Games Assignment 5: RPGs and Game Storytelling

Due Friday, March 12

1. Read Mechner's article on writing the story for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Then suggest two mistakes that a writer familiar with a different medium might make on transitioning to video game writing.
2. RPGs often attempt to satisfy both "Timmy," who likes power fantasies, and "Johnny," who likes the opportunity to express personality, creativity, or uniqueness. Cite some evidence from the Planescape: Torment design doc that the game was meant to appeal to Timmy, and some evidence that the game was meant to appeal to Johnny.
3. Sign up for a game of Puppetland (see handout) or Risus, either as a gamemaster (GM) or a player. Your responsibilities will be slightly different in each case:
   • If you are a GM, write an adventure for the game. Arrange a time for your game that all players who have signed up can make, find out what characters the players want to play, and run an adventure for them that contains at least one adversary with full Puppetland or Risus statistics. After the game, tell them about any interesting options you had planned that they did not pursue in the game. Then turn in your adventure notes for the assignment; you need not answer the questions below.
   • If you are a player, make a character for the game, play in the game, then answer the following questions about the game you played:
     1. Evaluate the pacing of the game, including the momentum at the beginning and the feeling of progress being made throughout. What might the GM have done differently to improve it?
     2. Were the GM's characters and the other players' characters memorable? If so, why? If not, how would you change them to be more memorable?
     3. Do you feel that you had a reasonable chance of discovering the parts of the adventure that the GM described to you that you did not encounter? If so, describe how you knew about the alternatives that you did not pursue. If not, suggest how staging or another tactic might have been used to make you aware of the possibilities.