Posts belonging to Category Observations from Work
Posted by Ravyn on November 11, 2009
In any setting where there are battles to be fought and adventures to be undertaken (and in how many settings is this not the case?), there will be those who once dared. The ones who went out and came back, whether they’ve decided never to go out again or are just waiting for the next [...]
Categories: Characterization, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Observations from Work, Player Advice, The Library, The Real World |
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Posted by Ravyn on October 22, 2009
A little over a year ago, I talked about heroes/adventurers and their day jobs; not everyone can support themselves by adventuring, and not everyone wants to. The problem with these sorts of jobs is that many people just don’t find them interesting; they might take time away from a game group, seem “too much like [...]
Categories: Description, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Mood, Observations from Work, Places, Scening, Technique, The Library, The Real World, World-building |
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Posted by Ravyn on October 1, 2009
Just because humanity depends on its sight doesn’t mean writers have to—and what better way to learn than to listen? Here’s what I tend to hear on an average day on the job.
It doesn’t just look like a regular library here; much of the time, it sounds like a regular library. The checkins and the [...]
Categories: Description, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Observations from Work, Places, Scening, Technique, The Library, World-building |
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Posted by Ravyn on July 31, 2009
When I was first hired on, I’m not sure what I was imagining a military base library to be, but I didn’t expect the interesting range of similarities and differences to public libraries that mine had. And between the fact that not everyone who reads this is going to have seen a military library, and [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Observations from Work, Places, Scening, The Library, The Real World, World-building |
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Posted by Ravyn on July 30, 2009
Do you want a way of explaining where characters acquired or could acquire knowledge without having to worry about where they keep the books? A point of contact for academics, with each other or possibly even with everyone else? A way to make sure that knowledge in your setting, be it facts or stories or [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Observations from Work, Places, The Library, World-building |
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Posted by Ravyn on July 3, 2009
Inspired by yesterday’s observations.
Looking at it now, I don’t think there’s any situation in which there’s a clean divide between two groups, even when one is clearly demarcated as Not-[The Other], when the groups have different amounts of social power or when in any way you’d expect a clear boundary. You’ve got one, and you’ve [...]
Categories: Characterization, Characters in the world, For Roleplayers, GM Advice, Observations from Work, Technique, The Library |
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Posted by Ravyn on July 2, 2009
And now, for something a little different.
0800 hours on MCRD San Diego. I’m sitting in the food court with my mother, looking out the window at the roiling mass of families here for graduation. By now, the crowds are something I’m used to. They’ve turned on music in here, loud enough that I’m not sure [...]
Categories: Cultures, Observations from Work, The Library, The Real World, World-building |
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Posted by Ravyn on May 18, 2009
Last week, I demonstrated genre-twisting even the most unlikely subjects by getting a suspense plot out of the United States Census. This week, the genre-jump is going to be a bit more extreme.
Once, there was a country, not too different from any of the ones we inhabit. Except for [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, Observations from Work, Plot, Technique, The Census |
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Posted by Ravyn on May 11, 2009
When I began my Lessons Learned from the United States Census series, I had started with the idea of plots based in the ordinary and made more interesting through how they were treated. A post not long before that, though, had treated with the idea of taking a completely [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Observations from Work, Plot, Technique, The Census |
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Posted by Ravyn on May 4, 2009
There’s a certain paradox inherent in working as a Census lister. On the one hand, you want to work fast—efficiency is both highly prized in listers and a source of bragging rights for said listers. You can get a lot of pride out of a good address-working rate, after [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, GM Advice, Observations from Work, The Census, The Real World |
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