Playlist Design
I’ve thought for a while now that developing game concepts based on a random music playlist could lead to a useful creative exercise and a fun article. So I’ve grabbed five songs at random (but taken from my 4- and 5-star songs so I definitely know the content), ran with the first ideas they gave me, determined which type of tabletop game best suited the idea, and wrote a brief description. I’ll quote the songs when necessary to show what inspired me in them.
“Bargain” by The Who
This is a live version, and the spoken intro inspired the game idea more than the song itself.
“This is a song about what you get for being here, if you’re alive [...] you’re gettin’ a bargain.”
This made me think of the classic “selling your soul” scenario. You’ve made a “bargain” in order to preserve your own life, but you know that some day your debt will need to be repaid. The being you’ve bargained with could be supernatural (like a demon who magically sustains your life) or terrestrial (such as an unethical doctor who uses cutting-edge tech to revive you).
This takes the form of an RPG, with each player taking on the role of person who’s made such a bargain and calling the shots for other player’s savior. The players can expect all their favors to be called in over the course of the game, for different reasons and at different times. Maybe each scene leads to one favor being called in, so the game gets set in motion by the first and gets a last-minute betrayal or change of heart with the last. [Read the rest of this article]
Tales of Horror: D&D for TWEENS
Picture, if you will, a mysterious and terrifying future. The entire marketing team at WotC comes down with a mysterious illness, mostly for purposes of artificially strengthening the gossamer-thin threads of plot of this article. Additionally, every person with a marketing background in the entire world contracts it as well. This is completely plausible.
Regardless, WotC bravely soldiers on. WotC, having recently caused a stir among environmental groups over a controversial plan to convert any resource into mana and further taxing the world’s supply of fossil fuels, scraps their plan. However, it is secretly revived in order to ensure good holiday sales numbers, drastic measures needed to be taken, so they applied the technology to something far less inflammatory: 11 year old children.
No, they did not grind tweens up and collect their dust. That would have contaminated everything, and would have yielded more lawsuit mana than any other color. They simply rotated them all 90 degrees and told them to come up with the best ideas they could or else they would destroy the Jonas Brothers’ magic rings of chastity.
The results would chill even the most hardened adventurers’ blood.
- Justin Bieholder
Part terrifying monster from the darkest corners of the imagination, part pre-teen heartthrob, this creature just wants to be loved. That’s why eight of its eyestalks shoot powerful Charm spells. One eyestalk has evolved to hold a pen to sign autographs, and the remaining eyestalk shoots hairspray – which the monster needs a constant supply of. Unlike most dungeon-dwelling creatures, the Bieholder always surrounds itself with backup dancers significantly older than it is. All party members must save vs. Rap or be forced to join the monster’s entourage. The Bieholder is nigh-invulnerable and highly resistant to magic. The only sure way to defeat a Bieholder is to break up with it, which will not kill the beast, but will buy the adventurers 1d20 rounds of the monster crying in a pillow and writing song lyrics about the experience to use against future victims. - iBigby
Forget what you know! Bigby’s back as a perky 14 year old girl with her own web show! Join iBigby and her best friend Otilucy as they explore the most terrifying dungeon of all: HIGH SCHOOL! Don’t miss the upcoming iBigby specials: iForgot My Homework Because I Use Vancian Magic and iDon’t Have A Date For Prom Because All I Can Cast Is Spells About Hands. - Hannah Undermontana
The mad wizard Halaster finally unleashes his most terrifying creation to date: his 16 year old daughter! Torn between her desire to live life as plain old Haley, a normal peasant girl doomed to a life of manual labor, and superstar sorceress Hannah Undermontana, the world becomes distracted enough not to notice Halaster’s ulterior motive: to unmake reality via country music. Can he be stopped before he releases “Achy Breaky Wight”? Can Haley bring a boy home to meet her father in less than seven pieces? Can she balance her skills and feats to meet the needs of her real life and of her alter ego? Will she spend a daily power to take care of her pimples OR one of her friend’s pimples? Even though they have a crush on the same guy??!
I apologize if anyone soiled themselves.
Friday Chat, Early Edition: The Geeky Road Trip
In about 24 hours, I’ll be leaving for the Toronto Fan Expo with my friend PM. The Expo is Canada’s largest event for Sci-Fi, Horror, Anime and Gaming fans where they get to meet some of their favorite industry personalities and stock up on merch.
So soon after Gen Con and after having been at Ground Zero for Pax East, I’m not sure how to set my expectations for the Fan Expo. I have no ideas what the show will be like nor what I’ll be doing except game for most of the day on Saturday.
Regardless of what awaits us over there, I still have a 5 hour car trip to plan so I thought I’d reach out and share/ask how the travelling part of the trip should be prepared! [Read the rest of this article]
San Diego Comic-Con 2010 Thursday and w00tstock 2.4
As I trudged to the convention center in the morning, I noticed the usual crush of hired guns foisting advertisements wasn’t in full effect yet. (But no worries, they’d be crowding the streets by lunchtime.)
10:00 “Spark of Imagination” Panel
Guests
- Tony DiTerlizzi (Planescape, Spiderwick Chronicles)
- Travis Knight (lead animator, Coraline)
- Mike Mignola (Hellboy)
- John Stevenson (Kung Fu Panda)
- Doug TenNapel (Ghostopolis, Earthworm Jim)
- Moderator: Geoff Boucher (Hero Complex blog, L.A. Times)
As soon as DiTerlizzi gets introduced, a guy in the audience says “Planescape!” in that growl usually reserved for dudes yelling “METAL!” This session is about the creative process and what inspires the panelists to create.
Q: Do you start small and grow big, or come up with the big idea first?
Tony: Start with character. The audience has to care about the character before caring about that character’s struggle. [Sort of a side track] We’re encouraged to imagine as children, but this becomes “There’s the art guy. Get him!” in high school. Working on The Search for Wondla, about the only human on an alien planet, raised by a robot. His take on Star Wars meets Miyazaki. He loved the maps in fantasy books like The Hobbit and the Chronicles of Narnia. Created an augmented reality map for Wondla. Video show uses mostly 2D images in a 3D space.
Travis: It’s hard to pinpoint the stop-motion creative process. “Artists in general, and stop-motion people in particular, are weird people.” You draw from the things to create: research, life experience, and imagination. When you get “first frame-itis” (animator’s block), you break it with research and thinking about the characters and how they behave. Researched how supermodels move to give the Other Mother in Coraline an “evil supermodel” look. Rehearsed in a mirror; not pretty. Used own experience with daughter for a scene with Coraline and her father, drawing specific expressions he’d seen his daughter and himself make.
Mike: Hellboy started as a sketch. He usually drew Batman for people, but a fan who already had a Batman from him said to draw whatever he wanted. He drew the first incarnation of Hellboy. The sketch kept popping up, and one time he randomly put “Hellboy” on its belt buckle. Later, he had an offer to do a comic and had no idea what he wanted to do. Hellboy was the only original character he had. At first, he didn’t know who HB was, and started vague until the characters took on a life of their own.
John: Put Mike’s art up in office while working on Kung Fu Panda to get inspiration to do the best work he could. The Sinbad movies originally inspired him to pursue a movie career. He worked on The Muppet Show early on, the creative cauldron where he learned most of the things important to his work, primarily from Jim Henson. Collaboration was extremely important to Henson, and he was one of the few people who would say “Thank you” for a good idea. Paraphrasing Frank Oz, “Jim wouldn’t have been such a great creator if he hadn’t been such a great appreciator.” So collaborate, and avoid fearing putting your ideas out there. When you have a big project, you have to say, “I need help to fulfill this vision.” Showed a video of some of his work on The Muppet Show.
Doug: The easy part of imagination is coming up with stuff, and some develop their imaginations more for jobs. Execution is the hard part. You have to communicate ideas to the crew, editor, yourself, or the audience. Separating the good ideas from trash is the hard part. Develop the skill of executing ideas. Really skilled creators, like the rest of the panel, show that it’s a “human trait” to be that good. It’s not impossible to achieve that level; use them for inspiration. Comics are great because they’re a “friendly medium.” You can just get a pencil and paper and write a whole book by yourself. Projects can fall apart, so there’s a whole lot of “nuttin’ to show for it” in the arts. Comics and novels let you have an end product, even if no film version comes through.
From the Q&A
Tony: I think, “What would 10-year-old-Tony want that 40-year-old Tony can make?”
Tony: (Ref: The specifics of inspiration for Planescape) People working with me on Spiderwick and Wondla wondered how the world was so fleshed out. If you played D&D, you have to design a world from soup to nuts. The design is Zeb Cook criscrossing world myths. The art was inspired by Arthur Rackham in large part, along with the otherworldly feel of Yoshitaka Amano.
Q: Do you feel a master plan or outlines constricts your creativity?
Mike: A really big idea is daunting. Start small.
Tony: Make a general outline.
Doug: Break into small, workable pieces.
John: Doing one piece will lead to the next.
After the Panel: Everybody around me was talking about Planescape and D&D.
11:00 The Red vs. Blue Infiltration
Guests
- Geoff Ramsey (Grif)
- Kathleen Zuelch (Tex)
- Gustavo Sarola (Simmons)
- Monty Oum (animator)
Jerry Holkins introduced them. I don’t think most of the audience recognized him. They’re wrapping up the RvB: Revelation DVD for Sept. 14. They’ll have a boxed set, RvB: The Recollection, with 3 most recent series and a bonus Grifball disc. They showed plenty of videos.
Protestors
The Fred Phelps crew had a few protesters outside Comic-Con, but they were far outnumbered by counter protesters. These included Bender and people holding signs saying things like:
- ODIN IS GOD
- Magnets: How the #%$! do they work?
- GOD LOVES FSM
- Jesus was nailed to a cross—Thor has a hammer
4:00 Robert Kirkman
***HERE THERE BE SPOILERS***
Much of this panel was Q&A. A summary follows.
He has a new imprint: Skybound. He is overseeing books by new creators. Skybound is not currently looking for pitches, but scouring online to find interesting talent.
In Walking Dead, expect turmoil arising in the community and trouble for Rick.
The first Skybound title is Witch Doctor by Brandon Seifert and Lukas Ketner. They came onstage for a bit. It’s a horror medical drama—Dr. Strange meets Dr. House. All the supernatural stuff has a basis in the weirdest phenomena of real biology.
Where’s the Walking Dead TV series filming?
Atlanta. The first season is almost done.
Did you give up creative control for the AMC Walking Dead series?
Kirkman is executive producer, hired Frank Darabont (The Stand, The Shawshank Redemption) to write and direct the pilot. Very experienced with adaptations that are true to the source material.
Is there an oversaturation of zombies?
No. Not as many zombie comics as there once were, and there hasn’t been a zombie TV series before.
Will you come back to write more Marvel Zombies?
No. Said his piece with 1 & 2.
What’s your favorite rock band?
“Probably Rock Band 2.” [Joking. Kirkman's very funny. See him in person if you can.]
[Skipping a bunch of questions. If you want to know about anything specific, ask in the comments.]
Did you consider doing the TV series in black & white to match the book?
Thought about it. Felt it would be too “stunty.” People might skip the channel thinking it was an old movie.
How do I break into comics as a writer?
Find an artist and make a comic.
Will the high mortality rate in Walking Dead affect how you cast?
We’re hoping we’ll get more big actors who can do short runs but not commit to an entire series.
I heard there’s a Science Dog t-shirt in Walking Dead TV.
Yes, but they had a bad reference for the symbol, so it looks more like a bear’s claw. I want to put a donut shop in the series called Bear Claw so it becomes an internal reference.
6:30–?1:00? w00tstock
There was a long line for w00tstock 2.4. They had two screens instead of the usual one. I had a special pass thanks to Liz Smith, the w00tstock Dungeon Master. I was in the top VIP area at first, the first guest there, and managed to contain myself when the next guests were Jamie Hyneman and his wife. Show was very cool. More controlled, focused than usual, but about the same length since there were more performers. Molly Lewis had to wait outside when she wasn’t on stage since it was a 21+ venue. (Free Molly!) Performers were:
- Paul and Storm (they are the opening band)
- Wil Wheaton (blogger, ubergeek, Wesley Crusher)
- Adam Savage (Mythbusters)
- Marian Call (folk musician, plays a typewriter)
- Matt Fraction (comics writer and madman)
- Jamy Ian Swiss (the Honest Liar, magician)
- Molly Lewis (ukulele YouTube sensation)
- Phil Plait (Bad Astronomer, showed trailer for new Bad Universe show on Discovery)
- Len Peralta, drawing the special show poster on stage throughout the night (Geek a Week)
- Jason Finn (drummer, member of Presidents of the United States of America)
- Chris Hardwick (Nerdist podcast)
- Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett (Rifftrax)
Themes of this show included double, triple, etc. rainbows, “Free Molly,” and beer. Special guests ranged from Jamie Hyneman (Mythbusters) to Aaron Douglas (of BSG, in his flight suit for a cheap “toast” joke) to Grant Imahara (Mythbusters, escorting Chewbacca) to Bill Amend (Foxtrot). Hope I’m not forgetting any people! Molly gave a free concert outside during halftime.
In a few days, you should be able to find videos of the show on YouTube. I’ll try to remember to post them to comments.
It was a late night, and it’s another late night typing this the next night. I’ll recap today tomorrow, and confuse you more.
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- Optimus Prime stands guard near the entrance to the convention center. As far as I know, he didn’t blow up any innocent cars, thinking they were Decepticons.
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- A shot of the (modest for SDCC) crowd in one of the large areas between the seminar rooms and outdoors.
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- This year, there were a couple massive ads that covered the faces of buildings. This is one, the other is for the Scott Pilgrim movie.
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- A promo area for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World outside the con. Long line is long.
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- Across the street from the con, you can see a few protesters from Fred Phelps’s group, and a BUNCH of counter-protesters.
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- Seen at the Splatterhouse booth
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- The open gaming area
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- The line for w00tstock
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- Bunch of folks doing autographs this time: Marian Call, Len Peralta, Jamy Ian Swiss, Phil Plait (the Bad Astronomer), Paul, Storm, Wil Wheaton, Aaron Douglas, and Matt Fraction (who later did get a table).
Tabletop RPGs and Music: The Beautiful Thieves
Inspiration for adventures, campaigns, and characters oftentimes come from the same shared geek sources. If your play group is a mirror of your social circle, chances are you share the same touchstones of inspiration: Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, a few book series, some choice TV shows, and shared experiences from the past. As such, if I were to introduce a debilitated gunslinger to my RPG group the would roll their eyes at me and say “Doc Holiday from Tombstone, AGAIN?!” While it’s perfectly legitimate (and even encouraged!) to use shared sources as fodder for your RPGS, sometimes using an unusual source subject to interpretation is superior. Music can be evocative of particular emotions and aesthetics, but possess lyrics sparse enough to spark imagination and allow you, as the GM/DM or player creating a character, to own the concept while still owing your inspiration to another source.
Every RPGer struggles to make their game special. No one wants to run a forgettable, generic game. In my opinion, music can very easily fuel ideas for unique campaign settings, adventure, or character concepts. As a player, in TheGame’s notorious Kitchen Sink D&D game, I chose Frog from Chrono Trigger’s theme song for my idealist psionicist team leader, Levi Black (kudos if you figure out where I ripped that name off from). Hearing that song, even today, really puts me in the character’s shoes (sorry Frog you were great too!) As a GM I offered an XP bonus to anyone that picked a character theme song and explained to me why they chose it. When I was planning adventures I’d key up those songs to help me evoke the character and their attitude and persona. [Read the rest of this article]
The Power Of The Music Of The Nerd
When I was growing up, it wasn’t cool to be a geek. When I was really little we barely even had computers or videogames to play with, so geeks had to do things like “reading” and “science” and the only science fiction shows on TV were old reruns of Star Trek and a bunch of movies about apes. I was very pleased when the Internet started to get popular right about the time I was entering college, dragging up with it the popularity of geek culture.
Today, it seems like our people have carved a niche for themselves in most areas of modern culture. There are TV shows just for us. One of our most beloved pieces of literature (written in the dark times known as “the Fifties”) was even turned into one of the highest grossing movie franchises of all time – at the turn of the millenium, no less. There’s a way geeks dress. There are shops out there devoted solely to selling things nerds will want. If you see a bunch of Mountain Dew cans around someone’s office cubicle, there is a fair chance they work for an IT department. They’ve even developed special kinds of Mountain Dew specifically formulated to stimulate the gaming centers of your brain (and, I suppose, to fuel fictional racial hatred).
It is curious to me, then, that there isn’t geek music. At least, not a lot of it. I love Jonathan Coulton to death, but he unfortunately stands relatively alone in a giant field of “mainstream” artists, relegated to that terrible “novelty” music category by most of society. I’m not crazy about the fact that Taylor Swift can replicate herself and win a Grammy for a musical documentary of her clones’ fight for mating rights with a football player, yet a song laser-targeted at the hearts of lovelorn IT guys like Code Monkey sits in relative obscurity. Other geek-specific forms of music exist, but are even more obscure. Gamers have been known to hoard and play videogame soundtracks. (Protip: DON’T try to listen to nothing but music from the Legend of Zelda series on a 15 hour drive if you value your sanity. ) We’ve even got our own music subculture, though very few who aren’t part of it already have any idea it even exists.
In the absence of music targeted toward us or music we’ve created for ourselves, what then have we turned to? Is there a specific genre we lean toward? I guess it should not surprise me that a culture like ours who prides ourselves on being different doesn’t really flock to anything in particular, and we like to take our chosen brand to its extremes. I know a UNIX admin who can’t get anything done without hardcore industrial or Eurodance blasting through his headphones. I have a friend who just completed his doctoral thesis in philosophy that lives on scary Swedish death metal. I like my rock to have big hair and huge synthesizers, and I like the songs to be about Greek mythology whenever possible. My wife, a graphic designer, listens to Adam Lambert and the Glee soundtrack, to Missy Elliott when she thinks I’m not listening, and then out of nowhere here comes a bunch of Modest Mouse albums “before they sold out” and post-Pavement Stephen Malkmus. I haven’t met a terribly large amount of geeks who like country music, but I suspect that’s more because of where I live than anything else. And you can’t tell me the gangsta rap sequences from Office Space haven’t been re-enacted a thousand times, at least in our imaginations. All those swirlies growing up made us much too angry not to want to bust a cap in someone’s ass, just a little.
I’m curious to see the response from our readers on this one. If you’ve got a second, check in and let us know what music keeps the nerd-fires burning in your soul. If I’m lucky, there will be enough of you that nobody remembers that my favored go-to music when I really need to focus on coding is Madonna. I only wish I was kidding. How was I supposed to know she was compatible with Perl regular expressions?
YouTube Tuesday: Let Me Throw! Edition
Not especially related to games, but I just can’t stop watching The Muppets do Bohemian Rhapsody, and thus needed to share.
YouTube Tuesday: It's Halloween and These Have Zombies in Them Edition
Yep, I got nothing this week. These are both Thriller-related, so why not? [Read the rest of this article]
YouTube Tuesday: Auto Tune Cosmos Edition
By popular request, and in the spirit of some old favorites, there’s this.
YouTube Tuesday: This Is Pure Nerd-nip Edition
“Do You Want To Date My Avatar”, the incredibly catchy music video by the folks at The Guild.
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