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Games of Thrones is dark; Disney’s Cinderella is not. Few would disagree, and many could choose confidently between them without knowing more. That’s why it’s practical to make recommendations based on how dark a story is. It’s easy to gauge, and many people have a … read more »
Oren, Mike and Chris discuss the difficulty in recreating popular storytelling tropes like main characters, mentors, and prophecies in roleplaying. They highlight TV shows with tropes that make them feel like tabletop campaigns, and swap stories about how resourceful and willful players can be. Read more »
Storytellers want to have their cake and eat it too, even if the cake is absolute perfection, and the eating is relatable flaws. The inevitable result of trying to have it both ways is a character that defies human nature. These characters have traits that … read more »
The beginning of your story can do many things, but one is more important than any other: capturing the reader’s interest. If they don’t keep reading, any other purpose – setting the tone, hinting at central themes, or whatever else – becomes pointless. As a … read more »
Your players will spend a great deal of time interacting with the non-player characters. The unpredictable nature of running an adventure means that you will be improvising NPCs as often as not. Fortunately, making them up on the spot becomes easy with practice. Read more »
What if you make up 20 pages of backstory, and your character still doesn’t feel “strong”? How can you even tell? I’m going to turn the subjective quality of “strength” into clear benchmarks by detailing six traits that strong characters have in common. Read more »
You wouldn’t want your friends to cry when they ate your cooking. You wouldn’t want to give them a prank call that made them feel they were in danger. But if they told you they cried or felt afraid while reading a story you wrote, you’d probably take that as a compliment. Read more »
Some hate them. Others revile them. But no one who hates or reviles them can deny that they are really blanking popular. If you use them to please the crowd, does it mean you are writing “junk fiction”? Read more »
The idea of a campaign that takes place almost entirely in one area is a strange one to many game masters. A stationary story presents a list of new demands on the GM, but it also creates new opportunities. It allows the players to really … read more »
Many accomplished authors and big name production companies have managed to shrink their reach, reduce their profits, and work against social justice — all at the same time! It’s called racism, and it can work for you too. I’ll show you how to write a racist story like a Hollywood pro. Read more »