In the Trenches #7:

Be A God With Me

by Laurel Stuart
April 5, 2002

In mid December 2002, I became a new External Game Developer for Skotos. Shannon Appelcline and I had what I refer to as a "whirlwind e-courtship" pounding out emails to each other over the stretch of several days while we were both juggling a thousand and one other projects for respective gaming companies: he with Skotos, me with White Wolf. The end result was the creation of a new Grand Theatre called Devils Cay: a modern socialization-based dark fantasy/horror game set on a small resort island in the mysterious Caribbean. We had other plans and other hopes that didn't come to pass, but in the course of a few days we established both Devils Cay as an S7 project and this column.

Usually, 'In The Trenches' is my time and place to talk about object-building, because that's where I'm at as a developer. Today, however, I'm going address the StoryBuilder Proposal. The S7 group is mighty thin right now, and there's a golden opportunity for several enterprising amateur game designers to have their shot of the big time — as text based multiplayer games go, any way.

When I first started this column, I talked about becoming a StoryBuilding Success. I mentioned everything I thought a game needed to be considered a success. Looking back on it, I still agree with every word it said. I've got a lot of work ahead to make my own games successful. Let me help you put your own best foot forward as you contemplate doing the same.

When writing a good StoryBuilding proposal, some things are obvious. Create a rough draft, proof-read it, have someone else proof-read it, and continue to enhance it until you are satisfied. Then create a polished copy. Answer all of the questions posed in the proposal to the best of your ability, choosing simple but elegant terms to describe your endeavors. Writing more is better than writing too little, but make sure that everything you write is pertinent and actually addresses the question.

I think your game proposal is going to need several other elements that are less obvious than everything I suggested above, which you will need to prepare for before starting with your very first rough draft.

You Need A Good Idea

What kind of game do you want to make? Is it different than Skotos' other games? Will it intrigue and entertain a core mass of players? Is the material familiar to gamers without blatantly ripping off someone else's intellectual property rights? Could you go around on the forums or among or regular gaming friends and get at least half of them excited to play it based on everything you can describe in less than a minute?

Sometimes ideas sound fantastic — until you approach others for feedback. Not every gamer is going to like the same kind of game. However, if you get little to no enthusiastic response to your original ideal, scrap it and build off the suggestions that you received and your own knowledge of popular, socialization-based games.

In a nutshell, you need to offer something familiar but new that fits within a scope of a Grand Theatre — which leads to my next point.

You Need A Good Team

No one person builds a cathedral; neither can one person tackle the burden of building a Grand Theatre. Before you submit your proposal, you should have at least three people you can rely on to help write descriptions. Everyone on your team should have attempted to create a complete a sample room by the time your proposal is done. Rooms are among the most detailed and time-consuming objects you will be building — that makes them an excellent litmus test. Anyone who can't hack making one room isn't going to be able to help you complete a Grand Theatre which is composed of 30-50 of them. If *you* can't Storybuild an entire room, lock stock and detail, within 4-5 days of starting one, you won't be able to complete a game in a timely fashion and should reconsider submitting a proposal.

You Need Experience

Beyond just selling your game, you are selling yourself. What have you accomplished as a game designer or game builder or writer or chat moderator that you can offer Skotos as an example of your style and expertise? Just as importantly, have you been an active participant in Castle Marrach or Eternal City and are you familiar with the Skotos Parser and what it can accomplish and what it can't?

I wasn't familiar with the Skotos parser, and I'm paying for it now. Its very possible to learn as you go; I'm proof of that. Its so much easier, however, if you spend at least a few weeks playing in an existing Grand Theatre and develop a sense of the environment first.

You Need A Skotos-Friendly Game

Too many early S7ers, myself included, didn't appreciate the basic needs and limitations of a Grand Theatre. Its a wonderful, flexible round hole but those big square pegs called traditional table top RPGs are never ever going to fit there and the struggle to try and fit one anyway wore out more than one external developer. Castle Marrach is an excellent Chat Theatre game because it -works — inside the system limitations. You need to make another Marrach that is nevertheless new and fresh, offering novel opportunities and challenges.

So what makes a Skotos-friendly game? First of all, a game that can first easily inside a Chat Theatre. A game that is containable and sustainable, above and beyond everything else. It needs be something which you and your team will be able to build in a couple of months of dedicated (10+ hours apiece) description writing.

Think beyond the immediate design issues as well. Include a plan for how you will manage or maintain a player base — how you'll be able to achieve critical mass of players, and keep them around to play for months and years to come. There will need to be endless opportunities for characters to interact with one another, and a way that characters can develop and grow. I personally recommend some kind of plot mechanic where veteran characters have ample reason to involve themselves with new characters and guidelines to protect those same veteran characters from reckless, obnoxious newcomers who act out of boredom, not a desire to co-create an epic story.

Its lonely being a God. I'm very excited at the idea of having an entire cabal of S7 developers to work with, sharing knowledge and skills. Its in my own personal interest that new S7ers are chosen in the near future, and that these folks are talented, enthusiastic, cooperative game developers. So please feel free to ask public or private questions about Skotos StoryBuilding. I'd very much like to help all of you, any way I can. In the Trenches is going on a brief hiatus, but I will be back with the next object-building article in one month's time. In the meantime, I'll see you in the forums.