The Fantaserye as RPG Inspiration

Sometime last year, our friend Shao Han visited Manila from Singapore as part of our #RPGSEA movement. We chanced upon a billboard of La Luna Sangre while we were showing him around the city. As we were discussing the various genres of RPG storytelling, Shao naturally expressed interest in the show and whether or not it was about magic or passion. I was, however, dismissive of it as yet another local attempt to copy the tropes of an American IP (Twilight and maybe WoD's Werewolf, in this case), anchored around a bankable "love team." For his part, Shao was then curious as to why I would be dismissive of it, when I was otherwise a mouthpiece for Filipino storytelling.

Perhaps I haven't given fantaseryes their proper due.

Before we proceed, here are a couple of terms.

A teleserye is an Philippine adaptation of the Spanish telenovela. The usual tropes of evil twins, exchanged babies, rags-to-riches, and love triangles are all common, but it is also localized to showcase Filipino cultures, norms, and ad marketability.

A fantaserye is a subgenre of the teleserye that includes fantastical tropes to further their story. Teleseryes that use traditional fantasy tropes are included here, but this can also include urban fantasy, superhero, and even sci-fi or horror tropes.

A love team is a pairing of talents who are, essentially, a package deal. They will almost always be cast together, as their "will they or won't they" real-life chemistry leads them to have a group of fans that will form the core audience for a new teleserye.

So, let's get on with it. After my conversation with Shao, I mulled over why I have a prejudice against the teleserye format in general. My canned reasons are shoddy/copycat writing, overused cinematography, and subpar acting. But is that a fair assessment?

Shitty Script?

In exploring the fantaserye, I talked to my friend +Phil Corpuz, who is a Creative Writing major. He explained to me that many of the storytelling "flaws" of the teleserye medium are done by design. As an example, some details or events get repeated very often over the course of several weeks, either as straight-up flashbacks or as part of other characters' dialogues. This is deliberate. 

The basic line of argument being, the hired help or homemaking mom is not likely to be glued to the screen, but will be moving between various chores, both listening and watching. So repetition of key plot points, as well as redundant audio and video cues keep the entire thing digestible.

En Villiasis, a senior writer for the upcoming fantaserye Bagani, agrees that this repetition is one of the considerations in the pacing of a teleserye. But he says that this is one of the areas in which fantaserye actually differs from its teleserye roots.

Ganyan nga ang design ng teleserye, yung kahit nakikinig ka lang habang naghuhugas ng pinggan nasusundan mo siya. Pero iba ang approach sa fantaserye. Kailangan maging colorful siya, kailangan mong ma-glue sa screen ang tao. The moment na maging marami ang kuwentuhan mo, mas bumibitaw sila. Kailangang ma-engage sila na kapag action scene kailangan nilang tumakbo sa screen at manood. 

(That's part of the design of the teleserye, you have to be able to follow the plot while you're washing the dishes. But the approach is different in a fantaserye. It needs to be colorful, and you have to get the viewers glued to the screen. The moment dialogue becomes too long, your viewers will drop. You need to engage them so that when action scenes happen, they run back to the screed to watch the spectacle.)

It seems to me that there is a definite process that goes into teleserye script writing: The nuances of which are informed by corporate production natures and free TV distributions. Again from En,

Yung simplification actually ang pinaka-challenge. Alam mo naman sa world building habang mas complex siya, mas colorful siya. Pero para yan sa novel or film where the audience/reader has the time na ulit-ulitin ang mga detalye na yun para mas maunawaan nila.

Pero sa TV, as much as possible, dapat gets na nila agad kung ano ang mundo na yun. Kaya ganyan namin siya prinsenta. 

(The simplification is actually the biggest challenge. As you know, the more complex worlds tend to be the more colorful. But that's for novels and films where the audience/reader has the time to review the details so that they can understand better. 

But for TV, as much as possible they have to understand the presented world as soon as possible. So that's why the presentation tends to be simpler.)

My takeaway from this is that teleseryes in general would would only take measured risks. You need audience immersion from a target demographic that would not necessarily have the time to invest in a series in a way that geek circles do for their fandoms. So it is less a case of bad script writing and more of an acceptance of the realities of the medium.

Bad Acting?

My most recent personal experience with a fantaserye was Amaya, which showed back in 2011. Incidentally, this coincided with my viewing of the first season of Game of Thrones, so I cannot help but subconsciously compare the two. (This is a bad idea - Amaya and GoT are pretty much apples and oranges.) You would think that Amaya would get beat-stomped on the acting department, and in truth, very few local actors can probably hold a candle to the likes of Peter Dinklage. But the senior actors of Amaya in particular were actually quite good - Gardo Versoza for example threw himself into the role of the vicious Rajah Mangubat!

But yes, let's be upfront with it: The acting of Marian Rivera as the titular Amaya was horrendous. I don't know how she is as an actress these days, but in 2011 she was cast in roles mostly because her stock at the time as a product endorser was through the roof. And really, the Filipino artista is only a part-time actress. If you want to make it locally, you have to be able to sing, dance, host in variety shows, and most importantly, endorse. Acting just has to be passable, if at that.

The ironic thing though, is that the choice of lead for teleseryes in the coveted primetime slots are invariably the best endorsers, which tend to be the young and marketable talents whose acting crafts may not yet well-honed. They are the cast choices who are likely to come with a fanbase that will form their core audience.

Despite my low opinion of Marian's performance here, I thoroughly enjoyed this series (because I'm a precolonial fantasy nut) and I will always recommend this to people looking into the fantaserye medium.

(If I remember correctly, Amaya did not win the 2011 ratings war. It's less because of the acting though, and more because it was going against the Mara Clara remake on the other network.)

Shitty Cinematography?

Admittedly, this particular criticism is something that I have only observed secondhand. My current exposure to teleseryes are limited to the occasional commercial that makes its way to YouTube, or snippets of shows that I see in others' treadmills when I'm on the gym. But from that experience, I do seem to notice some overused tropes: An important reveal is followed by a rapid succession of zoom-ins to each major character's faces, the narrator for ABS-CBN shows will always be that guy, and... that's it, off the top of my head. 

And the way I see it, yeah, they're overused. But I think that's more of an identity thing. Bollywood films for example, have a particular aesthetic and over-the-top action cinematography that are seen as lovely quirks rather than flows. I think a similar stance can be taken for our teleseryes. 

But like I said, cinematography is not exactly my thing. It barely affects my own storytelling style as an RPG GM. So I may be talking out of my arse.

Happy Ending?

I will just touch upon this here, as I haven't watched enough fantaseryes to definitively say. I think the aversion to happy endings is misguided, and it is not an indicator of the quality of a story at all. Besides, Amaya didn't have a happy ending. Teleseryes may overwhelmingly favor happy endings, and I don't see anything wrong with that.

Fantaseryes are an acceptable storytelling medium.

I have come to conclude that my previous disdain for the fantaserye is misguided. But where did this disdain come from? Surely I did not always feel this way - I went and watched Amaya seven years ago, after all. My current hypothesis is that it is a disdain ingrained to my lifestyle as a middle class (self-professed) intellectual: The medium simply isn't designed with people like me as the target demographic.

And yet, by avoiding the medium, I also inadvertently distance myself from a possible source of inspiration for RPGs. If you think about it, the two storytelling mediums are actually pretty similar. RPG worldbuilding needs to balance color of complexity with the simplicity of description. The fantasy needs vibrance to maintain audience interest. The characters need to be steeped in the realities of the fictional world. 

So I've decided to give another fantaerye a shot in an effort to mine it for RPG ideas. In this case, my show of choice will be Bagani, a story set in a fictional world called Sansinukob, which seems to draw inspiration from Filipino cues. (Although the costumes sand props seem to have been drawn from a lot of other cultures, as will.) The show is slated to replace the La Luna Sangre, which is concluding very soon.

A Word on Bagani

As of this writing, it is pretty much impossible to talk about Bagani without touching upon the negative buzz that it is experiencing. Inquirer has a pretty good article that looks at the issue here. But at the heart of it are two different but related concerns. So here are my opinions regarding them.

There is a lack of diversity in casting actors and actresses, and there is a bias for lighter-skinned, mixed-heritage talents. I think it the calls for better representation are fair, and I think they should continue. But I also think that Bagani, being a new fantaserye, will go for its current most bankable stars. Currently, that's Liza Soberano with her golden endorsements and as someone who's topped some "most beautiful faces" lists for 2017. (You also get Enrique Gil by default since they're a love team.) 

Basically Bagani is the end result. Someday, it would be nice to see brown Filipinos with as much marketable stock as Liza. But for that to happen, the drive for diversity, I think, should best start in the networks' acting academies.  

Nationality is being conflated with ethnicity. This one gets at me personally because I do not have the traditional brown skin of the Filipino. But the Philippines is a country with a 400-year history of colonialism, and even prior to that we were already a melting pot of different cultures and races. It is impractical to assume that the Filipino nationality is defined by brown skin.

On that note, Liza's infamous defense of her heritage can be properly contextualized. Any self-identifying Filipino will be stung by accusations that they aren't, even if that wasn't the locus of the argument. (As a tangent, ask Filipino-Chinese folks about F. Sionil Jose's comments about them sometime.) And the sinigang part? Fil-Ams, migrants, and OFWs who have been away from the Motherland for years will often associate home with local food - it is one of the few accessible things that can remind you of the Philippines through all five senses.

Watching Fantaseryes, Playing RPGs

If you want to run a fantaserye-inspired RPG, what is the best system to use? I went back to talk to En, who happens to also be into the RPG hobby, about what tropes are important to showcase in a fantaserye RPG. After some back-and-forth, here's what we came up with:

• Your typical fantasy/sci-fi/supers tropes, depending on your chosen "world"
• Character-centric narratives, as opposed to world-exploration games
• Love teams will fall under here, though a love pairing in itself is optional
• Clear good and evil factions
• A character can likely start with an evil faction, but be part of the "good guys" towards the end of the story as part of the character-centric narrative.

These tropes are just screaming for a Fate Core game! Relationship aspects can be a good peg for exploring interpersonal relationships, and Fate is, essentially, a character-centric game. I've also been itching for a game of Fate where Mental Stress can have its own spotlight, and Drama is a good reason for doing "mental attacks."

I also just bought the Fate Adversary Toolkit,
and I would like to use it.

So in summary, here's the plan:

• Watch Bagani.
• Make a ton of world aspects, either to represent Sansinukob or to create my own fantaserye setting.
• Build NPCs with the help of the Adversary Toolkit. 
• Create a pool of player resources, from sample PC aspects to Stunts representing fighting styles to Extras for magic.
• Run a fantaserye-themed Fate game! Should I stream it?

Supplemental Reading:

• Love in the Time of the Teleserye by Louie Jon A. Sánchez
• Facebook: Crowdsourcing opinions and feelings on Bagani by Noey Pico