Episode 17: Using RPGs to level up as a writer

Crys: Hello friends. It is November the 24th, 2020 as we are recording this morning. I’m your host, Crys Cain with my cohost…

JP: JP Rindfleisch. I’m still here.

Crys: I should just get you to say your name. I should have figured out this pro move earlier.

JP: Wonderful.

Crys: How was your writing week?

JP: It was significantly better than last week, but we had some Essential Gathering stuff this weekend, so that kinda took, a little bit of the time. But it was totally worth it and it snowed today. And, I’m very excited about that. So that’s a distraction to writing.

Crys: That’s snuggle in weather. I don’t really miss the snow. .

JP: It is a little too late in the season for snow, but I’m fine with it.  How about writing for you?

Crys: So I messaged you last night. A friend, Sasha was like, “Oh, it sounds you’re reacting to having a really busy week,” when I was like, “Yeah, I haven’t been able to listen to podcasts or whatever. I don’t even know what I did last week. I don’t think I did anything.”

But I’ve started tracking like my to-do list online in Notion.so. And I was like, “Oh, like I only have a week’s worth. I can absolutely see what I got done last week.” So I went in, I was like, “Oh, I had a book released last week.”

That’s what I did. Completely wiped from my brain. I don’t know how I managed to have a successful business at all, but I apparently do. There is that.

JP: But hey, congratulations on the book release, right?

Crys: Yeah! It’s going well, I’m pleased. And then we had the Essential Gathering for The Author Success Mastermind this weekend, which was good. I actually got a lot out of creating— what we did was, day one was a bit of craft, day two was business.

Day two, we basically created a Pixar Pitch of our business plan. I have been trying to do business plans this year. There’s a group of friends that I have, we have been having some really good conversations around that. I just hadn’t found a way that worked for my brain until, until J Thorn brought this Business Model Canvas to us, and he’s using it in his RevolutionFI framework. but he brought us the original Creative Commons version and I’ll probably share what mine is in the links.

JP: I think in contrast to how well you took onto the business model, I struggled with that thing—and I really liked it. I really liked the kind of approach of looking at what your business can provide and making that one page. But that was difficult for me. So I, I’m actually excited to see what, cause I’m not going to steal it, but adhere it to what my model might be.

I wasn’t, I wasn’t mentally prepared for that, but it was a good not mentally prepared day.

Crys: I think for a lot of people, it’s really hard to put any kind of business plan together when they haven’t already been in business for themselves. Which is why banks make people do business plans before giving them money. They want you To you to  prove that you know  what you’re doing, or at least can pretend enough that you know what you’re doing.

JP: Yeah, that was a fun experience that I will definitely have to keep working on.

Crys: Okay. So you had this idea for talking about how role-playing games can help you to become a better author.

JP: Yeah.

Crys: And I have only just started within the past three or four months participating in role-playing games. We’re not going to count the one time eleven years ago when my neighbor tried to get us into one and she was a terrible DM—dungeon master or game master—and created a six-armed, hairy alien that just wanted to have sex with everybody.

And that was not a good situation.  But it did scare me off from trying to find a group for a while because your DM matters. So I have been trying and I’ve been, I’ve just been having difficulty with it. Which, I thought as a writer I would take to role-playing very easily and it’s not been easy for me.

Creating character was easy, but then doing the consistent character playing parts has not. So I told you this and you said you’ve had some ideas.

JP: Yeah. So I am a bit of a role-playing nerd or collector. I don’t really know what you want to call it, but basically if I see a pretty decent role-playing game on Kickstarter, I will kickstart it because I cannot stop.

And I’m pretty sure I have twenty-plus different types of RPGs. I think the reason why I like RPG so much is the ability to create such a vast world in which your DMs are capable of then creating the stories within them. so not only from someone who likes creating those expansive worlds, seeing what someone else has developed, but then seeing how you could almost create these stories.

Because, if you take a look at Dungeons and Dragons—how many stories have actually been created off of that platform of that world? It’s innumerous. You cannot put a number to it, because there’s just more every day. So that’s why I think RPGs are this well that writers should really leap into. For characters when you play and you have a DM who, is hopefully at least not creating one like what your DM created.

You basically have to deal with the choices in your character within a split second roll. Most games you roll dice. Some games you flip tarot cards. Other games, you do a bunch of different other things and it depends on how mechanics heavy versus story heavy the RPG is, and where it fits on that scale.

But ultimately, when you want to do something as a character, you need to roll dice, or you need to negotiate how you’re going to do that. And then you need to decide what your choices after that.

I feel like that is extremely important for writers, because when it comes down to it, you have to make these character choices while you’re writing it.

And when you’re playing role-playing games, those are split second decisions. And they’re not always the ones that you’re like, “Oh, this is a wise decision. “Because if you fail on trying to jump across a bridge, you didn’t make it, so you have to figure out how to fix that problem. I think it’s a pretty important piece for role-playing games for writers.

You said you didn’t have good experience or we didn’t want to count that one, but how about this other one that I’ve heard that you’re a part of? How’s that one going?

Crys: It’s going okay. The problem that I find is—talking about Clifton Strengths here—is that I’m high Intellection. So I tend to take time to think things over.

I don’t think that most people realize that because I think about so many things all the time in my head. So by the time somebody asks me a question on most things, I’ve already thought about this for three months. And so I’m able to give you an answer that sounds like, “Oh, this off the cuff, here’s my answer.”

I don’t have three months to think about this character that I just created, and what they would do and how they would interact with other people who are gonna do completely different things. And I’m not in control of them, which is good, fine. But in that split moment, I’m just like, I’m gonna… I’m gonna observe. I’m gonna observe. Like, I should have created that character who’s an observer, apparently. But that’s not the character I created. And so I’m having trouble getting into the character and in those split moment kinds of thing.

JP: To me, that sounds like you need to work on character backstory, because you’re not relating to your character. Did you say you were playing Pathfinder when we’ve talked about it? The one thing I noticed with Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder is that while there is some character backstory, it’s okay. It’s not bad. It’s just… okay.

One of the games that I’m a huge proponent for is a game system called Invisible Sun. This comes from Monte Cook Games, and I don’t know how available it is now, but you can always get his different types because they all follow a simple flow.

Just throwing them out there, the Cipher system and Numinera, but ultimately he focuses on character creation and character development and these backstories. In the Invisible Sun games, I’ve played, I’ve DMed them. So I have to then create how these characters intertwined and intermix and how we can work on character arcs together.

Conveniently enough, in Invisible Sun, there are also character arcs. So it really focuses on storytelling as it’s forefront. Now in Dungeons and Dragons there are other supplemental things you can use to figure out how you could create a character backstory.

I follow this podcast called the One Shot Podcast. I highly recommend this even if you don’t personally want to get into role-playing games for any of the listeners out there, but you just want to get a feel for what it’s like to hear what these role-playing games are like. Or maybe to get a taste of what Invisible Sun is like or what some other game systems are like.

One Shot Podcast is a group of comedians from Chicago that come together and they play these role-playing games. They are fantastic. They’re amazing. Their leader. or the one who basically created the podcast from the start was James D’Amato, and he has… I conveniently have it right here, An Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide.

I enjoy this book. It is very dense. There are pieces you can skip over, but he really focuses on how you can make your character really strong and how you can create those backstories that really resonate. And aren’t just pick from the back of the Pathfinder book. So I would recommend this if you’re a player just because it will help you create someone that you can resonate with.

And then I feel like once you have that, you would be able to make those sorts of choices a little bit more.

Crys: I love that recommendation. Y you said that you also had some ideas for people who can’t find a group to play?

JP: So the big one was the One Shot Podcast. For years I couldn’t find a group and I still wanted to get that feel as to what RPGs could do for my writing. And listening to other people, how they respond, how they react— there are hours, I would say, days worth of content from that one website where you can listen to how choices have to be made in a split second decision decisions based off of roles.

The reason I would recommend this over any sort of radio play or any other sort of media, is those characters are going off of a script. There is already a defined choice. Whereas when you talk about role-playing games, the players themselves have to make these choices within split seconds. So you can see why they’re making those choices a little bit clearer.

There are also a single player RPG games. I know that tabletop RPGs get a lot of flack. I’m sure you’re rolling your eyes or at least some of you might be, but, hey, people play video games by themselves. Why can’t you play single player tabletop?

I would say try those out. One that I’ve heard a lot about, but I don’t have experience in is called Gloomhaven.  I think it’s involved with cards and you have to make decisions based off of that, but it’s just experiencing someone else’s very in-depth world and seeing how you can fit a story into it.

Crys: I love that. I don’t really have anything to add to this because this is something that I desperately want to be able to do well, to play RPG games. And it’s been frustrating me. So I’m definitely gonna get dig into that Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide—a long name.

JP: He’s got a very specific SEO.

Crys: For people who are writers and are getting into RPGs or have already gotten into RPGs, can you talk a little bit different about the difference between playing as a player versus as a DM.

JP: Yeah. So I feel like there are going to be a lot of people that are afraid to DM, but they should DM. And the reason behind that is you can create these stories for these characters and then you basically have no control over those characters. They will do what they want. And so it helps you create this world in which you’re able to focus on what happens if this, what happens if that, and create these little side quests.  The Monte Cook, games, I’m explicitly talking about Invisible Sun, but it also includes the other two that I’ve mentioned, are focused on this kind of character and arc building.

For writers, I would highly recommend his collection, just because it is very focused on that kind of writing and narrative story-building. So I feel like those would tie closer to writers. As a player, you have no control over the story and you just have to figure out well, if I’m, a non-binary assassin, why am I here? Why do I care about this rude cleric who doesn’t let me steal anything, even though I’m a rogue? You have to find a way to create those friendships. And yes, you can play a game and you can focus on just your character. But the important part, especially for storytellers is you have to figure out how you fit in how your character fits in. Why they’re there.

And we do this when we write, so why wouldn’t we do this when we play games? And it’s just, there’s that aspect of having other people playing with you where you don’t have control over those other pieces, that you can then figure out how you can build up these things that you have control over, and figure out how they fit into the narrative.

Crys: As a player you’re working on your character creation hardcore and as a DM, maybe plot and world building and all that fun stuff.

Have you ever thought about writing an RPG yourself?

JP: It is a big task, because I’m one of those people that it has to be perfect. And I know it won’t be, but I’ve definitely considered it.

I think that’s part of why I collect so much of it is just because I’m trying to find the pieces that are missing that maybe I could bring to the table. But yeah, maybe one day.

Crys: What is our question for the listeners?

JP: Have you played, RPG? What experiences have you had playing them?

Crys: And if so, how have you applied that to your writing and if you haven’t, are you going to in the future? That’s like… five.

JP: I know, but we want to know them all. I think it’s just, I think RPGs are pretty cool. So I want people to try them. Another one, if you’re scared to jump into it, or if you have, others around you that are iffy, is a system called Dread. You use the Jenga tower, and if the Jenga tower falls when you pull it, your character’s dead.

I think that one’s really fun. I haven’t played that one with people that didn’t like it. Everyone I played with loved the game, so I highly recommend that one.

Crys: Come join us in the conversation at www.writeawaypodcast.com.