Choices, Choices, Choices...

            In any situation, there are choices to make. Sometimes it’s clear which is the best to make, while other times there is no clear “right” answer. We often grow up believing that there is a nice, easy Right and Wrong, but then we discover that life isn’t so simple. Most decisions have potential good and bad side-effects, regardless of the intended decision.

            This piece of knowledge is of the utmost importance to writers – as well as any other purveyors of story-based entertainment. Our instincts when giving choices to characters is to provide them with a clear-cut decision. This is because we want the readers to be on the character’s side. When the character makes a good decision, it makes them more heroic and likable. A bad decision is also useful, because the readers can then bemoan the choice and have an “I told you so” moment when it blows up in the character’s face. It’s also easy, and caters to that side of us that still believes in a simplistic Right and Wrong.

            However, if we indulge that instinct, we lose a lot of reality from our stories. They end up feeling a lot like fairytales and it’s more difficult to sneak in plot twists. Besides, how hard is it for a character to make a decision when the outcome is fairly obvious? Our heroes need to face challenges, otherwise there’s no point in having a story, and every challenge comes with choices to make. So we enter the grey area...

            The grey area is challenging to create within a story world. The reason for this isn’t simply because it’s more complicated, but because we, as the creator, know what direction we want the story to go after the choice is made. This gives as a bit of tunnel vision as to the possibilities surrounding any given decision – because we already know what the results are going to be. To combat this, we need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture and see if we can drop in more consequences to any given choice.

            Let’s use an example. Say that the hero must make a decision whether or not to go on a mission that will help fend off an invading army. For a heroic character, that’s already a simple decision. So, how do we make it more complicated? The easiest way is to add a compelling reason to not fend off the invading army, such as a love interest that needs rescuing. Suddenly, the decision got way more complicated. It went from saving the nation or not to saving a nation or saving a loved one. Each option has a clear positive side, as well as a clear negative side.

            However, we still know how that story is going to turn out. As long as this isn’t a tragedy, the hero is going to save the love interest, then deal with the fallout from the invading army. It’s grey, but still not quite grey enough. So, we add more depth to the choice. A close comrade of family member is fighting in the war and may die based on this decision. The love interest is ill and can’t possibly wait until the war is dealt with. The hero’s presence at the battlefront will strike fear into the hearts of the enemy, but the word of their deeds will spread to those holding the love interest and they will respond in some way. Rescuing the love interest will mean all the hero’s dreams will come true, except they will have lost everything they ever fought for.

            To increase how grey that grey area is, we can add in other choices as well; going to the front and sending someone else to rescue the love interest, but can the person be trusted? Betraying the homeland and joining the enemy to end the war quickly so the love interest can be rescued. The more branches there are, the more compelling the decision will become. And the key is that no decision can be all good, because even the best decisions have negative consequences, even if they aren’t visible at first. Of course, the reader doesn’t need to know all the consequences – those can reveal themselves over time. In fact, some uncertainty in the results of a decision can make it all the more compelling.

            So often, we think of choices as a two way switch. This or that. But to make a choice truly compelling, we need to change that thought process. We need to think of each decision as a web that keeps branching out into more and more consequences (both good and bad) the further we get from the point where the decision was made.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Building D&D Backgrounds

            I recently went through the process of helping someone completely new to Dungeons & Dragons create a character, and it got me thinking about writing up some guidelines for the part that’s not explicitly described in the books: giving the character a background and personality. There are loose guidelines and suggestions for this, but there’s only so much guiding that can be given to what is very much a personal creative process. Naturally, with no hard and fast method for doing this, certain stereotypes frequently find their ways into characters. So, here are a few guidelines (not rules) I’ve come up with – both from my own experiences and from observing others – about what types of characters to avoid making.

1.      Don’t make your character a dark and mysterious brooding hero.

This is a very popular character archetype that a lot of people want to play – I know I’ve made characters like this before, but there’s a big problem with them. D&D is an interactive, teamwork-based game. This type of character tends to remain silent and untrusting of others and, as a result, ends up lurking around, following the group of adventurers, and only engaging in the combat aspect of the game. When it comes to roleplaying, all they can do is sit in a corner and sulk, waiting for one of the other players to convince them to open up – which almost never happens, because the character is usually abrasive enough that others don’t want to interact with them. Now, if you want to just observe the game with minimal interaction, this type of character may be perfect for you – otherwise, I suggest making your character more interested in interacting with others.

2.      Don’t try to recreate your favourite hero from some other story.

It’s perfectly okay to steal various characteristics, but taking an entire character never works out. There are two main reasons for this: the first is that creating your character is limited by a set of rules, and, as a result, you will invariably end up disappointed when your character isn’t able to do everything the hero can. The second is that, however well you know this character, it is unlikely that you’ll be able to accurately represent them – leading to further disappointment. Borrow and steal, yes, but make the character your own.

3.      Make a character with energy levels you can play.

Playing a super high-energy character that is always chatting and bouncing off the wall is loads of fun – but how long can you keep it up for? You need to make a character that you can actually play the role of, otherwise they will morph into something else that you may not be happy with. Similarly, if you make a character who is incredibly witty, but no one laughs at your own jokes, well... perhaps that’s not a good character trait to have.

4.      Don’t make a character that’s too much like yourself.

Elements of yourself will always show up in your character – that’s how you relate to them. It may seem like a good idea to make a character that is basically you in a fantasy world, but this can cause all sorts of problems – the main one being that it becomes hard to not take things personally. D&D is a roleplaying game, and sometimes it can get pretty intense. If someone (either another character or an NPC) has a problem with your character, and the character is basically you, it’s pretty hard to not take that personally. Not to mention, how will you feel if your character dies? In D&D, that’s a very distinct possibility.

5.      Avoid making a reluctant hero.

Unless the specific D&D game forces your character into the role of the hero, you’ll end up just like the brooding hero. Reluctant heroes don’t want to go adventuring – and there is an assumption in D&D that adventuring is exactly what the players want to do. A reluctant hero is a lot of work – not just for you, but for the Dungeon Master, too. Make sure your character wants to be adventuring – or, at the very least, has a very compelling reason to adventure.

6.      Don’t make a character that is already a great hero.

Most D&D games start off with lower level heroes, which mean they can’t necessarily to all the great things you want them to do in their backstory. If you make a character who is famous dragon slayer, you could very well be bringing them into a story where a baby dragon could kill them. Make sure that what your character accomplishes in their backstory fits what they are capable of doing when the game starts – otherwise there will be a lot of uncomfortable questions about why you can’t perform these great deeds anymore.

            And that’s all I can think of for now. Again, these are guidelines, not rules – one of the great things about D&D is that you can play the role of whoever you like. However, following these guidelines will help you ensure that the role is one that you’ll actually enjoy playing.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Endings

            Last Wednesday brought a close to the Dungeons & Dragons campaign Colleen and I have been playing weekly for most of the year. Other games I’ve played in have ended, but this one truly rounded out the story and gave us an ending that was incredibly satisfying.

            Because he knew this game was coming to an end – and that many of the players wouldn’t be returning for future games due to work or other reasons – our Dungeon Master, Jeremy, wanted to make this a night to remember. It’s extremely difficult to arrange a situation like that, especially when other people determine how it plays out in the end, but he certainly pulled it off.

            The game was a high stakes game with a high mortality rate. The beginning of the adventure started off with our heroes finding an item that place them all under a curse. They had two choices: go insane, or assemble an object that would bring about an end to the world. The characters were all willing to accept the insanity, but they learned that if they didn’t complete this task, someone else would. So they decided to assemble the object in the hopes that they could defeat whatever doom they summoned. Bonded together by their common goal, they called themselves the Onyx Order and made their heraldry the likeness of Manny, the mammoth they had pooled together to purchase.

            Their adventures took them far and wide, leaving a swathe of destruction in their wake – usually unintentionally. They were pursued by a cult that, for their own reasons, wanted the item assembled.

            After many months, during which a town, a city, and the village one of the characters came from were destroyed – not to mention the deaths of three of the original Order members and two of the replacements – the item was finally assembled, and the curse lifted.

            Yet, though the curse was gone, the heroes felt obligated to complete their task. They had seen the enormous egg fall from the sky and knew it would hatch into giant worms that would eat the world away into nothing. They had to prevent it from hatching.

            Luckily, the egg had fallen onto a glacier and would need heat to hatch. Unfortunately, the cult had arrived first and had brought fire magic to hatch the egg. This was where the final night began.

            It was an epic battle that lasted nearly the full three hours we played for. The magical cultists were channeling magic into a crystal that was superheating the egg while their backs were guarded by a large number of minions. In the skies, two evil denizens lurked.

The Onyx Order’s druid (played by myself) turned himself into a giant eagle and carried the barbarian into the midst of the spell casters – where he wreaked havoc – then spent the rest of the battle using his speed and size to move his allies into favorable positions while calling down lightning to smite the cultists. The bard opened up with a powerful spell that did massive damage to the cultists’ rear guard, then fought on as best he could – nearly dying. The fighter (played by Colleen) hacked her way through the minions and took down one of the denizens. The rogue stealthily picked off more of the minions, and finished off the other denizen. The wizard helped where he could, then truly proved his worth by trapping the leader of the cultists in a magical sphere she couldn’t escape from.

            With the lesser enemies destroyed, and the fire removed from the egg, it seemed the day was saved. They escorted the cultists as far as they could from the egg before the magical bubble dissipated, healing what wounds they could. The barbarian stayed behind at the egg, packing ice into the hole drilled by the cultists’ fire to prevent further damage to the egg.

            The rest of the party prepared to strike down the cultist leader and released her from her prison, but as they did so, the egg shattered, becoming a portal from which a giant worm sprang to attack the barbarian. The rogue ran to help while the others finished the battle with the cult leader – a battle that took longer than expected. The cult leader did finally fall, and not long after the heavily injured barbarian rent the worm in two.

            But there were more worms swirling in the portal. A book found on the body of the cult leader revealed that only extreme cold could seal the portal. In that instant, the barbarian knew what he had to do. This quest had claimed many of his friends, destroyed his village, and turned his beloved grandmother into a vampire he’d been forced to slay. Failure wasn’t an option.

            Taking a magical ice crystal he had, he leapt into the portal and swung his axe. When the axe struck the crystal, there was an astounding blast of icy magic, and the egg was sealed over the portal – with the barbarian inside.

            The Order was devastated, but they respected his sacrifice. Their long journey over, it was now time for them to return to the world. Each player gave an epilogue for what became of their character.

            The rogue, one of the two remaining members of the original Order, took to roaming the world – reuniting with old friends when she felt like it, sometimes reliving old memories.

            The other original member, the fighter, returned to the city she knew best. Suffering from PTSD that she’d had even before the beginning of this adventure, she took to drinking and fighting until she was banned from all the bars. One night, alone in an alley, she died of liver cancer.

            The wizard built himself a tower of ice on top of the sealed portal, defending it from intruders for the rest of his long elven life.

            The druid returned to the wilderness with Manny the mammoth and Balto the wolf (the former companion of a fallen ally). Together they roamed the boarders of the glacier where the egg resided, slowly collecting more mammoths and forming a herd.

            The bard roamed the world, singing tales of the Onyx Order, with particular emphasis on a great barbarian who had sacrificed himself.

            Jeremy made one addition to these epilogues.

            In the dark alley, where the fighter lay dying, a figure appeared – the same person who had led the adventurers to find the cursed item that set them on this quest. She knelt by the fighter and whispered:

            “Not yet.”

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Why Not End War?

*Disclaimer* Remembrance Day is a pet peeve of mine and, while expressing my ideas on the subject, what I say can sometimes come across as saying that veterans do not deserve our thanks. This is not the case – I simply believe they should not be hero worshipped because that leads to others following in their footsteps and suffering as the veterans have (or falling in battle, causing their families to suffer). I also believe that Remembrance Day should be focused on remembering the tragedies of war so we can stop repeating our mistakes. Gratitude to those who have sacrificed for us should be a constant, passive thing, not something that dominates a day that was once – and should still be – dedicated to peace. If you have strong emotions related to this subject, you may want to stop reading now.

            One day I thought to myself, wouldn't the world be a much better place if every country in the world disbanded their armies and ceased production of all weapons? What a wonderful world that would be.

            Then I stopped to think about what would actually happen.

            According to Wikipedia, Canada has 104,150 people in militaristic jobs. The UK has 371,360. USA, 2,231,447. I started to add up all the countries, then decided it would take too long. I was at over ten million, though, and I’d barely scratched the surface. This doesn't even include the researchers or the people who make the weapons and uniforms.

            So, what would happen if the world did away with war and violence? Mass unemployment. Certainly some of those jobs could be repurposed, but there already aren't enough jobs to go around.

            Why not just have those people in reserve, trained and ready in case we are attacked? Because if no one is fighting, people begin to wonder why their taxes are paying all these people. So the soldiers are sent off to fight – and often to die, which (dare I say it) “conveniently” eliminates the excess population that the world doesn't have enough jobs for.

            It all becomes a great cycle then. We need war so we can employ soldiers so people can afford to eat. If we eliminate war, the whole economy comes crashing down around our ears.

            Like many others, I dream of a world at peace, but it will never happen unless we drastically change the way our economy works. My vote is that we stop siphoning money off of arts programs and we flood the world with artists.

            That is something I’d like you to think about this Remembrance Day (or whatever November 11^th is in your country). I’d like you to think about how much society pressures us into remembering and thanking veterans, how we are taught that they are heroes so that more of us will follow in their footsteps.

            I want you to think about all the lives lost or ruined because we don’t know how to make the economy work without war. What a waste.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Thank You for Supporting Artists

            Oooh, I'm actually writing this blog on Monday for once! Of course, that’s because it’s after midnight and I just recently got home from a weekend of vending at the Oxford Renaissance Festival. That means, sadly (or happily, depending on how you feel about it), another short blog.

            This weekend’s show went spectacularly for Ringcrafts. We made over three times as much as we did at the same show last year and twice as much as we thought possible. We were completely blown away by how successful we were.

            For this reason, I’d like to thank everyone out there who goes to these events and supports artists. After a weekend like this one, we feel so incredibly appreciated that our will to push forward and make a living through our art is redoubled. I’d particularly like to thank our customers who remembered us from last year and saved their money so they could buy from us (it made us feel really special when you told us that), as well as the delightful lady that bought our scale shirt – making armour is where I started and I never get to make as much as I’d like to.

            Above all, I’d like to thank whoever it was who decided to give us the first booth inside the gates. You’re my hero. Please do it again.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.