The IFGS world of D'oril began as background material for a character history. I've touched a lot about it in the past, how it grew from there to a simple world, to a neighbor of the Land of the Seven Tribes, (and eventually splitting off so I can write without dealing with other authors.) I guess I'm keeping the ties to the IFGS alive, in part because there are times I want to (read wish I had the time to) pick up where I left off. As far as the IFGS version of D'oril goes, however, the world stopped at the end of Sha'te Valley, Except I kept some things going in Brandis' character history.
Melding Brandis' history with Sha'te and the aftermath doesn't really take much effort, since almost all of Brandis' adventures within the IFGS took place outside of D"oril. I created the reasons he couldn't return, and fed tidbits of D'oril lore to other PC's when I played him. I've never really had a problem with time and the IFGS, though, for I took a page from the master, Ray Michel, and allow that "Time passes differently within the worlds of the IFGS". SO, Brandis can stand at Shatterman Pass, go through his torment following that as his soul darkened from the non-stop war and shadow threat, return home just long enough to obtain kath healing, and head back into the southern world. Nothing happened after Sha'te.
Except in my head. I had jotted down game ideas, one that would have taken place months after Sha'te, another that would have picked up almost immediately afterwards. Both got through the outline and detailed storyline phases, but I never got the the encounter definition phase, mostly because the FAA (and real life) began to consume my life. I've kept those notes and storylines in some folders, ready to be resurrected.
Sha'te, in itself, is an entirely different animal. The story for that developed over the first couple of years of writing minigames, I wanted to write a game outside of the closed world of D"oril that the general populace could participate in, yet retain the flavor of the closed world that I (and the players) enjoyed. In the minigames, I was ablt to tailor encounters, and plots, to specific characters, and pull the characters emotions this way and that. This was to be an issue that would plague Sha'te, to this day, I'm not sure how successful I was at presenting the story I'd written for Sha'te, as I saw it.
One reason for my uncertainty is that, quite honestly, there were more than a few players who didn't enjoy Sha'te. I've felt that one of the main reasons for their dislike was because they'd not been immersed in the lore and storyline for 2 summers prior to the game, like the 12 or so players (who became the loremasters and their seconds in SHa'te) had been through the Heartbow and Seeker miniseries. Another reason has to do with logistics, I'd envisioned encounters that just didn't translate to the limited resources of IFGS games (although the Lor games approached what I'd hoped to do). Finally, The storyline itself was forced into the IFGS format in order to make it a playable game, and suffered greatly in the translation.
The end result was a series of compromises that, although necessary for the game to be sanctioned and in order for it to be playable, weakened the storyline, and hence the impact that I'd envisioned for the game. One aspect of Sha'te that I'd not touched upon outside of a close few friends, was that SHa'te was written with an emotional plot. I wanted the characters to feel emotions that changed from Up and excited at game start, to worried, stressed, and perhaps fearful through day one, to emotionally spent and exhausted at game down on day one. Day two began with uplifting news that would boost the morale, allowing the characters to fight through to win the day. An emotional roller coaster. Except that only a few characters got into the depth of feeling that I'd intended. I'd been able to manipulate pc emotions in the minigames, but... It doesn't work on a grand scale.
To this day, Sha'te remains poorly understood, at least by my standards. What the players accomplished in their minds, and what was accomplished as far as the K'tath were concerned remain separated by a grand canyon. The epic scale of the Empire of Tallux's efforts were altered by a couple of dozen adventurers, not so much by the military defeat they suffered at the hands of the Kel warriors and the adventurers, but by ripples of cause and effect that have yet to be fully revealed. My writings today take Sha'te into account, and at least in my current project, shape much of what happens.
I'll write more about Sha'te with my next post, perhaps a retelling of what happened, and hints at the changes that are still happening...
Clear skies,
Jim
Melding Brandis' history with Sha'te and the aftermath doesn't really take much effort, since almost all of Brandis' adventures within the IFGS took place outside of D"oril. I created the reasons he couldn't return, and fed tidbits of D'oril lore to other PC's when I played him. I've never really had a problem with time and the IFGS, though, for I took a page from the master, Ray Michel, and allow that "Time passes differently within the worlds of the IFGS". SO, Brandis can stand at Shatterman Pass, go through his torment following that as his soul darkened from the non-stop war and shadow threat, return home just long enough to obtain kath healing, and head back into the southern world. Nothing happened after Sha'te.
Except in my head. I had jotted down game ideas, one that would have taken place months after Sha'te, another that would have picked up almost immediately afterwards. Both got through the outline and detailed storyline phases, but I never got the the encounter definition phase, mostly because the FAA (and real life) began to consume my life. I've kept those notes and storylines in some folders, ready to be resurrected.
Sha'te, in itself, is an entirely different animal. The story for that developed over the first couple of years of writing minigames, I wanted to write a game outside of the closed world of D"oril that the general populace could participate in, yet retain the flavor of the closed world that I (and the players) enjoyed. In the minigames, I was ablt to tailor encounters, and plots, to specific characters, and pull the characters emotions this way and that. This was to be an issue that would plague Sha'te, to this day, I'm not sure how successful I was at presenting the story I'd written for Sha'te, as I saw it.
One reason for my uncertainty is that, quite honestly, there were more than a few players who didn't enjoy Sha'te. I've felt that one of the main reasons for their dislike was because they'd not been immersed in the lore and storyline for 2 summers prior to the game, like the 12 or so players (who became the loremasters and their seconds in SHa'te) had been through the Heartbow and Seeker miniseries. Another reason has to do with logistics, I'd envisioned encounters that just didn't translate to the limited resources of IFGS games (although the Lor games approached what I'd hoped to do). Finally, The storyline itself was forced into the IFGS format in order to make it a playable game, and suffered greatly in the translation.
The end result was a series of compromises that, although necessary for the game to be sanctioned and in order for it to be playable, weakened the storyline, and hence the impact that I'd envisioned for the game. One aspect of Sha'te that I'd not touched upon outside of a close few friends, was that SHa'te was written with an emotional plot. I wanted the characters to feel emotions that changed from Up and excited at game start, to worried, stressed, and perhaps fearful through day one, to emotionally spent and exhausted at game down on day one. Day two began with uplifting news that would boost the morale, allowing the characters to fight through to win the day. An emotional roller coaster. Except that only a few characters got into the depth of feeling that I'd intended. I'd been able to manipulate pc emotions in the minigames, but... It doesn't work on a grand scale.
To this day, Sha'te remains poorly understood, at least by my standards. What the players accomplished in their minds, and what was accomplished as far as the K'tath were concerned remain separated by a grand canyon. The epic scale of the Empire of Tallux's efforts were altered by a couple of dozen adventurers, not so much by the military defeat they suffered at the hands of the Kel warriors and the adventurers, but by ripples of cause and effect that have yet to be fully revealed. My writings today take Sha'te into account, and at least in my current project, shape much of what happens.
I'll write more about Sha'te with my next post, perhaps a retelling of what happened, and hints at the changes that are still happening...
Clear skies,
Jim
4 comments:
If you want to dust off your IFGS skills, I'm LMing a 4-person team on June 28th, and I'd enjoy having you on the team... (Ray Michel is producing, and the game is for levels 2-4). :)
Though I'd enjoy playing, my weekends are pretty unpredictable, especially with overtimes and such assigned. I'd be unable to commit to being on a team until probably a week before the game, so I'll have to decline... :-( But thanks for the offer, perhaps I'll show up and sk or npc if my time frees up.
Jim
I hadn't realized that there were some players who didn't like Sha'te. It was certainly the most intense game I ever played - I was a wreck at the end of day one. Thanks for running it.
I'd love to hear more about what was going on that we didn't learn about.
Hey, Del.
Good to see this topic has awakened the zombie masses... There were about 8 or 9 PC's who disliked Sha'te immensely, most from one team in particular. From reading their complaints, their unhappiness came from two areas:
All of them hadn't participated in the 2 seasons of minigames that built up towards sha'te (I think there were a total of 7 or 8 mini's, plus a couple of bar games), and hence had no connection to the NPC's and K'tath. Thus, my attempt to induce an emotional rollercoaster failed, since they "Didn't get it". They merely felt like they were abused on saturday, and didn't gain any elation from the successes on sunday...
Secondly, the mass combat ending on Sunday was (and I agree with them) very unsuccessful, offering little in the way of closure or sense of success. It was, sadly, one of those compromises necessary for sanctioning and playability. Compare it to the ending of Piper on the Hill (Game of the year the first time it ran in D/B) where the ending was clear and justice (in the eyes of the PC's) prevailed. If I were able to do Sha'te over, however...
That'll be a topic for another post, probably sooner than later.
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