About dices, rules and narrative

[pells]

Real advancement in setting has been completely disregarded as ways to reconstruct how system interfaces in the narrative priciples of roleplaying.

I've always been interested in the narration issue, wathever the media was, books, TV series, movies. When I watch a movie, I'm mostly interested in the story, the develepoment of the plot (see, for example, the difference between japenese and american movie), but also by the way it is told. In most media, or say art, there has been great differences over time. Author succeeded in finding new ways to tell their stories.

Take for example pulp fiction, l'année dernière à Marienbard, west of the track or even usual suspect... The authors could have chose another way to tell the same story. Same thing for books, Kundera or even in heroic fantasy with a song of ice and fire. As for TV series, 24 or lost (or see X, the japenese anime) brought a new way to reinvente story line, or story telling.

When I play the so called rpg video game, I'm interested in the story here again. I don't really care between the system of, let's say sacred or diablo. But The stories they have to offer are not very good and so linear, meaning each time you play it, you play the exact same plot, in the exact same order.

I don't say I have the solution, but I think there is a whole reflexion to bring to the rpg about the way authors could write their stories.

[komradebob]

First, apologies to Sebastien and everyone else for my threadjacking yesterday.

Second:
Sebastien, having heard the warnings from several posters about the possible problems of making money off the type of product you are suggesting, are you still interested in pursuing the project?

Knowing that there may not be any commercial profit, would you still be interested in making this?

If your answer is yes, let us begin to discuss possible approaches.

One thing that strikes me about your project is that it has a lot in common with someone trying to make a game set in a historical setting. This leads me to a few genral questions:

Do you want to allow players to make their own characters, or might your purposes be better served by giving them pre-made characters?

How much of your overall background will be read by any participant?

How much background must be read by any participant prior to playing a scenario?

Is there background that must not be read by certain participants?

Have you considered splitting this product into two parts: A scenario product and a worldbook product, for example? Would it be possible to sell one and give the other away, in your opinion? Which would you prefer to make a for-sale product?

Do you wish to create scenarios that are connected with one another directly, or could your scenarios be seperate and distinct, but tied by the settings/events timeline?

Have you considered making this as a series of mini-games, with each scenario only having the barest necessary rules to achieve the playstyle you want for that individual scenario?

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Sebastien, this thread covers too many topics at once and has taken four pages just to get started. Fortunately, the solution is simple: let's stop this thread and start new threads with many of the smaller points or issues made more specific. I hope you can see that this is not a criticism of any of your points, nor shutting down the discussion. Many years has taught me that we'll all benefit from this approach.

Best,
Ron