An idea for a new kind of Collaborative Story

[Mr_D]

Hey everyone.

It's been a while since I last posted on the forums in any real capacity. But I've recently been mulling over an idea that struck me as perfect for Speculative Vision.

I'm sure you all remember those 'Create your own adventure' books from when you were kids. I know I was a big fan of them, particularly ones put out by Knight Books which had just the right level of fantasy and realism to them (they tended to be pretty dark and quite graphically horrific in places). For those who aren't familiar with the concept each story is divided into numbered paragraphs which are scattered randomly throughout the book. Each entry ends with a decision that needs to be made by the player and a choice of several numbered entries for the player to follow upon making the decision. So the story can have many branching paths that can range from small, almost inconsequential decisions to completely different paths that alter the course of the story and maybe even the ending. Sometimes these decisions didn't even come into effect until the very end of the book! Most CYOA books also littered a number of seemingly random, arbitrary insta-deaths at the player for making the wrong choice (some of which were exceedingly unfair).

Well I've been considering starting up a Collaborative Story in the form of just such a CYOA. The format would be so:

I post a segment of story (usually ending in a decision of some sort, though occasionally I may be forced to end mid flow due to time/space constraints).

The players (that's you) vote on what to do next, from the list of choicesd (I may also experiment with accepting players to suggest choices that haven't been offered.) These votes will be tallied and the most popular option will be chosen.

I then write the next segment of story that follows on from the decision chosen and so on.

Should our character die we will rewind to an appropriate point in time and continue on, hopefully wiser for the experience.

So what do people think? Does this seem like something people would be interested in? Or does it sound like a damnably foolish concept and I should never post again?

[Bmat]

I think the concept sounds like fun if we could get enough participants.

[Loxley]

And I concur!

[Mr_D]

Yeah, the number of participants would be the issue I think. I'm not sure how many peopl frequent this section of the forums though. I reckon we'd need a handful (5+) to make it worthwhile.

[Mr_D]

Well while I'm waiting on people to take interest I'll get to work on the structure.

I figure the first call of business in any case would be to figure out who our protagonist will be. Then depending on that I'll come up with a story that suits them. For the sake of making things easier on myself I'll be using Altaea as a setting. Background info is included in the link (I don't see the point in reposting it all here for one thread so I'll just link to the RPG thread.

So we have to come up with:

Name:

Race: (From those listed in the Altaea background. Those that I will allow as playable races are; Human, Al Mayin, High Elf, Dark Elf, Forest Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Orc, Demi, Shapeshifter.)

Occupation/class: (A rough archetype for our character to follow. E.g. knight, barbarian, assassin, ninja, magus or even something mundane like merchant, fisherman etc)

Nationality: (From those listed in the Altaea background.)

Personality: (Simple suggestions on how our protagonist may react to certain situations. E.g. Sarcastic, good natured, ruthless, self centered, psychotic etc)

Feel free to leave a section blank if you have no opinion on it or can't be bothered to read up the wall of text that makes up the background info. I'll fill in the rest and come up with a character sheet.

[The Master]

So you mean something like our interactive stories except on the forum?

Rather than voting on what you write next why not let someone else make one of the choices you left and post the next part? We can have a rule that the last author can't reply to their own post for the first 24 hours or something like that.

[Mr_D]

Rssentially the same, yes, but I figure that since it'd be an ongoing thing it;d allow a little more freedom of choice for the reader.

And part of the reason I came up with it was as a personal project to get me back into writing. I figure it'd keep me motivated to write. (I've been rather lazy recently)

[Ariel]

Mr_D!!!!! I missed you so much! What a cool idea!! And while you're at it, you can join our small group in the latest Lycoria story. Hugs!!

[JetMasta]

I'm keen to give it a go.