Style and Taste

[ZamuelNow]

Starting a new thread based off of discussion elsewhere.  What style of author are you and what arcs do you seek out for play?  Personally, I feel I'm theoretically split 50/50 when it comes to wanting to create comedic or serious arcs but a serious project often leads to a longer arc.  Oddly, I think I'm more strict on mistakes and structure on my comedic arcs.  I lean more What If?/Elseworlds than hard canon or wholly disconnected from canon.  I prefer a breadth of ideas and settings than focusing on one thing.  I'm also willing to play with mechanics that may not always be wise.

 

As a player, I'm also 50/50 on comedy and seriousness but I'm more cautious on long serious arcs.  I prefer arcs be complete and have fully built sequels than be "To Be Continued" serial blocks.  Since I didn't start Issue 1 (or Issue 6) and haven't played every arc in the main game, I prefer arcs that connect to canon be written with mild refreshers in their narrative.  Praetoria is a turn off.  Those stories can be well done but isn't part of the game that interests me.

[cranebump]

As a player. I’ll play just about anything. As an author, I tend toward noir.

[Clave Dark 5]

I've made silly, I've made fairly straight forward, and I've made surreal stuff.

 

I'll play any, really admire a strongly put-together story, because I know how much hard work it is (hence the silly and surreal options in my portfolio ha ha).

[Darmian]

19 hours ago, ZamuelNow said:

 Praetoria is a turn off.  Those stories can be well done but isn't part of the game that interests me.

BOOO!  HISSS!

[Police Woman]

I mostly write comedy.  I've dabbled in more serious stories but I'll tend to add easter eggs or in-jokes even in those.

 

I'll play almost anything, but I especially love story arcs with a strong genre theme, and my hero is transported into this story and is immersed in it.  I strive to do this in some of my own story arcs, and I'm happiest with the arcs I've written where I feel this is successful.

Edited January 9 by Police Woman

[Darmian]

Hmm.  Nowadays I've little time to write but I still have my notes for my final Praetorian Trilogy somewhere.  It's Responsibility Loyalist.  I've done trilogies of the other three factions and really tried to make them fit (a) into the lore of pre War Praetoria/edging into the start of the actual War; and (b) fitting into a "gap" between Neutropolis and First Ward events.  The Responsibility Loyalist is my fave path through Praetoria so I've been very self critical on what I want to put out there in order to satisfy myself on how well it fits in.  Eventually I'll get it done I suppose.  I'd happily write more Praetorian stuff set later in First Ward and Night Ward if we had any of those maps. We don't.

 

Other than that I've tried to write a long NPC team driven work that spans 50 missions.  I had a lot of fun writing it and keeping track of all the spinning plates and I envisaged it as a combo TV series format with a Prequel and three "seasons" that has you engage with a mid level NPC super team and generally get to know them while their world is spinning out of control.  I think it works.  

 

Comedy is so subjective that I won't even attempt that.  And kudos to those who can do it. 

 

For things I look for?  I'll try almost anything but a solid story and good character interaction will always hook me in.  And when I say anything, well look at some of the Christmas AEs that are available!  Some of those are insane.

 

And even in an AE that might be 90% awful to me you can find something that shines, that makes me think "how the hell did they do that?"  I've been lucky enough that several people have asked me that question about my stuff but here's a little known secret: sometimes the AE's borkiness produces strange and fun things you can find while testing and then the trick is to figure out (usually by redrafting the story bit) how to make it look like I MEANT that to happen  😄

 

And by now some of the newer AE writers might be discovering how @cranebump and @Ankylosaur are damn good at what they do.  It's that they keep doing it.  Carnegie Hall, folks!

[Clave Dark 5]

20 hours ago, Darmian said:

BOOO!  HISSS!

Welp, Zam's cancelled now yep.

[Ankylosaur]

Because we are anchored in maps in the CoH world, it may be a cop out, but most of the stuff I do anchors itself there. For me, I generally found hooks in the game lore that were not explored that I wanted to explore and find an answer to that satisfied me. This meant they were mostly serious - but its my nature to throw humor in there some of the time and  comics often do. 

 

Hooks that appealed to me included...

1. Where did the Mercy Serpents come from?
2. Where did the people in the Shard come from?
3. What happened on the Rikti Home World?
4. How did so many gangs start getting and keep getting Praetorian tech?
5. What happened to the refugees after refugee island?
6. What happened to Astoria after Mot was destroyed?
7. What happened in the Kheldian schism after the fall of Striga and Arkhn and Requiem after the Marchand Arc?
8. Why would Kheldians keep trying after 2.000 years of failing and bad leadership?
9. What happened to Penelope Mayhem after the Mr G arc?
10. What happened to Mr G's gang?
11. What happened to Scirocco and Mistral after his crisis of "faith?"
12. Why is it important that Moonfire was around 3,000 years ago?
13. Who is the Order of the Wind and why do Scirocco, Ice Mistral, Borea and Levantera and the Dark watcher all have ties there?
14. Did Merulina and Mot exist in other Pantheons or on Praetoria?
15. Why did Helix have Kheldian powers?
16. Why does Infernal's lair on Praetoria look like Oranbega?
17. What happened in Night Ward after the Talons left for Astoria?
18. How is Marshal Blitz still alive all these years after a terminal cancer diagnosis?

 

Stuff like that...

 

And sometimes I had a little idea for fun costumes or maps or mechanics I wanted to use and explored that - like Hammigeddon or Robolution or Spycraft and Spidermen.

 

And then sometimes I just liked trying to take some public domain stuff and retell it as fun romp for people to go through. Half the fun was creating the costumes, the other half was figuring out how to plausibly insert it into the CoH world - like Adventures in Wonderland, Oz, and Neverland. Even in those I would just see what I could muster from the tools at hand. (Neverland definitely took a darker turn than expected! but discovered this french comic along the way that treated Peter Pan VERY differently and inspired my take.)

 

All of it was for the fun of exploring how to craft a good story and adventure with a community eager to give feedback. (Infinite thanks to @Darmian and @Take One for detailed deep edits (and @ZamuelNow when he was Zamuel-back-then on live) and to many many others who shared feedback in DMs and emails and helped me iterate my stories to be a little better for the next runner. + @LordRassilon for the live plays on Twitch for what amounted to invaluable recorded playtests!) 

 

Truth is I stopped playing toons myself ages ago - for better or worse writing was my end game experience.

 

Personally got a lot out of it - both from exploring the lore and from a creative outlet where I slowly got a little better over time with the help of generous and great feedback. 

Edited Tuesday at 04:13 AM by Ankylosaur