Posts belonging to Category Scening
Posted by Ravyn on March 22, 2011
One of the biggest weaknesses many writers and GMs have is dealing with a large number of characters active at the same time. This isn’t a mass of mooks in a fight, mind you, nor a large crowd of extras randomly milling about; it doesn’t matter if they disappear. No, this is when you’ve got [...]
Categories: Concepts, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Scening, Technique |
Tags: conversations, gatherings, roleplaying, social situations, tracking characters, writing | 
2 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 November 19, 2010
When getting ready for this week’s session, I found myself thinking about ways to describe a scene or a sequence of events, and how I could get them to work together.
On the one hand, you’ve got third-person description. It wends its way through the background, describing things as they appear, with—I wouldn’t call it less [...]
Categories: Description, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Scening, Technique, Voice and Style, World-building |
Tags: description, roleplaying, scening, voice, writing | 2 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on September 30, 2010
One of the hardest parts of working in pure-prose is really getting across images such that you know people are seeing the same thing you are.
So for this exercise, step outside and look up. Then try to describe it. (I personally find the best skies to base this exercise on are ones with some clouds [...]
Categories: Description, For Writers, Scening, Technique |
Tags: description, Exercises, sky, writing | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on September 2, 2010
In yesterday’s post about creating magical locations based on their purpose, I mentioned the possibility of the purpose being to channel magic, and said I’d discuss it later. “The following day” counts as later, don’t you think?
Like necromancy’s slow shift from “My divinations require a corpse of some sort, preferably fresh” to “OMG FEAR MY [...]
Categories: Concepts, Description, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Magic systems, Places, Scening, Symbolism, Technique, World-building |
Tags: magical locations, roleplaying, setting, World-building, writing | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on September 1, 2010
One of the most common first approaches I see for designing a magical location is determining its purpose. Sometimes, it’s to channel magic in a certain way, but that’s less common and not necessarily likely to stand on its own—we’ll get into those later. But most of the time, even on an inherently magical building, [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Places, Scening, Technique, World-building |
Tags: magical locations, roleplaying, setting, World-building, writing | 1 Comment »
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 30, 2010
What fun is a fantasy world without inherently magical locations? They make it clear which genre you’re operating in, provide a little color, and because of the ability to use elements not present in mundane locations, can often create a more intense and targeted mood than their mundane counterparts. I usually begin with a combination [...]
Categories: Concepts, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Places, Scening, Technique, Thematics, World-building |
Tags: magical locations, roleplaying, setting, World-building, writing | 6 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on August 10, 2010
During last week’s discussion of the two general options for presenting a challenge to the PCs, I mentioned one potential problem being the difficulty of getting across to the characters whether they’re dealing with an Option A challenge, in which they should win unless bad luck or stupidity prevents it, or an Option B, in [...]
Categories: Concepts, Description, For Roleplayers, GM Advice, Scening, Technique |
Tags: challenges, difficulty level, GM Advice, roleplaying, strategies | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on August 2, 2010
One of the biggest difficulties with an Earth-with-modifications setting is getting across to people the time period in which the story is set, particularly as the setting gets more and more modern and the distinctions less and less obvious. A little slip, and it becomes easy for people to forget that this is supposed to [...]
Categories: Cultures, Exposition, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Geography, History, Places, Scening, Technique, World-building |
Tags: roleplaying, setting, time, writing | 1 Comment »