Posts belonging to Category Mood
Posted by Ravyn on April 12, 2011
Fear reactions don’t just vary by character—they can also vary within a character’s emotional range by what exactly the fear stimulus is. How long-lasting is this threat? How intense? What sort of thing is it? How much room does the character have to respond to it? One of the things we can do to get [...]
Categories: Characterization, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Mood, Player Advice, Technique |
Tags: Characterization, fear, roleplaying, writing | 
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Posted by Ravyn on April 11, 2011
A while ago, I talked about attempting to evoke fear in the audience. But it didn’t really touch much on the other side of the equation, how to write a character experiencing fear. I started thinking about this yesterday, and discovered that it rapidly got very, very complicated: there was the matter of coping mechanisms, [...]
Categories: Characterization, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Mood, Player Advice, Technique |
Tags: Characterization, fear, mood, roleplaying, writing | 7 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on March 28, 2011
We really don’t have to talk about why intense emotion is so common in our stories and games; it’s, well, intense. But the thing about it, particularly if it takes the form of a whole lot of negative emotion, is that it’s tiring, moreso the longer it goes. Fortunately, slipping spots of humor into an [...]
Categories: Description, Dialogue, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Mood, Technique, Voice and Style |
Tags: humor, mood, roleplaying, style, writing | 5 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on March 21, 2011
I’ve had long arguments with at least one of my players/GMs about whether a scene that seems entirely to be small talk is worth it—and goodness knows I’ve heard plenty about conservation of detail, streamlining sessions, that sort of thing. So it came as a bit of a surprise when, twice in two weeks, I [...]
Categories: Characterization, Dialogue, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Mood, Player Advice, Scening, Technique, Voice and Style |
Tags: Characterization, idle conversation, roleplaying, writing | 3 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on January 27, 2011
I’ve written a lot in praise of creating a scene to be heavy in subtext. It’s something of a passion of mine. But one of the biggest questions when introducing new or otherwise unexplained subtext—in short, subtextual cues that the audience does not have context for—is whether or not to explain what’s really going on [...]
Categories: Concepts, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Mood, Technique |
Tags: concepts, roleplaying, subtext, Technique, writing | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ravyn on October 20, 2010
I spent yesterday’s post talking about things that make a monster or equivalent thereof lose my respect. Since it’s my rule to try not to post don’ts without corresponding dos, here are some things that get that respect in the first place.
Intelligence. Sure, this is an alien sort of creature, and I’m not sure I [...]
Categories: Biology, Character image, Characterization, Description, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Mood, Nonhuman characters, Technique, Voice and Style, World-building |
Tags: monsters, mood, respect, roleplaying, writing | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on October 19, 2010
The fun thing about fantasy worlds is that we aren’t limited to mundane opponents. The huge, the nasty, the impossible—they’re all fair game, and when they take the field, they’re bound to strike fear into all who see them. Fear… just like…. Why are you laughing?
The problem with creating new and intimidating creatures is that [...]
Categories: Biology, Characterization, Concepts, Description, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Mood, Nonhuman characters, Technique, Voice and Style, World-building |
Tags: intimidation, mistakes, monsters, mood, roleplaying, writing | 5 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on August 31, 2010
I talked yesterday about designing a magical location around the effect it was supposed to have on the audience. But it’s one thing to say “I want this effect”, and another thing entirely to get the effect in question. How do you go about it?
First, of course, is actually choosing the effect. It goes without [...]
Categories: Description, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Mood, Places, Scening, Technique, Thematics, World-building |
Tags: effects, magical locations, roleplaying, setting, World-building, writing | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ravyn on August 17, 2010
Playstyle, I think, is one of the likeliest things to drive a group apart. When you’ve got a full group on the same style, and on the same wavelength with the GM, it goes well. When you don’t…. well, you’ve got one person cursing things another was directly encouraging, the GM’s about ready to scream [...]
Categories: Description, For Roleplayers, GM Advice, Mood, Technique, The Real World, Voice and Style |
Tags: game tone, new players, roleplaying, show don't tell | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ravyn on August 6, 2010
I talked yesterday about hitting a game group with situations in which coming up with a way to get their desired result was part of the challenge. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t—but there’s one major element that needs to be in your favor, and that’s the players. If they get into the situation and [...]
Categories: Concepts, For Roleplayers, GM Advice, Mood, Plot, Technique |
Tags: challenges, difficulty level, GM Advice, roleplaying, strategies | 1 Comment »