March 2006 Archives

This is a quick Call For Links. I'm currently designing a role playing game setting, and all the reading on RPG design has me thinking. Similar challenges arise in writing interactive fiction, writing 'literary' hypertexts, planning a session/story/adventure for a role playing group, and designing digital games with interesting plots. If you have a link, please write (and say whether you're comfortable being credited by link and how).

• How do you give the reader/player authentic agency while still propelling the narrative in a meaningful direction? (Can you?)
• What RPG devices, especially game mechanics, facilitate or restrict narrative agency?
• What are useful techniques for adapting an existing story or setting written around a single protagonist to make it interesting for a group of collaborative players?
• What are useful techniques for making a hypertext or interactive fiction appealing to a multitude of reader/players with a variety of goals and modes of play?

I'm looking for good readings specifically about the parallels between hypertext and RPGs. There seems to be a lot of thinking about one side or the other (especially about digital games), but I've found little on the interaction of the two pursuits. If you have a link, please write me. I'll make a follow-up post soon about what I've found.

I've got a friend working on a new site who has some questions about social finance in MMORPGs. If you play Everquest, WoW, or really any of the online worlds and would be willing to share an email, IM chat, or a phone conversation with him, please contact me. He's a nice guy with a cool product and I'd like to help him out, but am not in any of the games myself.

(Edited: They've implemented mmorpg currencies already. It'll be interesting to see how their social service translates into the digital realm)

EdTechPost is not a pretty site, but neither is what he writes about: life in the trenches of educational technology, which he helpfully narrows down to "tools for learning, thinking, and collaborating". Scott Leslie knows his stuff, writes about it well, and links extensively. He's not just looking at media delivery, nor just at glorified word processors (though that could be interesting too), he examines the nitty-gritty details of how these tools work in educational settings while (seemingly) using the blog to step back and get some perspective on his daily work from the broad view of where the field is. It's a good example of why blogging is good for your career.