I just started reading The Making of Star Wars (which, if you geek out for behind the scenes stuff, is fabulous), and was struck by how wrong most of the original concept art for the main cast actually was.
Take this guy on the right, for example. That’s Chewbacca.
Specifically, it’s a 30th anniversary figure based on Ralph McQuarrie’s concept art for Chewie from 1975. At that time, Luke was a girl and Han was a Jedi who looked suspiciously like George Lucas.
And Chewie, here? He looks awful. Not because Ralph’s not a gifted artist (which he is), or because it’s not a cool design for an alien creature (which it is, although it makes for a kind of goofy-looking action figure), but because it’s almost entirely wrong for Chewbacca. Can you imagine if Chewie looked like this in the films?
Which is where the GMing angle comes in. This struck me as a great reminder that, just as in writing, your first draft of anything for your game — campaign setting, region, encounter, NPC or lovable bowcaster-toting sidekick — doesn’t need to be perfect right out of the gate.
If you dislike something you’ve created, don’t stress about it. Move on to something else, or just take a break, and come back to it a little bit later.
You don’t need to endlessly rework every little thing you design, but it’s good to consider re-examining the major elements (and as many of the minor ones as you have time for) at least once before putting them into play — just in case you start out with ol’ bug-eyes here.
I think the opinion of how Chewie looked originally is a bit skewed. If Chewie did in fact look like that in the films, we’d accept it because that’s the presentation and definition of Chewie. We’ve come to know Chewie as he has been defined for 30 years now, so our impression is ingrained.
Yeah, we would accept the original concept as Chewie if that is what had made it to the big screen. But I believe that Martin’s point is that the final version of Chewie was probably the better fit in the long run (we’ll never know for sure). And this example shows that GMs can have a good concept, but shouldn’t be afraid to tank the parts that don’t work and revise them in order to produce a better work as a whole.
I for one agree. There is an old engineer’s saying that says “Be ready to sacrifice your children.” It means that while you love your ideas like they are your children, you must be ready to drop them if the final product as a whole doesn’t work. To me that is also true for GMing projects.
Absolutely. It’s one of the first things you learn as a writer, too. It doesn’t matter how many times your poem, story, or novel gets published, it can always be revised.
There is one caveat, though. For a personal campaign setting, it’s more acceptable to make the changes you want as time goes on. For a published and marketed setting that is sold as a product, you’ll have much less forgiveness. The customers will want consistency, and while some changes will be accepted and loved, others might generate strong, aggressive resentment. The worst part is that the fans won’t even agree on which parts they like or dislike.
I understand that part of why concept-Chewie feels wrong to me is because I’ve got decades of exposure to movie-Chewie, but I would argue that that’s not all there is to it.
To my mind, this bug-eyed lemur-beast fits Chewie’s role in the movies a lot less than the actual movie version — he looks kind of creepy and kind of dumb, much like some of the one-off bounty hunters (in fact, he’d make a perfect bounty hunter as-is).
And if Lucas kept the concept version, I can’t see how the story would have emerged in quite the same way. Chewie just couldn’t be the same fierce, lovable sidekick that he became in the films, and that would change the character of the story.
Like VV said, what I’m driving at is that movie-Chewie was a better fit than concept-Chewie would have been. The trick on the GMing side is recognizing mis-fits like that before they hit the table — although I absolutely agree that you have more latitude to make changes in a home game than with a movie, novel or any other published product. That’s definitely a good thing.
Actually, Star Wars is also an illustration of a GM revising his continuity as he goes along (which is much more acceptable at the gaming table than in the movies).
I can imagine sitting with my daughter (she’s 18 months) at some point in the future and watching I-VI straight through. I’ll have to explain all the misinformation Ben gives Luke in ANH and all the sexual tension and tongue-dancing between Luke and Leia in ANH and ESB.
To be honest, I’m surprised Lucas didn’t redub Sir Alec Guiness with Ewan MacGregor and redo the dialogue between Ben and Luke. Heck, I’m surprised the Special Edition of ANH didn’t edit out the discussion between Luke and Han about Leia and ESB didn’t edit out the infamous kiss.
Hmm, that sounded like a rant 🙂
P.S. Han shot first!
[rant]You know, as much as I would love to watch Star Wars IV-VI, I’ll never be able to again unless I buy a VCR and am forced to watch a degraded copy on tape. I strongly oppose any version as of the special edition rereleases, and I’m no fan of Episodes I-III.
Also, I firmly beleive that Episode IV was written without any intention of the story behind V and VI. There’s enough discontinuity between those three, and the prequels only worsened it.[/rant]
I’ve read some of the stuff about the original concept behind star wars. Thinking about that I can see the kind of reverse bell curve that happens with creativity.
The artist gets an idea in their head, and gets the feel and tactileness of that in their mind. They put it on paper and try to capture that, but end up going to extremes in trying to reach the idea in their head. They put the project into a nearly unreachable place that might fit the original concept, but is rough hewn and hard to accomplish. (Monster Chewie, female luke, george lucas the jedi.) From there the concept gets shaved down and made more palpable. Monster Chewie becomes a more friendly yet fierce sidekick. Luke changes gender and fills a more archetypical role. Obi-wan becomes the jedi master. The edges that don’t fit get shaved off. What you are left with is in many ways fundamentally different than the original concept, but it is something that works and fits the project much better.
Anyone who creates is always left with something lesser than their initial imagining, but that is part of the creative process and it makes a lot of sense to apply this to Game Mastering. I think you have to leave room in your game campaign/concept to completely change it based on the situations that crop up in play. If something isn’t working, shave and mold it until it fits. That will have to be done subtly, and in a way that doesn’t offend the players ceiling view (it’s not really a fourth wall, but if things change in the world the players will still get that fourth wall breaking shock) and lets the story continue on unscathed.
Not directly related to the topic, but I highly recommend “Star Wars: The Magic of Myth” for an exploration of how to take common Campbell-style mythological elements and adapt them to a new setting. Perfect food for thought for GMs crafting a new game.
Total agreement with the original post. The campaign I had plotted out years ago bears little or no resemblance to the campaign we just played. Elements remain, but some are nearly unrecognizable, and some are recycled in new and exciting ways.
If I can continue to divert the topic: George Lucas not only updated his mythology and storyline as time went by, he also updated the history of the making of the films. IIRC, Joseph Campbell went from “a guy GL heard of once” to “patron saint” in a few short years. Also, episodes I-III went from “a vague background idea” to “always been planned out”.
Next on Fox: “When Geeks Get Rich”.