First Light: The Unseen
First Light:
The Unseen
Scattershot presents: The Unseen, a Work in Progress
Where did Scattershot presents: The Unseen, Stalking the Courts of the Hidden Kings come from?
That's a tough question; in hindsight it seems to be something I've been working on my whole life. A few key ideas popped up recently and, as far as I can tell, ruined gaming for me, possibly for a good long time.
Færies
I've always been a big fan of modern setting færie tales.
Mage: the Hero Discovered (not ...Defined, it sucked)
Charles de Lint færie stories
Harry Potter
Superheroes
I've always played superhero games, since as far back as Champions first edition. They really suited the scope of play I sought, but they had two big problems. First, they never really 'captured' the feel of mainstream comic books. The second problem was much harder to pin down; I thought if I could just capture the feel of comic books, I'd have it. Turns out just the opposite. The more my games grew towards comic books, the less satisfying they were. It had partly to do with the 'flashy' nature of spandex-clad superheroes. It had partly to do with the 'overly personal' nature of the stories told. For a long time, I simply couldn't put my finger on it.
Both superhero comics and modern færie tales taunted me and tempted me. One night, late, we were out driving and this newspaper blew across the beams of the headlights of our car. For a second, both of us thought it was a Froudian¹ færie that transformed into paper merely to fool our mortal eyes. It was very convincing. It also got me thinking. Many stories talk about 'The Sight;' the ability to perceive the færie realm at any time. I posited, "What if we turn that around?" What if, instead of having something special about them, people with 'the Sight' were actually normal and everyone else had something wrong with them. My, but that tickled whatever bothered me; yet I still didn't figure it out.
Other Media
We liked the movie The Crow quite a bit. Well, except that the first part dwelt a little too much on 'killing the bad men' and the end was too superhero (funny that). It was all about magic and romantic vengeance from beyond the grave, quite epic. In fact, after living through James O'Barr's comic (you don't read a work like The Crow, you experience it), we were inspired to create a similar hero for our superhero comic. Well, not really, more like a chapter-long character sketch of someone who died with his girlfriend at the hands of a supervillain, only to awaken in the funeral home (needing to slash their wrists to 'bleed out' the embalming fluids). Not terribly original, it didn't fit our comic, but some things just need created to 'clear the palate.'
My wife always tells these stories about sitting on the dock by her grandparents home whispering for the water færies to take her away; she always imagined them saying that they could not give her something she already had. We used to discuss how this did and didn't resemble the stories of Charles de Lint. Then I heard about the ceremony to seal and release the winter dragon at the turn of the seasons; I was so close.
Breaking Through, a Little Bit at a Time
Well, one day I was whining about the banality of White Wolf's Changeling saying, quite innocently, that 'it coulda been good.' Caro, my wife and partner, pointed out that the ceremony of the winter dragon was nothing like that. In an epiphany, I posed the idea that instead of the current era being the 'end times' for færies, as suggested in many, many other places, we were actually, culturally, and metaphysically, at the end of the 'time of man.' Perhaps 'winter' was about to turn spring; maybe the færies were on the verge of arriving once more.
And then there was that character we'd created; he's always prowled about the edges of my graphic creativity. I had one image of him, dressed as a biker with sunglasses at night, his baseball bat hanging from a thong out of his back pocket. (How did Kevin Matchstick get in there?) And then one hot summer's night, it 'clicked.' All suddenly fell into place, the 'you get to play the monsters' vague idea for Scattershot, the list I gave above of færie tales, Doyle (our 'tragic hero'), the ceremony of the dragon, The Understanding (that's what we've called the opposite of The Sight).
What if?
Suppose the world was just as mythical and magical as all the myths and færie tales said. What if, back in the time of Xenophenes, a goddess of knowledge granted that Greek hero The Understanding of the world that he craved? What if it blinded men to things that could not be 'explained?' What if it could be taught? The Understanding spreads across Europe when the lost texts it had been recorded in were rediscovered, the Renaissance. Wherever missionaries spread the gospel, they leave The Understanding. The world of man turns to science to survive and progress kicks into overdrive. Years pass, worlds are discovered; man conquers the elements on his own. And even the færies themselves find themselves susceptible to The Understanding.
Now suppose all that was coming to an end. What would happen if great physicists cavorted with the same goddess? Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Bell, what if these men reached the farthest reaches that The Understanding could take them only to find chaos and uncertainty (and cats) looking back at them. Magic still existed. It hadn't been locked away, it wasn't going or gone; man had only been blind to it all these centuries. Oh, sure, every now and then someone would 'break through,' but each time they'd be thought mad, or simply misUnderstood. Every time færies were sealed away, there were fewer and fewer to release them.
What if the tide were turning?
The Unseen
A game that captures the return of fæ times, where you fight, like heroes of old, to save, to free, to protect, to love, that's what we discovered we had. I'm really excited by it; it satisfies everything I had wanted but was missing. I was always riled by the idea that the fæ were fading away, that heroism, chivalry, honor, and heartfelt love were becoming meaningless. What The Unseen does is turn that inside out; all the old stories of færies being sealed away, leaving the earth behind, of the old magic dying are reversed. Magic is being found; spirits and fæ are returning to the land, the world is becoming a more magical place. And 'nats' can't see any of it. (A 'nat' is a human who is 'natural,' the way we've all become accustomed. We've never much cared for put-downs like 'mundanes' or 'muggles.')
But how do you formalize that for a game? Well, I've got a few ideas that I'd like to share with you. The first night brainstorming lead to an interesting list:
Rewards:
Save Some for Later
Next issue, I'll delve into the Relationships in the game and we'll talk some about the Arch-Sequences that make it epic. I hope you're looking forward to this as much as I am. And I hope that you don't mind if I keep you up-to-date with it as far as we've got it. I really haven't done any more at this point. You're going to get a first hand look at product development, Impswitch style.
Fang Langford
¹ Brian Froud has illustrated a number of færie books, such as Fairies.
Where did Scattershot presents: The Unseen, Stalking the Courts of the Hidden Kings come from?
That's a tough question; in hindsight it seems to be something I've been working on my whole life. A few key ideas popped up recently and, as far as I can tell, ruined gaming for me, possibly for a good long time.
Færies
I've always been a big fan of modern setting færie tales.
Mage: the Hero Discovered (not ...Defined, it sucked)
- At the time I read it, it changed my life. It also happens I wore a beard, jeans, and you guessed it, black t-shirts. Latex lightning bolts don't breathe too well.
Charles de Lint færie stories
- They really capture the feel I wanted for a modern færie tale, but with more a 'epic' quality. We wrestled with this one for so long.
Harry Potter
- Quite fascinating, I liked the movies more than I'm willing to admit, but maybe without all the 'hidden cupboards' and secrecy.
Superheroes
I've always played superhero games, since as far back as Champions first edition. They really suited the scope of play I sought, but they had two big problems. First, they never really 'captured' the feel of mainstream comic books. The second problem was much harder to pin down; I thought if I could just capture the feel of comic books, I'd have it. Turns out just the opposite. The more my games grew towards comic books, the less satisfying they were. It had partly to do with the 'flashy' nature of spandex-clad superheroes. It had partly to do with the 'overly personal' nature of the stories told. For a long time, I simply couldn't put my finger on it.
Both superhero comics and modern færie tales taunted me and tempted me. One night, late, we were out driving and this newspaper blew across the beams of the headlights of our car. For a second, both of us thought it was a Froudian¹ færie that transformed into paper merely to fool our mortal eyes. It was very convincing. It also got me thinking. Many stories talk about 'The Sight;' the ability to perceive the færie realm at any time. I posited, "What if we turn that around?" What if, instead of having something special about them, people with 'the Sight' were actually normal and everyone else had something wrong with them. My, but that tickled whatever bothered me; yet I still didn't figure it out.
Other Media
We liked the movie The Crow quite a bit. Well, except that the first part dwelt a little too much on 'killing the bad men' and the end was too superhero (funny that). It was all about magic and romantic vengeance from beyond the grave, quite epic. In fact, after living through James O'Barr's comic (you don't read a work like The Crow, you experience it), we were inspired to create a similar hero for our superhero comic. Well, not really, more like a chapter-long character sketch of someone who died with his girlfriend at the hands of a supervillain, only to awaken in the funeral home (needing to slash their wrists to 'bleed out' the embalming fluids). Not terribly original, it didn't fit our comic, but some things just need created to 'clear the palate.'
My wife always tells these stories about sitting on the dock by her grandparents home whispering for the water færies to take her away; she always imagined them saying that they could not give her something she already had. We used to discuss how this did and didn't resemble the stories of Charles de Lint. Then I heard about the ceremony to seal and release the winter dragon at the turn of the seasons; I was so close.
Breaking Through, a Little Bit at a Time
Well, one day I was whining about the banality of White Wolf's Changeling saying, quite innocently, that 'it coulda been good.' Caro, my wife and partner, pointed out that the ceremony of the winter dragon was nothing like that. In an epiphany, I posed the idea that instead of the current era being the 'end times' for færies, as suggested in many, many other places, we were actually, culturally, and metaphysically, at the end of the 'time of man.' Perhaps 'winter' was about to turn spring; maybe the færies were on the verge of arriving once more.
And then there was that character we'd created; he's always prowled about the edges of my graphic creativity. I had one image of him, dressed as a biker with sunglasses at night, his baseball bat hanging from a thong out of his back pocket. (How did Kevin Matchstick get in there?) And then one hot summer's night, it 'clicked.' All suddenly fell into place, the 'you get to play the monsters' vague idea for Scattershot, the list I gave above of færie tales, Doyle (our 'tragic hero'), the ceremony of the dragon, The Understanding (that's what we've called the opposite of The Sight).
What if?
Suppose the world was just as mythical and magical as all the myths and færie tales said. What if, back in the time of Xenophenes, a goddess of knowledge granted that Greek hero The Understanding of the world that he craved? What if it blinded men to things that could not be 'explained?' What if it could be taught? The Understanding spreads across Europe when the lost texts it had been recorded in were rediscovered, the Renaissance. Wherever missionaries spread the gospel, they leave The Understanding. The world of man turns to science to survive and progress kicks into overdrive. Years pass, worlds are discovered; man conquers the elements on his own. And even the færies themselves find themselves susceptible to The Understanding.
Now suppose all that was coming to an end. What would happen if great physicists cavorted with the same goddess? Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Bell, what if these men reached the farthest reaches that The Understanding could take them only to find chaos and uncertainty (and cats) looking back at them. Magic still existed. It hadn't been locked away, it wasn't going or gone; man had only been blind to it all these centuries. Oh, sure, every now and then someone would 'break through,' but each time they'd be thought mad, or simply misUnderstood. Every time færies were sealed away, there were fewer and fewer to release them.
What if the tide were turning?
The Unseen
A game that captures the return of fæ times, where you fight, like heroes of old, to save, to free, to protect, to love, that's what we discovered we had. I'm really excited by it; it satisfies everything I had wanted but was missing. I was always riled by the idea that the fæ were fading away, that heroism, chivalry, honor, and heartfelt love were becoming meaningless. What The Unseen does is turn that inside out; all the old stories of færies being sealed away, leaving the earth behind, of the old magic dying are reversed. Magic is being found; spirits and fæ are returning to the land, the world is becoming a more magical place. And 'nats' can't see any of it. (A 'nat' is a human who is 'natural,' the way we've all become accustomed. We've never much cared for put-downs like 'mundanes' or 'muggles.')
But how do you formalize that for a game? Well, I've got a few ideas that I'd like to share with you. The first night brainstorming lead to an interesting list:
Rewards:
- Boon/Gift/Bequest/Forfeit
Debt/Service/Servitude
Incarnation
Advice/Training/Council
Office/Title/Fief/Alliance
Kinship/Marriage/Hostage
Curse
Sacrifice/Loss
Enslavement
- Undo/Solve/Riddle/Write
Quest/Work/Serve
Bargain/Trade
Battle/Destroy/Subdue
Theft/Remove
Build/Create/Repair/Heal
Move/Return/Replace
- Conspiracies/Cabals
Secrets/Hidden
Movements/Institutions/Orthodoxies
Guardianships
Seals/Bindings
Misunderstandings/Tragedies
History
- A Schemer negotiating a Boon, Debt, a Service/Servitude
A Hero claiming Boons or Forfeits
A Villain taking Alliances, Services, or Curses (on others)
A Victim suffers Sacrifice/Loss/Enslavement
A Romantic making a Sacrifice
A Artisan being Rewarded
Save Some for Later
Next issue, I'll delve into the Relationships in the game and we'll talk some about the Arch-Sequences that make it epic. I hope you're looking forward to this as much as I am. And I hope that you don't mind if I keep you up-to-date with it as far as we've got it. I really haven't done any more at this point. You're going to get a first hand look at product development, Impswitch style.
Fang Langford
¹ Brian Froud has illustrated a number of færie books, such as Fairies.
posted by Fang Langford at
1/02/2006 02:25:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home