Writing Consequences for Characters Years Later
As mentioned before, I began working on this book series back in early 2019. Our first session was actually in January of that year if I remember correctly. The first book was pretty easy to write. I started a few months later, things were fresh in my mind, and we were still playing on a weekly basis, so the characters stood in front of me, refreshing my memory of their quirks and cues regularly. Then life started to slip in. We needed to go to biweekly because we’re all adults, covid was ending, and we needed to take more time for our responsibilities and relationships.
Some relationships blossomed, some died, and some fluttered in a limbo where the outcome would remain uncertain for years to come. There were months where I could sit down and bang out chapter after chapter after chapter. There were others when I looked back and realized I hadn’t opened the files in weeks or months. The story was languishing, despite our continued sessions. Even those weren’t immune to the passage of time. Work would take our monk, family obligations took our fighter, health issues ravaged us all. Our paladin got married! Our cleric left.
Then one day, I’m looking at a chapter designated for someone who was no longer in my life, and I knew that I needed to write it. Their part was integral to the story, despite the harm and absence left behind. How was I supposed to write this character as the person I remembered them being with the same joy and light as I had before while knowing that the people playing the game at that moment were ignorant of what was to come?
It was tough, but I managed it. I wrote the character, not the person, and I persevered. Despite that moment of pushing through, I knew that they would come up again, and again, as the time that passed between where the story was and where I’d left off writing was a growing gap. Currently, I’m not even finished writing arc two while we’re playing arc four! We’re probably a year or so out from finishing the game, and I’m still sitting here with them at level six.
For all the problems that this gap gives me, all the struggles in our personal lives and my failing memories of what had happened in that time for the characters, there was one major advantage that writing things this way has granted me.
I have been given a much needed hindsight.
See, as the Dungeon Master and writer of the actual modules I’m running, I normally have a good idea of what is probably going to happen. As an author looking back on notes written months or years prior, I know what is going to happen. Not only what is going to happen, but everything that led to it. Every poor decision, unlucky roll, and Leroy Jenkins moment that brought us to this outcome. And it's all laid out for me in black and white.
Nicole is a fantastic notetaker. She puts everything she writes into her notebooks and onto a Google Doc for me to access. We’re actually on our third Google Doc because the first two started crashing her computer any time she tried to open it. Any time I need, I can open it up, hit Control+F, and start looking for moments and details I know are going to happen. I can add in heavier foreshadowing for something that had way more significance than she knew at the time. I can compare and contrast her notes with my prep. All of this leads to a richer development in the story. What’s even better, when they read it, now they can look at that moment, realize what it was leading to (since they’d already lived it) and exclaim their joy, sorrow, fury, or absolute loathing for a future event or character. I don’t need to invent consequences, I can just highlight them better.
Another wonderful thing about writing the stories the way I do, is I get to generate new consequences in game that tie directly back to our older adventures. There have been times, more than I can count, really, where I’ll be working on the books, and suddenly I see a name or event and realize that I’d completely forgotten about it. My brain starts making connections until eventually the stars align and I realize I’m in a perfect position to bring something from their past back. A character, an event, a rumor. Doesn’t matter what, all that matters is I can easily take something they’d done and make them face the consequences of it years later in real time. Nicole will always remember them, but the rest… the rest can be taken off guard.
Sometimes it amazes me that I’ve been working on this project for over seven years. I wrote stacks of pages for the game itself, generated maps by the dozen, NPCs both with careful curation as well as on the fly, and created specialty items and creatures and spells that could probably be their own sourcebook at this point. Then I ran the game, hundreds if not thousands of hours of play time captured on audio that is probably stored somewhere within my reach if I asked, only to sit back down with almost two thousand pages of notes in a binder I printed off (I like analog, sue me) only to write it all again. I wrote one-shots that became short stories for in-between arc books, created wholly original stories without my players input until I was done writing about their characters, and even put the spotlight on some beloved NPCs the party adopted along the way. When I actually sit down and write that all out… I’m stunned.
Writing the consequences for these characters, both good and bad, means I get to illuminate their struggles, their success, their darkest moments and deepest fears, their greatest joys and loves, and see not only them in a new light, but my friends who played them as well. I see the hurt they carry, the hope they cling to, and the love they share not just for the game itself, but for myself and each other. As much as I tease them about enjoying writing things that make them suffer, I’m always rooting for them to come out on top. I just won’t make it easy for them, because there’s nothing worse than a victory without teeth or a failure without cause.
That brings me to my last kind of consequence I can write for them with the hindsight this sort of story offers: bringing teeth to a victory that lacked it or highlighting the cause of a failure more clearly. As stated in a previous post, I trust my players, and I believe that they trust me. I would never give them a no-win situation (at least not without some flashing neon lights telling them they can’t win this fight or reminding them that running is indeed an option), so they always know that they can win a fight if I put them in it. If they’re on the ropes, they can come back, and often do, and I enjoy giving that fight teeth. But sometimes, they get curbstomped by bad rolls, poor choices, or mismanaged resources. Feel bad moments like that in game can translate poorly in a book. The same is true for a victory that feels hollow due to poor rolls on my part, or a paladin critting on a target marked with path to the grave and dumping their highest level smite into the strike and oneshotting my boss that I spent hours crafting and months building up!
Okay, they found that amazing.
I’m not bitter. I swear.
In a game, that fight may have been built up and prepped for, and turned into a moment of disappointment for one party or the other. When writing, however, it can be framed differently, put from a point of view that draws out drama that may not have been as apparent on the table because the players knew something the characters didn’t. Luis wouldn’t know just how many damage dice he was rolling, or see the collection of high numbers racking to the sky the way Matt did. To him, this was still a dangerous foe that represented everything his Goddess hated. Getting to write from hindsight means I can restore this, honoring the moment for the characters that we at the table might not have had the opportunity to do as players.
Hindsight is a powerful tool. It grants us wisdom and appreciation for things that maybe we missed the first time around. Whether that be something as simple as a moment in a game that may not have been as epic as others until we revisited it, or something as complicated as a person we didn’t value enough when they were in our lives, we can learn, grow, and adapt with its help. Everything we are is a story, a pattern, an ancient desire buried under decades of societal programming. I’m trying to bring the reflection I’m getting with my friends and their characters into my life a bit more every day. Become a bit more everyday. It’s a process, and I’m not successful at it yet, but as much as I look to the future, like Janus, I try to keep one eye on the past. See if I can’t recognize a pattern before I suffer its consequences again.
