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Gyor
Master of Realmslore
1621 Posts |
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Azar
Master of Realmslore
1297 Posts |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36781 Posts |
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AJA
Senior Scribe
USA
749 Posts |
 Posted - 02 Feb 2022 : 06:38:44
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Who?
Illuskan, I'm thinking. Ooh, maybe a Cormyrean Harper!
As for author, definitely not Salvatore. Could be from Jeff Grubb...no, I know, Erik Scott de Bie!
(wait, this isn't the How did authors come up with all those names? thread?)
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AJA
YAFRP
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HighOne
Learned Scribe
214 Posts |
Posted - 02 Feb 2022 : 16:50:51
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| Apparently he directed Dodgeball and a number of other comedies. So the show will probably be comedic. I'm not sure how I feel about that... |
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Eilserus
Master of Realmslore
USA
1446 Posts |
Posted - 02 Feb 2022 : 17:20:44
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| Interesting. Wouldn't mind a replacement for Adventure Time. Luv me some of that series. As long as they don't go the way of the old DnD movies, they might pull it off. |
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Irennan
Great Reader
Italy
3802 Posts |
Posted - 02 Feb 2022 : 22:33:41
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quote:
Originally posted by HighOne
Apparently he directed Dodgeball and a number of other comedies. So the show will probably be comedic. I'm not sure how I feel about that...
Comedy can fit D&D quite well IMO. If anything, it might even be better than serious stuff. That's because the worldbuilding behind a lot of D&D is quite dated. Things tend to be part of the lore "just because", rather than because they drive the theme of the story forward (which leads to the lore becoming a hodgepodge of tropes), and some situations are really not well thought out, and tend to lead to some ridiculousness. We have a lore that runs on tropes that have been done over and over, but that doesn't add anything interesting to those. This is why, IMO, a show that doesn't take itself too seriously, and that can use those tropes and ridiculousness for comedy, though still "already seen", has more chances than a show that takes itself seriously AND proposes to the viewers the same thing that they have already seen over and over. |
Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things. |
Edited by - Irennan on 02 Feb 2022 22:55:38 |
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Azar
Master of Realmslore
1297 Posts |
Posted - 02 Feb 2022 : 23:21:08
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quote:
Originally posted by Irennan
quote:
Originally posted by HighOne
Apparently he directed Dodgeball and a number of other comedies. So the show will probably be comedic. I'm not sure how I feel about that...
Comedy can fit D&D quite well IMO. If anything, it might even be better than serious stuff. That's because the worldbuilding behind a lot of D&D is quite dated. Things tend to be part of the lore "just because", rather than because they drive the theme of the story forward (which leads to the lore becoming a hodgepodge of tropes), and some situations are really not well thought out, and tend to lead to some ridiculousness. We have a lore that runs on tropes that have been done over and over, but that doesn't add anything interesting to those. This is why, IMO, a show that doesn't take itself too seriously, and that can use those tropes and ridiculousness for comedy, though still "already seen", has more chances than a show that takes itself seriously AND proposes to the viewers the same thing that they have already seen over and over.
You say "dated"; I say "classic". All of these modern and often jokey subversions of classics are either on the verge of becoming or are already "old hat" by this point precisely because they are now ubiquitous. Incidentally, if the comedy takes after a popular influence, say...Marvel's cinematic studios...then I would be doubly against such an offering. |
Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
Earth names in the Realms are more common than you may think. |
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Irennan
Great Reader
Italy
3802 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2022 : 02:13:21
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| It's not classic, it's dated because it's just "whatever goes", rather than stemming for a specific "what if" tailored for the story you want to tell, and it doesn't even follow any criteria (for example, the magic system is non-existent, spells can do everything). The subversions are indeed old hat, but IMHO they still have more chances than things that have already been done so many times AND are directionless storytelling/worldbuilding. D&D worldbuilding is good for a game, because it offers a lot of options for a decent sandbox, but if you want a well written story, it's more a hindrance than anything, because you can't tailor it around your theme and the kind of conflict you want for your character. |
Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things. |
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Dalor Darden
Great Reader
USA
4211 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2022 : 03:24:26
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| Like I said elsewhere: episodic like the old cartoon with a structure like Star Trek...I think that would be nice. |
The Old Grey Box and AD&D for me! |
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Azar
Master of Realmslore
1297 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2022 : 03:39:46
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quote:
Originally posted by Irennan
It's not classic, it's dated because it's just "whatever goes", rather than stemming for a specific "what if" tailored for the story you want to tell, and it doesn't even follow any criteria (for example, the magic system is non-existent, spells can do everything). The subversions are indeed old hat, but IMHO they still have more chances than things that have already been done so many times AND are directionless storytelling/worldbuilding. D&D worldbuilding is good for a game, because it offers a lot of options for a decent sandbox, but if you want a well written story, it's more a hindrance than anything, because you can't tailor it around your theme and the kind of conflict you want for your character.
How about an honest-to-goodness straightforward tale of four Purple Dragon Knights tasked with slaying a wyvern harassing an outlying Cormyrean village? On the way there, we get the character development along with a trickle feed of action until the season ends with the promised battle.
Alternatively, your classic Fighter/Wizard/Thief/Priest are tasked with discreetly rescuing a noble...even a *gasp* princess. No major twist: the royal is who they are described to be and they're not secretly evil or a major jerk. There can be minor twists during the quest to keep things fresh, but the premise is simple.
It is amazing what can be accomplished with the essentials: good to great writing, directing, cinematography, set design and acting. |
Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
Earth names in the Realms are more common than you may think. |
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HighOne
Learned Scribe
214 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2022 : 03:59:02
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quote:
Originally posted by Azar
How about an honest-to-goodness straightforward tale of four Purple Dragon Knights tasked with slaying a wyvern harassing an outlying Cormyrean village? On the way there, we get the character development along with a trickle feed of action until the season ends with the promised battle.
Alternatively, your classic Fighter/Wizard/Thief/Priest are tasked with discreetly rescuing a noble...even a *gasp* princess. No major twist: the royal is who they are described to be and they're not secretly evil or a major jerk. There can be minor twists during the quest to keep things fresh, but the premise is simple.
It is amazing what can be accomplished with the essentials: good to great writing, directing, cinematography, set design and acting.
I don't consider myself a consumer anymore, because I can't stand the dreck being served up these days, but that actually sounds good. The subversive tropes of the post-war era have become obnoxious clichés; it's about time we did away with them. |
Edited by - HighOne on 03 Feb 2022 16:37:22 |
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Irennan
Great Reader
Italy
3802 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2022 : 06:44:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Azar
quote:
Originally posted by Irennan
It's not classic, it's dated because it's just "whatever goes", rather than stemming for a specific "what if" tailored for the story you want to tell, and it doesn't even follow any criteria (for example, the magic system is non-existent, spells can do everything). The subversions are indeed old hat, but IMHO they still have more chances than things that have already been done so many times AND are directionless storytelling/worldbuilding. D&D worldbuilding is good for a game, because it offers a lot of options for a decent sandbox, but if you want a well written story, it's more a hindrance than anything, because you can't tailor it around your theme and the kind of conflict you want for your character.
How about an honest-to-goodness straightforward tale of four Purple Dragon Knights tasked with slaying a wyvern harassing an outlying Cormyrean village? On the way there, we get the character development along with a trickle feed of action until the season ends with the promised battle.
Alternatively, your classic Fighter/Wizard/Thief/Priest are tasked with discreetly rescuing a noble...even a *gasp* princess. No major twist: the royal is who they are described to be and they're not secretly evil or a major jerk. There can be minor twists during the quest to keep things fresh, but the premise is simple.
It is amazing what can be accomplished with the essentials: good to great writing, directing, cinematography, set design and acting.
The thing is, both the subversion clichés and things like this are... well, clichés. They are generic and predictable, in both cases people already know what's going to happen as soon as you set the mood, and that's going to be boring, because one of the most important things to keep a brain engaged is a calculated void of information.
To clarify, before I elaborate on why I don't think that D&D is the best setting for writing a story, I'll say that I don't think that the tropes or the straightforwardness are the problem. The problem is that both "generic D&D show" and "generic subversion show" make the generic trope their focus, and become cliché (basically, problems happen when the trope itself becomes the focus). Not only that, but the additional problem in D&D is that the tropes aren't even part of a coherent mix, they're there "just because". So what to do? Make the character and their theme the focus, and build the setting around them. Make it specific/functional to your story (not a bunch of stuff mashed together): it needs to provide conflict to your character that is pertinent to the theme.
To elaborate further, characters, what they want and why, their flawed worldview/survival system, who they are at any moment of the story and why (especially the conflict between what they perceive themselves to be and what they feel on a subconscious level, mostly caused by their flawed survival system that they can't let go of) and how losing control of their world is going to demolish that and allow for change to happen--all this stuff is at the core of a story. All the elements of the setting should be built to provide conflict that can put that at the forefront, and/or support the thematic viewpoint of your story (basically, the meaning of the transformation that the character goes through). They must be a specific solution to a problem. Even if a piece of that solution happens to be a simple and straightforward trope, the important part is that it delivers conflict to your character that is pertinent to the theme, and that is connected to the other parts thorugh said theme (and logically, of course). The ideal is for it to all organically come from a "what if" (a hypothesis that can be explored to generate your world) that is useful to explore the theme.* It must not just happen to be there because someone likes it, like in D&D. In fact, if a "trite trope" is the right answer for a scene, then it won't even feel like a cliché, because the attention of the audience is focused on the internal conflict that the character is experiencing, and the trope will be the natural way for it to occur--heck, it can even enhance the overall emotions that the conflict give to the audience.
IME, fantasy fiction rarely builds the setting around this. The focus tends to be on what must happen to drive the story forward (aka the external plot), and the character becomes secondary to that. You can replace the character with someone else, and little would change. This is also true for D&D stuff, that seems to focus on including certain elements or situations that "make D&D", or a certain plot to carry, and that tends to reduce the characters to pawns to make that happen. Returning to why tropes aren't inherently the problem, this is where tropes become clichés: the spotlight is on stuff like the knight slaying the wyvern and saving the village. It should be on how the goal of slaying the wyevrn and the obstacles (aka conflict, internal and external) fuel the transformation experienced by the knight, on what slaying the wyvern means to the knight on a personal level**, and the painful process of giving up on their obsolete "survival system"--aka letting a huge part of who they are rest and be replaced--in order to claim the stakes. All of this tends to either not really exist, or to be done superficially and to remain in the background. When the spotlight is on the tropes (so, basically, the stuff that "make D&D") the dated worldbuilding of D&D becomes evident.
Moving on to why I feel that using D&D as a setting for a story poses a lot of pitfalls and limits the potential of the story.
You can tell me that a D&D story can very well avoid those pitfalls and be good, and that's true. It's not like good stories can't happen within the D&D world. However, D&D offers you neither the freedom to build a setting around the thematic viewpoint and around the character, nor good central conflicts/themes that help you come up with good character transformation arcs, if you start with a story idea first and work to find a compelling character arc for it later. Actually, it just gives you old tropes that are there "just because" and directionless worldbuilding to work with, which makes more likely for some elements of the story to become cliché. Like, you can start planning your story from your character or from an idea for a scenario or siutation, or from a theme, but using the D&D worldbuilding doesn't serve your story well in either case (and I repeat, this doesn't mean that the story will be trash, but that it won't be at its best, and will have higher risks to be dragged down by the clichés).
If you start from a character, then your story will obviously be at its best if you create the world around them. If we look at your examples, you could take both the D&D ideas that you propose and plop them in any random, generic fantasy setting, and they would remain the exact same. The character would also probably remain the same, which is a problem. Basically, why not give your knight a setting and a plot that is more focused on the conflict they're going to experience and on its theme, rather than having them travel to "generic D&D village with generic culture that is irrelevant to the theme #23" and fight "D&D monster #21, that is also irrelevant to the theme, because D&D monsters very rarely have a theme"?
If you start from an idea for the world, or a "what if", the first thing to do is to identify a theme within this world, a particular situation, and ask yourself "ok, what kind of character would be the most impacted, the most likely to be psychologically transformed in such a scenario? What is the flawed worldview that makes them the most vulnerable to this? How did they form that worldview/control theory?"
As I said, the problem with D&D is that it doesn't have a theme, or even coherency. It's a hodgepodge of diconnected stuff, so it doesn't have a set of central conflicts with specific themes that make you say "ah, yes, this kind of character is going to experience a lot of conflict here, and will need to change a lot if they want to keep their stakes."
So why bother with a setting that isn't meant to support your idea, and that will make you use old tropes that can easily turn into clichés? Since in this example your story-planning is starting from a situation that you want to explore, even if this idea was sparked by a piece of D&D lore, why not craft the setting for your story based on it (or use another premade setting that features your situation as a strong theme, if you like), so that it'll be more natural for the kind of character who'll be the most impacted by your situation to emerge?
TL; DR--the problem isn't the straightforwardness or the tropes, the problem is that due to the lack of central conflicts and themes, using &D as a setting for a good story can be done, but it's not going to make the story shine at its best. It will pose the risk of falling into clichés, because it forces you to use dated tropes for your scenes, and those can easily turn into clichés.
* Trivial example for a "what if" going along with theme: "what if mind reading tech/magic was real" with the theme of freedom/safety, and our character is an authoritarian control freak that supports/works for this tech, and a thematic viewpoint of "too much safety is the death of freedom".
**Aka, what human needs does this satisfy? Respect? To be loved? Etc... What wound/trauma/experience made them willing to risk their life for that? What was taken from them to cause them to feel like this? How did the "environment" cause them this wound? What belief did they develop from it--with this, I mean something like "in order to be safe (as in protecting that thing that was taken from them/avoid the same danger they lived in the past and that caused this need), I must do X", which is perhaps the biggest reason why people accept (or develop) beliefs in first places: they're packaged "survival systems". |
Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things. |
Edited by - Irennan on 03 Feb 2022 09:19:41 |
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Azar
Master of Realmslore
1297 Posts |
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HighOne
Learned Scribe
214 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2022 : 20:51:02
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quote:
Originally posted by Irennan
TL; DR--the problem isn't the straightforwardness or the tropes, the problem is that due to the lack of central conflicts and themes, using &D as a setting for a good story can be done, but it's not going to make the story shine at its best. It will pose the risk of falling into clichés, because it forces you to use dated tropes for your scenes, and those can easily turn into clichés.
How do you reconcile this with the existence of over 300 D&D novels, some of them bestsellers? |
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Irennan
Great Reader
Italy
3802 Posts |
Posted - 04 Feb 2022 : 04:50:28
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quote:
Originally posted by HighOne
quote:
Originally posted by Irennan
TL; DR--the problem isn't the straightforwardness or the tropes, the problem is that due to the lack of central conflicts and themes, using &D as a setting for a good story can be done, but it's not going to make the story shine at its best. It will pose the risk of falling into clichés, because it forces you to use dated tropes for your scenes, and those can easily turn into clichés.
How do you reconcile this with the existence of over 300 D&D novels, some of them bestsellers?
I already did in my post: it's not like you can't write good stories in D&D (you can write a good story in basically any setting, as long as you keep in mind the principles that make stories click with the human brain), it's that those stories would have been better off if the setting had been built for the kind of character or idea that led to them.
Basically, choosing to set your novel in the D&D setting is like giving yourself a disadvantage (in terms of quality; brand, ease, or being passionate about D&D are a different matter).
quote:
some of them bestsellers?
Some of those bestsellers are cases of poor writing, and that's not even related to D&D. Popularity is more related to the subject than it is to the writing quality (Drizzt is a good example of this: it's a character written to appease a specific audience, and RAS has been good at giving the audience what they wanted). |
Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things. |
Edited by - Irennan on 04 Feb 2022 04:56:34 |
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Irennan
Great Reader
Italy
3802 Posts |
Posted - 04 Feb 2022 : 04:52:42
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quote:
Originally posted by Azar
quote:
Originally posted by Irennan
dated
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk
Ok, let's assume that I don't know what "dated" actually means. Even then, I explained what I mean in my post, so this is just semantics. |
Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things. |
Edited by - Irennan on 04 Feb 2022 04:53:00 |
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Azar
Master of Realmslore
1297 Posts |
Posted - 05 Feb 2022 : 01:26:46
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quote:
Originally posted by Irennan
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
quote:
Originally posted by Irennan
dated
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk
Ok, let's assume that I don't know what "dated" actually means. Even then, I explained what I mean in my post, so this is just semantics.
The sense I got from your perspective - and correct me if I'm wrong - is that you treat "dated" synonymously with "unfeasible" or "untenable" in the context of modern entertainment. Look, even if the heart of the story itself is fundamental (and assuming you don't bother sprinkling in a consistent amount of small twists), you still have at least two strengths to rely on: characters and setting. Hell, this method worked for George Lucas. Give the audience characters to care about while making the world stand out with its own touches (e.g., cats in Cormyr!) and you'd be surprised at what "deficiencies" will be overlooked. |
Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
Earth names in the Realms are more common than you may think. |
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Irennan
Great Reader
Italy
3802 Posts |
Posted - 05 Feb 2022 : 02:37:25
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No, no, as I tried to explain (admittedly, it took me quite a lot of edits, because I had to make orders in my thoughts) tropes by themselves aren't the problem, and characters are the heart of your story, even if your planning starts from a scenario, or from a "what if". I also said that it's obviously possible to write a good story set in the D&D multiverse, or that a D&D trope could even be the best solution for one of your scenes.
The problem is that D&D is mostly a collection of tropes that are there "just because", with no coherent theme to connect them together and, most importantly, to the meaning of the transformation that the main character has to undergo, and of their stakes (side note: kitchen-sinking fantasy stereotypes is a kind of approach that you see more often in older tales--and doesn't jive well with core principles of story planning--which is why I used "dated").
This means that your story will have more risks of including some D&D tropes just because "it's fantasy, so why not" (thus making them cliché), rather than because that trope was necessary for a scene that is key to the conflict that the character has to face, and rather than because that trope is logically and thematically connected to the other elements of your story world. It also means that your story would thrive more if you built your setting around the character--not as in around the person, but around the theme that their transformation is delivering, to create conflict that goes well with your viewpoint in regards to that theme. I'll explain it with an example.
Example:
-Your theme is freedom of expression (or authenticity vs. what is expected of you), your viewpoint is "staying true to yourself is the way to experience genuine affection".
-Your character is some young person who has border tendencies due to some event in their childhood making them feeling unlovable, unless they suppress their anger, suppress their own desires, and become what the other person "likes" . This is their flawed survival system: "in order to be safe (aka loved, or maybe even physically safe, if their parents were violent), I must be what other people want out of me". So, their stakes, aka the human need that they're fighting for, is "to be loved for what I am", even though--due to their survival system--what they want is to have the attention of other people, manipulating people into liking, or perhaps even needing, them.
With this premise, your setting can be--say--a super authoritarian school that forces certain roles and mindset on its students, has an internal hierarchy that is full of toxic constructs (like elitist clubs, mindset focused on competition, rather than on learning and finding your path, etc...), where the value/"lovability" of a person is based on how many checkboxes you tick, thus feeding into the character's fatal flaw. That's going to provide pertinent conflict that your character must overcome in order to 1)actually build/discover a "yourself" first (they may do everything to become the "model person", even succeed at it, only to feel neglected along the way, and to still feel miserable and alone despite the attention once they get what they believed to want) 2)stay true to it, and be accepted and loved for it by some people that they care about (the environment will make them believe that whatever they do, it would never get them actual affection--maybe they realize that they can't go on being a pleaser, but they'll be also lost, not know what to do, and at the same time still pressured by all the rules of the school, expectations of their peers, etc... until they collapse. At that point, the actual change can happen).
This kind of approach provides you with a clear direction to further detail what will be in your world, how the different organizations work and interact with each other (maybe even a "power system", like it's often the case for fantasy), and everything will be reflective of the theme and the trasnformation the character has to undergo. Everything will work to give the suffering of your character and the pain of their transformation much more meaning, and meaning is one of the main things the human brain looks for in a story (well, in anything: it's not for nothing that the correlation=/=causality fallacy exists and is so common. It also makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint).
With D&D, you have a bunch of things that you can work with, but that are only an approximation of the right solution to your storytelling problem (that is: what kind of environment can ht my character closest to hwere it hurts, and in the way that is most pertinent to my theme?) Not only that, but making the elements feel connected and working together will require extra work for an inferior result, because the D&D elements weren't added with a story goal in mind, but with the goal of providing options for adventures. Basically, a D&D game world and a story world look very different.
TL; DR, in terms of quality, D&D presents more risks than gains (because of the reasons that I've explained), and it's easier to create a story that doesn't take itself too seriously based on it, than a good serious story. With the approach that usually goes into D&D stories (let's show everything that "makes D&D" to the viewers!), a serious story has even more chances to fall flat. That was my point in a nutshell, not that's impossible to write good stories using D&D tropes. |
Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things. |
Edited by - Irennan on 05 Feb 2022 05:20:04 |
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Dalor Darden
Great Reader
USA
4211 Posts |
Posted - 05 Feb 2022 : 02:42:24
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quote:
Originally posted by Irennan
quote:
Originally posted by HighOne
quote:
Originally posted by Irennan
TL; DR--the problem isn't the straightforwardness or the tropes, the problem is that due to the lack of central conflicts and themes, using &D as a setting for a good story can be done, but it's not going to make the story shine at its best. It will pose the risk of falling into clichés, because it forces you to use dated tropes for your scenes, and those can easily turn into clichés.
How do you reconcile this with the existence of over 300 D&D novels, some of them bestsellers?
I already did in my post: it's not like you can't write good stories in D&D (you can write a good story in basically any setting, as long as you keep in mind the principles that make stories click with the human brain), it's that those stories would have been better off if the setting had been built for the kind of character or idea that led to them.
Basically, choosing to set your novel in the D&D setting is like giving yourself a disadvantage (in terms of quality; brand, ease, or being passionate about D&D are a different matter).
quote:
some of them bestsellers?
Some of those bestsellers are cases of poor writing, and that's not even related to D&D. Popularity is more related to the subject than it is to the writing quality (Drizzt is a good example of this: it's a character written to appease a specific audience, and RAS has been good at giving the audience what they wanted).
The Crystal Shard...nobody "knew what they wanted" at all...it was a hit.
Let's give credit where credit is due. It was a good novel.
Do I think the ol' Dark Elf is past his prime...sure, but a good novel doesn't have to be a literary masterpiece in my thinking...YMMV
I mean, Howard's Conan?
Some of us just really like what others consider junk...taste is individual...and calling my taste junk just sucks.
When someone gets hundreds of thousands of novels published, it isn't "just" anything. It is a hit. |
The Old Grey Box and AD&D for me! |
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Irennan
Great Reader
Italy
3802 Posts |
Posted - 05 Feb 2022 : 03:10:01
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quote:
Originally posted by Dalor Darden
The Crystal Shard...nobody "knew what they wanted" at all...
Why? Choosing your audience and knowing what your audience wants even before you write a book is an essential skill if you want to be remotely successful.
Now, I know the old tale about Drizzt initially being a side character, but look at this: a book targeted mostly to the late 80's geeks, a time where D&D and fantasy well looked down upon (or even condmned--the satanic panic thingy), and where the people who enjoyed that didn't find many others to share their passion, and could even be bullied for what they liked. It's easy to see how Drizzt could become popular among them.
quote:
Let's give credit where credit is due. It was a good novel.
Do I think the ol' Dark Elf is past his prime...sure, but a good novel doesn't have to be a literary masterpiece in my thinking...YMMV
A lot of Salvatore's writing is bad. Does this mean he can't do anything good? No, not at all. Dark Elf trilogy was good, IIRC (though I'd have to reread it to express a judgement).
quote:
Some of us just really like what others consider junk...taste is individual...and calling my taste junk just sucks.
Taste is personal, sure, but quality isn't. Taste is mostly related to the subject of the story, or to the presence of something that interests you (like action).
Quality means writing a story that causes you to "become" the character, even when said character is different from you, or is about something that you don't find particularly interesting. It's about being able to make you experience the world from a viewpoint that is entirely different from yours, as if you were in the character's head. Quality alsmo means writing a story that drives home a solid tale of the transformation of a person, and that makes you feel the pain and struggle of that transformation along with the character. All of this in turn means following certain principles, that aren't based on "some dude said this centuries ago", but find confirmation in tons of (relatively) recent neuroscience discoveries (starting from that phrase that everyone knows: "show, don't tell"). Speaking of which, quality also means taking the time to read about your topic, because to make a reader experience the viewpoint of--say--an engineer, a trauma victim, a soldier, a musician etc... in a way that is believable and immersive, you need to know what being an engineer, a taruma victim, a soldier, and a musician look like from their PoV, in detail. If you don't know that in detail, then what are you going to put in your story? You won't be able to show, only to provide a gross summary of the actions, like "he repaired the tank", or outright non believable stuff (like it happens a lot when describing how people respond to trauma, loss, etc...)
A lot of stories that are successful (i.e. they sold well) don't do any of this. They aren't good. For example, returning to Drizzt, correct me if I'm wrong/remember wrongly, but one of the things that Drizzt lacks is a meaningful transformation. At the end, at his core, he's the same person that he's at the beginning, just more powerful. What he can do at the end, he could do at the beginning mindset-wise, he just learned cool moves. He hasn't understood any truth pertinent to his stakes, he didn't have to "sacrifice" a piece of himself, a core worldview/survival system, and rebuild it anew to keep his stakes or reach his goal. He has always been 100% right, and the world 100% wrong (which I suspect is the true reason why he's often labeled as a Mary Sue, even though people often talk about things that can't make a character into a Mary Sue by themselves).
If we don't have any principles, we can't judge art, in any way. We can never say "this is good", only "I like this". But this obviously doesn't correspond to reality. A good skill to have is to recognize when something we don't like is good, and vice-versa.
You may say "if the purpose of art is to entertain and create stuff that people enjoy, then why do we even care about anything other than the subjective experience--aka I like/don't like this?" We care about the principles and we judge creative stuff because the goal is to determine how to make the subjective experience the best possible. What if a badly written hit had been well written? It would have been a much better experience for those who liked it, even if a lot of the people who didn't like it would still not like it. That's because, as I said, the reason for liking and not liking something boils down more to what we look for in the content we consume, than the quality of said content. Though a good number of people who didn't like a badly written hit may come to like it, if it was well written. Heck, a well written story about something--say, gardening--can make some people willing to try it. Or yet, a well written story about a topic like racism, can be the spark that starts a change in a racist (I mean, it's likely that a racist will experience extreme discomfort reading a well written story from the PoV of a victim of racism, but if they can get to the end of it, maybe an idea has been planted in their head).
quote:
When someone gets hundreds of thousands of novels published, it isn't "just" anything. It is a hit.
A "hit" is determined by the subject massively more than it is by quality. There are many awfully written books out there (books that rely on infodumps and telling rather than on showing, or with flat characters, or badly designed worlds) that are massively more popular than certain classics, or than Drizzt, and so on. That's because of their subject and the audience they were intended for. Does this mean that all popular stuff is written badly? No. It means that something doesn't have to be well written to become a hit. Like, this is the exact same argument as "the fact that many people believe something to be true, doesn't mean that it's actually true". |
Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things. |
Edited by - Irennan on 05 Feb 2022 05:20:14 |
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Dalor Darden
Great Reader
USA
4211 Posts |
Posted - 06 Feb 2022 : 17:50:55
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You should write a novel
If all it takes is knowing what people want...I mean, why not write...right? |
The Old Grey Box and AD&D for me! |
Edited by - Dalor Darden on 06 Feb 2022 17:54:56 |
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sno4wy
Senior Scribe
USA
466 Posts |
Posted - 06 Feb 2022 : 18:36:27
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| Most people are stupid. It's why poor quality things like Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey are immensely popular. Just sayin'. #175;\_(#12484;)_/#175; |
Edited by - sno4wy on 06 Feb 2022 18:37:09 |
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Irennan
Great Reader
Italy
3802 Posts |
Posted - 06 Feb 2022 : 20:46:50
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quote:
Originally posted by Dalor Darden
You should write a novel
I was writing one, but then I realized I didn't know what I was doing, so I started studying. When I'll be done studying, I'll get back at it, but thanks for the trust you placed in me.
quote:
If all it takes is knowing what people want...I mean, why not write...right?
If your goal is just selling, precisely, yes. But you're speaking like that was an easy thing, especially in this era, and not like it required research and work on your side. Of course, in this era, the marketing aspect is even more important: you not only have a saturated market (if you want to do fantasy or scifi), you also face fierce competition from tons of dopaminergic entertainment sources--people have little time, so why should they read your book, rather than watching a movie, playing a game, and so on? But generally speaking, yes, if selling is your goal, knowing what your audience wants, how to deliver the knowledge of your product to them, and persuade them to give it a chance, is more important than the quality of your writing. If you're starting nowadays, if you still don't have your reader base, you have to cultivate all those skills, you have to maintain an active presence online, and actively reach to your audience, otherwise you won't be making a living out of writing.
I mean, like they say, if you want to make something your profession, learn how to monetize it first, and then learn how to actually do the thing (or do both at the same time; the point is the priority order if your goal is to make money out of it).
That said, I'm not sure how telling me this had anything to do with our discussion. |
Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things. |
Edited by - Irennan on 06 Feb 2022 20:54:05 |
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Azar
Master of Realmslore
1297 Posts |
Posted - 06 Feb 2022 : 21:05:30
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quote:
Originally posted by sno4wy
Most people are stupid. It's why poor quality things like Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey are immensely popular. Just sayin'. #175;\_(#12484;)_/#175;
Who else is going to consume those Sturgeon's (Law's) eggs? |
Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
Earth names in the Realms are more common than you may think. |
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Delnyn
Senior Scribe
USA
890 Posts |
Posted - 06 Feb 2022 : 21:29:25
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| I will have to research Rawson Thurber because I never heard of this person before now. |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7974 Posts |
Posted - 06 Feb 2022 : 21:40:44
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I think a more accurate title for this scroll would be "Rawson Thurber wants to write and direct D&D TV show".
All the "official" sources are not official, they're hearsay. Sites like IMDb and Wikipedia are conspicuously lacking any mention of this series.
I've seen this happen before, many times. The production is more of a pitch than a project. They're "leaking" all over the media to feel out a response, hopefully generate hype, maybe attract some fandom investors.
It might actually happen. It's more likely to end up being rumour and vapour which gets "shelved" and forgotten. |
[/Ayrik] |
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Kentinal
Great Reader
4686 Posts |
Posted - 06 Feb 2022 : 23:02:09
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Well eOne released a press notice
https://www.entertainmentone.com/press/rawson-marshall-thurber-to-spearhead-flagship-dungeons-dragons-tv-seri/
I however do not know anything about this company though it appears to claim to be owned by Hasbro.
We of course know absolutely every thing on the web is true *shrugs* |
"Small beings can have small wisdom," the dragon said. "And small wise beings are better than small fools. Listen: Wisdom is caring for afterwards."
"Caring for afterwards ...? Ker repeated this without understanding.
"After action, afterwards," the dragon said. "Choose the afterwards first, then the action. Fools choose action first."
"Judgement" copyright 2003 by Elizabeth Moon |
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BadCatMan
Senior Scribe
Australia
401 Posts |
Posted - 07 Feb 2022 : 02:27:31
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Entertainment One/eOne is a major film and television company that's made a lot of things, and has been bought by Hasbro to make shows on their toys and games (some of which, like Operation and Play-Doh, have been more than barrel-scraping):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertainment_One
I've sifted through and rounded up all the legitimate news on the development here, with all the sources:
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_(television_series)
Two previous stories on a series last year were of pitches that were requested by eOne and don't appear to have panned out, but the Thurber project is official and the one they're going ahead with, since they've declared they've closed a deal on it and announced it in their press release. |
BadCatMan, B.Sc. (Hons), M.Sc.
Scientific technical editor
Head DM of the Realms of Adventure play-by-post community
Administrator of the Forgotten Realms Wiki |
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bloodtide_the_red
Learned Scribe
USA
299 Posts |
Posted - 13 Feb 2022 : 00:55:58
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Well, A D&D TV show will happen, sooner or later. I don't hold much hope though...as it will be horrible. Much like most TV shows. The big problem with D&D is: The Kidz.
Ask nearly anyone involved with a D&D TV show the question "What is D&D?" and the brainwashed zombie like answer you will get is "It is a silly game for kids". And that will make for the HUGE problem. Even assuming they want to make a good Tv show and not just a cheep mess to make money. Sure they watched Game of Thrones and say "lets do that for D&D....BUT for KIDZ!"
Now sure they could make a great kidz show...have some young actors and silly kidz plots like "we need to buy Uni the Unicorn a birthday present!" But in their delusion they want to make a Kidz show for "everyone", not just kids. And that is of course impossible. Kidz shows are only for kidz, the people that like that (low) level of non-entertainment and parents(that pretend to like it for their kids).
So they will attempt to make a "cool show" but then water down everything just about 100%...to be safe for kids. It's D&D so it has to start in a cool tavern "bar", because EVERY kidz loves to pretend that. And a tavern is in a city...so that adds in a cool street gang....but not a "real" one, a goofy cartoonish one. The show has to have cool drugs...but as drugs are bad for kids....they will water it down to something like "spice".
Combat. This will be the worst. A kidz show can't have more then a tiny bit blood and just about no injury and only simple easy "fall down and sleep" deaths. You get the classic Wolverine problem: he pops out his claws and looks and acts cool....runs at the foe....and THEN....SHEATH HIS CLAWS and punches them. And that will be bad enough: everyone will have DEADLY weapons....and never use them. Maybe they will sort of fake stab and "put foes to sleep". Though chances are they will much more the warrior swings the sword and TRIPS AND KNOCKS DOWN THE FOE...and then they lay on the ground and take a nap. At the very worst, they will descend into beyond dumb Slapstick. Like the good guy will cut the rope and...gentility...drop the candle chandelier on the foe...and they will fall asleep under it.
Magic. Might even be worse. They have to keep the good guys magic weak...and beyond dumb...just so the standard simple TV plots can happen. Even low level magic can ruin and simple plot, by a clueless writer. And every spellcaster in D&D gets lots of at will magic, plus many more spells. Even just the Player's Handbook spells can ruin everything. So even though a hero will have say the spell Fireball...and THAT would have them have AT LEAST ten or so other spells...they will just STAND AROUND and let the plot happen. And that is IF they even sort of stick to the D&D rules....and likely they will not anyway. Oh, and the bad guys will have epic level god like magic...when the plot calls for it, but will "forget" they have it so the heroes will win.
And the show just gets worse from there..... |
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LordofBones
Master of Realmslore
1486 Posts |
Posted - 13 Feb 2022 : 02:16:08
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| Look, we all know Venger gets redeemed and the kids go home. No point reinventing the wheel. |
Edited by - LordofBones on 13 Feb 2022 02:16:38 |
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Rawson Thurber will write and direct D&D TV show
