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mbarkerWriting Excuses 12.42: Adapting Your Stories for Game Play, with Alan Bahr
From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2017/10/15/12-42-adapting-your-stories-for-game-play-with-alan-bahr/
Key Points: Turning a story into a game? First, understand the tactile feel, the idea of the story. What is the experience of the reader? The game should feel like your story when someone plays it. What is that feeling? Games are 2nd person narratives with the player as protagonist. Don't break the player's self-image! RPGs use emergent narrative, with a story emerging from the players. To encourage this, use mechanics, such as plot points, and social manipulation, with the game master and other players comments and questions. Avoid putting the player on rails, where the narrative is not influenced by the players, but just marches along. Let the game and the narrative evolve through actions and consequences.
( Roll the dice, and pick your trouble... )
[Howard] We are out of time. Who's got our writing prompt?
[Alan] That would be me. I would… So my writing prompt this week… As a game designer, I don't write a lot of fiction or prose, but I consider narrative and approach to narrative a lot in how I design things. So my writing prompt to you is to write down three rules about your world or your story or your game that are unbreakable, and then find ways to break them without actually legally breaking them. Try to circumvent your own rules inside the rules that you've created.
[Howard] Outstanding. Sorry. Sitting here with my mind blown, wondering how my players are going to try and break the rules of the game that we created. I'm sure they already have. Fair listener, this has been Writing Excuses, you are out of excuses. Now go write.
From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2017/10/15/12-42-adapting-your-stories-for-game-play-with-alan-bahr/
Key Points: Turning a story into a game? First, understand the tactile feel, the idea of the story. What is the experience of the reader? The game should feel like your story when someone plays it. What is that feeling? Games are 2nd person narratives with the player as protagonist. Don't break the player's self-image! RPGs use emergent narrative, with a story emerging from the players. To encourage this, use mechanics, such as plot points, and social manipulation, with the game master and other players comments and questions. Avoid putting the player on rails, where the narrative is not influenced by the players, but just marches along. Let the game and the narrative evolve through actions and consequences.
( Roll the dice, and pick your trouble... )
[Howard] We are out of time. Who's got our writing prompt?
[Alan] That would be me. I would… So my writing prompt this week… As a game designer, I don't write a lot of fiction or prose, but I consider narrative and approach to narrative a lot in how I design things. So my writing prompt to you is to write down three rules about your world or your story or your game that are unbreakable, and then find ways to break them without actually legally breaking them. Try to circumvent your own rules inside the rules that you've created.
[Howard] Outstanding. Sorry. Sitting here with my mind blown, wondering how my players are going to try and break the rules of the game that we created. I'm sure they already have. Fair listener, this has been Writing Excuses, you are out of excuses. Now go write.
