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I never know what to say
May 5th, 2010This comic features my attempt at depicting Wanda and Jeff. Apologies!
Edit: I just realized this comic might warrant some explanation. R.A. Salvatore (the author who had to kill Chewbacca) is a well-known Forgotten Realms writer. He wrote the Icewind Dale Trilogy, which featured this awesome dark elf (Drow) character named Drizzt who became hugely popular. Salvatore then wrote the Dark Elf Trilogy, which is pretty much about Drizzt’s life in the Underdark before he comes to the surface world (it’s a prequel series). Anyway, the Dark Elf trilogy are the only Forgotten Realms books I’ve read. But Drizzt is cool in them, so I like him a lot!
Edit2: Shameless plug! Check out my D&D sketches depicting moments from the campaign I play 🙂
This Tuesday, this guy named Jeff Grubb appeared as a guest speaker for the class I’m taking on popular culture and transmedia worlds. Among other things, he helped formulate the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms Dungeons & Dragons settings — my mind was first blown because that meant I was in the same room breathing the same air as the guy who pretty much came up with the world my D&D campaign is set in, and second because that means I’m 2 degrees of separation away from R.A. Salvatore, which I guess technically means I’m 3 degrees of separation away from Drizzt Do’Urden!
So what if Drizzt’s fictional? Whatever!
Okay, so fangirling aside, Jeff talked about a lot of really interesting things and provided some nice insight on the properties of a successful world and the experience of working on these worlds that are ever-expanding. There were three major things that stuck in my mind:
1. Worlds have a focus that fans can run with.
Jeff mentioned that an intellectual property has a core ethos — a theme, in other words. For example, Pokemon’s core ethos is summed up in the tagline, “Gotta catch ’em all!” The Pokemon world is about collection, fantastic little creatures, and developing your own style (Trainer? Breeder? Prof? If you’re a trainer, what kind of trainer?). Also, fans should easily be able to answer two questions with respect to the world — who are you, and what do you want? In Pokemon, you’re a Pokemon trainer, and you want to catch them all. This is a very simple concept that can be expanded in a hundred different ways. Though the Pokemon world is fixedly decided by the Pokemon company, the world allows fans to fit themselves into the role of a trainer and do what trainers would do — build their own teams, collect Pokemon, battle with others, etc. So once you know who your fans will become once they step into your world, you have to identify what they would do, and then create tools that will allow your fans to do those things.
Perhaps the presence of a focus is what makes fictional worlds so appealing, because in real life, focus and direction isn’t something that’s around most of the time.
2. Growth of a world must be managed.
Jeff pointed out that the original form of a property will affect how the property grows. Visual media like comics have very different strengths than those of non-visual media like novels.
Also, be absolutely sure to keep track of what has been said about your world to prevent accidental contradictions, because fans will find it, and probably get really angry or something. Either you have to provide an in-story explanation of why the contradiction is there, or you clearly explain “canon boundaries” (for example, Lucas explains that in Star Wars, there are “two worlds… my world, which is the movies, and there’s this other world… the licensing world of the books, games and comic books”) to which fans can refer and be satisfied.
3. Even if you graduate with an engineering degree you can still end up creating stories for a living
Um, so apparently Jeff graduated college with a civil engineering degree. But now he’s living the awesome life of getting to write storylines for a living. Hey… if he was able to do it, maybe I can too! (I was furiously jotting down notes when he started describing how his engineering degree has helped him with his work — job interview, I am so prepared for you)
🙂
I get a kick out of your comics every week–thank you by the way for interrupting the monotony of being a full time student. 🙂
I appreciate you taking such detailed notes (almost as if you had a voice recorder) and then adding your thoughts which is refreshing. In particular, I liked how you talk about a focus that grounds a transmedia property and then you apply it to how people may be attracted to fictional worlds as a means to temporarily relieve themselves of their own unorganization. I could definitely follow your logic; in fact, i agree!
#3: One of my favorite examples is the mathematician Charles Dodgson – better known as the author Lewis Carroll. Your major doesn’t determine your career, it just helps you build a place to start from and teaches you about a certain perspective.
And I really need to find a new P&P campaign one of these days, maybe look into this new-fangled 4th edition stuff. Also, Drizzt vs. Elric FTW.
just so you know, i am also slightly enamored of drizzt. when i was playing baldur’s gate and realized that by playing the game enough, it could actually get BETTER (by allowing you to be drizzt, although unfortunately you can’t switch his scimitars with something else…) i was basically dumbfounded. but i digress.
i forgot to talk about that concept of what the beginning media does to the overall development of the property that you pointed out from grubb’s speech–and it definitely accounts for some of the more brilliant flops of transmedia properties looking to branch out. i mean, can we talk about the fact dungeons and dragons released a version of clue the board game in which you can be different races and make accusations inside little dungeons with little pewter weapons? why the hell does this exist? granted, i’m sure most people don’t know about this completely pointless, ineffectual extension of the d & d franchise, but really. a good example of why transmedia properties are not intended to be ALL-media properties.
but to be honest, it’s something i’d never though about before, why certain properties translate well to movies, while others make good games, etc. grubb seemed to tie the idea very closely to the quantity of self-identification with the narrative. wonder if there is something to that.
The point about “worlds having a focus that fans can run with” I find to be particularly interesting, if only because the example he used was “Pokemon.” Pokemon is technically in the RPG genre, so perhaps that point can be expanded to include all RPG’s. Such games have a clear purpose – defeat the Elite 4, the overlord, etc. (Or in the case of the game Overlord, defeat those heroes who had defeated you! 😮 ) But then the question is: What next? Pokemon is still a great example of “what next”, perhaps as part of its multiplayer nature. After all, after the first generation, you have more Pokemon to catch, and thus a wider pool of Pokemon to train if you want to go into competitive battling, or just want to beat your friends. It’s fairly open-ended, even after you catch them all, as you still get to train some favorites to put on what you think is the ultimate team. Or at least something that isn’t too shabby. The previous “beat the E4” focus certainly did make those types of games appealing to me – there’s a direct purpose, and I know when I’m done. But once I am done… Well, I’m back to square one. “Do I do it again? But it’s the exact same thing! If only they modified a few things here and there… Oho, generation V is coming out soon!” 😮 I did mention that I could go into competitive/multiplayer battling, but for various reasons (such as finding breeding/training to be quite the ordeal, especially if the end result winds up sucking), I have kind of gone into a hiatus as far as Pokemon is concerned. Yet it is worth noting that for whatever reason, the people behind Pokemon made “EV-training” much easier in generation IV than generation III, possibly as a result of fan input, but for me, it’s still a little too much trouble.
/end ramble
Again, I am highly impressed with the introductory comic that you include each week, although I am glad for the subsequent explanation since I didn’t know the background of Drizzt at all. On a different note, I was also impressed with the amount of information that you managed to take away from Mr Grubb’s presentation. Combined with your mention of taking many notes on how he managed to become a writer despite his degree in civil engineering, you are obviously very interested in his line of work and I hope that later you are able to pursue such activities yourself, either as a career or as a hobby.
I like your point that focus is what makes fictional worlds so appealing, whether it’s through games, books, movies, etc. The good vs. evil paradigm is often the focus of fictional worlds, where the focus is the “good” characters triumphing over the “evil” characters. This resonates with us because it has a definitive meaning. The real world is just the opposite, lacking in definitive purpose and ethics. Many seek the comfort and ease of mind that fictional worlds bring. So strong is the desire for purpose that we often construct our own false history in the same way as an author constructs fiction. Why would you want to think about the fact that 100,000 people died today of preventable causes when you could immerse yourself in fantasy worlds? I often find myself reading both for pleasure and for escape.
I like that you’ve mentioned several points rather than just one, like most of us. In particular, I find it interesting that you brought up the idea that the original form influences the growth. The various types of media do have various strengths and it’s a lot easier to transition to similar types. D&D and related products have a much easier time translating to video games since both are relatively open and are dependent on player interaction. A movie on the other hand, which requires set characters and a set story would be harder to accomplish.
Once again, interesting comic — I was going to draw something about the talk too, but it takes 2-3 hours to digitally sketch, ink, and upload something decent. And I’ve misplaced my beloved mechanical pencil too. I guess I’ll try for next week…
Although I didn’t write down the third point, I certainly thought about it during Jeff’s talk: engineers can end up writing fantasy novels for a living. I have had pipe dreams about making a living as a comic artist, but apparently comic artists (mangaka) in Japan have to spend all of their time drawing (this gets brought up in Graphic Novel Society so often!). Even if I just wrote novels, I often find it distressing when I have to “design” something complicated, because I have to spend my time resolving nit-picky details rather than innovating. However, the “growth of a world must be managed” or it won’t grow in a satisfying way, and I’ll end up with plot holes. And simple worlds are boring, unless your characters make up for them. And then I would have to engineer complicated characters! Jeff’s talk made me realize that I would have to deal with engineering whether I constructed a fantasy world or a computer system — given the expectations of fans today, one can’t escape engineering!
I’m surprised that “fan power” wasn’t one of your headings. Jeff discussed how fans send death threats when something happens that they really don’t like. He also mentioned how forums have to be moderated effectively to prevent the fan base from fracturing (although the speaker on Thursday discussed this more thoroughly). I suppose it could fall under growth management, but it’s a very real force that transmedia properties have to address to remain popular!
Um, do you mind if i copy/paste what you said about this comic, Jojo?
Cause they’re great tips, and they seem like great methodology for double-checking the integrity of my universes and such.
Also, in a weird way, your comic sort of reminds me of Awkward Zombie, a webcomic written by Katie Tiedrich, except that AZ is more about gaming.
Don’t mind at all! All I ask is a link back here if you post it anywhere. I’m glad you found it useful 🙂
I really like Awkward Zombie! It was definitely an early influence of mine, so I’m happy to hear this reminds you of it 😀