shifty louts

Another Reflection on Writing for the AAJ

As I continue my second portion of my writing for the Antarctica Jam, I’ve been percolating internally about how this second round has differed (intentionally so) from the first.

The first portion, The Eastern Cordillera and Western Shrublands, was taken up rather late.

If I recall correctly, I had joined it with some five months left before the “official” deadline.

This was after becoming a player within EvilTable’s Northern Strata open table.

That five-month sprint was based around using the Wolves hexfill procedure, and completed in about a month or so before the deadline, with consistent daily additions and notes for other entries.

Most of my workflow process is detailed in a small interview I did with Idraluna.

However, the amount of written words, somewhere around 41k (nearly close to a novel in length), left me with creative burnout.

The well was tapped, so to speak.

Running players in the area for the on-going Antartica game showed gaps that I hadn’t previously thought of and allowed for second winds and bursts of creativity, and now, with the area being more fully realized, I want to go back and update things (perhaps on a later date).

However, really, the focus of this blog post is what’s in front of me to write at this moment, what's influencing me now, what lessons were learned, and how these lessons are being implemented.

Carcosan Terseness

Over a recent beach vacation, I read bits and pieces of Carcosa by Geoffrey McKinney, also of Mike’s Dungeons fame

Much has been mulled over about its graphic depictions of ritual magick, as well as its terseness and lack of context.

This terseness and lack are also found with the more “vanilla” Mike’s World line (which I also love)

There has also been much ink spilt about whether or not the hexed entries are gamable in a sense given their “flatness”.

The common critique I’ve read boils down to “well, I could have just rolled this on a table,” and my answer would be “yes, you can.”

Thinking Through It

To give a clearer picture, entries for both Carcosa and Mike’s Dungeons boil down to something like these

Village of 250 Jale Men ruled by the Omnipotent King, a chaotic Champion

or

3 giant orange centipedes crawl in and out of a worthless red glass urn, and they will not attack unless disturbed.

Some would consider the above to be too opaque; I propose they are the opposite; they are ripe for further ornamentation and full of generative potential.

It’s the precise lack of conceptual density that leaves the entries open to start filling in this creative potential.

Luke Gearing also commented on this fact in his “review” of Carcosa.

“It provides few answers, but gives ground to raise questions. It is a book for thinking-with, its incompleteness inspiring and demanding work from the reader, or Referee. Whether you think this is good or just my personal preference is up to you.”

As an exercise, here are some possible questions that could arise in-game from players (some of which I’ve had asked since I ran bits of Mike’s Dungeons)

Presenting the entries in Hemingway-esque plainness allows one to fill them with meaning through gameplay procedures.

Using Game Procedures for Generative Concepts

Because of their simple declarative statements, the kinetic creative energies, when combined with the actual procedural mechanics of dungeoneering and wilderness exploration SRD (surprise, reaction, and distance), the above entries bristle even more due to elements of position and dispositional timbre that turn these spartan entries into something more fruitful.

For example:

Ok, so like, why does this matter to you, Mr. Zer0?

So with the area of my AAJ submission fleshed out, much of the harder legwork has been done.

Contextual diagetic elements have already been created in the first go-around: loose cultural formations, a detailed herblore system, a local mythology, a pared-down creature encounter table that is focused, and similar worldbuilding trappings.

So my intentional practice has been to write in what I’m calling McKinnesian Terseness instead of the more poetical, Wolves-coded writing style I had opted for for the first entry

Additionally, I’ve been applying the invaluable tips drawn from these two writing tip blogs by Sam Sorensen here and here, which (I think) clearly leveled the quality of my writing, as I’m a constant implementer of passive voice.

It's good to stretch out of English degree muscles once more!

That’s not to say that I don’t intend to apply a more poetical license when an entry calls for it, but the intention is to save those types of flourishes for when a hex deserves it.

So far, I’d like to think I’ve been striking a good balance between when to allow those creative flourishes and when to keep things simple.

For example:

AAJ 1 - Giant Wolf entry

The winter stores of [redacted]1 became low, and thus the dogs were eaten first.

At the behest of wind-carried howls from the Giant Wolves, many dogs fled before they were culled for their meat and fur.

Urged to separate from their former homes and masters, whose starvation deemed itself more important than the life of their closest kin.

A stringy pack of thirty-four wild dogs, red and cinnamon fur with speckles of white and black, prowl upon the fields outside their former home’s baying in the night, preying upon all manner of man and beast

One grows larger (as 4HD Wild Dog), as tall and wide as a camelid, as more men's skulls are crushed within its jaws. It howls the name Red Tree is adulation.

Now comparing this to the below

AAJ 2 - Giant Wolf entry

The pack of fifteen wild dogs flees from their masters at 181-572 - Fhan Tre after hearing the call from the 181-571 - Giant Wolves

The general principle is that one isn’t particularly better than the other, but rather to illustrate how the north stars I’ve been absorbing have been intentionally put into practice.

Conclusion

Ultimately, embracing this style of writing isn’t about me wanting to be lazy; it’s about trusting the framework that I’ve built. Because the heavy lifting of the setting's lore, culture, and ecology was established in my massive first pass, these leaner entries don't exist in a vacuum.

Stepping away from the dense, poetical prose that triggered my creative burnout has been both a relief and an incredible design lesson. By keeping the presentation simple, I'm leaving open the creative space that lets a Referee actually think and play.

Moving forward with the rest of the Antarctica Jam, my goal is to keep things as sparse as the landscape itself and save for the flourishes for when the area demands it.

  1. Redacted for sneaky AAJ players 😉↩