The care and feeding of emergent campaigns
Marshall Burns:
Quote from: GreatWolf on November 18, 2008, 04:51:40 PM
Also, a question: where does the term "Tessellation" come from?
I first heard it in geometry, where it has something to do with a plane that has a cleanly repeating pattern of symbols. Like a tile floor and stuff. Geometry stole it from mosaics, where "tessellae" (singular tessela) are the individual pieces used to make a mosaic. My usage is somewhere between those two.
Quote from: GreatWolf on November 18, 2008, 04:51:40 PM
Are there good techniques to remember these various symbols? Would blue-booking be helpful in this context, for example? Something else?
Hm. I dunno. I guess one technique that I use is picking things that are peculiar enough to be recognized upon repetition, but not so peculiar that they can't be worked into stuff. There's a phrase I've used a lot in the Rustbelt, "things that make those kinds of sounds have exoskeletons," sometimes as narration, and sometimes as dialogue. Like braggart telling tall tales in the bar: "And then I turns around, and I hear this dry rustlin' sound, with little clicks. You ever hear a sound like that? Things that make those kinds of sounds have exoskeletons, hombre." Or someone delirious or panicking: "Things that make those kinds of sounds have exoskeletons! Exoskeletons, Joe!" (to which the ruthless & deadly Persnickety Kendall responds by cocking her magnum and saying, "Yeah, and things that make that kinda sound make really big exit wounds! Quit yer prattlin', ya sumbitch!")
I'm also really fond of taking old proverbs and cliches, and abbreviating them, then putting them in the mouths of grizzled types. "Does a bear shit in the woods?" becomes simply, "Shit in the woods." "While the iron's hot." "Bird in the hand." "An ounce of pervention [sic]."
tonyd:
Great thread!
I just finished Galactic North by Alastiar Reynolds (hard science space opera). In the postscript he talks about exactly this thing--how the large scale setting for his Galactic North stories and his Revelation Space novels evolved over time. His creative process in this sounds like a lot like an IAWA campaign. It began with one story that introduced a few concepts, locales, times, and characters. As other stories cropped up in the shared setting, different aspects became concentrated. The end results is a deep, living setting.
Another thing I'm curious about. Do you ever find yourself hitting a false note? Do you ever have a session that you decide really doesn't deserve to be setting defining? Myself, I find that I sometimes conveniently forget contradictory setting facts that no longer fit, and that if a coherent whole emerges, it's not just a creative act, but an act of editing and forgetting the stuff that doesn't contribute positively.
Marshall Burns:
Tony,
I'm of the opinion that such editing is not the same as failure, at least not when it's just here and there. It's understandable when someone fires a dud when playing -- it happens, we all do it sometimes.
On the other hand, with The Rustbelt, I embrace discrepancies. Just calling the scenario a "Yarn" suggests that it's the sort of story that a not-entirely-trustworthy person in a bar would tell you. Any discrepancies in setting and chronology can be attributed to him, as lies, errors, and embellishments. But that's not a solution that works for every game.
Valamir:
Tony, we have yet to have that problem in our current IaWA run, because our group is full of win ;-), but I view such a selective memory / editing process as completely normal (and even preferable). I mean any non-fictional account of historical events is going to be delivered with a hefty dose of perceptions, editing for interest, and survivor bias...so why should a fictional acount of a faux-historical events be any different? Any such post-story editing that needs to be done surely is no more egregious than what goes into a history text book.
The quality of a movie is as dependent on the editing as on the filming. I see no reason why a similar standard shouldn't apply to RPGs.
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