the filthy monkey, it plots

[curgoth]

I've been doing some thinking about RPG stuff lately. I've also noticed that a fair number of people on my LJ friends list are writers of one stripe or another.

Which has me thinking, both about GMing, and about why I am not a writer. Essentially, it boils down to the same problem; I have trouble plotting.

I have worked out a rich and well developed fantasy world. I have, in my mind come up with various interesting NPCs and potential PCs to fill the world with. however, the interesting people in thier interesting world, just sit there. I can't figure out a way to get them to actually DO anything.

When I game myself, I play from a character-based style; I figure out how my charcter would respond, and act accordingly. I don't try to plan too deeply, unless my character is a plotter, nor do I tend to think about how my character's action will affect the plot. I don't tend to get too "meta" about things when I'm playing.

One of the reasons I was so excited about Cry of the Unicorn is that I had, for once, actually thought of an over-arching plot for the game. I still had the problem, though, of figuring out what happened in between. I have problems creating events for charcters to react to vs. figuring out how the characters will react.

I get lost in the spaces in between.

Comments

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

I do better with plot than all the other stuff. Maybe we should co-GM.

[curgoth]

I think this may be the solution; I've got a local who's volunteered to help me run my next game for this stuff. Of course, co-gming at cons has been less than successful for me in the past... but that may be due to underplanning.