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Messages - josiahduke

#1
I would rather not make the Starch available as a kindle or e-book; I think it's just something I'd rather share with friends, and would rather not think about profiting from it (or letting any potential publishers know I wrote). However, I am very much in favor of a handsome printed copy. I think that Dan might be the only one of our friend group who might be interested in getting a copy.

I have the entire saga in a Scrivener document, which should make it easy to clean up, create internal consistency, and create a good proofing copy, if nothing else. (Trae, do you have Scrivener? And if not, why?? It is the best app for writers).

I also have an old map of the Starch I made around Part III.
#2
The Grey Horse Tavern / Re: Fall of Magic
May 09, 2016, 06:45:31 PM
Thank you!

I liked this game because it took the burden of being the "storyteller" off of one person, and made it so the whole group could participate in the story. Whenever I do an RPG or any interactive fiction, I always feel kinda sad for the storyteller, or wish for myself that I could play a character in the story too. Fall of Magic made it possible to both participate in the *story* and make it as a group. So I guess that it is a fundamentally different kind of experience.

For times when I want to have a more direct part in making the story, in crafting / authoring / taking more responsibility, I'd lean hard on my interactive fiction. When I'd like to make something with the group, I'd go straight to something like Fall of Magic or Fiasco, where everyone has a say in what's true about the world.

I think on how, when we had our highest moment in interactive fiction (that one game with Agaistin [sp?] and Tyrmanus and Bane), even then we were kind of breaking the single storyteller / player mold and played it in a way that had the group all participating. It meant the story was comprised of a bunch of smaller threads, with all the characters separated. We only converged at the end.

For someone who can think up an entire world like FoM's, make your own scroll, make your own world, but try playing it collaboratively with the FoM engine, and see how that feels. That might be my personal ideal. It might not be yours.

We should get together and play sometime.
#3
The Grey Horse Tavern / Fall of Magic
May 06, 2016, 03:22:17 PM
Hey all! I write reviews on tabletop games, and in my latest piece, I wrote some about an awesome RPG called Fall of Magic. I even wrote some about my experiences playing Interactive Fiction with Trae back in college. Check it out!

https://killscreen.com/articles/fall-of-magic-turns-everyone-into-a-gifted-author/

Fall of Magic is the kind of free form storytelling you could do with your friends on the floor just about anywhere. Play some Howard Shore soundtracks in the background, light a few candles, and unroll the scroll. As an engine for creating stories it's deceptively slight. From the rulebook: "Someone may ask, 'Is a Raven like the bird?' or 'What is a Crab Singer?' To this we reply: 'It means what you want it to mean.'"

This open-handed approach extends to the rules. A six-sided dice is included but rarely used, and the rest of the game world's description is confined to brief prompts on the scroll's scratchy parchment. Certain areas prompt conflict, or drastic character change, but the method and execution is always in the hands of the players. The hazy illustrations and brief prompts function much like stage suggestions in improv; this is a world and a story you are building with your fellow players, and it can be anything you want it to be.
#4
I think that's the right lineup. I'm not missing anyone; we can do a sweep when we have the full set.

Conceptually, I'm unsure what the final frontier for this last installment should be. Are we gonna parody sci fi now? Or are we going to do like JJ Abrams did and Force-Awakens this, return it to the roots, back to basics, what everyone loved about it, etc. I will just sit down and write it, but since we're in the planning stage, and it's a fundamental thing, I'd like your input, Trae.

Basically: do we want to loop back to any earlier parts, make this a victory lap kinda thing, or do we surge forward into new areas of parody? I'm playing a lot of cyberpunk hacking games right now, so sci fi might just be the next/last/final thing.

We have Quem. We have this modwyvern. Will we bring back Berbil?

Hmmm. I think I might return to some of the stuff we had in Part V--which was, in my opinion, the strongest Starch to date. We took our best risks in that one, and I actually loved a lot of the characters. But the Starch is always characterized (ha) by a rotating cast of joke-party members who get remixed/reshuffled in later installments.

No matter where we go, we have to bring back Berbil, in my opinion.

Let it be known I very seriously considered writing this entire post in Donald Trump's stilted dialectic.

--Duke