4 ms·

> There are techniques for writing for role-playing games that are a hybrid of planning/winging. That sounds very interesting. Do you have any links you could

> There are techniques for writing for role-playing games that are a hybrid of planning/winging. That sounds very interesting. Do you have any links you could share with more details? I've been trying to come up with a way to get some friends involved to play out some of the scenes in a book I'm working on and those techniques might really help. The only thing I've seen that sounds related is a game called "Downfall" [1]. I think it's a little too structured to use for this purpose, but I liked the concept. 1. https://lessthanthreegames.com/downfall/ https://lessthanthreegames.com/downfall/

dogprez 10y ago
Sure, there is this book "The Lazy Dungeon Master" ( http://slyflourish.com/lazydm/ http://slyflourish.com/lazydm/ ). Dungeon World also has advice on how to do something similar with its "Fronts" ( http://www.dungeon-world.com/ http://www.dungeon-world.com/ ). The writers of The Expanse based their books off of role-playing sessions they did. George R.R. Martin also was an avid role-player. I believe his Wildcards novels were based on his games in the RPG Superworld.
- aethertap 10y ago
  Dungeon World looks awesome, I'm definitely going to give that a shot. Thanks!
Jtsummers 10y ago
Regarding playing scenes with friends: What's the genre of your book? I have a couple lighter-weight RPGs to offer as suggestions. FATE - you have skills ranked as things like mediocre, expert, poor, etc. (don't recall exact terms). You roll dice to determine how well you do as modifiers (+/-/0) to your skill or attribute when appropriate. Fairly freeform character creation and play. Genreless. You can make it fit almost any genre. Dread - This is horror focused. The mechanic is a Jenga tower. If a player wants to do a non-mundane task, they pull a block, if the tower falls, that character is out of the game (dead, went mad, whatever, you choose). Tension develops as the tower gets harder to pull from. Ebook is $10-20, can't recall, got it for free for buying the print book at a convention. Very lightweight, while horror focused it is otherwise independent from your setting. Create character sheets describing their history, their skills then are "what does it make sense for them to know". Does it make sense for the programmer to be a sharpshooter? Maybe not, maybe a difficult shot requires two pulls for them. OTOH, a soldier character may only need to pull if the shot effects the story more significantly. You can wing it, but be consistent with your players.
- aethertap 10y ago
  Great, thanks for the references! There is a whole genre of tabletop RPGs that I had no idea existed out there. Dread seems like it might be a good fit. The story is still taking shape, but it's basically about a hard-case who finds redemption by helping a young family find safety in a collapsing world. Maybe similar in feel to "The Road" but with a more positive outcome.
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    Take a look at a system called Fiasco. It's a gm-less system designed around chaotic stories (not what you've got, but go with me). The concept is that you have playsets (objects, locations, types of relationships). You play out a game in the style of a movie like Fargo, where everything goes wrong. Players work together to generate the story. Each taking turns to setup or resolve scenes. Very character interaction and relationship focused. Now, I haven't done this yet, but I want to take Fiasco and create less hostile games. The format is good for this. In your case, you could give people the characters from your story, give them a location and known relationships. Give them a goal (escape the cannibals, reach the town within a week before running out of food, etc.). Then let them play with the scenario. Your players would then be bringing the characters to life. Perhaps not directly mimicking the story that you had intended, because it's more freeform and player driven, but you can maybe get an idea for how your characters actually are as people. Fiasco = Improv RPG. That's my way of describing it, at least. The rules as written are around tragic, horrible things happening to flawed people (literally, at the end of the game you roll your dice to determine your fate: worse than death, dead, in prison or similar, etc.; then you create a story to explain that fate, maybe you died in the game, maybe you died after when someone else came after you for revenge). But I have a strong feeling that this could be converted into something less tragedy focused, if you can get player buy-in.
  - rpgmaker 10y ago
    I absolutely love "The Road", it's one of my favorite post-apocalyptic movies (I haven't read the book yet).
    - 10y ago
GavinMcG 10y ago
Just reading the Dungeon World (http://www.dungeon-world.com/ http://www.dungeon-world.com/) manual will turn anyone into a better storyteller. Putting into practice is better, obviously. See especially the section about moves the GM can make.
e12e 10y ago
White Wolf's "Vampire: the Masquerade" famously took the world of role-playing by storm in the 90s. The system is aptly named "the Storytelling System". We've had some terrific stories "told" mostly based around various versions of "Mage: the Ascension". Both "Mage" and the newer "Hunters" (along with perhaps "Wraith: the Oblivion") provides decent frameworks for both realistic and supernatural settings - the secret is mostly not having too detailed rules - and be prepared to wing it. For some notes from our previous (and rather epic campaign) have a look at our GMs (now defunct) blog for the setting and role-playing in general: http://thebookofworlds.blogspot.no/ http://thebookofworlds.blogspot.no/ Overview and links to more: http://thebookofworlds.blogspot.no/p/world-of-argos.html http://thebookofworlds.blogspot.no/p/world-of-argos.html The first post about the setting (Incidentally the character that broke from the group was mine, to much later surface as "the second witness", while Franco earned the title of "the first witness"): http://thebookofworlds.blogspot.no/2009/08/boom-headshot.html http://thebookofworlds.blogspot.no/2009/08/boom-headshot.htm...

dogprez 10y ago

Sure, there is this book "The Lazy Dungeon Master" ( http://slyflourish.com/lazydm/ http://slyflourish.com/lazydm/ ). Dungeon World also has advice on how to do something similar with its "Fronts" ( http://www.dungeon-world.com/ http://www.dungeon-world.com/ ). The writers of The Expanse based their books off of role-playing sessions they did. George R.R. Martin also was an avid role-player. I believe his Wildcards novels were based on his games in the RPG Superworld.

aethertap 10y ago
Dungeon World looks awesome, I'm definitely going to give that a shot. Thanks!

Jtsummers 10y ago

Regarding playing scenes with friends: What's the genre of your book? I have a couple lighter-weight RPGs to offer as suggestions. FATE - you have skills ranked as things like mediocre, expert, poor, etc. (don't recall exact terms). You roll dice to determine how well you do as modifiers (+/-/0) to your skill or attribute when appropriate. Fairly freeform character creation and play. Genreless. You can make it fit almost any genre. Dread - This is horror focused. The mechanic is a Jenga tower. If a player wants to do a non-mundane task, they pull a block, if the tower falls, that character is out of the game (dead, went mad, whatever, you choose). Tension develops as the tower gets harder to pull from. Ebook is $10-20, can't recall, got it for free for buying the print book at a convention. Very lightweight, while horror focused it is otherwise independent from your setting. Create character sheets describing their history, their skills then are "what does it make sense for them to know". Does it make sense for the programmer to be a sharpshooter? Maybe not, maybe a difficult shot requires two pulls for them. OTOH, a soldier character may only need to pull if the shot effects the story more significantly. You can wing it, but be consistent with your players.

aethertap 10y ago
Great, thanks for the references! There is a whole genre of tabletop RPGs that I had no idea existed out there. Dread seems like it might be a good fit. The story is still taking shape, but it's basically about a hard-case who finds redemption by helping a young family find safety in a collapsing world. Maybe similar in feel to "The Road" but with a more positive outcome.
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  Take a look at a system called Fiasco. It's a gm-less system designed around chaotic stories (not what you've got, but go with me). The concept is that you have playsets (objects, locations, types of relationships). You play out a game in the style of a movie like Fargo, where everything goes wrong. Players work together to generate the story. Each taking turns to setup or resolve scenes. Very character interaction and relationship focused. Now, I haven't done this yet, but I want to take Fiasco and create less hostile games. The format is good for this. In your case, you could give people the characters from your story, give them a location and known relationships. Give them a goal (escape the cannibals, reach the town within a week before running out of food, etc.). Then let them play with the scenario. Your players would then be bringing the characters to life. Perhaps not directly mimicking the story that you had intended, because it's more freeform and player driven, but you can maybe get an idea for how your characters actually are as people. Fiasco = Improv RPG. That's my way of describing it, at least. The rules as written are around tragic, horrible things happening to flawed people (literally, at the end of the game you roll your dice to determine your fate: worse than death, dead, in prison or similar, etc.; then you create a story to explain that fate, maybe you died in the game, maybe you died after when someone else came after you for revenge). But I have a strong feeling that this could be converted into something less tragedy focused, if you can get player buy-in.
- rpgmaker 10y ago
  I absolutely love "The Road", it's one of my favorite post-apocalyptic movies (I haven't read the book yet).
  - 10y ago

GavinMcG 10y ago

Just reading the Dungeon World (http://www.dungeon-world.com/ http://www.dungeon-world.com/) manual will turn anyone into a better storyteller. Putting into practice is better, obviously. See especially the section about moves the GM can make.

e12e 10y ago

White Wolf's "Vampire: the Masquerade" famously took the world of role-playing by storm in the 90s. The system is aptly named "the Storytelling System". We've had some terrific stories "told" mostly based around various versions of "Mage: the Ascension". Both "Mage" and the newer "Hunters" (along with perhaps "Wraith: the Oblivion") provides decent frameworks for both realistic and supernatural settings - the secret is mostly not having too detailed rules - and be prepared to wing it. For some notes from our previous (and rather epic campaign) have a look at our GMs (now defunct) blog for the setting and role-playing in general: http://thebookofworlds.blogspot.no/ http://thebookofworlds.blogspot.no/ Overview and links to more: http://thebookofworlds.blogspot.no/p/world-of-argos.html http://thebookofworlds.blogspot.no/p/world-of-argos.html The first post about the setting (Incidentally the character that broke from the group was mine, to much later surface as "the second witness", while Franco earned the title of "the first witness"): http://thebookofworlds.blogspot.no/2009/08/boom-headshot.html http://thebookofworlds.blogspot.no/2009/08/boom-headshot.htm...