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leviathiane · 5 years

Note

SHOW US YOUR WROR RAW UNPROCESSED WHOLE GRAIN ORGANIC NOTES

this is going to be a long-ass post i am so sorry to Everyone! i take a lot of notes.

So, as You specifically know (as well as all of my lovely Soggers) I take a LOT of notes. Obsessively. I write fucking everything bc i have very little memory and very much paranoia. This results in literal Piles of notes. Raw planning, on paper, on my phone– doodles of scenes im brainstorming, bulletpoints, entire SCRIPTS– it’s all there but scattered (I’ve got scenes planned in the margins of my goddamn anthropology notes and deciphering it was a NIGHTMARE)

I won’t even upload all the photos of my writing notebook, because itd be like 50 pages of illegible nonesense. but heres a couple of planning phase pages. (may be hard to read, I dropped this notebook both into some tidepools, into a creek on campus, and accidentally leaked my waterbottle onto it in my backpack :/)

if you can’t tell already, yes they all look exactly like this. Some are even more illegible, because I wrote them with the notebook half under my actual class notes. Because i wrote most of them in class. During lectures. And pretending very badly that i was not doing exactly that. (pay attention in class please i got away with this bc i was filling up elective units)

I’m also flat out MISSING a large portion of my notes bc some of it? isnt even in the damn notebook. its on a sheet of binder paper, or on the empty back of an assignment. I’ve now lost most of those notes, but the ones i do still have are just as (even more, actually) indecipherable chicken scratch:

Wow, how clean and tidy and easy to follow! i am in hell.

and this doesnt mention the PAGES and PAGES of outlines that are on my laptop, and the pages of outlined scenes that are on the notes app of my phone. if i put them all, you would have entire chapter spoilers up to the very end of the story so i cant post a lot of them– and also theres just a goddamn lot of them. currently i have 16 pages of outlining. There are no spacing breaks. It is a solid 16 page block of text. Looking at it gives me a migraine.

some assorted notes which i have dredged up from the deleted parts of the main draft google doc go all the way back to when i started Wror in June and they are Barely more readable than my handwriting on sheer account of: articulation is not my strength. These include:

“Ch 8 plan: sabo gets trained specially, awakens his armament haki, beats ace in a bunch of spars and proves himself to be anything but vulnerable. The boys are like “we fucking recognize that technique ryu taught you before us!!” and goad ryu into finally starting them both on basic haki training, just to awaken it, since sabo already has. Also this is the chapter that ace finally confronts ryu for his devil fruit after ryu confirms that some devil fruit users can’t be hurt without haki and ace immediately catches onto that and tries to slam his pipe through ryus head. It doesn’t work, ryu catches the weapon with a haki covered hand, to avoid turning to flame with hit and ace just gets frustrated and accuses ryu of hiding his devil fruit, because he remembers what he saw in grey terminal and that now that he has seen haki he can distinguish it from what he saw and he’s sure no one could do what ryu did. He calls ryu a hypocrite for coddling them even after telling them to stop coddling sabo and ryu has to sit them down and explain that yes he does have powers and he has been hdiing it and explains his reasoning. However instead of understanding th eboys just get fired up and say they don’t wnt to be scared of fire, especially not when it means ryu isn’t taking them seriously in a spar. Ryu finally agrees to start them on desensitization training for fire trauma. Fire desensitization training happens on the beach, so that they have water nearby in case things get out of hand. At some point ace gives ryu a considering look and is just like “if you have a devil fruit that means you can’t swim either right?” and ryu is basically just like “lmao yeah” and then ace immediately attempts to drown him. Lots of murder attempts in ace’s department toget his older brother to be less of an idiot with little success lol(extra: ace tried to attack ryu earlier both to confirm that ryu has a devil fruit that would force him to use haki to hide it, and because he now knows that he CAN’T hurt ryu without haki and as thus can’t beat him and make him admit he’s awake without being good at haki.)” [chapter 8]

“Small sabo lost his hat and goggles in the incident and while he doesn’t remember having them future sabo notices he looks uncomfortable and keeps touching his hair and head. Ace yells at him for it thinking he bandaging are bothering him and that he can’t touch them but little sabo just comments that something about it feels wrong. Luffy blurts our that he had a hat, like luffy does, But he doesn’t now ace begrudgingly mentions that they can’t get a new one in town. Future sabo doesn’t even hesitate and just plops his own hat onto his younger selves head. It clearly too big for him, and almost falls over his eyes but he grins up at future sabo and is like “wow!! Thank you! I’ll take care of it till I have one of my own” and creates a paradox like Luffys own hat. The footsteps younger sabo has yet to fill. This HAS to happen AFTER the talk where they explain that future and past sabo are both the same person, to give little sabo that pressure.” [chapter 9]

“(Right after this older sabo takes them down to the ocean so that they can play a little and desensitize themselves and immediately fucks himself over when he goes weak in the water bc he somehow fucking forgot his own devil fruit again and now even younger sabo is on his case about not letting him near the fucking ocean that little goddamn HYPOCRITE—) )” [for chapter 9]

“Ch 9 plan: they finally leave dawn island. Starts with the boys getting a haircut after training and luffy mentions how long it’s been since they’ve last needed a haircut, giving sabo and ace time to point out that it’s been 2 months now since ryu joined them, and that sabo was completely healed by now. The boys are now aware of the basics of haki, and while luffy hasnt awakened either yet ace and sabo both have a little bit of weak armament haki. (sabo won’t awaken observational haki until he gets his memories back) ryu tries to sneak off into the city to steal a boat but his brothers refuse to leave him behind and keep sneaking out after him, not wanting him to go alone and saying that since he’s been training them they’re clearly stronger and he needs to let them do this. Ryu eventually just lets it go because why the fuck not it’s a dream and they make him feel better. They get the boat out on open ocean and finally fucking sail out, cheering loudly, ryu struggling to make them all calm down but also not really trying. He’s happy as shit, and they’re all so excited and happy and sabo dips a hand into the waves and then smiles so fucking wide and tackles ryu so violently they both nearly tip into the water and it’s just very very good. “ [also for ch 9]

** I flat out dont Have any outlining from before chapter 6, because i only started actually outling chapters after that. i tend to just sit down and Write up until i hit a plot point or writers block and then am forced to actually think it through and plan rather than letting it come naturally. thats also why the quality and editing is better in later chapters despite everything being written within the same time frame.

besides entire chapter outlines, there are the scene specific phone notes like:

“(ADDED) Right after they leave dawn, when sabo is sure they’ve gotten enough of a head start, he calls Garp. He doesn’t say who he is, but that all of the boys are safe and happy with him and has them all talk into the phone to assure him that they’re fine. Garp is honestly just pissed off he doesn’t know who’s calling and when he asks sabo just laughs and says a disobedient brat before hanging up. “

“(ADDED) TO EXPAND ON CH 3: sabo gets offered the chance to go with dragon, and he hesitates on the offer to go through with his previous life with the family he’s made in the revolutionary again. He almost agrees, because the bought of losing them in this lifetime is near excruciating but reminds himself swiftly that it’s no place for his brothers and not what they’d really want, and he wants selfishly to be with them as long as he Can until he “inevitably” wakes up. The boys are visibly relieved by this, especially ace. (Sabo gets asked who he is by dragon, who wants to know more about the stranger with his son, but dragon has always been quicker to make connections no one guessed and he just smiled knowingly at sabo and tells him he’s sure the other will have no trouble finding them if he’s in need. Sabo in turn warns him to keep Kuma close, and to look for a slave girl named koala.)”

I have…. many of these. I have Many of Everything.

finally, i have scene doodles. if i hit a bad writers block it usually helps me to sketch scenes or the character designs to regain my grip on what the hell is happening in the plot– Breach of Intention has character design sketches, pakcbond has MANY scene sketches, even some of my nsfw has some sketches. my wror skecthes arent Good of course, I am an art teacher for children and that means i am more often explaining the color wheel and brush techniques over drawing perfect human replicas– and i just dont really make a lot of fanart? ive never drawn sabo before but i sure have a bunch now. i wont include close ups because they genuinely suck but heres an example pic

So… yeah thats about everything. this is a VERY long post and yet i only included like maybe ¼ or 1/5 of all the notes i have dbskhjgfkjadns lmk if anyone wants more (or notes for my Other stories, which contain NO WHERE the same absurd amount of shit that wror does.)

#depths' ask #response #idk what to even tag this honestly?? this post is such a mess abhdsjfgdkjn #thanks mido love u dear 💕🎉 im gonna want some damn notes on second chances heads up #wror #wror stockpile #touchmycoat #i started this response at goddamn 3:52am and its now 4:40am #it took me. almost an HOUR #oh my god

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comicteaparty · 4 years

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April 1st-April 7th, 2020 Reader Favorites Archive

The archive for the Reader Favorites chat that occurred from April 1st, 2020 to April 7th, 2020. The chat focused on the following question:

How do you feel about creators spoiling their own stories, and how does it effect how you read the comic?

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

As someone who's both reader & a creator, it can be really hard to restrain giving spoilers. But it could also be that they are excited to make this story and they wanna 'get to the spoilers' really soon. But if you are such creator, an idea is to find friends whom you can trust, don't mind giving critique/give spoilers to. As a reader it can be slight disappointment to learn about spoilers in a comic you were invested in and still reading. At this point, I might think, I'm going to get out of the conversation on the spoilers and wait until more content is made(edited)

DanitheCarutor

Being someone who was raised by a parent who wanted me to spoiler movies for them if I saw it first, I don't care about stories being spoiled for me. Experiencing the scene is usually very different than being told what it is, also once I get to that spoiled scene I've already forgotten about it thanks to my Quality short-term memory. Honestly, I would totally go all out spoiling my own comic, but I know most people hate that stuff so I don't out of respect. There have been a few times when I've talked about spoilery stuff not really knowing if it would be considered a spoiler, or because I'm talking about something else that is related and I have to spoil a bit for the topic.

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

Personally it depends on how plot heavy the spoiler is. If it's something like what food/clothing/interests the characters have, I don't mind so much. But if it's something like who is going to die, who falls in love with who....I think the experience would be slightly more diminished.

Like @Joichi [Hybrid Dolls] said, I usually share the spoilers only with close friends, particularly those who know how to give their input. It's important to get feedback, but choosing who you tell is very important.

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I’m very protective of story details. I don’t want people to know any of what’s going to happen in my story. I like having secrets

I don’t really mind hearing spoilers myself much of the time because I mostly enjoy stories by looking at all the events in the story together. If I know all the events sooner that often lets me enjoy it sooner

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I usually don't care that much about spoilers, unless it's about character death or something. Usually, I try to avoid them like the plague, just in case, but I don't really care that much.(edited)

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Personally, on other people's comics, I usually only refer to what's in the comic proper. Not too fond of having to read supplemental material, like creator QA's.

I know they can be nice for some readers, but I genuinely don't like it when the knowledge established in a QA or so is assumed to be known in the comic proper without ever being mentioned there.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I'm having difficulty articulating my reasons, but for me, the creator spoiling things is different from a reader spoiling the same things. And reader-supplied spoilers can also be VERY different based on context and tone. I hate it when people spoil things for others out of malice (like when people were buying ad spaces, just after that one Harry Potter book came out, to broadcast [THIS IMPORTANT CHARACTER] DIES!!!!), even if I don't care about the work being spoiled.

Going back to creator-supplied spoilers........ it's something I can't relate to, as a creator myself? (Sharing spoilers in private is one thing, but if they're posting it in public...) This is going to sound negative and I apologize in advance. When I see a creator laying out the big spoilers in public, it makes me worry that maybe they prefer to talk instead of actually making the comic -- that maybe they won't make it to the ending. I'm happy to be proven wrong, of course. And there is no shame in dropping a comic before you get to the end (I've done that myself!). But yeah, public spoilers is one of those things that makes me worry.(edited)

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

^My thoughts exactly. It worries me in exactly the same way.

Deo101 [Millennium]

when it comes to reading spoilers, Ive never really minded. Granted, I'd rather have spoilers more towards "what to expect" because I otherwise will get a lot of anxiety. A bit of the way in, I want to know if something is going to be worth my time to get invested into, or if I should ignore the stress and just be along for the ride. Being told things like "this is a tragedy and you shouldnt expect to have a happy ending" and "everything will work out in the end" really calms me down when I'm reading. Getting small spoilers about character things, inconsequential plot stuff, etc. don't really bother me at all, but yeah I'm with keiiii where if someone is sharing the ending of their story halfway through I worry theyre not interested in actually working to get there.

I'll personally share in small private settings whatever people want to know, but I refuse to in a public setting share what I'd consider to be a big spoiler. I'll share small character things or vague plans and some worldbuilding stuff, but I don't see those as spoilers really.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

The "what to expect" thing is a really great topic though. I would love to discuss it in depth in shop talk when the caffeine kicks in

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Ooh me too. I drop some future story features in my About page - very broadly. But it's more of a pitch than an outright spoiler. It requires some vagueness to be effective.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

@Deo101 [Millennium] Setting expectations correctly is very different from spoilers, I think, and more in direction of "what genre does that story fall under". Like a romance means happy (for now) ending for the main couple - even if you might end up disagreeing if an ending is happy.

It ain't a spoiler that a space opera has some kind of space travel, that kind of thing.

For me spoilers tend to cover plot specifics, not genre and general tone. That's setting expectations.

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah, but a lot of people really don't like to say that their story is gonna be a tragedy because they dont want to spoil that people are gonna die or whatever

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

That's... bad marketing.

Deo101 [Millennium]

it happens constantly

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

I agree that a lot of times what creators share is basically bonus plot info, or extra details, or even warnings. I actually haven't really ever gotten a major spoiler from a creator.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Mind you, you can have people die without being a tradgedy, see the majority of epic fantasy.

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

(On a side note, I have spoiled 100% of the plot of my comic to very specific close people in my life, but I don't know if that counts.)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I don't think there is a single person to whom I've spoiled 100% and I'm jelly of those of you who have Story Confidantes!

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Honestly SOs and close siblings are a GODSEND

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I'm close with my bro, but he's not into the kind of stuff I write. (might be getting off topic?)

RebelVampire

Yeah I do want to remind again here this should be about experiences as a reader, not as a creator. And I know there can be a bit of bleed over, but there's a point where the focus changes too much.

RebelVampire

I think this depends on who it's being spoiled to. If creators want to spoil their stories to close personal friends in private convos, I think that's A-okay. Even as a writer I do that, because it's good to have people to bounce ideas off of. And I think for more creators it's the same. Also, sometimes you just want to have a fun chat to de-stress and it's easier with people who you can tell all your secrets too. If it's being spoiled to people who asked for spoilers, that's also another matter where I think it's mostly fine. In fact, depending on what's spoiled, it can really help drive engagement. For example, if a comic is "spoiling" lore that has a significant bearing on the plot without revealing the exact how of it all. However, then we come to the matter of major public spoilers, which there are tons and tons of creators who do this. On the one hand, that's the creator's right to do so, so a part of me feels like embracing the can't be helped mindset. But, if I'm being brutally honest, as a reader 90% of the time it just kills all engagement with the story for me. I mean, what's the point of reading the story if I can just find out everything in a fraction of the time? Plus, for me personally, I enjoy theorizing and trying to guess events, mysteries, etc. And if I'm being told the answers, that basically ruins like 80% of how I engage with content. I'm also confident I'm not the only reader who feels this way, so personally speaking I don't think it's a wise decision no matter how juicy or agonizing it is to hold in the spoiler.

Feather J. Fern

For me, spoilers don't mean much. I'm still going to read the comic regardless. Now I spoiling something is funnier, because it takes me forever to get to the section which I spoiled, so something I spoiled would take a year to get to, and then everyone forgot the spoiler anyways. XD

I have already spoiled endings to my friends about one of my comic projects, and three months in they are already like "I forgot about that." So maybe it's just my readers haha.

DanitheCarutor

@keii’ii (Heart of Keol) About the talking vs. finishing the comic thing. If I decided to spoil it would be because I was impatient to discuss. Like, right now I have the worst itch just to talk about the climax and ending to discuss all the little details, what I could do better next time, if I should put trigger warnings on specific chapters, and/or how my readers feel. Would it keep me from making it to the end? Nah, executing and seeing the results are not the same as describing them. The emotions a reader has can change vastly when they experience an event vs. read a description, it's not as fulfilling... or as painful. At least that is my perspective, neither I nor my readers would get the full experience from me describing a major event/ending. I don't know how it would be for other creators though. Lol

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, it's definitely a case by case thing.

DanitheCarutor

Pff yeah, I imagine some people are less anal about execution than I am.

eli [a winged tale]

Great discussions here! If I’m the reader, I’d prefer not to be spoiled and enjoy the story as is. It helps me as both a consumer and a creator to see how the plot twists are planted and revealed. As a beta reader, though, I would need to know the story to give suggestions on how to execute said spoilers but this is more of a creator-to-creator basis. I totally get the itch to share and I think having betareaders/comic confidantes are great for satisfying that need while getting constructive ways to evaluate them.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Agreed. I think having at least one person within your reader circle who is privy to deeper details can be very helpful, both for editing and for motivation Especially if there are story details that won't be shared for years. It's a good way to prevent 'leakage'

DanitheCarutor

I need to get myself a confidant, not only would it help the itch but talking about it would probably help me better fill in the small details. There was a rl friend I had who got too busy and lost interested, and someone online who I talked to about smaller stuff, but I don't like bothering people. Especially since my comic is sooo... my comic. Lmao!

Gosh, I would be the perfect person for someone to confide in about their comic, I would totally forget about the spoilers after waking up the next day.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

Tbh I don't mind if a story is spoiled to me. I'm the type of person who is like "okay so that's how it ends? How does it get there?" and I would be more upset if the creator spills those important parts that reach the end result. Though, when explaining my comic plots and details to my irl friends and beta readers, it's more of a planning session than things said in stone. Basically if it's something that I've not written down and could be a spoiler, yet I talk about it and those spoiler squeals aren't in the final scripts though. If it's an important detail and is a spoiler, I will withhold that information till the time comes.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I don't know what I'd think because I've never seen a webcomic I liked share spoilers before. I get the feeling that a "serious" writer would keep their twists private because they know they can show their plot better than they can tell it, if that makes sense. Even Sfeer Theory, a comic I really like that iirc did much of its brainstorming online, shut down their old worldbuilding posts once they got their actual comic started.

varethane

Personally, I'm not hugely opposed to spoilers, though it depends on the context. A lot of new webcomics when they're just started out will often only be able to market themselves with illustrations of scenes or dynamics that haven't quite happened yet, just by virtue of being so early on, and that's fine-- though increasingly less necessary the more Comic is released. The only kind of spoiler I might be actively mad about is if a comic whose appeal hingest largely on a central mystery or suspense spoiled The Answer, but I feel like most of the writers creating stories like that are conscious of this and keep that sort of thing under lock. There's also a big reason why I personally try not to share spoilers (and why I try not to put much stock by any spoilers I see posted by other webcomic creators, in case their process is like mine)-- which is that, basically anything that is more than a month ahead of the pages I've already drawn, is very likely to change substantially. I rewrite future plot points all the dang time. So if I shared something as a 'spoiler', there's only a 50/50 chance of that plot point actually coming to pass (unless it's one of the 4/5 big central plot linchpins); any readers waiting for it may come away disappointed, lol.

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

Def agree with Vare on this one. However, sometimes when a writer tells details to the point of no surprise in the comic whatsoever, that usually breaks immersion and interest for me. I've had a couple stories stagnate from having their plots revealed by the writer, and when the story hinges on that being a selling point, it tends to be very dissapointing to have done. Unless the story is character driven/ has characters charming enough to capture readers, i would def avoid spoiling the main plot points of the story if they can

eli [a winged tale]

I feel like anything in act 1 is technically not a spoiler since in books, the blurb encompasses act 1 even the beginning of act 2.

RebelVampire

Once again I'm popping in here to remind people this chat is primarily to talk about experiences as a reader, not as a creator. So let's not go too far into creator territory here.

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

It's hard to say how I'd feel because I don't really see writers post, like "X dies in the end" or whatever. Like it's not that common an occurrence, at least for comics I follow. What is common in my experience is creators posting ship art for characters that haven't shown up yet (thus spoiling that these are characters who will show up at some point, and at least have some interaction with each other). And with regards to that... I dunno. Like, my mentality as a reader/watcher of things is that a character doesn't "exist" until I see them in the story. Like, if I see a character in an anime OP, I'll be like "oh that character looks cool, I can't wait until I meet them". That is, I don't consider myself as having "met" them yet - I need the story as context. (for the record, that's true for me as a creator too - i know plenty of creators figure out their OCs' personality & backstory first before figuring out what sort of story they work in, and that's valid, but I can't imagine working like that) So anyway, to me creators posting OC art before they appear in the story is less "oh, i've been spoiled on what these OCs will do" and more "oh, i can't wait to read the story that these characters are involved in"

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #reader favorites #comic tea party #ctp

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botanistlester · 7 years

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Sweet Pea (5/?)

Summary: A nickname that goes bitter in your mouth. Cries for help that no one listens to. Gentle hands that make you quake on the ground you’re standing on. When Phil first met Nico, he thought he was a gift from the heavens. But behind the mask lies something daunting, something unnerving, that Phil never foresaw. Through his journey, he finds solace in Dan, the regular at his workplace, who seems to be the only one who sees through Nico’s mask to the darkness underneath. Warnings: Abusive relationship, violence A/N: The lyrics at the beginning are from the song Such Small Hands by La Dispute! This chapter contains light violence (grabbing), drinking, and mentions of throwing up, so please be safe. As always, thank you to @littlelionsloves and @snowbunnylester for editing this for me. I couldn't have done this without them. And thank you to you lovely people for reading this! It means the world to me that so many people look forward to this story. i love you all. xoxo Previous | Masterlist

Read it on AO3 Read it on Wattpad

Chapter Five

I think you saw me confronting my fear, it went up with the bottle and went down with the beer. And I think you ought to stay away from here. There are ghosts in the walls and they crawl in your head through your ear.

A month into their relationship, it was just like any other ordinary Tuesday. Phil woke up, went to class, and forgot to eat breakfast. He got shaky due to low blood sugar, and had to buy some McDonald’s to stop himself from shaking. His classes were filled with friendly chatter among friends, and sweet text messages from Nico.

Nico x - 12:53 pm

Hi sweet pea. Ill bet you look gorgeous today

Nico x - 1:07pm

You know youre the most beautiful man ive ever seen?

Nico x - 1:08pm

Cant wait to see you later <3

It was enough to glue a grin onto Phil’s face, so bright that he was sure it was going to blind every living person.

Tuesdays were one of Phil’s least favourite days of the week. He hated how it wasn’t the start of the week, and also wasn’t the end of the week. Tuesdays made Fridays seem so much further away. They were the day that nobody talked about, the day that Phil had a three hour long class to attend.

But this Tuesday turned out to be one of the best he’d ever had.

Phil and Nico had plans to hang out. It wasn’t anything special, at least it wasn’t supposed to be. But to be honest, Phil thought anything to do with Nico was pretty special. They were supposed to just hang out and watch movies, maybe even play a little Rock Band even though Phil was horrible at it.

That was just what they did. They went out to eat after class at a nice tamale place right off of campus. Phil had never had a tamale before, didn’t really know what it was, but Nico was gracious as he explained how to eat it, his feet gently playing with Phil’s under the table. After eating, they headed back to Nico’s apartment, where they first watched some Gravity Falls and then moved onto Over the Garden Wall when they got tired of it.

Then came the Rock Band. It was just as horrible as Phil had thought it was going to be. His voice cracked as he sung, unable to hit the high notes, and Nico was cracking up at him as he played the guitar. Phil didn’t understand why he had to be the one to use the microphone, but Nico only claimed it was because he sounded cute, and they continued playing.

It was Nico who said it first.

Phil was singing a horrendous version of Through the Fire and the Flames, failing horribly and making a fool out of himself. The crowd was going wild, booing him, getting angry at all of the notes he missed. He sounded like a dying goose and he was fully aware of it from the giggles that left Nico’s mouth as he hit nearly every note on the guitar.

Eventually, Phil’s crowd booed him so hard that he ended up being kicked off, and he pouted as he set the microphone down, resisting the urge to throw it against the wall.

“That’s not fair!” he whined, glaring at Nico as he quit to the main menu, snickering all the while.

“And why isn’t it?” Nico asked, clearly amused. He brought a slender hand to Phil’s fringe and pushed a stray piece back into place.

“It’s unfair that they judge you by how your singing sounds! As long as you hit the notes, it shouldn’t matter how you sound!” Phil crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at the offending game. Perhaps he was over exaggerating, but he didn’t particularly care at that moment.

Nico laughed and leaned over to press a kiss to Phil’s cheeks. His lips were cold against his warm face, and it cooled him down only slightly. “That’s just it, sweet pea,” Nico said gently, and ran a hand through Phil’s hair, ruffling it into more of a quiff. “You weren’t hitting the notes.”

Phil gasped aloud and glared at his boyfriend, slapping him on the chest. How dare his own significant other make fun of him for such a thing! “You take that back!” Nico snickered and shook his head. “I hate you!” Phil whined because Nico was evil and he definitely hated him.

“Well it’s a good thing I love you, then,” Nico told him softly, and Phil’s heart stopped. Stuttered. Accelerated.

His shock must have been evident on his face because Nico reached out and smoothed the lines on Phil’s face with such a soft expression that it made Phil’s chest hurt. He couldn’t believe that Nico had said something like that, especially so casually, as if it was obvious in the first place. Of course, Phil had been thinking about terms like ‘love’ often the past few weeks, but he hadn’t expected Nico to say it so soon. Not like he was complaining though. He could feel the pull in his bones that made him fall into Nico’s arms, making him kiss along Nico’s cheekbones, along his jawline.

He breathed into Nico’s skin, breathed in his cologne, tried to imprint it into his memory.

At the time, he believed he could stay there forever and be completely and utterly content. With that thought in mind, he closed the gap between their lips and kissed Nico deeply, trying to convey how he felt through the touch. They kissed passionately, nipping and licking into each other’s mouths, until Phil was sitting in Nico’s lap.

When he pulled away for air, he leaned in close, kissing the shell of Nico’s ear. He wondered if his voice shook when he spoke, if it showed just how nervous and excited he was. “I love you too,” he whispered. “Forever and always.”

Nico smiled against his lips. “To death do us part,” he replied quietly, and they sealed it with a kiss, a promise to continue loving each other until their hearts give out. And when the kiss got more passionate, more daring, Phil didn’t really mind.

That night, they made love for the first time, and Phil couldn’t help but shed a few tears because he felt so completely and utterly loved beneath Nico’s fingertips. He gasped and moaned and sobbed, and Nico held him close all the while, whispering how much Phil meant to him, how he’d die if Phil ever left him, into the skin of his thighs and the nape of his neck.

Phil didn’t know why they hadn’t done this sooner, but he wasn’t one to complain when he felt so amazing that he could barely formulate the words. So instead, he stayed quiet and basked in the feeling of Nico loving him to the fullest.

When it was all over and done with, Phil decided that perhaps Tuesdays couldn’t be that bad after all.

“Come to a party with me.”

Phil sighed and grimaced, shaking his head. He didn’t look up from where he was writing lecture notes in his cactus-themed notebook. “Nico, you know I don’t like parties,” he said flatly.

Nico pouted at him, and when Phil still didn’t pay him any mind, he leaned forward across Phil’s desk, making Phil draw a line through his originally beautiful page of notes. Phil scowled and tried to shove Nico off, but it didn’t do anything for him.

“Please? We always do the things you wanna do together. Can’t we just go to a party for once?”

At just the mention of parties, Phil could already feel himself breaking out in a nervous sweat.

He hated parties with a burning passion, hated them more than anybody could ever understand. Alcohol, drugs, loud music, and large crowds never made for a comfortable Phil.

“I dunno, Nico. Parties make me really nervous.”

“Please, please, please?” Nico whined, refusing to move even as Phil tried to shove him off again. He was lucky they were in a large lecture hall, otherwise Nico would have been in trouble with the professor. Now, he was only getting glares from the students surrounding him. “We never do anything I want to do.”

“If you get off my notes and shut up, I’ll go to the dumb party with you,” Phil hissed, poking Nico in the face.

Nico nodded happily and backed off, giving Phil a little sideways smirk that never failed to make Phil swoon. Damn it, even when Phil was mad at Nico, he can’t seem to stay mad.

The party arrived far before Phil was ready for it.

It was a Thursday night, which made Phil whine a lot. Partying on a Thursday? He was going to be absolutely wrecked tomorrow. But Nico scoffed and told him it was ‘Thirsty Thursday’ and that if he didn’t party today then that automatically make Phil lame. Phil wasn’t lame, damn it.

A little bit before the party started, Phil couldn’t help but start freaking out, just because that’s what he did best. He didn’t know what to wear to something like this, much less how to act, so he complained a little bit as he went through each individual item of clothing. Button down? No, too fancy. Band tee? Too casual. Tank top? Phil might be able to get away with it.

He put the shirt on, combining it with a pair of whitewashed shorts. The tank was just a superhero shirt with a bunch of different DC characters on it, and he always liked it because it was nerdy but flattering. Just like him (minus the flattery).

When he walked out of the room to show Nico, he struck a pose. “Do I look okay?” he asked nervously, wringing his hands to stop himself from tearing his hair out.

Nico stood up and made his way over to him. He groaned, putting his arms around Phil’s neck and pulling him down to connect their lips in a less-than-innocent way. “You’re so sexy, sweet pea,” Nico growled, sounding a bit overprotective. He ran his hands all over Phil’s chest until they were skirting up Phil’s shirt, caressing the pale skin underneath.

Despite the nervous energy going haywire throughout Phil, he somehow felt himself getting turned on. Maybe it was because he was so nervous that every touch made his body feel electrified, that he found himself kissing Nico with more vigour until they were undressing Phil once more.

Nico kissed him all over, made marks over his collarbones, made sure to claim Phil as his. Phil couldn’t exactly complain, not when it was feeling so amazing that he temporarily forgot about his anxiety. They had sex and each of Nico’s moans were like music to Phil’s ears. He wished they could just stay inside and do this the whole night, but he knew his wishes wouldn’t be granted. Not that night at least.

When they finished, they took a moment cleaning themselves back up before Phil started to get dressed again in his previous clothes. Nico stopped him before he could pull the tank top on. “Wear a different shirt,” he told Phil, seemingly nonchalant.

Phil was confused and he cocked his head a bit, furrowing his eyebrows. Hadn’t Nico said he liked this shirt? Or was he lying? “Why? I thought you said I looked sexy.”

“That’s the problem,” Nico whined, kissing Phil’s naked shoulder and pouting at him. His green eyes were big and wide and he batted his eyelashes to make himself look prettier than he already was. “You’re too good looking! I may just have to ravish you again as soon as you put it back on. Besides, I don’t want anyone to take you tonight.”

Phil cooed and pecked Nico on the lips, unable to help himself from smiling. His boyfriend was far too sweet, always looking out for him no matter the circumstance. “Fine. But you have to decide what I’m wearing. I don’t want to spend another twenty minutes looking through my clothes.

It took approximately twelve seconds for Nico to pull out a shirt, a purple v-neck that Phil hardly ever wore anymore because it showed some of the hair on his chest. But Nico convinced him in a soft tone that he would look amazing, so he didn’t argue and just put it on. They had to leave anyway.

The walk over was filled with complete and utter anxiety from Phil. He couldn’t stop himself from fidgeting with everything he possibly could. A thread from his shirt, his hair, the choker dangling from around his neck. He fiddled with everything.

“Stop fretting so much,” Nico told him softly. He was texting on his phone, not even needing to look over at Phil to know that he was freaking out. Phil envied him for being so composed, even in moments like these.

Phil bit his lip and words came out of his mouth before he could tell the words to stop. “Can I hold your hand?”

Just like the first time Phil had asked about PDA, Nico seemed to turn to ice. His lips pressed together and he gave Phil a once-over that made him wondering if he had something disgusting on his shirt. “You know I have anxiety, sweet pea,” Nico told him carefully, in a warning tone almost.

“But I do too, Nico,” Phil pleaded. He held his hand out, trying to catch Nico’s hand in his own, but it was snatched away before he could fully grasp it. “Please? Just this once?”

Nico was shaking his head, and he put his hands in his pockets, out of Phil’s reach. His eyes were focused on everything but Phil, it seemed, and Phil could feel himself start to shrink in on himself, already accepting that his idea was an unfair one. He should never have asked Nico to go out of his comfort zone. “Stop asking me. The answer’s no, Phil.”

Not ‘sweet pea’. Not ‘love’. Not even ‘sweetheart’. Just Phil. That was probably what struck Phil in the heart most of all. He didn’t even reply, just went completely silent and refused to speak for the rest of the walk.

But that’s okay, because Nico didn’t try to talk to him either.

Soon enough, they came to the house. “Don’t lose me, okay?” Phil asked fretfully as they entered the house. The music was already so loud that it swallowed up his voice, and the only reason he knew Nico had heard at all was because of the tiny nod sent his way.

Their hands weren’t entwined like Phil desperately wanted, but he’d long since accepted that Nico wouldn’t want to hold his hand in front of their peers, so it didn’t surprise him too much. Instead, Phil found himself gently clasping the back of Nico’s shirt as he followed him through the crowd, trying desperately not to lose his boyfriend.

They found themselves in the kitchen soon enough, drinks being shoved into their hands. It got Phil to loosen up a bit, his head feeling a bit light and his shoulders less tense. Nico was speaking to a group of his other classmates, Phil standing behind him listening. He didn’t speak because he didn’t know if he would be capable, the alcohol sitting heavy on his tongue and making his eyes droop slightly. He watched with a slight smile as Nico threw his head back and laughed, that smile that Phil loved so much making an appearance.

He wanted to kiss those lips so bad, but he stayed firmly in place. He didn’t want to make Nico uncomfortable with his public displays of affection.

“I gotta piss,” Nico said to the group, pointing his thumbs in the opposite direction down the hall. “I’ll be right back.”

Phil stood up straighter, taking a few steps forward to follow Nico. Just as he did, a shoulder knocked into his own and sent him flying backwards, his head smashing into the wall and his beer spilling all over his shirt. He cringed in pain, his head spinning, as he tried to regain his balance. But then, disoriented, he looked around, expecting to see Nico, only to be greeted with a blank space next to him. In a panic, he looked around the room, trying to find that familiar head of curly hair, and found him at the end of the hall, nearly out of sight.

“Nico, wait up!” he called over the crowd, watching with growing panic as the brunette disappeared down the hallway.

Phil cursed, wiping off his soiled shirt with his hands and not caring that they got all sticky with beer. He started to stumble after his boyfriend, the room swaying around him, and he found himself falling to his knees puking into a potted plant instead. There was a bitter taste in his mouth and he could hardly believe he’d lost his own boyfriend.

Who the fuck does that?

He puked once more, gagging on the taste, and sat back on his feet when he was done, wiping his mouth off with distaste. He couldn’t believe he’d just puked in a potted plant.

“Hey man, you okay?” A voice asked behind him, a hand appearing on his shoulder.

Phil jumped out of his skin, whirling around to find a familiar looking guy with a curly brown fringe and brown eyes filled with worry. Phil didn’t know why he was familiar and he gaped for a moment, trying to figure it out.

It was when the man’s eyes widened and he gasped out a, “Phil?” that Phil realised this was Dan. The Dan who was Phil’s regular at work.

“Dan!” Phil slurred, standing up to his full height and, before Dan could protest, he brought him into a large hug. Dan was warm and stiff with shock, but Phil was too out of it to notice, pulling away after a moment to grin at him. “What’s up, mate?”

“Er-,” Dan stuttered, his cheeks turning red with a blush and his eyes flitting around the room. “What are you doing here? Do you need help?” He gestured to Phil’s shirt and Phil laughed, waving him off.

“‘S nothin’,” Phil told him. “Have you seen Nico?”

“Nico?” Dan echoed, confused.

Phil nodded and he furrowed his brow. “My boyfriend. He disappeared and I can’t find him.”

Dan shook his head and watched with growing concern as Phil stumbled forward, catching himself on Dan’s arm for support. “Do you, uh, need some help finding him?”

“Yes! You’re an angel!” Phil exclaimed excitedly, nodding his head until there was black hair in his eyes. He blinked it out of the way with frustration.

They started searching then, with Dan supporting a much-too-drunk Phil on his arm. Phil didn’t even have the right mind to be embarrassed that his own customer was seeing him in such a state. He didn’t really care about anything other than his lost boyfriend and the spinning room at the moment. Dan was quiet as well, a strange feat in itself as Dan was usually weirdly loud and flirtatious whenever Phil served him.

Once again, Phil didn’t pay any mind to it. But Dan did, leading Phil to a sofa in the corner of the room, and forcing Phil to sit down.

“Let’s just sit for a bit until you feel better, okay? Then we can find Nico.” Dan sat beside Phil, a tiny bit too close, but Phil didn’t mind. Dan was warm, and he liked warm. He melted into the touch.

“Oh Nico,” Phil sighed dramatically, resting his head on the back of the couch. He smiled, that same warmth emanating from Dan making a home in Phil’s belly at the thought of Nico. “He’s wonderful isn’t he? He always takes such good care of me.”

Dan shuffled a bit next to him, and he was probably uncomfortable, but he was listening to Phil anyway. What a great man. Phil was glad to know someone as nice as Dan. “Is that right? Tell me about Nico, then.”

“He’s just… I love him!” Phil exclaimed, pushing himself up from the couch in his excitement. A friendly and gentle hand on his wrist kept him from standing up, instead forcing him to sit back down. Phil slapped his hands on his lap to show just how much he loved Nico. “He’s so wonderful, Dan. I don’t think you understand, okay? He has these nice freckles that are like constellations and these pretty green eyes. He kisses like a God. We’ve only been dating for like a month and a half, but I could probably marry the guy.” Turning to face Dan, he stared into his soft brown eyes as seriously as he could muster. “Get you a man like that, Dan.”

The comment made Dan chuckle and rest his head in his hand, staring at Phil with amusement in his gaze. “Sounds like I definitely need a Nico in my life, then. I’ll make a note of it.”

This admittance caused Phil to rant a little bit longer about how wonderful Nico is and about how lucky Phil was to have him in his life. He knew that there was no way he could live without Nico by his side anymore, as a best friend and a lover. He’d become codependent on him already.

But halfway through his speech, Phil stopped. His eyebrows furrowed and he glanced around the room, looking for the man of his affections. “Where is Nico anyway?” he asked Dan as if Dan knew the answer.

Dan frowned, seemingly concerned. “I’m not really sure, tbh.”

Phil began to panic, tugging at his hair. His hands began to shake. “Where did he go? He promised not to leave me here. He promised!” He started to get irrationally angry, flames building in his chest until he couldn’t contain them anymore. He put his hands on Dan’s shoulders and shook him, a noise almost like a wail coming from his throat. “Why did he leave me by myself?! He knows I don’t like crowds!”

Panic flitted across Dan’s face and he gently removed Phil’s hands from his shoulders, petting them. “We’ll find him,” Dan promised, squeezing Phil’s hands gently. “For the meantime, I’ll stay with you. I won’t leave you alone.”

There was an actual halo on Dan’s head, a light surrounding him, Phil was absolutely sure. He was an angel God sent from heaven, made specifically to bless Phil in all of his endeavors. He couldn’t believe how lucky he was in this moment to have someone like Dan looking out for him. He was so glad, in fact, that he started to tear up and had to wipe his eyes with his palm. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” Phil said emotionally.

“Hey now, don’t cry,” Dan laughed, patting Phil on the back.

“You’re just… too good to be real.” Phil gasped, putting his hand to his mouth, eyes wide as saucers. “Are you real?”

“I can confirm I’m real,” Dan assured him, and Phil let out a disappointed ‘damn it’ because he kind of wanted Dan to be a ghost. That’d be cool.

Suddenly, a hand appeared on Phil’s wrist, gripping so hard that Phil let out a confused whine. He was yanked from the couch, out of Dan’s grip, and turned to look at his attacker with squinted eyes. It took him a moment for his eyes to focus, but when they did, his face lit up. “Nico!” Phil squealed, ignoring the twinging pain in his wrist from where Nico was holding onto him. “I’m so sorry I lost you, I didn’t mean to, I swear.”

Nico wasn’t looking at him, his eyes instead narrowed at the space beside Phil. He was glaring at Dan, something akin to a challenge in his gaze. “You trying to fuck with my boyfriend?” Nico asked, venom in his tone.

Phil shook his head and put his hand on Nico’s chest in attempts to calm him down. Nico slapped his hand away. “He was trying to help me find you,” Phil assured his boyfriend. “He wasn’t trying to do anything weird. We just sat down cause I puked in a plant.” He started laughing hysterically at that, like it was the funniest thing he’d uttered all day, but Nico didn’t seem amused. In fact, he seemed a bit disgusted, looking Phil up and down as if he was inspecting him for any sign of puke on him.

“Why did you bring him here, dude?” Dan asked after a moment of silence. Both Phil and Nico turned to stare at him, but Dan didn’t back down. He was taller than Nico, but at the moment, Phil couldn’t help but think that Nico seemed much bigger in stature. “He’s clearly terrified of parties. So why’d you drag him here?”

Nico stared at Dan long and hard until Dan was shuffling uncomfortably and breaking eye contact. Phil cocked his head, confused about what was going on and sluggishly trying to keep up. “We agreed it would be fun to go to a party today. As a couple.” With that, Nico dragged Phil into him, an arm around his waist, one that was a bit too possessive. Phil was too drunk to notice.

Dan scoffed and shook his head, crossing his arms over his chest. He was glaring at Nico, absolutely glaring, as if venom could seep into his gaze. “Right. Because he’s so obviously having fun. When I found him earlier, he was a right mess.”

“Hey!” Phil exclaimed, pouting.

“Stay out of this, sweet pea,” Nico growled, and the nickname was back, this time sounding like a way to tell Phil he was serious. He drew himself up and made himself bigger than Dan - somehow - until he was nearly looking down on him. “Who are you to tell me how to handle my relationship?”

Shaking his head, Dan let out a disbelieving snort. “I’m just saying, mate. If a stranger can tell that your own boyfriend isn’t having a good time, maybe they’re a better boyfriend than you ever were.” Phil gaped at Dan, the comment somehow sobering him up, and Nico went completely tense beside Phil.

He was silent for a good while, staring at Dan, looking him up and down in disgust. Phil couldn’t believe he had two grown men fighting over him. His drunken brain was ecstatic. “Phil, we’re leaving,” Nico said finally, after a few moments where he didn’t talk.

Phil’s brief excitement came to a halt. “What? But I just made a new friend,” Phil interjected, whining like a child being told they had to leave the park. Why did Nico want to leave all of a sudden? Wasn’t the party his idea after all?

“We’re leaving,” Nico ordered in a dictatorial tone, leaving no room for arguments.

Phil sighed and nodded, turning to grin widely at Dan. “I guess I’m leaving, then,” Phil told him as if Dan hadn’t been there the entire time. “Thanks for helping me find Nico. I’ll see you back at LaBella’s, okay?”

Dan grinned and nodded, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes. His gaze was flickering between Phil’s face and the hand wrapped around Phil’s wrist, an uncertain expression flickering across his face. “I’ll see you around, Phil.”

Tugging harshly, Nico started to manhandle Phil away from the party. He whined a bit, complaining that Nico was hurting him, but Nico didn’t listen. He didn’t loosen his grip until they were a few blocks down the street, the music fading into the night sky. Only then did he release Phil’s wrist, which Phil immediately rubbed at. He could still feel the fingers pressed there, ingrained into his skin like a tattoo, and he pouted.

“That hurt,” Phil muttered again, stumbling after Nico. And then, “I’m sorry.” He didn’t even know what he was apologizing for.

Nico scoffed. “You deserved it,” he said under his breath.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Do you think I don’t know what’s going on, Phil?” Nico hissed. He wasn’t looking at Phil, seemingly trying to avoid glancing at him. “I could see the way he looked at you. Don’t try to act all innocent when you’re at a party acting like a fucking slut.”

“I- what?” Phil spluttered. This was too much for his drunk brain and he tripped and fell, his hands catching himself on the pavement. His palms burned where the cement cut him, blood starting to slowly seep from the wounds. Nico continued to walk as Phil tried to stand up by himself.

“You were going to cheat on me with that fucking loser,” Nico said matter-of-factly.

“No I wasn’t! I wouldn't do that!”

“Well you certainly look like you’re asking for it.” The comment made Phil look down at what he was wearing. He frowned deeply. He was only wearing a purple v-neck and skinny jeans. What was wrong with that? “Your shirt and tight jeans make you look like such a whore, Phil. I’m disappointed.”

“I didn’t know you didn’t like this outfit,” Phil whispered. “You’re the one who picked it out.”

They were coming to Nico’s apartment now, the lights inside notifying Phil that his roommate was home. He was slightly embarrassed to be seen in his drunken and upset state, but Nico didn’t seem to care. He pushed open the door and led Phil inside, straight to his room. He didn’t pay any attention to Phil as he stumbled up the stairs behind Nico, and he certainly didn’t pay attention as he stormed past his roommate and into his room, a quiet Phil with bloodied hands drunkenly following.

Once inside with the door closed, Nico nodded at his shirt. “Take it off,” Nico instructed.

Phil gaped at him. “Why?”

“Because I hate that shirt,” Nico snapped.

The harshness of the tone made Phil’s mind begin to buzz. His drunken brain didn’t quite understand what was happening, and he suspected that was the reason he didn’t start crying right then and there. When Phil made no move to remove his shirt, Nico stepped forward and Phil didn’t know why he flinched as Nico reached for him.

Instead of grabbing him directly, he grabbed Phil’s shirt, a hand on each side of the collar. His eyes were dark as he tsked, and Phil stared back in confusion.

All of a sudden, Nico was pulling.

It took far longer than he should be proud of for Phil to realise what was happening.

One moment, he had a perfectly nice v-neck shirt, and the next moment, the shirt was ripped in half and falling from his shoulders.

“You- you ripped my favourite shirt!” Phil choked out. He was more shocked than anything, his eyes so wide that they stung. He could hardly believe what had just happened and he didn’t know if this was something his drunken mind had conjured up in his sleep.

Instead of answering, Nico just took the remains of Phil’s shirt and threw them under the bed. He wouldn’t meet Phil’s eyes. “Let’s go to sleep,” he said.

In his shocked and drunken state, Phil didn’t argue. His hands were still bleeding. His head was absolutely killing from the knock he’d taken earlier. But he was far too exhausted, too confused, too upset to think about cleaning up. Instead, he fell onto the bed like he was welcoming his lover and let the sweet darkness of sleep take him.

They woke up in each other’s arms. At some point in the night, Nico had given in and curled around Phil, his head nestled into Phil’s neck. The gentle puffs of breath over his skin tickled, but Phil didn’t complain because he was too happy that Nico was finally paying attention to him again.

“I’m so sorry about last night,” Nico said when they woke up in each other's arms. “I must have drunk too much. I hardly even remember anything.”

Phil laughed it off, albeit a bit uneasily, nursing his headache with a cup of too-sweet coffee. “It’s okay, we both must have been rather out of it.” Phil smiled over at Nico and Nico smiled back. “Love you.”

“Love you too,” Nico murmured, swooping in and pressing a soft kiss to Phil’s lips.

The gesture made Phil melt, and he almost even forgot about his hangover. Even though he did end up missing his Friday morning class.

Chapter Six

#phan #phanfic #phanfiction #sweet pea #botanistlester #botanistfics #fanfic #fanfiction #phanfictioncatalogue #dan and phil #sp #phan chaptered #phan angst

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symbianosgames · 7 years

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Last week, we took a journey back to the world of The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion to stream a chat with lead designer Ken Rolston about his work on Bethesda's breakout role-playing game. Today, we've taken the time to transcribe our conversation with Rolston for your full perusal. Read on for some in-depth insights on his work on Oblivion and its predecessor Morrowind!

This interview has been lightly edited for clarification. Gamasutra's Alex Wawro and Bryant Francis both peppered Rolston with questions.

Alex Wawro: Hello and welcome to Gamasutra’s Thursday stream. Today we are playing Oblivion. I am Gamasutra editor, Alex Wawro and I am joined by Gamasutra contributing editor, Bryant Francis and most importantly, Oblivion lead designer Ken Rolston. Ken, how are you doing? Ken Rolston: I am perfect in every way.

Wawro: Ken, I was surprised. You know, when we first started corresponding about this you mentioned to me that you had sort of been idly considering doing some of your own livestreaming, some of your own YouTube video production. I kind of wanted to get, pick your brain of what you think the value is there and what makes you excited about returning to older games and sort of sharing your experiences working on them. Rolston: Well the larger concept is that I don’t believe that any work of literature or art, and this, I must admit is “Light Classics,” but this is a form of art, depends on the creator, the text, and the viewer or the reader. And I’m always very interested in the various different ways that people write criticism. And in terms of games they also do Let’s Plays. So I was interested for myself, I wanted to go see how other people played my game, because when you design a game you don’t really have a lot of feedback from your audience. So you don’t know what they’re going to appreciate and enjoy.

And then after the game is completed, you get to watch and find out how people really play your game. And from my point of view, I said, “Well, what would it be like if the designer of the game went and became the audience for his own game and started to play it. And then tried to do a let’s play, which then became kind of a story about my relationship with making the game.” So it’s just a dumb opportunity to try to blend the user and the creator in a way that an open game does accidentally and trying to be a little more purposeful about it. I was just doing experimental crap, that’s all.

Francis: Yeah, my question first, Alex, is did you just try to light this church on fire there? Wawro: Uh, look. Oblivion is part of our classic games series. It’s a little older. It’s been a while since I’ve played this game. It’s been a whole week in fact, and I kind of forgot which was the crouch key and which was the cast key. Turns out C is cast and Control is crouch. I won’t make that mistake again, I promise. Francis: Yeah, I guess I’ll jump off with a question that Mitchell Sabbagh, who joins us very regularly in the chat wanted to ask for you, Ken, how do you feel your design philosophy evolved between working on Morrowind and working on Oblivion? Rolston: Uh, I believe I did not have a design philosophy when I was doing Morrowind. By the way, you have now joined the Temple Climbing Club. This, by the way, for Morrowind, was the idea of open world means if you make your own fun then you decide on your own goals. And in Morrowind, we decided that one of the ways to play the game was to be the Temple Climbers Club. I’ve never seen anybody climb one of the religious buildings in Oblivion. So you accidentally joined a very important freeform gaming group. Wawro: And now I have a new purpose in life. Rolston: I’m sorry, I’m going to go back to your question, now. Francis: No, that was important. Rolston: How did my philosophy of development evolve? I think it did not exist at all before Morrowind, and then once I had a chance to see how people played with things in Morrowind, I began to try to have more explicit conversations between myself and the player in the non-quest dialogue. I didn’t work nearly so much on the detail level of Oblivion. They’re almost two completely different lead design concepts. In Morrowind, I essentially wrote the outline of all the quest lines. There were only three designers, so that was practical. And I made an awful lot of the content myself.

"I essentially wrote the outline of all the quest lines. There were only three designers, so that was practical. And I made an awful lot of the content myself. "

With Oblivion, I made hardly any of the content myself, just a few scraps in the main quest and a couple of different quests. So my design was changed from a highly centrally controlled, centrally authored content to something which had as many different voices as possible. All the different designers, I wanted them to take my rough outlines for the designs and then remove the content of the outlines and simply make sure they hit all the basic elements, but have completely different content. That result, for example Emil [Pagliarulo], did amazing work with the Dark Brotherhood, I could never have done anything like that. Emil’s skills are completely different, orthogonal to mine. And the thief system -- the thief guild quests by Bruce Nesmith were completely different than any of the other quest structures. So the way it evolved in that sense was in the way the development evolved.

The more designers you have, the more opportunities you have to have a larger game with many different voices, many different styles. I think one of the great things about the Elder Scrolls games, as they’ve evolved, is that they have many more voices and therefore they suit the ears of the players better. By example, when I used to teach high school, I used to hope that at least once in your life you found a teacher who was your soulmate. That was kind of what I wanted you to do in the games. I hope you find one designer that did some content that really was your soulmate as a player that was able to have his own particular personality and express it in the gameplay and the design.

Wawro: Hm, I wonder, you gave us the hot tip before we started that it would be wise to sort of expand the boundaries of a new Oblivion playthrough by opening up everything, looking at the game and opening up the Oblivion gates as well. Is there an area you would suggest that well shows off what you’re talking about here? Maybe it shows your hand directly or the hand of a designer you admire? Rolston: Uh, no, because the possibility of a lead designer knowing the content of any Elder Scrolls game is diminishingly small. Morrowind is the only one I can really talk about, but I don’t think I’d actually played more than 60% of the built content when we released the game. I had certainly played it in prototype or white box or things like that, but you just cannot play the whole content, it’s just too big to put the iterations into it. So the reason I suggested wandering to different places, just be a tourist. Francis: Yeah, I was going to real quick, invite our viewers to give Alex -- Alex you’re still playing that pilgrim from last week, right? Wawro: Yeah, and I’m level two and I unlocked Oblivion Gates early, so if you don’t give me somewhere to go, we’re going to go to a quick death pretty soon. Rolston: Oblivion! Yay!

"The very first Morrowind was essentially a novel, the main quest, plus three or four or five or six other novels which are the main guild things. And then millions of little short stories."

Francis: Let’s see what pilgrimage our players want you to go on. So Ken, do you think that makes Elder Scrolls games kind of the equivalent of a short story collection? Rolston: Let’s see, the role playing game, in general, is the novel of the computer game class. So in this sense, it’s more like a collection of multiple novels built with different perspectives and settings. It’s really hard to come up with a literary comparison for the way it works. But for example, the very first Morrowind, was essentially a novel, that is the main quest, plus three or four or five or six other novels which are the main guild things. And then millions of little short stories that were either formally organized by quests or simply you drop a magic item into the world and that is a quest on its own. Once you discover the existence of the different items and you find out about them on the boards, you say, “I really want to have that bow.” Then that’s your story. Wawro: Yeah, absolutely. Francis: Alex, [Twitch Viewer] is advising that you guide Salamantha to Shaden Hall, if I’m saying that area right. Wawro: Yeah, sure. Francis: So let’s begin our journey there and see what happens. Wawro: Alright, well I’m going to see if I can get away from this charming chap. Rolston: I’m not sure that you can teleport except when you don’t have enemies around you. So you have to have some kind of a solution there. See if it works. Francis: I guess my next question for you Ken, while Alex is trying to survive here...We’re talking about fast travelling, right now and I know whenever anyone is making a big fantasy game like this, you want players to experience the world and experience some kind of simulation. But why did you all decide to implement a fast travel system that worked the way it did? And how do you feel it affected that relationship players have with the world?

"The player can always choose to walk, but the ability to fast travel lets you use the game in the way you want to use it."

Rolston: I think I learned the most about that from Mark Nelson, who was really like a second in command at that point for Oblivion. He was also a designer on Morrowind. He hated the concept of fast travel and Todd Howard wanted to have fast travel. And I think I fought it in kind of a casual way, but Mark fought it in a principled and heartfelt way. And both Mark and I were dead wrong and Todd was right, that what it did is it served the needs of the user. The player can always choose to walk, if he wants to, but his ability to fast travel lets him use the game in the way he wants to use it. I think it was foolish of us to believe that our experience of Morrowind should be the determining way that the game should be read. And I’m really glad that Todd, in almost every case, whenever Todd and I disagreed, Todd was right and I was wrong.

Francis: I’m kind of curious how you and your fellow coworkers on this game handled disagreements like that. Creative stuff like that is kind of a weird place where you have to either have faith that you’re right or someone else is right. And when no one’s sure who’s right, you have to debate -- hopefully debate and not argue about it. But how do you as a team come to a consensus on those kinds of things. Rolston: I think there are many different roads to enlightenment in this department. And I characterize BethSoft in the most positive way as the “raised by wolves” school. All of us are very very independent and sure that we’re right. And we fight like cats and dogs, but I think conflict is very good in this particular sense that we all shared love for one another’s peculiar points of view.

And also we were so lucky, by the time we were working on Oblivion, is we knew we had done something that nobody else could do, and therefore we felt very good about it. But we none of us were really particularly sure we knew how we had done it or what kind of basic principles made it art. And we felt like they were always evolving, so that process of conflict was part of the fun of it.

And I’ll say particularly in the case of fast travel, Todd, and almost in all cases of the design things, Todd as the producer had the capacity to rule programmers to secretly or above board go ahead and stub in something as a prototype. And once you’ve got the prototype to use as an argument to beat your companions with, you’re almost certainly going to win. But at the same time, it’s so possible with the editor, for us, if we believe that what we’re doing is right, we could go and stub something in and prove the kind of experience to a certain extent using the editor.

"The Skyrim Engine is such a fabulous tool because it lets us all be designers individually in a brute force way, whether we’re specialists or not. "

I think the key thing that may be mysterious and not well understood by other role playing game developers, is that the tool that BethSoft used and evolved from Morrowind and through now the Fallout Gek and the Elder Scrolls development -- I don’t know what it’s called nowadays -- The Skyrim Engine. It is such a fabulous tool because it lets us all be designers individually in a brute force way, whether we’re specialists or not. Programmers, artists, can stub in things and we can make a cogent case that is experienceable in the alpha version of the game. Overnight! And then jam it down the throats of our learned disquisition and debate society. Wawro: [laughs] Yeah, I wonder where that philosophy and where that toolkit came from. Because I remember when I was younger, I remember the first big thing I got into modding was Morrowind. And it was because of the approachability of the Elder Scrolls construction set. And that has given these games an enduring life post-launch thanks to all the vibrant mod scene that sort of spawns up around every single one of them. I don’t remember, did that really come into its own with Morrowind, do you recall? Rolston: Yes.

Wawro: Do you remember, obviously, you might not have been involved in these conversations, but do you remember what the thinking was at the studio in making that kind of toolset available to the audience.

"The tools themselves are a language of development that makes it possible for everybody in the team to feel like they’re making something and that they understand how everything else is made."

Rolston: I was there at that time, we had made a false start on Morrowind earlier and then we put it aside and we worked on Redguard and -- I’m going to forget the name of other -- Wawro: Battlespire? Rolston: Battlespire. We were working on those with the tabled the work on Morrowind. But we had made a list of ten features that we wanted to be able to celebrate as objectives in our development. And also to use all the way through advertising and public relations when we got to trying to sell the product. And one of those ten things was an editor that you could create content with. That was a consumer facing decision relatively early on, but also whether we were conscious of it or not, it was a necessary condition of making a game this large. We needed to have a tool that made it possible to make the game quickly and then iterate it. There are some great games, I’m going to -- It’s probably an Ubisoft open world, modern world shooter. One of the first great shooters based on -- Set in Africa, does that ring a bell? Wawro: Far Cry 2. Rolston: Far Cry 2, one of the great designs of all time, but it was primarily scripted. And that meant that it was very brittle and very hard to revise on the fly. So once you had content, you couldn't learn from that content from playing it. Whereas with our editor, we were constantly able to evolve our idea of what was fun in play. Also being able to build a world that large meant that it needed to be easy to do it. And having a kind of user-faced design meant that those tools would work for just about anybody in the development team. Wawro: Right. I, am having a hard time stealing anything because I forgot how hard it is to be a brigand and a malcontent in this game. I also wanted to ask, in the last couple of years, Bethesda has sort of broke big on the back of Oblivion it launched Skyrim and did quite well there and did quite well with the Fallout games. Some game developers have come out and sort of publicly championed the studio and said that, “It makes very iconic, unique games. Games that in many ways, only Bethesda can make.” And they attribute it to sort of a looking in from the outside, they say a key part of that is the studio’s unique culture. It’s rare that we get to talk to somebody who worked there for quite a long period of time and also had meaningful experience elsewhere. I know you worked in tabletop role playing games at west end, you worked on Kindoms of Amalur: Reckoning, you’ve worked, I think, on Hinterlands recently. So I kind of wanted to get your sense, as someone with a lot of experience at different studios and different environments, is there anything interesting or unique about the way Bethesda Game Studios makes games?

"Bethesda has a long institutional memory. The personalities in it have fought with one another and worked together for a long time."

Rolston: I think the key part to making Bethesda is the longevity of the major players. It has a long institutional memory and the personalities in it have fought with one another and worked together for a long time. That’s probably the most important thing. But also the tools themselves are a language of development that makes it possible for everybody in the team to feel like they’re making something and that they understand how everything else is made. It might well be the only studio that has the ability to see all the way sausage are made in a sympathetic way. I think something like Ubisoft with its very very large teams who all do very specific tasks, that is a very high polished production model. That might be a Hollywood model for making great polish.

But I would also say that BethSoft is about not making polish. And I don’t mean that in any way negative. That there’s a level of jazz to what’s going on rather than a classical music coming from a script. If it isn’t clean, but it’s fun we can understand it. That comes partly from being able to make new stuff, but anybody can just go in and see how it’s done and say, “Oh, I understand that. Maybe we can do this instead.” And I think it creates a development environment where everybody feels they understand at a higher level of sharing what other people do and how what they do affects day-to-day development.

Wawro: Nice. I think we lost -- Rolston: And they have ownership! I should have said ownership. You can break things and fix things very quickly and then have somebody make them better. So when you own something that somebody can make a little bit better really quickly, you have that relationship with those people working with you. Wawro: Yeah, I think we lost Bryant there for a sec. Bryant are you still -- Francis: I’m back, I was yanked out of the room by dark-suited men and had to fight my way back. Rolston: He’s probably been impregnated. If there was an ovipositor involved, Bryant, you probably want to have that looked at. Francis: They’re just suits, they probably wanted money! [Ed. note: Bryant was not impregnated] Wawro: Bryant are there any hot suggestions from the chat on what we should do next? Because I tried to get into some thieving and it didn’t go so hot. Francis: I’ll give a shoutout to the chat again to invite them to give suggestions for Alex for what kind of adventure he should put himself on. I don’t even know, what do you do in this city? I didn’t make it this far in my brief adventure into Oblivion last time, so I don’t even know what the central story of this city is myself. Rolston: I think the important thing, for example, if Alex wants to have more fun is to stop doing the things that he’s struggling doing and just deciding he wants to do something else. For example, the lockpicking interface is probably not one of the finest moments of any immersive open world game. There were many mini games that were proposed for Oblivion. That was a period of time when minigames were really really cool. Like I can’t remember there was a pipes minigame in which you tried to figure something out by having water move from one place to another. That was a very hip -- Francis: BioShock had that one. Rolston: Precisely, so that was the flavor of the month at that point. And you are fortunate not to have had a armor repairing minigame and for example the speech craft minigame in this thing is certainly not one of our finest moments and I bless Bruce Nesmith for making as not horrible -- Oh, that’s a nice pose. Wawro: That’s a good statue.

Rolston: That is very nice. Now what you’re doing, actually you should just try to attract people to how beautiful you are, Alex. Pose in different places, look fetching. Wawro: I’m going to change into some snazzier duds, yeah. Francis: Yeah, now the question is getting clothes. Actually, jumping on lock picking real quick, Nat Kidno would like to know is there a specific reason why lock picking pauses the game as opposed to Morrowind where it’s real time.

"The virtue of having been a paper and pencil role playing game designer meant that I spent a period of time creating worlds and publishing them within say six months. So that meant you had to, out of nothing, create a world, make it coherent, and publish it immediately."

Rolston: There might be and guess what, I don’t remember. I believe that it is a more immersive simulation to have the real time passing, and I believe we could have felt that that was inviting the player to expect more from the experience than we had any intention to provide. Lock picking and for example another one of the great sad things is pickpocketing never has been the exciting immersive open world experience that it could be and that’s another great thing about BethSoft, we’re perfectly willing to give you a substandard quality of experience if it still gives you the choice and you can continue to have some fun with it. Wawro: Yeah, I kind of want to dig into that little deeper because as I alluded to earlier you spent some time working on tabletop role playing games. Specifically I remember from my own youth a game called Paranoia. Oh!

Rolston: Yes. Wawro: I’m in trouble, hang on. I’m just going to back away slowly. So as I extricate myself from this particular predicament, tell me a bit about, if you can, about how your experience writing and designing tabletop games influences the way you go about making video games. Rolston: The virtue of having been a paper and pencil role playing game designer meant that I spent a period of time creating worlds and publishing them within say six months. So that meant you had to, out of nothing, create a world, make it coherent, and publish it immediately. And then throw it away and go into the next one. So that high level of expectation of iteration is one of the virtues of working with paper and pencil. And particularly for Morrowind -- By the way, I celebrate you, Alex, for figuring out how to solve the problem. Running from it almost always is right approach. Wawro: That’s how I solve all my problems. Francis: Did you just totally steal a horse and bolt out -- Rolston: Absolutely, head for the horizon at this point and then you get to become a tourist. I may have lost my thread on that question. Bryant, do you remember any of what I was saying.

Horse armor!

Francis: You were just starting to explain how Morrowind related to your tabletop experience where you were building worlds out of scratch and getting them to work in a few weeks. Wawro: And iteration, I think was a key theme there. Rolston: Well that was the first key and the second key is that I probably have not been worth my pay in any game development environment as much as I was in the beginning of Morrowind, because no one had ever built a game this big and then tried to do the three to six months of preproduction for it. Because I had done paper games I could do, I could create a bible out of nothing quickly that had little elements of connection between characters in towns.

And knowing to do that, that everybody should know that every town has N number of people in it and each of those people in that town belong to one faction or another. And, for example, a guy living in one house belonging to the thieves guild and a guy in another house belonging to the thieves guild meant that they were friends in some way. What it was is it created a large number of intersection nodes in the setting that you could build a coherent story out of. And I knew to do that, because you need to do that for tabletop games.

But I also knew how to produce it and then give people the opportunity reading my documentation to say, “Oh this character could fit into my story,” or, “This guy’s got a personality that will fit really nicely into the story I want to tell.” And all of that work it brute force spewing. It’s the kind of spewing that very few writers ever need to be able to do. So a paper and pencil guy does it normally and -- I won’t say throws it away. He ships it and moves on to his next one. So that put me in a position to be really useful for Morrowind. And after that, having that as the model, most of the documentation and development of the other Elder Scrolls games was able to build on that inter-coherence. Wawro: Nice. I’m going to extricate myself from this tomb now. Francis: Ken, I have a question based on. Ken my question is -- Oh, am I having rough times? Wawro: Yeah, but why don’t we just try to get your question out and we’ll see how it goes.

Francis: Okay, Ken, I last time made some comments saying even though I’ve enjoyed my time in the world of Elder Scrolls. Everytime I pop open the game, which ever one it’s been, I’ve always felt this very arm's reach between me and many of the motivating factors behind the world. The factions the quests, I’ll care about it if it relates to a character I can see in front of me or a location I can understand, but I always felt this distance behind the giant book of Morrowind lore or Elder Scrolls lore and what was in the game play. How did you sort of view all the work that had been done on the Elder Scrolls games at that point. All those story character relationships and how did it affect your approach to getting players to integrate with it. Rolston: I think every player needs to have his own attitude about the way he involves himself in the game. The great thing about the Elder Scrolls games is they support both a naval gazing indifference to everything in the world, that is just running around and stealing things is a thoroughly satisfying story to tell -- Oh, you had a bad day. Wawro: Yep. Rolston: And there is the degree to which the Elder Scrolls games now have a life online where people are interested in that setting in a very deep way. They’re immersed in the factions and the relationships of what they do, so my sense is, looking back at the Arena game and the Daggerfall game, they were important models that I could use. Just as an example, the creation of books in a game that you could read, they can be used in a lot of different ways, they can immerse you in the setting, they can simply give you flavor, or they can give you skills and therefore you don’t care about the contents of the books, you just want to collect every book. So the more junk you put into a game that nonetheless seems, at least at one moment or another during running around, to seem logically connected to another thing. Whether you actually give a shit about that or not is not what’s important. It’s the illusion that it all makes sense that makes it a more immersive game. Wawro: Yeah something I -- This is relatively unrelated, but I think Bryant and I were talking about it offline earlier this week. Some games do a really excellent job of giving the player just enough room to hang themselves narratively. Insofar as a game like Destiny from Bungie will give you lots of proper nouns. It will give you lots of like “The Traveler” “The Last City” “The Covenant” or “The Kabbal.” Those in a very meaningful way are sort of vague but evocative pieces of storytelling that give the player room to kind of fill in the gaps on their own. I think what’s interesting about these games is they do that in a very physical sense. There is just tons and tons of stuff in this game that you don’t have to see, and maybe isn’t fully explained, but gives the player fodder to sort of tell their own story. And that I think is a unique strength. Francis: I’ll springboard off of Alex’s observation to ask, Ken, you mentioned earlier when you were writing that bible for Morrowind, you were starting to write about all the places where all these intersections would happen, right? And all these elements, “This character is of this faction or is of this mindset, so they would be in conflict with this thing.” Once a game like this starts getting big or even just medium sized. Even a medium-sized RPG would have trouble with this. How do you keep track and organize and focus making all those intersections happen? I guess that’s maybe more of a Morrowind question since you said you weren’t that in the thick of it on Oblivion. But how do you make those intersections manageable? Rolston: I believe it’s a high tolerance for chaos and disorder that is first required. And then it means that as a development team, you’re playing each other’s games a lot and giving feedback on it. And I think on Oblivion, the degree to which the producers -- We didn’t really have producers on Morrowind in the same way. The producers giving regular feedback, Todd’s feedback on these things. But I would say that the virtue of BethSoft is not in the level of control exerted over its content, but in the generosity of the content and its brute force willingness to work through the problems. Wawro: Brute force is a very apt term to use. Rolston: Absolutely, again, that’s BethSoft, brute force.

Wawro: Alright, here we go. Francis: I’ll just throw out to the chat, if you have any questions for Ken, we’re in the second half of the hour, make sure you get it in before we go here. Wawro: Yeah, I’ll try to get us to an Oblivion Gate so we can look at some more architecture. Francis: Yeah, I’ll jump off of a discussion we were having earlier. You talked about minigames and there was a moment where minigames were popular. Why? What was it that made all the developers of the early 2000s, I guess, so gung-ho for minigames? Rolston: It was the discovery that it was a possible tool for immersion. And when you play Fable and chop wood and you are able to do these little arcade-y type things in it, it makes you feel like you have perhaps walked into a room where there are toys that you would like to play with. Then over time players will vote with their feet what they really want and it turns out that some ideas have more longevity than others. And again, I think the great thing about BethSoft stuff is that there are so many things going on and so many attempts to extend the reach of the game from game-to-game the way Fallout 4 is trying to make crafting ever more part of the game experience. It will never be part of the game for me, but it will affect other people in an important way. I think most designers talk about verbs, the more verbs you have the more you feel that you have agency in the game and that’s the BethSoft thing, the reason I think that the minigames seemed attractive to us is they were just cool. And we often can easily be attracted to the cool thing that’s being done in the world and not know exactly what the future is going to -- which things are really going to affect the user. Wawro: Hey, guys I’ve got some good news. Look what I found in a horrible abandoned tomb. Some new threads! Eh? Eh? Rolston: If you can dress up -- That’s the only important thing really, is dressing up, I like to run around naked as a jaybird too, Francis: In-game too, right? Rolston: Oh, yeah, that’s just the best thing.

Francis: Twitch user CommittmentIssues would like to ask, how would you, Ken, like to see Elder Scrolls change in the future iterations?

"The way I would like to see future Elder Scrolls games is that they get more passionate, undisciplined, strong-minded people to create as much trouble for the producers as possible in terms of resources and focus. And just barely get it back together again for when they ship it."

Rolston: Well that’s a mean question. Because I’m not a good person, when I was working on Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, I really hoped that Elder Scrolls would not be as energetic in extending its horizons so that Reckoning could crush it like a crouton. That would be ideal for me. But unfortunately, Skyrim is just marvelously better than Oblivion. And in many ways my favorite version of Fallout is the New Vegas and all of that content and the way it’s put together entertains me.

So the way I would like to see future Elder Scrolls games is that they get more passionate, undisciplined, strong-minded people to run at the barriers at the four directions of compass and to create as much trouble for the producers as possible in terms of resources and focus. And just barely get it back together again for when they ship it. I want them to suffer like we suffered in Morrowind to create a revolutionary game. And I celebrate them every time they push themselves into a desperate corner to survive to just ship a game. That’s what I want them to do. Wawro: Was there one particular memorable thorn during production on Oblivion or Morrowind that really stood out to you as something that you put a lot of time and effort into or that you really wanted to change that didn't really come together the way you’d hoped? Rolston: Oh, God. Partly, what I’ll do, is I’ll try to tell stories of myself about what kind of an idiot I was. I had, among the top ten things for Morrowind, that I thought our game was going to do I thought it was going to be an interactive novel, sort of like a hypertext novel. Because we had hyperlinks to all the elements in the journal. What happened was I had that idea and never tried to make it any better. And it was terrible, in fact, it was a negative feature of the game. So would I in the future want to try to find a way to make hypertext novels out of the journals in a Elder Scrolls game? No because I’m way too lazy. I think it could be cool, but I’d rather be dead than try to do that kind of work. Another example of things that we just never had -- Francis: Ken have you checked out Tyranny yet? Rolston: What?

Wawro: There was a game released late last year by Obsidian called Tyranny. Rolston: Oh, I did take a look at Tyranny. It did not draw me in in the way that the other games had drawn me in and I’m still not clear in my head why. I had loved PIllars of Eternity and I set aside Tyranny for reasons I cannot clearly define, but I think it’s narrative and design scope and ambition was achieved without achieving a sense of meaningful choice for me that pleased me. And I really just do not know how to define that. Was there something special about the journal in there? Francis: Not the journal, but there was a hyperlink system in the dialogue that we talk a lot about with -- I forget the name of the developer from Obsidian who joined us, but we talked about there were a few memorable ways they used hyperlinking and hovering text to make the act of talking to characters in a computer RPG stand out a little bit more, than it did in Pillars. I was just celebrating that little feature. I haven’t finished Tyranny yet, so I couldn’t argue with you about whether it achieves anything or not, but I just wanted to give a shout out to them for successfully building something with hypertext. Wawro: I will see you gentlemen on the other side. Francis: Oh, boy. Rolston: That’s embarrassing, go find the interactive point there, it’s got to be there. You need to be able to see the highlighting of the location. Yeah you’re going. Francis: Twitch user Baraka is asking a question I’m not sure I understand. How do you not “be killed” by a lot of features while developing a big game like Oblivion. I’m sure they cut a lot of features, but how do you -- I guess when you get backed into that corner you talked about, how do you not just die of exhaustion. Rolston: Well I’ll try to give the philosophy of it and if I can I’ll try to come up with an illustrating example. My design philosophy is to design 400% of the game then throw away 350% and take the 50% that I kept and try to generate 50% of that kind of material to make up the whole 100% lately. In other words, I want to test during development a very large percent of the ideas of the features and experiences that you want to have and I want to throw most of them away, except the ones that are really working and then I want to take the rest of the content and I want to focus it on those things that I know that work. Now, in terms of specific examples, thank god we didn’t decide to make more mini games in Oblivion. There were many people who wanted to do it. I believe they were meaningful and intelligent design intentions, but with a limited amount of time, you just don’t know whether that time is well-spent trying to polish those bits and trying to keep them in. Wawro: Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. I think scope is always a key factor when we talk to game developers. I don’t want to say always, but they often overscope and that’s certainly one of their biggest headaches. Rolston: Here’s an example, there's a term in Oblivion called being Kvatch’d. Kvatch is the city that was destroyed when the Oblivion gate attacked. And one of the things we discovered was that if we Kvatch’d a city, we didn’t have to build that content. Certainly wasn’t intended, but when you’re running out of the time to build all the things you suddenly want to Kvatch things. “Gee, I bet that was destroyed and all there are is parts left of it.” Finding opportunities when -- Oh, that is not a good look with the thighs. Wawro: You don’t think so? I’m really into it. This is the year for red, you know what I mean? Rolston: Yeah, good taste is timeless. I kind of like the way the staff looks like your head when you -- It’s really tasteful. This is really what the game is about. It is not about winning. It’s preening and showing your friends screenshots. Collecting them for yourself. It’s expressing yourself. Look at how my character looks, I’m a filmmaker. I’m just giving you the production shots from the real interior of my life. Wawro: That’s so interesting. It’s like design at remove. Because as game developers, the team behind this is itself building opportunities for players to build their own games --

Rolston: Yes. Wawro: In a sort of small but meaningful way. And I think as game development matures and gets ever more refined, we’re only going to see more and more well-executed examples of that. This is a strange and almost elemental way to go about in designing games. It draws me back to my time playing tabletop role playing games, you set up things for the player to make their own fun. Rolston: And also, don’t forget the paper and pencil game revolution, Dungeons and Dragons created a genre of narrative which, in the fantasy setting, almost anything goes and there are tons of different literary materials you can steal from to make a fantasy setting. So the people who come to these experiences and make them up for themselves as they run through the locations are working with a much broader notion of agency and storytelling because they come from paper and pencil role playing games. So it fits the zeitgeist in a lot of ways. You notice it doesn’t work quite so well in science fiction storytelling. It doesn’t work as well in real world settings. It has to be in a trashy fantasy setting. So we’re just really lucky that we can tell stories where a player can live in his dream world and having worlds that have very little to do with reality, that comes from Gary Gygax and Dungeons and Dragons. Wawro: Why do you suppose it is that fantasy games are so well suited to being effectively playgrounds for players’ imaginations. Rolston: Because the archetypes are so vividly drawn and exaggerated and they give you examples of ways you might make your own archetype more vividly drawn. They also have a moral compass that allows you to play around. Like the original Gygaxian notion is you were either good or evil or chaotic or ordered. And those are very powerful ways to imagine yourself in conflict with other things. So there are a lot of -- Let’s see, they’re probably Jungian tools to play around with storytelling and then you have so many different models of people, professionals, writing stories and telling them that way. So you have a lot of tools. Your culture gave you a lot of tools for fantasy to make up your own stories. Wawro: I tell you what, I had forgotten just how much the world of Oblivion looks kind of like a heavy metal album cover. Pretty interesting. Rolston: Not the whole world, just this one. Yeah, I happen to love the worlds of Oblivion, but I happen to think that from my point of view this is an opportunity missed. I would have loved it if we had had these worlds have intelligent people in them. For example the Dremora are models, just like role playing, all your player characters, we could have speech for them. They could have their own stories to tell. You could play a Dremora. And a different design of Oblivion would have been where you go to these places and you find their different factions here and sure they want to invade the Earth, but there are some guys you kind of like. They might be nice guys. Or at least they’re evil in a way you find compelling. I admit I didn’t play very much of the Sheogorath stuff because I retired immediately after making Oblivion so I was ready not to play games for a while.

Wawro: Fair. Rolston: I would have loved if these were all worlds where different kind of people who were devils or lunatics were compelling people who had different stories and you say, “Well I’ll ally myself with this bunch.” Like it’s all gangsters or militia people or something. Wawro: Yeah, that would be awesome. I’ve got to say, I’m having a blast, chatting with you. We are coming to the end of our hour, so I feel like I should let you go pretty soon. Before we do, there’s a question we like to ask all of our guests which is sort of broad, but please feel free to answer however you like. Is there any advice you would give to other game designers in a broad sense or a very specific sense? Rolston: I unfortunately have a very broad sense, which would be inexhaustible in the time here. Mostly it’s take notes and think of yourself as a game designer as a person who is archiving every idea you ever had about a game. And then part of your job is to mine that archive for your own design purposes, but even more than that it’s when you talk to other designers you have a coherent language and syntax of design. For example I think it is the obligation of every role playing game designer to list his ten favorite quests and then why he likes them and I am shocked to find out how many people have no idea what their favorite quests are, and couldn’t tell you. They’re people who want to design role playing games, but they have not collected their bible of examples of what, when they were playing, were wonderful. So that’s sort of like I want every designer to become a user, learn what’s good about a game, and then try to make his designs good in that way. And to be able to communicate with other players and other designers about that.

"Assume that there is somebody on your team who is more obsessive and more completist than you are and therefore knows everything about games, so that you can steal ideas from them."

Wawro: Yeah, that reminds me, real quick, there was a former colleague of yours who now works, or a couple years ago works on Elder Scrolls Online. And please forgive me, I have forgotten his name. I think it might be Alan? A few years back he submitted a short story to Gamasutra about some of the important lessons he learned about game design from working with you. Which I thought was a very kind thing to do. One thing he noted there, was that in his time working with you on Morrowind and Oblivion, he noted that you stayed very up on what other games were out. You played a lot of games and then you would come into work to talk about them and use them as sort of a common language to talk about design problems. And I thought that was really remarkable. I know it can be very difficult for game designers who spend twelve hour days working on their own game, to go home and play something new. Rolston: It’s true. I think also, another way to look at it is if you can’t do that personally, make sure you know which guy on your development team or part of your fandom, is the guy who does that kind of game playing and can serve as an informant for you. So partly, be your own informant, but assume that there is somebody who is more obsessive and more completist than you are and therefore knows everything about games so that you can steal ideas from him. Wawro: That sounds like great advice. Steal ideas from the best. Alright, I want to take us out here in a minute. Bryant, any last minute questions, thoughts? Concerns? Francis: I throw away my last minute questions so that I can get Akidno in from the chat, “Bethesda games, have for the most part had a balance between player action and controlling a character in the world and ‘traditional roleplaying.’ The question asked is, ‘What do I want to do?’ versus, ‘What makes sense for my character to do?’ What are your thoughts, Ken, on that particular balance?” Rolston: I think if you are constantly, ambivalent about what you should be doing, the design is perfect. I want you to constantly say, “I can’t do everything I want. I want to do what the game affords me to do.” So partly, it’s a matter of you keep playing the game until you learn what it will let you do. That’s a part of the exploration of the game. At the same time, insist, I want to do what I want to do. Do it as stupidly, in the same way that Alex decides, “I’d rather die here. This is going to be more fun.” Wawro: I definitely decided that. That was definitely on purpose. Rolston: Yes, right away. Wawro: Alright, I’m going to go ahead and take us out here, Actually, Bryant, you are much better at talking about social media, you want to take us out? Francis: Alright, thank you all for joining us for another wonderful hour on the Gamasutra Twitch channel. Thank you Ken for joining us today. Ken, if people wanted to read more of your thoughts or ask you questions about making games, where would you send them? Rolston: To krolston at gmail dot com. And I have no idea, I never really thought about it very much. But I’m trying to pay it forward now that I’m retired, I feel obligated to help other people get into the same kind of miserable shit that I got into in order to become an internationally celebrated game designer.

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