Welcome to another edition of Class Notes. As has become the tradition around here, Class Notes Wednesday ended up on Friday instead. Sorry about that. The good news is that I can report the completion of the new Plot Point 7. Here’s the stats:

Plot Points Completed: 7 of 12
Pages:  32 of 42
PP word count:  1,929 of 22,341

You’ll notice from the word count that I blew past my 1,500 word goal. To make matters worse, the stats above don’t take into account the NPC and creature stats that I’ll add once I’ve finished the edits for all the plot points.

Just to recap, last week I reported that 7 was an all-new plot point to replace one that just wasn’t up to snuff. I had an outline for the new plot point and had started writing, but was less than halfway done. The truth is, even after posting the update something was still nagging me about the outline. Just when I needed it the most, I came across a post and video by Agent Kristen. In the video, she talks about the importance of nailing your plot catalyst in your novels. It’s not a long video and it’s definitely worth watching.

Granted, while RPGs share some things in common with novels, in many other ways they are their own unique beast. What Kristen calls the plot catalyst, Game Masters would probably refer to as “the hook”. What gets your heroes off their duffs and on with the adventure? Roleplaying games have their own tropes — mysterious employer waiting in the tavern, anyone?– but in essence adventure hooks come down to simple motivations such as greed (the promise of loot), heroics (rescue the kidnapped child), love (infrequently), mystery (whodunnit?), or GM fiat (“Look guys, take the bait or I’ve got no adventure for you tonight”). Game Masters have the advantage of knowing their players and learning what best motivates their characters. Game writers, on the other hand, are removed from the action and have to hope that the GM can adapt the scenario to hook  her players if what’s written doesn’t do the job.

That doesn’t mean that I get off easy. My job is to give you a rockin’ fun adventure that you can run with as little prep work as reasonable. That means delivering a plot catalyst that motivates the characters. It also means avoiding returning to the same old well for hooks. Writing plot points means not only coming up with 10-12 linked adventures, but creating hooks that feel natural and unique–all without knowing how the characters reacted in the previous plot points.

All of which is to say that Agent Kristen’s post made me face up to an ugly truth. My plot catalyst, such that it was, amounted to hoping the characters would be curious and follow up on something from the plot point before last. Ouch! I knew it was weak, hence the nagging feeling I mentioned up top. But it took watching the video to force me to think outside my outline and really reconsider the whole adventure. I knew what I wanted the characters to get out of it with regard to moving them through the greater plot arc. I also knew how the plot point ended. So step one was looking at how the ending could be the driving force (the plot catalyst!). You’d think that would go without saying, but it took a lot of inner struggle before I was ready to let go of the security of just following my original roadmap.

Then something funny happened. The NPCs started coming to life. In a thunderbolt of inspiration, I realized my rather vague, cardboard characters started their existence in an earlier plot point. Suddenly, they not only had a reason for being, but a meaningful reason for being in their current circumstances. The new hook adds way more depth and meaning to the adventure, while building upon the overall plot arc in a much less forced way. Each of the plot points so far have their own vibe and I love each one for different reasons, but I wrote to Ed before I’d even finished and told him that this was my favorite so far.

Looking ahead, plot point 8 is the only one in the Junior Year that isn’t a complete rewrite. Hopefully I can knock it out without too much headache and get back on track with Wednesday updates.

Welcome to another edition of Campus Tour– your behind-the-scenes look at the people and places you can encounter in Degrees of Horror. This week I’m taking the tour off the beaten path, and off campus. The thing about fighting the forces of darkness in a “real world” setting is the need for supplies. Buffy and Willow went to “the Magic Box” for supplies of an arcane nature, but what about all those wooden stakes? As a student in East Texas, just where do you get your hands on a silvered dagger or body armor on short notice? My answer (in part) was Vanderhorn’s Workshop.

Paul Vanderhorn

Paul Vanderhorn’s mobile home and workshop lies at the end of a gravel road 100 yards off highway 96. At first glance, the property bears a strong resemblance to a junkyard. The cast-off frames of lawnmowers, weed wackers, and less identifiable machinery litter the yard like abandoned carcasses. Yet sheltered from view by the workshop, target range of punctured targets and mangled mannequins hint at something deeper.

Vanderhorn’s reputation as a wizard at small engine repair keeps his workshop busy and the bills paid, but his enthusiasm for renaissance reenactment earns him many a sideways glance from his conservative neighbors. When he isn’t fixing chainsaw engines, this modern blacksmith can be found tinkering with armor and weapon designs. Inside the shop, swords, crossbows, pikes, and maces sit in various states of completion alongside dismantled chainsaws and lawnmower engines. The eccentric tinkerer even has a working catapult.

Vanderhorn isn’t blind to the paranormal activity in Pinebox’s, but age and a bad knee keep him out of the fight. Although he may repeatedly warn characters of the dangers in meddling with the things that go bump in the night, he still looks favorably upon anyone willing to stand against the darkness.

It’s Class Note Wednesday (a term I just coined moments ago), which means it’s time for my weekly update on where things stand with Degrees of Horror. Unfortunately this week I can’t report the completion of edits on plot point six. After catching (and mostly recovering from) The Plague™, the last 7 days were devoured by t-ball, Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, in-laws, and Masonic lodge. Even so, I have made some progress.

After the edits came back from Pinnacle, we decided that the original Plot Point 6 was too weak to try to save. Instead we’re promoting one of Ed’s “Midnight Tales” to Plot Point status. Although Ed’s basic premise remains the same, I’m having to make adjustments so that the adventure serves a purpose in the overall plot point campaign.

Also, when this adventure was a Midnight Tale, Ed gave the GM a lot of freedom to create encounters leading up to the dramatic conclusion. As a Plot Point though, my next step will be to flesh out earlier encounters (“Act 1″ and “Act 2″, so to speak) so the GM can take the plot point and run it with minimal preparation.

One of the things fans really dig about Savage Worlds is the ease of playability and the low prep for GMs. For writers though, Plot Points and Savage Tales are a constant balancing act. On one side we want to give GMs enough information to run a gaming session with only 15 minutes of prep, but on the other side the intent isn’t to write scripted adventures. (Even though that’s what 12 to Midnight is known for.) How much is enough? How much is too much? Different GMs have different ideas (and needs), but we’re doing our best to strike a sensible balance.

Anyhow, I don’t regret all the little bits of life that kept me from finishing plot point 6 this past week. It’s what being a husband and a father is all about. However, I am going to make a stronger effort to use my down-time wisely and get this sucker finished.

Check back next week for an update on plot point six AND Class Notes on ETU’s basketball arena, the Roost. Due to space constraints we cut a lot of good “flavor text” about the Roost from the book, so I’m looking forward to sharing it with you here!

Part of me can’t believe it’s been over year since the last post on this website, but another part of me believes it just fine. I hope to resume an occasional game design journal here, if for no other reason than so that you can keep me accountable. However, I can’t really resume posting without addressing the elephant (or chupacabra) in the room. What happened to ETU?

Loyal 12 to Midnight fans will remember that we were working on a giant campaign book for the Savage Worlds system, based on Pinebox’s very own East Texas University (ETU). The actual name of the book is Degrees of Horror. In it, wet-behind-the-ears freshman are introduced to a world where ghosts and monsters prey upon the ignorant, but even heroes have to take final exams.

So what happened? My writing partner Ed and I worked on the book literally for years. Over time, it became apparent that the company 12 to Midnight was losing steam and that Degrees of Horror might be our very last book. Consequently, we wanted it to be our very best. We held (almost) nothing back. We poured nearly every cool idea we’d had for Pinebox into DoH. By the time we handed it in to Pinnacle in the spring of 2010, Degrees of Horror had become the “everything but the kitchen sink” of campaign books.

The effort to pull the book over the finish line took a lot out of both Ed and I. In a lot of ways, we felt like we’d just finished a marathon. Both of us are married with children and, unlike many of your other favorite game publishers, we both have full time jobs as well. The writing on 12 to Midnight books always came AFTER a full day (or week) of work. After nine years in business, we were all exhausted. Turning in Degrees of Horror felt like an enormous weight had been lifted.

Roughly six months later, the edits started coming back to us from Pinnacle. Our editor had a huge task. We’d given them “everything but the kitchen sink” when all they needed was a game about college students learning how to grow from victims to heroes. The majority of the edits come down to helping us distill the book back to its essence.

So here we are. It has been more than a year since the edits started rolling in. We started off strong (frankly just wanting to put the book behind us) then slowed down again. Without going into all the details, let’s just say life has a habit of getting in the way. Also, it’s a lot easier to pull those late nights in your early 30s than in your 40s. In 2011 weeks went by without either of us opening the files.

I think the turning point came over the Christmas holidays. We started picking up momentum again and I’ve been working on the book fairly regularly. We’re up to chapters 10 and 11 respectively, so we ARE making progress. My new routine is to get up at about 5:15 am and work for an hour before the kids get up. It seems to be working.

So that’s pretty much where things are with Degrees of Horror (aka, “ETU”). We’ve put too much of our lives into this book to not finish it, so it’s not a question of if but when. I feel good about the progress we’re making, and I know the book is going to be much, much better for the effort.

Next week, I’ll talk about my experience editing the plot points–without actually giving away the plot.

Originally posted on July 30.

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After a nice vacation last week (albeit slightly disrupted by Hurricane Dolly), it’s time for another weekly ETU: Degrees of Horror update.

First, horror website Flames Rising recently invited us to write an essay on the creative process behind writing horror games. The essay was posted last Friday, so check it out. While you’re there, check out some of their other interviews, essays, and reviews. If you like horror (and if you don’t, why are you reading this thread?), you’ll feel like a kid in a candystore.

Next, an update on the writing. On my side, the vacation really derailed my writing routine. All of last week was pretty much a wash. If you read my blog you’ll see that I lament the need to restore some writing discipline. I wrote this morning’s post yesterday (using the magic of post-dating), and last night I did in fact work on the plot points. Tonight is my “writing night”– the one night a week I leave the wife and kids at home, power up the laptop in a coffee shop, and hammer away for a few relatively uninterrupted hours. I’m not a night owl, so I’m a lot more productive at these sessions than when I’m putting the kids to bed and firing up the computer at 9 pm. I guess the point of all this is that I am still pushing forward, and I think once I build some writing momentum again then it won’t take long to finish the plot points. The rest of the book is essentially written.

Now that you’ve had a progress update, let me tell you about the game. I’ve talked about character creation, lingering over the parts unique to college such as majors, activities, final exams, and wealth. Now let’s talk about the adventures.

The less said about the plot points, the better. Generally speaking, the plot points are keyed to time: “When you reach this point in the semester, kick off this plot point”. In between the plot points, you can play Midnight Tales (renamed Savage Tales). Ed has written Midnight Tales based on your class (Freshman, Sophomore, etc.), your major (Agriculture, Engineering, etc.), extra-curricular activity (fraternity, ROTC, etc.) and location (History building, student center, etc.). He has written an insane number of Midnight Tales. (I should say we’ve also had some excellent contributions from Mike “Bloodshadows” Dukes.) The result is a campaign that is very customized to your group. While I (modestly) think that the plot point campaign is very cool, we’re giving you enough material that you could have a great campaign without ever touching them. Most likely, you could play Degrees of Horror three times without playing the same Midnight Tale twice.

Speaking of great material, I haven’t even touched on the other way to come up with an adventure– Ed’s adventure generator. I’ll save that for next week’s update since that probably deserves a post of its own.