September 2023 Writer Support Thread

RockmanX · 2023-09-13T17:23:37.012Z

HannahPS:

about how much authors reveal about their games while it’s in progress, especially about characters and relationships before PCs have had a chance to get to know those characters/relationships in the game. Mostly thinking about what happens when a WIP or a partial series becomes a fandom of its own (especially on IF Tumblr, which is its own animal, but also very active/popular Patreons or threads here) when not all of it is available to play.

Earlier I mentioned my contribution to the Bring Out Your Ghosts jam.

There is a certain sort of challenge to doing so, I must admit.

As some of you may know, I have been putting up Maverick character profiles on my own thread (If Hannah’s doing it, then I can’t not be missing out, right?).

One thing about me is that I can be very impatient, seeing things in black and white mostly. So trying all sorts of ways, including both putting out my ideas and works, to gain publicity, was, in retrospect, something that probably won’t last.

But therein creates more problems: what happens when my fanbase grows, and I start getting more serious requests? Clearly Maverick Hunter: Scandalous Mission is incomplete- and Tumblr is a deadly snake pit, for reasons I’ll not explain.

HannahPS:

I think when there is so much focus on knowing huge amounts about characters outside of the game, there’s a risk that when the characters are encountered “in the flesh” in-game, as players we lose some of the excitement of learning more about them with our PCs. Or perhaps we expect them to be as legible in-game as they are to us out-of-game when we’ve read so many answers or point-of-view stories about them.

HannahPS:

I wonder if it also makes a bigger risk of characters becoming flattened into their tropes/narrative roles, in the story itself in the worst case scenario, or more likely, in the way they get talked about outside the story. Again I’m not talking about specific WIPs, but I see that sometimes characters are sort of “marketed” or spoken about as tropes, or types of routes, or as “red flags”/“green flags”. I think it does the characters a disservice because they’re more complex and interesting than that, and, for example, a “friends-to-lovers trope” romance route could mean such a massive variety of things that it doesn’t mean much.

But then it’s tricky because giving extra information about characters, and categorising them in various ways, is so popular, and is a major important way in which authors can promote their work.

This is the other challenge. Unfortunately, due to the nature, it’s going to be partially that way. Characters are meant to be multifaceted- and throwing labels around can simplify things, but can also be misleading. I also agree that giving more character information is a good way to promote one’s work- and I have been doing that, since I know no other good way (does Mara have any ideas?).

Eiwynn:

the development of a significant fandom for a storyverse is a crossroad that presents many challenges and opportunities. Projects that have a cast of characters, regardless of the game’s focus, will have to deal with expectations, both at the point where a fandom becomes ascendant and thereafter through the game’s life-cycle.

It is indeed a double-edged sword. Trying to appeal to both fanbases is going to be one hell of a ride. How pacifist am I going to make my PC react?

Eiwynn:

I am in what seems to be the minority, when I do not intend to do pre-release promotional work for my cast.

I might provide a listing while the public beta will be active, but I do not intend to write side-stories or other such common promotions found elsewhere, such as in the Tumblr IF realm, until after release.

If this works for you, go ahead! I do not thing this will work for me, as my impatience will certainly get in the way.

Kelly_Seastar:

So are Spring, Summer, Fall. and Winter kingdoms within the magical world?

There are four kingdoms, corresponding to the four seasons. But everything changed when the fifth kingdom attacked…

Back to the subject matter, I want to give a big thank you to the regulars of this thread, those who keep this machine humming.

Eiwynn:

feedback should not be used to change a character into another but rather help hone and polish the existing character.

Writing good characters is a multifaceted endeavor, and I do not think the words “should do” belong in a discussion of “how to”.

If you’re forcing a character, then something’s wrong. The main thing is, different solutions work for different people- there is no one-size-fits-all-plan. The tricky part is, what solution works for me, and why?

Dvalor53 · 2023-09-13T17:30:06.484Z

I believe that fairmath is excellent, if the person creating the story understands and knows how to balance it. It is a tool and like all tools it is only as good as it’s use and sometimes it’s user. I love power drills, but too often I find people stripping screws; I don’t blame the drill.

Some IFs would be better without it, because the game balancing is lacking. That is something that I believe needs to be tested for but often isn’t. That isn’t an issue with fair math, but the use of the tool.

poison_mara · 2023-09-13T17:33:53.191Z

I will love give my opinion in the theme of why authors say too much and use tropes and lot of media but my opinion will be polemic and probably too honest to handle.

I personally gave up. I will never post any wip in this forum or any public beta and the private will be just because is obligation now to be a hosted.

No one here is more burnt scarred than me about forum betas I learned that hard way.

If you are nothing nobody will ever put a eye in anything you do no matter how hard you try. it is what it is.

My jam born from a personal iron thought that anyone else will suffered from the same thing I did. At least in the jam people will read their work amd they will feel happy with themselves

RockmanX · 2023-09-13T17:35:15.400Z

poison_mara:

If you are nothing nobody will ever put a eye in anything you do no matter how hard you try. it is what it is.

That sounds very negative. Why do you think so?

poison_mara · 2023-09-13T17:36:36.561Z

Personal experience., my friend. Personal experience. i did so many beta attempts when no single person replied. No single one. No feedback from anyone. Nada cero.

Edit. It is better have trolls that feel the Nothing. Refresh page over and over. Knowing that yes, another time no single person will answer

Eiwynn · 2023-09-13T18:06:06.427Z

@agraysparrow – I am replying here, to keep the other thread on point.

I'm Sorry, But I Think We Should See Other People - ROs You Hate

“Meaningful choice” is something that’s hard to quantify, to be honest, because there’s no clear meaning to it

Does it mean a choice with consequences? How severe a consequence? Does it mean it has to lock out paths or significantly change the course of a story? Is it strictly a mechanical function, a narrative one?

Something like Disco Elysium has thousands of small choices or skill checks that, while often just flavour text, can significantly set the tone for a players experience with that game. Journey more than the destination sort of thing. My experience with it would’ve been vastly different if different flavour text came up

I understand what you are saying here, but I think there is a significant difference between “flavor choices” and “meaningful choices” as used within the IF world and the game world in general.

Flavor choices can have a huge impact on a reader’s or gamer’s experience. It is one reason I am thankful for the multi-replace tool in Choice Script.

The meaningful choice (to me) is one that impacts the narrative, in such a way that other types of choices do not.

The same choice (e.g. to take a knife to a gun fight) can be considered different ways, all depending on the context that the author puts that choice in.

Does that mean the choice will impact the reader any less, if bringing a knife to a gun fight is just flavor textual? No, the impact of a choice depends on much more than the usage being chosen to describe that choice.

Phenrex · 2023-09-13T18:26:18.186Z

If you don’t mind me expanding on this and trying to draw a bit of a ‘line’ just for the sake of clarity…

Would you also consider choices which are remembered by other characters to be generally meaningful? Or would they be ‘flavour’ unless they have some sort of branching (an argument, or an additional scene, etc) associated with it?

Let’s say, for example, you have a discussion with someone where you mention with someone about loving the violin (and have a choice between several instruments to say you like). The RO remembers this, and will pick up the violin themself and play a solo for you to ‘serenade’ you. If you say voice, they will sing you a sonnet, if you say you prefer dancing they later set up a slow dance for you both) Where would this fall into?

What if instead of an the RO’s actions shifting entirely, they just play a different record according to your preference, would that then fall into ‘flavour’?

(Since I am a lover of reincorporating choice, it always has made me curious how much it needs to go into play to shift from being ‘purely’ flavour into being considered more ‘meaningful.’)

To me the line between ‘meaningful’ and ‘flavour’ has always felt pretty nebulous.

HarrisPS · 2023-09-13T18:32:26.231Z

Eiwynn:

I am curious here and I don’t expect you to know the answers quite yet, but this is one change (sharing more during the earlier developmental phases) I see in your newest DD/WiP thread.

I've ended up writing a lot in response to this so here goes

I think part of the difference with Honor Bound is that I’m writing it closer to full-time than my earlier projects (part of Blood Money, and Creme were written at around 2/2.5 days a week, on average, and Royal Affairs and Noblesse Oblige were written in evenings/weekends around other full-time work), so I had more of an impetus to spend more time on “promotional” materials and I knew I wanted to use Patreon for early access which I’d done previously with RA and NO. I used the weekly character-bios and such to get people interested and also give them something to read or discuss while the Patreon version of the first chapter was on early access for subscribers. So, to be brutally honest that part of it was about marketing/promotion, and if I do end up posting short stories that would be for the same reasons.

I feel generally more confident about sharing a bit more about the characters, at least some of them, because I have a very strong idea of them in my head. I don’t feel as concerned that people’s opinions of them will make me second-guess things; I think back when I started Creme, four years ago (!!) I was more nervous because it was my first time posting a WIP. Partly I think this is experience, but also partly it’s from having triaged a huge amount of feedback very recently with the Royal Affairs and Elite Status betas, and making decisions about what to do with feedback and how to implement it. Doing those two very different betas in quick succession was intense but has helped me feel more sure about what, if anything, I want to do in response to player commentary.

I’d also started thinking about the game back in January, and in more detail in February, so by the time I posted about it in May, I’d already written 95000 words and was working on Chapter 3 - so I felt very solid on the premise and overall plot. I’ve continued to write pretty far ahead of what I’ve put up or talk about - what’s available to play is less than half of what I’ve written - so again I feel generally solid about the earlier chapters because I’ve gone through edits and have done some polish as I go, rather than writing a draft and putting it up straightaway.

However, I still tend not to say a huge amount about elements/characters who come in later, or big plot points - there’s a fairly influential character who appears in Chapter 2, and various characters from further-on chapters, which I didn’t mention much or at all initially because it felt strange to reveal a lot about them before they appeared in-game.

Eiwynn:

Hopefully, this thread month-in and month-out helps show that there is more ways to achieve writing than just a standard or orthodox way.

Writing good characters is a multifaceted endeavor, and I do not think the words “should do” belong in a discussion of “how to”.

This is immensely true. It’s very much about the person and the project and what works for one person or project won’t work for everyone else, or a different project might need a different way of doing things.

Eiwynn · 2023-09-13T18:51:12.936Z

I’m going to take things out of the order you posted, I hope that is okay.

Phenrex:

To me the line between ‘meaningful’ and ‘flavour’ has always felt pretty nebulous.

Any time a term of art is used by a group of people, things get fuzzy. This is why i am trying my darnedest to keep the focus of my replies on my take on this.

Phenrex:

Would you also consider choices which are remembered by other characters to be generally meaningful? Or would they be ‘flavour’ unless they have some sort of branching (an argument, or an additional scene, etc) associated with it?

Using these recorded choices in a relationship mechanic as proposed by @Havenstone above would impact the narrative (who you end up in better or worse relationships with, who you’d be romancing, etc), so in cases such as this, recorded choices such as this become meaningful.

On the other hand, 90% or more of recorded choices of this nature that I have seen/experienced in the IF, VN, and even RPG genres are simple call-back choices. Things like long blond hair streaming out in the stormy weather being mentioned by your companion in one scene and in another, the companion you are with mentioning the moonlight hitting your blond hair in an enticing manner while on a date.

In Baldur’s Gate 3, there is a minor character singing a ballad in a druid’s grove. For the majority of the players, the little arc you engage with this character ends up being flavor.

For the minority of players, running this otherwise flavor arc turns into something very impactful, and it really hits home in several different ways.

In this case this arc that is open to all and which does not change on the surface, becomes deeper and more meaningful for the minority of players.

Unless you search for answers on the internet, the only way to “get” this difference is to play the campaign more than once in different ways.

As a writer, I am deeply inspired by things of this nature, and it is my hope I can bring some of this magic into my projects I am writing for Hosted Games.

Kelly_Seastar · 2023-09-13T18:57:23.459Z

RockmanX:

There are four kingdoms, corresponding to the four seasons. But everything changed when the fifth kingdom attacked…

Actually, the Queen of Summer wanted more power so she attacked the other three

RockmanX · 2023-09-13T19:01:32.029Z

Eiwynn:

bringing a knife to a gun fight

Maybe, if the PC is indeed a pacifist, like mine…

Then, if they go round killing Mavericks, that doesn’t count, right?

Dvalor53 · 2023-09-13T19:30:43.520Z

I think you missed the point of Eiwynn’s post. It is about the approach of meaningful differences in choices, not the specific example. You can make that choice ultimately flavor to the narrative, or you can make it impactful to the direction of the story.

Niki_Christopherson · 2023-09-13T23:09:16.944Z

HannahPS:

From an author perspective I am always wondering how to balance promotional activities and potential Patreon extras which might help me get more money to pay the bills, and writing the actual thing I’m working on, which will definitely get me more money to pay the bills but is a long game, literally and metaphorically I haven’t figured out a good answer yet.

Phenrex:

I think that putting them in those boxes is definitely a ‘disservice,’ since as you said, it can lead to people coming in with a much flatter view of things.

Eiwynn:

I do not intend to write side-stories or other such common promotions found elsewhere, such as in the Tumblr IF realm, until after release.

Every author should look at this issue and plan ahead on how they will handle this, or I feel, they will misstep, or cause unforced errors during their development, release and post-release of their work.

Eiwynn:

feedback should not be used to change a character into another but rather help hone and polish the existing character.

These comments brought up a good point. And while I do agree with some of it, I think everyone’s kind of forgetting one major issue here.

Our job when we are writing is to write a good story with in depth characters and heart-moving themes.

Our job when advertising our games is to interact with the world in a way that produces fans and puts eyes on the work.

It’s the seperation there that is important. You should write like the world isn’t watching, but you should market in a way that reaches the eyes of the people most likely to like your work. You have to maintain a seperation of these two. Fans are going to demand things. That’s just fact.

The fans of the Voltron animated series sent deaththreats to the writers because of their choice to make one of the characters gay. Fans of Star Wars have literally camped out and stalked writers for choosing to make specific characters female, or POC, or anything else. This is just a fact of life when creating. This doesn’t stop Disney or Cartoon Network from advertising to those fans and appealing to their rabid nature. This definitely doesn’t stop writers and animators from throwing out character profiles or fanservicey voice clips.

I don’t see any reason not to advertise a RO from your game as a specific trope, even if that trope ends up not being valid later. If those mobile game commercials are any clue, NO ONE CARES if the advertisement is 100% accurate. Especially not at the VERY BEGINNINGS of creating a game.

I would suggest looking into the marketing strategy for “Yandere Simulator”.

I do think that completely sequestering your game before you put it up for sale is a recipe for disaster nowadays though. Which is why I’ve been building up my ‘studio tumblr’ since day one, so as to try and get SOME eyes on it, early as can be. As they say, “any publicity is good publicity.”

HannahPS:

the Courts in Changeling: the Lost

You are a connoisseur of TTRPGs and we should be friends.

Omeg:

The main issue is with how quickly stats are allowed to move towards 50, something that becomes infuriating when you’re working with relationship stats. If you’re only using fairmath commands, there is just no way to make anyone ever truly upset with the MC or truly loyal to them, since everything can be forgiven at lower levels and every disagreement becomes a reason for divorce at higher ones. In that case a static cap is better but sometimes only playing around with variables and conditional statements can get you the results you want as a writer.

Thank you for bringing this up. I don’t know enough about how the system works, fairmath or not, to know if fairmath is working out well. I feel like I will have to do a lot of adjustment after I get the storypaths down, because some of the checks are gonna have to be adjusted. I think probably a combo of fairmath and regular arithmetic should work.

The thing is though, this is just a standard part of game creation. Every game ever has had to adjust it’s metrics for each game-affecting choice. It’s the source of the term “Nerfing” after all.

Havenstone:

don’t have key NPC relationships represented with a single stat – that irons out your story, removing the impact of actual events in your relationship by treating them all as interchangeable. Use Booleans to remember key events, alongside or in place of the general relationship number.

Please see my Relationship system which basically does exactly that! and then, using the four variables, I translate that into a relationship bar on the stats screen, along with a prose description of the characters level of trust in the PC.

((In reference to everything in this post, I wanna state for the record I do not think I’m better than anyone. although I realize that this post has a tone of condescension to it, I do not mean for it to? Ive just done a lot of research (thank the AuDHD) into these subjects and this is the conclusion I’ve come to.))

will · 2023-09-14T00:06:53.827Z

I worry about overly complicated subsystems, especially for romance.

You’ll write 5,000 lines of code that the reader will see displayed as “Jim likes you!”
A more “realistic” romance system does not make for a more narratively satisfying romance system.
It’s way more work at every stage of the writing process.

Niki_Christopherson · 2023-09-14T00:52:30.945Z

will:

I worry about overly complicated subsystems, especially for romance.

You’ll write 5,000 lines of code that the reader will see displayed as “Jim likes you!”

A more “realistic” romance system does not make for a more narratively satisfying romance system.

It’s way more work at every stage of the writing process.

I thought the same! What could be easier than the ol’ say-the-right-thing-add-points romance counter?

Then I watched this:
Romantic Narrative Design - Youtube

It’s a panel from the Game Design Conference held in 2022, about narrative design and how games are handling it. It goes over a ton of stuff, like “Kindness Coins”. You be nice to a person and they fuck you, essentially. XD Good games have it! Stardew, many visual novels, even Skyrim uses it.

But it has a bit of a poor connotation, which is what the system I adapted is meant to help. Which is to say, even if you’re nice to a person, they might not want to fuck you. And even if a person wants to fuck you, they may not want to marry you.

And that can be interesting and fun to explore in the narrative, not only for your players, but for you as a writer.

That said, if you’re one of those “It aint broke don’t fix it” then stick with what works for you. That’s what’s most important.

will · 2023-09-14T01:34:03.230Z

My comment is in direct response to that video! The issue I take with it is considering it to be a prescriptive approach – “most games do it badly and this is how you do it well” – when I believe that the intent of games is never to mimic real human interaction. A certain level of abstraction makes things a lot easier on both the reader and writer.

As a reader I want predictable results, and as a writer I don’t want to die in the writing mines.

Havenstone · 2023-09-14T03:45:53.792Z

“Die in the writing mines” – love it.

But well over half that video (which I quite liked) is commending a highly abstracted, predictable, even single-variable approach to writing ROs. It’s just advising a swap from niceness to “chemistry” as the coin of the realm, to ease out of the “niceness earns sex” game design rut. The latter parts of the video skim through some possibilities for more “realistic” mechanics while acknowledging everything that concerns you about going down that road.

Niki’s four-variable system doesn’t look crazily complicated to me, and could generate some really satisfying romantic gameplay. Thanks for sharing it, Niki! But for any writers who look at it and think “too much work,” there are options between that and a one-dimensional romance stat. You could do it two-dimensionally: trust and attraction. (The dynamic tension when a reader sees “Jim likes you but doesn’t trust you” can be worth a few extra lines of code.) Or just adding a few Booleans to track moments of significance or turning points in the relationship can lead to relationships that don’t feel completely hostage to fairmath.

Kelly_Seastar · 2023-09-14T04:22:50.884Z

Beyond the whole seasonal kingdoms aspect, my story is about twins, Reina and Delphine, transforming knights who defend the kingdom from The evil Summer Queen and her army of hypnotized sea creatures. I’ll probably have more knights later. Potentially The Princess of Spring and the Summer Queen’s daughter.

Daleko · 2023-09-14T07:31:21.893Z

You’re absolutely right, but as an author who just likes and wants to overcomplicate things, I feel personally attacked

Eiwynn · 2023-09-14T07:44:17.272Z

Niki_Christopherson:

Then I watched this:
Romantic Narrative Design - Youtube

Thank you for linking this video. It should be of interest to many.

Also, thank you for sharing your scripting … I am still tweaking my relation and romance mechanics, so I am not sure how my systems will look when finalized.

Niki_Christopherson:

Our job when we are writing is to write a good story with in depth characters and heart-moving themes.

Our job when advertising our games is to interact with the world in a way that produces fans and puts eyes on the work.

While I believe your take on “our job” is valid for many who are independents and who self-publish, the situation is somewhat different with a Hosted Games (and CoG as an aside) project, especially for a first time author.

The reason I say this is two-fold. First, the structure and nature of Hosted Games is itself set up to do the second “job” you list. The marketing and the backend of publishing (like dealing with the various platforms for you) are there already.

Because of this set-up, the focus for us shifts to the production of the game.

One of the publishing requirements is to have a “beta test” of your game. This means many things to many people, and the discussion of meeting this requirement is ongoing in this monthly thread and in the community as a whole.

When most open a WiP thread for a first time, they do not have the experience, nor the knowledge to handle in-the-moment interaction with the community as they write and end up suffering the consequences of trying to react to the demands of an established community.

There are exceptions and outliers, of course, but this has been the norm for the past 15+ years here.

An established fandom demanding things from an author is a different experience than an established community expressing established expectations to every author who makes a WiP.

That is why in my quoted post, I talk about a fandom that coalesces … When Lys and JimD dropped their new WiP, both of their established fandoms rallied to the thread and started providing constructive criticism right away. Their fandom is established and helping them with this project from the start.

A new author, especially an inexperienced one, has to build their fandom up, and it can take a long time for it to reach that critical mass needed to be both helpful and effective.

Going to outside sources, such as social media, for additional marketing and fan development is a major undertaking, and to do it correctly, it takes a lot of resources, resources that most will want to devote to their writing when first starting out.

This is why I said: “I do not intend to write side-stories or other such common promotions found elsewhere, such as in the Tumblr IF realm, until after release.”

I want to establish a presence, but right now, every resource I have is committed to the writing aspect of my projects.

I think Hannah’s experiences, as they detail under the cut in their post to me, illustrates such a journey that many others mirror in their own trajectories towards publication.

Authors who have a successful presence in social media all talk about the commitment needed to do things “right” and how draining and exhausting it can be.