THE OLLAMH LOREKEEPER: Fridays & Functions: Interview with Frank Carr (Part 2)

Welcome to Fridays & Functions; a series of a posts that will always deal with what goes on behind the scenes, including design diaries, interviews, technical commentary, etc. First up is a 5 part interview with Frank Carr Author of Heroes of the Jade Oath you can find Part 1 Here

Illustration by Hugo Solis

11. Living and breathing the Rituals of Choice adventure path I know how hard it is to watch an editor take a red pen to a beloved work, how do you handle that with a work as close to you as Lands of the Jade Oath? How do you plan to handle patron criticism.?

With a very big stick! Seriously, I don't mind criticism as long as it is making a valid and relevant point. I am the sort of person who would rather be told up front and in my face if you have a problem with me or what I do. I can deal with that on nearly all levels and I can respect people more for being that way with me. But, I don't like it when people talk behind my back or otherwise behave like a hypocrite.

That said, I have been dealing with Bill Collins (the editor on this book) on and off for a few years now and he and I have a great rapport. I would discuss the occasional idea I had for the books with him and he was a great sounding board for what would and would not be a good idea. But then, he never really told me that I had a bad idea. He always seems to enable me by telling me that I could take that so-so idea and make it better by taking approaches x, y, or z. This relationship is what makes him working on this book so great. He and I can take the sour things that crop up and make a whiskey sour out of them instead of tossing them out completely and going back to scratch on something.

As to dealing with patron criticism, I don't think there will be much of anything that will bother me as long as folks on both sides of the creative process are open-minded, honest, and willing to hear each other out.

12. Describe your best moment working on Lands of the Jade Oath?

That would have to be when I finally got to see the final, complete cover painting image by Wayne Reynolds.

13. What do you feel was the most ingenious part of Lands of the Jade Oath that you devised?

That is hard for me to say because there are a few things that I really liked about what I have written so far. I guess it would be a tossup between the shenxue race and the enlightened scholar class. The shenxue race, because they are my answer to having both a hengeyokai and a half-breed race descended from spirits all rolled into one. I like how a shenxue player can choose almost any race in the setting and then add a spiritual aspect like fox, mountain, or some other thing to create a unique racial choice that endables player creativity while still making good sense in the setting. The Enlightened Scholar class, because the concept is one that hasn't really been addressed before now as a character class for the adventuring scholar, alchemist, antiquarian, physician, or hedge mage. The class was ispired by characters from fiction and film such as Uncle from Jackie Chan Adventures, Foo Shen from Big Trouble in Little China, Alec Guiness' rendition of Obi Wan Kenobi, Indiana Jones, Wong Fei Hong, Dr. Daniel Jackson, and many others. I know that there are a couple out there now that Wizards of the Coast came up with just before they came out with 4th edition, but I originally wrote this class up in its first draft back in early 2004. Because I know I came up with it before I knew of other efforts along these lines makes me rather proud of it.

14. What specific design choice are you most happy with, and why?

I guess that might be either the path classes or the ch'i magic system. Both are very flexible and makes game options available to more types of characters than just magic-users or warrior-types. In the case of ch'i that would because written up as feats they become available to any who can qualify. In the case of paths, they are martial arts or castes and backgrounds that make a character more unique and enjoyable within the setting, while sacrificing as little as possible from one's class.

15. Which design element was the hardest to figure out, and why?

That was probably the shenxue racial traits. I knew what I wanted to accomplish with them, but getting to that point was very difficult. Trying to balance what I wanted them to be with the reality of game mechanics was very difficult for me to do when I was first trying to design that race. At first, being shenxue was just going to be a template you could add to your character, but that wouldn't work for many reasons.

16. What did you learn about design and especially designing for eastern-style settings?

A lot, it is a very open-ended question because there is just so much to learn. I will mention a couple of them, though. One that I would have to mention is that everyone has a different idea about what an oriental game setting should incorporate, though there are also a lot of common denominators folks would like to see, such as martial arts and cultures that can serve as fantasy analogues to Asian cultures. I also learned that it is possible to introduce fun and balanced changes to an existing game system without having to redo the whole game system. Also, the best and most popular design decisions involve making or modifying a mechanical rule that enhances a story element. While balance between all the rules in the game is important, balance between the rules and the story are just as important, if not more so.

17. What have you learned about Land of the Jade Oath in play-testing?

I have learned that nothing is as good as what you think it is until you get not only a second opinion, but get it field tested as well as a second and third opinion. I have also learned that sometimes you have to go with what you think is best despite what someone else says, especially when a couple of someones aren't agreeing with each other or you, and they don't know the overall vision of the project as well as you do. Stay true to the vision and it will work out, no matter how many bumps are in the road.

What did you change as a result?

After showing the draft write-up of my shenxue to my players, a couple of them came back to me with a critique about how a couple of the shenxue spiritual aspects had abilities that were too similar. After brainstorming for a bit with them and later by myself, we managed to come up with better abilities that were unique to each spiritual aspect.

18. Did you make any other mistakes or miscalculations in the design process? How did you fix them?

Yes, I have made several mistakes and miscalculations along the way, but I have always been able to get them under control and make things even better than the original concept was before as a result of recognizing those mistakes. I would do this by simply going back to the drawing board, so to speak. I would ask myself, “What am I trying to accomplish with this idea and is it necessary?” If the answer was yes to that, then I would try and see if there was a better way to approach what I was trying to do than what I had tried already. This process forced me to come up with better ideas, both setting and story -wise and rules mechanic -wise. Despite having stated all this, though, I think my biggest mistake is that I cannot stop creating stuff. I have too many ideas I want to throw out there that I cannot stop myself from either improving on them or creating more. For example, as the manuscript stands right now there are 6 new totems (horse, centipede, monkey, praying mantis, tiger, and elephant), 4 new witch types (jade, ghost, five element, and dragon), and 12 spiritual aspects for the shenxue (hare, mountain, river, fire, fox, sword, crane, bamboo, cloud, dog, snow, and panda). I wanted to create more and even started doing so, before I was able to force myself to trim them down to the more reasonable numbers I just mentioned. Even now I am burning to write up a Star Witch and Monkey spiritual aspect and have nearly complete or partially completed drafts of the badger, cat, carp, city, frog, desert, graveyard, moon, rat, and snake shenxue spiritual aspects and spider totem.

19. We have a long history of a Japanese focus in the RPG industry how do you decided what has become cliché and what is a valuable trope to explore?

A good indicator if it is cliché is if it is something that is made fun of in popular tv or anime. However, if it is something that you just can't perceive an Asian or oriental setting being without a certain element or trope, then that element or trope is a “must-have” for the setting; even if it is cliche. Some folks actually like having something cliché in their settings. For me, must-haves from Japanese culture includes things like samurai, katanas, fox spirits, sohei, paper magic, and yes – even ninjas (though, I decided to approach them with a more antiquated Japanese term for them that roughly means - “shadow scout”: Kusa). I think that if you approach the cliché stuff with a “dialed-down” approach, then you can make them work for you without getting all the negative baggage that normally comes with those things.

I spent a great deal of my adolescence in the eighties and some of my earliest exposure to Asian cinema were the ninja movies of that period. So, they are a cliché and a “must-have” to me; however, I refuse to let them dominate the setting, while at the same time letting them be available for any DM who wants to use them or any player who wants to be one. After all, the game is about having fun and playing something you enjoy. I know of plenty of DM that would like to have hidden ninjas “flip out” and attack PCs. I know there are a lot of folks who dislike ninjas, but there are at least just as many who like the idea of their oriental settings having them around. To me, something being cliché is about how it is perceived and often that is all about the tone or volume. If ninjas were all into wearing wearing red, white, or black ninja costumes with abilities that rivaled the superpowers of the costumed vigilantes in comics, then that would definitely be too much, but ninjas who seldom, if ever, wear costumes like that (often going undercover on missions) and have abilities on par with other characters - only specialized in what they do – then that is not cliché to me. That is something that the military forces, law enforcement, spies, and assassins of the real world really do, so it makes sense that the preeminent assassins, spies, and saboteurs of a fantasy world full of magic would do it also, but with just a touch of some magical abilities of their own as a countermeasure and weapon against the possible magisters and witches they might encounter, not to mention just plain giving themselves a leg up on their enemies.