Monday, December 6, 2004

Mimmi picked up the reference right away. “Three Small Words,” is in fact a song from the Josie and the Pussycats feature film. It’s actually a very good movie, and has a lot of strong messages about individuality and such. Also, I find myself relating to the lyrics of their music a lot in the past week. People are stupid, and afraid of commitment, and say things that hurt. Bleh.

And I try so hard just to figure him out,
But he won't tell me what he's thinking about,
And then he falls asleep on the living room couch,
With his sunglesses on and his tongue hanging out,
And then he disapperas for a week at a time,
And then he just shows up just like everything's fine,
And I don't get what goes on in his mind,
But I'm tired of hearing the same stupid line,

Why do you do what you do to me baby,
You're shaking my confidence making me crazy,
You know if I could I'd do anything for you,
I don't mean to bore you cause you know I adore you,

But can't you just pretend to be nice,
Can you at least pretend to be nice,
If you could just pretend to be nice,
Everything in my life would be alright,

As for my Significant Other Application, it’s a tough decision but “The Mantis” seems a good choice. Of course, I’ll most likely be murdered within the week, but it would be a great way to go out. Wouldn’t it?

Yes, yes, points. Where was I?

Current High Scores
JC Baggee 8 Points
Shinmaru, Mimmi: 3 Points
Arcadia, Semjaza Azazel, Sara: 2 Points
Ben, Solo Tremaine, Nerdsy,
Anatema, James, Queen Asuka: 1 Point

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So I know how excited everyone is about my latest RPG “Vignette,” and I thought I’d use this post to go into my motivation and inspiration for creating such a thing.

“Vignette” is a collection of seemingly unrelated stories, as told by our narrators. Our narrators are a collection of adventurers, travelers, scholars and common folk telling tales to entertain one another. These characters are from different worlds, each representing a different archetype and backstory. For example, a witch, an elderly grandmother, a knight, an android and an assassin might all be sitting at this small tavern, trying to pass the time by telling one another about their (and possibly others’) exploits.

The point of the game is great storytelling, and the goal is to avoid the long and complicated nature that many RPGs have adopted lately. Not that there is anything wrong with a complicated plot, but I feel like most projects fail to attract any sort of audience because of how longwinded and unwieldy the storylines may seem at times. With “Vignette” each post is self-contained, so you could read the 25th post and enjoy it as an individual piece without having to read the previous 24.

“hero” (which is still going on, btw) the exact opposite of this, and definitely follows in the same type of mold that “Kill Adam” helped create. Complex stories are great, but it’s all a matter of execution. With this I’m trying to prove that it’s the execution that counts. You can tell simple stories and have them be just as, if not more effective than the epics that are sweeping OtakuBoards.

Anyway, my desire to do something incredibly accessible to the reader came about when I was looking at the pages and pages of notes that I had written for “Kill Adam” and “hero.” I think both of those RPGs are very successful attempts at telling a complicated story, but in my experience I have found it difficult for new readers to pick up and enjoy. So that’s what I went for here. I want something that has no trouble finding an audience; something refreshing that people can enjoy.

My idea was to do a type of treasure hunting RPG, where each chapter would be entirely self-contained. After talking to AzureWolf I realized that trying to create a coherent storyline out of these episodic events might be difficult, and that I may want to choose a better premise to build these adventures out of. The he mentioned the The Canterbury Tales, which I had read during my Senior year, and I instantly knew where to head with “Vignette.”

For those of you unfamiliar, The Canterbury Tales is a collection of short stories about a group of travelers who are on a religious pilgrimage. Each story is about a different member of the party, and each story is different than the next, because this group is of people from all walks of life.

Also, as inspiration, I looked towards an old episode of “Batman: The Animated Series” titled “Almost got ‘im.” It’s about a group of villains sitting around a poker table and telling stories to one another about how they each got so close to defeating Batman and ruling Gotham City. I enjoyed the sense of humor the episode had, and how each story was told from the character’s perspective, as opposed to the third-person omniscient narrator you might find in The Canterbury Tales.

There you go. That’s how this latest idea was formed. I hope you take the time to look at the sign-up, and perhaps submit something of your own. “Vignette” is going to be an awful lot of fun.
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