whystery

4. Favorite type of game scenario?
I'm not sure how to answer this. What types of story scenarios would I write if I were producing adventures and the like?

I find myself most interested in character studies and stories that highlight personalities and the differences therein. I'm drawn toward stories that deal with characters who are in the process of being corrupted or are tempted toward corruption - basically someone who has to make some decisions that may not be good but they're doing them for what they think are good motives. I suppose I could sum that up as "success at a cost." I don't think I want to go to the extreme of pyrrhic victories in all cases but I suppose that would happen at times too.

I think the storymaking device that I am most interested in is how competing internal purposes shape who people are and influence their behavior. That's kind of a high-level view of everything that I just wrote but is perhaps the most succinct way to put it. Tragic flaws would be a good, obvious example. Stuff like the fall of a paladin. Seeing someone who is burning themselves up inside trying to be good pushed to an extreme where they make a bad choice and then it's all the dominoes falling behind that.

I don't know how to make this stuff into a gameable scenario, per se, though.

5. Character or worldbuilding?
Both. My answer to #4 would make you think character is king. And for me it is definitely very important. But characters exist because they live in a world, and they help to define that world. So it's not really a question of either-or, but rather that they have an interdependent nature. Worldbuilding, whether it happens on the fly or is in a prepackaged format, is still very important.

Worldbuilding helps to define what sorts of characters are possible and make sense. There's room to open up more space for different kinds of characters but they can only make sense as an organic development by the march of worldbuilding into new directions that make sense in the context of what has already happened. I would say in this respect that for me the future can't happen without the past. So-called progress is just chaos if it isn't contextualized as an outgrowth of tradition. Progress isn't bad, but it has to make sense. If it comes out of nowhere then it's inconsistent and it leaves the reader/viewer/game player wondering what else is inconsistent. A surprise is one thing, but something that makes no sense in the context of its dwelling place is no good.

6. Long or short ttrpg texts?
Sometimes long is good, but I am typically in favor of shorter stuff. Longer typically means one of two things in my mind: (1) lots of setting material or (2) lots of crunch, or possibly both at once.

Setting material is fine if it's optional, but it can feel like a waste if it's merely optional and you don't use it. Lots of crunch isn't inherently good. I like rules because they help me feel grounded, consistent, and in control, but too much of them are stifling. They start demanding system mastery, which means that more demands are put on all the players, including the GM, and those who don't grasp them as well are at a disadvantage if there's any sort of competition or way to gain advantage over another player, leaving someone behind.

You might say that in a functional group this shouldn't be an issue, but I think it's possible even in a functional group for people to act on their preferences and playstyles and causes issues from that when they conflict with their fellow players. Someone who is in the game as a game is going to want to win, for example, and those who are there for story or character or whatever are going to be less inclined to push the game elements.

A lot of setting material can be a different kind of system mastery because now you not only need to know the game rules but now you also need to know the setting rules. And some people aren't going to want to engage with that kind of stuff or they are going to prefer to create their own settings because they have more fun doing that and feel more of a sense of ownership in doing so.

7. How to increase accessibility?
I haven't released a project widely yet so I haven't had to consider this in particular. But I am not unaware of some of the potential issues. At least the option for large print in books should be available, whether digital or printed. I don't know what methods or tech are available for screen reading but I know there are some techniques out there so when considering this question I would probably consult some people who have actually worked on projects and found ways to demonstrably improve accessibility. I haven't heard of a lot of audiobooks in terms of RPGs but that seems like an option unless it's cost-prohibitive.

I suspect people either don't consider this question much or aren't operating at an economy of scale where they can afford to do a lot so finding ways to do these things affordably is also a thing to think about.

I've been meaning to write this for a while. I had written about these topics online for a while but I'm sure only a limited readership were able to access them. So I'm going to do as brief a summary (that's funny, coming from me) as I can to get anyone who doesn't know what's up on board with where I am today.

In October 2017 or thereabouts, I made the decision to start the ketogenic diet. Someone in my family had done it before and had some success with it. A few friends had had great success with it. I'd looked into it and wanted to try it for a while since I heard about it. I was carrying around too much weight so the weight loss part was attractive, but I'd also had a history of various neurological issues and the ketogenic diet came into effect over a century ago specifically to treat neurological issues, or epilepsy to be precise. (Doctors learned that children who suffered from epilepsy would see relief from it while fasting, and they later discovered that a therapeutic diet could be achieved that created a similar effect.)

( Read more... )

I finished watching this program and found that some of my opinions changed within the last few episodes, but I also found myself skipping past chunks at times too. I normally don't feel the need to do this with stuff I am intending to watch to completion, so I don't know if it was just that I was wanting it to end or I wanted to get it done in a timely fashion so I could close the book on it with a retrospective.

( Here we go. More spoilers en route. )

With the impending doom of Google+, it's going to be rough keeping track of a lot of people that I followed there. I have been here on Dreamwidth for a while now, but I haven't used it enough that I figured why not just start fresh since the timing is good?

As the profile says, I am a philosophical cat who worries about the world and the whim. I also do other stuff... occasionally.