Interview: Rolling the Dice with Spiral of Bones Writer Crystal Frasier

For many, role-playing games, (no, not that kind, get your mind from out of the gutter), are a re: great to flex their creative muscles.Â For years, people have been battling ogres, space marines, super villains and even the Evil Empire!Â Pathfinder have built on 10 years worth of experience, taking the Dungeons and Dragons model and building new worlds for new generations of cavaliers, thieves, rangers, acrobats, magicians, barbarians and everything in between, not to mention the occasional owlbear!

Now, former production specialist Crystal Frasier, writer of the critically acclaimed The Harrowing is giving fans of Pathfinder a change to follow a more linear approach to story telling, with new comic series Spiral of Bones due to be released in partnership with Dynamite Entertainment.

Here at Comic Crusaders, we caught up with Crystal to discuss, comics, role-playing, the relationship between both mediums and being typecast as a Wookiee

Crystal Frasier: There are a lot of great aspects to RPG work: You get to play around in rich, shared universes and present weird, compelling, over-the-top scenarios, but I think the unique appeal is that your job is all about setting up the empowerment for others, instead of showcasing your own personal protagonists. Your writing sets up all these exciting scenarios that might work out the way you expect, but more often than not go off the rails when you finally hear about peoples“ experiences with them in the real world. I“ve heard stories about people playing through my adventures and just been blown away by how they solve problems and find solutions! My job isn“t for me to be awesome; it“s to help other people find their own awesome. I love that.

CC: With the interactive-ness of role-playing, do you find you need to try an encapsulate alternative story elements/ending? How difficult is that?

CF: With prose or comics, you can have the characters notice or discover things whenever you want, but in an RPG you need to think more like a mystery writer: Understand what your antagonists did and why, what traces they left behind, and how protagonists might uncover them. Sometimes you get to be direct””an old, hooded figure in a tavern tells you the dungeon back story and location””but usually you need to figure out ways to work story elements into character dialogue, area descriptions, or just revealing it to the player who runs the game and trust them to parcel out that information to their group.

Roleplaying games tend to be as much about the journey as the ending, so thankfully you generally only need to give some impression of the consequences for failure and the rewards of victory. Gamers are a creative lot and fill in a lot of the surrounding interest and consequence themselves. So a lot of my focus is on creating iconic opponents with relatable goals.

CC: I recently reviewed, Freeway Fighter from Titan Books and I asked the writer of that book this same question ”“ is the greatest worry when you write a role-playing story as a comic, as you lose that interactive element?

CF: Those old Fighting Fantasy books were fun, and yes, you do give up the interactivity that the source material is built around. In a roleplaying game players get to pick where to go and what to do, and obviously trying to do that in a comic would be a terrible strain on the artists. You lose that breadth, and the ability for readers to pour themselves into your world through their own avatar. You have to compensate with relatable characters readers can still see themselves in, and adding depth and character to the world that fans don“t normally get to see through the lens of the gaming table. I think the art really shines in that regard.

CC: Do you actually play the games, if so which ones are you currently playing?

CF: Oh yes. I“ve been gaming since high school. These days it can be hard to find the time to game weekly like we used to, but my Pathfinder group is playing through the Hell“s Rebels Adventure Path, freeing a city from the control of devil-worshipping conquerors. I“m also playing in a Star Wars game, playing a Wookiee mercenary. You get typecast a lot when you can do a Wookiee yell.

CC: Man, I wish this was a podcast now, just to hear the yell. What makes Pathfinder standout over its competition?

CF: Pathfinder“s goal from the beginning was to create a space to play whatever kind of game you want to play. The rule-set is designed to be flexible, with lots of options to build flavourful characters, and the world is created to showcase a huge variety of stories and themes. The comics have generally only shown one small corner of the world, but Golarion includes evil nations ruled by devil-worshippers, fairie-haunted primeval forests, steam-punk gunslinger battle magic mutants, and sword-and-planet alien worlds.

CC: I assume that as a writer on a game you have your own idea of how the world should look.Â How does that compare then working with an artist how may decipher your stories a certain way?

CF: When you work on any kind of shared world, the first thing you accept is that there“s no one, true vision of the world, and that your input is just as valid as every other writer or artist who works on the project. It doesn“t help anyone to compare your vision for a shared world to other contributors; you“re all pooling your strengths, and in this case Tom Garcia“s visuals are definitely a great strength. His work is rich and detailed and really brings the world to life better than I could have asked for.

CC: Dynamite are putting out some great books at the moments.Â How is it working with them?

CF: Dynamite have been wonderful to live with; Kind, encouraging, enthusiastic, and very accommodating. I hope I can eventually meet a few of the team I“ve been working with in-person.

CC: Within the traditional role playing world, what are your favourite creatures?Â

CF: I am a sucker for the owlbear, which is exactly what it sounds like on the label: a weird, hybrid mutant with the body of a bear and the head of giant owl. It“s just such a ridiculous combination, you can“t help but love it. Like a pug!

CC: What“s next for you?

CF: There are always a few projects on the back-burner. I“ve been working on the new War for the Crown Adventure Path for the Pathfinder roleplaying game, which starts next month. I have a few comic ideas I want to pitch once I have a published sample of my comic writing to show off.

Sounds like as plan and with such a great book to dhow, I am sure your pitches will be fantastic.

Pathfinder: Spiral of Bones is due to hit stores on 21st March!

Author Profile

Johnny "The Machine" Hughes

I am a long time comic book fan, being first introduced to Batman in the mid to late 70's. This led to a appreciation of classic artists like Neal Adams and Jim Aparo. Moving through the decades that followed, I have a working knowledge of a huge raft of characters with a fondness for old school characters like JSA and The Shadow

Currently reading a slew of Bat Books, enjoying a mini Marvel revival, and the host of The Definative Crusade and Outside the Panels whilst also appearing on No-Prize Podcast on the Undercover Capes Podcast Network