Created 331 days ago
by
Fetch
Greetings,
I'm Fetch an avid fan of gaming living and working in New Hampshire while I take classes in Creative writing at a local college.
I've been gaming for 17 years and have played a little of everything (both off and online) from D&D and Everquest to the World of Darkness and Eve Online. My favorite game right now is White Wolf's Changeling: The Lost and its one of the few games I have every book for. I look forward to writing for you all and I hope to hear your comments on my work so that I can continue to grow, and improve. Both as a gamer and a writer.
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World of Darkness Blog
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As I continue to work on material for my upcoming LARP, Voice of the God Machine. I though it might be fun/ interesting to let you all in how my creative process and how I go from “I have an idea!” to running a session of one of our LARPS.
Like any creative endeavor, It all begins with an idea. It could be as simple “Hey a Mage game set in Vermont might be fun” or it could be as complicated as deciding that all the players wake up and finding that most of their Consilium has been wiped out by a Tremere Lich and her henchmen. The idea is the catalyst that gets the gears turning.
Sometimes its easy. Sometimes I have a base to start with. In the case of Voice of the Machine God I had my original Mage Chronicle Supernal Echoes to go off of. I had realized that there was still a lot of story potential in Bridgeford and that a lot of the ideas and plots we introduced had more story that we could still squeeze out of them.
When my gears spin, they really, really spin. I often find myself compelled to write and I produced quite a bit of notes on pieces of scrap paper where ever I was and whenever I could manage. I did this for quite a while and some of the notes dated back to October of 2011 (yes I put dates on them). Its interesting to see how my idea grew and changed as the focus and story of Voice of the God machine matured over time. I can actually look at my copious amounts of notes and see how the ideas matured over time. An Idea is not a stagnant thing, they constantly shift form and grow. Some of my current ideas bare little resemblance to the one I began with but their DNA is still there.
Once I have the skeleton of the plot jotted down I can begin adding meat to the bones so to speak. I take my ideas and begin turning them into a story. I often try to get all my ideas to work together as much as possible and I often find games work better when all the storylines share some common themes or sources. Nothing exists in a vaccuum, and its often creates a more realistic effect when different story elements can be tied together. I find it helps create a stronger narrative, and in turn a more fun game for players and storytellers alike.
Once I have the story written I break the game up into scenes. In this way I can deal with a large plot more easily as it can be more readily handled in smaller pieces. I'll jot down a list of all the scenes and all the things required to make that scene happen. This includes NPCs, props, costuming, and any players that may be important to that particular plot line. Creating a game then becomes a simple matter of generating the content.
Of course the best laid plans never survive an encounter with the enemy, but that is another blog entirely.
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