Gone to the Dogs

Well, we finally had our third and final session of Dogs in the Vineyard last Sunday, attempting to wrap up our first town. But our hearts really weren't in it… I had quickly become disillusioned with the mechanics after our second session.

The idea that social conflict flows right into physical conflict with the same mechanics is neat… but I'm finding I don't like rules to tell me how the social conflict goes. Maybe I'm just really bad at setting the stakes… much of the tension of the town went out the window when a three-Dogs-on-one-Steward conflict quickly convinced the Steward that what he had been doing was wrong. The rules work fine for three-on-one in the physical realm, but unless I'm playing the rules wrong, I don't like the way they work in the social realm… a group of Dogs can brow-beat anybody into agreeing with them, and the GM has to roll with it.

And I really couldn't get over the feeling that the conflict was decided the moment we rolled the dice, and that we were just going through the motions… with all the dice on the table, and a good idea of what traits might come into the conflict, it felt like there was no point in playing out the interaction. And it was especially awkward when the Steward had a perfectly good argument, but the dice said the Dogs had the upper hand.

We ended up abandoning the scenario before we even finished it. There just wasn't any tension in it. In part, I felt that the characters were a little wishy-washy with the shopkeeper… they wouldn't put their collective foot down and judge him. We got through a long in-character discussion and realized well into it that it had gradually become a conflict and we should have rolled dice ages before. And we really just didn't feel like continuing. Much of it was my fault… I just don't seem to understand how to make Dogs interesting. Maybe it's just that we (as a group) don't really care for the low-key social conflict of figuring out that the shopkeeper is sleeping with a 16-year-old girl and then making him confess. I think that must be why so many Dogs games seem to involve shooting sinners in the street… the game can be boring if all you do is get people to confess their sins and swear they'll be good in the future.

I'm kind of mixed up as to whether I like the whole premise or not… I think the mechanics have clouded my judgment. I've been thinking that with a few tweaks, it could make a more interesting western… instead of being God's watchdogs among the Mormon communities, let's make 'em generic Baptists. And instead of rooting out sin, they're really knights… sent forth by the church to watch over and protect the settlers of the West. Because demons are real, and there are many dangers out there. So the supernatural element is there, but the worry isn't that the town preacher is going to be possessed by a demon, the worry is the bandits who are unknowingly demon-influenced and "really bad men." It would be much like your "typical" western… good guys ride into town, discover the town needs their help, and they do their thing. Just with a little holy fire when it's needed. DitV style sin-uprooting could be part of individual stories, but it wouldn't be the focus of the campaign.

And you could put them in a town like Deadwood. Woo! Now there's some social conflict for ya.

Book meme

I don't do the meme thing very often… I usually have better things to write about. But Tim Hall keeps tagging me and this one I can probably do.

1. How many books do you own*

Um. I've never counted. Karen and I went through our fiction collection and got rid of every book we didn't think we'd ever want to loan to someone… that was at least a couple hundred. We seem to have to buy more shelves every year, and I'm afraid we're in the high triple digits. I should prune deeper.

We like books. Unfortunately, I'm probably buying books far faster than I can read them nowdays.

2. Last book read

Hrm. Storm Front by Jim Butcher. I think. I listen to audiobooks as well, and I might have actually finished Storm Front after I finished Deathstalker Rebellion, book two in the "Deathstalker Saga," in dramatized audio. (Turn off your brain, sit back and enjoy the space opera ride.)

3. Last book purchased

Fool Moon, by Jim Butcher… book two in "The Dresden Files." I think. I might have bought my current audio book, Hidden Empire, book one of "The Saga of Seven Suns."

4. Name five books that mean a lot to you

This one's hard.

Let's start with The Lord of the Rings. Quite specifically, the hardbound editions with the gold foil Eye of Sauron and dwarvish script on the covers, which I stole from the Russell City Library when I was in middle school. I had second thoughts about stealing them and dumped them in the book drop just days later. Tolkien was my introduction to fantasy and has always had some kind of hold over my thinking when it comes to fantasy. I suppose I'm just one of the crowd here.

After this, it will probably get weird, because the things that stick out in my mind probably weren't all that good. I've never re-read them. I tried re-reading Thieves World and stopped after a couple stories. Boy, was that horrible. I didn't want to spoil my youthful memory of the series by reading it as an adult and discovering the whole thing sucked.

After Tolkien, I suppose the next is Stephen R Donaldson's "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever," etc. No particular book, just the whole series. It stands out in my mind as taking the shape of fantasy that wasn't Tolkien or Tolkien-derivative. I hated the main character, but I loved the series anyway. I was constantly wanting to beat some sense into the character, but there wouldn't have been so much of a story to tell if Covenant had done what we wanted him to. I did start re-reading this one… read all of the first book, then couldn't find the second. But I wanted to read the second, so it didn't turn me off the way Thieves World did.

Then comes Armor, by John Steakley. I haven't read it for years and years, but it has stuck in my mind and given me a love of powered armor. It's along the same lines as Starship Troopers, but far, far better. I should read it again… I can't remember anything of the storyline except it's about fighting insectoid aliens in personal combat armor. (Aren't they always?) This book fed into the "Warriors of the Hurricane" background for a superhero ("Furor") I created for a Champions APA I used to organize. Maybe I'll publish that here if I can dig it up.

I'll say something funny about these three books. They all deal with personal power. Bilbo gives up the Ring before he succumbs to its lure of power, and Frodo struggles beyond belief against it. Covenant also has great, great power, and refuses it. He could be king of the Land, but even when he thinks the Land is a figment of his imagination, he refuses to take hold of the power he has. Armor, on the other hand, is about soldiers wielding great individual power, but finding it insufficient against the enemy. I don't remember the book very well, but I'll venture to say that the real power comes from sacrifice to save your fellow man. I'll have to reread it and see if that theme surfaces.

For my next book, I suppose I could say, The Bible, but that probably doesn't tell you what you want to know. So I think I still need two more.

The Trumpet of the Swan by EB White. It means a lot to me because it was one of the books I fell in love with as a child, and I read it several times. I couldn't remember its plot for years… boy at camp, swan, but that was it. Couldn't remember the title, only this vague impression of having loved this book that was no longer in my library. Imagine my surprise when I figured out it was that book about talking animals and a swan whose father steals a trumpet for him, because he has no voice of his own. Weird. But this one has really stuck in my head for some reason, I think because it was a big part of my falling in love with books.

Finally, another book that fits the same mold… it shaped my love of books, but I can't remember its title. It was a book of fairy tales… a rather thick one, and they weren't the nice kind of fairy tales. The story that stands out the most was about an ice queen or something like that. I can remember the feel of the book in my hands, the patterns on the hard covers, but I can't for the life of me remember what was in it… except this chilling story about an ice queen, and maybe something about a large castle with many rooms that a girl was trapped in. (The latter might be "Beauty and the Beast," but I'm not sure it is.) This book I remember so little about has left a big impression in my memory of early reading.

(Doing some searching, I'm about convinced that story was "The Snow Queen" and the book was a collection of Hans Christian Andersen's work. I think I'll have to pick up a good translation… now how does one choose from among the couple hundred available?)

5. Five people to tag

I don't like to bother with that. Someone else can pick it up if they want. I'm not even sure five people read my mutterings.

The problem with inspiration

My current pre-writing project has the working title of Empire & Rebellion. It's not based directly on Star Wars, despite the title. After listening to Deathstalker in its full dramatized glory from Audible.com, I realized the "rebellion against the Empire" theme was just the hook I was missing in the science fiction setting Karen and I started designing years ago.

Now E&R is swashbuckling space opera, which is a little different from the Babylon 5 -inspired setting my wife and I had been working on. The problem I'm having is that I'm pulling in elements from other science fiction left and right, furiously filing off serial numbers as I go. I shouldn't be reading science fiction when I'm writing this… I want to steal too much.

I've been thinking about what makes a science fiction setting appeal to gamers. Or any setting, for that matter. This meshes well into the "[[http://www.livejournal.com/users/mearls/97347.html|core story]]" issues that Mike Mearls brought up a few days ago. I agree with Mike that to be successful in the marketplace, a setting needs to have an obvious story for the characters to participate in. That is, when someone picks up the book and looks it over, they have to get a good idea of what kind of stories the characters will participate in.

But there's something beyond "core story" that I think is very helpful. Not only does a player need to feel he knows what kind of stories he'll participate in, but I think he needs to get a immediate feel for what kind of character he wants to play. I think that's why character classes and strong archetypes are so popular.

It's what's shaping Empire & Rebellion. Many of the elements I'm throwing into it call up some kind of archetype. Hot pilots, hard-as-nails captains, contemplative warrior-priests, mysterious AI robots left behind by a vanished race, gypsy traders on the rim, smugglers, escaped clones, psionic fugitives. Rebels looking to throw off the shackles of an oppressive Empire and bring about the dawn of a new era of peace and freedom. And everyone has names like Owen Deathstalker, Hazel D'arc, Investigator Frost, Captain Silence, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Flash Gordon. Just like they should in a proper space opera.

This ain't hard SF. "I'm a writer, Jim, not a physicist." I find what I'm trying to do with E&R is paint a vivid picture… one in which the potential player easily sees themselves as a main character. Not one where they say, "Oh, that could be fun to play," but one where they say, "Ooh, ohh, I want to play a smuggler out on the rim, with his own moral code an a heart of gold under a hard exterior."

I'm still pre-writing. Taking notes, letting ideas mill about in my skull. Wishing to heck that I'd gotten up the other night and written down that dream, because I know I dreamt some really great idea for E&R, except I haven't the foggiest idea what it was.

Some advice on self-publishing

Somebody on the Fudge List recently asked me what software I'd recommend for laying out a short book for publication as a PDF. My answer was probably a bit more than he bargained for, so I thought I'd share it here.

First, a bit of background. I'm not a professional page designer, but I have a fair amount of hobby experience. My wife has worked as a professional page designer, and I've done a lot of work with her, as well as having studied design on my own. We used to run a couple different amateur magazines, which were in part used as a feedback forum for developing our design skills. We've been doing page design work for about sixteen years.

What software should I use?

So you've got a roleplaying game supplement you're writing, and you want to know what software to use to lay it out in. Before I give you my thoughts on software, I want to give you my thoughts on art.

It takes time to learn how to use the tools well. And then, just like having oil paints and canvas doesn't make you a good painter, having desktop publishing tools doesn't make you a good page designer. The tools are just tools, you have to supply the skill and artistic vision. Learning good page design takes time, practice and feedback. It's hard to improve without someone critiquing your work. I'm lucky that my wife was working for a print shop when I was learning design work… we can critique each other's work, and we spent some years participating in amateur magazines in which we critiqued each other's design work.

If you're serious about publishing, outsourcing the design work might be the best way to go if you want a really sharp-looking product. And it might be more economical than you expect… instead of spending 200 hours fighting a tool you aren't familiar with while learning the skill of page design on your first product, you could be writing your next book while your designer is laying out the first one.

When you need art, do you decide to learn how to draw so you can create your own illustrations to save some money? Or do you hire an artist to produce your work? I've spent over fifteen years doing occasional design work, and my work is only passing fair. Do you expect to produce acceptable work, let alone great work, on your first try?

Okay, but what software should I use?

Most of my experience has been with Adobe PageMaker, which hasn't been available for a few years now. It's been replaced by Adobe InDesign, which is a very good product, but it's rather expensive… about $700. But InDesign and Quark Express (similar price) are the two top contenders. You can do good layout work in other software (MS Publisher, MS Word) but it's more difficult because the tools aren't as flexible.

If you're serious about doing all of your own page design work, bite the bullet and buy InDesign or Quark. (I lean toward InDesign. I tried a recent Quark demo and it seems behind the curve, hardly better than the aging PageMaker.) The money you shell out here will save you headaches in trying to get the second-rate packages to do what you want.

If you want to do it yourself and don't want to spend a lot of money, I'd recommend OpenOffice Writer (http://www.openoffice.org/). Don't waste your money on MS Publisher. Look at existing books that you like to develop a basic style for the book and do your best to emulate it. Then have your work evaluated by someone with experience and listen to their feedback.

There's nothing wrong with looking at others' styles for examples. Professional designers keep what they call "swipe files"… samples of work that they found interesting. They use these for inspiration and new ideas. New and innovative looks are always building on the past, not being made up in a vacuum.

Learn from others' mistakes. Take a book that's poorly designed and figure out what's wrong with it and how to improve it. I've found it's much easier to tell what's wrong in someone else's design work than to see it in your own… that's why you need a skilled eye to critique your own work.

Any other pearls of wisdom?

Be sure to get a good editor. A good idea and a good look still need well-polished text. The text is the main event, and it needs to shine. One thing you cannot do is effectively edit your own work. You don't need to hire someone if you have a friend that has a good eye for editing, but you do need someone else to look at your work and make suggestions. And I'm not talking proofreading… you need that too, but it's not editing. And editor turns awkward phrases into smooth prose and confusing paragraphs into crystal clear thoughts. (Or we hope they do, at least.)

In short, you can do the whole thing yourself… writing, layout, artwork, etc. But ask yourself if it's really realistic… how many skills are you proposing to teach yourself in order to publish your book? How many do you think you have the time and talent to learn well in order to produce your first book. You may have better success and be able to put out more products if you focus on your art (writing) and leave the other art (illustrating, page design) to others who already have those skills.