Posts belonging to Category Motivation
Posted by Ravyn on February 18, 2013
All of the conflicts I’ve seen work have made two major points to the players/characters: It has to be you, and it has to be now.
It has to be you. This is probably the most important of the two, playing as it does to the egos of the players—and to the verisimilitude of the overall [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, GM Advice, Motivation, Plot, Technique |
Tags: conflict, GM Advice, motivation, plot, roleplaying | 
3 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on July 10, 2012
Keeping going in a game can be difficult sometimes—if the players are driving me crazy, the style isn’t anything I’ve done before, the… you get the idea. It’s easy to be frustrated nowadays. Writing, sadly enough, is likewise: if anything, a game is likelier to keep my attention, or at least my participation, because the [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, Motivation, Tactics, Technique |
Tags: motivation, questions, roleplaying, writing | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ravyn on June 18, 2012
My biggest problem with this month’s Camp NaNo attempt at major progress in my story, as with the first time I tried to NaNo Almagest, was underpreparedness. There were a few characters in my head, but not enough; can one truly do a good heavy court intrigue with only four, and most of them on [...]
Categories: For Writers, Learning from NaNo, Motivation, Technique, The Real World |
Tags: Camp NaNo, motivation, NaNoWriMo, writing | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ravyn on June 14, 2012
It begins the way these stories always begin: Shinali talks me into signing up for (a variant on) NaNoWriMo, and chaos ensues. This time, though, is different. It isn’t the official month—it’s June, and we’re doing the “Camp” version instead. This time I’m leaving the Generic Villain behind and taking a stab at Almagest again, [...]
Categories: For Writers, Learning from NaNo, Motivation, Technique, The Real World |
Tags: Camp NaNo, motivation, NaNoWriMo, writing | 3 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on March 6, 2012
It might have been played up just a bit too much in order to provide motivation. Or maybe it’s to justify the fact that everybody with a name, a backstory and/or an even remotely solid set of stats seems to want to get their hands on it. Whatever the reason, it’s clear that the item [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Motivation, Tactics, Technique |
Tags: artifacts of anticlimax, motivation, roleplaying, writing | 2 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on February 27, 2012
I first ran into the idea of the Hedgehog Concept in a book on businesses and how they succeed—but hey, what am I if not prone to interdisciplinary approaches? According to Jim Collins, the idea of the Hedgehog Concept is inspired by the idea that the fox has many tricks, but the hedgehog can always [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, Motivation, Technique |
Tags: hedgehog concept, meta, motivation, roleplaying, writing | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on October 26, 2011
Yesterday, in response to the RPG Blog Carnival on making loot part of the plot, I talked about the kinds of plots that a piece of loot could be used to create, whether it’s in the hand, or still out there in the bush somewhere. But the thing about item-based plots, particularly if the plot [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, GM Advice, Motivation, Tactics, Technique |
Tags: loot, motivation, roleplaying, RPG Blog Carnival | 2 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on September 13, 2011
Yesterday, I talked about the discussion of social norms and market norms in Predictably Irrational, then expanded them to apply to the peculiar meta-dynamics of the game table. As I pointed out, you need to know what categories these norms fit into to take advantage of them, but, then, how do you utilize the norms [...]
Categories: Concepts, For Roleplayers, GM Advice, Motivation, Technique, The Real World |
Tags: analysis, behavior, books, meta, Predictably Irrational, real world, roleplaying | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on September 12, 2011
I have to admit it: I’m addicted to books about how the mind works. I almost always learn something new (I’ve read more than half a dozen this year alone, and not a single one has failed to show me something I hadn’t seen before), they’ve got a lot of cross-discipline uses, and I’ve always [...]
Categories: Concepts, For Roleplayers, GM Advice, Motivation, Player Advice, Technique, The Real World |
Tags: analysis, behavior, books, meta, Predictably Irrational, real world, roleplaying | 3 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on August 8, 2011
Not long ago, I found myself listening to the audiobook version of How We Decide, a book about how the brain makes its choices. There was one point within it in which it pointed out that while it’s been assumed throughout history that eliminating feelings and leaving a person as a purely rational entity should [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, Motivation |
Tags: emotions, Player Advice, roleplaying | 1 Comment »