The Enemy Takes a Turn

Howdy, y’all!

Welcome to another blog post brought to you by my obsessions!

(that’s every blog post, really.)

I’ve been watching a lot of Actual Plays, and in particular, Critical Role Campaign 4 as I’ve mentioned. It’s run by Brennan Lee Mulligan and continues to be excellent. Before I started watching these, I wondered what drove people so crazy, why there was such a massive fan base, and why they were so devoted to these stories and these characters.

Falling in love with a character, that’s pretty easy to understand. The actors are great, they characters develop over time, and you can build an attachment, like spending time with anyone long enough. (Anyone you like, anyway.) And to be honest, that’s not the part that amazes me. I can make a good character. I like making them and I feel pretty good at it.

But there have been story moments that brought me to my knees in this campaign—sobbing, screaming, cackling. So I sat down and tried to work out what happens so well in these episodes that keeps me (and others) hooked, so that I could steal from them. Especially from Ep. 25 “Targeted” (the gala at the Archanade), Ep. 33 “Off-Balance” (a certain person’s visit to Hal’s house), and Ep. 34 “Rock and Flame” (high-stakes battle for the fate of some friends).

Some good lessons broken down point by point. Most of them are good practice that we should already always be thinking about, but it’s worth the reminder, or perhaps—the recontextualization.

Stakes

Stakes—one of the most basic things we talk about stories having, and yet, it seems like it’s hard to consciously make it happen and I can certainly feel when it’s missing. Stories when you’re left thinking, “Okay, so what? You don’t get into magic dragon school. What’s the worst that can happen? Go be a blacksmith.” “Yeah, but I really really wanted to get in!” “Too bad! Hammers are great!” (I made this up, please don’t come at me, Magic Dragon School authors.) This is partly to do with characters. I can care about a lot of mundane things if a character I like cares deeply about it.

Stakes don’t have to be world-ending, or even life-or-death. A parent or romantic interest’s affection. A quiet life of contentment. A livelihood. All of those count. Stakes do have to be massive in the sense that they are narratively important to the goals of the characters. They can be “global” or impact the world; in fantasy, they often are. But it’s more important that they be personal. And most importantly, the character and the reader need to be clear on what stands to be lost. What opportunity, what relationship, what power.

And if we are talking danger: the more people involved, the better. BUT. If someone is in jeopardy, we must care about them, usually through innocence, previous interactions, relationships, and/or amusing times shared. They should be memorable. At the very least, they should be heroic in their own right. I’m speaking of non-main characters, but it goes for main characters, too!

You can find this in any how-to-write-a-novel book, I’m not breaking new ground here. But watching/listening to some of these scenes in CR4 made me more keenly aware of the building process.

Risks

This is perhaps a more global thing, but it goes with stakes. What’s you know what you stand to lose when you fail, the desperate actions grow more and more terrifying—but sometimes they’re all you have left. What you do matters even more because not only are you risking the goal or the people you care about, but your also spending your limited resources—including yourself. If you’re one person or a small party against a bigger force, you won’t be able to do it all.

Taking risks gets the reader (watcher!) on the edge of their seat—especially when you know it can go wrong.

For this to work, though, you also have to show your characters failing. The audience has to believe in failure. The best way to do that is to take off the bullet proof vests. Not everyone can pull off main-character-death in the middle of a book/series, but…at least they’ll know you mean business.

Even successes should rarely blanket success—they inch by degrees, sometimes only delaying death for one more opportunity. Or they get what they need—but there’s a cost.

Limitations

Related to failure: you have to impose limits on your characters. This isn’t just a Mary Sue/Gary Stu thing. But it’s something that RPGs have more clearly delineated; you’re level 6 character can’t do all the cool spells! And the cleric can only heal so many times for so many points! And your barbarian can only run so far! And if you haven’t bought a healing potion or the right components…you’re S.O.L. The characters can only use what’s at their disposal and they have limited means.

In writing, there are lots of ways we can try to manage this: magic has costs, requires great schooling, or is sporadic. But since you can write down whatever you want, it might be harder not to be a little extra generous. This is when I think it’s actually beneficial to steal from the games. I’ve definitely given characters rough stat cards and rolled out conflicts to see how well they do and help open them up to failure, and this was before I played DnD. Now that I do, maybe I’ll even try a full character sheet? 🤔

Limits aren’t just material, either. Opportunities are also limited, and we can see them dwindle with each failed or partially failed (or even successful!) attempt. The tension is ratcheted up when we know the opportunity is limited (again, see stakes). A good dilemma is also a limitation: choosing to succeed in one area may mean failure in another. Two things, mutually exclusive. The choosing itself is just as much a part of the tension: choosing between things/people and what that says about the character, their relationships, etc. that they may have been hiding/denying/unaware of even in themselves, for good or ill. All of that becomes clear and split loyalties or unclear loyalties are revealed.

Most importantly, we love seeing characters try their hardest to get what they want until they are depleted and/or dropped.

The Enemy Takes a Turn

I also call this, “The world takes a turn” because sometimes it’s the setting or the movement of time, sometimes it political movements and alliances shifting and it’s not necessarily adversarial but it will create new obstacles. (This is also my chief Worldbuilding 501 lesson.)

It’s pretty simple. In games, there are adversaries run by someone else, and they get a turn. As a writer, you’re running all of these guys, but it’s clear you have favorites. I’m definitely guilty of drafts that let the protagonist protag right up to the goal real smooth (you wouldn’t believe it, but I do).

Enemies need their own agendas and need to have a “turn.”

This is where good character work gleams! Know your villains and your NPCs aka side characters. Make sure they have lives and desires of their own that move when the main character isn’t there. That way, when they move to get what they want, they’re a genuine obstacle to your MC—and they’re just as devoted to getting what they want. 

Chance

“The dice tell the story.”

In these dice-driven games, there’s a certain amount of unpredictability that keeps the audience on their toes, uncertain about the final outcome until the very end. Even success may carry unforeseen consequences because the GM is in charge—not the player.

In this very media-swamped world, most of us are familiar with the tropes and even the trope reversals are tropes in themselves now. So how do you keep readers guessing? Well, don’t pick the first event/possibility that comes to mind. Old advice, but true—make a list of ideas for what could happen in the situation you’re writing. When you think you’re done, keep writing. Don’t forget to check in with your enemies/your world and think about what their turn might introduce and add those to the list, too. Like the real world, the more variables you start injecting, the more people bounce off each other, the less predictable actual happenings are.

But also? Sometimes I just roll dice. Oracle tables like the Ironsworn ones or GM-less modules or even just “here are 3 possible options, this one has a 10% chance, this one has a 30% chance, and this one has a 60% chance” and then roll a %die. Take the result and see what happens next! Readers are great at guessing what a human would pick—so surprise yourself, and you might manage to surprise them, too.

(I’m not advocating for picking something so randomly that it’s disconnected from all story logic. It is possible to be so random that you actually lose your reader. But that’s where your own taste and experimentation have to play.)

These are the main tips and tools I’ve gleaned from watching these games. If you want people to be so invested in your story that they stand up and cheer when that surprise nat 20 means you knock out the big bad evil guy, try some of these tips.

Let me know how it works for you.

Happy rolling, happy writing.

Stay sharp,

CL