Still planning on going with Primetime Adventures for the main story-driver/ task resolution system, backed by Mythic and a bevy of backup inspiration/scrying tools should I need/desire them.
Seen here: Mythic tables, Amazing Story Generator, The Storymatic, Rory's Story Cubes original and Actions cubes, Paizo GameMastery Plot Twist Cards, (not for the D20/rules stuff, though that's cool too) Everway fortune deck (will always love this, may need to laminate or sleeve one day soon...) Deck of Fate for aspects and possibly for rolls, though I won't explicitly be using any Fate system (surely I'll borrow ideas like fractal aspects to full blown characters and one hit/low description mooks though...) RPG Inspiration Cards for similar reasons to the other gaming card tools... And the tower with a standard selection of poly dice just for kicks.
And a moleskine for quickly taking notes on rapid fire situations, dialogue outlines and gameplay.
Ironically not seen here: a standard deck of playing cards, as I'll be going all digital with those. Using a free iOS app called Card Flip. Seems to work pretty well, no ads.
Still need to print out some of the tables/cheat sheets from PTA!
At this point I'm leaning toward using a wiki for the eventual conversion into straight fiction while linking chapters of fiction to mechanical/sketchy fiction notes. Thanks to the folks who tipped me in that direction, it really does make more sense than simply blogging. I may still blog my session notes, but the resultant fiction will be much more rich (not to mention navigable!) in wiki format. If it actually ends up being worth the effort it would also likely be easier to convert to epub or kindle format, or likewise for any similar future project that derives process from this experiment.
Ok this game is probably going to come off as super cheesy and Hollywood, completely inaccurate and very politically incorrect to people truly in the know about such things (MAJOR otaku!) but hopefully it'll at least be a bit less phony than, say, 24. At least I can make my computer/software/network tech more realistic!
ReplyDeleteI'll do my best to portray all politics and cultural details faithfully, but I'm bound to screw some of it up. I certainly don't want to paint any one group as "the good guys", and that's one of the main themes of the series: gray areas, conflict of personal and emotional interests vs social/ group benefit. Family, friends and/or religious vs national and patriotic duty. How these can all come into conflict with one another and how each person tries to rationalize his or her own decisions and actions within their own tangled frameworks they've all woven to make some sense out of the chaos; and how espionage is really just a fancier, more strategic and potentially lethal version of what everyone goes through every day.
I'm really excited. Got a few scenes sketched with room to flex a good bit and a bullet list of future episode topics, plus readied a character list, thread list and scene setup on my first Mythic playsheet. Printing PTA sheets tomorrow!
Straight off the dome for the initial scene ideas, then three "future episode" ideas from three Plot Twist cards, then one fairly down-the-road (like maybe a season cliffhanger?) idea from a roll of Rory's iOS dice.
Ye Gods man! I use less to TEACH!!!
ReplyDeleteNice though, very nice! Allow me to recommend the Mythic Solo App for google docs.
Ovy Ortega yeah, it's just accumulated over time. Since I haven't used much of it for real yet, I'm kind of going to be engaging in little spurts of activity with random bits of kit and hopefully I'll get a feel for which items work best for me, which are more useful as very rare oracles, and which I should just get rid of, already!
ReplyDeleteI am really almost already there (ready to let it go) with the cubes but they're so nice for demoing to others. But the app version of them is so good I almost never open that magnetic box...
I have gotten a lot of mileage out of the fortune deck, Mythic (including while GMing a more traditional game) and those Plot Twists went pretty far with very little effort. I have a feeling the RPG Inspiration cards will prove less fruitful and I think Storymatic and Story Generator will be less frequently consulted. Their utility is either more constrained: Generator issues a complex 3-part one sentence hook, but it tends to be overly focused and not easy to reskin. Storymatic has [multiple variant] ritual that goes along with card draws and while more varied/perhaps more customizable, it starts you off with some pretty specific scenarios. They'd both be great for kicking off a story or game with no established premise.
One thing I didn't mention here that may actually be more useful and still very malleable/adaptable is Eureka by the Gnome Stew guys. I only have a digital copy right now but I remember it having some terrific ideas with plenty of advise on hacking/recontextualizing the content within and source material in general. Should sift through that before too long.
Nick Carter, that is awesome. I sense we are on the same vibe of fusing writing with RPG mechanics. The dice, the rules, the mechanics are a rocket booster to the writing. They extend the thrill of RPG (what is behind that corner?, is that door a trap?, what is in the inviting chest?, how does our hero defeat that monstrosity?) to the sometimes empty chamber of writing. Sometimes in the written word, we are prisoners of our freedom. Our universe of thoughts just needs a game master. I would dare to say there is comfort in having a Game master in my writing. After all, don't we always need someone to blame?
ReplyDeleteLike teaching, when I started out I wanted to use everything. Cover every rule, roll every die, set up an entire party of characters that went carousing into an ever-expanding dungeon (homage to john yorio and his solo-ing). But the writing got bogged down in the mechanics. The rules and systems felt like sludge where I wanted it to be near-frictionless fiction. Now I use simple fudge ranks and link them to Mythic's Likely rankings. Being that my journey is called 'Rogue of Changes' I allow any and all sudden divination or divination-like practices to flow into the soup. This includes I Ching, tarot, runes, playing cards, story dice, a scene out the window, something on the tele, or poop on my car. It all gets thrown in, very much like the strange casserole one makes from a randomly stocked pantry.
Fortunately I very much enjoy eating and writing mistakes!
Btw, how does one go about getting a GM screen like that?
ReplyDelete+1 for "where do you get a folder like that" for the screen? That'd be super handy
ReplyDeleteMatt Quinton mentioned elsewhere by now, but it's a The World's Greatest Screen by Hammerdog Games: http://hammerdog.com/twgs/
ReplyDeleteBadass.
Ovy Ortega I haven't read much yet, but I caught a post on using I Ching on your site, I believe. Definitely feel you in using mechanics to facilitate and give structure to sometimes nebulous thoughts, while still wanting freedom to shirk those bonds at times and just revel in freeform.
ReplyDeleteMy intent is to use any system as a guide rather than ties that bind and gag. One of the reasons I'm going with PTA is just how light - and drama-enforcing/encouraging - the rules are.
Not this time round but certainly in pasty squelched attempts I've made use of Fate Core characters' crossed paths, and would use Dungeon World's bonds similarly.
Having very recently picked up a copy of Christian Mehrstam's Whitehack notebook edition, I'm thinking the game and specifically the book - which has random tables a la Lone Wolf to optionally use in place of dice and over a hundred pages of blank journal space, a somewhat rules light, somewhat crunchy system, example campaign settings and adventures and seemingly lots of advice for players and GMs (haven't read but a few pages, I'm a newbie) - could easily make for a great solo play system/tool/product. Just bring your imagination, a copy of the notebook version and a pen or pencil and you're good to go!
I thought I was the one and only that had a copy of Everway!
ReplyDeletePicked it up when it was brand new, as well as a handful of vision card packs from the "expansion"
ReplyDeleteI love so many ideas from the game.
Quite a setup! I have to say I'm interested in your (eventual) system notes, just to see how all that works together in practice.
ReplyDeleteGerard Nerval as of yet I'm mostly just taking narrative/dialogue notes on preparation, figure the bulk of actual play will be this too.
ReplyDeleteI imagine what I'll end up doing is developing a notation scheme for indicating when stat checks/Mythic questions/various oracular consultations are made, the stat checked/question asked/card drawn or whatever in the margins of the narrative. Likely indicate stat changes (hp or similar in games that use it, aspects created/modified/removed where applicable) similarly.
Ditto for any mooks rolled up on the fly, and so on. It'll be nice for two reasons: it'll serve as documentation of the whys behind the whats and hows, and it'll serve for subsequent inspiration when translating my shorthand notes into lengthier story form and perhaps help me further refine my interpretation and technique down the road.
If I do develop a true shorthand (for narrative notes, for mechanical logs, the whole bit) I will likely document this as well.
Still not sure whether I'm gonna keep notes entirely on paper for actual play. It's the current thinking as I seem to be more productive/less distractable that way, even if I'm not always faster than taking digital notes. If I do stay analog for notes, I may start off just scanning/photographing my notebook for posterity, as converting to digital only to then expand on lots more is not exactly my idea of a good time. Either way the plan is to link source notes to resultant long form material eventually.
Nick Carter what do you have on the gm screen, noticed you have three fate pages and what is that last one?
ReplyDeleteOvy Ortega that Fate Chart (and two other reference pages) is actually from Mythic.
ReplyDeleteI did have a page from The Creature Crafter, but I've since removed it. I've now added the useful reference flowchart and result tables from Primetime Adventures to the opposite side.
This is one of the points of awesome for The World's Greatest Screen - it has 4 additional slots on the reverse side in addition to the ones you see in the pictures. Getting the folds of the screen to reverse so you can keep one or the other facing inward if using it as an actual privacy screen might take some doing, but if you want a) useful sheets for your players or b) plan on mostly just laying it flat for use during solo play as mere quick reference and writing surface, you're gold.
I confess the screen is sweet, but I just cannot justify the thirty bucks for a screen. But yes, sweet it is.
ReplyDelete