A New Respect for Adventure Writters
- Thread starter Drawmack
- Start date
Psion
Adventurer
thedungeondelver said:
Not unless there is some significant difference from the standard statistics. In the early days of 3e, some publishers included full-on stat blocks, but nowadays, pretty much everyone (and especially WotC and Paizo) refer you to the MM unless the statistics therein are somehow insufficient.
JRRNeiklot
First Post
My hat is off to anyone who has the perseverence to slug through 3e stat blocks. *Shudder*
I've been writing for the screen for eight years now. I've written an adventure but haven't gotten it published. There's something I can tell you about writing that seems to hold true, no matter what field you write in:
Writers are almost always not appreciated. Many people even think that they aren't particularly needed and that anyone can do it.
Now as I haven't been published in the RPG market I can't speak there... But producers, investors, directors, actors and almost everyone else in the film industry thinks that anyone can just sit down at a computer and crank a gem of a script out in a week. Ask some movie fans to name their favorite actors and directors and you'll get long diatribes. Ask about favorite screenwriters (that didn't also direct the picture) and see if they can even remember their names.
Writers are almost always not appreciated. Many people even think that they aren't particularly needed and that anyone can do it.
Now as I haven't been published in the RPG market I can't speak there... But producers, investors, directors, actors and almost everyone else in the film industry thinks that anyone can just sit down at a computer and crank a gem of a script out in a week. Ask some movie fans to name their favorite actors and directors and you'll get long diatribes. Ask about favorite screenwriters (that didn't also direct the picture) and see if they can even remember their names.
thedungeondelver
Adventurer
Psion said:
Really! That is fascinating. I haven't cracked a d20 D&D adventure recently so I did not know.
And now I do...!
Celebrim
Legend
Dykstrav said:
All too true, which goes along way to explaining the generally sad state of American cinema and television.
In my experience with the screen, the script makes the actor. The actor doesn't make the script. So many actors become famous for some well written script, and then go on to make a series of clunkers that reveal that they have little or no talent for acting. So many bad movies are made that contain extremely talented actors who have been given nothing to work with, and then the critics or the audience go on to blame the bad acting as if anyone could do anything with the lines they'd been given.
And I wonder why this is. People will look at a concert pianist or a Picasso painting and say, "I can't do that," even though they can hold a brush and easel and daub paint onto a canvas or sit down at a piano and press keys.
But they'll look at the Great American Novel or direct the Hollywood Blockbuster Screenplay and assume they could write that too, if only they had the time, because they can type. Maybe it's something about writing appearing "obvious" once it's on the page - and of course it is at that stage - when all the monsters have already been faced down by others.
The original writer of Pirates of the Carribean described the process: Because no-one wants to lose their job if a film fails, then when someone accountable receives a script which is to go ahead, they'll then hire a bunch of the best writers around to re-write the script, essentially turning it into the work of a committee (with all the compromise that entails).
The upshot of this is that if (when?) the movie fails, the accountable person can then say, "But I hired all the best writers in the industry! You can't blame me!", and save their own behind. (Incidentally, the sequel screams of being "written by committee" to me...it's a bit confused, but to be fair, as a reviewer pointed out it was in the unenviable position of having to put the "plot bowling pins" back in place for both itself and the next movie.)
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Yeah who needs facts when our own opinion of reality works so much better. 
Melan
Explorer
With all due respect, it is not just the number of words, it is how you use them! I would rather breeze through 8 pages of Tomb of Horrors quality material than 256 pages of a 2e Forgotten Realms epic. Adventure writers take note: a module should be as long as needed, and not a page longer (naturally, there are different ways to write an adventure, from ultra-sparse to quite detailed). Unfortunately, I don't know how that can work in a world where professionals get paid by the word.
(All that said: writing adventures can be a lot of fun. I've written my own share of free stuff, and worked on a yet to be published revision of an old classic; it was all good. Since I already have a reasonably well paying day job, I don't need to write when I don't want to. That helps a lot.)
(All that said: writing adventures can be a lot of fun. I've written my own share of free stuff, and worked on a yet to be published revision of an old classic; it was all good. Since I already have a reasonably well paying day job, I don't need to write when I don't want to. That helps a lot.)
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