February 2025 Writer Support Thread

You may need to address that to one of them directly. Took me a couple of tries before they noticed my unlock request. Hooray for chapter 3!

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You don’t actually need a mod for that - a Leader can unlock threads as well. It’s done. :slight_smile:

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Thank you! It’s very much appreciated. :slight_smile:

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During the first Covid lockdown, when I got stuck in my writing, I took my laptop to the kitchen and called it “writing at the cafe”. The kitchen chairs were much less comfortable, so I couldn’t do it for long, but it definitely helped.

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What are your opinions on randomness that doesn’t relate to winning or losing?

For example, it might determine if it’s raining the day you decide to ambush a Tax wagon.

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I love it because I’m big on replaying if games, so something like that would tickle me, even if it’s just flavor text.

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I like it, it’s nice having little variations.

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Little stuff to add flavor like that is always nice to see

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I like it a lot more when it’s not related to winning than when it is. It’s much less frustrating and increases replayability.

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I can deal with it, but I don’t like it.

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What about it dont you like?

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I agree with Lili. Sure, sometimes I’m replaying for new scenes and variations, but there’s times where I’m replaying for a similar experience to the first playthrough. If it only impacts the game in a small way, it feels kinda unnecessary? If the writer wants it then sure, but I feel like only code divers will notice it and the writing time can be used on other things

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That is an interesting thought.

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I just don’t like randomness, if that means I can’t predict what result I’m going to get when I replay (it’s different if I can keep rerolling to get the result I want, which is something most authors seem to treat as a bug and not a feature, so I’m very wary).

I mean, what if I want to (re)play the particular scenario where it rains, assuming there’s something actually different, and the dice decides it’s not raining? Or maybe I’m trying to screenshot a typo that appears only under specific circumstances, which don’t then happen due to the roll. Or maybe I just like one better than the other, and thus try to achieve it.

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Thanks for the response. Along with what @sana mentioned earlier. It is something to think about.

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I love it and use a ton of it for Sense & Sorcery - I sort of feel like it mirrors and better models real life as there is a lot of chaos and randomness all the time in the real world. As with a lot of old school rpgs, I use it in my games for the conversation and rumor sections, but I’ve liked it enough where I’m thinking of expanding my own use thereof. Love the idea of using it for the weather. I can definitely appreciate LillArch’s reasons, but in my opinion for many games the gain outweighs the cost. I think absolute value would be inherent to the given project, however, as is usual for many of these things.

Now, my question for the community, and sadly a recurring bugaboo that is frankly draining a ton of my energy and will to keep making my games, is the matter of editing. From more than one writing seminar, my own experiences, and a ton of content online, there is a go to social convention that writers are writers and editors are editors - however, the WIP game space is a strange space indeed, and unfortunately my most common review seems to be something along the lines of “you need to spell better” or “you have to many typos” - so, do you all think that writers here need to be held to a higher standard than the larger writing community in terms of having their work edited before any updates are shared? This goes contrary to common writing convention, but, well, if you keep hearing the same feedback over and over again, maybe that’s just how things ought to work for these WIPs? Could be the case that I should just refrain from sharing any of my WIPs until they are nearly done and heavily edited, but when your around 600,000 words one kind of likes to have ones work out there in case something happens or whatever - at least it can be read in some form.

Hope that question makes sense - due to my crazy work schedule going on I’m something like less than 4 hours of sleep, so my apologies if it didn’t. But basically, just looking to hear the community’s opinion on the matter of editing and these games - must they be heavily edited before being available as a WIP? Or is this an unfair constraint?

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Far be it from me to deny anyone the right to do any creative choice they want to do; I still reserve myself the right to not like it. I was asked for my opinion, and I gave it. That doesn’t mean anyone else would need to take that into account.

I wouldn’t think spellchecking is the kind of editing those writing seminars tell the authors not to do themselves. Seems like an odd restriction to me. I could be wrong though.

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I think this would make sense in a conventional writing arena, but unfortunately with HG games in particular you’re not really going to have that kind of support unless you hire someone with your own money. However, you’re also not being forced to edit your work before posting it into a WiP.

This probably depends on what kind of engagement you’re looking for. Many people find too many typos and spelling errors difficult to read or it lowers their comprehension of the story/work, so it’s going to be the first thing they point out.

In general a WiP is just that, a work in progress. So it’s not really meant to be 100% correct in wording or coding etc and mistakes are expected to pop up here and there. But if it’s failing to garner the feedback you’re looking for, you might have to think about balancing out quality over quantity before posting.

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zozopuff thanks for the detailed reply. Yeah, I think I agree with what you’re saying there. Good food for thought.

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With Rebels, I tried to throw in a dose of randomness that was small enough that success or failure wouldn’t normally hinge on random factors, but meaningful enough to make it hard to pin down one runthrough that would always yield an optimal outcome. I wanted it to be the enemy of optimization, not of success.

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