If you want to nag me in person about game writing or anything else, however, I’ll be attending Comicpalooza in Houston June 17th and 18th. (The convention is Friday through Sunday, but I’m departing Sunday morning.) I’ll be participating in a number of panels, as follows (full details, including locations and other panelists, at the official schedule):

Friday, June 17th

8:00pm: Monster Design 101. No roleplaying game is complete without some monsters. Find out what makes a truly effective monstrosity, and work with our panelists to brainstorm ideas for a cool original RPG monster.

Saturday, June 18th

12:00pm: Player Agency and Designer Authorship. In video games, especially when you’ve got a designer-authored experience rather than a purely emergent or procedural one, you’ve got to give the player a reasonable sense of agency over their experience and the feeling that the bad things that happen to them are fair and consistent–no one likes shooting through a room full of baddies only to be disarmed by one guy with a pistol in a cutscene, for instance.

2:00pm: What Makes a Good Villain? This panel takes a look at the characteristics of a good villain for your RPG campaign. Whether a tragic figure or a relentless force of nature, a memorable and compelling villain can add depth and vitality to any game. Come find out some tricks you can use to enhance your bad guys!

6:00pm: Cutscenes Within Video Games. Lots of people have strong feelings about them! What makes a cutscene good or bad? How can they be used well?

The rest of the time I’ll very likely be wandering around the con, so feel free to say “hi.” I’ll almost certainly show up at at least one of the roller derby exhibition bouts going on! If you can’t catch me at a panel but still want to chat, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter during the day and see if I’m in shouting distance.

On an unrelated note, the paperback edition of my novel Star Wars: Battlefront: Twilight Company will be out June 28th. It’s the same as ever, but the paperback includes Janine K. Spendlove‘s short story “Inbrief” (previously published in Star Wars Magazine insider, starring Twilight Company’s resident bounty hunter Brand) as well. Bonus!

I won’t reiterate my pitch for the book here, but there’s more on the Bibliography page as well as a lengthy excerpt, synopsis, and blurbs over at the official Penguin Random House site.

Meanwhile, I’ll be attending New York Comic Con this week! I’ll primarily be doing promotion for my novel Star Wars: Battlefront: Twilight Company, which comes out November 3rd, but I’m happy to chat about writing, games, past projects, roller derby, or whatever else. Come by and say “hello!”

My schedule is as follows, though (of course) subject to change:

Friday, October 9th

11:00am – 12:00pm: Star Wars: A Galaxy of Fandom panel (Room 1A24)

2:00pm: Signing at Del Rey booth (#2205); free giveaway of Star Wars: Battlefront: Twilight Company posters

Saturday, October 10th

11:00am: Signing at Del Rey booth (#2205); free giveaway of Star Wars: Battlefront: Twilight Company posters

Sunday, October 11th

12:00pm – 1:00pm: Lucasfilm Presents: Star Wars: A Galactic Reader’s Theatre panel (Room 1A21)

2:00pm: Signing at Del Rey booth (#2205); free giveaway of Star Wars: Battlefront: Twilight Company posters

Other Information

I may pop in briefly to the Star Wars: The Old Republic community event (and cosplay contest!) to say hello to old friends and colleagues, but I won’t be there in any official capacity or representing BioWare. Nonetheless, feel free to say “hi” if you spot me.

In addition to the poster giveaways, the Del Rey team will be giving away nifty Twilight Company patches to anyone who swings by the booth and shows a pre-order confirmation for the book (just show an e-mail confirmation on your phone). You can get the patches at any time, not just during the signings.

I’ll sign anything I’ve worked on–if you want to bring one of the Dragon Age comics or whatever else, feel free.

Twilight Company Excerpt

Finally, there’s now a 70-page preview of Twilight Company up at the official site. If you’re interested but not completely sold or just want an early peek, go take a look.

While the details will vary significantly from product to product, it’s very common for role-playing games, open world action / adventures, and similar story-and-exploration-driven games to contain segments in which the player is suddenly given access to a large number of quests (we’ll call any small, linear piece of content a “quest”) that are available

a) in a nonlinear fashion (that is, they can be completed in any order, possibly with multiple quests active simultaneously);

b) with a degree of optionality (that is, some may not need to be completed at all);

and

c) in a context separate from the main storyline (even if the newly available quests must be completed to continue the main story, they could be removed from the narrative without causing fatal damage).

This is typically the moment where the world “opens up”–the player arrives in the game’s first big city, teeming with side quests and new areas to explore, or obtains a travel option allowing access anywhere on the game map.

Agency and Modularity

From a design perspective, such a segment provides a number of benefits. For starters, it’s an easy way to supply a powerful feeling of player agency–even in situations where the player must complete all side quests in order to continue the plot or to gain enough experience points to be effective against opponents, it still grants the player a sense of choice, a chance to prioritize and make decisions about the order of events (if not the events themselves). If some of the sides quests are genuinely optional or mutually exclusive, this feeling becomes much stronger.

It also adds an element of modularity to a game’s design. Modularity in narrative is worth a post on its own, but to put it simply: Game development is an inexact art, and no game ends up looking like its original blueprint. Sections of games will be cut or radically revised because they’re too expensive, too time-consuming to develop, or simply not enough fun to play. If the sections being cut are modular (“This side quest is really awful–let’s just take it out.”) then the task is much simpler than if they’re on the game’s critical path (“You know that whole final level in the zero gravity space station? It turns out our physics engine can’t handle it. Can we put it in Alaska instead#8221;)

Now let’s look at it from a narrative perspective. Your main plot rolls along nicely. It’s linear in a broad sense–maybe with branches, but overall it follows a clear path–and then your protagonist arrives in the City of One Thousand Side Quests.

What are those side quests about? And what must you be mindful of as you design and write them?

Types of Side Quests

Let’s take on subject matter first. Here are some of the things your side quests can focus on:

Plot Point Deep Dive. The plot point deep dive can feel like the most natural approach–or at least the approach most similar to those used in direct, linear stories. In this sort of quest, we take one of the main story’s plot points, elaborate on the details, and progress it to the next stage required by the overarching plotline.

For example, if my game’s narrative is about stopping an urban gang war between the Elf Gang and the Dwarf Gang, a side quest in this style could be about reaching the Elf Gang leader and learning what his grievances are. I’ll need that knowledge when the main plot gets to the point of establishing peace. Another side quest might do the same for the Dwarf Gang.

The big downsides of the plot point deep dive are twofold: First, you may simply not have as many plot points to dive into as you have quests that need content–and if you overcomplicate your plot to provide extra fodder for side quests, you risk the player losing track of everything. Second, plot point deep dives tend to be required content and not particularly modular–if the quest is cut and the player never gets to interact with the Elf Gang and sympathize with its leader, will the player care about the gang war at all? Is the game badly damaged if the quest has to go?

Character Deep Dive. Similar to a plot point deep dive, but focused on the personal stories and motivations of major characters in the main story. These can help build an emotional connection between the player and the supporting cast–always a good thing–while still functioning more modularly than a plot point deep dive. (In fact, giving the player the choice of whether to work closely with a supporting NPC or reject the idea altogether is a powerful way of reinforcing emotional bonds.)

Care must be taken to ensure that character deep dives have stakes appropriate to the game’s tone and genre. In an RPG chronicling everyday life in high school, character deep dives could work fantastically as side quests, allowing the player to meet the family of his boyfriend, set up a romance between two classmates, and so forth. In an epic fantasy in which the world is on the verge of destruction, you’ll need a very good reason to have the player visit the home village of his mentor and resolve unfinished business from his past.

Worldbuilding. What’s an average person’s life like in a cyberpunk dystopia? How does Death Village get water in the post-apocalyptic wastes? Why does New Sodom City’s architecture involve so many gargoyles? What’s beyond the Kingdom of Murkotia’s borders? There’s much to be said for the immersive benefits of creating a well-rounded setting–it helps increase a player’s understanding of the setting’s characters and investment in a large-scale story’s outcome. Side quests are a perfect match for worldbuilding–such quests are quick enough that, individually, they won’t dilute the main plot and modular enough that they can be removed without much harm to the main story.

Like the character deep dive, of course, stakes can be a concern. And unlike the character deep dive and the plot point deep dive, worldbuilding quests often have a less obvious hook–I already care about the main plot and main characters, but why am I even interested in Death Village’s water supply?

Thematic Counterpoints. Quests in this style don’t necessarily deal directly with the main story’s plot points, but add nuance by offering a different perspective. If your game is mostly about fighting evil demons, this sort of quest might involve a side story with a demon who just wants peace. These are easy to make modular, but too many of them won’t just add nuance–they’ll actively start to undercut your main plot!

Tonal Change of Pace. Similar to a thematic counterpoint, these are quests that give players a break from the game’s usual tone. Be very careful with these–the “funny side quest” in an otherwise serious story can be teeth-grindingly awful, undercutting the drama of the main plot and feeling like a writer’s indulgence. (Funny side quests in serious games aren’t impossible to do well, but be sure you know what you’re doing.) Tonal changes of pace don’t have to be about humor, though–a romantic side quest might fit just fine into a drama, and a superhero game with a single quest revolving around supernatural horror could fit the genre, offer some fresh air, and provide worldbuilding material as well.

Linear Forward Plot Movement. Or, “the side quest that cheats.” With branching lines and trickery, linear plot progression can be achieved through nonlinear quest selection. Suppose I’m doing side quests in order to build up my reputation to get an audience with the king (the next major plot point of the main story). It may be that, after every completed side quest, I’m told of how my reputation is spreading and the allies who’ve joined me–and that news is determined by the number of rather than which side quests I’ve completed.

Depending how elegantly this information is integrated into the side quests themselves (Am I receiving different dialogue from my handler depending on how many quests I’ve completed? Or is everything identical except for a post-quest screen?), this can become expensive to write, design, test, and so forth. And of course, it doesn’t necessarily give you content for your side quests, but only guides your approach.

In all likelihood, you’ll mix and match the approaches above rather than relying on only one. In doing so, you’ll set the tone for the entire segment of gameplay. This challenge is unique to game narrative, but a comparison to episodic television can be useful.

Is your game 24–that is, purely serialized, effectively one clearly focused plotline running straight through and only broken up by episode or quest? Then you may not want a nonlinear segment at all, and if you do, you may want to focus solely on plot point deep dives.

Is your game The X-Files, interested in exploring a multitude of ideas and happy to do the occasional character-focused episode–or even a humor piece–but with an overarching story that’s often relegated to the background?

Is your game Friends, deeply interested in the state of character relationships but not really bothered by what particular events happen in what order?

While tight serialization is popular nowadays, older TV series are still especially useful as examples. “Nonlinearity” used to be a requirement for TV writing, when shows could be rerun in any order after being sold into syndication.

Questions, Pitfalls, and Takeaways

We’ve talked about approaches you can take for side quest design. But what are the big picture issues you need to consider as you put all the pieces together?

How will you remind the player of the main plot and characters? The further your side quests stray from your main plot and characters, the more you risk your player losing interest in or forgetting your core storyline. You can’t simply take a break from your story for 10 hours and expect the player to jump back in where she left off–especially since 10 hours of side quest gameplay may equate to weeks in the player’s real life. Are you regularly reiterating your key plots, characters, and themes in your side quests somehow? In cutscenes between side quests? Are you interspersing optional side quests with required main plot quests? Are your side quests so short you’re simply not worried? (See also “Subtlety and Narrative Design”.)

How will you maintain stakes and urgency? We touched on this above, so I won’t repeat myself. But the higher the stakes and the greater the urgency of your main plot, the more dissonance you’re generating when you send the player off to do side quests. If you want a high-stakes, high-urgency main plot, you must find a way to make your side quests play into it in a straightforward and obvious fashion; alternately, if you want a game with a rich array of side quests diverse in tone and content, you want a main plot that supports your design! (I touch on this in “Player and Player Character Motivation” as well.)

Consider your scale and your definition of a quest. Much of this discussion can be scaled up–what if each “side quest” is actually its own location with its own nested plot and array of side quests? This implementation is common in RPGs (“Go to these six planets before the invasion starts, and solve a variety of tasks on each.”), and while the end result won’t always be the same, you can use many of the same tools to design your macro-level quest set as for your micro-level one.

What should the player ultimately be feeling as she plays through Side Quest City? If your answer is, “I’d rather be playing the main plot,” then you probably have some adjustments to make. A nonlinear gameplay segment should be rich and rewarding in its own right–not in the same ways as a linear plot segment, but by providing something different and exciting. Don’t struggle against a design choice needlessly. Find your design’s strengths and play to those.

Hoping to get back to a semi-regular schedule upon my return. In the meantime, a few bits and pieces:

I’ll be attending New York Comic Con from October 10th through 13th. Not currently planning any signings or events, but feel free to say “hi” if you see me on the show floor or ping me via e-mail or Twitter if you’d like to meet up.

Game Update 2.4, “The Dread War” is coming out soon for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Quite a lot of the writing for the planet Oricon is my work–my first (though not last) work for BioWare as a freelancer instead of as an in-house employee. It’s short and focused (and leads into the update’s Operations), but I think fans of story-based content will enjoy it.

My third Dragon Age comic book miniseries, Dragon Age: Until We Sleep is out in a lovely hardcover edition. The trilogy is now complete and bookshelf-appropriate! My latest Star Wars comics (the two-issue miniseries Star Wars: Purge – The Tyrant’s Fist) have also been collected in Star Wars: Purge–a trade paperback that also includes stories by John Ostrander and Haden Blackman.

That’s it for now. Once again, forgive my sporadic posts, and I’ll try to get some new content up after NYCC!

But I’ve still got some items in the pipeline. Here’s a handy list of things that will be out shortly:

Star Wars: The Old Republic – Rise of the Hutt Cartel. There’s a little more detail on my involvement in this project on the Bibliography page, but suffice it to say I did a substantial amount of work on the first SWTOR expansion before I left BioWare. It’s out some time this spring, and I’m looking forward to it.

Dragon Age: Until We Sleep. The third Dragon Age comic book series by David Gaider and myself, sequel to The Silent Grove and Those Who Speak. It wraps up the trilogy starring Alistair, Varric, and Isabela. The first issue comes out in print and digital format on March 27th, and Dark Horse has a pre-order form you can take to your comic shop.

If you missed my two-issue comic miniseries Star Wars: Purge – The Tyrant’s Fist last month, Dark Horse Comics has just announced that it will be included in Star Wars: Purge, a trade paperback collection of my series and three one-shots written by John Ostrander and Haden Blackman. It’s scheduled to be out in July.

Also, if you want to meet and chat or discuss business, I’m going to be showing up two places in March:

I’ll be at Emerald City Comic Con, which runs March 1st through 3rd in Seattle, WA. I’ve never been before, and am very much looking forward to it. The plan is that I’ll be signing at the Dark Horse Comics booth first thing on Saturday, at 10 AM. If this changes, I’ll post here or on Twitter (and hey, feel free to poke me on Twitter if you want to catch me wandering around the convention–I’ll be in and out throughout the weekend, particularly on Friday).

Lastly, I’ll be at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco from March 25th to March 29th, catching up with my fellow games writers and learning a few things at the Narrative Summit. (Also, skipping out from time to time to play tourist.)

More updates as they come!