Storyboard: The year of bionic chickens in review
Saying "year one" sounds so pretentious. Besides, it wasn't year one for roleplaying -- just year one for the column, with this installment serving as the capstone. And as I'm wont to do on anniversaries, I'd like to take the opportunity to look back at what worked, what didn't, and what I could be doing to make the column a bit better.
Also: the header images. (I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the impromptu guessing game that's grown up around the headers' three images. I will also admit that's motivating today's image.)
When I first started the column, I had a loose list of things I wanted to address over time, some of which wound up coming out early on and some of which fell off the radar altogether. Despite that, I knew that Storyboard was going to be a tricky column to write, because it covers an immensely wide field of topics. We certainly have other roleplayers on staff writing columns about roleplaying in a given game, but I wanted to make this something bigger, to talk about roleplaying in a broad sense as well as specific. That meant -- and still means -- dancing around a lot of issues, working with a lot of different play styles, and trying to keep things entertaining for the entire audience.
What worked
Looking back over the past year, if I had to pick three things I'm happiest with, it would have to be the Archetype discussion series, the little two-part columnon roleplaying romance, and what I suppose would serve as a manifesto of sorts. Each of those columns did a good job of hitting the right notes of universality, and I was happy at the humor that came off in each column (when it was trying for humor, anyway).
Fundamentally, my biggest emphasis was to try to be positive, to encourage roleplaying rather than discourage it. There seems to be an awful lot of negativity floating around when it comes to roleplaying, and only some of it comes from the people whom you'd expect to be down on our quirky little sub-hobby. It's about one person or another making a character that doesn't fit with lore, taking that character in a direction that someone else doesn't like, and so on. And really, guys, we have enough negativity floating around without adding to it.
I'll admit that I haven't been an unbroken string of bunnies and sunshine. But I have tried to push the idea that bad roleplaying is mostly just a matter of inexperience. I think that's been conveyed pretty well.
Beyond all that, I found my voice for the column, got what I'd like to imagine is a good core of steady readers, and enjoyed the prestige that comes with writing a roleplaying column. (If you need to ask, that would be no prestige whatsoever.) So all of that worked out pretty well.
What did not work
If there's one element that I've been consistently unhappy about, it's the simple fact that I haven't found a good implementation for writing about specific games within this space. And to be totally honest, I still haven't found an implementation that works. Unfortunately, that means that there are times when I wound up over-generalizing advice to the point that I start doubting its utility. That's something I'd like to avoid in the coming year.
The broad focus of the column also means that it's difficult to really report on interesting things going on in any given roleplaying community, which is a real shame. (And I've seen some truly inspiring events lately, including an in-game play in Final Fantasy XIV.) High and wide seems to be the order of the day here.
Still, as I look back through the archives, the problem seems to have mostly been in my head -- at the time I was writing the columns, I periodically felt like I was really harping on character creation and background. That has a lot to do simply with that "high and wide" focus; I can't tell you whether or not your character would be familiar with an obscure piece of lore, but I can speak with some authority on what makes an interesting character. If readers can tell me whether or not they felt I was hitting this a bit too hard, it would certainly be appreciated.
Looking ahead
I don't have many points of reference, what with this being the first year of the column, but I think things went pretty well overall. Still, I'd like to make things better next year. Highlighting specific games is still on the agenda, as I know it's something people would like to see (although I'm still working on the specifics). I'd also like to get some more tangible advice about running events and taking part in them successfully as well as more looks at the community. The people who organize larger events really deserve credit.
And as always, I'd like to know what people who are reading the column would like to see more of. If you know of a specific organizer who deserves wider recognition or something particularly cool about to go down -- heck, I've made trial accounts for less. By all means, let me know what you think, because that has a definite impact on what I'm doing here.
While it gets said an awful lot, I'd also like to take the opportunity to thank regular readers of the column, as it's always nice to see familiar names in the comment field. Thanks for supporting the column during its first year. I hope that the next year will produce even more entertaining discussion and questions about where the images in the header came from.
The simple answer to that, for the record, is that most of them come out of my collection of screenshots. That's why Final Fantasy XIV and City of Heroes keep showing up, along with Dragon Age and Mass Effect. (Perhaps I'll start posting a key to the images.)
As always, comments, questions, and opinions can be left in the comment field or sent along to eliot@massively.com. Next week I'm going to start in on event advice with a column about the simple trick that helps make almost any event more enjoyable. And it's something you can do as a player, at that.
Every Friday, Eliot Lefebvre fills a column up with excellent advice on investing money, writing award-winning novels, and being elected to public office. Then he removes all of that, and you're left with Storyboard, which focuses on roleplaying in MMOs. It won't help you get elected, but it will help you pretend you did.
