Overwhelmed, please help with reading material.

Wobber · Nov 5, 2008

Hello, everyone. I finally managed to get some free time to devote to reading the Great Story Hour forums - I've been thinking of starting a game, but need inspiration and a reminder , how a proper game should look like.
Remember reading Pirate Cat's and getting really addicted to it and ...um, borrowing some of his concepts for the game I was running at the time.

Reason for me starting this thread is that there are so many good threads, written by talented storytellers and gamemasters, that I have problems with deciding where to start, so, could anyone point me in the direction of some good or , what considered, "The Best" Stories?

Thanks in advance.

Dr Simon · Nov 5, 2008

You can't go wrong with JollyDoc. I also enjoy Nebulous' SHs (because of the pretty pictures) and Goonalon is good for a chuckle (although he hasn't posted much recently).

For interesting campaign settings have a look at Gonnes, Sons and Treasure Runs, Chronicles of Burne (now somewhat defunct) or Chainsmoking Detective/Robot on the Lam (quite a lot defunct).

I also think that Shilsen's Eberron SH, the works of Lazybones and the Viridity and Saizhen SHs are worth a look, but I've not had time to archive binge on them yet.

el-remmen · Nov 5, 2008

Have you looked through the Story Hour Index stickied at the top of the forum?

This might help you narrow down your choices. . .

Personally, I am partial to Sagiro's Abernathy's Company and Spyscribe's "Welcome to the Halmae" - oh, and of course my own. . .

(see sig)

the Jester · Nov 5, 2008

Though it updates infrequently, Sepulchrave's SH is probably the best one. Look up Cheiromancer's "Tales of Wyre" thread- it complies Sep's story, which is otherwise spread out across like ten different threads.

I'll second Sagiro's as being well worth reading.

And of course, there are my SHs... several of which are linked in my sig. They have the advantage of frequent updates; also, if you want a really long tale, try out my epic saga (that is almost done!), which is also spread through about six threads- but if you start here, you'll eventually work your way through 'em!

Nebulous · Nov 5, 2008

Some of you guys have written Jordan-esque novels. It's impressive.

Lazybones · Nov 6, 2008

I haven't read any of the really recent ones, but Sagiro's story is probably the best one I've read that is still being updated.

For authors of inactive/complete ones I'd recommend Sepulchrave, Capellan, (contact), Wulf, and Spyscribe as probably the best on the site IMO. There are a few others that are really good but I hesitate to recommend them since they basically just trailed off posting and died out, leaving the core story unresolved. Sepulchrave's is incomplete and updated about once a year, but it's good enough to demand recognition even with that problem.

barsoomcore · Nov 6, 2008

Whatever you do, do NOT miss jonrog's Drunk Southern Girls With Guns story hour. It's the reason I started writing story hours, but I've never gotten close to jonrog's genius.

Understand that this was written by the guy who wrote "The Core" and "Transformers", who created the "Global Frequency" pilot and whose new show, "Leverage" is starting up soon. He's a seriously talented writer.

Iron Sky · Nov 7, 2008

I can't speak to its quality, since I think authors are probably the worst people to ask about their own work(since they usually tend to thing it's far worse or far better than it is), but my story hour has the useful qualities of being:

a) short - only 2 pages worth of posts so far,
b) regularly updated - Wednesdays,
c) finite - the campaign went exactly 31 sessions, so it's maybe 1 novel's worth of story, not 10 (not that there's anything wrong with long stories - George R. R. Martin is one of my favorite authors). I'm up to session 14 so it's a bit under half-way done.

I'm busy trying to read the stack of books on my shelf that I own but have never read or people have loaned me, so I also can't recommend anyone else's story hours.

Thankfully, my ignorance is covered by the above posters - you can trust them to point you to the gems.

talien · Nov 7, 2008

Dr Simon said:
For interesting campaign settings have a look at Gonnes, Sons and Treasure Runs, Chronicles of Burne (now somewhat defunct) or Chainsmoking Detective/Robot on the Lam (quite a lot defunct).

Hey thanks! This is the first time my story hour has ever been recommended to anybody!

Quartz · Nov 7, 2008

Sepulchrave's Tales of Wyre is a masterpiece. Jollydoc's story hours are required reading, and Cerebral Paladin's Aphonion Tales is a very different campaign, concentrating on politics and strategy rather than action.