Posts
I've been experimenting with what I call "democratic game design", that is a game that is open to many people to all contribute. With democratic game design you can get many many different ideas, and get more eyes to correct typos, play test and make adjustments.
Tools
The internet itself is what makes this possible, and there are tools on the internet that makes having a democratic game design project much easier.
Wikis are basically websites where you can in one click edit the pages. Most everyone is probably familiar with Wikipedia, which is a very good example of a wiki. For personal wikis I like to use pbwiki for my projects.
The Creative Commons Licence is a licences that basically declares that other people may use and remix your materials. There are a few variations of the rules that you should check out and decide which works best for your project (for example, do you want others to be able to use these materials commercially?)
Is democratic game design right for me?
Most everything has a downside, and this is no exception. One disavantage is you obviously no longer own the project, but it belongs to everyone. This means that once you declare something open and you get contributers, then you cannot ever claim it solely as yours ever again. You're not going to make a profit of this, but that's exactly the opposite of the point of democratic game design anyway.
A second disadvantage is with differences of vision for the project. Not everyone's going to see the project exactly the same, so it's important to have an idea before hand of rules to resolve conflicts. You should state them clearly, posting a link at the top of the front page.
I like the rules used on Wikipedia where if something you wrote is changed, you're not allowed to change it back until you've discussed it in the comments area, and if necessary put it to a vote.
An example project
My democratic game design project The Paisho Wiki is based on the board game that's played in the animated television series "Avatar: The last Airbender". I've had quite a few people now contributing, and the start rules have popped up even on other wikis!
...
Democratic game design is a neat way of getting a project off the ground, and it can be fun to see how many people get together to build something together. If you know of other neat game design projects like this, or have one of your own, comment here or shoot me an e-mail and I'll gladly link it!
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
My computer's dead for now...
I tried hard to blog every day, but my computer managed to go out on me. I'm working on getting it fixed, and I'll try to keep posting through other means, though my computer also had all my notes on future post ideas. For now I'm on semi-hiatus, and I hope to get back to regular posting next week.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Technorati Blog claim
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This is actually my blog, Technorati.
Regular people can ignore this post.
This is actually my blog, Technorati.
Regular people can ignore this post.
Writers Read
Being a writer should mean you are also a big reader, after all a writer's love of writing comes from their love of reading, and reading specifically in the genre they are writing helps informs them of good and bad examples of writing and what's cliche in that genre. (Though being a big reader alone doesn't mean your a good writer, I wish!)
I am a pretty big reader. I thought I’d share as a regular thing what I’m reading, and with some mini-reviews.
I just picked up, and am nearly finished reading “Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation”. I found it laying around the house the day after I decided to start this blog, and I thought I’d better read it, not really knowing anything about the author. I haven’t been able to put it down. It’s an excellent book, and Hewett is engaging in the way he writes. If nothing else he highlights the vital importance of the spread of information through blogs and how it creates competitions that keeps larger forms of media in line and creates checks against bias (of any sort) in the mainstream media.
Before that I finished reading a biography of the magician Harry Blackstone Sr, “Blackstone, a Magician's Life”. I thought the writing was pretty clunky in places, and not as tight as other biographies I had read, and to me read more like a reminiscence than a more studious biography (like for example, the excellent biography of Houdini “The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero” by William Kalush or “The Rasputin file” by Edvard Radzinsky which I both highly recommend.) , but it did have some good information and interesting tidbits about the man and the people that surrounded him. Those interested in the history of magic might want to check it out, though there are better magic biographies out there, and there may even be better Blackstone biography out there.
I am a pretty big reader. I thought I’d share as a regular thing what I’m reading, and with some mini-reviews.
I just picked up, and am nearly finished reading “Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation”. I found it laying around the house the day after I decided to start this blog, and I thought I’d better read it, not really knowing anything about the author. I haven’t been able to put it down. It’s an excellent book, and Hewett is engaging in the way he writes. If nothing else he highlights the vital importance of the spread of information through blogs and how it creates competitions that keeps larger forms of media in line and creates checks against bias (of any sort) in the mainstream media.
Before that I finished reading a biography of the magician Harry Blackstone Sr, “Blackstone, a Magician's Life”. I thought the writing was pretty clunky in places, and not as tight as other biographies I had read, and to me read more like a reminiscence than a more studious biography (like for example, the excellent biography of Houdini “The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero” by William Kalush or “The Rasputin file” by Edvard Radzinsky which I both highly recommend.) , but it did have some good information and interesting tidbits about the man and the people that surrounded him. Those interested in the history of magic might want to check it out, though there are better magic biographies out there, and there may even be better Blackstone biography out there.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
The Seed of of a Story
I love finding things that start me on a story, but it can be incredibly hard to train yourself to think that way, to actually ask the question “what is the story behind this?”.
For example, A few times when I was walking I passed a few times a bed frame lying at the curb. The first time I didn’t really think about it, though I noticed it. Yesterday though, I thought about it, and actually thought “what is this story?” Did it belong to a child who recently died? Did the child grow up and move out; going to college or married and the parents were finally getting rid of it? Could there be an interesting story there? I think so, though both those scenarios are somewhat mundane, a lot of times a good story can come from something mundane.
The trick is to be ready, and ask about something “is there a story there?” not just about things, but people you see. It's like any habit (well good ones), you learn to do it more by simply doing it.
A few years ago I read a poem by a poet who I had never heard of before. The poem was about an elderly gentleman who turned wayward girls such as “actresses” into birds and kept them. The tone was eerie and yet strikingly beautiful to me, and those elements of tone and transformation inspired a story that I’m working on that is now part of a story collection in progress. (This was before I was aware of the movie Ladyhawke (1985) with Matthew Broderick and Michelle Pfeiffer, an acquaintance told me about this movie when I was talking about my story idea.)
Another recently inspiration for me is art. When looking for story starters I found a deviant art collection (warning: some nudity) for art specifically for generating ideas for stories. One picture of a mermaid I found fascinating and started another story I’m writing (which I think will be part of a collection with the bird story).
I hope this has been helpful, and I’d love to hear if you have other interesting ideas for generating ideas. Now I need to actually finish projects!
For example, A few times when I was walking I passed a few times a bed frame lying at the curb. The first time I didn’t really think about it, though I noticed it. Yesterday though, I thought about it, and actually thought “what is this story?” Did it belong to a child who recently died? Did the child grow up and move out; going to college or married and the parents were finally getting rid of it? Could there be an interesting story there? I think so, though both those scenarios are somewhat mundane, a lot of times a good story can come from something mundane.
The trick is to be ready, and ask about something “is there a story there?” not just about things, but people you see. It's like any habit (well good ones), you learn to do it more by simply doing it.
A few years ago I read a poem by a poet who I had never heard of before. The poem was about an elderly gentleman who turned wayward girls such as “actresses” into birds and kept them. The tone was eerie and yet strikingly beautiful to me, and those elements of tone and transformation inspired a story that I’m working on that is now part of a story collection in progress. (This was before I was aware of the movie Ladyhawke (1985) with Matthew Broderick and Michelle Pfeiffer, an acquaintance told me about this movie when I was talking about my story idea.)
Another recently inspiration for me is art. When looking for story starters I found a deviant art collection (warning: some nudity) for art specifically for generating ideas for stories. One picture of a mermaid I found fascinating and started another story I’m writing (which I think will be part of a collection with the bird story).
I hope this has been helpful, and I’d love to hear if you have other interesting ideas for generating ideas. Now I need to actually finish projects!
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Artist Wanted
As I mentioned I am working on a few projects that I plan to release commercially, and since I lack artistic talent I am looking for artist(s) to contribute to the projects.
One project is a role playing game supplement book that focuses on a theme of knowledge. I am looking for a full page map (full color, black and white or maybe "lithograph" style), full color cover art and full color or black-and-white art of various sizes from small "gap filler" to full page art. Besides the basic ideas I am very open to ideas and artist interpretation, and would to have an artist who would also be willing to give mechanical feedback (though that is not a requirement) I plan to release this first as a PDF for a $10-20 first and possibly a softcover book if it looks like it would be feasible to do so.
The other project is a simple miniatures games in 30mm scale with color or high quality black-and-white art.
For both projects, they would be paid by ownership in the project as partners (50-50 split). If you're interested please send your portfolio examples of your art to Foolster(at)J-fan.com
Thank you.
One project is a role playing game supplement book that focuses on a theme of knowledge. I am looking for a full page map (full color, black and white or maybe "lithograph" style), full color cover art and full color or black-and-white art of various sizes from small "gap filler" to full page art. Besides the basic ideas I am very open to ideas and artist interpretation, and would to have an artist who would also be willing to give mechanical feedback (though that is not a requirement) I plan to release this first as a PDF for a $10-20 first and possibly a softcover book if it looks like it would be feasible to do so.
The other project is a simple miniatures games in 30mm scale with color or high quality black-and-white art.
For both projects, they would be paid by ownership in the project as partners (50-50 split). If you're interested please send your portfolio examples of your art to Foolster(at)J-fan.com
Thank you.
Myst and the connection of worlds and games
I thought I’d start out talking about more of my philosophy of this blog. To me, the thing I’m most interested in is not just writing, but about immersion.
I suppose this seems really obvious, but sometimes when I read a story, I don’t feel immersed, and I wonder if that’s maybe because the author wasn’t himself immersed enough to experience the world, and think about the details of daily life in that world. If an author isn't interested enough to immerse himself in his own world, how can I as a reader be immersed?
I'm a fan of the world of the adventure game series (and later novel series) of Myst. The world, I think paints such a wonderful picture of writing and world building.
For those maybe not familiar with Myst, it was a graphical adventure game on CD (one of the very first) in the early 90s. The story of the world centers on special books called “linking books”. A person writes a book and can create a world [1] and then “link” to that world and walk around and explore it. This is fairly obvious as a metaphor for world-creation so it was probably meant to be (after all, it was itself a world that was designed).
In my writing I don't merely want to describe the places, people, things and events but I want to explore it, see what it is like to actually live in those worlds, experience it for myself. Of course, we can’t really build worlds, but there are other ways.
One way I do this is through simply the way I write. I love writing in a first person”in character” point of view from inside the world. It helps me think about how the characters see themselves and others inside their world.
Another way is through games and online tools we can break some of the barriers to experience to open the world. I sometimes role-play (more like play-acting since there are no stats or dice) as a character from one of my worlds on a 3D chart room program called Second Life. I’ve also built things on the same program from the world, such as a house. It’s pretty cool to see a “object” represented in 3D space that I can move through, and even though I still can’t actually touch, I can interact with it as my “avatar” proxy and it is at least one more step towards real.
Another way writers can connect with other people, and experience their own world is through games. It seems now a days creating games is easier than before with simple programs and good documentation. You don’t really need a big budget to make a game. Some games don’t even need graphics at all, and but the world can be described by text. [2]
Immersion is proof that there is something that is "clicking together" in your world and that people will connect with the world you created, and there are a lot of great tools out there for you to connect to your own world, and allow others to connect with your world. Also it's a lot of fun!
[1] Or, linking to one of an infinite number of worlds that also happen to exist already that are exactly as described by the books. Both theories are argued (hotly) by the characters in the novels, and no one way is shown to be right, though I think I would favor the world-creation theorem myself.
[2] If you're interested in doing this, you might want to check out MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) which are basically multilayer text adventures. If you want to see what one is like, Midevia is a fairly large one with I beleive 10,000 players.
Also there is BYOND (build your own net dream) which is a graphical program for designing online games. It has a good online framework, and pretty good support and documentation. It has a coding-based system (based on the language C) which while maybe a little harder to use than a cookie-cutter script system like in programs like Construct (another pretty good game design program I use), I think it can do much more as is worth learning. (I don't think learning a program language is as hard as it seems).
I suppose this seems really obvious, but sometimes when I read a story, I don’t feel immersed, and I wonder if that’s maybe because the author wasn’t himself immersed enough to experience the world, and think about the details of daily life in that world. If an author isn't interested enough to immerse himself in his own world, how can I as a reader be immersed?
I'm a fan of the world of the adventure game series (and later novel series) of Myst. The world, I think paints such a wonderful picture of writing and world building.
For those maybe not familiar with Myst, it was a graphical adventure game on CD (one of the very first) in the early 90s. The story of the world centers on special books called “linking books”. A person writes a book and can create a world [1] and then “link” to that world and walk around and explore it. This is fairly obvious as a metaphor for world-creation so it was probably meant to be (after all, it was itself a world that was designed).
In my writing I don't merely want to describe the places, people, things and events but I want to explore it, see what it is like to actually live in those worlds, experience it for myself. Of course, we can’t really build worlds, but there are other ways.
One way I do this is through simply the way I write. I love writing in a first person”in character” point of view from inside the world. It helps me think about how the characters see themselves and others inside their world.
Another way is through games and online tools we can break some of the barriers to experience to open the world. I sometimes role-play (more like play-acting since there are no stats or dice) as a character from one of my worlds on a 3D chart room program called Second Life. I’ve also built things on the same program from the world, such as a house. It’s pretty cool to see a “object” represented in 3D space that I can move through, and even though I still can’t actually touch, I can interact with it as my “avatar” proxy and it is at least one more step towards real.
Another way writers can connect with other people, and experience their own world is through games. It seems now a days creating games is easier than before with simple programs and good documentation. You don’t really need a big budget to make a game. Some games don’t even need graphics at all, and but the world can be described by text. [2]
Immersion is proof that there is something that is "clicking together" in your world and that people will connect with the world you created, and there are a lot of great tools out there for you to connect to your own world, and allow others to connect with your world. Also it's a lot of fun!
[1] Or, linking to one of an infinite number of worlds that also happen to exist already that are exactly as described by the books. Both theories are argued (hotly) by the characters in the novels, and no one way is shown to be right, though I think I would favor the world-creation theorem myself.
[2] If you're interested in doing this, you might want to check out MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) which are basically multilayer text adventures. If you want to see what one is like, Midevia is a fairly large one with I beleive 10,000 players.
Also there is BYOND (build your own net dream) which is a graphical program for designing online games. It has a good online framework, and pretty good support and documentation. It has a coding-based system (based on the language C) which while maybe a little harder to use than a cookie-cutter script system like in programs like Construct (another pretty good game design program I use), I think it can do much more as is worth learning. (I don't think learning a program language is as hard as it seems).
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Welcome Explorers!
Welcome! It's been a resolution of mine to start a blog to give me more of a motivation to write, so here it is! This is a blog dedicated to writing, story telling and the building of worlds adnd the exploration of worlds, including those worlds in role playing games.
I don't expect to be posting every day, but I'm going to make a strong effort to post at least three times a week, about every other day. I have some idea for regular weekly features.
I hope you will find this blog interesting and stay, make yourself at home and chat. Feel free to post comments on topics even if their not the newest, I will try to keep looking at the last few day's worth (once I actually get people posting here that is) Feel free to drop me an e-mail at Foolster(at)gmail.com as feedback, to suggest a topic give feedback or just to say "hi".
First an introduction. I am a Christian writer in his late twenties who lives in the pacific northwest. I've been designing games since I was about 10, starting with quick basic on my Compaq 8088 (bleeding edge then!), and I've been roleplaying on and off for the last 5 years.
When I'm not writing I like to perform in a local drama group, play role-playing games (as you may have guessed from above), design board and card games of different kinds and play ukulele (though not very well).
I am currently working on a number of projects including a story collection and role-playing game supplement (for the D20 system) that I hope to have finished this year and published sometime in 2011. I’ve also been working on two "conworld" (constructed world) fantasy cultures with their own religions, customs, and languages. One are the lizard-folk called the Salthans and a blog about them is at www.bikaesh.pbwiki.com and the Sylvanians, a big-cat (i.e. tiger, lion, jaguar) people. The world also has two human cultures, but I havn't gotten around to writting about them yet. I also have a wiki for some of my homebrew role playing games stuff at www.d20toolbox.pbwiki.com
Let's start building and exploring together!
I don't expect to be posting every day, but I'm going to make a strong effort to post at least three times a week, about every other day. I have some idea for regular weekly features.
I hope you will find this blog interesting and stay, make yourself at home and chat. Feel free to post comments on topics even if their not the newest, I will try to keep looking at the last few day's worth (once I actually get people posting here that is) Feel free to drop me an e-mail at Foolster(at)gmail.com as feedback, to suggest a topic give feedback or just to say "hi".
First an introduction. I am a Christian writer in his late twenties who lives in the pacific northwest. I've been designing games since I was about 10, starting with quick basic on my Compaq 8088 (bleeding edge then!), and I've been roleplaying on and off for the last 5 years.
When I'm not writing I like to perform in a local drama group, play role-playing games (as you may have guessed from above), design board and card games of different kinds and play ukulele (though not very well).
I am currently working on a number of projects including a story collection and role-playing game supplement (for the D20 system) that I hope to have finished this year and published sometime in 2011. I’ve also been working on two "conworld" (constructed world) fantasy cultures with their own religions, customs, and languages. One are the lizard-folk called the Salthans and a blog about them is at www.bikaesh.pbwiki.com and the Sylvanians, a big-cat (i.e. tiger, lion, jaguar) people. The world also has two human cultures, but I havn't gotten around to writting about them yet. I also have a wiki for some of my homebrew role playing games stuff at www.d20toolbox.pbwiki.com
Let's start building and exploring together!
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