Don't Wear Us Out, Josh

Last week I talked about the new Umbral Intentions fiction blog starring and written by Josh Rhoads. There was a couple of spoilers, one worse than the other. Just check back, I won't mention the worst one again if you want to know about it. There was a different discussion about the project over at Inchoate Ascendant titled "Don't Jump the Gun, Pants Kicker" about the actual name of the blog. Since I may want to reference it here today you get to be the first to learn that the blog will be titled "On Dark Rhoads" and not Umbral Intentions--to confuse things worse, as also mentioned last week, the blog is for the This Mental Eventide RPG. Now with that out of the way...

The topic of merit today--and this is the lesser spoiler from last time repeated--is pacing the haunting, or how to parcel out the ghostly events. Being a blog places constraints on the story I will be telling that have less to do with the story that they do with how blogging works. This is of course only on some levels. On others it doesn't impact the story itself. Here again I'm giving things away prematurely. The first order of business is setting up Josh. Who is he on the blog? This is something different than who he is in actuality. He could just jump right in with details on the haunting. That doesn't exactly establish him as someone the blog reading public should believe. So, he begins with an introduction followed by a couple normal slice of life style posts. From there he begins to tell his past encounters and then get into posting about them shortly after the fact.

This second stage of story telling is where the issues begin to crop up. First, the blog is scheduled for Saturdays. Obviously all of the haunting incidents will not happen on just Friday or Saturday. This brings about issues of immediacy, and plays into tension. This is a matter intrinsic to blogging versus real-time interactions like Twitter and Facebook streams. It's just like news reporting where you chose an in-depth look versus greater timeliness. The length of each blog post is a further limit--they tend toward the shorter, especially shorter than full scenes in a short story or novel. There is a certain concision and economy. Another issue is that not every post should be about the haunting. This is important to avoid overload or desensitisation to the creepy goings-on. It also plays into the other important factor.

There is also the matter of pacing the haunting itself. It will progress, it will get worse, and more harrowing as time passes. The haunting must escalate. It will have its highs and its lows as far as the amount of activity. It may be cyclical, or it may be dependant on outside factors such as witnesses. Both will be true actually. Then at the same time the lows will be less frequent and less of a reprieve. Likewise the high activity occasions will be more frequent and more extreme.

The idea that witnesses impact the haunting is typical of real cases, especially when said witnesses are intrusive paranormal investigators who come along and disrupt the haunting either with their equipment, their presence, and most often because the entities responsible for the haunting are shy and do not wish to perform for strangers. There are however different new witnesses who can be brought into the situation who have no detrimental effect on the haunting and in fact encourage it as much or more as the original target. That's all I'll say for now.

Mood: teasing.
Music: Catcher In The Rye by Guns N' Roses and Ghost of Perdition by Opeth.

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We're All Going to Die Terribly

One of the important parts of planning and running a role-playing game is the same as plotting a novel or writing a script. It is about managing threat levels. Doing this has a cascade effect that impacts pacing, tension, horror--if that is your angle--and mood. Take the ever-popular zombie apocalypse. The threat level is high any time that the characters are out in the world rather than sitting in their safety zones. Even in the safety of their sanctuaries all of the dangers of the old world loom around every corner. A pall hangs over everything because the walking dead dominate the mental landscape as much as the external one. This makes for constant inescapable tension. The dark mood is always an instant away only to be forgotten briefly.

This general look at the threat level of the setting is just that, only an overview. Scaling down to the level of specific encounters the danger presented to the protagonists can only reach a certain pitch. The protagonists must be able to survive--at least until the end, since they can only be killed once. There must be some way out of every situation. Something natural or organic and not forced or contrived. By the same token it should not be a cakewalk either. A balance must be struck. In a game luck can be a factor that brings disastrous results with even the most balance encounter. An author or scriptwriter can bend luck to their will on the other hand, again only in a way that seems genuine. Either way there needs to be room for adjustment.

A threat level system became a part of AD&D recently--in terms of the game's long history--to the joy of some and derision of others. It is a quick and easy way to say this many player characters of this level of power should fight these, these or those. It can be rigid and by the nature of its existence can drain away some of the tension, especially if the players know the Game Master is sticking by it. The player will likely even be familiar enough that they can tell an encounter is safely balanced. This tension draining phenomena can happen even with fiction, and especially scripts for television. Certain characters just aren't going to die. There will be an out to almost any situation that seems hopeless. Some things just are not going to change or come to an end.

Mood: open.

Music: Too Much, Too Soon by Green Day and It ('s A Monster) by Extreme.

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Surmounting Advantages

During the discussion of greatly enhanced healing in fantasy settings there came a question of what will some parties do to combat this advantage in their enemies. This is an important question not just in the circumstance of accelerated healing or of resurrection, but in general, both in gaming and in all fiction. For every advance or advantage there is a considered response to negate it. Those who do not have an advantage will want to copy the advantage for themselves, or barring that steal the other party's source for it. This push and pull, garner or steal, is another basis upon which to build conflict in stories. In gaming it is a consideration that the Game Master must make at every turn to keep the pace, the tension, and promote a surmountable challenge.

There are a few categories of elements that fit this mould. There is durability or immunity to harm, powers that cannot be defended against, normally inescapable circumstances, and overwhelming forces. These can be negated directly or indirectly. Direct negation requires stripping the individual(s) of the power or overwhelming it to the point it is not an issue. Disruption powers come into play or powers that are in opposition to the troubling one. Ice or water is used against fire, mind blocks prevent psychic attack or intrusion, and similar. Particular methods of killing cancel regeneration. Specific disposal of the body prevents it from rising from the dead. Then there are weaknesses built into characters such as deadly allergies to certain materials such as Superman and kryptonite.

Indirect negation can include circumventing the difficulty. Those invulnerable to damage may be suffocated or drowned. Those immune to fire may still be harmed by falling debris caused by a fire. The opponent may be the one that is immune to the character's abilities. All of these put a wrinkle in a game changing element or a power. They can only be used so often and put to smart use without negating the reason for having these capabilities in the setting, or unfairly treating the player of such a character by hobbling them unlike the other players. Tempering these changes to provide threat and tension is only desired in balance and when it enhances the storyline. It may even be better to turn the tables and have the protagonists seeking to deal such powerful foes.

Mood: tired.

Music: Welcome Home (Sanitarium) by Metallica and '39 by Queen.

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What Is Not There Now Is

Last week the discussion revolved around footnotes, endnotes, and other forms of annotation possible with e-books.  It ended with mention of DVD-style extras, such as deleted scenes, and ancillary information in novels.  The first question the idea of deleted scenes being shipped out with a book is why?  If the scene was worthy of inclusion in the book why is it not directly included?  There are a few reasons for this.  In writing circles there is something referred to as killing your darlings.  It is something that comes in up when authors are asked about how they write, and editors in what they do beyond error checking and sprucing up with a word change here and there.  It refers to cutting out your favourite scenes in your books because though they are cool they do not serve a purpose.

The caveat usually missing from these discussions is that there have to be many times where an author's favourite, darling, scene does serve a purpose and thus would not be cut out.  In general there is a second flaw to these discussions; the usefulness of scenes is equated to the plot.  Not every scene needs to be important to the plot and were it so things such character development and defining important parts of the setting would be neglected unless they added to the plot immediately.  Pacing is another factor that can be important rather than focusing the direction of everything toward the plot in what is usually an increasing frenzy.  Raising the bar on tension and action is a powerful tool for an author but contrast and breathing space shouldn't be neglected either.

Beyond non-plot involvement these deleted scenes may have been deleted because they affected the pacing of the story.  Movies often cut scenes to fit a specific run time, or because they slow down the pace.  On a different tangent the events showed too much too soon, were too intense, or otherwise were better suited until later in the narrative, but of course are tied to events in their original position.  These deleted scenes are included in the extras because the director likes them.  They are interesting or they add a new dimension to the story.  Dimension adding options can include features like sub-plots, and bits of characterisation not pertinent to the plot.  Come back next week and get closer to the answer to why include these scenes outside of the natural flow of the story?

Mood: even.

Music: Hallucinate by Def Leppard and Mama Weer All Crazee Now by Quiet Riot.

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