I'm still hard at work finishing up the first draft of the second edition of Thousand Suns, so I'm not yet ready to return to regular blogging here. However, I recently read something that helped me organize some thoughts I'd been having for a while and I thought they might be worth sharing, especially in light of my advocacy for long RPG campaigns.
As you know, I'm a big fan of science fiction. Truth be told, I much prefer sci-fi to fantasy, despite the fact that I've probably played more fantasy roleplaying games than science fiction ones over the course of the last 45 years of gaming. That said, I'm very particular about my science fiction. I don't like everything with a spaceship or robot on its cover and, as I get older, I find my tastes are getting ever more picky. Consequently, I tend to be skeptical when someone recommends that I pick up a new SF novel, because I've been burned one too many times in the past. I'd much rather reread an old classic than take a chance on new stuff and be disappointed.
Still, a friend of mine recently recommended I take a look at "The Captive's War" series by James S.A. Corey, who was also responsible for "The Expanse" (which I've never read). The new series is planned as a trilogy and the second volume just came out, only two years after the first one. Both of these facts piqued my interest, because I have no patience for interminable series or series whose volumes aren't released at regular intervals. I don't want to wait until I have one foot in the grave before I see the end of a story.
Still, my natural apprehension made me look into these books a bit more before committing to reading them. I figured I owed it to myself to know what I might be getting into if I decided to take the plunge. In the process of doing so, I came across a recent interview with the "author" – really two authors,. Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, with a shared pen name, but I'm sure most of you already know that – that includes some genuinely interesting and insightful comments about the writing process and ultimate direction of the series. It's these comments that sparked this post and about which I want to write for a bit before returning to the salt mines once again.
“We live in a world where every large universe is supposed to be endlessly flogged,” Franck says. “Star Wars is never going to stop. It's told the same story a thousand times at this point. The evil Empire has been defeated over and over and over again. It always comes back. Plucky Rebels have to defeat the new iteration of it over and over and over again. It just endlessly repeats. And Star Trek is the same way. If you have a big universe, it is expected you will just keep dipping in that well over and over until you die, and then somebody else will take over and do it for you. Daniel and I don't enjoy that. We like endings. We like getting to an end: ‘Here's the end, and it's over.’”
I could probably devote several posts to the above alone, but instead I want to focus on what was said immediately after this:
Franck credits Abraham for coming up with a saying that sums up their feelings about longrunning series: “At some point, if you keep going, you become your own cover band.”
“We never want to do that,” Franck says. “We never want to become our own cover band, where you're just endlessly repeating what you said, and writing a slightly different version of the same story you've written a thousand times before. That would bore the shit out of me.”
This seems to me wise, if a bit melancholy: I'm currently in the fifth year of a 13th Age campaign, and the PCs are still only level six (out of a planned ten). The end, though inchoate, is starting to waver into vision. And when we finally reach it, I doubt I'll ever return to the game and its setting—not out of boredom or dissatisfaction, but simply because I'll have explored all the facets of both that I want to. I hope my players will feel the same by then (and that they don't feel the same now!).
ReplyDeleteI do think that Robin D. Laws's distinction between iconic and dramatic heroes may be useful here: Star Wars and Star Trek are both focused on iconic heroes and the stories they generate, which perforce are repetitive (see also: superhero comics). The settings themselves work against dramatic arcs in which characters and situations change irrevocably, and that's fine, but the only way to achieve dramatic closure with either is for the reader/viewer to literally walk away from the franchise.
It sounds very much as if House of Worms, like my 13th Age game, was more explicitly dramatic: characters change irreversibly, and so does their narrative world. One of my most satisfying GMing experiences was a lengthy In Nomine game thirty years or so ago: we ended with the literal Apocalypse, and while I still love that game, it's hard to imagine ever going back to it because...where else would I take the setting after that? Anticlimax would be inevitable.
This is where Traveller as a game shines. I’ve run and played in both a Freetrader political intrigue game and a military/Scout exploration game. A lot of games tend to virtuously support one main theme and if your lucky a secondary one. Twilight 2000’s primary arc was always getting home from Europe. The home front stuff was a spin off.
ReplyDeleteCertainly can't argue with the contention that stories should end at some point rather than being endlessly rehashed to make a little more money on the "franchise" that it's become. Watching the slow transition of scifi and fantasy entertainment over the last 50+ years away from short stories and stand-alone novels into unending series and multi-media IPs has sure made that clear.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of the “ending aversion” in popular nerd culture comes from comic books. A monthly comic is notoriously hard to end. And so they run until people lose interest enough that cost exceeds profit. The genius of “Into the Spiderverse” is they tweak the Miles Morales handoff so they can have their cake and eat it too. In my mind that is how spiderman ends - Peter finds Miles, trains him a bit and then meets his end. Batman has a similar established narrative.
ReplyDeleteBut like you said the story, whatever it is, feels incomplete if it has no ending.
I think "ending aversion" is manufactured by the IP owners. Studios need revenue, and a sequel is a safer bet than launching a brand new IP, especially when films have never been more costly to produce and market.
Delete(Now, Disney trials new IP on Disney +, and if it succeeds enough, they'll risk it on the big screen, e.g. the Mandalorian movie next month.)
"Ending aversion" plagues RPG publishers too. It's why D&D has a new Player's Handbook every 5-10 years. And why they have to keep re-releasing modules from the '70s and '80s under the latest rules-set. Telling the same stories over and over again, like their own greatest hits cover band.
We're talking about the conflict of art vs. commerce. Commerce won a long time ago.
Commerce is only allowed to 'win', because people keep paying for the content. If 'people' genuinely do not like it, they should stop paying for it, and 'vote with their wallets', which might then result in art 'winning'.
DeleteTrue. But, alas, people love it.
Deletehttps://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2025/?ref_=bo_yl_table_2
Of the 15 top-earning movies last year, only 1 was based on new IP.
And D&D 5e is the top-earning RPG of the 21st century.
'Ending aversion' is working well for the IP owners who manufacture it.
I sometimes wonder if 'religion in general' suffers from that same 'ending aversion' as well, with regards to there supposedly being no 'ending' when people die: the notion that it doesn't all simply stop when people die, but the need for there being a 'something' that eternally continues after the physical body stops functioning.
DeleteInteresting idea. There was an evolutionary advantage to our survival instinct. Constructing an afterlife concept could be an unintended consequence of that survival urge.
DeleteThat's a possible explanation I actually never thought of before myself (at least not beyond the 'it fulfills a human need' idea) : a survival instinct that is biologically determined. It actually makes a lot of sense now that you articulated that idea. Thanks for sharing.
DeleteSure thing.
DeleteA robin built a nest outside our window last month and we watched her sit on her eggs, and now feed her young. All that complex activity, done by biological instinct.
Because people are more intelligent than animals, we assume that biological instinct plays no part in our behavior; that it's all free will. But we're wrong. We're animals too, of course. Highly complex ones, but animals none the less.
Those instincts interact with our intelligence in new ways, with unintended consequences sometimes.
George R.R. Martin would share a word with you, but mostly because he can no longer come up with a single one on his own...
ReplyDeleteHere is the counterweight - if you adhere exactly to the 1:1 time ratio demanded by Gygax, no expansive setting ever (in ideal play) should come to an end. I hated Gygax time - never used it, until I did. What it did for my refereeing was nothing short of a revelation. I have a 11-year campaign that has been on a player break for 6 years now. Stuff is still happening. The adventuring party hasn't adventured for years; most are working, some are running out of their money acquired in younger days. They are still in the same village (based on Hommlet), that has grown in the past six years, and has had a bloody revolt and a famine harvest. More dungeons and treasures have been mapped and sold, with varying degrees of success. Designs for the world's first printing press are underway, a year or two away from its debut. Theoretically, even if the party lives and dies quietly in the town, it is a trifle to update the weekly (er, monthly, er bi-monthly if I forget) calendar, and it is possible in their lifetimes that they will see the introduction of gunpowder.
I've very gently retroactively revived - playerlessly - an old campaign from the 80s. The random weakened or dead Space Marines shipwrecked and wandering monsters near the (non-Greyhawkian) Barrier Peaks have developed outposts and operational warbases there. The parties are in their sixties or older - elves barely changed, Dwarves even less so.
Even before I bowed the knee to the Gygaxian Timetable, I loved replaying modules, often times portraying the older parties who had been their before with reputations contrary to their original identity. In Lost City, a later party came across the remains of their old hapless, reckless PCs from a TPK from wandering thouls and a particularly crafty and violent tapestry. In death, these idiots' reputation had grown to become the Great Foreign Heroes who ventured into the "lowest" level to confront Zargon himself, and given the last measure of their valor to the cause. In reality, a bad surprise and initiative roll, botched combat, a fumbled torch, and, frankly, no idea how to fight a rug was all they had. Nevertheless, Star Wars, as a story is tired. Star Trek is worse (especially since the inevitable trajectory of Starfleet as Imperial Dictatorship and Galactic Order was never explored logically or resolved.) Asimov absolutely never could figure out how to quit, probably because he liked money a lot. Ender's Game should have ended right there - it was perfect. The bloat of Dark Tower was drug fueled. Only Cooper got it right with the Dark is Rising series.
The Game, to me, however, is far less about story and far more about history. Good story must end. Good history can't.
I'm conflicted about the topic, in the sense that I agree with both opposites of the spectrum: I feel that things should change (like but not limited to a TTRPG setting) simultaneously with the feeling that here is always more new stories to be told in the same setting. For example, I absolutely love all the 'Star Wars' series that have been produced by Disney recent-ish. But at the same time, I also feel that you cannot be endlessly re-telling the 'Luke Skywalker' story over and over again without it getting boring. Yes, I fully realize these statements are in direct conflict with each other, but no-one ever stated that humans should make sense. Oh, well.
ReplyDeleteAmen - I may not fully agree with you, but I do empathize. There is something beautiful about letting something end - one of the main reasons that I am such a fan of Cowboy Bebop.
ReplyDeleteRe: The Expanse, just watch the TV series. The novels (at least what little I read of the 10 volumes) are fine — and I'm glad I read them — but they are really just a rough draft of the masterpiece that is screen version of THE EXPANSE.
ReplyDeleteThe novels tell a complete story over the lives of the main characters. Just the kind of thing James is looking for. I'm honestly amazed he hasn't read them, given his love of sci-fi. Especially since the authors are done with the series and James doesn't have to worry about being trapped in a neverending series.
DeleteThe TV series did an amazing job of adapting the first 6? books and are visually stunning and mostly stay true to the novels. Luckily they got to end the tv series before it was cancelled at a natural stopping point in the story. I believe I heard a few years ago that a movie was in the works, but haven't heard anything recently.
Honestly, James - trust your friend and read the Expanse, or watch the show. You owe it to yourself as a fan of science fiction.
I love Glorantha. In my younger days I ran a massive campaign that took the players from humble beginnings through the Hero Wars to free Sartar from the oppressive Lunar Empire.
ReplyDeleteIt’s still fondly talked about today. I have an old friend who is also a Gloranthaphile. Due to life (wars in the Middle East and such), he was unable to participate. I have tried, several times now, to start a new campaign, one in which he can participate, but they always fizzle. It feels like treading the same well worn path. There’s nothing new to discover.
It’s frustrating for my friend, but for those of us who took part in such a magical game, it’s dull and a bit sad trying to recapture it.
Of course, citing Star Wars as an example only works when you look at the travesty that Disney made of it (some of the streaming shows notwithstanding). In the original expanded universe novels and comics before Disney retconned them we go to see the setting move on from the war against the Empire and explore the process of creating a new Republic, while the plots could range from Luke investigating a cult on board a luxury space station to fighting off an invasion from an alien species who are immune to the Force and having to reluctantly work together with ex-Imperials who had been part of a secret Imperial project to stop the invasion that was spoiled by the Empire's fall.
ReplyDelete