Disappeared for a While

"Well... I'm back."

The immortal words of Samwise to close out The Lord of the Rings.  It seems those are my constant words here on Blogger as I swing between intending to continue blogging and wanting to give it up.

To be honest, I would rather leave blogging behind as I'd rather be writing my books rather than talking about them.  I believe that the main reason a lot of people don't fulfill their dreams of writing is because they're so busy doing everything around it rather than doing the writing itself.  Blogging is one of those distractions.

However, it is good to tell people about what's going on and provide behind the scenes looks, so here I am once again.  (Plus, it seems that there are a few more people reading my blogs now, so here you go.)

My time during Covid has been used intensely to get through projects and release them.  Millions of people out there have been captive audiences for a while, so there will never be a better time to provide entertainment.

As such, I've made more videos for Bandwagon Games, started a podcast for RPG Storytime, finished my book on Vietnam, gotten most of the way through the latest Relic Worlds book, and built a little studio in which to do everything.

I'm going to be posting about all of this over the next few weeks, so I hope you enjoy it.  Take a look at the links and you'll see the results of all my hard labor.

Enjoy!

The Art of Turning RPG Games into Videos

Earlier this year I started a channel called RPG Storytime which shows videos I've made that tell the stories that came out of RPG games.  Rather than live streaming us playing the game, like most channels do, I take the story that was generated from the game sessions, and I write a script for it.  I narrate it like an audiobook, put in sound effects and music, and I set up shots of miniatures on tiny sets which illustrates what's happening.

This creates a fast-paced story that continues from video to video.  Viewers follow it like it's a TV series, and get invested in the characters.  In order to get it to that point, though, there are some important things I have to remember.  First and foremost, I need to follow the rules of storytelling rather than the rules of the game itself.  There are a lot of rules and details in a game that would bog down a story.  These should only be brought up when they're relevant to the story, or when there's an amazing roll.  It becomes important to highlight this aspect when something seems way out of the ordinary, and happened only because of an unexpected roll of the dice.

What's also very important is developing the characters as characters, not as classes.  Rather than a character being a third level rogue, they are a moderately experienced map maker, or someone seeking out artifacts.  Give them some trait that people would want to read in a book or see in a character in a movie.

Most importantly, the series needs to stay focused on the story and character arcs.  Individual fights mean nothing if they're not part of a story that's leading to something.  This is something to keep in mind when game mastering, but it is far more important when you're reciting the story to the audience.

All that being said, I have found that it is good to tape the players playing at least for a little while, or to set them up as though they're playing later on, because it's good to integrate these moments into the videos.  Viewers seem to like seeing the players make the decisions.  To that end, I also tape the players giving testimonials that can be intercut with the story so viewers can get a sense of their thinking and decision making processes.

Ultimately, regardless of how successful the videos are, I'm proud of them and really enjoy having these records of the stories which have come out of our RPG sessions.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTOn2WMkuvRskZ2SN1YBplQ