RPGs & Storygames discussion

As suggested by "threadmom" or was it mod? :) I'm staking this one here. This is probably an outlier of a topic I imagine, but still somewhat connected if not directly inspired by role-playing.

It crossed my mind while reviewing some of my old Endless Quest books by Rose Estes (a classic example of her work called "Dungeon of Dread" is attached to this thread) that maybe instead of trying to write a novella or compilation of short stories inspired from my homespun campaign world it might be more fun to publish them as choose your own adventure stories.

So here's a few questions:

1.) Is there still a market for this sort of thing?

2.) Does anyone have any experience in publishing this type of material?

4.) Have you read any titles from the Choose your Own Adventure or Endless Quest series? If not another brand perhaps? If so which are your favorites?

Coincidentally, my daughter just told me yesterday that Netflix is coming out with a CYOA series this year. I don't know if it's live action or animated, or what the genre is. I'll try to find out.

I was a fan of CYOA books when they first came out, and I wrote a branching adventure in MUSE code once. But then I got into object-oriented programming and my approach to interactive narrative became more atomic.

But back to the point: I actually do think there might be an even bigger audience for this today than there was then. You could do it electronically, and you could write them for any age group (even adult material, since Boomers and GenXers will find it nostalgic). Each "page" would basically be a piece of "flash fiction", which is popular these days since a lot of people read fiction on their phones, between meetings, on the bus, etc. Maybe a subscription model?

Wow you took me back to the old school again, I'm reminded of those multiple choice rpg's we had to load up on the Apple with floppy disks. Wish I could remember the names of those... I'm not sure I'm familiar with MUSE or not.

You have really stoked my curiosity now. I think you're right and that's an excellent point about going mobile too.

Thanks for the ideas! Now I just need a plan of action :)

Netflix is to consider new interactive storytelling technology for their TV dramas
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/artic...

The future is here, I think it's a cool idea.

I don't know if there's a profitable market for CYOA books, at least in the traditional sense, but there's certainly interest in the format.

Parsley games are pretty much tabletop RPGs that emulate CYOA books. http://www.memento-mori.com/parsely/

The Doctor Who Solitare Story Game functions, more or less, as 4 crossreferenced CYOA books. It's kinda complicated to play but and interesting idea. http://drwhossg.freedomforceforever.com/

Matt wrote: "I don't know if there's a profitable market for CYOA books, at least in the traditional sense, but there's certainly interest in the format.

Parsley games are pretty much tabletop RPGs that emulat..."

I recently played in a detective game based on Call of Cthulhu (which was itself based on the game Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective), where there were 10 adventures, ranging in difficulty from first to last. It's not an RPG, being quite a mechanical solve the mystery by numbers sort of game, but it was reasonably satisfying, and I'd be happy to play a TTRPG scenario in like vein.

Interesting links and thoughts both. I'm pretty sure if I can manage some time down the road to sort out my stories and campaign settings this very well could take on a life of its own.

You might find this interesting...
https://twinery.org/

Twine is an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories.

You don't need to write any code to create a simple story with Twine, but you can extend your stories with variables, conditional logic, images, CSS, and JavaScript when you're ready.

Twine publishes directly to HTML, so you can post your work nearly anywhere. Anything you create with it is completely free to use any way you like, including for commercial purposes.

Yeah I'd vaguely heard about Twine. Need to investigate it, thanks for the prompt.

Talking about CYOA books, by sheer coincidence I got an e-mail from the organisers of UK Games Expo today, promoting one of the events, a comedy/horror COYA larp (yes, there apparently is such a thing) run by a guy called John Robertson. Here's a link to his website:
http://www.thejohnrobertson.com/theda...

Sounds cool, comedy/horror makes me think "Bruce Campbell vs Army of Darkness"! :-)

I must admit, every time I see the acronym "CYOA" I think "Cover Your Own Ass".

"I think "Cover Your Own Ass"

hah! thanks for the links guys!

Hehe yeah, that's a good definition. As such it would fall into the same category of military acronyms as SNAFU, and its modern equivalent, FUBAR.