ten bucks on Debbie Harry please

[radiantfracture]

In my dream, performers in a lavish stage show were using what seemed like quite a clever fundraising idea.

They were putting on a three-act play about a disturbing figure of queer rock something like Morrissey, although he was played by a roll of paper towel in increasing degrees of decrepitude.

But after each act, the organizers would stop the show and ask people to donate money based on whether they wanted to see more about the main character or about the bohemian milieu around him, including a Debbie Harry character. Whichever plot thread got the most funding was the one the show would then focus on in the next act.

That seems like quite a good idea to me for some sort of serial storytelling -- each week get people to donate to whichever storyline they want to see foregrounded in the next episode.

(I'm sure something similar has been done.)

In the dream, I was prevented from voting too much on the basis that I would bankrupt myself trying to get the story I wanted.

{rf}

Comments

[sovay]

They were putting on a three-act play about a disturbing figure of queer rock something like Morrissey, although he was played by a roll of paper towel in increasing degrees of decrepitude.

No lie detected.

(What a terrific dream.)

[sabotabby]

Too appropriate!

[radiantfracture]

It might even have been toilet paper, which is almost too on the nose.

[radiantfracture]

I don't often have dreams that live in a similar register to your unconscious cinematic universe, so I was excited to report on one.

[moon_custafer]

Hee!

[yhlee]

I have seen the CCG variant of this (Legend of the Five Rings under AEG) and in real life what happened was that the plot became incredibly incoherent. XD

I've also seen a variant of this for fundraising with TTRPG livestreams, where it can work better depending on how well-prepared the GM is. :)

[radiantfracture]

Ha, that all makes a great deal of sense. Although -- how did plot manifest (coherently vs incoherently) in the card game?

I've also seen a variant of this for fundraising with TTRPG livestreams, where it can work better depending on how well-prepared the GM

I can see that working, though it could be frustrating if you have the less popular character. Can you tell me about one of the times? (Just coz I like stories really)

[yhlee]

The card game was...a fucked situation. Basically, AEG's writer or (later) Story Team would write the ongoing world storyline in official fiction. (Full disclosure: I was a Story Team member for one year.) There were storyline tournaments where alongside any prizes, you could also win various storyline outcomes for your Clan and potentially special cards in later expansions designed to help your clan. (This is a simplification, but will do for the purpose of discussion.)

HOWEVER. "Winning" was very notoriously risky, in that you could "win" and still end up with both a shitty storyline outcome and shitty "reward" card. One of the most infamous examples involved a Crane Clan storyline "win" that resulted in a Crane holding being washed away in the storyline by the Great Sea Spider and this being reflected in a card as well.

Also bounties became a controversial thing - so YOU might suck at tournament-level CCG play, but you have lots of money, so you offer $500 or whatever for a top player to switch clans and achieve XYZ win for YOUR clan, that kind of thing. There were some jokey bounties that people did in a spirit of fun, but the more serious stuff...yeah.

AND ALSO, I haven't even gotten to the bottom of the fuckery, in that the Story Team, being overworked (almost everyone was unpaid aside from the lead writer and continuity editor, which was...a problem, but sadly typical for game writing as an industry that exploits eager fans) not only had to generate stories for the planned storyline, which was determined by AEG's higher-ups; they in theory had to write the story prize stories. At one point, there was a backlog of story prizes that had not been handled dating back several YEARS. And yet they still kept running storyline tournaments.

AND ALSO, I'm not done with the fuckery, AEG itself did not track outstanding tourney results. A fan, Matt Dalen (Tamori Shosei), out of the goodness of his heart, tracked the results on a volunteer basis on his website. I know this because we went to the same college. In fact, AEG's ability to keep track of results came to a screeching halt when Matt married Bridget and went on honeymoon. What were they going to do? Tell a fan doing this on a fan basis he had to work on his honeymoon?

[radiantfracture]

That is a hell of a story. Thank you. And WTF in so many places. Pay people for their labour.

What was it like writing for them?

[yhlee]

Oh, I left that out because it wasn't germane to your initial question, but "payment" was even more exciting: We were paid in CCG cards. In product. Which, okay, sometimes this included rares and promos.

AEG's policy was that we were NOT allowed to SELL the cards we were paid with. (In practice, it happened under the table.) So, yeah.

The lead story writer during my year there, Shawn Carman, was a delight to work with; I respect him tremendously, would happily write for him again. The continuity editor, Frederict (not a typo) Wan - we had been friends for years, also a great person to work with and for. Honestly, the other writers - good people.

But the management - the management was...interesting. I'm glad I did it, and also glad I did it no longer than one year, in that the stress was destroying my health and I had been contracted for my first book (a short story collection), so I had to choose.

[radiantfracture]

Forbidding people to make money on the labour they do for you is a hell of a flex.

[drinkingcocoa]

A roll of paper towel, heh. That is fantastic.