Session write-ups
May. 1st, 2017 10:04 pm![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackI really love writing up roleplaying sessions as I've done the last few times.
What I notice is that even when the events are the same, the write-up is very different. The emotional beats of the campaign are, when will the party succeed, when will they find things out, etc. But it's very hard to make that resonate in a write-up. I'm not sure why, but it almost always doesn't work.
Whereas in my write-up, the resonance comes from playing up character/player tension and gm/player tension, humorously, often exaggerated, though based on the real events. I think partly, being in the GM's head, the tense bits of the story are different for me than the players. And that works better for someone else looking in.
Anyway, novels that take the basic worldbuilding of a roleplaying campaign can be awesome (cf. Wildcards, etc). But if you try to write up the *events* it usually doesn't work, too much of the best moments rely on player interaction that can't be shared in fiction, and doesn't provide the hooks to care about the characters fiction needs.
What I notice is that even when the events are the same, the write-up is very different. The emotional beats of the campaign are, when will the party succeed, when will they find things out, etc. But it's very hard to make that resonate in a write-up. I'm not sure why, but it almost always doesn't work.
Whereas in my write-up, the resonance comes from playing up character/player tension and gm/player tension, humorously, often exaggerated, though based on the real events. I think partly, being in the GM's head, the tense bits of the story are different for me than the players. And that works better for someone else looking in.
Anyway, novels that take the basic worldbuilding of a roleplaying campaign can be awesome (cf. Wildcards, etc). But if you try to write up the *events* it usually doesn't work, too much of the best moments rely on player interaction that can't be shared in fiction, and doesn't provide the hooks to care about the characters fiction needs.