Revelation 2019-08-12
You know how you can't always control inspiration, and choose what you're going to write about? That's why I'm trying to get the work on Revelation done now, at like 10:30, after a day of writing... stuff.
Let's take a look at the stuff I came up with yesterday and at least try to prioritize it.
- Plot hooks
- Factions and alliances
- Optional character connections
- Spells
- Customization
- Protagonist-only abilities
- Drawbacks
And figuring out which resources to track is its own thing.
My gut inclination with plot hooks is to bias them towards some kind of investigative play, but I'm not sure if an investigative solo game is even a thing like this. I kind of want it to be.
Let's think about this in terms of like mad libs... Something is not as it should be, and the people who care about this particular problem can't see how to fix it. It seems to me like there should be some element of mystery to any kind of narrative, even if it's not a mystery or a detective story per se, but what I'm visualizing currently is something like the player is making up the mystery as they uncover it, which means that if there's any kind of random element, then there's no check on the plausibility of what shakes out, and if there's no random element, then the player is essentially working things out ahead of time and sending their character through a kind of investigative obstacle course.
Maybe the most I should aim for in terms of mystery is some kind of "mysterious occurences" table that basically just provides atmosphere.
Maybe I should do some research instead of trying to work out all of this from first principles...
Okay, I found some other efforts in this area that I think are giving me some ideas.
First up, the primary thing the player needs is a Goal. This is a statement that informs their character's decisions, and ultimately is either attained or discarded. There should probably be general moves for "when you forsake your goal for something else" and "when you forsake something else for your goal".
I'd like to get more done, but I'd also like to sleep, and I think sleep now and more stuff later and better than sleep later and not as much stuff now. Good night.