Caution: Long rant-like drivel here
Interestingly, there are some situations when you do paying work when you have a client that wants something rather specific which makes you scratch your head and say "huh?" and seems to violate that suspension of disbelief. When you do a map for an RPG that isn't yours, expect some handwaiving where you'd prefer it would not be found, and some places where the client wants strict observance to something you consider of lesser importance to the thing that got handwaived.
I've been very lucky in this so far, in that the company I primarily work with has been very good about working with their folks from the get-go. Often, they will take what I do and work it into their stuff, sometimes the handwaive comes before there is too much investment on your part. That makes it very easy. "This is the map I do, so I do it."
One example happened when I worked on the maps for a Post-Apocalyptic setting book. I did a lair in that one for a Wizard that had installed himself as a Warlord in a pastiche of Thundarr the Barbarian (a rather well done pastiche I might say). The artifacts of the "World that Was" are used as a basis for other things in that sort of setting. Like Chairots built out of the chasis of an old Chevy and dragged by dinosaurs, stuff like that. This is done both to connect the setting to the players and give a solid Post-Apoc feel.
I had a couple of ideas when the Developer and I were discussing the different maps for the project. Stuff like usng a Fast-food-type place as the Ancient basis for the lair -- just because it would have amused me to have the Big Bad Guy send his Death Legion out of a McDonald's. It would have been a good gag too, but the Developer went with one of my other ideas of using an old Skyscraper as a basis for a "Wizard's Tower". So off I go in my Mr. Monk fashion to do research on what will happen to structures after the Bomb/Moon breaks/People-die-off-in-whatever and that sort of thing. Halfway through working the map out, the Developer mentions that the Thundarr setting will be a thousand years in the future.
I say to myself: "A thousand?"
By that time, the only structures built in the Twentieth century that are left will be stuff like bridges and that sort of thing (Medieval Castles were made of much sterner stuff time-wise and look at their present state). Skyscrapers might last a good 300-400 years, longer even with regular repair and maintenance. But a Thousand Years? Metal fatigue and such, especially if there is any groundwater and no maintenance (like you know, after the Bomb), will collapse that puppy well before then. Right away I want to start ranting, but instead I ask a few leading questions to feel him out on how committed he is to this.
The Developers position (and it is the same one he made publicly when the issue came up on that Companies boards independently, so I am not talking out of school here) was that this was something that the genre simply used. Period. No one questioned it on Thundarr, why question it here? Seeing he was resolute and taking the path of least resistance I did the maps, just thinking in my hindbrain that those were really 1,000 seasons or maybe that the calendars got shorter or something. You know, just to trick myself into doing the job.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that he was right and I was wrong. I freely admit that now, emphatically even. The point in game design is to create an image, a feeling, a tone. That ephemeral quality that creates a shared picture of the imaginary world into which we delve collectively. A lot of that dynamic depends on what the characters see and hear and have physically 'present' (in-game of course) to respond and react to. Thundarr with nothing but Ancient relicts that have largely disintegrated and are nearly unrecognizable isn't post-Apocalyptic, its a fantasy setting that happens to be far into the future rather than the past (like Smith's Zothique). If you want Post-Apocalyptic you need time to develop new social customs, for mutations to develop and to create a new set of myths and legends that incorporate the "Time that was...." So the thousand year period was entirely appropriate. And so too was the Skyscraper, the perfect image of the Ancients to be used as the base for a Warlord. A skyscrapper that was battered and skeletal (I used a curtain wall style building based off of the Lever Building, one of the first of that Glass & Steel type) but something that the players could say to themselves "Yup. Ruined Skyscrapper. Post-Apocalyptic."
The map wasn't hyper-realistic, but it was appropriate. It reinforced the setting. I'm glad I didn't raise a stink (my initial reaction), because at the point I was so into getting the details that I lost sight of what it was I was supposed to do. To explain that concept a bit: I basically work "bottom-up" rather than "top- down": By which I mean that I put together a building by thinking about the guy/gal/it that designed it first and then what it was originally built for, not by saying "I need a room here" or there. This can take me a few seconds or a long time along a convulted path, just depends. Often, I find that this method gives me an unusual take on the maps I draw and helps me avoid cliches, but it also has its drawbacks. I get lost amid the details for one, which was my problem there. Also, I'm learning to change that a little, to step back and say "What is the top-down view of this thing? Have I accomplished my goals?" And sometimes this calls for me to make changes so that the thing am doing is not just logical but right for the project. The game designer has been excellent about this mental readjustment on my part, and he has shown me a lot just by talking with me. I appreciate the time he spends doing that because it isn't like he's getting paid for his valuable time.
And there is a side-benefit from my interaction with him from his end as well. At least that is my conceit. Several of the maps I did for that project all started with a list of possibilities I sent along from the get-go and he made them better by making certain that I stayed on the right path. Maybe that contribution is no more than what the Developer gets the forums on his company website, but I Hope that I have stimulated an idea or two. I just wonder if they were good ones
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Originally Posted by Publius
