Previously, I spoke about the authors who inspire me. Originally, I intended this follow up piece to be about both videogames and boardgames. But I quickly realized there's too many of each to write about them in the same place, so I'm splitting them up. Today I'll talk about the videogames that inspire me (and the ones that I play the most often). I'll start with the ones I've talked about the most here.
StarCraft: StarCraft was one of the first PC games I ever owned. I'd played WarCraft II on the Mac and my step-brothers owned WarCraft: Orcs and Humans. But StarCraft was all mine. I've always slightly leaned more toward Sci-fi worlds than fantasy, and I really enjoyed RTS games. StarCraft's real strength, to me, is that there's a bigger story going on than what we see, and we can know that but still stay focused in on the game. At it's heart, the games in the series are about the relationships between characters, but these relationships play out on grand scale.
WarCraft: WarCraft II was a game I picked up because I'd heard a lot about it and because I'd played a few Blizzard games before (more than I realized at the time, actually). I loved it. The characters weren't really there yet, but the story was interesting, especially in that depending on if you played Orcs or Humans, it would end differently. I was amused by the things the characters would say if clicked on, and the game world has grown far beyond what it was. The writing may not always be top notch, but it's clear Blizzard spends a lot of time planning where the games can go and where things were before the moment they exist in, and that kind of world building always resonates with me.
Diablo: To be completely honest, Diablo was definitely the third place Blizzard franchise for me. I played mostly because my friends did and I wanted to play games with them. Diablo III really changed that for me. While I still play mostly co-op, D3 was the first time I really wanted to push through the whole story alone and try different difficulties. I know that a lot of people feel like D3 doesn't live up to the standards of Diablo II, but I think they have different goals in mind. I like where Blizzard seems to be going and I'm curious to see what's going to come in the next expansion.
Assassin's Creed: Assassin's Creed, I think, speaks to a lot of people's urge to be the guy that's so badass that he can do whatever he wants and get away with it. At least, that's what it does for me. I'm still not quite sure I know what to think of the storyline with Desmond. I really liked Altair's story, wasn't a little hesitant for most of Ezio's, and enjoyed Conner's, but I'm just not sure of my investment in Desmond. I didn't like him much in the first game, and I've gone back and forth with being okay with him since. I'm curious to see where the next game goes, and I think that'll change a lot of my opinions on the modern era storyline.
The Walking Dead: First off, I love the Walking Dead comics, and I greatly enjoy big chunks of the TV show, so I had some reason to come to this game expecting to like it. And it blew those expectations out of the water. The story of the game is healthily complex and we get to see some hints at what may have happened before we first see the characters "on screen" in the comics/show. It hits the right notes of both horror and sorrow, while still giving glimmers of hope. And in true Walking Dead fashion, no one is safe.
Left 4 Dead: I do enjoy me some zombies. Left 4 Dead, like Diablo originally was for me, was a game that I picked up because all my friends were playing. Despite this grouping of games, I'm not much of an FPS player. I'm not terribly skilled at it and I tend to get bored easily. That said, Left 4 Dead (and Left 4 Dead 2) is one of my most played games and I'm fairly certain it more than doubles the playtime of the rest of my Steam list. The characters greatly entertain me, and we still drop "I hate ____" and "ALMOST THERE!" jokes in both my game groups. I'm curious to see if Valve will ever do a third Left 4 Dead, because I get the sense there's a bigger story waiting to be revealed.
Half-Life: Speaking of games on which I'm waiting for a third installment... Half-Life is an interesting game. I love the world and the way things have come together. The community around the game is pretty amazingly creative and involved. But I'm not a big fan of Gordon Freeman. I know, this is blasphemy. I don't mind silent protagonists (I mean, heck, I really like Chell and Master Chief), but Gordon just gets me. Maybe it's that he's supposed to be a scientist; a scientist that doesn't talk or do science is a pretty lackluster scientist. On the other hand, the supporting cast is great. So I keep coming back for more.
Portal: Chell is awesome, despite not talking. Personally, I ascribe to the "Chell doesn't talk because it's a dig at GlaDOS" camp. For that matter, GlaDOS is pretty amazingly entertaining. I love the puzzle solving and mind games of Portal and it's full of things that can be called out later ("When life gives you lemons..."). All in all, I feel like Portal is a bit of an homage to being a smart nerd and that endears it to me quite a bit. Plus, as you can probably see as a theme, it seems to be connecting to a larger world in a way yet to be fully revealed.
Halo: I really wanted to not like Halo when I first played it. It was the overhyped game of choice for a lot of jerks on the internet. But I ended up liking the fact that the games were focused on giving players a contrast between the small dramas of the characters and the greater dramas of a galactic war that turned out to be a battle in a larger galactic war. Over time, a lot of depth has been added to the game world, and Bungie and then 343 Industries worked hard to link a lot of out-of-game material into an in-game system of discovering it.
Worms: So the Worms series is definitely not about storyline for me. But it's good fun. Sometimes I just have to blow something up and there's always plenty of options in Worms. Plus, it's still entertaining when I fail spectacularly to do what I want, which isn't something I can always say of other games I play. It's good to get away from all the heavy story and Worms serves as a good palate cleanser when I feel like I'm leaning my writing/roleplaying too close to a specific game studio's style.
Showing posts with label musings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label musings. Show all posts
5/20/2013
Meandering Journey
So this is a companion piece to yesterday's piece on "what if's." I think it's important to look at "what is" in the process of how I became a roleplayer and writer, however limited my audience may or may not be (because who knows how many people are really looking? I get 10-40 pageviews a day when I've got new content, and I've no idea how many of these are people I know and how many who saw the link on Twitter/Google/Facebook/wherever. I appreciate what I've got).
I started writing in third grade, so far as I can really recall (though maybe my parents or grandparents would tell another story). Our teacher had the whole class write "books" which were "published." Being obsessed with dinosaurs (seriously, I wanted to be an archaeologist/paleontologist in kindergarten and used those words, to much laughter from the other kids, to tell everyone so), I wrote a book called "The Futuristic Dinosaur" in which a dinosaur was teleported to the modern day, learned to speak English, and went to school with a teacher named after my teacher. I still have the cloth-bound book that I got as a result. Even though I'd walk away from writing for long periods, I kept coming back to it, and I doubt I would have had that in my life if it hadn't been for that book.
I was a rather awkward child. I was sure I was "normal" in terms of schooling until about 4th grade, but felt like the kids laughed at me so often that I must be "weird" socially. And that became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more awkward I felt, the more awkward I became. And then I figured out, via testing, that I wasn't "normal" in terms of schooling. I was "gifted" and needed to be in "special classes." Which meant getting up and walking out of "regular class" at a specific time. Which is about the worst thing you could do to a kid who felt like an outcast already. I tried to overcompensate by being "the funny kid" but I was pretty awful at that.
In 5th and 6th grades, I was introduced to the Robotech RPG and then Battletech by my older cousin. I started reading the Battletech novels and entered two separate writing contests while writing fiction based on the Battletech unit (The Stanley's Callers) my cousin and I had come up with (we had t-shirts, deal with our awesome). Those entries went nowhere, and coupled with a major knee surgery, the divorce of my parents, my dog running away, and having to leave all my junior high friends while heading to high school, I pretty much stopped writing and barely roleplayed at all (though I kept collecting books, for which I am now quite thankful).
I started writing in third grade, so far as I can really recall (though maybe my parents or grandparents would tell another story). Our teacher had the whole class write "books" which were "published." Being obsessed with dinosaurs (seriously, I wanted to be an archaeologist/paleontologist in kindergarten and used those words, to much laughter from the other kids, to tell everyone so), I wrote a book called "The Futuristic Dinosaur" in which a dinosaur was teleported to the modern day, learned to speak English, and went to school with a teacher named after my teacher. I still have the cloth-bound book that I got as a result. Even though I'd walk away from writing for long periods, I kept coming back to it, and I doubt I would have had that in my life if it hadn't been for that book.
I was a rather awkward child. I was sure I was "normal" in terms of schooling until about 4th grade, but felt like the kids laughed at me so often that I must be "weird" socially. And that became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more awkward I felt, the more awkward I became. And then I figured out, via testing, that I wasn't "normal" in terms of schooling. I was "gifted" and needed to be in "special classes." Which meant getting up and walking out of "regular class" at a specific time. Which is about the worst thing you could do to a kid who felt like an outcast already. I tried to overcompensate by being "the funny kid" but I was pretty awful at that.
In 5th and 6th grades, I was introduced to the Robotech RPG and then Battletech by my older cousin. I started reading the Battletech novels and entered two separate writing contests while writing fiction based on the Battletech unit (The Stanley's Callers) my cousin and I had come up with (we had t-shirts, deal with our awesome). Those entries went nowhere, and coupled with a major knee surgery, the divorce of my parents, my dog running away, and having to leave all my junior high friends while heading to high school, I pretty much stopped writing and barely roleplayed at all (though I kept collecting books, for which I am now quite thankful).
It was almost a the end of my Freshman year (though at the time it felt like decades) when I met the core group of friends which would grow into my Terminus roleplaying group. One of them roleplayed online, as well, with people from both the US and Canada, and after working up the courage, I joined the forums (hosted back in the day by ebulletin if I remember right). This dovetailed with my idea to write fiction based on Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. Kids, don't let people tell you fanfiction is bad; you should aspire to come up with your own stuff, but world building is hard and characterization is more important, fanfiction is like training wheels for writing. So is roleplaying, which does many of the same things as writing fanfiction; using a pre-created setting, sometimes pre-created characters, and putting the writer's/player's character into the center of the action especially when it can serve as wish-fulfillment. Definitely aim to take the training wheels off, because you won't get rich trying to sell Harry Potter fanfic, but use the resources you have to practice.
When I went to college, I continued on in the "be what I'm not" compulsion that I'd formed way back as a kid and tried to be a computer engineer. I was pretty bad at it; I passed my classes, but I often struggle to make my code work, got C's on tests, and fell asleep in class the only time it's ever happened to me. After all that angst, I was done. I switched to being a creative writing major, gave up dreams of getting rich off writing software, and got back to writing. I wrote a lot, too. I was writing at least a page a day roleplaying, plus writing out elaborate backstories for those characters, and writing papers for class. I also made more friends who roleplayed, which would form the core of Sunday Game Group later on.
I took five creative-writing specific classes in college. Two were fiction-based, two were poetry-based, and one was autobiographical. I mention this not to tout my creative writing genius or education (because seriously, five classes in which most of the class had no major interest?), but to relay a story. My advanced fiction writing class was the second time in my life (and first time for fiction) I've been accused of plagarism. Afte the professor praised a myth-style story I'd written as being "right out of the Pohpol Vu," a classmate asked me if I'd really written it and where I'd gotten it from. It was pretty much at that moment I decide, for sure, that I'd be a successful writer someday. I was fairly furious that he'd question my skills and honesty that way, but figured if people assumed I'd stolen published work, I must be producing publishable work.
The key drawback, I think, in my writing over this period was self-motivation. If I was getting feedback or writing collaboratively (in other words, the things I got instantaneously from roleplaying), I could write prodigiously. If I was feeling a strong emotion, I coukd crank out 500 words in minutes. But when things were just "fine" and feedback was sparse, my writing would crawl to a halt. It took an odd writing gig for my job to change that. I worked for a now-defunct tutoring company which focused mostly on college e trance exams. I got offered the chance to write material for our new ACT textbook, which was a chance I jumped at as I could claim it as published work (to my knowledge, it never got to that stage). I wrote six pieces and 120 or so questions for that project but got minimal feedback. What I did get, though, was practice writing to a deadline and getting paid for my writing.
That led to me applying for a blogging job at a page-click-for-revenue news site covering roleplaying games. I quickly discovered, though, that my pageviews weren't worth a consistant value and that they'd hired another local writer to cover the same material as me in the same local area as me. I quit within a week. I created this blog but let it fall into disuse as I struggled to write consistently. I kept roleplaying, though, and eventually things came back around.
I got in the habit of telling my girlfriend, who became my fiance and then my wife, stories upon request, which challenged my ability to come up with coherent and compact stories. I needed to come to a point swiftly but still make the story engaging. And then I attended Blizzcon 2011 (actually, I've been to every Blizzcon but the first). There, I got to see a talk with the folks who write novels for Blizzard and heard how a past winner of the Blizzard Writing Contest was now writing fiction for them. Later in the sane day, I got to chat a bit with Nate Kenyon when he signed my copy of StarCraft: Ghost: Spectre. Those two events gave me a kick in the rear. I was determined to win the next BWC. Unfortunately, the next BWC hasn't happened yet. But in the interim, I finished one StarCraft-based story and made great progress on a second. They've integrated the lessons I've learned along the way and I feel proud of both. If nothing else, I could submit one or both the next time a BWC occurs and feel I gave it my best efforts. Similarly, the exercise of writing frequently inspired me to ressurect this blog in an effort to make connections to folks with similar interests.
So that's a long ramble on how I got to where I am. I'm not really published, rich, or famous. But I'm happy with the path of my writing and hopeful for its future. And at worst, I can use those skills to entertain myself.
TL;DR: I like writing and roleplaying, am happy with both, and can talk at length about it.
Philosophical Meanderings
One of the things that lets me be strongest as a roleplayer and writer, I think, is the fact that my brain is constantly running "what if?" scenarios. Some are as mundane as "what if I have a bagel instead of a power bar tonight?" Others are as complex as "what's my escape plan if the zombie apocalypse happens and I'm at my condo complex?"
Sometimes I wish I could turn them off. Lately, I've been wondering about what if's involving high school and college. I wonder, if I had gone to the high school most of my junior high friends had gone to, if I'd be the same person. A girl I was maybe sorta friends with on in junior high (okay, I also had a crush on her back then and avoided her despite kinda being friends with her because of it, I was a stupid child in some ways) is now a comic artist/colorist for DC, after having been one for Marvel and Top Cow. I wonder if I had gone to high school with her if that connection would have been something I could have given a chance and if that it would have given me a chance at writing in those places. Interestingly, most of my friends now had friends at that high school and it's entirely possible I could have ended up hanging out with the same people for the most part. Almost undoubtedly I would have had a broader friend group than I did through high school and college. I suspect my confidence level would be much different.
Similarly, a... Friend? Acquaintance? Is there a word for "know him too well to be acquaintances but weren't friends?" Anyways, he's going to be starring in Agents of SHIELD this fall. If I had chosen to become better friends with him, would I be talking to someone who could show my writing to Joss Whedon (yeah, yeah, nerdgasm)? I think that would change who I am less, honestly. I was way more formed at the end of high school than junior high, which is hopefully the way with most folks. But the concept intrigues me.
In any event, I think this is a key facet of why I can roleplay or write well (at least in my own opinion). Not only do I contemplate what if's for myself, but for my characters. Over and over until I know them like I know myself, and can anticipate the decisions they might make.
Sometimes I wish I could turn them off. Lately, I've been wondering about what if's involving high school and college. I wonder, if I had gone to the high school most of my junior high friends had gone to, if I'd be the same person. A girl I was maybe sorta friends with on in junior high (okay, I also had a crush on her back then and avoided her despite kinda being friends with her because of it, I was a stupid child in some ways) is now a comic artist/colorist for DC, after having been one for Marvel and Top Cow. I wonder if I had gone to high school with her if that connection would have been something I could have given a chance and if that it would have given me a chance at writing in those places. Interestingly, most of my friends now had friends at that high school and it's entirely possible I could have ended up hanging out with the same people for the most part. Almost undoubtedly I would have had a broader friend group than I did through high school and college. I suspect my confidence level would be much different.
Similarly, a... Friend? Acquaintance? Is there a word for "know him too well to be acquaintances but weren't friends?" Anyways, he's going to be starring in Agents of SHIELD this fall. If I had chosen to become better friends with him, would I be talking to someone who could show my writing to Joss Whedon (yeah, yeah, nerdgasm)? I think that would change who I am less, honestly. I was way more formed at the end of high school than junior high, which is hopefully the way with most folks. But the concept intrigues me.
In any event, I think this is a key facet of why I can roleplay or write well (at least in my own opinion). Not only do I contemplate what if's for myself, but for my characters. Over and over until I know them like I know myself, and can anticipate the decisions they might make.
3/26/2013
A few musings on Kickstarter
It's been a bit quiet around here, which is at least partially because of the fact that the day of Scions On A Plane has been literally the only day of gaming I've gotten to participate in the new year. There are plans for International TableTop Day, though, so hopefully that'll get things going again.
In the meantime, I'm just going to jot down some of my musings on Kickstarter campaigns, based on what I've seen working and the campaigns I've chosen not to back. I'll go over a few categories of what I look at in a Kickstarter and talk about what usually entices me and what doesn't. Right up front I'll say that I often first inspect a campaign based on the product offered, but the product offered has yet to overcome my apathy if I'm seeing things that I dislike about the project. I'll list the projects I've backed, but I'm going to leave out specific names of ones I've chosen not to back, since I don't want to directly harm their chances of getting other backers.
Price Point
One of the most important things I've seen about how I interact with campaigns on Kickstarter is that I need to feel like I am getting value for the money I'm pledging. If the initial reward tier is too high, then I virtually never pledge, especially if I'm considering a project that I've got no prior experience with. Low as the price point sounds, it seems like $10 is about where I need to feel like I'm getting some reward even if it isn't the full version of the product. I backed Dresden Codak, where I get a PDF for $10; Artisan Dice, where $7 nets a die; Fate Core, giving a PDF at $10; and Werewolf 20th Anniversary, with a wallpaper at $10. The outlier is Zombicide Season 2, where the first reward was at $50; in that instance I already owned Zombicide Season 1 and had friends who participated in the first Zombicide Kickstarter. I pledged more than the minimum on them all, but I feel that the reasonable minimum was a contributing factor in my choice to pledge.
In the projects I've chosen to skip over, the lowest pledge at which I gained a reward was $14 dollars. More typically, I've found rewards starting at $25, $40, or $50. In a few rare cases I've looked at projects at where the initial reward was over $150! Obviously some design projects need that high of an initial level, but I think it puts them at a distinct disadvantage from the start. I've seen some of the projects where high pledge levels are important for getting actual products made get around the need a for a high "first" pledge by offering things like t-shirts and schematics for lesser pledge levels (and this is somewhat the Werewolf Kickstarter did).
Funding Goal
In a lot of ways, the funding goal is even more important than the price point to me. In order from lowest to highest, the campaigns I've backed were Fate Core ($3000 goal), Artisan Dice ($9000), Zombicide Season 2 ($25000), Dresden Codak ($30000), and Werewolf 20th Anniversary ($85000). These campaigns also all managed to hit their funding goals at a rapid pace. Many of the Kickstarters I've chosen not to back have had goals upwards of $150000. While there are certainly projects that do require that sort of funding, I've found that many Kickstarters which might not need such high goals (a single RPG game book, a figure carrying case, production of cooking sauces) aim for these lofty goals.
My sense in this case is that when the Kickstarter is designed to reach for "just enough" to fund a project they set these lower funding goals and when they're aiming for enough to produce the Kickstarter and then gain mass release outside the campaign, too. While that's probably the better business decision on paper, I think it often does not actually pay off as those campaigns go unfunded where campaigns with lower goals have far more success and pull in the extra funding that would enable them to seek broader release. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of the campaigns with higher funding goals are also those with higher initial pledge levels.
Stretch Goals
Stretch goals are vitally important. They're not a requirement on Kickstarter, but they are a fairly common aspect of virtually every campaign on the site. Most Kickstarter campaigns are long affairs, lasting over 30 days. Stretch goals keep people considering a higher pledge level and serve as extra incentive to woo individuals who are undecided into pledging. In looking back at the campaigns I've backed, Dresden Codak has 26 stretch goals, mostly announced fairly early on, but modified as the campaign continued. Artisan Dice, still fairly early in the campaign with 35 days to go as I write this, has six stretch goals with more hinted to be revealed further down the line. Zombicide Season 2 has 45 stretch goals currently at just 5 days to go, with a few optional bits that aren't quite stretch goals, but have been revealed similarly. Fate Core had 35 stretch goals. And Werewolf 20th Anniversary had 12 stretch goals, though they were bigger ticket items such as whole new books.
While most of the campaigns I haven't backed have had stretch goals, those goals were often, in my mind, unobtainable. They were set out past the funding goal (which is the norm), but when the goal is so far out that it may be unobtainable, stretch goals fail to add extra incentive. Similarly, I find that I'm most motivated when there are a few stretch goals laid out at the start and more are added as the campaign goes on. That pattern taps into my curiosity and encourages me to share the Kickstarter and raise my pledge more than a list of stretch goals which is completely set down before the campaign even begins. Obviously, I'm sure the best campaigns have their goals planned internally before the Kickstarter begins, but there's no need for full disclosure right away.
In looking back, a lot of the campaigns I've backed have shared quite a few attributes and given their success, it seems like those attributes are attractive to quite a few people. The key outlier in my purchasing habits here seems to be the Werewolf 20th Anniversary book. It had a higher funding goal, fewer stretch goals revealed less frequently, and didn't provide the actual produced item until a much higher pledge level. I think that the key factor that got me to overlook those things that might normally turn me off was the fact that I was highly familiar with White Wolf/Onyx Path and the product that I'd be purchasing. The same goes for Zombicide in some ways, as I knew that $50 was less than I'd pay for the full game once released and I already owned Season 1.
As a side note, I've left out one Kickstarter which I backed with the intent of helping a 9 year old girl go to camp to learn to make computer games. I excluded it because I consider it a charitable donation more than a purchase and am not concerned with getting a final product back. Normally, I'd do that sort of thing on Indiegogo, but it happened where it happened.
In the meantime, I'm just going to jot down some of my musings on Kickstarter campaigns, based on what I've seen working and the campaigns I've chosen not to back. I'll go over a few categories of what I look at in a Kickstarter and talk about what usually entices me and what doesn't. Right up front I'll say that I often first inspect a campaign based on the product offered, but the product offered has yet to overcome my apathy if I'm seeing things that I dislike about the project. I'll list the projects I've backed, but I'm going to leave out specific names of ones I've chosen not to back, since I don't want to directly harm their chances of getting other backers.
Price Point
One of the most important things I've seen about how I interact with campaigns on Kickstarter is that I need to feel like I am getting value for the money I'm pledging. If the initial reward tier is too high, then I virtually never pledge, especially if I'm considering a project that I've got no prior experience with. Low as the price point sounds, it seems like $10 is about where I need to feel like I'm getting some reward even if it isn't the full version of the product. I backed Dresden Codak, where I get a PDF for $10; Artisan Dice, where $7 nets a die; Fate Core, giving a PDF at $10; and Werewolf 20th Anniversary, with a wallpaper at $10. The outlier is Zombicide Season 2, where the first reward was at $50; in that instance I already owned Zombicide Season 1 and had friends who participated in the first Zombicide Kickstarter. I pledged more than the minimum on them all, but I feel that the reasonable minimum was a contributing factor in my choice to pledge.
In the projects I've chosen to skip over, the lowest pledge at which I gained a reward was $14 dollars. More typically, I've found rewards starting at $25, $40, or $50. In a few rare cases I've looked at projects at where the initial reward was over $150! Obviously some design projects need that high of an initial level, but I think it puts them at a distinct disadvantage from the start. I've seen some of the projects where high pledge levels are important for getting actual products made get around the need a for a high "first" pledge by offering things like t-shirts and schematics for lesser pledge levels (and this is somewhat the Werewolf Kickstarter did).
Funding Goal
In a lot of ways, the funding goal is even more important than the price point to me. In order from lowest to highest, the campaigns I've backed were Fate Core ($3000 goal), Artisan Dice ($9000), Zombicide Season 2 ($25000), Dresden Codak ($30000), and Werewolf 20th Anniversary ($85000). These campaigns also all managed to hit their funding goals at a rapid pace. Many of the Kickstarters I've chosen not to back have had goals upwards of $150000. While there are certainly projects that do require that sort of funding, I've found that many Kickstarters which might not need such high goals (a single RPG game book, a figure carrying case, production of cooking sauces) aim for these lofty goals.
My sense in this case is that when the Kickstarter is designed to reach for "just enough" to fund a project they set these lower funding goals and when they're aiming for enough to produce the Kickstarter and then gain mass release outside the campaign, too. While that's probably the better business decision on paper, I think it often does not actually pay off as those campaigns go unfunded where campaigns with lower goals have far more success and pull in the extra funding that would enable them to seek broader release. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of the campaigns with higher funding goals are also those with higher initial pledge levels.
Stretch Goals
Stretch goals are vitally important. They're not a requirement on Kickstarter, but they are a fairly common aspect of virtually every campaign on the site. Most Kickstarter campaigns are long affairs, lasting over 30 days. Stretch goals keep people considering a higher pledge level and serve as extra incentive to woo individuals who are undecided into pledging. In looking back at the campaigns I've backed, Dresden Codak has 26 stretch goals, mostly announced fairly early on, but modified as the campaign continued. Artisan Dice, still fairly early in the campaign with 35 days to go as I write this, has six stretch goals with more hinted to be revealed further down the line. Zombicide Season 2 has 45 stretch goals currently at just 5 days to go, with a few optional bits that aren't quite stretch goals, but have been revealed similarly. Fate Core had 35 stretch goals. And Werewolf 20th Anniversary had 12 stretch goals, though they were bigger ticket items such as whole new books.
While most of the campaigns I haven't backed have had stretch goals, those goals were often, in my mind, unobtainable. They were set out past the funding goal (which is the norm), but when the goal is so far out that it may be unobtainable, stretch goals fail to add extra incentive. Similarly, I find that I'm most motivated when there are a few stretch goals laid out at the start and more are added as the campaign goes on. That pattern taps into my curiosity and encourages me to share the Kickstarter and raise my pledge more than a list of stretch goals which is completely set down before the campaign even begins. Obviously, I'm sure the best campaigns have their goals planned internally before the Kickstarter begins, but there's no need for full disclosure right away.
In looking back, a lot of the campaigns I've backed have shared quite a few attributes and given their success, it seems like those attributes are attractive to quite a few people. The key outlier in my purchasing habits here seems to be the Werewolf 20th Anniversary book. It had a higher funding goal, fewer stretch goals revealed less frequently, and didn't provide the actual produced item until a much higher pledge level. I think that the key factor that got me to overlook those things that might normally turn me off was the fact that I was highly familiar with White Wolf/Onyx Path and the product that I'd be purchasing. The same goes for Zombicide in some ways, as I knew that $50 was less than I'd pay for the full game once released and I already owned Season 1.
As a side note, I've left out one Kickstarter which I backed with the intent of helping a 9 year old girl go to camp to learn to make computer games. I excluded it because I consider it a charitable donation more than a purchase and am not concerned with getting a final product back. Normally, I'd do that sort of thing on Indiegogo, but it happened where it happened.
3/05/2013
Some extra flavor thoughts on Leander
There are now and again things that I come up with about Leander that are probably unlikely to come up in a game session but that I think are likely to help develop his character, so I'm planning on collecting some of these thoughts here in hopes of remembering them and giving added depth to the character.
Leander's backstory mentions that he was a frequent RTS and FPS player. In specific, the games that Leander played as a youth would include StarCraft I, Warcraft I three III, CounterStrike, Medal of Honor, Command and Conquer 1 through 3, Total Annihilation, Civilization I through III, Doom 1 and 2, GoldenEye, the Marathon series, HalfLife and the Tomb Raider series. As an adult, I picture him disdaining slightly of Call of Duty and Halo, but enjoying games such as Portal 1 and 2, StarCraft II, Left4Dead 1 and 2, the HalfLife sequels, Bioshock, Dead Space, and FarCry. He theoretically has both a Steam ID and Battlenet ID (or more recently a Battletag) which would be Leadast, a portmanteau-ing parts of Leander and Adrastos, and pronounced in a way that sounds somewhat like "Lead us."
Leander is a competent driver, but probably doesn't actually drive frequently. Much of his mercenary work has been in situations in which having a vehicle is either a luxury or a significant added danger, and therefore he's moved on foot much more often. He has, however, occasionally employed both jeeps and motorcycles as mounted cavalry in certain offensive and defensive scenarios.
Leander, as has been noted both in game and during character creation, is fluent in American Sign Language. Originally, Leander began learning it while wooing the daughter of one of his employers, but when she broke off their relationship (thanks to her father discovering it), Leander continued the pursuit as a way to add additional non-verbal communication to his combat skills. He frequently teaches at least a few key words to those he's leading and has likely done so with at least some of the soldiers and Scions he's worked with on Olympus. I picture Elene as having occasionally given Leander lessons entirely in sign language, probably having shocked him with the knowledge that she was fluent the first time she did so.
Leander's backstory mentions that he was a frequent RTS and FPS player. In specific, the games that Leander played as a youth would include StarCraft I, Warcraft I three III, CounterStrike, Medal of Honor, Command and Conquer 1 through 3, Total Annihilation, Civilization I through III, Doom 1 and 2, GoldenEye, the Marathon series, HalfLife and the Tomb Raider series. As an adult, I picture him disdaining slightly of Call of Duty and Halo, but enjoying games such as Portal 1 and 2, StarCraft II, Left4Dead 1 and 2, the HalfLife sequels, Bioshock, Dead Space, and FarCry. He theoretically has both a Steam ID and Battlenet ID (or more recently a Battletag) which would be Leadast, a portmanteau-ing parts of Leander and Adrastos, and pronounced in a way that sounds somewhat like "Lead us."
Leander is a competent driver, but probably doesn't actually drive frequently. Much of his mercenary work has been in situations in which having a vehicle is either a luxury or a significant added danger, and therefore he's moved on foot much more often. He has, however, occasionally employed both jeeps and motorcycles as mounted cavalry in certain offensive and defensive scenarios.
Leander, as has been noted both in game and during character creation, is fluent in American Sign Language. Originally, Leander began learning it while wooing the daughter of one of his employers, but when she broke off their relationship (thanks to her father discovering it), Leander continued the pursuit as a way to add additional non-verbal communication to his combat skills. He frequently teaches at least a few key words to those he's leading and has likely done so with at least some of the soldiers and Scions he's worked with on Olympus. I picture Elene as having occasionally given Leander lessons entirely in sign language, probably having shocked him with the knowledge that she was fluent the first time she did so.
2/28/2013
Body Language
In watching back over the video of Sunday Game Group's Scion session, I realized one of the things that made it most fun is that the group is comfortable enough with each other that everyone relaxes into their characters and gets animated. There's lost of gesturing and reposturing to convey not only what the characters are saying, but what they're doing.
I think it's really an underrated piece of roleplaying to have the ability to mime out a bit of a character's body language. Posture and gestures tell us a lot and often help us interpret the words and tone of a person speaking to us. I think for SGG, those gestures help us remember that it's not Chuck over there, it's Nick. They might have similarities in posturing, but they're not the same and that can often clue me in if he's in or out of character.
No more point in this post than to observe that, but I do think it's really cool.
I think it's really an underrated piece of roleplaying to have the ability to mime out a bit of a character's body language. Posture and gestures tell us a lot and often help us interpret the words and tone of a person speaking to us. I think for SGG, those gestures help us remember that it's not Chuck over there, it's Nick. They might have similarities in posturing, but they're not the same and that can often clue me in if he's in or out of character.
No more point in this post than to observe that, but I do think it's really cool.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)