“The heroes go on a dangerous quest and are fundamentally changed by the challenges they face.” That sentence could be describing either the plot of a novel or a synopsis of a roleplaying game campaign. That’s because they’re both built using the same fundamental ingredients of story—characters, goals, and obstacles. In both cases, the audience wants to find out what happens next, and players and authors alike must decide how the story will unfold. As it turns out, the tricks for crafting a good novel can be applied to roleplaying game campaigns, and...
You don’t need to be familiar with James D’Amato’s One Shot podcast in order to have a blast with the The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide, released this month from Adams Media. Ability Scores Title: The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide Author: James D’Amato Page count: 272 Price: $14.99 Softcover, $10.99 Kindle edition Dimensions: 5.5” x 8.4” ISBN-13: 978-1507208373 Publisher: Adams Media Publication Date: October 2, 2018 Ramp up your role-playing game and make your character your own with this fun, interactive workbook—an essential addition to any RPG...
Last week, as part of the continuing +1 to Writing series, I asked Robert Denton III (@ohnospooky on Twitter) about how he went from being a fan of a franchise to one of the people who works on it. We talked about what it’s like to write tie-in fiction, and what are some of the challenges writers face. If you missed it, you can catch up on Part 1 of our conversation here! +1 to Writing is an ongoing series of interviews with writers at different stages in their writing career, from veteran wordsmiths to emerging authors. It looks at the RPG, tie-in media, and...
How do you go from being a fan of a franchise to one of the people who gets to work on it? What is it like to write tie-in fiction, and what are some of the challenges these writers face? +1 to Writing is an ongoing series of interviews with writers at different stages in their writing career, from veteran wordsmiths to emerging authors. It looks at the RPG, tie-in media, and sci-fi and fantasy fiction industries in particular, and what those authors did to break in and keep growing their professional writing business. By the end of the interview, we hope readers...
The game master wears a lot of hats—that of group leader to storyteller to rules adjudicator, and so on—but it surprised even me how much overlap there was running a game and teaching a class. When I was prepping to run my “Agency and Narrative in Games” workshop with Bree Kaiser-Powers for the Glitch Immersion Program, I wanted to learn more about being a teacher and connecting with students. Though I’m no certified educator, I found the recommendations in Dave Brugess’s Teach Like a Pirate book to be invaluable, not only for teaching workshops, but also for...
What does the path to becoming an RPG freelancer look like? How does that path differ if you want to write tie-in stories for your favorite IP, or if you have an idea for an original story? What does it actually take to go professional in the business, and what are the writing habits and creative mindsets you need to cultivate along the way? +1 to Writing is an ongoing series of interviews with writers at different stages in their writing career, from veteran wordsmiths to emerging authors. It looks at the RPG, tie-in media, and sci-fi and fantasy fiction industries...
It’s okay to sometimes want games to be a refuge from the never-ending news cycle. When real life is already bleak, we don’t need our made-up stories to be equally depressing or hopeless. In times like these, many of us would rather tell stories of justice, empowerment, compassion, and hope. We want our characters to become reflections of the best we have to offer—in the way, the game becomes a welcome respite when we turn in from the daily struggle. Although there are many examples of tabletop roleplaying systems and settings that evoke that “grimdark” flavor, there...
