a short lived game I was in where he experienced my usual tactic in playing Call of Cthulhu first hand, which involved getting as many flammable items together and rolling them into the cultists' headquarters and running away. Sorry guys! Anyway, thanks Robin for linking to me. Let's look at the questions shall we?

What Am I Working On?

Regular readers of my blog and my angsty updates on Twitter and Facebook will know that I'm still working on WILD, roleplaying in shared dreaming. Best described as "Inception meets Sucker Punch" it is about dreamshare technology allowing people to join together in their wildest fantasies for recreation, for therapy, for investigation and espionage. The core rulebook is still underway, and every day I think of new and weirder ideas for the game. I worry sometimes that it may be a little too odd, but if you understood movies like Paprika, or Dreamscape, then you'll be fine. I have very definite ideas for page layouts and illustration, which is frustrating as I just can't seem to get the ideas in my head down onto the paper.

When I'm not fretting over game rules for WILD, I'm working on a tie in novel for the game, the first of a trilogy, which tells the story of Carter Henderson's creation of the dreamshare technology to try to wake his daughter from a coma. I did the first draft as part of NaNoWriMo in 2012, and I left it alone for a bit while I concentrated on the game. Now I'm working on a new draft to try to get it to a readable state for public consumption.

When I'm not working on those, I sometimes have game writing work for other games I've worked on for publishers, rather than WILD which is purely my pet project.

How does my work differ from others in my genre?

My work is not as good as others in my genre? Is that a sufficient answer? When it comes to game design I suffer terribly from imposter syndrome. The fact that I've line developed a game series and designed the game system for one of the longest running SF TV show's tie in RPG, which in turn is being used for multiple other games, means nothing to me. I'm just a guy who works in retail too many days a week to pay the bills, so this game design stuff is all a fantastic dream that occurs every now and then. 

When it comes to WILD, the game is incredibly personal to me, and I'm convinced that I'm the only person on the planet who would be interested in playing it.

As for the fiction, I've been told a write a bit like Chuck Palahniuk (which is a massive compliment). As the tie in novel is really teen fiction, the concept of Chuck Palahniuk writing teen fiction is highly amusing, and a bit different, so I hope that kinda answers that one.

Why do I write what I do?

When it comes to games, I've always loved roleplaying games. They defined who I am though many stages of my life, and without them I'd be a very different person. As for WILD? I really wanted to so something a bit different from the usual "go find the bad thing and kill it" type of game.  I wanted to do something that would work in any genre, any time period, and be as grounded in reality as the dreams of the characters in Inception, or as extreme as the fantasy realms of Babydoll in Sucker Punch. Do anything, be anything. If you can dream it, you can be it.

The fiction started as a simple backstory to the game, and it quickly built into a very personal exploration of dreams, loss, regret and frustration. Getting some of the scenes in the book onto paper has been very therapeutic, getting them out of my head and into the wild (so to speak).

In both cases I just wanted to so something that wasn't about people trying to kill each other. 

How does your writing process work?

Very, very slowly. One of the disadvantages of (a) working full time in a mundane dayjob, and (b) doubting everything you put on paper is that every word is a struggle to get out. The novel stuff seems to be squeezed out in my work lunchhours, while if there's a particular gaming deadline I'll try to take a few days off from the dayjob to really concentrate on what I'm doing.

When it comes to game design, for me it's all about game system, and making sure it's as invisible as possible. When the game system does come to the fore, it should reflect the theme of the game as much as possible. 

Fiction is a whole different case. For the WILD novel I knew what I wanted to tell, but had no structure, but the wonders of the time pressures of NaNoWriMo meant I just hammered it out and everything started falling into place. The rewrite means I can correct bits I didn't like in readthrough, and pick up on elements I'd missed, elaborating and making things clearer.

However, writing with a cat sat upon you is a true test of concentration and agility.

Coming Next...

Part of this "Blogtour" thing is that I pass the duties on to at least one more writer/blogger for them to take up the task of continuing the "chain". Sorry guys! Next week will be the turn of...

Stoo Goff - Stoo Goff is a writer, musician and programmer hailing from Norwich and now living in Glasgow. When not buried beneath a mountain of programming code or torturing guitars he can be found creating strange new lands and conjuring dreams from nothing. He regularly promises himself that he will finish the next novel and album.

He is heavily influenced by a number of writers and musicians, including: Tom Waits, Ursula Le Guin, Trent Reznor, Neil Gaiman, Amanda Palmer, Gene Wolfe, Frank Miller and a host of Finnish Folk Metal.

Follow him on Twitter @stoogoff.

and...

Tim Maytom - Tim Maytom is a writer and game developer from Norwich who is always promising to stop messing around on the Internet and actually do some work. He is currently working on a sword-and-sorcery fantasy game of ever-growing scope, and a light-hearted modern fantasy game in the vein of Scott Pilgrim and Adventure Time.

When not working on games, he compulsively comes up with concepts for superheroes and works in retail. He will dance given the slightest opportunity.

Follow him on Twitter @trivia_lad and on Tumblr at trivialad.tumblr.com

Do check out these guys' work, they're both awesome people and you'd do yourself a great favour looking at their creations. You can also follow the many other entries in the blogtour by checkout out the #mywritingtour tag on Twitter. 

PITCH - KA-TET: Adventures in the Worlds of Stephen King's "The Dark Tower"

"First come smiles, then lies. The last is gunfire." 

Our world is connected to many others, and at the centre is the Dark Tower - a nexus point of time and space, the heart of all worlds - a tower under threat from an ancient evil. A group of mismatched "heroes" are thrown together from across space and time to embark on an epic journey across wastelands, facing horrors, to reach the Tower to restore the Beams and to save reality itself.

However, Roland, Eddie, Susannah and Jake, along with their billy-bumbler, Oy, were not the only Ka-Tet travelling through the realities to the Tower. Now players of Ka-Tet can form their own group of characters to battle the forces of evil through the many worlds of Stephen King's imagination. 

Ka-Tet: Adventures in the Worlds of Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" is a 304pg core rulebook. Within its pages you will find:

• The complete game system, utilising the Rapid Die Movement system from Autocratik's game "WILD", adapted to use D19s (available separately)
• Character creation system that allows the creation of player characters from across multiple realities, from the gunslingers of Mid-World, to the darker side of our world.
• Pregenerated characters for Roland, Eddie, Susannah, and Jake, along with stats for the many villains and helpers they will meet on their epic quest.
• Introductory adventure "The Drawing" to bring the characters together, to form their own Ka-Tet, and to launch them on their quest to the Dark Tower.

304page hardcover

Written and Designed by: David F. Chapman

Cover art: Michael Welan 

An Autocratik Publication

This isn't a real RPG, like The Beatles RPG - but again, there's a level of hope there. 

But, there's a little tale to tell here. As you'll probably know from my many blog posts, especially this one about Carrie, I've always been a massive fan of Stephen King. Meeting him during his Lisey's Story tour in London was easily one of the highlights of my time working in the book trade, and it was reading IT that really got me reading books for pleasure. Without Stephen King, I don't know if I'd have been much of a reader, which probably would have meant I'd have never worked in book stores, and I may never have read Harry Potter, and... oh, it's all too horrific to consider.

About four years ago I was thinking about how cool Steven King's universe was, how it all tied together across multiple books and worlds, all connected to the Dark Tower, and I thought how cool it would be to have a roleplaying game with the Dark Tower as its heart. Sure you could play the Gunslinger and other awesome characters from the Dark Tower series, but they travel across the world of The Stand, and just about every King novel has some connection, albeit in a minor way...

It would mean that your Dark Tower RPG could have supplements to play Salem's Lot, The Stand, Insomnia, Eyes of the Dragon, IT, Black House, Desperation, Hearts in Atlantis, The Talisman, and even The Shining. Just how cool would it be to play in Steven King's universe?

I still had contacts at King's UK publishers, and dropped them an email about it, and they kindly forwarded my query to Stephen King's lawyers. After many days of waiting, the verdict was a no - understandable really, I was a little fish in a big pond, especially as the Dark Tower was in the middle of various changing plans for TV series / movies / TV movies / movie series or something... the talks are still going on. Maybe someday in the future they'll sort it all out and we'll get to see Roland on the big and small screens.

A game set in King's worlds would have been cool, and it hasn't put me off revisiting the many dark settings of the master of horror. Far from it. As long as Stephen King keeps writing, I'll certainly be reading them.

Thankee-Sai!

A Dream of Magic

I’ve had a long standing dream for many, many years now. An impossible dream, but one I still hold on to and may never let go, and I thought I’d share it with you. Before I get to the details, I should offer a little background first. My love of Harry Potter.

Me, at the Warner Bros Studio Tour
outside Gringotts, on Diagon Alley.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Harry Potter

Harry Potter has been an integral part of my life for a long time now. Debs and I first heard of the books when we lived on the south coast, Debs working in graphic design and I was working in the Odeon cinema. We’d heard of the success of the first couple of books, but the hype was building in anticipation of the release of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Debs loved the idea of the stories, and we bought the first couple of books which Debs devoured in a matter of days. She was instantly hooked.

I was a little more skeptical, but when we moved back across the country and I started working in a bookstore, I started to see first-hand the effect the books had on the public. Kids were reading, they were enthusiastic about reading, and it was a fantastic phenomenon. The midnight book launches were some of the most exciting, tiring, and rewarding experiences I’ve had in my day jobs, with hundreds of kids all dressed in Hogwarts uniforms swarming around the shop, desperate to read. Not to play a video game, or sit on their iPhones - to READ. Amazing.

We went to the cinema to see the movies, usually on their opening nights, and my years of dismissing the story as Star Wars retold, or just The Worst Witch again, were quelled in my growing love for Harry Potter’s universe. I gave in and read the books, and loved every moment, revelling in the scenes and details that didn’t make it into the movies. As the Star Wars prequels crushed my childhood love of the original Star Wars, I realised that the Wizarding World was starting to feel more and more like home to me.

While I love Star Wars, and I have fond memories of seeing it for the first time with my parents, and dressing up for the town carnival as Star Wars characters with my dad, Harry’s world has a depth, and a level of detail, that won me over. We bought the first couple of books for my mum and she got to the point where she would read very little else. Other similar books I’d bought her for Christmas and birthdays would always be compared to Harry with a dismissive, “It was okay, but it wasn’t Harry Potter was it?”

The Potter movies have become comfort films for us, the standard go-to when we need cheering up. The novels are reread frequently, the Warner Bros. Studio Tour has almost become a second home, and it was recently pointed out to us that our living room is gradually becoming more and more like the Gryffindor common room with every passing year.

Strength of Character, Strength of Fandom

It’s not just us who have been welcomed into Harry’s world. The fandom is just as strong now as it ever has been. While I no longer work in book retail, my current dayjob gives me a great insight into fandoms, and the enthusiasm and love for Harry Potter has not faded. We’ve been to the Warner Bros. Studio Tour three times now in the two years the attraction has been open, most recently just last week, and it’s amazing to see how absolutely packed it is with enthusiastic fans - kids and adults dressed in Hogwarts robes, carrying wands, gasping at the sets and props. 

Looking online, you can see fans expressing their love for Harry’s world in art, stories and amazing fan-films like An Auror’s Tale and The Greater Good. 

You can dress in the uniforms, wear the robes, buy the wands, play the video games, build the Lego, play the old trading card game, and play some of the old boardgames while you reread the books or rewatch the movies. 

But the one thing I’d love to be able to do, is to play a roleplaying game in Harry’s world.

Not so much Holy Grail, more a Goblet of Fire

Sure, there are homebrew Harry Potter RPGs online, and games that can be used to play in an unofficial version of Harry’s world, but that’s not really what I’m talking about here. While it’s great for us existing gamers to create our own games, it’s not spreading the benefits of the hobby to a new generation of kids.

So what’s stopping an official Harry Potter roleplaying game? I wish I knew. There have been tales of companies getting so far, but as the years have gone by it’s become less and less likely that an official Potterverse game would ever happen. Which is a pity because the Wizarding world has a lot to offer gamers and kids alike.

Last year at GenCon, a little game that I worked hard on called Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space won an ENnie Award for Best Family Game. It surprised everybody I think, as “family games” have traditionally been board or card games. I was absolutely stunned to think that our Doctor Who game had become a family game - it meant that kids were being introduced to roleplaying games, probably through their parents who were already gamers, or introduced to the hobby thanks to their interest in Doctor Who.

My favourite illustration at the Studio Tour
- Harry and a Dementor. Simply beautiful
black and white line work.

It meant that families were getting together to play a game that was social (and everyone was at the same place, looking each other in the eyes rather than talking over the internet or shouting down a microphone). A game that got them problem solving, thinking of non-violent solutions to dangerous situations (because that’s what the Doctor would do) and inspired their imaginations.

The world of Harry Potter has sparked the imaginations of millions of children across the world, and you can bet every single one of them has dreamed of discovering they were a witch or wizard, of going to Diagon Alley to buy their wand, and to go to Hogwarts.

Just as the books got kids reading again, a roleplaying game set in Harry’s universe could inspire a new generation of gamers - kids using their imaginations, creating new stories, new characters, and learning how to interact with each other in a positive way.

But it may be that creating “new stories” is one of the things that’s holding back such a game from existing in the first place.

Sacred Texts and an Unalterable History

The first thing that would need to be stated, for such a game to even exist, is to define when your game would be set. It has been thought that one of the reasons that a Harry Potter RPG is impossible is that J K Rowling doesn’t want anyone else doing anything with her characters. 

And you know what? I completely agree. Harry, Ron and Hermione, and the events of the seven books are the stuff of legend. Having a game that changes those events would be ridiculous. It’d be like having a Star Wars game where you played Luke, Han and Leia during the rebellion. If I was J K Rowling, not only would I be a far better writer than I am now (and wouldn’t be writing this blogpost) but I’d also be incredibly protective of my creation. 

Harry’s world is huge and detailed, and the events of the seven years that lead up to the Battle of Hogwarts is the sort of thing that would be recorded in Hogwarts: A History (a revised edition of Bathilda Bagshot’s essential tome). 

Instead, Rowling has given the gaming world the perfect window of opportunity. At least fifteen years between the Battle of Hogwarts, and Harry’s eldest son, James’ first year at Hogwarts. A setting where the school is rebuilding after the battle, Death Eaters have fled and are in hiding, and the wizarding world is trying to get back to normality. This avoids playing during the events of the book, and also avoids conflicting with any events that may happen should sequels ever happen (we can hope).

But if that’s too close to the events of the books, and Rowling’s characters, how about creating a new school? We know of the Durmstrang Institute and the Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, but what of magical schools in other countries? Rowling is adding new information to Pottermore to expand the wizarding world, wouldn’t it be great if she’d supply new details exclusively for a game? (After all, Joss Whedon did for the Buffy RPG!)

Wouldn't rulebooks for a game look amazing
if they looked even remotely like this?

Dreaming the Dream, Not Living the Dream

I have it all planned. The game system, the rulebooks designed like actual textbooks from Hogwarts, a companion game for Wizard Duelling, a companion game for Quidditch. It’d be a dream writing job. Hell, I’d do it for free. I’d donate profits to J K Rowling’s charity, Lumos. Just the opportunity to be part of that world. To create a positive, fun and exciting game that the whole family could enjoy.

With Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them hitting cinema screens in the coming years, we can only hope that Harry’s world grows even larger, and that someday, somehow, my impossible dream could come closer to a reality. Like others before me I've tried to make this dream come true, only to fail at the last hurdle. 

I just hope that somewhere out there, J K Rowling and the people at Warner Bros. read this and see that such an enterprise would be not only positive and profitable for them, but it could be done with the utmost respect and regard for its source material. Until then, I think I'll pop one of the movies on again, maybe reread one of the books, and plan my next trip to the Studio Tour. 

Nox.

Me and Debs in the Great Hall at Hogwarts during the Christmas holidays.

WILD Character Creation

Yesterday we had our first gathering to see if character creation for WILD worked. As always with these things, it's not until you actually put this into practice that you see what needs to be done, tweaked or tinkered with.

First of all, many thanks to my unsuspecting guinea pigs -
Tim, Cam, and my lovely wifey Debs.

L-R: Tim, Me and Cam (photo by Debs)

You can see on the table the WILD Cards that I spent a good deal of last year working out, in a traditional Celtic Cross Tarot spread. The tricky thing with WILD is that a lot of the game involves the characters' history, background, subconscious and unconscious. I means that coming to the game with a character that is just a pile of numbers will give the GM with a lot of work. While it's possible to play that way, especially if the characters are dreamsharing with an NPC (whose dreams they are investigating), it does mean that any buried fears, anxieties, hopes and desires that the player characters may bring into the dream with them are absent.

Of course, being so close to a project like this means that I forgot a basic element - accessibility. While I'd spent months pouring over Tarot card meanings, tailoring the images to reflect frequent dream images, as well as the narrative of the setting's backstory, I kinda forgot that my players hadn't. Hurrah for playtesting! The result of which is that the initially daunting spread that you make when creating a character (such as the one below, which is Debs' character's spread) can be made a lot easier by adding small summaries of the card meanings in text in the borders.

Debs' card spread for character creation

If the text is oriented to the player when the cards are laid out, it'll speed things up dramatically - instead of looking at, say "The Technocrat (reversed)" and having to look up the meaning in the illustrated guidebook (which is already being written), if the card has "weakness, subservience" on the bottom of the card (when it's reversed like that), then the player will instantly know what that card means for their initial look over the spread.

In this case, the card in Debs' character's spread is in the Adulthood phase of the character's background (which runs up the right of the Celtic Cross spread). It means that no matter what she had in mind for her character's background or profession, her character feels inferior to someone. Maybe her boss is taking her for granted, giving her too much to do, or taking the credit for her work.

Below that, in the Formative era, is the Ten of Focus. The image on the card is someone selling the technology to the military for financial gain. While the card represents money and inheritance, it could mean that her character gained a lot of money in her college years, but either lost it or ended up working for a big corporation that took over her work.

All of this would depend upon what Debs has in mind for the character when she came to the table.

The cards are also used to see if there's a particular way the character should be statted up - she has three Vision cards in her spread, so Vision's probably going to be her strongest Attribute, while she has no Strength cards. She doesn't have any of the Court cards (which relate to the "skills") so there's no obvious leaning towards a particular area of expertise, so that'll be up to Debs to create.

The card crossing the questioner (character) in the middle is the Five of Vision (reversed) which means hope and alliances. This card represents what is their biggest obstacle, fear, or what is holding them back. Maybe her character is so determined to prove herself, to overcome those who have control over her, that she is reluctant to accept help or assistance. This could be something that'll haunt her in her dreams, and shape the way she acts with those who share them...

--

Well, there's an insight into the character creation process. It's a bit complicated, but the actual game mechanics themselves are incredibly fast and simple, so hopefully once the characters are built, and their personal hopes, fears and histories are created, the game will speed up and lead to a thought provoking and yet exciting game.

New Year's Task Resolutions 2014

Last year, on the first of January, I posted a list of resolutions that I was going to attempt for 2013. And I pretty much failed at all of them. Pretty rubbish, eh?

So, what did I plan?

1) Finish WILD.

Well, that didn't happen. I did make some progress with it, but not a great deal. I did, however, finish the rough versions of the TAROT cards that go with WILD that will be used for character creation and dream inspiration.

2) Finish Extinction for Eden.

That didn't happen either. I'm sorry. My head's just not in the right place for bleak-end-of-humanity type of stuff. It will be far, far better in the hands of someone who can make it the cool and gritty game it deserves to be.

3) Take part in NaNoWriMo again.

Well, I did start. I got about 2000 words into the follow up to the WILD novel I did the previous year when I was called upon to do updates, rewrites and revisions for the 50th Anniversary limited core book for Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space.

4) Get out of working in Retail.

Failed. Still there.

5) Draw.

I started the year with a plan to draw something every day, and that didn't really plan out. However, although the "daily drawing" fell through, I did get back into drawing by illustrating the 78 cards of the WILD TAROT. It was a weird experience trying to get back into the swing of drawing again after all these years. I don't know how successful I was, but it was good to get back to it.

My big problem is that I have this clear and definite vision of what I'd like WILD to look like. It's firmly fixed in my head, and I really don't think I have the talent to produce it how I'd like it to appear. But, then I could get someone to do it for me, but I'd probably drive them completely mad with my pedantic changes and alterations.

6) Do something with the video camera.

This has been almost entirely a time issue - where does it go? I did manage to upload a video of the Thor: The Dark World press conference.

Hopefully, I'll do more - experiment a bit. I'd still like to do some "unboxing" videos of RPGs and other cool stuff, but this is distracting me from actually working on WILD.

---

So what about this year? What do I hope to achieve in 2014?

1) Finish WILD.

2) Get out of retail.

3) WRITE!

What do you hope to accomplish in 2014?

Here's hoping everyone's 2014 is amazing. Until next time, stay multi-classy!

Bad at Games VII – Brick by Boring Brick

Last entry of “Bad at Games” I proclaimed my love of Rock Band. Seriously, I still love Rock Band in all of its incarnations. The sheer gorgeousness of The Beatles: Rock Band has to be seen to be believed, and Green Day: Rock Band is a real blast. But there were dark times on the horizon, and the band split up – it happens to most bands, even the Beatles. I found myself going solo, and that’s when I had the revelation about my gaming.

I was bored.

While I love Rock Band, the DLC stopped, and playing solo (or even singing and playing guitar as two players) wasn’t enough. I returned to the games of the past, at least the newer incarnations, and found them all the same. I bought games second hand, and found the same old formula. It was like a classic D&D dungeon crawl.

For example, I loved Halo. But I still haven’t finished Halo 4. Partly because I’m rubbish, but partly because I became bored of the formulaic way they play – it’s the same with Call of Duty, and dozens of other FPSs. Go into a room, kill all the bad guys, move to the next room. Or maybe they’ll shake it up a bit, and it’ll be – go into a room, shoot all the baddies, throw a switch or find a key to open the door to the next room, more baddies will appear, kill them, open the door, rinse and repeat.

And there was something about the themes of the games too – kill, kill, kill, kill, kill. With Halo, at least, you were shooting aliens, but modern shooters are all about killing people. With the events in my real life I was finding myself valuing life a lot more.

My lovely wife tried to expand my gaming horizons, and knew of my love of all things Lego (especially as I played Lego Rock Band until everyone became sick of playing the Ray Parker Jr.’s “Ghostbusters” over and over again), and she bought me Lego Indiana Jones 2 one Christmas.

The fantastic and peaceful Lego Harry Potter

I enjoyed it, but found it a bit frustrating that I couldn’t do everything on every level, and when I’d completed the game it said 28% complete. I figured that was it, and I couldn’t be bothered doing the whole thing again to find bits I’d missed, so I gave up, and later traded it in…

It wasn’t until I’d discussed this with Alex, one of the Rockathon players, that I’d been approaching the Lego games in completely the wrong way. I’d bought Lego Harry Potter for my Potter-obsessed wife, and inspired by Alex’s advice put the game in knowing what to expect this time around.

The Lego Harry Potter games became a bit of an obsession. Every brick, every character, every secret, every possible part unlocked in a pair of fantastic games. 100%’d them both, and 1000G’d. I’d found gaming again. Mostly because of my love of Lego, and my love of Harry Potter (there’s a whole blog post there, coming soon – “How I learned to stop muggling and love Harry Potter”), the XBox had never seen so much activity.

While Debs was playing “serious” games like the new Tomb Raider and Assassin’s Creed, I was casting my little Lego patronus charm in Hogwarts.

-

That just about brings my videogaming history up to date. I’ve been lured back to the non-Lego games by the amazing powerhouse that is Grand Theft Auto V – with Rockstar once again proving they are the masters of storytelling and open world design, but it’s going to be a long time before I try another first person shooter, and even longer before I purchase a new generation console.

I mean, seriously, what is the point of a console that isn’t backwards compatible? All those Rock Band instruments, the DJ Hero turntable, and the downloadable content. All the games you love. Just cast aside for a better processor? Thanks, but no thanks.

Whostory

Sorry I haven’t written a blog post in a while, there has been a good reason that I’ll come to in a minute. However, it’s a bit of a special day today, and I couldn’t let the occasion go by without writing a little about the cause of all of these celebrations – Doctor Who.

The Doctor Who jigsaw that's
currently in my loft...

On the very day I’m writing this, it will have been exactly fifty years since the first episode of Doctor Who aired on BBC TV. Before you say anything, no I didn’t see it. I’m not that old. I just act like it sometimes… No, my first memory of Doctor Who is the legendary Jon Pertwee driving Bessie about. I can’t have been that old, but my mum was a bit of a Pertwee fan from his other roles, so I have a memory of her having it on TV and watching it on our old Rediffusion set, complete with the dial on the wall to change the channels. I had a jigsaw (which I still have) that appeared recently in the massive BBC publication – the Doctor Who Vault, and watched intermittently, but I don’t think I was old enough to actually take in what was happening or to follow a complete story.

Strangely enough, considering the amount of horror movies I watch now, I was never very good with scary stuff as a kid. I was a bit of a wuss. In fact, I could write a whole blog post about the traumas of a certain holiday in north Wales, in a little cottage next to a cemetery, where I could hear my parents watching The Omen after I’d gone to bed. But that’s a whole different story. Needless to say, when the classic and awesome Hinchcliffe and Holmes era of Doctor Who kicked in, with Tom Baker, I was too much of a wuss to watch. All it took was a shot of the decaying Master and that was enough for me. It wouldn’t be until much later that I started watching Doctor Who again.

There was a certain feeling of a televisual event in 1981. It was announced that Tom Baker was leaving Doctor Who, and it felt like everyone in the country was going to tune in for his final story, Logopolis. I was older, wiser, and less of a scaredy-cat, so like millions of others in the UK I tuned in. That was probably the moment I really discovered Doctor Who. Peter Davison’s first story, Castrovalva, really marked the start of me watching week after week to follow the story.

My copy of the old FASA Doctor Who RPG
Signed by Tom Baker.

Thanks to one of The Eight, my old roleplaying group from school, John introduced me to some of the classic stories I’d not seen. John has to be one of the biggest Who fans I’ve known (and I’ve known and encountered many) but he approached the series in a very appreciative way. He also was our Call of Cthulhu “Keeper” and ran a really good Who RPG game using the old FASA RPG. His experience of running Cthulhu, paired with his love of the Hinchcliffe and Holmes era lead to a particularly cool and creepy investigative game.

However my love of Doctor Who would falter a bit by 1986. For two glorious years my young and impressionable teenage eyes were mesmerised by a veritable vision called Perpugilliam Brown. When the lovely Peri left the Doctor’s side in the middle of Trial of a Time Lord, I was devastated. I’d grown up watching an awful lot of TV, so when they replaced Peri with Mel, I couldn’t get the image of Violet Elizabeth from Just William out of my head. I watched the first episode of Mel, and I just couldn’t face it. My beloved Peri was no longer on screen, the appeal had gone, and I stopped watching. (I should, however, point out that I have since watched many of the Mel episodes. Such is the fickle nature of youth!)

It wouldn’t be until two years later I’d try the series again. John had returned to the hometown during one of the holidays from University, and urged me to try watching Doctor Who. I think his exact words were, “You should watch it! The new companion is Ace and she keeps wanting to blow things up!” So I did. I tuned in to catch the final episode of Silver Nemesis, and I was back – watching every week until that fateful final episode of Survival.

"There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream. People made of smoke, and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there’s injustice, and somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace — we’ve got work to do!"

-

Setting TARDIS controls to 1996, it had been a pretty quiet time for the Doctor, but the announcement of the TV Movie produced another sense of televisual event. It was something that simply had to be seen, though a lot had changed both with the Doctor and myself. No longer living at home, I’d moved nearly 200 miles to go to art college (now a University), and was living in a terraced house in the city with my future wife. I remember her initial reluctance to watch it, but I had a strange curiosity. Maybe it was a sense of nostalgia, the memory of sitting in my bedroom on Saturday evenings, with my bacon and chips (as we always had every Saturday) watching Doctor Who on my little portable TV while my parents watched something else in the living room.

Needless to say, we both enjoyed it. Sure, it had its flaws, but McGann was excellent, and it still is one of the best looking TARDIS console rooms ever in my opinion. But once again, for a while, Doctor Who had vanished, and things went quiet.

--

By the time the publicity started for the revival in 2005, life had progressed again. I was married and we were both working in Ottakar’s, possibly my favourite job to date. Looking after the SF / Fantasy section, I’d been given free reign to order in roleplaying games, and started to stock Big Finish CDs. With the announcement of Russell T. Davies’ revival of Doctor Who, you couldn’t help but get caught up in the wave of excitement. The shop already had a full sized replica Dalek, and for years I’d listened to kids asking their parents what it was.

Along with most of the country, we watched that first episode – “Rose”, introducing a new generation to the Doctor. Christopher Eccleston was fantastic, and RTD made the genius decision of following Rose, the companion, rather than the Doctor, giving the new generation of viewers a character they could empathise with, to experience the weird and the danger with, and to gradually get to know the Doctor – this changed Doctor, visibly haunted by unseen events from the Time War. We watched and enjoyed. By The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances it was obvious that the series was going to be huge, and by Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways I was completely hooked.

Nicola Bryant looking beautiful,
me looking like a freak.

Shortly after the demise of Ottakar’s, I found myself working in a shop where the old BBC shop used to be, in a store that was 70% dedicated to Doctor Who merchandise for the first year of its existence. While it was cool getting to sell Daleks and TARDIS models to kids who now couldn’t help but know what that Dalek was, the great thing about it was the signings. We played host to a number of actors from Doctor Who, with our grand store opening being celebrated with a visit from the legendary Tom Baker – and what a legend he is!

We’d hosted lots of signings, and through this I’ve managed to meet some fantastic actors from Doctor Who. And every single one of them were just amazing. Not just Tom Baker, but also Nicholas Courtney, Katy Manning, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Terry Molloy, Peter Purves, Kai Owen, Gareth David-Lloyd, Tom Price, Richard Franklin, Deborah Watling and of course, Nicola Bryant. All of them, lovely people who made the signing days incredible special for the customers and fans, and made them brilliant for the staff too.

I do have to apologise to Nicola Bryant though. The signing was fantastic, but I get the feeling that more than once during the day my sixteen year old self took over and I lost the ability to speak coherently and may have just burbled noises like someone who’d just had dental work. So, if you’re reading this Nicola, I’m sorry!

--

With the fiftieth anniversary episode, The Day of the Doctor, I’m frantically making notes to make adjustments to character write ups for the limited edition of the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space Roleplaying Game (a process that’ll probably involve multiple viewings – not exactly a hardship). But how I came to design the current incarnation of the Doctor Who roleplaying game is something for a future post.

I’ll finish by wishing everyone’s favourite Time Lord a very happy anniversary, and here’s to the next fifty years!!!

Bad at Games VI - We’re putting the Rock Band back together

Last entry I wrote on “Bad at Games” I talked about Halo and how we quickly became a bit obsessed with the game. We hosted LAN parties, created our own multiplayer variant games, and I continued to demonstrate how rubbish I am at most video games.

Lips video game cover

Sunday night was always Halo night. Friends from work would come to our place, often loaded with an extra XBox to network and we’d shoot the hell out of each other. However, our circle of video gaming friends was growing, and Halo was not everyone’s game of choice.

In the winter of 2008, I was hogging the TV again and I’d put on an episode of GamerTV or something similar that played on the obscure cable channels, and they were demonstrating a game called “Lips”. Possibly one of the worst names for a video game ever, but the wife saw the feature and she was intrigued. It made a change from the usual shooting, and seemed to be a great excuse to jump around the living room, singing along to various songs. The thing that seemed to sell it for her was the idea that you could import your own CDs into the game and sing along to any song you liked.

She put it on her Christmas list that year, and I bought it for her with a pair of motion sensitive microphones.

It was great fun, even if the choice of songs were not exactly our usual choice of music. We tried the import feature, but it seemed like a hastily tagged on extra to the game with very little skill. You could mumble any nonsense at it and it seemed to score – it was only on the songs that had been programmed in on the game disc that required some singing ability. It was either that, or I shouldn’t have tried importing Limp Bizkit.

That was the problem with the game really. Only two players, and the mainstream pop selection of songs. However, the game did have a bit of a blast during one of our Sunday night Halo gatherings, and everyone had a bit of a go. While it wasn’t the hit it could have been, the thing it did do for us was get us over the initial embarrassment of singing in front of a group of friends. We racked up the achievements, went through all the songs, and then Matt suggested the following week that he’d bring around his Rock Band kit and we’d give that a try.

I’d seen clips of Guitar Hero and Rock Band on TV, on similar video game TV shows that introduced us to Lips, and I have to confess I thought they looked pointless. To me it was just timed blocks coming down the screen, press a button, or bang the drum at the right time. What was the fun in that? But I was game, and as promised theGuitar Hero controller, and Rock Band.
following week Matt appeared on the doorstep with microphone, drumkit, guitar and a spare

It seemed to take a while to set up, but eventually the game was ready, the disc fired up,

We were all initially cautious, not having played something like this before except for Matt, so we played on Easy. Even then I was still having difficulty on the guitar (admittedly, I did opt for Enter Sandman for the first track we played), but we got the hang of it, and I was starting to see the appeal.

We swapped instruments and I ended up on drums. Obviously, none of my father’s drumming talent was passed on to me (he used to play in the work’s band when they had dances. I later discovered that he had a number of certificates in piano from a prestigious London music college!) I could drum with my hands, or one hand and one foot, but putting the three together was a bit of a disaster. Luckily, on Easy Rock Band seemed to know this and alternated between the two. I was drumming.

Rockin' in the free world. Charles, Matt, Me and Adam

There’s something about Rock Band that you just don’t get until you play it. Maybe it’s the physical position you’re in – you’re not playing a video game with a controller, the Rock Band controllers are instrument shaped so you feel like you’re actually playing an instrument. The game cheers at you, you feel like you’re in a band, and if someone falters and fails your bandmates can bail you out and help you along.

It’s the difference between playing Risk and playing D&D. Risk is all about defeating your opponent, and sometimes even making false alliances that you quickly betray for an easy victory. D&D is about working together for a common goal. And in Rock Band no one was suffering. Even in Halo when we played as a team you could get picked on or feel like you were letting the side down. Rock Band there were no opponents to badmouth you online. It was about playing gigs, entertaining a virtual crowd, and getting through the songs intact.

The evening flew by, and Matt packed up the kit and headed home. I sat with the wife afterwards and we just looked at each other with massive grins on our faces. She felt it too. The adrenaline of the game, the roar of the crowd, the feeling of making music. We were hooked.

That week I got the credit card out, bought Rock Band 2, the drums, the guitar and microphone. Then visited our local musical instrument supplier and bought a microphone stand, and drum stool.

Months passed, the Sunday evening Halo nights became Rock Band nights. We toured the world, downloaded new songs, and rocked the planet.

Rocking in public for Charity. Me, Adam and Alex

We took it a stage further – the Endless Setlist was challenge in the game to perform every song on the disc in one “concert”. There was also the “Bladder of Steel” achievement for completing the Endless Setlist without breaks or failing. We saw this as a challenge we couldn’t pass up. We’d progressed to a fairly good ability with the game, some of us were playing on Hard-Expert by now, and we figured we’d do the Endless Setlist in a different way – in public.


We’d round out the setlist to 100 songs, and with the help of a particularly cool venue – Fusion, a giant digital gallery that would project the game on screens behind us, we would play in public, without breaks, and raise money for the Brain Tumour Trust. Harmonix, Rock Band’s creators, sent us T-shirts. We were mentioned on Inside XBox. We were in the newspapers. Fame beckoned.

It was exhausting, but awesome. We were rock gods. Nothing could stop us. Or so I thought.

It's Written in the (WILD) Cards...

Okay, I have a confession. I’m terrible at motivating myself.

I’m one of the Kings of procrastination, and I will often find myself sitting and staring at the newsfeed on Facebook rather than actually doing anything even remotely productive. If I have a project I’m enthusiastic about, I’ll put every waking moment into it, but after time I can become tired and bored.

What I need is deadlines. Luckily, I’m in a little group of writers we like to call “Write Club” (though we do not talk about Write Club), and we meet once a month to chivy ourselves along. We hear how each other’s projects are coming along, and offer advice and encouragement. Last month we decided to set goals, to give ourselves something to aim for. I knew that NaNoWriMo was approaching in November, and while I have an idea of what I’d like to write, I thought it would be helpful if I finished the Tarot cards for the WILD RPG before then.

The roughs for the Suit of FOCUS, for the WILD RPG's Tarot

The benefits of completing them were many –

* I’d be able to actually start playtesting the game. The cards are fairly integral to character creation, and I’ve been wanting to try that out for a while.

* If I got stuck for a direction of where to go with writing the NaNoWriMo book I could draw a card and see if it inspires a plot twist or more.

* I wouldn’t be drawing cards when I should be writing.

So I set myself the task of completing the full set of WILD Tarot cards by the next meeting, and thankfully, I managed to hit my goal. It required drawing roughly two or three cards a day, but I did it. They’re only rough, but they give the impression of what the cards will do in the final game, and I can use them to generate some characters and see if that process works at least.

I mentioned the cards briefly in a previous post, but the tricky bit has been working out the images for each card. I’ve tried to incorporate not only the classic meaning of the Tarot card, but also some aspect of the most commonly recorded dreams, as well as keeping a narrative element that you’d normally find in Tarot cards only this time telling the story of the characters who were involved in pioneering the dreamshare technology.

The roughs for the STRENGTH Suit for the WILD RPG Tarot

Rider-Waite version
of The Lovers

I showed the cards to some of the Write Club group at the most recent meeting, and one of the comments was exactly what I’d hoped. “The Lovers card, it doesn’t look like they’re supposed to be together, it looks like it’s an affair.”

Perfect.

In the traditional and Rider-Waite imagery of the Tarot, the Lovers card usually depicts a couple as you’d expect, but sometimes it’s about the choice between two people. In the narrative of the Tarot suggested by a couple of books I’ve read, they’ve said that it sometimes represents the man’s choice between staying at home with his mother, or leaving with the new love in his life.

For WILD, I’ve interpreted the card slightly differently, with the card showing the wife of the creator of the dreamshare technology, having an affair with another man. This is part of a long story of her being ignored by the tech inventor, as he spends more and more time working on his computers and creations, than being at home with his wife and daughter. There’s a tale of separation and redemption, about creating the device to be with his daughter, and… well, I won’t give it all away here.

Very, VERY rough
version of WILD's
The Lovers

So the card not only reflects the traditional imagery of the Tarot, it also tells part of the story of the dreamshare device, and the people who made it. On top of that, some of the most common dreams that people have are incorporated into the cards as well. In this case, it can be many of the most common themes in dreaming – showering or bathing, being discovered somewhere you shouldn’t be, finding yourself naked, having an affair, having an argument, or simply a sexual encounter. The GM can take any of these dream-elements and incorporate them into the game if control over the dream is lost and the expected narrative succumbs to the randomness of dreams.

On top of all that, the card suits have been renamed to the four Attributes in the game – they seemed to match their Tarot counterparts perfectly – and the Court Cards, when paired with the Ace of each suit, can be adapted to match the five “Skills” in the game (I put Skills in quotes as they are more than just Skills, they’re more descriptors – broad areas of ability).

All this and I haven’t really touched upon how the cards are used in character creation. We’ll come to that after I’ve given it a try to see if it works.

Until next time, stay multi-classy!

Bad At Games V - Follow the Master Chief, he'll know what to do...

I purchased Halo for the original XBox second hand and loaded it up. I knew I was rubbish at first-person shooters, but there was something about Halo that was different. I don’t know whether it was the ease of the controls, the intuitive design or just how cool the whole darn thing looked, but I loved every moment of it… except maybe the driving at the end, which was frustrating as hell.

The best thing about Halo was the two-player split-screen. It meant that the wife and I could play through the campaign co-operatively and experience the game as never before. I’d drive the warhog while she blasted the crap out of the grunts. We were a team of awesome.

Halo had become such a phenomenon that everyone we knew seemed to play it. People we were at work with (this was back when the wife and I worked together at the same bookstore) knew of the game, and some were avid players – it was just a matter of time before some of our work colleagues were invited back to our humble abode for a little four-player split-screen action.

There was something addictive about it, and Halo night became an almost weekly affair. And it grew on occasion, where we’d invite many people around and we’d experiment with ethernet cables and network multiple XBoxes together to grow to 8, 12 and even 16 player battles. These LAN parties were not as frequent, as they’d involve the transportation of television sets and XBoxes, and placing them around the house in multiple rooms.

But it was fun. We enjoyed ourselves. The neighbours may not have enjoyed it quite so much – this was before we had headsets to communicate and “teams” would end up shouting at each other tauntingly from one room of the house to the other. And we discovered that our XBoxes had names (strangely, ours was called “Goat”).

There were a couple of players who were particularly good at Halo, who dominated the playing field, but that was okay. We had fun, despite reaffirming my belief that I was inherently bad at games.

We instantly snapped up Halo 2 upon release, and the Halo night continued. Our favourite game (“Rockets on Prisoner”) was replaced by a variant of Crazy King of the Hill on Coagulation we called “Arg! It Moved!” (as the place you needed to stand to gain points and win would move every 30 seconds, usually just as you were about to stand there).

How I usually looked online in Halo3

And then something stupid happened. We gained broadband internet access, and I hooked up the XBox. The trial month of XBox Live was activated, and I sampled the world of Halo 2 online.

While the regular players who visited would repeatedly and frustratingly kick my ass at Halo, it wasn’t until I had access to online gameplay that I really sampled the nerve-wracking bloodbath of my continual fragging.

We still loved Halo, and the games we played were still fun, but when we found out that Halo 3 would be on the newly launched XBox360, we upgraded and were introduced to a far harsher sport online. The abuse would flow - the taunts and the colourful language - until it became necessary to plug the headset in for game-chat, turn the volume right down and leave the headset on the sofa next to you.

Halo night continued weekly, sometimes with a simple 2x 360 LAN or just meeting up online and connecting with private channels to team up against the constant onslaught of “Pro Gamers”. We had our moments of glory, but I was just too bad a player and I was obviously bringing everyone down. The frustration was starting to set in, and that seed of being bored by shooters had been planted.

Sure, there were other games out there that I loved – GTAIV and Red Dead Redemption to name a couple, but it was getting to the pitch where my interest in video gaming was dwindling, mostly due to being generally rubbish at it. I’d have given up right there and then if it wasn’t for one game. A game I’d initially discounted because it just looked silly. A game called Rock Band.

Put Your Cards On The Table

Tarot has always been a bit of an odd one for me. It has always fascinated me, even though I have very little belief in any "mystical" connections to it, I do feel that the symbolism used in the cards is incredibly clever. Not only does this mean that almost anyone can see themselves and their current situations in the cards, but this ability to relate to the cards can produce some incredible insight and help people who had previously become "stuck" in their situations.

I remember my first exposure to Tarot was through my love of James Bond. I mentioned in an earlier post that I was introduced to James Bond at an early age through my parents taking me to see The Man With The Golden Gun. From then, I was hooked and I have fond memories of keeping the blueprints and diagrams of the stunts from Live and Let Die that were printed in the TVTimes when the movie first screened on British TV. And it was from Live and Let Die that I first saw Tarot, in the hands of the lovely Solitaire.

Solitaire (Live and Let Die)

I hadn't seen Tarot before, so I was confused as to why the cards looked different to playing cards, and it was then that I discovered my father's passing fascination with the Tarot, and he let me see his deck. I don't think he'd ever used it - just bought it and filed it away. It was an old Tarot of Marseilles set that came with a book. A set I still have today.

Of course, when I started roleplaying, the interest started again when I started running the James Bond roleplaying game for the group, with SPECTRE replaced by TAROT.

The years passed, and I didn't do a lot with Tarot until the time I came to apply to do my degree at art college. As part of the interview process for that particular college (now university) they asked each applicant to produce a self portrait to bring along to the interview which would not only show off their artistic skills, but maybe also give the tutors an insight into the way their prospective students saw themselves.

For my self portrait I produced a set of Tarot cards. Just the 22 cards of the Major Arcana, but I used photos (some shot especially) and got creative, covering the images in paint, illustration and weirdness, interpreting the meaning behind each card to show an aspect of my life at that time. It was all very horribly angsty and personal, and I don't think many people have seen them outside of the interview. Luckily, they did the trick and I was accepted on the course.

Thanks to relocating for art college, and getting back into reading comics, I became a fan of the the weirder DC titles such as Sandman and especially Shade: The Changing Man. When these became part of that first wave of Vertigo titles, and they announced a special Tarot set illustrated by Dave McKean, I placed my order straight away.

Vertigo Tarot - 0:The Fool

The Vertigo Tarot was a lovely set, and the book was incredibly easy to use. I was inspired for the first time to actually use the set for the intended purpose, and after a few readings, the various friends I'd done readings for said that the results had been strangely accurate. It was odd, because I wasn't really reading anything special into the spreads. I didn't know the cards very well to begin with so most of the readings involved looking at the cards, and looking things up in books, and writing an interpretation for the querant. Maybe this was what produced the "accuracy" as it allowed the querant to interpret the results themselves, projecting elements of their own life - maybe elements they didn't realise were there - onto the results the cards had produced. It was odd, but it seemed to work, and the people I read for seemed to be inspired, motivated, and above all happy with the results.

I'd rediscovered gaming again after relocating for art college, and after playing Vampire: The Masquerade, we moved on to playing Mage: The Ascension. When they produced a set of Tarot cards, inspired by the cover image of the corebook, we had to invest. I never used them for the game, or for traditional Tarot readings, but it did sow the seeds of inspiration that the names and images on the cards could be tweaked to fit a specific setting - or in this case, to suit a roleplaying game.

Something that has obviously stayed with me over the years - for when I started to write WILD a couple of years ago, when I considered an interesting element for the RPG I immediately thought of the Tarot.

Initially, I wanted a set of random cards that could represent the 100 most common dreams. The traditional things like being late for an exam or test, being naked in public, descending into a dingy cellar, flying or floating around a room, losing your teeth... that sort of thing. Then I realised that these dream images also inspired Archetypes, and the more I researched, the more I discovered the connection between the Tarot, and Jungian Archetypes and dream imagery.

Very rough version of XIV

So I set to making another deck of Tarot cards. I took index cards and wrote the divinatory meanings of each on them, and took the 100 or so most common dreams and wrote them on post-it notes. Then it was a case of laying the cards out on the floor and matching the dream to the card it best suited.

But things started evolving as the game was being written. It was taking on a life of its own. The four suits seemed to fit the four Attributes of the game, so it was a logical choice to change out Coins, Cups, Swords and Wands to become Control, Focus and Vision. The court cards, if you took the Ace into account, also fit the five "Skills" of the game, so it worked if you took out King, Queen and Page and replaced them with the Skills, such as Deceiver, Creator and Operator.

As the NaNoWriMo novel took shape, and the background of the game was formed, detailing the events that would lead up to the creation of dreamshare technology and the dreams of the inventor's daughter, the more the imagery of the novel would inspire the cards, especially the Major Arcana.

The more I looked at the cards, and how they would be used in the game as a way of influencing events in the dreamshare, the more I realised that I was putting a lot of work into these cards for a device that wouldn't be used all that often. I put the cards aside, and I went back to writing the game...

The first few VERY ROUGH prototype cards

I went back to writing the character creation chapter, and, frankly, got a bit stuck. Until I thought of the cards again. Now the cards have become an integral part of character creation, and also a bit about the relationship-mapping between the characters. I won't go into great detail, as I don't want to spoil it, but I'm quite excited by how its worked out. However, it needs testing. And in order to do that, I needed the cards - complete with the imagery that I wanted on them. A load of index cards with notes and scribbles wouldn't do.

So, on a recent trip to London, visiting the Atlantis Bookshop, I picked up a deck of blank Tarot cards. A whole deck, Tarot card shaped, with a patterned back, but a plain white front. The only problem is, the cards are very glossy and the only thing that'll really stay on the cards is working directly in permanent marker pen. No pencils, just scribbling straight onto the card in pen and hoping for the best.

Some of the cards have come out better than others, and, if the game makes it to production, the cards would be illustrated by someone with a LOT more skill than me. But, they serve the purpose.

As of yesterday, I've completed the Major Arcana. Now, about to start on the Suit of Control. As you can tell, WILD is still a way off yet, but it's evolving and changing with every new development, shaping itself in a fluid form like the dreams it takes its inspiration from.