THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Early this week I got a note telling me I start doing story reel work on Show 19 beginning Wednesday.  It was very unexpected since I still needed to finish off the scenes I was given for show 20. I did manage to rush and finish it, only to find out that I don’t move on to show 19 until Monday.

Kinda annoying.

I DID find out that show 19 and show 18 are, the Halloween show and the Christmas show.

FAMILY/ROLE PLAYING GAMES

This weekend, my daughter, once again, asked to play the “scary game” (a.k.a. our fantasy tabletop role playing game).  Last game we played, I was a little bored with the adventure I came up with, so this time I tried to add to the variety of the game.

I continued from where we left off last time as if it was a continuous story, that way, it all felt connected. Last time, they had helped a friend escape from the clutches of a big ugly gargoyle thing. The story began in the “hospital” and the friend asked Elizabeth and Dante to go check up on his sister to make sure she was okay.  She lived in another city.

Since we’re using the DESCENT: JOURNEYS IN THE DARK game and I happen to have the ROAD TO LEGEND expansion, I took out the board that came with the expansion and used it as the map for where they are.  I pointed to a city and told them, that’s where they needed to go.  Elizabeth asked,

“How do we get there?” I hadn’t realized that there was no road to the city from where they were. BUT there WAS a river.

“There’s a river that goes to the city. You can go by river.”

“How do we do that?”

“Maybe you can get a boat.”

“Where do we get a boat?”

“Maybe you can ask around the town and find out.” So they went out to town, asked around and found a guy whose cousin sold boats, so they went to see him.

Notice how suddenly the story has gone from hack and slash to role playing.  It suddenly started to become fun for me.  I have a bunch of little tiny toys that I’ve collected from gumball machines and other toy sets over the years and I started taking them out to play out the towns people.

I also happen to have a Lego boat my mom gave me for a resent birthday and took that out as the boat they got sold. It was a bum deal since the boat wasn’t in very good shape but we all worked together to fix it so that they could take it down the river.  I made it out that the river ride was going to be very dangerous, and as they went down the river they heard a monster coming.  It turned out to be a little Chibi bear toy from a gumball machine, that was just trying to scare them.  This is the point where I just started getting silly with them and I even introduced a gumball machine pig who jumped in the boat and started running around.  The kids where enjoying themselves but where also very seriously role playing out conversations with this goofy little rubber bear.

Suddenly Dante cried out,”Oh no, it’s raining!” It kinda threw me off guard a bit. After thinking about it for a second, I realized it would be a good idea to have it storm, so I went along with Dante’s imagination. The storm shipwrecked them and they had to make their way down the river by foot.

They wandered into a dungeon where they stumbled into a gumball machine monkey’s house, who was annoyed to find them there. To make a long gaming session short, they ended up fighting some skeletons and some giant spiders before finally making it to the sister’s house and checking up on her.

We had fun and now I have to come up with the next part of the story because Elizabeth has been asking me to play again ever since.

The thing that makes this the most fun for me, is hearing the kids play act as “adult Superheroes”.  It’s so funny because they’re suppose to be adults but they act like a two and a four year old. It makes me want to write a comic of they’re adventures so you can see how silly it would be to see a heroic character being controlled by a little kid and acting like a little kid.

ELIZABETH: “Oh, hello friend, how are you?”

NPC (Non Player Character): “Fine, how are you?”

DANTE: “Look what I can do!” Begins flying around the room for no reason, and without the power to fly.

NPC: “Uh, wow…that’s…uh…really interesting.”

WRITING

(For those of you coming in late to these posts, if you want to read what my project is about, CLICK HERE to learn about the general world the story takes place in, and CLICK HERE if you want to know the story itself.)

Below is an excerpt of what I wrote from a few weeks ago, as set up for what I’m writing about THIS week, in case you’re interested in following along with more depth:

Right now, the theory of story that I like to use to flesh out my plot is the DRAMATICA theory.  Unfortunately the DRAMATICA theory is so complicated and convoluted, that I can’t really sum it up in a nut shell. If you want to get an idea of what DRAMATICA is all about, click the link below:

What is DRAMATICA?

In order for you to be able to understand it fully, you would need to download and read the FREE book on pdf. Click the link below:

Free DRAMATICA pdf book

or listen to the FREE audio book podcasts by clicking the link below:

Free DRAMATICA audio book

or read the FREE text of the book directly from  their site by clicking the link below:

The DRAMATICA book readable on the net for free.

As I did the last two weeks, I’ll put up the DRAMATICA Table of Story Elements in order for you to understand what I’m talking about and so you can follow along.   For a clearer pdf version of the chart (download chart now):

This week I started breaking down Act 2.  This time around, instead of finding the Element comparisons I was going to write about and writing the scene around them, I decided to write the scene and assigning them an Element comparisons afterward. This freed me up to just write what I wanted to write without worrying about the Elements. After I was done writing out the description, I then assigned the Elements that best fit what I had written. The interesting thing that occurred was that some of the scenes I wrote, fit really well with the Elements while others didn’t. The ones that didn’t, I just added a few things in the description to make it match a bit better. The ones that fit well, I adjusted to fit a little better as well.

Again, this time around, I looked at the through lines I had written earlier and used it a guide to help me remember what’s suppose to happen in the Act:

Act 2

MAIN vs. IMPACT CHARACTER THROUGH LINE

• How things are Changing – The Main Character tries desperately to convince the Lead Sorcerer to listen and  understand that things aren’t as they seem. The Lead Sorcerer insists that just because he isn’t completely evil yet, it doesn’t mean that it will stay that way.  Things are always changing.
• How things are Changing ======>  Future – The Main Character understands that things change but it doesn’t automatically mean that the future the prophesy holds, is the true one. The Main Character says that the future is also changing.

MAIN CHARACTER STORY THROUGH LINE

• Gathering Information – The Sorcerers betray him and attack. The Rob defends himself and his lunch while desperately looking around for a way to escape.
• Gathering Information ======> Doing -Discovering there’s no way out. He decides the best thing to do is to eat the Hot Dog, right there and then.

IMPACT CHARACTER STORY THROUGH LINE

• Developing a Plan – When Rob refuses this plan, the Lead Sorcerer say’s that refusing requires them to kill him, because it’s the only way to be truly safe.
• Developing a Plan ======>  Playing a Role – The Lead Sorcerer then shows that, by not complying with the reasonableness of the plans he proposed that he’s only showing that he’s guilty of treacherous intentions. He is showing his true colors as the world enslaving overlord he will become.

OVERALL STORY THROUGH LINE

• Impulsive Responses – The Sorcerers continue their attack. The main characters defends himself and his lunch with all the instincts and training at his disposal.
• Impulsive Responses ======> Innermost Desires – All the fighting leads to the main character being trapped and vulnerable.  The very thing that the Sorcerers desire. Meanwhile the main character’s hot dog (which is a symbol of the peace he so desires) manages to end up a few feet away from him, still safely on it’s plate.

You will notice that next to the “Act 2 Themes” I put two thematic breakdowns instead of only one, unlike I did last week. This was so I could actually include both Thematic Issue comparisons instead instead of one.  Also, it allowed me to pick from a greater pool of Element comparisons.

So here’s how I broke the Act down:

ACT 2 Themes: Truth/Evidence,  Falsehood/Evidence

Scene 4 (Knowledge/Perception)

• Rob is shocked by the betrayal. He attempts to convince the Lead Sorcerer to stop by attempting to call up some sort of evidence that he is telling the truth. The Sorcerer stubbornly refuses, the he doesn’t trust any of his evidence.

Scene 5 (Desire/Aware)

• Rob tries to escape but the Sorcerers summon monsters to get in his way.  Rob’s Raven gets hit into the bushes while trying to protect Rob. The lead Sorcerer points out to Rob that he is only proving his guilt by attempting to run. THAT is true evidence.

Scene 6 (Inequity/Projection)

• Finding himself friendless and trapped, Rob decides to eat his hot dog there and then only one of the monsters causes the hot dog to end up a few feet from him, safely on it’s plate.  The bad guys close in. They laugh seeing that they’ve won and look forward in anticipation to the glory they will receive. (Act 2 climax).

So as you can see, I only managed to write out three scenes, just like in Act 1.  Very odd.  I’m guessing the same will happen will happen with Act 3. We’ll see what happens with that next week.

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