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https://blacknerdproblems.com/plots-pants-the-great-equalizer-of-the-game-mastering/
One of the most popular writing taxonomies that has arisen over the years is the “Plotter versus Pantser” dynamic. It’s this understanding that writers tend to either be meticulous planners that create a solid foundation and have a clear direction of where everything is headed from the beginning, a.k.a. a plotter…OR…they tend to firing from the hip, writing off the cuff, and otherwise just flying by the seat of their pants, hence the name pantser. And like any binary taxonomy, very few writers actually strictly adhere to a particular philosophy and then to be more “Plansters” or as I like to refer to it “Planters” (an ironic moniker given that I have whatever the proverbial opposite of a green thumb is) where a framework is created and then you sort of see what happens.
That being said, different mediums do tend to be easier for a plotter or pantser. Traditionally, a plotter tend to do well in longer, more structured format. Fiction and nonfiction in particular tend to benefit from having a set structure, a well understood and defined outlook of the story being told or reported. Screenplays, teleplays, scripts also tend to attract plotters as the famous Chekov’s Gun often reminds us. However, that’s not necessarily a hard and fast rule. Short stories for example may not need as much of a coherent framework, and a writer can riff through them rather than painstakingly plotting every detail. Something like National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short) can benefit from a having a plan, but in the marathon of getting words out, it eventually almost always devolves into a race for word count and you’re just going.
Similarly, mediums like sketch comedy, freestyle, and poetry lend themselves to a pantser mentality, a more spur of the moment, turn of phrase, flow state type of energy. Improv is probably the prime example of pantser mentality as the only thing to work off of only just came into existence the moment before. But even these types of formats have rules that guide, and poetry, in particular, is notorious for having a stringent form where sometimes you can just happen into a perfectly iambic pentameter of a sonnet, whereas other times you must reverse engineer a sestina.
All of this is to say that nothing has quite made me appreciate both schools of thought quite like having to Dungeon/Game Master for a group of players who have their own method to the madness.
For those not versed in the tabletop space, a Game Master (referred to as a Dungeon Master specifically in the context of Dungeons & Dragons and a couple up fantasy TTRPGs) is a person (or on occasion persons) who basically conducts the general events of your typical role-playing game. They serve as god, narrator, moderator, referee, and every single non player character that comes into existence of their own volition or of the player’s volition.
Before 2009, I was very much convinced that I was a plotter. Despite a couple of successful NaNoWriMos under my belt, my “joy” so to speak involved developing extensive timelines that spawn eons and generations, weaving an intricate web of characters and events that would eventually culminate in a grand reveal, an epic confrontation that would have a stunningly satisfying resolution.
Appropriately in 2009, I was introduced to both tabletop RPGs in proper and also slam poetry, and thus the pantsing ideology starting seeping into my general mindset. Of course, most GMs start out of players (although shoutout to the brave souls that learn how to GM for the sake of their friend group) and when you’re a PC, you learn to push the boundaries fairly quickly in a multitude of directions. The collaborative nature of TTRPGs is something truly special, because you have much more direct agency in the events that are happening than any other medium. RPGs exist in the theater of the mind, and while they are rules and restrictions, ultimately any of those can be overridden by the Game Master.
And at the crux, the Game Master has to be a practitioner of both plotting and pantsing. The GM has to be able to create a fully fleshed out world and understand the general flow of the world. They have to have a larger plot in mind and an understanding of the casual actions happening. GMs spend so much time building a set of roads and possibilities for the players, while keeping track of various items, locations, and NPCs. And then all of that planning immediately gets scrapped because people are unpredictable as hell and once the derailment happens, you kinda just have to go along with it.
The first ever game I GM’ed for was supposed to be a prison based one-shot. There was a panopticon, there were secret tunnels, and a motley crew of NPCs that would help the party start a riot. But because I foolishly did not start the players in the prison, I found myself in a situation where none of the PCs took the bait and instead, they started a chicken farm empire that overtook the local economy. And it was a fun session. A different session than I had planned but it was very much at that moment that I realized that it was better to build a sandbox than set of train tracks.
Throughout the years, I’ve been surprised by my players and as I player I’ve surprised my GMs. In fact, I have a standing policy to warn every GM that if they put an airship in the campaign, my character will successfully manage to commandeer that airship, and I’m proud to say that I have a 100% success rate on that threat and have forced no less than 2 GMs to completely change the nature of the campaign because of this fact (the third was prepared since they believed me).
And I’ve also been on the flipside of that. Most recently, I tried to get two of my friends to do a simple train heist that eventually devolved into:
- Them buying ketamine from some stable boys
- Telling the band of nomads who they never met before the entirety of the grand conspiracy at the heart of the campaign
- Threatening to kidnap 1-3 children
- Slapping healing into a hostile friendly NPC
- Making it canon that cutting off fingers was punishment for failing in Tiefling culture.
The warning I’ve repeated to every new GM who listens is that if you give your party a fork in the road on the cliffside, you should also be ready for them to jump off the cliff.
But the GM is a unique writer-ly profession that needs both the skill of plotting to keep players engaged over the long term, a keen understanding of motivation and reward, and also the skill of pantsing to respond to the utterly inane @#$%^& that players are want to do because in a game where players have full agency, they will exercise full agency in ways that you will never expect. And if you take nothing else from this, may I offer two things:
- Thank your GM for putting in countless hours lovingly crafting a set of new NPCs only for your party to love a random citizen who after being given a name was now their number one priority
- Give TTRPGs a chance to bolster both your plotting and pantsing skills. While GMs probably utilize both skills extensively, even players get a chance to do plot/pants.
Whether you see yourself as a plotter or a pantser, just remember that those designations are more ideological guidelines than hard steadfast lines much like alignment, although that’s a different article for a different day.
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The post Plots & Pants: The Great Equalizer of the Game Mastering appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
One of the most popular writing taxonomies that has arisen over the years is the “Plotter versus Pantser” dynamic. It’s this understanding that writers tend to either be meticulous planners that create a solid foundation and have a clear direction of where everything is headed from the beginning, a.k.a. a plotter…OR…they tend to firing from the hip, writing off the cuff, and otherwise just flying by the seat of their pants, hence the name pantser. And like any binary taxonomy, very few writers actually strictly adhere to a particular philosophy and then to be more “Plansters” or as I like to refer to it “Planters” (an ironic moniker given that I have whatever the proverbial opposite of a green thumb is) where a framework is created and then you sort of see what happens.
That being said, different mediums do tend to be easier for a plotter or pantser. Traditionally, a plotter tend to do well in longer, more structured format. Fiction and nonfiction in particular tend to benefit from having a set structure, a well understood and defined outlook of the story being told or reported. Screenplays, teleplays, scripts also tend to attract plotters as the famous Chekov’s Gun often reminds us. However, that’s not necessarily a hard and fast rule. Short stories for example may not need as much of a coherent framework, and a writer can riff through them rather than painstakingly plotting every detail. Something like National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short) can benefit from a having a plan, but in the marathon of getting words out, it eventually almost always devolves into a race for word count and you’re just going.
Similarly, mediums like sketch comedy, freestyle, and poetry lend themselves to a pantser mentality, a more spur of the moment, turn of phrase, flow state type of energy. Improv is probably the prime example of pantser mentality as the only thing to work off of only just came into existence the moment before. But even these types of formats have rules that guide, and poetry, in particular, is notorious for having a stringent form where sometimes you can just happen into a perfectly iambic pentameter of a sonnet, whereas other times you must reverse engineer a sestina.
All of this is to say that nothing has quite made me appreciate both schools of thought quite like having to Dungeon/Game Master for a group of players who have their own method to the madness.
For those not versed in the tabletop space, a Game Master (referred to as a Dungeon Master specifically in the context of Dungeons & Dragons and a couple up fantasy TTRPGs) is a person (or on occasion persons) who basically conducts the general events of your typical role-playing game. They serve as god, narrator, moderator, referee, and every single non player character that comes into existence of their own volition or of the player’s volition.
Before 2009, I was very much convinced that I was a plotter. Despite a couple of successful NaNoWriMos under my belt, my “joy” so to speak involved developing extensive timelines that spawn eons and generations, weaving an intricate web of characters and events that would eventually culminate in a grand reveal, an epic confrontation that would have a stunningly satisfying resolution.
Appropriately in 2009, I was introduced to both tabletop RPGs in proper and also slam poetry, and thus the pantsing ideology starting seeping into my general mindset. Of course, most GMs start out of players (although shoutout to the brave souls that learn how to GM for the sake of their friend group) and when you’re a PC, you learn to push the boundaries fairly quickly in a multitude of directions. The collaborative nature of TTRPGs is something truly special, because you have much more direct agency in the events that are happening than any other medium. RPGs exist in the theater of the mind, and while they are rules and restrictions, ultimately any of those can be overridden by the Game Master.
And at the crux, the Game Master has to be a practitioner of both plotting and pantsing. The GM has to be able to create a fully fleshed out world and understand the general flow of the world. They have to have a larger plot in mind and an understanding of the casual actions happening. GMs spend so much time building a set of roads and possibilities for the players, while keeping track of various items, locations, and NPCs. And then all of that planning immediately gets scrapped because people are unpredictable as hell and once the derailment happens, you kinda just have to go along with it.
The first ever game I GM’ed for was supposed to be a prison based one-shot. There was a panopticon, there were secret tunnels, and a motley crew of NPCs that would help the party start a riot. But because I foolishly did not start the players in the prison, I found myself in a situation where none of the PCs took the bait and instead, they started a chicken farm empire that overtook the local economy. And it was a fun session. A different session than I had planned but it was very much at that moment that I realized that it was better to build a sandbox than set of train tracks.
Throughout the years, I’ve been surprised by my players and as I player I’ve surprised my GMs. In fact, I have a standing policy to warn every GM that if they put an airship in the campaign, my character will successfully manage to commandeer that airship, and I’m proud to say that I have a 100% success rate on that threat and have forced no less than 2 GMs to completely change the nature of the campaign because of this fact (the third was prepared since they believed me).
And I’ve also been on the flipside of that. Most recently, I tried to get two of my friends to do a simple train heist that eventually devolved into:
- Them buying ketamine from some stable boys
- Telling the band of nomads who they never met before the entirety of the grand conspiracy at the heart of the campaign
- Threatening to kidnap 1-3 children
- Slapping healing into a hostile friendly NPC
- Making it canon that cutting off fingers was punishment for failing in Tiefling culture.
The warning I’ve repeated to every new GM who listens is that if you give your party a fork in the road on the cliffside, you should also be ready for them to jump off the cliff.
But the GM is a unique writer-ly profession that needs both the skill of plotting to keep players engaged over the long term, a keen understanding of motivation and reward, and also the skill of pantsing to respond to the utterly inane @#$%^& that players are want to do because in a game where players have full agency, they will exercise full agency in ways that you will never expect. And if you take nothing else from this, may I offer two things:
- Thank your GM for putting in countless hours lovingly crafting a set of new NPCs only for your party to love a random citizen who after being given a name was now their number one priority
- Give TTRPGs a chance to bolster both your plotting and pantsing skills. While GMs probably utilize both skills extensively, even players get a chance to do plot/pants.
Whether you see yourself as a plotter or a pantser, just remember that those designations are more ideological guidelines than hard steadfast lines much like alignment, although that’s a different article for a different day.
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The post Plots & Pants: The Great Equalizer of the Game Mastering appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
When I first heard word that one of my all-time favorite Studio Ghibli films, Spirited Away, had received a stage adaptation and was coming to theaters, I was ecstatic. I have long desired live stage adaptations from the realms of anime in Japan to be more readily released for enjoyment around the world. As one of the most anticipated events this Spring, I bought my ticket and had been biding my time.
Hayao Miyazaki’s Academy Award®-winning animated feature film Spirited Away, the film about a little girl entering the world of spirits, fighting with all she has to rescue her parents, recovering her name, and making it back home still resonates with me as a timeless film to always enjoy. Filmed during its acclaimed 2022 run at Tokyo’s historic Imperial Theatre and adapted and directed by Tony Award®-winner John Caird (Les Misérables), Spirited Away: Live on Stage pushes the envelope and creates a familiar but effortless creative explosion on stage that I am so happy that I was able to watch in theaters.
A Familiar Setting
Moving the imaginative setting of Spirited Away to a single stage sounds like an impossible task for sure. Yet, on screen for me and on stage for those who watched it live for the filmed version–it was a task taken on with an amazing result. This was made possible due to the amazing work of the production which included so many different elements. The real magic that stood out for me were the ever-moving stage pieces that were moved around with ease to create new locations. From the bright and populated entrance of the bathhouse to the otherworldly train station, there was great effort in making sure the familiar sights from the film we all love were easily recognizable, just in a different form.
Helping to do that was the superb attention to detail to the smallest of things in Spirited Away: Live on Stage. Some iconic props were small enough to be noticeable and that helped with placing certain scenes from the original film. Think Chihiro’s pink bouquet of flowers that she holds close in the car ride, the brilliant red color of the bath tokens in the bathhouse, or the paper tracker spirit that attaches itself to Chihiro’s back. Other props gained some creative handling like the bowls of rice that Lin picked up for her and her young protégé and unknowingly brought them into the room of the Stink Spirit’s arrival.
In the animated original, the bowls of white rice immediately rot away in hilarious fashion because of the overwhelming stench of this filthy spirit. On stage, the “bowls of rice” look to have maybe a holographic cover as their transformation enlisted laughter and shock from me the same way. Making sure that such moments like this, small as they are, from the beloved original made it to the stage production feels worthwhile and worth mentioning for future possible adaptations. Props in Spirited Away: Live on Stage come to life in more ways than one: from the adorable representation of the train that Chihiro later rides to save a friend to the bouncy, fancy vases that come to life in Yababa’s office.
Familiar Faces
Given that Spirited Away: Live on Stage featured a cast with a few double-casted characters, there is something to enjoy in both versions for sure. I saw the performance on the night of April 27th, and the Chihiro I had the honor of watching in the version was Mone Kamishiraishi, who brought such a lively presence to her role. Kamishiraishi really carried the character of Chihiro in all her courageous spirit to save those she loved and get back home. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the marvelous Mari Natsuki reprises her role as Yubaba, having voiced the character in the original film. In a different performance that I watched, voice and stage actress Romi Park bodied this role. Park was able to translate the larger than life, intimidating character on stage to success, to my delight.
The performances in Spirited Away: Live on Stage continued to shine thanks to the talent on stage including Hiroki Miura, Fu Hinami, Satoshi Hashimoto, Tomohiko Tsujimoto and so many others. Miura as Haku was perfect as the quiet but authoritative right hand of Yababa who commanded those on stage. Hinami brought the same “Big Sis” energy to her role as Lin, being protective of Chihiro. Seeing Hashimoto as grandfatherly Kamaji meant that he brought lots of personality to his complex characters and was well received by the audience. I have to say that my favorite entertainer on the stage was the incredibly aloof and creepy fave No-Face who managed to be a show stealer by way of Tsujimoto.
LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION!
I was expecting a production, and I was NOT disappointed! I likened it to organized chaos–Actors and actresses blended in the background with neutral colored clothing and moved around props, puppets, and other pieces of the sets with ease. This means the actor Kamajî, the elderly multiple-limbed furnace keeper of the bathroom, employed four or five actors to operate and manage his extra appendages. At times to hilarious effect, like when the character creates a heart sign with one of his hands and with one of his “extra hands.” Working in sync they amazingly made it work which made me so glad as this is an important character to the story and the effort to make it as lively as possible feels like a treat.
I sincerely had no clues on a headcount of how many persons were involved on stage until getting to the credits afterwards and seeing the miraculous work involved. It wasn’t uncommon for talent to have multiple roles! (The production featured 32 performers and more than 50 puppets designed by Toby Olié as reported by Playbill.com.) I was stunned: A soot spirit “handler” carried on several other roles like the (human hand) door knocker in the elevator, handler of one piece of the kanji of Chihiro’s name, and so on. Dancing, rolling, gliding across stage joined high jumps, cartwheels, frenzied running, and a simple but funny stage interpretation of flying are all pieces of the action that you can find in the arsenal of the performers of Spirited Away: Live on stage.
An Added Touch
What would an adaptation of Spirited Away be without the iconic music of Joe Hisashi who composed the music of the original? I was overjoyed to hear the familiar score that made my first viewing of the original film and very viewing since then, a heartfelt journey to tag along with. I delved into a certain interview after wanting to confirm my thoughts on a few elements of the stage adaptation that I had watched and experienced in regard to the music. There are a few songs in this adaptation and while they are short and sweet, they don’t don’t turn the production into a musical. The snippets of songs do add to the overall ambience of what makes Spirited Away. I wasn’t alone, this interviewer, Steven Blackburn thought that it added “more Japanese folklore and culture…”
John Caird, the Tony Award-winning stage director perhaps best known for his work on Broadway, found his way to adapting anime by way of Hayao Miyazaki’s Academy Award-winning masterpiece Spirited Away. Caird did not hesitate to reach out to Joe Hisashi who was happy for his work to be used again, even in a different way, to be adapted for the stage. Caird also found luck on his side in finding Brad Haak, the arrangement orchestrator for this adaptation who simply adored Hisashi and wanted to honor the soundtrack. Perhaps the most wholesome fun fact that I learned about Spirited Away: Live on Stage after watching is the inclusion of some very special pieces of inspiration that did not make it into the original animation film.
The interviewer learns through Caird that the live stage productions of Spirited Away “features poems that were initially written by Hayao Miyazaki himself to help influence and inspire what would later become the film’s iconic soundtrack.” Caird goes on to talk about how he asked permission from Miyazaki and Hisashi to use these as lyrics on the show which they agreed to. I am incredibly blown away by the level of love, respect, and consideration of this adaptation but also this glimpse into the inspiration behind the original film that I love so much
Now knowing that these short poems were originally just offered as guidelines for the composer when he was writing the score, were never used in the film, and were brought to life during the stage adaptation feels like the best type of Easter egg that I am happy to share. It really feels like the best illustrative example of not just impressive collaborative work, but the right way to honor the original film and its creatives. Overall, I was really impressed by the way the impossible was made possible in this stage adaptation. As we all know that the original film is an animated one and it has some incredible visuals that were creatively reborn on stage in such creative ways thanks to superb cast and staff.
Spirited Away: Live on Stage is a bold adaptation of a now classic Studio Ghibli that is full of heart and added surprises that will fascinate audiences young and old. I sincerely hope you can catch the last showing on May 2 if tickets are available in your area and one day hope that it is available for streaming, even if for a limited time. Distributor GKIDS has done us all a great service in making this available for North American audiences to watch, honoring the beloved film of the past, and creating an adaptation that is familiar but a creation of its own.
Tonight, Mone Kamishiraishi takes the spotlight as Chihiro in SPIRITED AWAY: Live On Stage! Experience the show with a whole new cast both tonight and May 2.
— GKIDS Films (@GKIDSfilms) April 27, 2023
Get tickets at https://t.co/WypU4nOEZu pic.twitter.com/9sPoENpCpS
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The post ‘Spirited Away: Live on Stage’ is a Bold, Stunning Adaptation of a Beloved Classic appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
The Bryant family has a permanent spot in the world’s hearts and minds, and since the tragic passing of Kobe and Gigi, that love has only deepened.
Vanessa Bryant took time today to honor her daughter on what would have been her 17th birthday.
“Happy Birthday, baby girl. I love and miss you so much, sweet Angel,” she said. “Te Amo Mambacita,” she added in a post on Instagram. “We love you to the moon and back infinity +1. Forever & Always.”
Bryant posted the touching caption alongside various photos of the smiling teenager. The world stood still on the day a helicopter crash claimed the lives of Kobe, Gigi, and seven other victims on their way to a youth basketball game.
Gigi’s older sister, Natalia Bryant, also paid tribute to her sibling via Instagram, posting a photo of the two embracing with the caption, “Happy 17th Birthday Sweet Gigi. I love you forever and always.” She continued, “You are the dancing Queen, Young & Sweet, Only Seventeen.”
Gigi’s legacy has echoed loudly throughout the world of sports and entertainment in the years since her untimely passing, with “Play Gigi’s Way” becoming a rallying call for everyone with a passion to be the best at what they do. Sportswear giant NIKE has dedicated the new Kobe IV Protro “Mambacita” to the memory of Gigi, which will benefit the Mamba and Mambacita Sports Foundation. In a post on Twitter, the sneaker brand said, “We dare you to #PlayGigisWay, to be competitive, joyful, and curious and never take any opportunity for granted, just like Gigi.”
The matriarch of the Bryant family also celebrated her wedding anniversary on April 18th. Vanessa Bryant and the late NBA icon were married for 19 years before his death. “Happy anniversary, baby. I love you @kobebryant 
#22,” she said in a post honoring their love.
Serena Jameka Williams was Gucci down at the Met Gala. The darling of tennis served in a black and bedazzled two-piece ensemble with white tulle that cascaded to the ground and into a train. On her head, she wore a blinged out headpiece by Lelet NY. Layers of Tiffany & Co. pearls dropped from her neckline. On her arm was her bearded hubby Alexis Ohanian. On her midsection, she donned a baby bump that indicates the tennis royalty is with child and expanding her brood with baby number two. Serena announced the pregnancy, subtly, in an Instagram post:
“Was so excited when Anna Wintour invited the 3 of us to the Met Gala,” the caption read above a rundown of glam credits and below a slideshow of five images.
A litany of congratulations erupted in the comments sections from a number of followers and celebrities, including actress and Instagram influencer Tabitha Brown, tech titan Bozoma St. John, Ciara, Michael B. Jordan and Boris Kudjoe. Even Barbie by Mattel sent a “Glowing 
Congrats!”
View this post on Instagram
Certainly, the public can say we didn’t see this coming, particularly when Serena endured the horrors of being a Black woman navigating maternal health, and was one of the more vocal celebs that spoke up and advocated for Black women’s experience of medical neglect and postpartum depression. The three-time Olympic winner was candid about almost losing her life after delivering her daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. by C-section—and developing a pulmonary embolism. She penned an article for CNN, detailing her ordeal in 2018. BLACK ENTERPRISE is wishing Serena a healthier birthing experience and an even healthy newborn baby
Black women succumb to childbirth at higher rates than white and Hispanic women. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention produced a report in 2021 that revealed “the maternal mortality rate for non-Hispanic Black (subsequently, Black) women was 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, 2.6 times the rate for non-Hispanic White (subsequently, White) women.”
Organizations such as National Birth Equity Collaborative (NBEC); Sista Midwife Productions and the Sista Midwife Directory and Black Mamas Matter Alliance are working to address racial disparity and foster healthier maternal outcomes from Black women.
RELATED CONTENT: Moving On: Serena Williams Opens Up About What’s Next After Retiring From Tennis