The developers of Fable 2 create a developer diary that proves to be very interesting from a world building perspective.

In this clip, the developers discuss how adding an emotional component to their games, and creating player identification with the in-game characters through emotional weight, makes a roleplaying game stand out from the many other game worlds on the market.

The commentary regarding the player’s emotional connection to the dog reminds me of George Lucas’ comments in regard to world building the Star Wars universe; Lucas states that much of the design should draw from our own reality, in order to bring about a recognition, as well as an emotional context for the world (hence the Falcon’s cockpit looking like a World War II bomber cockpit, the pistols looking like modern day pistols, and the cantina reminding the audience of a western saloon).

I missed this special on Discovery, but I own Wayne Barlowe’s incredible book, Expedition, on which this special is based. Highly recommended. If you are developing a space-faring campaign, I can’t think of any better inspiration than Wayne Barlowe’s creature designs, and this Discovery special.

An excerpt from the Discovery website about this special:

“The drama takes place on Darwin IV, a fictional planet 6.5 light-years from Earth, with two suns and 60 percent gravity. Having identified Darwin as a world that could support life, Earth sends a pilot mission consisting of the mothership Von Braun and three probes: Balboa, Da Vinci and Newton. This unmanned fleet is responsible for finding and assessing any life-forms on Darwin IV. Initially, the expectation is to find microscopic life, but the probes soon find themselves in the middle of a developed ecosystem teeming with life of all sizes.”

Your thoughts?

Worldbuilding Episode 015 Show Notes

News

The show has a new voice mail number at 206-984-3443, and I encourage everyone to use that number to get their world suggestions, questions and ideas on the air for everyone to hear…

1. Season 2 is around the corner, and will require more audience participation than ever. Call in and leave a message describing the kind of world you would like to see developed for Season 2. The show has a new voice mail number at 206-984-3443, and I encourage everyone to use that number to get their world suggestions, questions and ideas on the air for everyone to hear.What inspires you and what kind of world would you like to see developed as a shared world setting? What genre interests you (or cross of genres)? I’ll play your call on the air during the Season finale episode.

You can also write in to sad@imaginaryworlds.net, and join the forums at imaginaryworlds.net/phpbb.

2. We have a special three episode monster building special available now for download, for those listeners who donate to the show. This tutorial was born from my desire to address monster building from a literary angle, a discussion about the history of monsters and their place within the story world, and how to infuse your monsters with life and drama. These three episodes form a huge tutorial which includes a PDF document weighing in at over 50 pages, plus worksheets and templates, and a commercially free atmospheric soundtrack. I’ve put a lot of time into the development of this resource, as a reward to those who support the show.

3. I’ve taken cues from the audience and completely redesigned the site to reflect your needs and requests. Visit imaginaryworlds.net, and you will see that every episode is available for download from the homepage, in one convenient location. Show notes are much easier to find. You can access them while listening to the episodes. I’ve also included news and recent post blocks on the front page that connect directly to the forums, in order to encourage more posts and activity there, and I will be using the forums for future blog and news posts. The front page links to an inspiration page which includes a World Builder’s Library and resource link, a section that will grow over time with additions suggested by you.

As season 2 progresses, new links will be added to world notes; the created world will be open source, and ready made as a shared world for gamers, artists, and writers.

Worldbuilding Feature

What can gamers learn from reality shows?

Reality shows can help gamers?

I have a group of friends who enjoy watching the show Kid Nation. This reality show is very similar to all the other reality shows, such as the Real World, and so on. What they failed to realize was that these shows are carefully designed with handpicked people who, put together, will create incendiary relationships.

The reality show is anything but real; it is contrived by producers, who choose character types that can be collected together to create somewhat predictable but dynamic drama.

In many ways, the reality show is like a roleplaying game. The game master is a producer who is creating a reality show in his world. Our games differ than a carefully controlled plotline because the players have (or should have) free will to act within this constructed world, effectively changing the plot. But, the players also must strive to operate according to the logic of the character’s personality and design. The game master can use this to affect some dynamic predictability within the system.

Go and watch a reality show that is built from these dynamic groups, and look carefully at the character types within the system.

Character foils in literature and gaming

Elphaba and Glenda are foils, demonstrated through characterization, color and visuals

Every drama, every comedy, uses this device. The character foil is incredibly simple in theory, and as a basic definition means an opposite of a character. The character foil is the character designed to oppose the hero’s design, to be a mirror to the hero, to stand next to the hero and make the hero’s strengths and weaknesses stand out in relief.

If you have a multiple character story, then foils are simply opposites. Have you ever seen the Odd Couple? Here is the plotline:

Two friends try sharing an apartment, but their ideas of housekeeping and lifestyles are as different as night and day. Felix Ungar has just broken up with his wife. Despondent, he goes to kill himself but is saved by his friend Oscar Madison. With nowhere else to go, Felix is urged by Oscar to move in with him, at least for a while. The only problem is that Felix is neat, tidy, and neurotic, whereas Oscar is slovenly and casual.

The idea of creating foils can be used on any number of characters; the idea here is to look for opposites that when brought together will ignite and create drama. Chris Claremont understood this when he took over the X-men in the eighties. He created foils within the team, such as the controlling family-oriented Cyclops and the wild lone-wolf Wolverine. Beast was stoic and well-mannered, while Wolverine was rude and aggressive. Put Rogue and Storm together, and again, you will see the dynamic energy between opposites.

Look at Lost: Jack and Sawyer, Jack and Locke…
The Office: Dwight and Jim, Angela and Pam, and so on…

Scott Kurtz employs dramatic foils in his character designs (look at the design in the last panel)

Looking for patterns in dynamic party systems: the elements, astrology and the Enneagram

Firefly uses a complex network of relationships within its party matrix

Writers use systems to develop their main characters. It does not matter if you have a 2 part system, such as the Odd Couple, where one character is neat, the other sloppy, or a 4 part system, like the Fantastic Four, or a 15 part system, as in Lost, you want to see the Party as one dynamic unit, centered around some kind of design.

The simplest design is a binary design: two characters share opposite characteristics. Lethal Weapon and every other cop buddy film, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Calvin and Hobbes, Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, Felix and Oscar, these are relationships designed to create conflicting energy between the opposites.

You can use established patterns for your parties, creating a template in which character types can be placed and designed.

The Fantastic Four uses the elements as inspiration for its four part systems: Earth, Air, Water and Fire representing Thing, Invisible Girl, Mr. Fantastic and Torch respectively.

Other designs include the Astrological Calendar, the Color Wheel, the Tarot, the Enneagram, the Seven Deadly Sins, archetypes, and thematic values.

Relationships within the party matrix

Firefly characters interact within a complex party of relationships

No character in the party should be without a context, without a defined relationship to the other characters. Using your system, draw lines between each character, briefly describing the relationship type, how the characters react to one another.

Going back to the Fantastic Four, each character acts differently with each of the different characters within the group. The Torch acts in a very antagonistic manner (almost like a bullying brother) to the Thing, while he acts more as a protective father figure to the Invisible Girl. The Thing looks Mr. Fantastic with the loyalty of a brother, yet fights incessantly with the Torch. These relationships are born from the character’s types. The Torch is literally a hothead and impulsive, while the Thing is more grounded and strong willed. Mr. Fantastic is malleable but dreamy, and so on…

These character types define the relationships between characters within the group.

Relationship types generally break down to the following categories: love, hate (romantic, antagonistic), obligatory (debt or imprisonment or slavery), mentorship, dualistic or secretive, familial, honorial. Whether positive or negative, these character relationships should crank up the tension between characters in order to create conflict within the group. Again, think about reality shows like the Real World. Producers choose specific types to put together to create tension–antisocial with the overly social, comedic with the serious, criminal with the righteous. In your game world, you are creating a reality show, throwing these people together (and in stressful life-changing situations) and letting them ignite on the world stage.

The Story World’s Macro Events

Firefly’s characters are designed to react against their world’s macro events

The World Back-story has Macro Events (what Lost’s producers call its Mythology): pick some large events for the characters to be influenced by: Civil War, Apocalypse, Alien Invasion, Lost in a Rift, Thirty Year War, Children of Tragedy; Just as with characters, the world needs a backstory that helps shapes its cultures and history and economics–major conflicts (look at your premise, and decide what the end solution is…)

The world’s back-story (its major conflicts with which the characters will react) should relate to your party dynamics. In the X-Men, government legislation against mutants is a major world back-story that influences the politics within the group, causing some character types to agree with governmental policy, others to disagree, and in varying degrees on both sides. In Firefly, party members react differently to acts of aggression or control by the state order. In Lost, each character reacts differently to the macro events on the island, some reaching for a divine answer, others for a more secular and rational one.

Character dynamics within the group should ignite every time you put a stressor down on the stage that carries with it dramatic weight. Create a back-story whose machinery runs in the background and provides an excitement and threat that intercedes in the lives of the party system. Drive them apart and bring them together through the love and hate relationships inherent in the character designs. Look at your world premise and thematic ideas, then decide: what are the world events, the macro story, the world back-story, that I will design to create conflict and drama within the group? A thirty-year war, an apocalypse, a mutant massacre, a civil war, a world war, a virus, a zombie takeover, a cold war…

Then, write reactions into your characters histories. Look at where they are in your party matrix, and help the player’s write histories that explain their motives and attitudes as they relate to your world history. Each character should have a major force driving their actions. J. Michael Straszynski, creator of Babylon 5, states that strong character design involves the answer to all three questions: what does the character want, what is he willing to do to get it, and what stands in his way? If you examine any well-written story, the characters all have these questions answered by the creator.

Firefly’s characters act and react according to their world’s macro events

Let’s look at Firefly as an example. One of the major world events that shape that world is the civil war that divided the people and then brought them ultimately under the control of the State. Each character is designed to be a product of that war and its consequences, although each reacts differently to the world situation, in accordance with their personality type and placement within the party.

Mal is a soldier devastated by the losing of that war. His actions reflect a man who has lost his honor, purpose and direction.

Jayne is a man without a conscious who parasitically feeds off the ruins of war, hiring himself out to the highest bidder as a mercenary, and chasing material gain over any other loyalty to cause or friendship.

River is a weapon designed by the new state, and is on the run, a product of the aftermath of war and its consequences.

And so on…

Each character is carefully designed to show a window into the world’s history, and to emote feelings and experiences about the effects and weight of this world. You should ask your players to think about how their characters have been affected by the big world event that you contrive as the central dramatic force of your stories.

Use the system as a metaphor for a richer understanding of the character types

By choosing a system as a guide for your party, you can draw from this system metaphor for character design. Let’s say, for example, that you want to design a four-member party around the seasons: fall, winter, summer, and spring.

You may, at first, think that designing a character around such a simple template may be limiting, but by confining yourself to the metaphors of the system, you can come up with some intriguing designs.

Let’s try it as a mental exercise. I am designing four characters that embody the seasons, and I know that this world is a fantasy world (similar in nature to the typical Dungeons and Dragons setting).

I ask myself: if spring were embodied in a person, what characteristics would they have? What would a spring-themed personality look like? Spring is renewal, cheer, bright days, looking toward the freedom and warmth of summer, beautiful, escaping the cold winter, youth…interesting springboards for a character.

How about a woman who has escaped a horrible winter, a tragic event, but has chosen optimistically to look toward a brighter future. Perhaps her family has been killed by a horrible war, yet her new group of friends (the party) has renewed her hope. She will do anything to protect the party from a threat, to stop the chaos that destroyed her family. Because she is spring, she hates war and seeks only peace and love and rebirth. Secretly, she seeks a child, but will fight for a world that is worthy of bringing that child into the world.

All of these ideas came to me in two minutes, by just thinking about spring as a metaphor for a character.

Now, I want to design her foil, the fall character. Fall is all about turning to darkness, shoring up reserves for the hard times to come, cold, windy, the world dying and coming to a close, desolate…our second character is a foil to the spring character and therefore may have a similar history. Maybe he lost his loved ones as well, but is now seeking self-destruction rather than rebirth. He is with the party only because he sees a tiny fragment of hope that winter may be survived, but deep inside he sense only his own destruction. He was a soldier, now ruined, falling apart. Perhaps he will find renewal through the hard times to come, perhaps not.

See how this works? Try this with astrology, the tarot, and so on. Create a group using the fool archetype, the magician archetype, the devil archetype…see what you come up with by brainstorming with different party matrices.

Note: by using a system, you can see how each character, placed within the circle of other characters, acts and reacts toward the others in the group, according to their character logic and design. Characters can also be placed center-staged in more character-focused “episodes.”

Secrets

Every good character has a wealth of flaws, weaknesses, problems and a history he or she is escaping…

Lastly, use secrets. Every good character has a wealth of flaws, weaknesses, problems and a history he or she is escaping. Han Solo has Jabba the Hutt, River has her captors, Kate in Lost has her criminal past, and Wolverine has two hundred years of wars, abuse and violence. Secrets allow past history to catch up with the characters, exploding on-stage and creating a constant renewal of adventure.

In the future, we’ll talk about series design, plotting story arcs over the course of a season, but for now consider Marv Wolfman’s statement about how strong character design helped him make Teen Titans a powerful intellectual property for DC:

“Indeed, we wrote and drew the stories, created them from pure fiction (they don’t actually exist in some alternative dimension no matter what you may have heard) but fictional characters MUST react based on who they were even as real people react based on their histories. Therefore, even if we think a character should do A, when it came down to that story, it might very well be wrong for the character do to A and so instead they do not B or even C, but perhaps M instead. If real human beings are the sum of what we were, then fictional characters need to react in the same manner. So we were often surprised at the directions the characters took even as we created the stories. I think making the characters react realistically and in character made them believable to our readers and to ourselves. And I also believe that is why The New Teen Titans became such a success.”

Note: Thanks, Nils, for the Firefly character matrix diagrams!

Worldbuilding Episode 014 Show Notes

News
The CORE review will appear in episode 15. In the meantime, check out CORE over at Dragon’s Landing, and post your own reviews of the system. Is this a system that I should use in Season 2 in the development of our model world? Why or why not? In your opinion, what are the strengths of CORE as it applies to worldbuilding? Any weaknesses?

Be sure to go to the forum and post your thoughts, opinions, and suggestions about the kind of world you’d like to see developed in Season 2. Include your choice of genre, tone and mood, themes, characters, conflicts, inspiration (films, books, music, television) and anything else that comes to mind.

Lastly, episode 15 will air next week. Version 2 of the site will be launched around this time, as well, and will include several of the changes you asked for in the forums and in emails.

Worldbuilding Feature

Your plot is about what happens in the story. Your theme is about why it happens.

An image system is any kind of visual metaphor you use in the construction of your world, campaign, or adventure.

The key word is visual. You can, when you build, pay deliberate attention to the setting, weapons, weather, and descriptive imagery that you create, and how they relate to your thematic ideas.

Quick review

Settings reinforce the thematic ideas in Raiders of the Lost Ark

Your plot is about what happens in your story. Character A finds out about Artifact B, and then goes off on a quest to retrieve said artifact, while Antagonist C pursues our hero.

Your theme is about why it happens. In our previous example, our thematic idea might be about belief. Let’s say our artifacts in our world are divine in nature, and our hero, in order to succeed, must learn that the artifacts are truly divine, and not just some forgotten junk. Those who do not respect divinity will perish. The artifact is found, yet the hero must overcome his own sense of shallow disbelief in a higher power.

Belief is the key thematic idea behind the Indiana Jones movies, and these films reinforce this key idea by setting the story in locations that represent divine belief, such as tombs, religious sanctuaries, churches, temples and holy sites, and pitting the hero against foes who represent callous and mercenary or overzealous attitudes towards the divine (Nazis, evil priests, fanatic cults, sacred orders). Indiana Jones is constantly searching in the forgotten realities of a divine past, covered in dust, always having one foot in the grave. The entire trilogy is layered with visual reminders that this is a story about belief.

So, image systems are visual metaphors that reinforce and communicate and harmonize with the thematic ideas in your story. An image system will include your choice of settings and locations, costumes, weaponry, and any other forms of imagery, as well as the character types and details.

Now, if you are designing a game world, and you determine what your thematic ideas are, or this realization occurs to you midway through your process, this realization will help you in limitless ways to construct your adventures and create characters and interesting situations, all of them being cohesively tied to together by your themes.

Here are some examples to show you how writers, filmmakers and worldbuilders use image systems in their work

Blood as a recurring symbol in Macbeth

Shakespeare is the master of symbolism and visual metaphor. Macbeth is one big image system. For example, the use of blood becomes a recurring pattern throughout the play that represents the corruption in nature that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth (and the witches) bring about through the murder of the benevolent king. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare uses plant imagery throughout the story as a metaphor for the ambivalent nature of love to potentially heal or poison.

George Lucas, in Star Wars, explores the dehumanizing power of technology and the ability of the spirit to overcome this. His villain is a man robbed of his humanity and who is now a walking machine, both empowered by technology and entombed within it. The entire second half of the movie takes place within a massive technological weapon. The heroes use technology themselves, but the elegant and simple Light Saber is a metaphor for power without technological weaponry, and Luke’s choice in the end, to deny the service of his technology and instead use the force, causes his to destroy the massive technological weapon. In the last movie, Return of the Jedi, the Empire is destroyed on a planet devoid of machines and bathed in overwhelming nature, and by a primitive race of creatures using simple weapons.

Lucas uses locations to mirror the journey of the hero, as well. In Empire Strikes Back, when Luke faces his own personal hell, the story finds itself in locations that represent this character arc, from the lifeless frigid wastes of Hoth, the murky and underground realm of Dagobah, to the Heaven-like Bespin, all settings that visually reinforce a mythological journey to Hell and back.

In Homer’s Odyssey, Homer employs numerous visual images to reinforce the futility of senseless pride: the ocean, Poseidon himself, is Odysseus’s opponent, the ultimate metaphor for limitless and divine power that constantly thwarts Odysseus’s stubborn machismo in the face of the divine.

In Silence of the Lambs, Clarice Starling (notice the bird imagery in the name) must deal with the inherent evil in humanity’s heart. In the story, she constantly must go underground, into the nether regions of the human soul and deal with the demons that exist there.

Here are some more random thoughts, in no particular order:

The entire second half of the story takes place within a massive technological weapon

King Arthur’s sword represents the truth of his fate. Swords can represent truth, or justice, or order, or they can represent war, violence, or tyranny. Shields can represent defense, loyalty, or protection.

In Firefly, the government agents and the Reavers are the perfect antagonists to represent Joss Whedon’s exploration of state order and free will.

In a western, images can be used to represent the oppressiveness of the wilderness, or the oppressiveness of Manifest Destiny, or the struggle between nature and civilization. Think about a small town set against a massive mountain to represent the futility of civilization to overcome nature. Or, think about train imagery as a device to show civilization’s stubborn destruction and penetration of the wilderness. Or use: clocks, machinery, telegraphs (all metaphors communicating man’s attempt to civilize the wilderness).

Cities as Visual Metaphors
Cities can be designed around thematic ideas. If your story is about corruption, or decadence, or criminal evil, you can design a city based upon Los Angeles and its history. If your world is about immigration, new lives, or romance, you can design a city based upon New York. Magic and eroticism? How about New Orleans? Espionage, war, the cost of power? How about using Washington D.C., Casablanca or Berlin as a source of inspiration? Sorcery, mysticism, gothicism, industry, history? Use London. Decadence and revolution? Versailles or Paris. The future fused with nature? Tokyo and Kyoto. Imperialism and invasion? Use the Phillipines. You can use a modern city as inspiration for your own cities in your own worlds, and mutate them into new fantasy or sci-fi settings while still maintaining their flavor and personality (or concocting an original city personality).

Image systems are a wonderful way to layer your world with metaphors that speak clearly about the significant ideas in your creation, and that tie all of its elements together.

Worldbuilding Activity

Image systems are a wonderful way to layer your world with metaphors that speak clearly about the significant ideas in your creation, and that tie all of its elements together.

Think about the key thematic subjects your are exploring in your world, then brainstorm and make a list of image-laden ideas and metaphors that can represent these thematic subjects. Divide your list by locations (cities, structures…), characters and costumes, and symbols. As a model, here is a start for Star Wars:

Star Wars (thematic subject: dangers of technology and the power of spirit to overcome technology)

Locations: desert world, ice world, cloud world (nature, spiritual), machine worlds (Death Star, Coruscant), spaceships (Falcon, X-wings, Tie-Fighters), the Cantina (a between place), inside the space slug, Naboo (lush nature being invaded by the forces of technology–robots)

Characters and costumes: Darth Vader (machine man), Luke (missing hand and robot hand), other cyborgs, droids, light sabers (technology or magic?), Han Solo (the blaster), the Wookies (nature), Ewoks, Jawas (big machine), Sand People (nature)

Symbols: the force, the Death Star, light sabers (symbol like sword?)

Get the idea? See you next time, where we talk about the “Party”.

The following are notes and artwork I developed as part of an exercise in art directing for the CORE game mechanics, an awesome home-brewed roleplaying game engine project piloted over at Dragon’s Landing Inn. The following is simply an exercise in what how I would deconstruct the meaning of a game system such as CORE, and then create a design identity around these ideas.

If the makers of CORE wish to use these designs, or inquire about further designs, I’d be very happy to share these, or more ideas. Just email me.

The following are written in note-form. You’ll find the artwork integrated into the notes.

1. First considerations
I first look at the mission statement inherent in the game system acronym.

CINEMATIC: Images should convey the cinematic feel of the system, that this is story-centered, not mechanics-centered. Also, this engine allows for multiple genres of storytelling, so the graphic identity should serve these various genres, or at least the design concept should be malleable and change when applied to different genres.

I also see the cinematic aspect being exploited by multimedia experiments, such as music, motion design and animated sequences.

OPEN-SOURCE: Suggests the system is open to experimentation by others, and designed with collaborative tinkering in mind. I imagine a design that becomes a metaphor of democratic creation, open to outside of the box thinking and egalitarian creative opportunity.

ROLE-PLAYING ENGINE: The first images that come to mind are dice, pen and paper as symbolic design elements. However, since this is a cinematic engine, I might want to avoid the math-centered associations of dice mechanics and instead focus on story-centered metaphors.

CHUPACABRA: Lastly, I know that this system has a heritage, as the chupacabra served as the founders’ mascot for a few years. Perhaps the chupacabra could work its way into the logo and design ethos of this product.

2. Initial ideas that come to mind
Movie posters. These graphic one-shots are designed to sell the high concept of a movie to the right audience quickly and powerfully. The use of a movie poster metaphor in the CORE system design language could serve two purposes. One, the concept could be a unifying design idea that ties all of the system worlds together under the umbrella of cinematic story-telling, and two it could serve the same function of conveying a story-world to its audience quickly and powerfully. I imagine a 60s style minimalist Saul Bass design being used to convey a spy-craft world, or a classic pulp design from the early thirties to convey a swashbuckling space opera. All genres can be conveyed with this design idea.

I like the idea of the logo relating to one or more of the following elements of the system: the chupacabra head or silhouette, which could look like anything. My first thought is of a monkey skull, or perhaps a sheep skull, slightly tweaked to look alien. Skulls can be minimalized and still look representational. But, skulls can also be a cliché in design.

Another element of the system is the focus on character design and specifically the idea that character attributes are broken into four quadrants: social, mental, emotional and physical. This reminds of the alchemical idea of earth, air, water and fire to represent these ideas; perhaps an alchemical logo identity could represent these values, somehow suggesting that character is at the heart of CORE, and at the heart of CORE are these four primal attributes. Combining these alchemical symbols into a quadrant or synthesized design could convey the engine aspect of the system.

I also think of a hyper-cube as a symbol to represent multiple genres. A hyper-cube suggests a perspective outside of time, which could serve as a metaphor for multiple-worlds, multiple-universes, multiple-genres (now that I think of it, a hypercube would work well with my own brand Imaginary Worlds, since my concept inherently crosses genre borders as well). It might be possible to mix the four elements of the character attribute system into a hypercube, conveying the ideas with one simple but elegant design.

Without getting too complex with these ideas right off the bat, I will list some first thoughts about what the symbols could be that would represent the four character attributes. A fireball, matchstick, or lighted wand could represent the intuitive aspect of a CORE character (magic abilities, superpowers); a water droplet, cauldron, or chalice could represent the emotional quadrant (emotions and social skills); a coin, cross, circle, earth, or fist could represent the physical and kinesthetic aspect of the character; and a cloud, vapor symbol, arrow, or sword could represent the mental abilities of the character.

In traditional playing cards, these symbols become the heart (for emotion), the spade (for intelligence), the diamond (physical), and the club (for intuition). In tarot, we have the cup, sword, pentacle, and wand.

3. Third step: read through the rules and get a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the system.
What do the designers of the system intend to really convey in its design. At this point, I want to back up my initial intuitive sense of the system, and make modifications if need be. I might also generate some new ideas as I read through.

After this, I’ll want to try some mock-ups.

4. After a few false starts, I come up with a logo design that incorporates die rolls (suggesting a 10 sided die), the four quadrants of the character engine in the game, dynamic motion, and the chupacabra.

I like the first look of these, as the logo conveys a sense of playfulness, open-ended application (as far as genre is concerned), and design scalability, so that I can repeat the design throughout the work. The logo works by conveying the tone and fun of the engine, and works also as a simplified design. This is a good start.

The next step is to incorporate the logo into an actual poster.

If this is a game that serves multiple genres, then I will need to either get a genre world from the “client,” or design my own. Because it’s fun to create, I’ll make up my own. I have a few ideas. I know that the designers of the game want to use the engine for fantasy, space opera, and pulp-style gaming worlds. I’ll create my own game worlds from this beginning based upon ideas I already have for my own fiction projects. I’m not sure how far I’ll go with this (quantity of movie posters), but each poster should potentially serve as a springboard for an entire world to be designed.

Here are some genre ideas that I would like to illustrate
A superhero game inspired by the show Heroes, and the books Carrie and Firestarter, by Stephen King. I’d also incorporate some ideas from X-Files, Delta Green, Watchmen, the anime Akira, and actual history. What I’d like to do is create a superhero world without capes and tights; rather, the characters find themselves suddenly in extraordinary circumstances, chased by government secret agents, a terrified population, and terrorist groups. This would be a superhero world without “the super,” where ordinary people must come to grips with mysterious powers, and choose to use them for good or ill. This will be a story about the price of power and the cost of securing our world. I’ve done some research on the CIA and MKULTRA and would like to incorporate some of this conspiracy theory into the feel of the world.

Next, I’d like to design a high fantasy world based on the heroic age of myth that most cultures share. Players become famous demigods from Greek, Norse, Mayan, Egyptian, Korean, Japanese, Polynesian or Chinese mythologies (or create their own), and fight against the new mortal age of iron that is destroying this age of myth. Older gods would act like distant but ever-watchful feudal lords, while mortals will encroach and fight to assume power as the gods weaken. The players are caught in the middle, either working as heroes in service of humanity, or as tricksters or monsters working against humanity and serving the gods wills. Very action-packed, magical, and fantastic.

I have an idea for a space opera that combines the flavor of Serenity, Cowboy Bebop and Star Wars with the treasure hunting mystery of Indiana Jones. Players work as treasure-hunters, smugglers, bounty-hunters or pirates, working to unearth, steal, transport or destroy alien artifacts scattered around a solar system. Deadly alien and human antagonists want these artifacts for themselves, as a war between civilizations is brewing, and those who control the ancient alien technology will have the advantage over the enemy. The setting also uses machine intelligence, hacking, and genetically enhanced heroes. Very pulpish, fantastic, and exaggerated action.

Okay, here’s a start. These worlds may not become fully actualized, but these concepts can be used for design purposes. Next, I’ll take one of these worlds, and try to create a one-shot poster that clearly details the concepts and objectives of the respective game world.

The following are concept pieces only, meant to convey an art direction for future worlds, and meant to convey how one might convey a role-playing genre with a cinematic motif, that instantly ties the idea to the CORE design ethos. These are not fully fleshed out worlds (although the ideas incorporated into these designs are potentially in progress).

In these posters, I wanted a pulp or classic feel to the design, so I mixed genres, going for a noirish detective piece cross-pollinated with a fantasy world in the first poster, and a 60s kung-fu movie design motif mixed with a high fantasy world concept in the second. I added fold marks (because movie posters used to be folded) and distressed the images to make these look like they might have actually existed in film history.

5. Conclusion: some other thoughts that come to mind.
Everything in the flavor of the rules, adventures and designs could use cinematic metaphors. The designers call the game master a Director and the players Actors; it would be interesting to call Adventure One-shots “Pilots,” complete campaigns a “Series,” even collecting them as “Season One”, “Season Two”, etc. I could even see the adventures packaged in DVD cases with film-like interior art. This metaphor has a lot of potential. I look forward to playing more with these design motifs.

I would also be interested in exploring CORE as an engine capable of appealing to people outside of the hobby. In what ways could role-playing be sold as a concept to nontraditional audiences? I’ll keep this in mind as I explore future concepts.

Note: art and concepts are by Q.P. Bauer. Please inquire via email if you want to use these. I’d be happy to work with the awesome people over at Dragon’s Landing!

Oh, and by the way, Episode 12 of Shakespeare and Dragons will be here early this week…

[FLASH]http://www.imaginaryworlds.net/flashtest/titanspromo.swf, 468, 303[/FLASH]

If you’ve already seen the film, go ahead and watch the next clip. If you haven’t, don’t spoil it for yourself. I wanted to post this shot from the film because it was so well done, and really put the audience inside the bleak and hopeless world of the characters. Warning: violence, language and adult content in this one…

Because Titans will be a serialized story with graphic elements, and ultimately, hopefully, a series of graphic novels, I’ve been looking at what sells a comic, manga and anime. Specifically, I’ve been looking at the graphic elements, title designs, brand identities and color schemes that sell a comic or manga to its potential audience.

I found an interesting link here. I’ve also found some interesting information in a Wizard Presents How to Draw Comics book, which goes into further detail about title size, logo design, color scheme, ad placement and more.

If you think about it, this could be an essential worldbuilding topic if you are considering selling or even just promoting your world to others. Have you considered how you will market your idea to others through a strong design and brand? Wizards of the Coast recently released a history of Dungeons and Dragons (as I’m sure most of you know), and as I was skimming through that title, I noticed how much the Dungeons and Dragons brand has evolved from the 70s to today. It’s interesting to note how the covers to their player and campaign books have changed over the years.

What do you consider to be a strong cover and why? What sells? What catches your eye and teases you to investigate further? I’d love for people to actually post covers to the forum with an explanation of their choice. And if you want to post your own designs, let’s see these as well.

If you love Lovecraft, and have a fond nostalgia for the old Zork games, or you want something new to read and interact with, then I highly recommend that you give Anchorhead a try. If you are unfamiliar with interactive fiction, check it out. In some ways, even though the medium is commercially dead, the thriving community of amateur writers is anything but amateur. There is some really stellar stuff to be found being published right now.

If you would like to check out Anchorhead online, first, you can link here (although the game really requires a bit of your time to suck you in, just like a good novel). The mood this guy develops, and the character depth, is amazing, considering that this is just a game.

Gentry, the author of Anchorhead, is currently in the process of creating a “director’s cut” version of the game. You’ll need to download an IF interpreter and the game to your hard drive, which I recommend doing anyway so that you can download other games in the future. You can link to his personal site here to get the beta version of Anchorhead.