The “Wagyu Fruitcake” Approach To Game Design
First, I must ask: “Wagyu Fruitcake.” Band or Album?
Hey! Look. Guess what hit the dance floor yesterday?
Compacts & Conspiracies for Hunter: The Vigil. It’s a PDF product from White Wolf Game Studios (CCP). I wrote it. For the game that I helped to design and that I developed. Basic gist is, it cracks open the breastbone on each of the compacts and conspiracies from the H:tV core and it roots around in the lung-meats and heart-holes for fresh meat, juice, and tissue. Sure, you can buy each compact and conspiracy separately, purchasing only the one you want, but hey, you’re no dummy. I can smell the intelligence on you, like a whiff of Hai Karate. You’ll buy the whole thing because you’re thrifty and wise.
(Oh, and to you silly knuckleheads who proudly won’t buy this product because it doesn’t cover the other conspiracies and compacts from the supplements: really? You’d really want to triple the price of this thing? You’d really want redundant information, since each conspiracy in the supplements got over five times the amount of word count that the core conspiracies got? You’d want to reduce the value of this product by customizing it for people who only bought one or none of the supplements? Maybe the book should also cover all the vampire covenants, and changeling courts? Me, I was hoping it would contain instructions on how to install a garbage disposal. And it would teach me how to hang-glide. Why do people feel so vocal about not spending money? “I won’t buy this because this is a dog and I wanted a duck!” Well, then don’t buy it. Do you really need to tell everybody about it? Newsflash: in my day to day, I don’t buy a lot of things. This morning alone I did not buy SCUBA gear, a Nissan Leaf, a pound of civet-shit coffee, or a book about antique sex robots. Do I rant about the things I’m not buying? No. Because then I’d be here all day. So stop it. Stop that nonsense. “This is a major problem that I see with how these books are written.” A major problem? No. A major problem would be if it was written in Klingon. A major problem would be if it accidentally contained only rules variants for Settlers of Catan. A major problem would be if the book turned into a monster and tried to eat your hands off.)
(Man, that turned into a whole other rant, though.)
(Sorry.)
(Moving on.)
So, I figure this is a good time to talk a moment about my game design and game writing ethos.
Used to be, I was a dumbass about writing game material.
And I apologize for that, because a bunch of you probably purchased some of my dumbass game-writing hoo-hah. Why was I a dumbass? Because I really liked to talk to — or at — the reader. This isn’t necessarily uncommon in game products, and is particularly common in, say, some White Wolf books, because it feels easy to wax poetic and go on at length about how it feels to be a Carthian vampire who just lost his dog, or a Bone Shadow werewolf who is watching a bum fight outside a hockey game or whatever, blah blah blah. It’s easy to just talk. The oh-woe-is-me monstrous condition is a good throughline, but it doesn’t demand a lot of examination.
Some older White Wolf books, I crack the cover, I start reading, and my eyes glaze over. Eyelids flutter like moths trapped in a child’s hand. Drool from lip as chin slackens. Muh. Guh.
And then, I wonder: what asshole wrote this?
*checks files*
Oh, right. Me. I’m the asshole.
Over time, and I dunno when this was, really, I started to feel like both brevity of idea and density of material could be a valuable combination. The first corebook where this really strikes me is in Changeling: The Lost, a book where any time I flip to a page I am abused and molested by a cabal of new ideas. Or, what about a book like Damnation City? Same thing. Flip, flip, flip, holy crap I can’t feel my legs the words are holding me down and stabbing me in the brain with the idea knife. A great example outside White Wolf is Spirit of the Century. Another book that infects my head like a termite colony, chewing holes in things I had been thinking about, and replacing those old ideas with hot squirming game ideas.
Hence, I now think of this as Wagyu Fruitcake.
Wagyu beef is a densely-marbled beef. Fruitcake (which unfortunately comes paired with negative connotations) is a rich cake product — heavy as a brick (and, made wrong, as tasty as one).
In either, each square inch of food is a super-compression of the essence of that food. You eat one bite of (good) fruitcake, you’re suddenly like, “I think I’m full. That was a whole meal.” You cut into some rich Wagyu beef and you can see the layers of fat and muscle and fat and muscle, all wound together like the swirls of milk in hot coffee, and the juices run free and —
Oooh. I think I just shellacked my manties.
What I’m saying is, when I write game material, I now strive for this. I want each page to have all those layers — layers of fat (meaning, the strong writing, the compelling explanations, words that are juicy and flavorful without being overwhelming) and layers of muscle (the game systems, the ideas, the — well, the meat). Meat and fat, meat and fat.
Or, in terms of fruitcake: cake and fruit and cake and fruit.
I want each page to have something new for the player, something new for the Storyteller, something rules-based, something idea-based, something story-based. No wasting time. No wasting pages. Each page, an idea knife stuck in your brain-block.
That’s what we all tried to do with Hunter: The Vigil, and that’s what I did with Compacts & Conspiracies. So, know this: you buy that product, you’re going to get a densely-marbled game supplement. You will be getting the Wagyu Fruitcake approach to game design and game writing. Is it any good? Hell, I dunno. That’s for you to decide. I’m just telling you what I did; you can tell me if what I did worked.
You will find this same approach in World of Darkness: Mirrors.
You will also find it in Danse Macabre.
Meat, fat, blood, meat, fat, blood.
Cake, fruit, blood, cake, fruit, blood.
Sing it with me.
May 13, 2010 @ 8:17 AM
HtV sounds cool. Not that you need me to tell you that.
I was never much a fan of everyone running around as vampires or werewolves or ghosts or whatever. That sounds right up my alley. Maybe I was doing it wrong before with the vampire thing 😛 I just don’t make much time for PnP games anymore.
May 13, 2010 @ 8:18 AM
@Joshua:
I wish I had time for games. I’d love to game more.
You should check out Hunter. You might well diggit.
— c.
May 13, 2010 @ 9:13 AM
“a book about antique sex robots”
Of course you didn’t buy it. You still have my copy sitting on your bathroom shelf next to the National Geographics and Archie erotica. As I think about it now, you can probably keep it. It’s probably spackled shut with your runny Miracle Whip children anyway.
On the topic of Hunter though, I think Compacts & Conspiracies delivers what it’s selling. I haven’t purchased it yet, but DriveThruRPG has a ridiculous amount of the book available for free preview and I’ve whet my chops.
The haters will hate, and I can see your point. This book brings the original C&C’s up to speed with the ones in the supplements, and does it’s job very well. The voice of some of the chapters does seem a little too informal (e.g. AKD’s “you could do this, or this, or wouldn’t this be a kicker?” section), but then again some of the C&Cs are so broad and toolboxy that they lack any meta plot elements. It’s difficult to polish a canonical nugget that isn’t there, so you’re stuck offering “what if” scenarios out the whazoo in the most professional way possible.
While I would have liked to see some more info on The Knights of St. George, I don’t think it’s worth having to dig through (or pay for) the other 16 (?) groups that I didn’t care as much about. Plus, the option to buy individual chapters for 75 cents is genius. If I only want info about two groups and I don’t care about the fluff or the other groups, it gives me a cheap and legal way to do it. Good job on that move WW.
May 13, 2010 @ 9:18 AM
In a book like C&C, the “pulp factor” starts to rise considerably, and the self-seriousness of other books (which is good in those books) starts to fall away, and thus I prefer a somewhat less formal tone. For me personally, it’s easier to read, and more fun to write.
The Knights of St. George, like the other supplement conspiracies, get so much word count, too — 10k in each book. That’s compared to the 2k or less the covenants get in the corebook. To me, a group like the Knights are already really well-described (thanks to Stew Wilson and Travis Stout, if I remember correctly) and to throw more word count in their direction would be egregious when it’s best suited to fill necessary gaps elsewhere.
I’ve wanted to do a C&C-style book for a while, and I should definitely thank Eddy Webb for letting me do so.
I mean, I did point a gun at him. But I’m sure that’s purely coincidental.
— c.
May 13, 2010 @ 9:26 AM
Interestingly, on that thread, most of the other posters are taking the OP to task for whining.
Also, Compacts and Conspiracies is number one on DriveThruRPG right now.
So I’m pretty comfortable in saying that we chose the right path for the product.
May 13, 2010 @ 9:26 AM
“You will find this same approach in World of Darkness: Mirrors.
You will also find it in Danse Macabre.”
Promises, promises. *When* will we find it? 🙂
(I am very much looking forward to the other bits of DM and Mirrors; I know what *I* wrote for them, now I want to see the zawsome from you and Russel and B and Stephen and John and so on.)
May 13, 2010 @ 9:36 AM
Heh, @Matt, I’ve no idea. I thought Mirrors was out in May. But… probably not, now?
@Eddy: ‘Tis true. I’m only knocking the OP on that one, really. Silly criticism, methinks.
And yay #1!
WOOOOO!
*vomits drunkenly*
— c.
May 13, 2010 @ 9:38 AM
@Chuck: Great. Now I have to clean my shoes.
May 13, 2010 @ 9:56 AM
@Eddy: C’mon now, I’m doing you a favor. It’s not like those shoes were clean before. Or attractive. My vomit is colorful. Like fruit loops. And greasepaint.
Sure, some of that’s lung blood, but so what?
— c.
May 13, 2010 @ 10:47 AM
Oooh, Eddy Webb also talks up game design over at his space. Missed this yesterday.
http://eddyfate.com/2010/05/12/design-troubleshooter/
— c.
May 13, 2010 @ 10:04 AM
Yeah, what Matt said about Mirrors. I’m also looking forward to see how much better your magic pixie dust made my scrawls.
May 13, 2010 @ 10:06 AM
Some people, you can’t please no matter what. Chuck, I am fairly sure you could drive to that guy’s house, make him dinner, wipe his bottom, tuck him and he’d still be mad at you for porking his mom. It’s like no matter how hard you reach out, someone is going to claim you are molesting them. Hunter has been rock solid from day one, and someone complaining that you are giving them more of what makes it a jock strap full of badassium is absurd.
I dig what you’re saying on the crunchy-fluffy-crunchy goodness; kind of like some gothic-punk moon pie with eyeliner and a katana. I really dig the old White Wolf stuff, but some of it comes off really heavy handed, or takes strange tangents that don’t really mesh to well with what the original point was. My best example is from Mage: The Ascension 2nd Edition (which I thoroughly love) when it talk about the vagaries of paradigm; while it was an enjoyable read, it didn’t really have enough system intermixed to rectify confusion with the subject. Flash forward that to Mage: The Awakening. The systems are very well stated and intermixed with a really rich story (my only complaint, honestly, is the font used. That crap is hard to read). Take that to the next level with the books you quoted: Damnation City, Changeling, (and dare I suggest it) Hunter where there was a real rock ’em-n-sock’em feel. Those books are powerful themes mixed with everything you need to support those ideas, delivered to almost elegantly and organically flow into each other.
They are some of the best gaming books I have ever read, and I love that. I love that I can read for enjoyment, even when not planning to use them at that time.
May 13, 2010 @ 10:09 AM
@Rick:
Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up. Nobody said I wasn’t molesting people. I mean, I’m molesting people. I’m out there every day fighting the good fight, molesting the good molest.
…
I just borked my search term bingo on that one.
And thanks, Rick.
— c.
May 13, 2010 @ 10:55 AM
“Heh, @Matt, I’ve no idea. I thought Mirrors was out in May. But… probably not, now?”
I’ve pretty much given up trying to guess when books might be out. I just wait for someone to post on a forum that they have the books, and then start bugging people to send out author copies.
The *cover* of Mirrors looks awesome, anyway.
May 13, 2010 @ 11:14 AM
Woot, etc.
May 13, 2010 @ 12:49 PM
I’m just afraid that mine is going to taste like a brick.
May 13, 2010 @ 1:23 PM
Agreed. Damnation City, and pretty much everything after it, has been full of excellent ideas.
It’s sort of interesting to me how I’ve grown and developed as a gamer, alongside the World of Darkness material. I really liked Masquerade when I was like 16. Now, looking back at those books, I probably would have beaten myself up for saying it.
Compacts and Conspiracies, like Block by Bloody Block before it, is jam-packed with awesome. I don’t say that because you’re my homey. I say it because Hunter’s pretty much the best thing the World of Darkness has to offer, and it consistently outperforms my expectations. If someone has a similar reaction to Maschine Zeit, I will feel I’ve done my job well.
May 14, 2010 @ 9:38 AM
I still like to read through old supplements with 4 or so chapter of fluff before they even mention anything mechanical, like Hunter: Waywards. Am I a bad person, or have I just not grown up yet?
Seriously though, if more books were like Damnation City I’d be on board in a heartbeat. And as to your work with Compacts and Conspiracies…I’m going to have to wait unfortunately. It pained me to skip it at the moment, but I’m at that “I’m unemployed and have $50 to my name” stage of life, so my love for food won out in the end. Take it as a complement that it wasn’t as easy a decision as it should of been.
Hunter Compacts and Conspiracies... - Blutschwerter
May 15, 2010 @ 2:47 AM
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May 17, 2010 @ 5:47 AM
My username on the White Wolf forums is Emyunoxious. I made the topic, “Why I’m Not Going to Buy Compacts & Conspiracies”. I replied to this blog on the 5th page if you are interested in reading it.