thread: 2005-07-05 : Setting and Source Material
On 2005-07-05, Andrew Norris wrote:
"We need the starting point of the creative process instead. Because what we're doing? It's creative."Thank you. I've been trying to explain this point, and for some reason I couldn't distill it down past a five-minute speech. Two sentences works a lot better.
I've been looking through my roleplaying library recently, trying to find useful "How to GM" essays, and this is the stuff that I need. So far, I've only found it in Dogs in the Vineyard, the Sorcerer supplements, and Aaron Allston's old Champion supplement, Strike Force.
I think even the much-praised Robin's Laws, when it comes down to "how to create", boils down to "Figure out what stereotypes your players fall into, and make sure your set-piece scenes include something to placate those stereotypes."
Books on how to write fiction offer a lot of useful information for the start of the creative process (especially for setting and non player characters), but they don't offer much help on how to carry out a collaborative creative process.
What I could really use is a book that talks about how to flesh out an intriguing concept, how to pitch it to the group in a way that encourages them to contribute to it (or modify it until it does catch their interest), and how to combine the various "interest points" that the group comes up with into a cohesive campaign.
This makes NinJ go "Robin Laws' Laws is weineriffic"
I read that book - a couple of times, even - and was unimpressed. It's a big list of Ways To Make Players Think They Needed To Show Up. Check out Gamemastering Secrets, above, by Grey Ghost. I don't remember if it's much better, but it's another resource.
