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 September 29, 2011
As with getting from setting to plot, getting from character to plot is often helped by asking yourself questions and seeing if one shakes loose a few ideas. You’ll note that many of these questions are similar to the setting to plot questions; there’s a lot in common between the thought processes. Note also that [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Inspiration, Player Advice, Plot, Technique |
Tags: character, Inspiration, plot, roleplaying, writing | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ravyn on September 28, 2011
In the first post in my series on getting from a character to a plot, I alluded to the idea that you couldn’t do it with just a character and nothing else whatsoever. A character in a vacuum is no fun whatsoever. She touches nothing, changes nothing, is changed by nothing; at best, she wanders [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Inspiration, Player Advice, Plot, Technique |
Tags: character, Inspiration, plot, roleplaying, writing | 3 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on September 27, 2011
As I noted in my introductory post, one of the most vital parts of getting from a character to a plot is having a character strong enough to push said plot. But what sort of character is it that can do that?
They need to be the type that will do things. This is one of [...]
Categories: Characterization, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Inspiration, Player Advice, Plot, Technique |
Tags: character, Inspiration, plot, roleplaying, writing | 2 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on September 26, 2011
Last week, I talked about some ways to get to a plot when what you have is a setting. Sometimes this works—and sometimes you need something else. My favorite tactic is deriving a plot from a character, whether than plot is something big and overarching or just enough complication and consequence to cover a session [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Inspiration, Plot, Technique |
Tags: character, Inspiration, plot, roleplaying, writing | 2 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on September 22, 2011
Let’s say you’re one of those people who specializes in worldbuilding. You’ve got a grand world laid out, some combination of metaphysics and cultures and maps and history and… whatever, really. If you’re lucky, you’ve got a few characters, or at least an idea what kind of archetypes are going to be wandering around. But [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Inspiration, Plot, Technique |
Tags: Inspiration, plot, roleplaying, setting, writing | 6 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on August 10, 2011
I started drawing again for myself(ish) a couple of weeks ago. It had been a while; for most of the summer, most of the drawing I’ve been doing has been weekly cartoon lizards for the library.
There were the costume sketches, of course, though those are rather like the lizards, done specifically because I had a [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, The Real World |
Tags: freewriting, Inspiration, pictures | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on May 13, 2011
Let’s see, what’s on the shelves this week?
The focus of my week’s reading was Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them. This book reminded me of a discussion I’d seen in I-forget-which-speculative-fiction-sourcebook (it might [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, Inspiration, The Real World |
Tags: books, Inspiration, real world | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on May 6, 2011
Still reading, still working, and this week has been interesting.
The Pericles Commission had been taunting me for a while from its position on the mystery table, so I decided to give it a try. It’s an interesting little piece of work—a mystery, set in Ancient Greece, whose main character and female lead rather reminded me [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, Inspiration, The Real World |
Tags: books, Inspiration, real world | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ravyn on April 29, 2011
In my last two weeks, here’s what I’ve been reading.
It was my mother who turned me loose on Pen of Iron: American Prose and the King James Bible, an exploration of how the King James Edition of the Bible has influenced American writing and rhetoric ever since—or at least, a look at all sorts of [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, Inspiration, The Real World |
Tags: books, Inspiration, real world | 1 Comment »