FA+
Shop
Interactive Storytelling Clarifications
14 years ago
"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."
-William Shakespeare Okay, so the last journal I posted was, perhaps, just a little on the vague side. Honestly, the idea had just popped into my head and I threw it out there, and in hindsight I think I should have let it stew a little longer and let it cement before throwing it out there. Well, I’m going to see about rectifying that here, with some clarifications as to what it is I’d like to do, and how you all can get involved if you so desire.
Essentially, it’ll be like me writing a book, in my usual literary fashion, but with direct input from my watchers. Think of it, in a way, as playing a tabletop RPG without mechanics, with me as your GM; I tell you what’s going on, and you tell me what you’d like to do, though in the end I control what exactly the characters do. The first posting will introduce the setting, the characters/protagonists, and their current situation, all of which will be drawn from your suggestions, as I’ll get into later. There’ll be a couple hooks and potential leads to give a sense of direction, but once the ball is rolling, things will get more open ended and it really will be up to you to determine where things go.
The writing style, as I mentioned, will be not too dissimilar to the works of mine you’ve already read in my gallery. Rather than being complete short stories however, the segments will go until I feel something of a decision crossroads is reached, which I estimate to be anywhere between 1-3 pages of writing, depending on the circumstances. I plan to have them up on a regular basis, about once a week. This should give my watchers a couple days to see and suggest, and me to consider and write. What I write will go beyond just the suggestions, continuing until I feel a natural decision point has once again been reached. The segments will be left open-ended for you to comment on how you think things should proceed. Normally, this will be in the form of making suggestions as to what the character or the party as a whole should do. However, you can suggest things outside the characters’ control, though keep in mind I am the one writing it, and things will happen for a reason. There will not be a lot of random going on, but if the characters are in a market, and you want the characters to get caught up in a brawl that turns the town square into mob rule, that may happen if you suggest it.
Something I’d like to note is that, while the characters will have some pretty nice plot armor, they will not be indestructible. Your choices may well lead to character death should the narrative flow in that direction. The story will continue to progress in some manner, and there will be no total party death unless it’s, say, a climactic final battle and their combined ultimate sacrifice saves the day. Heroes don’t die in literature without a heroic end, usually, and that will apply here as well. Any suggestions by you that would obviously result in very negative consequences that go against common sense are likely to be ignored.
The main exception to the page length of my update segments will be when there is combat involved. For combat, I want to give you a bit more detailed input than usual. Now, the segments aren’t going to be so short that you have to suggest every swing, but given how quickly circumstances can change in a fight, I want to give you input whenever there is a notable shift in circumstances. Also, if you want a character to stay the course, when in combat I’ll assume they stick to the same basic task (like maintaining engagement to a particular enemy) unless suggested otherwise.
At the beginning of the project, I’ll make another journal and ask everyone for two things; preferred setting (of which I’ll provide a few potentials and you can suggest your own) and character archetypes. The later is a compromise between who is making the characters. I want you to have participation in making them, but don’t really want you to completely make them, for I don’t want any character to be someone’s character. Archetype suggestions can be as general as “The Brooding Loner” (a classic), or as thought out as “the outgoing wandering dualist with a dark past seeking redemption” (though that’s about as detailed as it should get). You can also suggest species and gender to go along with the archetype. You don’t need to suggest an archetype for every character, just give me the ones you’d like to see and I’ll try to accommodate as many as I can, potentially combining several more general archetypes into one character. Also remember, this is going to be neither parody nor satire, so try to keep suggestions at least mostly serious. Eccentric and comedy relief characters aren’t disallowed, but I will draw the line somewhere.
At certain breaks, I will collect all the postings, delete them, and assemble them into chapters to post. This will clear up my gallery and make it easier to review the story so far as see is as a cohesive work.
I hope that clarifies what I’m trying to do, and why I would like as many of you to participate as possible, though of course only if this sounds interesting to you. If you're interested, please comment. If your not, but would be if something were changed, let me know and I'll see what I can do. If you have any questions regarding this project, feel free to post them here and I’ll try to answer you as soon as I can.
Essentially, it’ll be like me writing a book, in my usual literary fashion, but with direct input from my watchers. Think of it, in a way, as playing a tabletop RPG without mechanics, with me as your GM; I tell you what’s going on, and you tell me what you’d like to do, though in the end I control what exactly the characters do. The first posting will introduce the setting, the characters/protagonists, and their current situation, all of which will be drawn from your suggestions, as I’ll get into later. There’ll be a couple hooks and potential leads to give a sense of direction, but once the ball is rolling, things will get more open ended and it really will be up to you to determine where things go.
The writing style, as I mentioned, will be not too dissimilar to the works of mine you’ve already read in my gallery. Rather than being complete short stories however, the segments will go until I feel something of a decision crossroads is reached, which I estimate to be anywhere between 1-3 pages of writing, depending on the circumstances. I plan to have them up on a regular basis, about once a week. This should give my watchers a couple days to see and suggest, and me to consider and write. What I write will go beyond just the suggestions, continuing until I feel a natural decision point has once again been reached. The segments will be left open-ended for you to comment on how you think things should proceed. Normally, this will be in the form of making suggestions as to what the character or the party as a whole should do. However, you can suggest things outside the characters’ control, though keep in mind I am the one writing it, and things will happen for a reason. There will not be a lot of random going on, but if the characters are in a market, and you want the characters to get caught up in a brawl that turns the town square into mob rule, that may happen if you suggest it.
Something I’d like to note is that, while the characters will have some pretty nice plot armor, they will not be indestructible. Your choices may well lead to character death should the narrative flow in that direction. The story will continue to progress in some manner, and there will be no total party death unless it’s, say, a climactic final battle and their combined ultimate sacrifice saves the day. Heroes don’t die in literature without a heroic end, usually, and that will apply here as well. Any suggestions by you that would obviously result in very negative consequences that go against common sense are likely to be ignored.
The main exception to the page length of my update segments will be when there is combat involved. For combat, I want to give you a bit more detailed input than usual. Now, the segments aren’t going to be so short that you have to suggest every swing, but given how quickly circumstances can change in a fight, I want to give you input whenever there is a notable shift in circumstances. Also, if you want a character to stay the course, when in combat I’ll assume they stick to the same basic task (like maintaining engagement to a particular enemy) unless suggested otherwise.
At the beginning of the project, I’ll make another journal and ask everyone for two things; preferred setting (of which I’ll provide a few potentials and you can suggest your own) and character archetypes. The later is a compromise between who is making the characters. I want you to have participation in making them, but don’t really want you to completely make them, for I don’t want any character to be someone’s character. Archetype suggestions can be as general as “The Brooding Loner” (a classic), or as thought out as “the outgoing wandering dualist with a dark past seeking redemption” (though that’s about as detailed as it should get). You can also suggest species and gender to go along with the archetype. You don’t need to suggest an archetype for every character, just give me the ones you’d like to see and I’ll try to accommodate as many as I can, potentially combining several more general archetypes into one character. Also remember, this is going to be neither parody nor satire, so try to keep suggestions at least mostly serious. Eccentric and comedy relief characters aren’t disallowed, but I will draw the line somewhere.
At certain breaks, I will collect all the postings, delete them, and assemble them into chapters to post. This will clear up my gallery and make it easier to review the story so far as see is as a cohesive work.
I hope that clarifies what I’m trying to do, and why I would like as many of you to participate as possible, though of course only if this sounds interesting to you. If you're interested, please comment. If your not, but would be if something were changed, let me know and I'll see what I can do. If you have any questions regarding this project, feel free to post them here and I’ll try to answer you as soon as I can.
Every group needs a 'heart' in my book. Someone who does the thankless tasks, keeps everyone going the same way, but doesn't lead. The glue to hold a group together. Usually they're weaker than the other parts head on. A healing cleric is the classic D&D example. That's the character I'd like to see. Though at the moment, there's no group to hold together...
If I can't get a few more in the next few weeks, this might not even get off the ground. As it is you're kinda jumping the gun with the character suggestion, but I will take note in case this does build up a little steam. I'll likely give it until the end of the month. At that point, if it's still just the two of you, no offence, but that's not really enough to generate what I intend for this.
The problem is I'm not really an outgoing, social person. So this was an idea I had to try to get some more interaction. Seriously, I'm craving an interactive story building experience of any kind, be it RPG, freeform, or something like this. The problem is I just don't know how to get it, as games seem to be oddly sparse at the comic store, despite carrying a decent selection of systems.