Fed II Star - February 26, 2006

ELIJAH'S PLANET DESIGN GUIDE
Part 2: Going Back to Pre-School - Show and Tell

Last week, in my first article on Planet Design, we ended with the beginning of a planetary history, a story. Now we take that story and dream about how we tell it. How are you going to present your planet's story to the tourist who visits? Perhaps the best advice is to show them, don't tell them. Telling people your planet's history is easy, I did it in three paragraphs in last week's article. What's more interesting, is to show.

Notice that when you read a book, you are witness to story development throughout 200 pages, when you could tell the same story in 3 paragraphs. Which is more satisfying? The joy of reading, the joy of watching a film, is having the story told to you slowly, having the audience process it slowly. Do not tell us everything at once, in fact, don't tell us hardly anything.

There are two location types where this first crime against planet design is generally committed. The Interstellar Link and/or the Orbit. People feel like listing the entire history of their planet there. Don't do it. Think about it, if I just jumped through a Interstellar Link in real life (assuming that were a real possibility), would I stumble upon a complete history of my destination, or would I see something? Experience something?

Let's quickly recap my planet: interstellar link shuts down, my planet goes from thriving resort to isolated refugees thrown back into hunter-gather status. What part of this story can I show in my Link location? Well, the Link would be a good starting point I imagine.

So, when you come to my future planet, you'll pop out of the link expecting to be where? Space? Nope. You'll be spat out just a few feet above the surface of my planet. Why? When the Interstellar Link went dead, it slowly was pulled into my planet's orbit until it finally crashed onto the surface, it is now partway submerged into the earth, and a work crew is trying to return it to space. This is story. Visitors instantly recognize that something is wrong, they see that the Link, while operating now, probably isn't in all that great condition. That location is actually showing a lot without directly stating anything.

Now, I'll be honest, I have trouble writing a space location that isn't, well... "Space, Yep Here's Space. Like what's between each word in this description." And my trouble with space locations is part of why I searched for a way to get around them in the creative aspect of Planet Design. But, the rules still apply, space should be active and descriptive: For example, if your planet has a erupting volcano on it, you could show some effects of that from space. Perhaps a giant smoke cloud over a region would attract the attention of the space traveler. Possibly, your "planet" is a badly damaged space ship that is now sitting still in space having others travel to it - the damage would be visible. These are things you can show - think of other things you can show, don't tell.

The second type of location that has a tendency to tell are museums, libraries, historical plaques on the landing pad. Nope. Don't do it. Don't do it at all. Not to say you can't have a museum, look at the Museum on Venus? It has Fed History, without telling the entire story. We're shown a bit of the story there, we don't have it all crammed down our throat at once.

Remember, the fun of visiting a planet is in discovery, do not blow your entire story in one location. So, go back to your Link, Landing Pad, Historical Museum, and clear them of story completion, and turn them into dozens of locations for players to discover.