Regular check-in
It’s about time for another Regular Coffee check in, and I have to be honest, some of the shine has gone off this writing bit. Sitting down to write every day has gotten harder.
No, I haven’t turned to drink, I just like a Guiness when I’m doing game design every now and then.
Boredom happens. Doubt happens. Life happens. A work client calls a meeting. My daughter needs a ride. The parade of social media misery just seems so much more compelling than some rando writing a post about coffee cups. I’m tired.
When that happens, it’s OK to pick the lowest hanging fruit. It’s OK to write about the easiest thing. It’s OK to write about just what you’re feeling. It’s OK to write about anything at all.
By the way, if you haven’t encountered it, let me recommend The Artist’s Way. It’s a very good book about setting up an artistic habit and keeping it going.
Coffee Cups
In the two and a half weeks since my last check-in, I’ve gotten some writing done, a LOT of editing done, and I’ve learned a few things.
The first thing that I learned is that editing takes longer than you think. In the coffee cup diagram, you’re going to see some new orange cups. Orange is my color for “I wasn’t expecting this!”, that is, work that I didn’t estimate for, but that I had to do.
In my day job life, I work as a technical marketing consultant. I help tech companies figure out how to document and train people on the features of their products. When you’re a consultant, estimating is incredibly important. My company uses my work estimate to figure out how many hours I’ll need to complete each of my projects in the next month. They use it to figure out what price to bid to the customer, and they use it for long term planning to keep the business running. Bad estimates can mean stress, overtime, unhappy customers, unhappy workers, and bad planning.
But the most important thing about estimates, is to learn and adjust as you go. In business and in life, things are constantly changing. Test what you think you know and keep what works. Maybe estimates aren’t so important in creative work, but they are an important part of how I think about my work.
So, here’s the new Coffee Cup diagram:
You can see that I spent seven sessions editing the rules and the Farm location for the playtest packet, and that I added a cup to the editing estimate for all my locations. Editing is hard. There’s always a better way to say things. There are always ways to make your encounters better. You can always add a new monster or a new device or makes the ones you’ve got cooler.
I also did a significant bit of work on the next two locations: Suburbia and Blacktop. You’ll note Blacktop has replaced Capitol as the next location in the queue. I just felt like the Blacktop setting was more interesting to me right now.
My rant on The Mandalorian
My wife and I finally got down to watching Season 3 of The Mandalorian, and so far I’m a bit disappointed.
If you’re loving it, no shade on you. There’s tons of great Star Wars stuff in there: space battles, colorful characters, interesting planets, Grogu. But as far as storytelling goes, I’m just not feeling it. Most of the episodes feel like they were designed for a Star Wars video game rather than for the TV screen. A bunch of stuff happens, but it’s never entirely clear why it’s important.
Let me make my case.
*** SPOILERS AHEAD: TURN BACK IF YOU HAVEN”T WATCHED SEASON 3 OF THE MANDALORIAN ***
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In Episode 1, we see the Mandalorian on a quest. He needs to bathe in the living waters to redeem himself in his own eyes and the eyes of his peers. We get this. Part of what makes the Mandalorian such a great character is his integrity. He will do this quest no matter how difficult or impossible it is because “It is the way.” He’s stubborn, traditional, unyielding, and we love him for it.
Over two episodes the Mandalorian travels around the galaxy, visiting his friends, and trying to get ready for his quest. There are a few different battles, fights, confrontations, and some interesting conversations.
My problem with this whole series is that we never see the Mandalorian make a significant choice. Yes, he undertakes the quest, but we already knew he was going to do that. He visits his friends and we get to see what they’re up to. That’s OK. The Mandalorian confronts various foes, and we see that he is, as usual, awesome. He fights some pirates. Some neat villains are teased.
But once the real quest begins, the Mandalorian falls into a trap. He’s stuck. He can’t go on without help. When, after all these activities, the Mandalorian finally fails at something, it feels very flat to me. It lacks urgency. And that’s because the decisions and events that led him here didn’t feel significant.
Now imagine episode 1 if it had started out like this: The Mandalorian is setting out on his quest. The Armor speaks to him: “This quest is difficult, maybe impossible. If you do not have the help of your friends you will surely fail. Get their aid or do not go.” The Mandalorian goes to find his friends, but he’s stymied at each point—Greef has a planet to run, IG-11 is fried, Bo-Katan is bitter and angry and won’t help. But the Mandalorian is the Mandalorian, and he sets off anyway.
It's the same series of events, but we’ve been given a reason to see the events in a different light. We know why they are important to the characters, and we know what the cost may be if Din Djarin fails. Failure of this quest is failure of everything he stands for, and failure is likely because he doesn’t have the support of his friend. But he will try anyway, because he is the Mandalorian and he doesn’t give up.
I feel like that kind of storytelling—setting stakes that really bite to the heart of the matter, that’s the heart of storytelling. It’s also the heart of role-playing, but that’s another post.
So long
OK, thanks for listening to me rant. I actually did enjoy the season. Share your thoughts in the comments. Did you like season 3 of the Mandalorian? Any great examples of storytelling you’d like to share? Remember to mark your spoilers!
I’ll be away next week. I’m glamping off the grid with some friends. I’ll be back in two weeks with more Isotope and my next article.
I agree about season 3. Lots of stuff happening but none of it felt important or asked-for. I was kind of expecting the quest for the Waters to take most of the season, rather than just turn up, fall in, job done in a single episode. Have Mando encounter some other fallen Mandalorians on his way, hear their stories, give him time to question whether this is even what he wants, and show us what it is that convinces him to follow through with it. Also would have liked a less jarring Moff Gideon reveal, earlier in the season and tied in a bit more with everything else.
I feel the same about The Mandalorian.
It has ideas but the technical execution is robbing it of any meaning or thrust. Multiple times I've mistaken "cool things" for foreshadowing or setup. Nope. He's fixing the ship because the ship is cool. It feels a little like watching dioramas on a fixed amusement park ride.