Posts belonging to Category Plot
Posted by Ravyn on February 14, 2012
In yesterday’s riff on search plotlines, I mentioned that search plotlines centered around sentient, motile targets (or attended objects) are generally more complicated than ones based around simple objects. It’s rather like my Things You Might Want To Know When riff on rescue missions versus heists; the organic angle adds a lot to the difficulty [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Player Advice, Plot, Tactics, Technique |
Tags: plots, roleplaying, search plotlines, writing | 
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Posted by Ravyn on February 13, 2012
Most of us—particularly those of us who spend most of our time in some variation on the fantasy genre—are used to the idea of plots based around looking for things. Granted, in most of our cases the plot is a quest: go there, where this thing is, surmounting dangers and obstacles and covering a mess [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Plot, Technique |
Tags: plots, roleplaying, search plotlines, writing | 7 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on January 26, 2012
During my riff on overarching plots in general, I pointed out one question that is vital to the writer of the overarching plot at every event (and, for that matter, is one of the few that should be answered event by event, rather than once and for all at the beginning). By this time we’re [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Plot, Technique |
Tags: overarching plots, roleplaying, structureless creators, writing | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on January 25, 2012
In general, if you’ve got an overarching plot, you should have—one might even say there has to be—a major conflict. Something has to tie all those little plot threads together, after all! But how much do you actually have to plan beforehand, and how much can you leave to your subconscious mind, the actions of [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Plot, Technique |
Tags: major conflict, overarching plots, roleplaying, structureless creators, writing | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on January 24, 2012
Yesterday, I talked about landmarks and steps that a plotter who isn’t interested in full-on outlines could use to guide herself through an overarching plot. Today, I’m going to go into more detail on one of the steps: determining a plot’s scope.
Scope is, as plot variables go, somewhat messy; there are a lot of things [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Plot, Technique |
Tags: overarching plots, roleplaying, scope, structureless creators, writing | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on January 23, 2012
If you’re the kind of person who plans everything out in advance naturally, big overarching plots probably come relatively easily; they’re all about planning ahead and knowing how to make everything fit together, event by event by event. But not all of us are outliners; I know I’m not and probably never will be! How, [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Plot, Technique |
Tags: overarching plots, roleplaying, structureless creators, writing | 4 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on January 12, 2012
Some problems can be solved just by kicking down the door and wreaking havoc, but not always. When the enemy is still faceless and their whereabouts unknown, or when going directly after them would only lead to more trouble, sometimes it’s best to be the trap, letting the enemy come to you. But being the [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Player Advice, Plot, Tactics, Technique |
Tags: foreknowledge, roleplaying, Things You Might Want To Know When..., writing | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on January 9, 2012
Sometimes, we find ourselves needing a new course of events. It might be for a counterfactual exercise, a chance to use new people in a pre-existing world (or to replay the same world with the same people but different characters), a way of answering somebody’s what-if, an alternate universe the characters have figured out how [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, History, Plot, Technique, World-building |
Tags: alternate timelines, meta, plot, roleplaying, Technique, World-building, writing | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on December 14, 2011
While I talked yesterday about stringing together details and questions to come up with an antagonist’s plan on the fly, space constraints left me rather vague about what sorts of details and questions might actually qualify. Here are a few I’ve either used or seen used to pretty good effect.
This will be dramatic now, what [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Inspiration, Plot, Tactics, Technique |
Tags: antagonists, explication, foreshadowing, Inspiration, plans, roleplaying, writing | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ravyn on December 13, 2011
Yesterday, I talked about figuring out the antagonist’s long-running overarching plan when you know the end but aren’t quite so sure about the middle. Today, I’m going to talk about it from the other direction: you’ve got the beginning, you’ve got a very vague idea what the antagonist wants (probably something vague like “Take over [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Plot, Tactics, Technique |
Tags: antagonists, explication, foreshadowing, plans, roleplaying, writing | 1 Comment »