JJ Abrams made TV history with his groundbreaking series LOST -- and, love it or hate it, it's hard to argue that the show wasn't a significant accomplishment on Network TV, a landscape dominated by reality programming and multi-camera, laugh-track powered sitcoms.
Just this past Thursday, BoingBoing.com noted the appearance online of a PDF of the original LOST series bible[ ]. It's a 27 page document addressed to the folks who will be supporting and working on the show, and as interesting as it is on it's own, there are some really important messages to take away for Dungeon Masters of all stripes.
View attachment 59036
So here goes:
1. Be Bold
When you're planning your campaign, or planning an adventure within an existing campaign, don't hold back. Imagine stories that you would tell if there were no limitations.
Abrams faced serious limitations -- budget, for one thing. Studios want shows that can be produced on a soundstage, where expenses can be controlled. And you can see some of Abrams' efforts to convince the studio folks that he was going to try to manage those costs:
And, if you watched the series, you remember that a lot of the interaction took place within their home camp, especially during that first season, but it never felt like a soundstage, and as the season went on, more and more of the show took place in a wide variety of locations.
For your own games, don't worry about things like how you'll manage to handle encounters as you imagine them -- if you can imagine a scene where the PCs wind up riding dragons into battle, and it makes sense, run with it, and trust yourself to come up with a way to stage the encounter.
Your only limitation should be your imagination -- and that should be no limitation at all.
2. Your Characters are the story
From the PDF:
Your campaign -- and your adventures -- should be an expression of your characters -- PCs and NPCs. Players that give you strong backgrounds are asking you to include those backgrounds in your campaign -- and you're absolutely required to do so. By the same token, your important NPCs should have a bit of backstory that informs who they are and what they're going to be looking for in your story.
But more importantly, think about how you can build conflicts into PCs and NPCs for your game -- and turn those conflicts into stories. If you've got a barbarian who loves to drink beer, you're going to need an NPC teetotaler cleric -- either as a PC or an NPC.
At the same time, your PCs may have stories which are not completely revealed at first. Using Jack as a model, here's what the show bible says about him: "…much of Jack's past is shrouded in mystery. Simply put, out's not something he likes to talk about -- but if he did, it would certainly explain his tattoos."
As a DM, given that in a PC background, aren't your wheels spinning already?
3. Mystery is engaging
Few shows have excited so much speculation about the inherent mysteries that LOST did.
For an RPG -- at least, for most RPGs before Gumshoe -- mysteries were a tough thing to include -- and games like 4e that excelled at combat and encounter design tended to sideline mystery as a compelling game element.
But the mysteries that LOST spun for it's audience were a critical part of what kept the show in people's minds from one week to the next. Watercooler debates about the nature of the island, the polar bear, the Dharma institute, and Locke's apparent mystical connection to the island -- those rivaled Facebook as a productivity sink at most workplaces.
What if your home game could keep your players just as engaged between sessions -- just as intrigued by the mysteries they're caught within.
4. Don't limit yourself to one type of story
The third part of the show bible includes a discussion of the sorts of stories that they could tell -- basically thumbnails for a wide variety of episodes they might shoot. Some sound like the seeds of episodes we saw -- others obviously didn't make it out of the writer's room, but the collection is a great example of the creative range that's possible, even within what could be a limited setting.
The key to many of them, goes back to my second point - character. Check out a couple of excerpts:
These -- like a great many of the 30 sample stories in the bible -- are examples of different potential story lines that come directly out of the characters and the drama they bring to the show. The same thing can be true of your PCs and NPCs if you take the time to develop the conflicts and tensions that exist between them.
If you're looking for ideas for building that sort of conflict between your players, take a look at an old column of mine that details using Fiasco as a tool for building those connections between characters [http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?574-Gamehackery ]
5. You Don't Need to have it all figured out at the start
One of the most fascinating things, reading this document, is that even though they're clearly holding some of their ideas back from the reader, they did not have the whole thing figured out when they started out.
Sure, there are things in the document that would not play out until several seasons into the show. But there are clearly details -- big, important things - that were left to figure out as they went along.
In other cases, there are signs here of things that changed by the time the show aired. Take Hurley, for example. The bio for him in the bible describes him as "born into a vast Puerto Rican family" who had "parlayed his skills into a career in asset recovery -- a Repo Man able to talk anyone out of anything." That's a lot different from the character who had been in a mental hospital and used the island's secret sequence of numbers to win the lottery.
In your own games, anything that is not nailed down already in the player's information is entirely free to change -- and anything they know already could also change, for a variety of reasons. Don't allow yourself to be trapped by past ideas -- if you come up with a better one, find a way to make it work, even if it means putting Hurley in the nuthouse.
###
So. That's what I'm getting out of it. What do YOU think are the most important lessons to be learned from LOST?
Just this past Thursday, BoingBoing.com noted the appearance online of a PDF of the original LOST series bible[ ]. It's a 27 page document addressed to the folks who will be supporting and working on the show, and as interesting as it is on it's own, there are some really important messages to take away for Dungeon Masters of all stripes.
View attachment 59036
So here goes:
1. Be Bold
When you're planning your campaign, or planning an adventure within an existing campaign, don't hold back. Imagine stories that you would tell if there were no limitations.
Abrams faced serious limitations -- budget, for one thing. Studios want shows that can be produced on a soundstage, where expenses can be controlled. And you can see some of Abrams' efforts to convince the studio folks that he was going to try to manage those costs:
Our idea is to build a jungle inside a soundstage. And in this patch of jungle, our characters will begin to build their own "mini" sets. Call it a primitive "Melrose Place.
And, if you watched the series, you remember that a lot of the interaction took place within their home camp, especially during that first season, but it never felt like a soundstage, and as the season went on, more and more of the show took place in a wide variety of locations.
For your own games, don't worry about things like how you'll manage to handle encounters as you imagine them -- if you can imagine a scene where the PCs wind up riding dragons into battle, and it makes sense, run with it, and trust yourself to come up with a way to stage the encounter.
Your only limitation should be your imagination -- and that should be no limitation at all.
2. Your Characters are the story
From the PDF:
At the end of the day,. LOST will sink or swim purely on the merit of its characters…and taking a page from the successful playbook of Reality Television, we've stocked our island with the ingredients for limitless conflict. No Conflict, No Drama.
Your campaign -- and your adventures -- should be an expression of your characters -- PCs and NPCs. Players that give you strong backgrounds are asking you to include those backgrounds in your campaign -- and you're absolutely required to do so. By the same token, your important NPCs should have a bit of backstory that informs who they are and what they're going to be looking for in your story.
But more importantly, think about how you can build conflicts into PCs and NPCs for your game -- and turn those conflicts into stories. If you've got a barbarian who loves to drink beer, you're going to need an NPC teetotaler cleric -- either as a PC or an NPC.
At the same time, your PCs may have stories which are not completely revealed at first. Using Jack as a model, here's what the show bible says about him: "…much of Jack's past is shrouded in mystery. Simply put, out's not something he likes to talk about -- but if he did, it would certainly explain his tattoos."
As a DM, given that in a PC background, aren't your wheels spinning already?
3. Mystery is engaging
Few shows have excited so much speculation about the inherent mysteries that LOST did.
Which brings us to what may be the key ingredient for LOST --
Mystery
The hope is that every episode will be anchored by some type of MYSTERY -- an event or task that gives each episode a driving investigative thread, even if that mystery is as simple as figuring out why there is seemingly no fresh water on the island, why everyone is getting sick, or where one of our characters has disappeared to.
For an RPG -- at least, for most RPGs before Gumshoe -- mysteries were a tough thing to include -- and games like 4e that excelled at combat and encounter design tended to sideline mystery as a compelling game element.
But the mysteries that LOST spun for it's audience were a critical part of what kept the show in people's minds from one week to the next. Watercooler debates about the nature of the island, the polar bear, the Dharma institute, and Locke's apparent mystical connection to the island -- those rivaled Facebook as a productivity sink at most workplaces.
What if your home game could keep your players just as engaged between sessions -- just as intrigued by the mysteries they're caught within.
4. Don't limit yourself to one type of story
The third part of the show bible includes a discussion of the sorts of stories that they could tell -- basically thumbnails for a wide variety of episodes they might shoot. Some sound like the seeds of episodes we saw -- others obviously didn't make it out of the writer's room, but the collection is a great example of the creative range that's possible, even within what could be a limited setting.
The key to many of them, goes back to my second point - character. Check out a couple of excerpts:
Vincent
In an attempt to find common ground with Walt, Michael ventures into the jungle to find his son's pet Labrador. Upon locating Vincent, Michael is surprised to see that not only has the fog's ear been bitten off, but the bite marks appear to be human.
…
Sawyer's Deal
Having cornered the market on alcohol by liberating all the booze from the fuselage, Sawyer refuses to turn over some of his booty to Jack, who needs it for his makeshift infirmary…but when Sawyer finds himself in that same infirmary after a run-in with a wild boar, the 'negotiations' take on a whole new tack. "
These -- like a great many of the 30 sample stories in the bible -- are examples of different potential story lines that come directly out of the characters and the drama they bring to the show. The same thing can be true of your PCs and NPCs if you take the time to develop the conflicts and tensions that exist between them.
If you're looking for ideas for building that sort of conflict between your players, take a look at an old column of mine that details using Fiasco as a tool for building those connections between characters [http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?574-Gamehackery ]
5. You Don't Need to have it all figured out at the start
One of the most fascinating things, reading this document, is that even though they're clearly holding some of their ideas back from the reader, they did not have the whole thing figured out when they started out.
Sure, there are things in the document that would not play out until several seasons into the show. But there are clearly details -- big, important things - that were left to figure out as they went along.
In other cases, there are signs here of things that changed by the time the show aired. Take Hurley, for example. The bio for him in the bible describes him as "born into a vast Puerto Rican family" who had "parlayed his skills into a career in asset recovery -- a Repo Man able to talk anyone out of anything." That's a lot different from the character who had been in a mental hospital and used the island's secret sequence of numbers to win the lottery.
In your own games, anything that is not nailed down already in the player's information is entirely free to change -- and anything they know already could also change, for a variety of reasons. Don't allow yourself to be trapped by past ideas -- if you come up with a better one, find a way to make it work, even if it means putting Hurley in the nuthouse.
###
So. That's what I'm getting out of it. What do YOU think are the most important lessons to be learned from LOST?
