073: the power of ritual
Hullo.
I started the last newsletter with first trying out Mitski's Nobody. I've been obsessively listening to it ever since, only alternating with Twilight Sad's equally depressing, equally amazing piece of extreme punctuation abuse I/m Not Here [missing face]. Cheery times, as always. Anyway – this will likely be quite quick, as I have to respond to e-mail before everyone else disappears to San Diego.
Contents!
More Star Wars
Nun More Goth
NOFOMO
Perverse
Peaky
Nine
Bye!!!
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The accelerated hyperspace shipping continues, and another issue of Star Wars 51 drops. This whole arc just goes for it, and this is lots of fun. I mean, the Millennium Falcon versus an entire Imperial Navy? That's a fun time
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I just saw that Ryan lobbed this panel from The Wicked + the Divine 1373, noting that it’s about the only non-spoiler panel he can show. I suspect he’s right.
Pages are coming in for that, and looking great. We also pulled together the solicit for the final special, though are still playing with some of its exact contents. It’s very much an anthology book, and we’ve got some amazing people on it. Also, the cover is basically as big a love letter to C as I’ve put in comic form since the Thori issue of Journey Into Mystery.
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WicDiv Editor Chrissy launched the first issue of her new online poetry magazine this week. It’s called Perverse, devoted to “deliberate, obstinate, unreasonable or unacceptable poems, contrary to the accepted or expected standard or practice”. They’re short issues, released each week, of five poems. The first one has a poem called “Excerpts from Golden Burroughs Girls.” I can’t resist that.
You can sign up to get new issues delivered to you here. You can download the first issue here, for a taste.
Yes, I’m not at San Diego. Is there anything I miss about San Diego? Hopefully I’ll miss the con-flu.
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I wanted to write a little about a couple of choices I’m making in my current game of Blades In the Dark. I’ve written about this before – think a fantasy Peaky Blinders, basically. Or so the rulebook tells me, as I’ve never watched it. It’s a systemic narrative RPG, which means the vast majority of the game is generated at the table. There’s a setting and groups and rules, but it actively discourages generating anything like an adventure. Players play these gang members on the rise (and fall), say what they want to get up to, we play it out, we determine what works and what doesn’t and then play out the consequences.
I’ve ran games a little which many would group with Blades before, but I have been interested in how my own style has warped in it in a way which it didn’t in (say) Dungeon World or Monsterhearts. As in, I’m aware of the things I’m doing which I wouldn’t do in many other games. The most notable one is that I’m a more active, neutral conversationalist. As there’s so much power in the dice of what works or what doesn’t, I’m more an open collaborator. If I have an idea of something they may want to try, I’ll say it, because I’d like to see it, and I have no idea if it’ll work or not. Obviously there’s limits, and I’m mainly trying to encourage player creativity, but that I do it at all is a surprise.
But that collaborative mode isn’t everything, and I move between various modes depending on a moment. As a GM in anything, ideally, I’m into trying to impart a specific mood, and seeing what I can do to pull that off. The session last night I was delighted I managed to both scare and disgust a party when someone they considered a possessed gang member was revealed to be a demon. The difference is simple. A possessed gang member may have some unusual skills and be a bit spooky. A demon can peel heads from bodies like they’re picking grapes. The table mode changing from panic to horror is a hell of a thing.
(This is the group who has a member who’s psychologically destroyed a gang lieutenant via drug use, dressed him in a leather-and-razors bear-costume and trained him to act as their attack dog. Scaring these fuckers takes some work.)
Anyway – the two things I’ve been thinking about is how I bookend sessions. Ending hard is something I do in almost games – I’d rather cut a session short and end at a moment which excites people rather than let it drag out. Choose your cliffhanger. That’s been trickier in Blades, due to its freeform structure meaning I’ve got less ability to set up a moment – and cutting midway through a mission, when things are usually most tense, doesn’t really work in Blades for various reasons. (Mainly that my group isn’t stable week to week.)
But as we inch towards the end of this Blades season, I’ve found some reliable moves. The word “season” is telling. Blades player often talk about these short campaigns, which follow the fallout of an unstable status quo to a conclusion, and then re-set some distance in time along with a new unstable status quo. It’s very much the HBO model as applied to RPGs.
So basically, I’ve leaned into that hard. This is a TV show. I open with a credit sequence and a theme tune. I end with a stinger before cutting to black.
The credit came first. We have a playlist. It starts with the Bad Seeds’ Red Right Hand (I didn’t know it was Peaky Blinders theme until today, hilariously). I ask people if they’re ready to start, let them grow quiet, and then press play. It’s a record full of measured threat and delight, so I walk through to from the kitchen to it. People are quiet, as that’s a small gap of time, which means I started to fill the space. I was always setting the scene of this city of perpetual night. Then I pushed it another way, turning this into an active credit sequence, saying what it’s showing, reaching out to the players to add details: “What do we see your character doing in the credits for this episode?” In other words, you get an iconic moment of each person. The thug examining blood on the lapels of the suit he spent a years’ wages on. I then changed it up – I’ve started giving spotlights for players, asking them a question about their early life (“What was the first time you really hurt someone?” “Whose face did you burn off during college?”) and letting them riff, and then hard-cut into wherever we start the game proper, and let that little vignette inform what follows.
In other words, do a bunch to try and drag people into the world hard, and encourage them to feel delighted with themselves and their own creativity.
The end was harder. Our sessions usually end shortly after the players have completed a mission, which is an exciting moment, but not a tense one. However, there’s an element after missions called “complications” where you generate something that’s messing with the gang, based upon how wanted they are by the authorities. These proved perfect for ending a session. Even if they can be solved easily (and they usually can) that you don’t let them be solved before next session means they’re always posing interesting questions. I roll up ghosts? The last scene is the players looking in a mirror over the bar, to see in the reflection twelve burning spectres of men they murdererd. Then cut to black. See you next week. I roll up the Bluecoats about to try and arrest someone? Thirty sets of riot-boots, marching down the street towards the bar the players are in. Cut to Black. See you next week.
These are random events, but you ground them in the situation the players are in, which makes them feel as if they’re not coming from nowhere, especially if they’re presented as such. It’s very much the “Have someone walk into the room with a gun” form of structure. You can generate an efficient, cinematic cliffhanger just by presenting this new problem, doing it dramatically, and cutting to black.
Of course, while I am a big fan of the power of ritual, I’ll likely change this up now I’ve written it down, not least that I know a couple of the players read this. That said, it’s likely the next session will be the last of the season anyway, so the knowledge will do them no good. You can see the strings, but it doesn’t matter if the strings are curled around your neck.
It’s a fun time, running a game.
Have I mentioned I’m at Nine Worlds? Possibly not.
August 10-12th in Hammersmith in London. I’m there for a good chunk, and am just saying yes to what panels I’m on. I’ve been describing it as “A petri dish for the future of fandom” ever since the first one, and I don’t see any reason to retire a good one liner.
I dunno if I’ll be doing a signing, but do say Hi. It’s that kind of con.
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Work is going through an oddly bitty stage. I’m doing a lot and not feeling like I’m doing a lot, which is always grating. There’s an erosion going on. Part of that is having a thousand small deadlines and no big one. Only thing on the immediate To Do list is the last issue of Hope Dies, which needs to be in on Friday. It’s already written in a draft. This means the manifold smaller jobs that really do need to be done expand to fill the space. Which they do.
I’ve cut some space to start back into writing Spangly New Thing issue 4, which is mainly based in a pub. Mainly. Spangly Artist will need a script by the end of the month, as that’s when they’ll hit the end of the third issue, if all goes well. At least, what counts as the end of an issue – the artist is someone who really likes to play with an image again. I showed the first issue’s cover to an artist friend of mine, and he was surprised – he’d seen a previous version, and thought it was finished. “Ah, it’s like the sky,” I noted, “When is the sky finished?”
The three issues is an important Rubicon. It’s at that point you can solicit a book via Image, which means if all goes well, we’re on line for a December release. Out by Christmas would be pleasing, as a calendar year without genuinely new always makes me a little sad. The good news is issue 1 is increasingly nailed down, we’ve got one of my favourite designers on the logo and I re-read issue 3 this morning, and got all choked up. That has to be a good sign.
24 Panels is still in its intense stage. I worked through all the submissions with my fellow editors, and worked out which twelve to select. They were so good it was far from easy, but the final letters are going out to people as we speak. With the twelve stories from people I curated, that puts twenty four in total, plus my own introduction comic (with Sean Azzopardi). There’s one story to come in due to life disasters, but otherwise it’s just Hassan making final lettering tweaks. I also wrote the solicit, so it’ll be out in November, in time for Christmas. I’m proud of what everyone involved has done.
Other stuff? As I said, bitty. Lots of rewriting. Lots of dancing with e-mail. Lots of wishing I didn’t have to deal with a given problem. Also, it continues to be so humid in my office that, combined with my leather chair, things are distinctly sticky. My running in this weather is an act of considerable masochism.
Oh – and WicDiv 38 is with Image, for its release in mid-August. The schedule has been readjusted to align with our stumble, but the gap between arcs should let us realign. We think it’s a good issue – unlike the last two, and arguably quieter, but some powerful stuff in there. Some panels made me choke up, and, as I said above, I’ll always take that a good sign for the comic, if possibly a bad sign for me.
Right. I will continue to listen to the Twlight Sad while answering E-mails. You get back to whatever you’re doing. See you next time.
Byyyyyeeee!
Kieron Gillen
London
18.7.2018