A new beginning by David Gaider
JuliusBorisov
Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,725
I've come across this entry by @David_Gaider several hours ago.
"It’s been a year and a half since I stopped blogging at Tumblr.
According to many folks there, I was driven off by a group of fans from Tumblr’s rather rabid social justice crowd — which is not to say everyone from Tumblr is rabid, or that everyone interested in social justice is rabid, but some of them certainly are and that does indeed make it rather unpleasant to have a conversation in their vicinity about anything which potentially intersects with their interests. And so be it? They have a lot to be angry about, and it was pretty clear my clumsy attempts to engage with their constant questions were only making them angrier. Stepping back from that was better for them and certainly better for me.
More than that, however, it had been four months since I’d left the Dragon Age team to work on a new IP for BioWare — a fact which hadn’t yet been announced at that point, but which made continuing my blog less rewarding than before. I’d worked on Dragon Age for ten years, after all, right from the setting’s creation up to the release of Dragon Age: Inquisition in 2014, and that’s all anyone really knew about or asked questions about. Yet Dragon Age was behind me. I couldn’t talk about my new project, but I was also far less invested in talking about Dragon Age — especially with people who would continue to hold me responsible for a project I no longer had any influence over.
I suppose the first question would be “why didn’t you just turn off the ‘Ask a Question’ function?” I had written articles about game writing, after all, so why not focus solely on that? That’s true, but the blog had become a purely Q&A thing, and I can safely say my interest in talking about the craft with folks had reached a low point. So I felt it was better to just walk away.
As it turned out, my feeling of dissatisfaction was more fundamental than that. I’d left Dragon Age because I wanted to try something new, but after a year on the new project I realized that wasn’t doing it for me either. I was considering something radical (for me): leaving a place I’d worked at for more than 17 years.
Leaving Bioware
There was a narrative after I left with which some journalists became rather enamored, and that was the notion of BioWare as some sinking ship with creative folks abandoning it left and right. The list of said creatives was always rather small compared to the total, but hey — it made for an interesting story, right?
Let me be clear: it wasn’t them, it was me. BioWare is a fantastic place to work, and I still consider the people there a kind of extended family. All the negative things I hear about other game development companies never really seemed to apply there. Yet that was part of it: I’d only heard about those other companies. Perhaps the grass is always greener and so on, but I was starting to feel that working at one company for my entire career just wasn’t cutting it. I wanted to try something new, I wanted more control over what I was doing and, even more than that, I wanted to work on something different.
As it turned out, different — not necessarily something new — was the key. I began my game writing career working on Baldur’s Gate II, and thus it amuses me to no end that I ended up going to a company which (so far) is known for updating and expanding Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II and other Infinity Engine games. I ran into Trent Oster at my gym, and he planted an idea in my head from which I just wasn’t able to escape. Considering there wasn’t really any place for me to go at BioWare, I had no choice but to take the plunge. If people want to read that as some kind of indictment of my former employer, go right ahead. They still have plenty of creatives who will do just fine without me, even if I’m missed.
Well, I hope I’m missed. A little. After 17 years, one’s ass leaves a considerable imprint on the chair, you know? And my ass is not small.
Onwards and…Upwards?
I wish I could talk about what I’m doing at Beamdog. I really, really do. My eagerness to shout it at the world kind of crawls under my skin and makes me crazy. “What are you working on now, Dave?” someone will ask me. “Shut up!” I reply and run away, arms flailing in the air.
Then they smile smugly and say, “Oh, I know what you’re working on.” And I have to let them walk away being all knowing-like even though they’re completely wrong. They can’t know. Biting my tongue has never been my strong suit.
So I suppose that’s why I’m here. As Creative Director at Beamdog, I’m busy building up a new narrative team and forming a narrative design pipeline at a place which hasn’t really had that before, so I’m thinking a lot these days about the craft of writing games and the entire process. Thus, since I can’t talk about my project, I can talk about that. Maybe I’ll opine on other things related to the gaming industry along the way, but it’ll mostly be that. Maybe nobody will be interested, but after spending a year in Pre-Production on the BioWare project only to move onto Pre-Production here…I need to actually write something or I will go goddamn crazy. It was either a novel or this, and I chose this. For now. We’ll see how things proceed."
Thanks for sharing, David!
"It’s been a year and a half since I stopped blogging at Tumblr.
According to many folks there, I was driven off by a group of fans from Tumblr’s rather rabid social justice crowd — which is not to say everyone from Tumblr is rabid, or that everyone interested in social justice is rabid, but some of them certainly are and that does indeed make it rather unpleasant to have a conversation in their vicinity about anything which potentially intersects with their interests. And so be it? They have a lot to be angry about, and it was pretty clear my clumsy attempts to engage with their constant questions were only making them angrier. Stepping back from that was better for them and certainly better for me.
More than that, however, it had been four months since I’d left the Dragon Age team to work on a new IP for BioWare — a fact which hadn’t yet been announced at that point, but which made continuing my blog less rewarding than before. I’d worked on Dragon Age for ten years, after all, right from the setting’s creation up to the release of Dragon Age: Inquisition in 2014, and that’s all anyone really knew about or asked questions about. Yet Dragon Age was behind me. I couldn’t talk about my new project, but I was also far less invested in talking about Dragon Age — especially with people who would continue to hold me responsible for a project I no longer had any influence over.
I suppose the first question would be “why didn’t you just turn off the ‘Ask a Question’ function?” I had written articles about game writing, after all, so why not focus solely on that? That’s true, but the blog had become a purely Q&A thing, and I can safely say my interest in talking about the craft with folks had reached a low point. So I felt it was better to just walk away.
As it turned out, my feeling of dissatisfaction was more fundamental than that. I’d left Dragon Age because I wanted to try something new, but after a year on the new project I realized that wasn’t doing it for me either. I was considering something radical (for me): leaving a place I’d worked at for more than 17 years.
Leaving Bioware
There was a narrative after I left with which some journalists became rather enamored, and that was the notion of BioWare as some sinking ship with creative folks abandoning it left and right. The list of said creatives was always rather small compared to the total, but hey — it made for an interesting story, right?
Let me be clear: it wasn’t them, it was me. BioWare is a fantastic place to work, and I still consider the people there a kind of extended family. All the negative things I hear about other game development companies never really seemed to apply there. Yet that was part of it: I’d only heard about those other companies. Perhaps the grass is always greener and so on, but I was starting to feel that working at one company for my entire career just wasn’t cutting it. I wanted to try something new, I wanted more control over what I was doing and, even more than that, I wanted to work on something different.
As it turned out, different — not necessarily something new — was the key. I began my game writing career working on Baldur’s Gate II, and thus it amuses me to no end that I ended up going to a company which (so far) is known for updating and expanding Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II and other Infinity Engine games. I ran into Trent Oster at my gym, and he planted an idea in my head from which I just wasn’t able to escape. Considering there wasn’t really any place for me to go at BioWare, I had no choice but to take the plunge. If people want to read that as some kind of indictment of my former employer, go right ahead. They still have plenty of creatives who will do just fine without me, even if I’m missed.
Well, I hope I’m missed. A little. After 17 years, one’s ass leaves a considerable imprint on the chair, you know? And my ass is not small.
Onwards and…Upwards?
I wish I could talk about what I’m doing at Beamdog. I really, really do. My eagerness to shout it at the world kind of crawls under my skin and makes me crazy. “What are you working on now, Dave?” someone will ask me. “Shut up!” I reply and run away, arms flailing in the air.
Then they smile smugly and say, “Oh, I know what you’re working on.” And I have to let them walk away being all knowing-like even though they’re completely wrong. They can’t know. Biting my tongue has never been my strong suit.
So I suppose that’s why I’m here. As Creative Director at Beamdog, I’m busy building up a new narrative team and forming a narrative design pipeline at a place which hasn’t really had that before, so I’m thinking a lot these days about the craft of writing games and the entire process. Thus, since I can’t talk about my project, I can talk about that. Maybe I’ll opine on other things related to the gaming industry along the way, but it’ll mostly be that. Maybe nobody will be interested, but after spending a year in Pre-Production on the BioWare project only to move onto Pre-Production here…I need to actually write something or I will go goddamn crazy. It was either a novel or this, and I chose this. For now. We’ll see how things proceed."
Thanks for sharing, David!
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Comments
The whole article is interesting. This is a part about getting a job:
"The chances of you getting any writing job in the game industry are not good. It’s not necessarily because you suck, it’s because of two main things:
There aren’t many writing gigs to be had. Many game developers who need writing will outsource, meaning they bring in a writer late in development and go, “see this brilliant but story-less game we have here? I want you to wave your magic Writing Wand and make it have a brilliant story. Yes, I know that games which really care about story will have actual writers taking part in the early development, but we have neither the time nor money for that and thus we came to you because your business card said Fast Cheap Brilliant. We want that.” Others will have the writing being done by someone who’s also doing something else on the team, like a programmer, because they just have to. And most of everyone else? Their game doesn’t have much call for story, period, because they’re just not that kind of game.
Writing is a hard skill to show. You could be a genius at narrative design, but proving that you’re a genius? Really hard. More than that, the people who are hiring writers have a really difficult time in figuring out who’s capable. It’s not like a 3D model you can look at and objectively say whether whoever made it has the chops or not — we’re talking about an inexact science, and there are no degrees in, say, Interactive Branching Fiction. So you make do writing your brilliant submissions and trying to stand out among all the other submissions.
But you’re good with the chances? And you’re tired of me spending my time trying to dissuade you and just want to hear the brass tacks about how to improve your chances? “Jesus Christ, Gaider,” you mumble. “Do you ever get to the goddamn point?”
Rude. I mean, sure, fair, but rude.
With the caveat that I’m only talking about the sort of writing jobs one gets at a place like BioWare because that’s the only type of place I’ve hired for (I’m sure people get hired to write games like the Last of Us — call me! — but I’m not certain what their criteria for that would be other than to, you know, be Neil Druckmann, and that’s harder for some folks than others), here are some things you should try:
Learn — on one hand, this means you need to play games. All types of games, not just the ones you enjoy the most. You need to look at different stories and think about what they did narratively, good or bad. If it was good, consider how they managed it. If it was bad, consider why it might have been done that way and what could have been better about it. One of the most common questions we ask in an interview is what a writer thinks about the narrative in games they’ve played…and specifically what they didn’t like and why. Being able to critique is one of the skills you will absolutely need, not to mention showing that you’ve an interest in game stories that goes beyond enjoying a single game that developer made. Also? Read. As in books. And if you’re still in school (or planning to go), consider what courses you’ll take. My suggestion? Anything. There are no courses which will teach you how to be a better game writer (though there are courses which will teach you how to be a better writer, period, and that’s a good foundational skill to develop), but you can learn about things which you will need to draw from if and when you do start writing: history, literature, political science, philosophy, sociology…I list these things because they are actual degrees held by writers I have hired, and I know about them because those degrees have come up and been useful during the course of work.
Practice — yes, this is a skill you can actually improve and develop. A lot of people think writing is solely a talent, but that’s only part of it. I’ve told people they should try modding, but creating a mod involves a whole lot of other skills which many people just find too daunting to contemplate learning (I don’t fault you for that; when my computer stops working I paw at it and make keening sounds until IT shows up). Joining a mod team is easier said than done, so your best bet is to grab a program like Twine. It’s purely writing-based, it will allow you to wrap your head around the idea of branching, and you’ll produce something that you can not only show it will also demonstrate that you’ve taken the time to learn the simple scripting a program like Twine requires. “I possess enough technical capability to learn how to use a conversation editor” is fantastic and will make you stand out.
Target studios individually — meaning if you’re going to send a writing submission to a studio, make it the kind of writing they specifically already do. If you want to become a writer for Obsidian, you need to play Obsidian’s games and actually look at how they write their dialogue. How many player responses do they provide, and what kind? How long are their individual lines? There is no secret to it; all the writing is right there, and you’ll do yourself a world of good if you show that you’re capable of being analytical and piecing together what lies behind what you’re seeing. Also? Don’t write a submission for Obsidian that takes place in Lord of the Rings or your own homebrew world, write something for Pillars of Eternity or Tyranny and show you already know what those are and how writing is done for those games. If one of their games has modding tools available for it, then consider using those tools to mod something. It doesn’t have to be a full DLC-length story, just something. We once had someone submit a module in Neverwinter Nights which was solely characters who spoke their dialogue and who each stood next to a sign that explained the plot points — no scripting at all. And we hired them.
Make a submission — if you’re lucky, a studio’s going to spell out exactly what they want in a writing submission. Beamdog did when we recently hired three narrative designers; I specified exactly what I wanted the submission to include, how long I expected it to be, and the skills it had to prove. Unless a studio is actively looking, however, they’re unlikely to provide that. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t apply, however…or, at least, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a submission ready to go. Keeping in mind the “target studios specifically” thing I mentioned above, put together a writing sample as if you intended for it to be inserted into one of their published games. Keep it simple. Don’t write a story which would require an entire Dragon Age sequel — you will not be hired to do that — but rather write a small Dragon Age quest or a single character scene. Make the lines clever, or have a single twist, without trying too hard. And most of all? Don’t make it too long. If someone has to spend more than 30 minutes reading it, they just won’t. My personal advice is to make sure you put your best work up front — if you’re writing a single dialogue, have something really clever in the first few lines. If you’re writing several, make sure the first showcases your skills the best. If you’re providing an outline for a quest, make sure the premise is what grabs me or that the first part of the quest is the most interesting. It’d be nice if we lived in a world where I gave your submission all the way until the end to be impressed, but we don’t. I’m impatient and tired and my attention wanders pretty quickly, and I doubt I’m the only one.
Be persistent — yeah, yeah, you hear that a lot, I’m sure. Thing is, you’re unlikely to get feedback on your submission even if they’re currently asking for them. At best you’ll get a polite turn down email, if you get anything at all. Usually places will have a period of time before you can apply again, and if they do then wait that time and try again. Figure out what you did wrong with your last submission — self-evaluate — and try again. If they don’t reply, then give it some time (six months? a year?) and send something in again. If you eventually get a reply which is “for the love of God please stop sending these”, then, okay, stop…but otherwise? What’s the harm?
Things not to do — do not send in your fanfiction, not unless that’s what the studio is asking for. Also do not send in a submission that reads like fanfiction, even if it is in the format the studio is asking for…meaning that it’s possible to analyze the sort of writing style Uncharted has without having your submission be a scene where Nathan expresses his ardent love for Chloe and they end up together. Why? Because whoever’s evaluating it will not be looking at your writing skill but will be judging how well you’ve emulated those character’s voices…and that’s a really high bar if it’s their writers looking at your evaluation (and it very well may be). Don’t make your job harder than it already is. Also? Don’t make your submission a critique, and don’t make it about your ideas…make it about your skill.
I suppose someone could wrinkle their nose at all that and wonder if there isn’t perhaps an easier way. “Couldn’t I just become friends with someone at the dev company on Twitter? Don’t a lot of people get jobs by who they know rather than what they know?” I guess that’s true. Technically I did, way back in 1999, when a friend of mine worked at BioWare and recommended me for a writing position (which I then had to prove I had the chops for, though I wouldn’t have received that chance in the normal course of things…mainly because I never applied or intended to become a game developer at all, but that’s a completely different story). If it’s your plan to somehow get in the good graces of a dev in the hopes of influencing them, good luck. I’d suggest at least not being an asshole. You’re better off developing your skills, if you ask me. That just seems less stalker-y, but maybe I’m old fashioned.
The most important advice of all, I suppose, is not to be discouraged before you even try. Consider alternatives, if you can. Maybe you’re not meant to get onto BioWare’s small writing team. Maybe you’re meant to join some startup which grows out of the modding team you joined in order to get the skills you thought BioWare was looking for. Maybe you’re meant to publish your Twine game and become an indie dev who never intended to be that because you only wrote it to get noticed by a studio. Maybe just putting yourself out there and putting your writing out there will get you further than you think. Maybe you’ll discover some other part of game development you never considered, or discover a type of game writing I myself haven’t even considered.
Prove that people like me who give advice don’t know much about anything other than our own little worlds, while the real one is so much bigger and more varied. Go claim your place in it, through sheer force of will if you must, and don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise."
Maybe he could talk about an entirely theoretical project, called something like, Smaulder's Bait 3, for example
hahahahhahahahhahaha, that was beautiful
"I remember back in the early days of working on “Dragon Age: Origins” (before that was even its title) when I was asked to make the new game’s setting. It’s not the sort of task one gets assigned very often, and in this case it didn’t come with a lot of direction beyond ‘make something fantasy-ish…but your version of fantasy’. Lead Designer James Ohlen and I had chatted about some of the possibilities, after which I went off and made a world in the time-honored fashion of any nerd who grew up playing D&D: with a bunch of crudely-drawn maps on napkins and reams of text filled with enough twee-sounding proper nouns to make your head spin.
I’d really warmed up to the task, after some initial trepidation. This was going to be my subversion of the fantasy genre, a world that was in the aftermath of its ‘Lord of the Rings’ era where dragons were dead and magic was waning. I could take all the tropes I disliked about fantasy as a genre and turn them on their head, say something about the genre itself! I was psyched.
James was less psyched, as it turned out. “Where’s the magic?” he asked, after which I quickly learned the difference between creating a setting that made for interesting reading on the page and one that made for something you could build an interesting game around. I grudgingly began to iterate based on his feedback, inching towards the version of the Dragon Age setting fans are familiar with today…but there was one change he wanted which didn’t sit very well with me: he wanted an “evil horde”, some ubiquitous enemy like the standard fantasy orcs which the player wouldn’t feel bad about killing. Dragon Age fans will recognize this role as what eventually became the darkspawn — but, back then, they simply didn’t exist. There was no such thing in the world I’d created."
He wants magic... fine, here's your magic! *locks all mages up in a tower unable to escape*
Interesting. This just proves that dark fantasy doesn't mix well with high magic. It always felt wrong and out of place that Morrigan could throw fireballs like there was no tomorrow, not to mention at such a low level.
And I love all the darkspawn/archdemon stuff. Thanks, Mr. Ohlen!
That, however, didn't play very well. The gameplay team didn't want to make subtle spellcasting - they wanted fireballs. They also didn't want mages locked up in towers, because that meant you couldn't have spellcasters in random groups of opponents you came across - it wouldn't make sense. Hence why I mentioned a difference between a setting that was fun to read about and one that you could build a game around...all my thought had been going into the former rather than the latter, as in I only considered what I found interesting and not the limitations that would slap onto other parts of the team or how fun that would be in reality for the player.
That game is all about using spells for solving puzzles and stuff.
A low magic game could certainly still be done in a fun way. A good RPG story revolves around the PC making choices and growing into his/her class abilities, whatever they are. Baldur's Gate II was a high magic setting because lowly goblins carried scrolls as treasure, and the spell system was developed into a complex ensemble of spell - counter spell - counter counter spell. That's the part of high magic I particularly didn't like, where you would have to spend entire rest periods to charge up contingencies and sequencers. Low magic can be done ... as DA demonstrated, a simple first level Sleep spell from AD&D can be devasting at any level depending on whether creatures can easily resist its effects. For a low magic basis, I'd look to the old AD&D Psionic system as a starting point.
So if the charname would be an actual mage they would have to have remained 'hidden' and pretended to use staffs and stuff instead. And you could also sometimes encounter real mages that have remained hidden from the templars, like Morrigan or some bloodmage sects etc.