In my current concept, I have a “steampunk” world that is centered around class-based slave labor, in which “modern” ideologies about freedom either never happened (history splits about 1600-1700 AD) or are severely suppressed by the established powers. As an “extreme” amateur, I do not trust myself to effectively get the story off the ground, and was wondering how to get the story off the ground, without being too cliché, as in “oopsy, this resistance person accidentally lets these incriminating documents fall into the hands of a 15-year-old “Worker” (slave)(the main character),” but does not go beyond my scope of experience in terms of literary/intellectual complexity.
Players don’t just want to win. They want to win by the skin of their teeth. They want to feel like the dragon could have eaten them and they just barely got away. So how do you create that feeling without actually killing any characters? … read more »
Torchbearer is a great game. It makes the environment feel dangerous and ensures every stash of copper pieces feels like a wondrous treasure. Torchbearer has even revitalized my interest in dungeons, something I thought was dead forever. But like any game I play a lot, I … read more »
At Mythcreants, we get many questions like “Can I avoid racial justice implications by using alien characters?” or “Is it okay to make my intelligent monster gender neutral?” To better answer questions like these, I’ll outline what you should know when making non-humans resemble marginalized people – … read more »
Having magic is such a struggle! All the muggles are out to get you, and the church keeps trying to set you on fire. Clearly, mages are oppressed. Or are they? Wes returns after a short sabbatical, just in time for us to discuss this … read more »
While individual villains will always be important, villainous organizations really propel a story to the next level. They allow for conflict on a vast scale, not to mention giving the antagonist a pocketful of minions to throw at the hero. Storytellers can also use villainous organizations … read more »
When we do a content edit, we focus on the big-picture stuff first. There’s no point in nitpicking small things that might be rewritten anyway. However, we do run into lots of problems at the wordcraft level. To help everyone improve their prose, let’s go … read more »
Since we’re lucky enough to have Ariel in the studio once again, we’ve decided to take a deep dive into common wordcraft mistakes. There’s no plot or character analysis here, just the words and punctuation on the page. Mostly, it’s how those words and punctuation … read more »
