Sagiro's Story Hour: writing style

[Redwald]

Hey all,

Thanks for all the great feedback! Most of it isn't too surprising, but it's nice to have so many well-thought-out opinions about what people want to read.
[...]
If I ever include more pure OOC table talk, I'll be sure to offset via formatting, as StevenAC suggests.
[...]
- I think the most recent update (part 192) is best representative of what I should shoot for.
[...]
-Sagiro

Hi Sagiro,

(NOTE: These are my subjective opinions and I do not claim that anyone else should share them.)

I personally was torn between option 2 ("like it, but could get tedious") and option 4 ("liked the summarized version; old ways are the best"). Then when I voted I noticed that option 4 was the *least* popular option.

Well, I wouldn't be being honest with myself or with you as a historian of your campaign if I didn't say that one of the reasons I was able to get into your Story Hour so enthusiastically was because of your earlier style. I have a preference/weakness for the high epic fantasy stuff. Remember how it all began?

Six citizens of the Kingdom of Charagan, none of whom know each other, receive mysterious letters at their homes.

I guess maybe some people would call that "dry", but I think it's great. It's storytelling instead of play- or screen-writing. A lot of other Story Hours with their, in my view, pulpy overuse of dialogue and in medias res openings, I find much less compelling, and I can't get into them.

I also like how your Story Hour keeps the game mechanics on the sidelines (about as much as is possible with D&D, anyway).

That said, I won't attempt to claim that your "old style" was a more accurate representation of your game. In reading the dialogue-heavy installments of late, I feel like I'm getting to know your players better, which is kind of cool. (Of course, maybe I'm not -- maybe I'm just getting to know the characters they're very good at role-playing, which were more obscured behind the veneer of your previous style.) There's a lot to be said for the virtues of the new style. And I do treasure jokes -- but there were moments in your game even in the old style where I laughed. I'd like to suggest accumulating the session's best wisecracks in an appendix at the end of the post. This is selfishly motivated, of course, as I hope it will take away the feeling of starvation I experience when I read "To be continued..." and realize I can't just scroll down to the next installment because you haven't made it yet.

To conclude, I trust your instincts. A new style of presentation isn't something anyone can be expected to master instantly, and you seem to be well aware of that by encouraging people to look at the new write up of the second taped session. My gut tells me it's still a bit too chatty, but then the update would have been pretty thin otherwise. You've still got me hanging on to the edge of my seat for the next installment, and that's the most important thing. I trust you and your players to continue to be exemplars of the game we all love, as you have been for years.

Cheers!

(Someday, maybe I'll elaborate on my thoughts on the game-as-entertainment for the players and DM, and the game-as-narrative for spectators. I suspect these are different masters with fairly distinct requirements, which is why some readers, including maybe Sagiro himself, have some trepidations about the much more literal presentation of the gaming session he's used of late. I'll say again that I'm not trying to tell Sagiro to write differently, or him or his players to play the game differently. They've quite clearly got something that works.)

[EDIT: sigh -- fix sentence fragment]

 

[LRathbun]

Unfortunately, I voted before reading the below exchange. So count me in for the same reason (may get tedious for Sagiro not the reader)

Hey Sagiro,

I ticked the "may get tedious" box on the poll, but I was meaning in terms of it being more tedious for you to type up from the recording.

I like the extra dialogue, although we don't need every line IMO, but don't get burnt out by it!

Oops... for future voters, I meant "tedious for the reader."