HeroQuest
Issaries, Inc. except for the text of Writing Strong Hero Descriptions which is Copyright © 2005 Mike Dawson |
Writing Strong Hero DescriptionsRecently a friend’s enthusiasm for HeroQuest turned into a spate of character creation just because, well, HQ hero creation is fun. This friend has boundless enthusiasm and creativity, but his writing skills don’t keep up. So I started helping him with his descriptions, and the process helped me realize there are straightforward guidelines to help any player create a colorful, capable and evocative hero. Why should the english majors be the only ones with an easy time of it? This article doesn’t address how to create your hero description using the same meter as the Eddas, or how to interpret haiku as abilities. If you want to do that sort of a description, more power to you, but you don’t need my help. Some of these guidelines may sound painfully like your high school English class, but bear with it and you’ll see how by training your ear to hear wasted words and missed opportunities, you’ll end up with more interesting heroes. There are really only four guidelines:
Dasdandros, born under the knife, grew
up alone with his father, a
disgraced Heortling border
watchman. His only friends were 3 talking Alynx who taught him
to slash spirits and
he became a devotee of
Yinkin unwittingly young. Small, fast, strong and
god-touched handsome he annoys people with his feline attitude. He learned
to vomit when he wishes
and blinded Gormush three
legs, a troll warrior. With too much spare time Das, stole lunar
war gauntlets and made flesh
ripping bronze cesti. After his fathers death Das traveled south
where he found an Alynx runt he named Giant Smasher, who he
carries in a bag. With no care for the (name) clan that spurned his
family he travels happily
and lazily to see what kind of trouble he can get into.
Not bad,
but of course it is 30% too long. One good
thing is that the description uses active voice more often than not.
More on that later, just keep in mind that active voice ("Das blinded the troll", not, "the troll was blinded by him"
helps you follow the first guideline. Judicious editing can trim down further: Dasdandros, born under the knife, grew
up alone with his father, a
disgraced Heortling border
watchman. His only friends were three
talking Alynx who taught him to slash spirits and he became
a devotee
of Yinkin. Small,
fast, strong and
god-touched handsome he annoys people with his feline attitude. He learned
to vomit when he wishes
and blinded Gormush Three
Legs. Das stole lunar war gauntlets and made flesh ripping bronze cesti.
Das traveled south where he found an Alynx runt named Giant Smasher. With no care
for the (name) clan that
spurned his family he wanders,
looking for trouble.
That’s exactly 100 words, and only two lost underlinings. Since names of any length only count as one word, we’re even a few words under 100. The only detail lost was "unwittingly young", which is probably best off as back story. (That’s guideline four.) Also, we dropped "a troll warrior." Guide four again. Kirk needs to mention Gormush Three Legs, not explain him. On the other hand, there are several underlinings the writer missed, some of them rather important:
Small
Dasdandros, born under the
knife, grew up alone with his father a disgraced Heortling
border watchman. He befriended
three talking
Alynx who taught him spirit
slashing so he devoted
to Yinkin. Fast, strong and god-touched
handsome his feline
attitude annoys people.
He learned to vomit at will
and blinded Gormush Three Legs. Das stole lunar war gauntlets and made flesh ripping bronze cesti.
He traveled south where he found the runt Alynx, Giant Smasher.
With no care for the (name)
clan that spurned his family he wanders, looking for trouble.
By turning around the sentence "…
fast, strong and god-touched handsome, he annoys people with his feline
attitude" we saved one word that did nothing – an example of why
active voice shortens descriptions and improves readability. And
for better style, we moved "Small"
to another sentence because the original version strung too many
adjectives together. Also, "His only
friends were the..." changed to "He befriended..." to save words
while retaining the same skill of Befriend
Alynxes. If Kirk wanted a hero with some personality trait like Hard to like or a relationship of No Other Friends in the World we
could leave it.Now let’s look at "Das traveled south where he found an Alynx runt named Giant Smasher." Two things here – are Well Traveled and something like Knows the South the sort of abilities Kirk wants for Das? If the idea is to repeat "traveled" so the hero gets the bonus for duplicate words, fine. (Assuming your Narrator uses that house rule.) But if not, how about substituting "traveled south" for "In Heortland" or "In an Elf Forest", "On Kero Fin", "In the Castle of Lead" or any other specific reference that gives more color and a new underlining? Preferring to keep his hero focused, the player chose "In Heortland" so Das gets a new skill: Know Heortland. Kirk might have chosen to list it out as Heortland Customs, Heortland Contacts, or something as specific as Heortland Forest Trail Knowledge. Note we also tightened things up by changing "and he became a devotee of Yinkin." to "so he devoted to Yinkin." Changing to active voice meant fewer words, and it explains better. Oops! What’s missing? Here we are this far into the description, and we just noticed that there’s no professional keyword. So we have to fit that in too. This Yinkini can catch two birds with one swipe: Small
Dasdandros, born under the
knife, grew up alone with his father a disgraced Heortling border watchman.
He befriended three talking Alynx who
taught him spirit slashing
so he
devoted to Yinkin. Fast,
strong and
god-touched
handsome his feline
attitude annoys people.
He learned to vomit at will
and blinded Gormush Three Legs. Das stole lunar war gauntlets and made flesh ripping bronze cesti.
Hunting
in Heortland
he found the runt Alynx, Giant Smasher.
With no care for the (name)
clan that spurned his family he wanders, looking for trouble.
This illustrates that a keyword doesn’t have to have an exact reference in the description. Now we're at 90 words, or 85 after subtracting the extra words in "Gormush Three Legs", "Giant Smasher" and "the (name) clan." He still needs a clan. How about the Greydog clan? They exist, and there's a reason for them to dislike Yinkini! If you’re reading this, you probably have a computer. So here’s a tip for counting your words: Put the description in an otherwise blank document for whatever word processor you use. Then smoosh all your "names" together like this: SmallDasdandros,
born under the
knife, grew up alone with his father a disgraced Heortling border watchman.
He befriended three talking Alynx who
taught him spiritslashing
so he
devoted to Yinkin. Fast,
strong and
god-touched
handsome his feline
attitude annoys people.
He learned to vomit at will
and blinded GormushThreeLegs. Das stole lunarwargauntlets and made, flesh ripping bronze cesti.
Hunting
in Heortland
he found the runt AlynxGiantSmasher.
With no care for the Greydog
clan that spurned his family he wanders, looking for trouble.
According to the word processor, we’re down to 82 words, and we’ve got more description than we started with! Plenty of room for Kirk to look at what else he’d like Das to be known for. Kirk added "He seduced BeyetWhiteEyes, an untrusting seer witch." Dasdandros still has six words left. That’s plenty to add another sentence once he sees the other Heroes he’ll be playing with, giving Kirk a chance to tune the hero to the specific campaign. Let’s edit our way, sentence by sentence through another player’s first pass at a description: Harvald Thandrensson is a young Heortling
warrior
and intiate
of Tatouth the Scout. Bitter
that the clan was forced into exile, he yearns for the day that the
Heortlings can drive the Lunars from Sartar so that the clan can regain their ancestral tula. On a recent trip to a foreign tula
he made contact with rebels
and plans to aid them
as best he can. However, he realizes his place is with his clan
and he cannot afford to rush
off on some foolhardy scheme to oust the Red Men. His daily
routine involves patrolling
the outer Marsh to warn
the clan in case of an attack by the dead things. He has
struck up a cautious
friendship with Eyepeck the Raven who brings him news of undead movements in
exchange for a tasty morsel.
So far, Eyepeck has been as good as his word, but Aski does not know how far
he can trust him. Lately, he has been haunted by dreams of a pale and
beautiful maiden beseeching him to rescue her from the Marsh.
Just as "was" is a flag to rewrite, so is "is". A sentence with "is" starts the description, so let’s start by editing that. By removing the passive verb, we end up with a sentence fragment "A Heortling warrior and intiate of Tatouth the Scout", but that’s fine, because it can become the first clause of the next sentence. A Heortling warrior
and intiate
of Tatouth the Scout, Harvald Thandrensson is bitter over his beloved clan's
exile, and yearns to
expel the Lunars from Heortling lands so that the clan can regain their ancestral tula.
Sure, it still has an "is" in it, but it makes a good start and we’ve saved lots of words, down from 41 to 33. Quite a lot, considering we kept every underlining! On a recent trip to [clan name] he contacted rebels.
Wow, that is boring. It needs serious application of Guideline Two. And don’t miss underlinings like "local clan". Sounds like a Relationship: contacts skill to me. Or maybe Know X clan's lands? Don’t hesitate to name the clan, tribe or group that you want your hero to have a relationship with. Your Narrator can always discuss a substitution if she has something worked out already, and if not, then your story helps her to flesh out the setting. So be specific even if you’re being ambiguous. Instead of "On a recent trip to a local clan he contacted rebels" try "Travelling by night, he contacted Angry Storm Band rebels among the Lismelder's Greydog clan." The first has local clan and rebel contacts. The second has Travel by Night, rebel contacts, Lismelder Contacts and Greydog Contacts. Angry Storm Band Rebels counts as one word. So both of these sentences are 11 words! Of course it doesn’t have to be Travel by Night. How about "Travelling Covertly" (saves a word), "Using Raven Magic" (ties in with Eyepeck and adds "Raven Magic" to the common magic keyword), "Riding his warhorse", (gains a follower warhorse) "At Old Wind", "In Orsaltor's Camp" or...you get the idea. While ambiguous references are good, vague and colorless references are bad. So, "On a recent trip" bad. No underlines. "Crossing the Sword Bridge" good. "A Local clan" bad. "Lismelder's Greentree Clan" good. He has struck up a cautious friendship with Eyepeck
the Raven who brings him news of undead movements in
exchange for a tasty morsel.
So far, Eyepeck has been as good as his word, but Aski does not know how far
he can trust him.
These sentences seem to revolve around the raven, so we’ll take them together. The first sentence violates Guideline #4 with phrases like "struck up" "cautious" "brings him news" and "has been good as his word". Another problem is the reverse of what we’ve dealt with before–who the heck is Aski and why do we care if he’s skeptical? To get this fixed up, the player needs to clarify what he has in mind. Here it is, clarified, with back story removed and with some useful description added: Patrolling
the outer Marsh, his cousin Aski the Reckless
met Eyepeck the Raven,
a valuable source of information. Though as good as his word, Harvald
is skeptical. A pale and beautiful maiden haunts
his dreams, beseeching him to rescue her from the Marsh.
Now Harvald has Patrol Outer Marsh or Outer Marsh Knowledge or something like that, we know Aski is some sort of follower or sidekick who has a relationship with Eyepeck. There’s no reason that Harvald can’t have a direct relationship to the raven as well. So, after plugging these changes in, what do we have now? A Heortling
warrior
and initiate
of Tatouth the Scout, Harvald Thandrensson is bitter over his beloved clan's exile, and yearns to expel the Lunars from Heortling
lands so that the clan
can regain their ancestral
tula. Travelling by
night he contacted
Angry Storm Band
rebels among the Lismelder's
Greydog clan.
Patrolling
the outer Marsh, his cousin Aski the Reckless
met Eyepeck the Raven,
a valuable source of information. Though as good as his word, Harvald
is skeptical. A pale and beautiful maiden
haunts his dreams,
beseeching him to rescue
her from the Marsh.
This totals up as only 78 words after name subtractions, almost a hundred words less than we started with, yet it describes more about Harvald. Plenty of room now for all sorts of colorful ability additions. And really, this description could be even tighter. Consider how you would reduce the section about Harvald’s bitterness or the description about Eyepeck. Do we really need to know that the raven is as good as his word, or that he’s a valuable source of information? This is Harvald's description, not Aski's or Eyepeck's. Followers, contacts and sidekicks only need to be mentioned in the description. You don’t have to list all or even any of their abilities. Take the time to look at each sentence, each phrase, each word in the precious one hundred you have to describe your hero. When you do, the process rewards you with a more colorful, unique and able hero with which to change the world. Thanks to Kirk Gisiner and James Dyer for permission to use their experiences in description editing as the basis of this essay. For more on effeicient writing techniques see: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_describe.html http://www.oneofus.co.uk/articles/on_the_need_for_quality_description.htm
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