How to tell a story | NOT LIKE THIS! 

The art of subversion by chekhov's gun is not if the gun will be used, but how. The gun above the door could be fired, as expected, or used as a club, used to block the door, used as a crutch, and so on.

When you mentioned "Chekhov's gun" I immediately thought of the object known as a glass candle in George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series. A glass candle is supposed to be like a crystal ball or palantir from "Lord of the Rings". The glass candle is mentioned several times throughout the novels but I don't recall any instance of one actually being used...

One rule that I have with myself when writing is "own what you don't know". If there is something in the story that has no explanation, don't explain it. Don't even acknowledge it. Instead, focus on the effects of it on the characters and on the world. This does two things; 1) sets up a situation where the story writes "it" on it's own and fills in the blank 2) it doesn't and the rest of the story makes the lack of "it" unnecessary and becomes part of the story I have accidently written myself out of hole so many times with this method. There are other rules that I use as well this is the primary one.

I’m literally a DM currently writing a book where everything my party does is in the book, some of them even co write it with me, this is perfect for me, also entertaining so far.

I think your note about the rum is a good point. Perhaps telling the players "this is San Sabillia's Rum, a very common rum in these parts" if the rum isn't of any importance, or perhaps "you note the bottle of rum, San Sabillia's. A name which you've never heard in any of the taverns of the region" if it is important. Stealing from video games a little bit, commenting on the rarity of ordinary objects will frame in the player's mind that one item is not especially important while another is, without explicitly stating "this is important, this is not"

One of my biggest gripes with season 1 of The Witcher was the time jumping. At that time, I hadn’t read the novels. It took me until episode 3 or 4 to realize we were on different timelines. Now, having read the books, I see that the show runners were trying to imitate the story telling method Andrzej Sapkowski uses, particularly in Tower of Swallows. The difference being, Sapkowski indicated the dates so the reader can follow along. Netflix chose to not do that for unknown reasons. But then again, Netflix chose to do a lot of things with the Witcher I don’t understand lol.

I relate to the “what’s the name of this rum” question so much. In my DnD campaign, I had a crazy guy give the party a handful of grass and he than immediately left town on “business”. Rather than follow the obvious plot hook, a player asked what kind of grass it was, and for like, 20 minutes the players were discussing the grass and what they can do with it. It was just grass I gave a random name.

Thanks for making this! I'm currently planning a short D&D adventure for my nephew and niece, and this will help immensely. I'd love more advice on how to be a successful beginner DM.

I have noticed this in many movies, and more than a few mystery books. I absolutely hate the killer being the 3rd cousin once removed that was never so much as mentioned, until the reveal on the last 2 pages of the book. It is poor story telling, and absolutely infuriating.

Even though I’m not a writer, dungeon master, or director this whole conversation is quite interesting from just a viewer’s/consumers pov. It’s essentially put into words the feeling I have gotten from media that I couldn’t explain myself.

I've never much cared for the term world building. There are exceptions to the rule, Tolkien, I prefer the term setting, The setting for a story. But I was taught and I prefer the authorial concept of creating a small knowable world that the characters exist in, no matter how big the larger world is suggested to be. Character is story, story is character. Setting is character too ,and flavor.

The Tower is just architecture. It's akin to a prop. You do actually have to have nice-looking set pieces in your show/movie/game/whatever, it doesn't necessarily make them Checkov's guns. Some people are also more visual, and it helps engross them in the story if you show them nice looking scenery, costumes, props, etc. Secondly, sometimes it's ok to have decoys. When you are telling a murder mystery for example, you HAVE to have a few clues that mislead the main character (and the audience) or else it makes the plot too easy to figure out. Remember, rules are made to be broken. If you have enough experience and know what you are doing, you can both build a world that is detailed and immersive, and yet not every single item in the world needs to be plot. Sometimes it can just be there for rule of cool. I'm not saying the storytelling in the Witcher was perfect. I think the time-skipping made things a little too convoluted, to the point most events seemed disconnected. But I don't think that you can always apply all the lessons from D&D and Tabletop RPG's into storytelling in other genres.

I once described a random area in a random cave for my DnD group. It had a support pillar, a small pool and what appeared to be a small waterfall. Everything looked natural, everything was unimportant, I was trying to stall while writing notes. 15 minutes later, I had to drag the party away from investigating the stupid waterfall. I learned to not give random, meaningless filler

I enjoyed this and you are right about The Witcher series. They threw us into a non-congruent timeline or mashed up episodes. The first thing in storytelling is to keep your timeline smooth and flowing in the path you want the characters to take. I would have hated the long info dumps more in order to set this series right. As a writer, I find time jumps terrible. Memories can be played, but you always have to let your reader know these things have no sequence in the current timeline. Sure your world can be great, but if you jump back and forth in time and sequence of events in it, the readers simply get lost. Worldbuilding is not in affect anymore in most stories. I read some new authors and ask the questions of why when they write one thing once and a different thing farther into the book. Worldbuilding is as much of an art as is writing itself. Many having no practice as a DM will never understand the complexities and how to reveal them without an info dump. Sorry for the length, but I really enjoyed this vid.

I agree with most of what you say in theory (I don't know the examples you cite), but I would say to be careful about applying literary theory to TTRPGs. As a GM, you're not there to tell a story: you present a world and give plot hooks. The players and the dice tell the story. Unlike in a movie or in a novel, in a TTRPG you don't have as much control over the attention of the audience (the players). The world is developed somewhat in real-time and the questions of the players have an impact on it. You might describe the early 20th-century study of a posh Englishmen and a player might ask "Is there a gun over the mantle?". Yeah, sure, why not... or maybe no, it is important that there isn't one; you have to make the call. If you decide that yes, there is a gun, even if you introduce it before any prompt from a player, is it a Tchekov gun? The concept fails in TTRPG because you have no way of knowing for sure if someone will or will not fire that gun before the end of the scene (or in a subsequent scene). Books, movies, video games, theatre, TTRPGs are all different media that each comes with their own limitations. Of course, some concepts transfer from one another, but there is not always perfect equivalence. Even in design a set for a theatre or a movie is different: in the theatre set, you can get away (and it might even be preferable) with a very minimalistic set, where only the important elements are present. In films, this approach doesn't usually work.

You made this video about the Witcher TV series, but your critique hit hard at home on the BBC series Sherlock, After the first episode they never ever gave the audience a chance to solve the mystery, they constantly withheld information from the audience only to have Sherlock solve everything with knowledge we have no chance of knowing.

It's funny, on my version of your multiple choice question E was, "None of the above. Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

This video has me realizing that books & video games have the advantage of unrestricted space & time to tell stories. In terms of time, movies & theatre performances are both limited by how long the audience is comfortable sitting and watching. In terms of space, movies are limited by how much information can fit into each camera shot before viewers can't keep up. Theatre is restricted by the size of the stage.

As a general rule of thumb, in my writing I never do ass-pulls. I always state the existence of a thing before it ever has an opportunity to be utilized (or disregarded). An imperial platoon will not appear out of nowhere to hassle the parry in non-imp territory. A macguffin will always be Chekhov'd. A sorceror will never use a psionic ability he has no facility with. Random setvobjects don't necessarily need to be Chekhovs. They can just be characterization, either for the set or a character with ties to the set. Decoying can and should primarily be used a a plot device; it's not bad in of itself, but it can easily be *done* badly, and that's where the pitfall lies. You really have to plan ahead of you're gonna do a deliberate mislead, decoy, or fakeout.

I agree in RPG's that plot relevant details should never be behind a roll. They should be up front and the flavor context can sit behind a roll.

When it comes to DMing you can also accidentally mislead the players. When i was running a game, i stated "Everyone from this Area carries a distinctive type of knife, and you can tell people are from here by their knives. Also if you your PCs are from here, you will have a knife or dagger for free." They then got super paranoid that even random children and Barmaids had knives.

I myself write noir novels, not fantasy, but since they do contain some esoteric/mystery elements, I thought I'd weigh in on this. Sometimes, when details clearly do happen, but are hard to explain or outright inexplicable, I simply leave it open to interpretation. Not only does it add to an eerie atmosphere, it also removes needless fluff.

A bit late to the party here, but this reminds me of one of Brandon Sanderson's lectures. Paraphrasing here, he described each plot & subplot as a series of setups & payoffs staggered throughout the story. No matter how insignificant, always lay the seed of the plot before springing it on your reader.

Excellent points. Another danger in bad storytelling full of macguffins is sometimes the 'reader' will feel the need to fill in parts of the story themselves, using the information available. They might even come up with a really cool potential storyline. And if the 'actual' storyline is not as good as the story the reader is telling themselves that's even more disappointing. If your red herrings are suggesting a more interesting plotline than the one you're intending to follow, you've got a problem.

i actually enjoyed the first season of the witcher, even though i never played the games. But i'll have an eye on the critique you brought up if i come to watch it a second time, it's always interesting to take another point of view. And thank you for this video, it is very helpful for writing my werewolf-dark ages campaign; i'll put more focus on the way i describe the scenes and distinguish treasure from texture. :)

As a DM (who wears the official robes, so take me seriously), I approve this message.

I hate whoever came up with "subverting expectations". All I ever think is "Dick move, bro" and never read or watch them again.

For the algoooorithm!

As someone who studies Creative Writing, this is a great piece of advice to anyone who enjoys writing or stories. Its a very common trend in Western media anyway, where Subversion of Expectations = Good Writing. Which is simply not true. Now that doesn't mean subverting expectations is bad either, it is rather if the execution is nailed. For example, the death of Snoke in The Last Jedi, yes no one expected Snoke to die a nameless and frankly nothing character, but that doesn't mean it was a good idea to write him that way. It's essentially the equivalent of me going out to buy some milk and then getting a right hook to my jaw. Sure, my expectations were subverted, but that doesn't mean it was a positive experience. A good example of expectations being subverted is the character of Eren Jaeger from Attack On Titan. Eren starts off, very in line with other protagonists in the shouen genre, however, the world he lives in forces him to become a bitter and genocidal individual, but keeps the core of who he was. It is the natural corruption of his character Obviously I could go more in depth on both situations, but I don't wanna repeat myself too much as there are many people who've pointed out the failure of Snoke and the brilliance of Eren. Your audience is smart and its easy to give them something that surprises and exists them or something that shocks and disappoints them

In rewatching this video I actually had the thought that I often experience what you describe in reading The Wheel of Time, of which I am on book 9. But in WoT, every little detail in the entire story is a Chekhov’s gun that will at some point be fired, and boy are there a ton of them! But that’s really just as big a problem, because it simply has too many to keep track of, and most of them are so subtle that you probably missed them anyway. And if you did notice them, Robert Jordan will wait several books before bringing it up again. I’ve also found the most obvious guns have been fired in the most unsatisfying ways possible. I often feel like I’m being forced to choose which details to remember, because I know every last one is in some way important, but I only have so much room in my brain and I don’t know which ones will be the most worth remembering come the resolution.

I keep telling this to people, and they all look at me like I'm crazy. But stories are NOT an accurate portrayal of real life and all of its randomness. Nor are they meant to be. Stories are constructed narratives, thus the situation has changed from "life is random, lol, deal with it," to "everything now matters, even something small and seemingly random." Therefore, any detail one includes in their story, no matter how minute, must serve a purpose. From small things like a character's habits to large things like key plot events are all part of a construct that is the story itself. So of course this applies to any item you give enough importance to. If it isn't important to the narrative, it didn't NEED to be included. All too often, people want to write epics like Tolkien's Legendarium, or Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere, and such, but they all fail to realize that those epics are the size that they are because every detail that's important to those respective stories needed to be there for the story to work. You can't just pad out a story and make it feel as deep as Middle-Earth by just adding stuff without expanding on it. The more you add, the more it needs explained, and anything you add must be necessary for the story you want to tell. The best way I've found with storytelling is that you often get a much better story the more you try and get to the point. Even in large epic/high fantasies, and even then it's more strict even though it seems like you'd have more leeway for info-dumping. Basically, good storytellers are masters of prose and pacing, and they know what's important, and what details to include to help them tell the story overall. Just my two cents.

With D&D there's also the issues that can come across with information. I've, normally, tried to create flavor text for, at least, magical items because I want to push that magical items have more meaning than the just another +1 in an RPG. A magical item without a name is something unusual enough to be of note. Sure, the players might not always find those names or information, but it's something that helps make it work and is often not important to the adventure anyway...and even non-magical weapons might have names given them. It also tends to help deal with situations where there's a hidden item or something in a room that the players are supposed to be searching for...and it's given away entirely because it's given a description in the text that's far more detailed at a base layer. It also tends to be something that can be a jumping off point for other things in it if the players burn through an area more quickly than expected and stands out less if they go more slowly as just something else they can't follow up on...or might be the start of something else entirely.

If you're making it clear that you're only adding flavor text, like merely describing setting by talking about the contents of a room, I disagree that you can't mention unimportant objects. Sometimes objects are mentioned as merely "you see these things" because describing the contents of a room is more interesting naratively than stating "You walk into a tavern. It looks like a tavern." If you play a very RP heavy style of D&D, for instance, setting and tone is way more important than moving to spaces and interacting with objects or enemies. You wouldn't know to ask the bartender if they've seen any vampires lately unless you provide details which direct the party to think to ask that question. There are multiple ways to do this, some of which are less railroady and way more fun to interact with. Showing instead of telling is another golden rule of good writing. If you leave nothing in your game for your party to intuit, the world will feel mechanical and empty. This can be totally fine if you like playing a very dry, numbers based game of kill the baddy, save the world, but for people who aren't playing a role playing game for that kind of experience, you're killing the vibe. Sometimes, just to keep the setting and tone alive you have to provide some occasional reminder that the setting is 'x' or you're not providing the context necessary to dictate that there is in fact a strong coherent theme. Obviously don't be obnoxious about it, but the occasional nod to the setting using descriptions of the occasional item here and there is totally fine. A real environment has minute details that are unimportant. If you want your game to feel real, you do have to have some unnecessary for game play but necessary for defining the setting type detail. Personally, I do this by building terrain and dioramas to place on the gaming table or making art to project onto the wall with a cheap old projector I nabbed virtually for free at a thrift shop. These things add immersion without me needing to distract with long drawn out and unneeded descriptions of irrelevant items etc. I show instead of tell.

I haven't watched The Witcher, but everytime I've asked someone who has what it's all about, the answer has always been vague and confused. The only things that end up surfacing is the song "toss a coin to your witcher" and that Henry Cavill is hot. Oh, and the ballsack armors.

I like how the contrast in the filming makes the black, furry pillows appear to be part of the shirt. Crom, what a piece of costumery.

The first question, I was so confuzed I hid space on wronk keyboard, witch of course did not pause the video and thus I saw the answer, next time pls leave more time to think about it. (So we can be even more dissapointed by "corect" answer)

Every object has a story behind it, but most of them aren't worth telling so don't worry about it lol. If it is worth telling, or if the object is integral to the plot, then don't be afraid to tell it. Don't worry about people guessing what will happen next because if your plot is logical then they will be able to guess it if they have enough accurate information.

Bad Writting... The modern plague for all media.

thanks to you I finally decided to read the last wish, the first book of Gerald and MAN! I fell in love, now I'm glad me and my friend didn't finish ep 1, because I'm this story without previous images on my mind, except the game, bu t I didn't play it yet... man I'm loving the books so far

I really get what your saying. Ive probably done this myself. One thing i got tired of in one show was hidden scenes they would back peddle to when some plot twist came up. Its not always bad and even necessary. But these were moments of conversations the audience was a part of long before. It was a mystery show you were trying to peace together as the plot unfolded and it always seemed like a bad corner to cut and felt really cheap as a story element

I'm currently DMing my first campaign and I had sometimes felt like was putting in work for nothing, designing the world around my players not realizing if the thing I am designing actually matters to them. I can spend all day prepping by creating some cool-looking algae that grows in a river they will traverse, if it's useless to them I am wasting my time and should have spent that time thinking about how the gnolls plan to take over the city.

For me, if everything in a big story (not a short anecdote, but say a book or a movie) is relevant to the main storyline, it breaks immersion for me. That's not how real life works - as we progress to whatever goals in life we have, we will encounter stuff irrelevant to our journey. Sometimes interesting stuff, that we enjoy wasting a moment to enjoy... but stuff that adds nothing to our big journey. Not seeing anything like that in a fictional story makes it seem unrealistic to me. Same with side stories - if all questions are answered by the end of the book/movie, we know exactly what happened with every important character, all mysteries are solved, all villains defeated, every protagonist achieved what they wanted, and basically there's nothing left for the imagination... that's REALLY BAD, from my point of view. I don't get people who complain when stories end with unfinished side arcs, unanswered questions, people whose whereabouts are unknown etc. That basically means this world dies when the movie ends... there's nothing left to do. In a real world, and in fantasy worlds that I prefer, there's always stuff to do, mysteries unsolved, new things to discover... And books/movies like that leave plenty of room for fans to fill in the gaps and unknowns with their own creativity. I prefer this over a world where the author answers every possible question, and the only way to create fanfiction is to contradict the original author and say "in my alternative universe, this and that is different" as opposed to adding something that could still be a part of the original story, just left out by the original author.

If the character and personal life of the hero is important to your story at all then ideally you should see the hero: Do It, Run, Don't, and Unsure. All of them and how the hero feels about them should be explored if possible. Yes I answered the question seriously.

At the beginning with the quiz, I actually did choose E! Except in my head it was "none of the above" instead of "use the macguffin." XD

2:50 for world building. I don't like the concept of Checkov's gun, more often than not I find it make for poor world building, where everything must have a plot purpose (oh, how convenient that he just had exactly what he needed right there), when, in reallity, people have things merely for aesthetic pleasure, cultural affinity, to remember some event where they aquired it or simply just because. Think, for example, those two giant statues in LotR, the Argonath... they have no plot purpose to be there, but they help pass the idea that this world is old and living, with it's own history and culture, rather than just a bunch of plot points tied up together. Overall, I find that Chekov's Gun weakens immersion, because every little thing, every person, every object, every information given... they are all connected to the main plot somehow. It makes the entire world seen "2D", just a bunch of plot points with some make up to disguise it. I much prefer stories where, from times to times, things happen mearely because the characters live in a world that doesn't rotate around them and their plot. People exist, animals exist, nature exist, and some times things will happen because of external factors that are not a all related to whatever you wanted to do. I even give some pass to the eventual chekov's gun inserted in such stories, such as when in Shadow of the Conqueror the pirates that attack the protagonist mid book end up having information on the antagonists of the last part of the book, or how in a Thosand Li: the First Step the protagonist gets attacked by wild animals during his travels and the skin of one such animals end up becoming valuable enough that he can use as a bargaining chip later on to aquire something that he couldn't have otherwise (important point on this last one: out of the multiple demon-beasts that attack the protagonist, only one of them ends up becoming a Chekov's gun, the others become an excuse as to how he is aquiring money throughout the travel, and, most importantly, by not making the sole creature that attacked him a chekov's gun, it helps with immersion. It wasn't a "look how convenient that the one time he is atacked it becomes important later on" thing, which I find to be the biggest problem with Chekov's Guns in general). Now, the reason why I say that the problem is Chekov's Gun, and not it's "bad" implementation, is because Chekov's Gun says that EVERYTHING must have a plot point. There is more to life than "look how convenient that literraly everything around is somehow involved in the plot or used to solve it" and any book/movie/show that fails to show me a living world breaks my suspension of disbelief. EDIT: k, I saw the rest of the video now. I agree with the point that the authors should never create false "chekov's guns", even in the examples I mentioned it is quite clear when something is "common object" (the wolf pelt or warthog meat the protagonist of Thousand Li sell to finance his travel) as compared to when it is actually important to the plot (the skin of a giant demon-snake that is relient to blades that a lieutenant of the guard will show interest on when the protagonist arrives at his destination), but I keep my point, Checkov's Gun says that everything should be important to the plot, and the author could just ignore the dynamics of travel, skipping everything but the snake attack that generates a bargaining chip, and I find that that makes for poor world building, and more often than not I see worlds lacking depth because the authors cut everything that isn't "plot relevant" out of the story rather than an overuse of badly implemented red herrings

the stories currently written for public entertainment tend to be made for people who dont want to be an immersed thinking audience =) please dont forget most people are fine not knowing any deeper meaning in their actual life or a story they are presented with, they are totally happy with allure and illusion as long as there is a fake meaning they can just accept shallow mindedly. appreciated your video and the important points you made.

I love your videos, questions more than answers, just the way I like it.

I like this channel. He knows things.

naming the rum... i think it woudl give value towards world building if used properly like a rare variety of rum that could hold value or if bought and traded for information. as for the Witcher... having binge watched the series several times now i believe people "think" they know who and what whitchers are but do they really?? i could say the same of myself being a soldier and overseas contractor with 35+ years under my belt that my friends that i have known since i was a kid only know a very small part of me. yeah they read the paper and watch the news and know where i've been from time to time when i get the chance to see them back home. (home is wherever you happen to hang your hat btw) but with them never leaving the safety of home they truly don't understand who and what i am compaired to the person i was when we were all togather back in school almost 40 years ago. i think the same can be said of a Whitcher.

i have no idea who in the production team said "hey, maybe we should completely screw up the timeline of the episodes so nobody understands anything" and why the hell they decided it was a good idea, but that is so stupid i can't put it into words. anyway please continue this series (maybe using other stories as examples too cause i'm trying to forget the witcher) i'm trying to write a short story and i don't wanna screw up

I like that you use the concept and model of that staff in your explanation. 1st time I DM a game I actually had a staff modeled after one that I actually made 1 summer. The player came across it and actually said that's a cool staff what does it do. I said I put it in the game and you have to figure out what it does on your own if it does anything at all. He spent the entire game trying to figure out what that staff does and protecting it. Towards the end of the game he figured it out while setting at a tavern table drinking and playing cards noticing everybody else was getting drunk and he was holding his staff to keep somebody from stealing it and he was not getting drunk. After that he put his character upstairs in its room placed the staff on the bed and stared at it trying to figure it out. Eventually he had the bright idea of cutting his hand picking the staff up and watching as the staff healed his hand. The staff was an item that healed wounds cured poisons and illnesses. However he spent so much time protecting the staff that all the bad guys started going after the staff thinking it was valuable. He never figured out what it did until close to the end of the game. But Hey a staff of magically perfect health.

Your really easy to listen to, and you dont ruffle peoples feathers which makes your videos more enjoyable. 💯😁👍🏼

The rum example made me think of red dead redemption 2. In that game different foods help fill your health stamina and dead eye (slow motion bullet time cowboy stuff). Meat usually fills the most health, plants usually fill stamina, and unhealthy stuff like alcohol and cigarettes fill dead eye. And because it’s a game made by rockstar everything has small details on the packaging and stuff and they call the rum Guarma Rum because it’s made on the island of Guarma. And you think oh that’s cool just a little whatever detail but later you actually get trapped ON GUARMA and have to fight a rebellion against the Cuban army and smuggle yourself back to America. Yet one more thing to add to the infinite list of reasons why I love red dead redemption 2.

How do you feel about subverting expectations when telling a story? Classic example- in Wizard Of Oz we are told that Glinda is a witch, and later we are told she is a Good Witch. At the time a witch was a witch, and they were all bad. The fact that she was good was essential to the story- was saying she was a witch a "lie" or was it a surprise reveal that she was good? I think the latter but some think it was a dirty trick. For a while I've been trying to write a Star Trek/Star Wars crossover that does this repeatedly and I'm struggling with this particular issue. I don't want readers to think I'm springing an unfair surprise.

I feel like this video explains all of the problems with the Harry Potter series. Now, don't get me wrong, I love Harry Potter, but some of the mysteries (notably most clues in Goblet of Fire) are completely over shadowed by red herrings while most of the actual information used to explain the mystery at the end of the book is so arbitrary that it's impossible to tell what's important and what's not. For an in depth example: In The Goblet of Fire, Harry sees Mr. Crouch's name on the Marauders map, and decides to investigate. But after getting stuck in a staircase, he needs to get saved by Barty Crouch Jr. pretending to be Mad-eye Moody so that Snape doesn't catch him. But after getting saved, Mad-eye Moody asks if he can keep the map, and Harry agrees, and while doing so Mad-eye Moody says out loud how suspicious of Snape he is, and if we're being honest, he has a point. Someone close to Voldemort has snuck Harry's name into The Goblet of Fire, and the only person who could have done it is someone with powerful dark magic, as well as a proximity to the school. And we know that Snape has all of these check boxes filled, as well as a specific hate towards Harry. This is also starting to get closer to the end of the book, so it's not unexpected that we might be close to the answer. Now, if you've read the books, you'd know that Snape is innocent, and the culprit was actually Barty Crouch Jr. shapeshifted to look like Mad-eye Moody. How many clues towards this conclusion did the book have? Well, they hinted towards Barty Crouch Jr. using a potion why Harry notices that he always drinks from his own flask, but Ron immediately provides a different context, saying that Mad-eye Moody is so suspicious of everything, he never drinks from anything handed to him, and only drinks from his own flask, discounting this as relevant evidence. We also see him behave strangely when presenting the three unforgivable curses, but this is forgiven when he apologizes to Neville with a talk over a cup of tea, and it's even inferred that Mad-eye Moody got permission by Dumbledore during this lesson, minimizing the use of this scene as evidence. And lastly the scene that I already mentioned in the beginning, where it's foreshadowed that Mad-eye Moody is not who he seems, as the Marauders map shows that Mr. Crouch is in the vicinity of Mad-eye Moody before disappearing... That's it?! And this evidence is also surrounded by the fact that Snape was also in the vicinity, and was acting more suspicious, and the fact that the Map didn't specify weather it was Barty Crouch or Barty Crouch Jr., and yet even then, it should be inferred that it's Barty Crouch, since we've been told that Barty Crouch Jr. is dead! Which is another convoluted mystery all by itself, which is made more convoluted when Barty Crouch was also a (kinda) red herring, seeing as how he has consistently shown favoritism to Harry during the Tri-wizard Tournament, the very competition that's trying to kill him! (I guess Mad-eye Moody/ Barty Crouch Jr. also does this, which is the only real evidence against him). And then you have to remember, all of this information and evidence is spread across a 700+ page book! Basically, it's nearly impossible to suspect Mad-eye Moody or Barty Crouch Jr. until it's revealed to Harry in the end, and these constant impossible to solve mysteries caused a lot of people to stop liking the series, even if there's actually a lot to like about it. (Sorry for ranting so long, I just started typing and didn't quite realize how much I wrote until the end. Sorry.)

Superfluous...that is the word that first comes to mind. I see a lot of that in most storytelling mediums nowadays. I can't really figure out why it happens so much, but I find a lot of those irrelevant bling-covered visual turd nuggets annoying as a viewer. Or maybe I'm just getting old and crotchety a la Shirley McLaine's *"Steel Magnolias"* character kind of way. *grins* Also, I'm an old tabletop RPGer myself both, D & D and GURPS, so you just made my nerdy day. And when I say old...I mean old. I started playing in the early 80s!

Oh man, watching this in 2023...yeaahhhh, as it turns out, the Witcher writers were just that incompetent--so incompetent that The Witcher ragequit The Witcher, and now anyone left watching will have to settle for budget Thor knockoff >_>...

I respect good story telling it is a noble yet humble craft.

You make great points here, and I'm not going to argue with them (because I agree), but I did want to point out that there is a type of story-telling mechanic that hinges on an unreliable narrator. It's called, rather creatively, unreliable narrator. Often its played for comedic effect, such as in The Emperor's New Groove, where the audience learns quickly that the narrator, Emperor Kuzco, has a skewed perspective of events. Another great example is in the video game The Stanley Parable, where this strategy is used brilliantly. That being said... the audience in these cases are *aware* that the narrator is unreliable, and that fact adds to the experience. As a DM myself, I've often considered how it might be possible to do a one-shot or short campaign around this concept. It would be difficult... Could be fun, though.

What you said at the end, about the show's audience needing to know who witchers are, what they do, how their potions work....the first prequel book didn't explain those things well. Maybe they were supposed to be mysteries, which worked, 'cause I was curious and slowly pieced things together. But the world-building I found very confusing. Without a map, I had no context of where anything was or why anywhere was significant, which I found very confusing/distracting. The stories were also not in linear order...or if they were, they didn't always seem to be and I was often confused about the who, where, when, and why. Again, perhaps this was intentional or would make more sense if I had read the original books first. But if one must read the original books to understand/appreciate the prequel(s), then the prequels are fairly pointless.

I grew up playing D&D in the 80's. We never worried about stuff like this. We just played the game and went with it. Perhaps it was just a simpler time. 😄

Oh, you are from US. Your sound state of mind and calm demeanor don't seem american at all and thats a compliment. Nice job on resisting the negative cultural inflections (and probably embracing the positive ones) I guess? Its interesting to me. Idk. Sorry. Cheers. Great video as always.

As a DM I use items to push the players down the proper game path. Inevitably the players will decide to turn left when the mission and goal requires them to go right. For instance after a random encounter on the wrong path the party finds a scroll that needs to go to a Duke down the path they strayed from. As far as randomly dropping the party somewhere... I do that. My party has certain characters that are modeled after themselves and their equivalent stats. These characters are 21st century people who are suddenly teleported to a realm for an adventure. In their general life they don't walk around in armor or carry swords. These games begin with a standard question... "What do you have in your pockets" This means starting gear will vary greatly. For instance.. Once I asked my kids who wanted to play D&D. There were calls of Yes from all over the house. So... " What do you have in your pockets" My daughter screamed " not fair, I'm in the shower" My one son called from the door " no problem I've got you" and pulled out two of his change jars from his duster as he was about to leave to go cash it all in at the bank. He outfitted the entire party of 6 with change to spare.

Someone said, watch The Witcher, I think you'll like it. So, first I bought the first Witcher book so I had some background, then I watched the season. If I hadn't read the book I would have been totally confused by the show. However, even after reading, I still got bored with the show, lost interest, and stopped watching. So maybe you just explained the reason for that.

You Build All This World ... To Not Even Use Half Of It. It s frustrating, but part of the job description.

As a new D.M. I have found this very helpful, thanks. brain tangent: Your face and hair reminds me of a old friend of mine, and that couch reminds me of his house.

Tom Bombadil

These videos about the Witcher cause me no regret at all that I haven't watched the series. I knew of the game but never played it. This does make me want to read the books though.

Great video! Looking forward to part 2.

The only way to make a good witcher series is to make outside Hollywood, BBC and all alike companies. Great video.

You're talking about red herrings. Something that draws attention and or focus that ultimately has nothing to do with the macguffin.

I hate the macguffin more than the failed Chekhov's Gun. Thankfully there are a lot of stories that have done these very well.

I once took a rest in a strange forest during my travel. I made a fire to warm myself and cook some supper for me. As I watched for my kettle boiling, a beast walked from the forest to my fire and ate some of the flames from it. The beast thanked me for the food and then turned back and walked back into forest. Your turn :DDD

i'll never be a good story teller haha either i'd put too much detail or not enough, i wouldn't know where to draw the line between what is important and what is not

Excellent thoughts. How would you reconcile your advice with the intentional use of Red Herrings?

How about a glass of wine? I think my mouth staid open for that explanation well well lol I am old school

9:25 i think thats a great cauntionary tail. I want to create a mysterious story kinda like twin peaks.

Nice! I'll be checking it out when I can

I have some friends with whom I play Cogent Roleplay, till now I´ve allways done the narrator as the DM is called in this system. Because we just meet every now and then we just play oneshots. I give the a single mission and of course I place lots of jackov´s guns but they often don´t shoot with a single one and do it completely different. They choose how to solve the mission, sometimes we leave the prepared area and I have to improvise. Last mission I gave them a crossbow but they didn´t need it. I placed a shrine to communicate with the high priests, but they didn´t try to do that. I placed loads of korsars they didn´t kill one or even tried to...

Regarding Witcher - have you read the books?

In mine I asked them questions got faced with one player trying to turn this into a video game instead of roleplaying. Another used his wife's character as a sidekick, but since she wasn't that interested in the game it didn't effect her enjoyment. The last player was happy to keep quiet and in retrospect I think I should have focused on him specifically as he was the only one by the end felt like he was actually trying to roleplay but that might be hoping one of them was invested in the game and that I cannot confirm. They didn't ask questions about the setting and barely about the game I think in at least one case they thought they were being clever instead of asking the questions they really should have been had they been interested.

It's like people who made Witcher series were sure that most of us played the games, so we know characters and places and history of that world... And, in that case, they can skip some explanations.

I feel many series do that, like Mr Robot and Lucifer. Every episode is filled with apparently important events that are actually not. Worse, the end of the episode makes the audience think that the main character suddenly made huge progress, or learned a life-changing lesson that they completely forget the next episode (like in Lucifer), or something does happen to undo all the progress (like in Mr Robot). This is why I don't enjoy that kind of show. I love watching series that don't do this, one of the most obvious examples in my head right now being Squid Game. But sadly, when an actual story is told, there is an inevitable end to that story... Edit: I am much more forgiving with the Witcher show, even if the narrative precision is not always on point, it doesn't feel as lazy as those examples mentioned above.

I disagree with your multiple choice question, not because I think it's wrong, but rather that it could be seen as an allusion to a different writing principle, that of the active protagonist. In that context, option A. could be considered a correct answer because it means your protagonist is being proactive in moving the plot forward rather than being passive or purely reactive, and you don't even need to know what "it" is being done ahead of time for it to be productive. That's not to take away from the point of your video, which is excellent BTW, just an observation on the framing device you chose to use for it. Also, when you brought up Chekhov's gun, I thought you were going to mention that dumb knife from the opening scene of the Eternals. I waited the entire movie for that "gun" to be fired, only to realize after the end credits that they completely forgot about it in the most clumsy way imaginable. Must have been too busy marking off their diversity check boxes to remember to proofread their script.

Thank you for the video. I've watched this to help me be a better writer. This is the one case where Netflix should have given creative control to its star, Henry Cavill, who knows all about the books and games. Either that or spoiler for season 2: . . . . . . . . . . . . not kill almost all of the Witchers and contradict its own anime or both.

Since we share most of the same criticism for the Witcher show, maybe we can share the same curiosity of how posible would be a Witcher kind of " class " in our world. A how realistic a Witcher would be? Minus the mutations of course and maybe using all your knowledge, gear, and RU-vid you could make a video about it, and I'll make sure to comment on it. Can't wait to see.thr next one awesome video.

Kramer. Get to the forest. Take your sword . Take your flint. Come back. Tell me what you’ve learned

Well I see the Witcher TV Show as a nice addition for already fans of the story, not something that was supposed to lure a new audience in, because in that regard, they failed miserably.

in a lineraly told story Ithink this has merit in a game though not knowing what is inportant lends realisum IE I did not know my whife would be my whife when I met her the job I took to make a bit of coin for the summer in high school I still work at today the degree I worked so hard to get I never use any more when I first learned about corona viruses ( the family ) in university they were just another in a long list of types of viruse

Late to the party but I think the Witcher cannot be saved as a show, really. they unfortunately fumbled it.

Red herrings can be tricky

I agree with the majority of your points, but I would add useless background areas to make the world actually feel alive and doesn't just revolve around the MCs. BUT, making it so that you have to visit random and pointless locations that isn't part of a quest, that is a big NO for me I rather would just do a tiny description IF the players ask.

Hmmm

I have idea, for the info about random topics(althpugh this is more for video games, it may still be worthwhile) What if you stay really specific with info about the surrounding world, but not throw it in that audiences face. Like, keep it there, just more subtle so it won't overshadow the actual story. Like little bits of pieces that are placed so that only those who want to see will see, while the story is still seen by those who just want story

At convention games I have been in it is not uncommon for the GM to put a red herring in to the game to stretch the game time.

The rum is called Kraken.

In a world where millions of people love to spew endless opinions about subjects they don’t even know anything about I laughed so hard at “I lost viewership because of that question”🤣🤣🤣

Not giving information when a player asks can also be world building, or character building rather. "What is the name of this rum?" The barkeep turns around to stack the bottle back onto the shelf. "Rum" he answers sourly. "Yes, but what is it called?" The barkeep squints at you for a moment and eventually spits on the floor. "It's called rum." he finally answers, "What do you want? Have a conversatiion with it?"

Thx for this video I'm using it currently as a checklist for my upcoming dnd campaign to see if it will be good or bad story telling

Hey I just wanna tell you I made my own Ruana Cloak because of your videos one it. I really love it, and its probably gonna end up as my got winter wear.