I always really liked role-play threads on fan forums, and I realized while working on a story prompt generator for a while that I was really thinking about a generator for stories I could bounce off or write with other people. It also reminds me of a creative writing notebook a few friends and I would pass around sometimes in school.
This is sort of a combination of a creative writing exercise and a role-playing game. I really kind of hate the turn-to-turn focus on stats and other numbers, so this is very freeform by comparison. Where it does have rules, they're to make this a system that can be copy-pasted and used on pretty much any forum or link-aggregator style social media platform, especially if it also uses markdown.
Goals (in order of importance)
- Write literally anything of (or close to) the requested length and submit it under the relevant chapter in time for the next interval regardless of quality.
- Be flexibly creative as a part of a group.
- Have fun.
Honestly considering this hasn't been play-tested yet, I'm barely expecting any of the rules or structure to stay the same anyway. And honestly if this all just devolves into a freeform "r/WriteWithMe" clone that's fine too. Creating any kind of community would have been worth it.
Roles
Editor
The traditional "Game Master" if this were a tabletop game.
- Makes the initial post setting the starting parameters for the story and participation, then and keeps it updated to reflect changes
- Creates a Top-Level Comment for OOC, Worldbuilding, Character Building, and Each Chapter
- Mediates disagreements about story direction
Writer
The Traditional "Player" who controls a "Player Character" if this were a tabletop roleplaying game.
- Respond to the OOC top-level comment to indicate interest
- Participate in initial worldbuilding and create their individual character by replying to the correct top-level comment.
- Contribute a written piece of the expected length and submit at the requested interval under the relevant
- Avoids controlling other character's stories without discussing it with that player.
- Particularly avoids including romantic subplots without the consent of all involved parties, and gets specific permission from another player to romance their character.
Phases
Introductory Post
Post Title: Create as "Editor Looking for N players for X participation interval" and change to a title or descriptor when the story has enough players.
Suggested Post Format:
- Minimum/Maximum Writers: The original design accommodates up to 7, but I suspect the optimal number will turn out to be 3 or so
- Interval: the minimum number of time each participant has to contribute their part of each chapter.
- Minimum/Maximum Word Count: a minimum/maximum number of words each participant is expected to contribute to each chapter.
- Number of Chapters: The number of chapters the editor is committing to oversee. This guide has recommended story structures for 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, and 15 chapter stories, but it doesn't strictly matter.
- Maximum Missed Chapters: how many chapters someone can miss before their character is written out or the other writers can use them without issue (exception: romantic/NSFW content)
- Other Content Expectations: 1st person POV, Epistolary, Movie/Theater Script, etc
- Disallowed Content: Examples, violence, sex, nudity full list of common triggers from Does the Dog Die
- (Optional) Suggested World Combinations: to speed up voting/decision-making at the world-building phase
Empty Version:
- Minimum/Maximum Writers:
- Interval:
- Minimum/Maximum Word Count:
- Number of Chapters:
- Maximum Missed Chapters:
- Other Content Expectations:
- Disallowed Content:
- (Optional) Suggested World Combinations:
The Rest of play will occur as comments responding to top-level comments.
Out-of-Character (OOC) Top-Level Comment
This is just a space for players to express interest in joining, introduce themselves, and have general interaction and brainstorming outside of writing and posting chapters.
Worldbuilding Top-Level Comment
All of these are listed in the linked comments. There are a few ways to try to fill these in:
- The Editor and Writers collaborate to pick out items from the linked list comments
- Use this random generator that uses all the options from that list and presents them in the format below.
- You could also come up with your own options. Romantic options do not auto-generate and they're not on any of the lists, but you're welcome do do them if all parties agree to it.
- For the elements in particular, you're intended to pick multiple and find a way to combine them. The suggested number is 3, but you could also have each writer pick one then they have to find a way to make them fit together, even if there aren't necessarily 3 of them.
- Some combination of the above.
Suggested Top-Level Comment Format:
Worldbuilding
Empty Version:
Worldbuilding
- Genre:
- Conflict:
- Direction:
- Elements:
- Character Dynamics:
- (Optional) Suggested World Combinations:
Character Creation Top-Level Comment (Copy-Paste)
You can either pick from the provided lists or make your own. Even the list items are intentionally vague to encourage elaboration or specification from the writer. They are numbered only so you can use a random number generator. You can also use this Auto-Generator to randomly roll a character to use all or part of.
- Name: Completely up to you.
- Age/Gender: also mostly up to you. Just remember that some of the character dynamics specify age.
- Position in the chosen dynamic: from the previous worldbuilding section.
- Occupation: List Comment What your character spends most of their time doing, whether paid or unpaid.
- Outwardly Distinctive Traits: List Comment Something about this character that is immediately noticeable to someone meeting them for the first time.
- Pivotal Life Event: List Comment a single life event that fundamentally affects this character in their day-to-day life.
- Point of Pettiness: List Comment some trivial everyday issue that this character will rightfully or wrongfully fight about.
- Major Character Flaw: List Comment speaks for itself.
Blank Template:
- Name:
- Age/Gender:
- Position in the chosen dynamic:
- Occupation:
- Outwardly Distinctive Traits:
- Point of Pettiness:
- Major Character Flaw:
Chapter Top-Level Comment
Suggested Top-Level Comment Format:
- Chapter Number:
- (Optional) Chapter Name:
- Guidelines: (copy from your original post)
- World Information: (copy from your worldbuilding top comment)
- Prompt: The editor's main creative contribution to keeping the story running. Needs to be created by the editor in response to what part of the story arc you are in and what is happening in this story specifically. You can use this guide to help map a story that has 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, or 15 chapters (or some multiple of those chapters).
Blank Template:
- Chapter Number:
- (Optional) Chapter Name:
- Guidelines:
- World Information:
- Prompt:
Closing Comments/Credits
The example/selectable/diceroll list comments will be created and linked here as I go. Please LMK if you find a broken link. This is an example of how I designed this to be set up, but you won't hurt my feelings if you don't use it.
Thanks for reading, and/or playing, and especially any writing.
The specific idea of randomly combining story elements then collectively building them into a world concept is borrowed from the game Unbound by Rowan, Rook, and Decard, which I highly recommend if you enjoy tabletop/card games. The specific lists themselves though I scrapped together mostly with thesauruses or aimless google searches on each topic. Also some of them are tropes from TVTropes I think.
The Story Plot structures I know I got from somewhere, at least bits and pieces here and there, but I've had copied to a google doc journal for a while and wouldn't know where the source is now. I do know at least some of this (beyond just the lists) is from TVTropes, but I can't remember what off the top of my head.
Probably other things I've forgotten and will add when I remember.
Yeah I was gonna say this reads like "no balls"