A question for story hour authors

[Stalker0]

I'm curious about how the story hour process works. Do you guys take copious notes during the game to try and get all the details, or do you just kind of wing it from memory?

Are all the stories preety much exactly how the adventure goes, or is it often dramaticized a bit?

Do the players help right some of their character's actions in the story, or is it done soley by you?

 

[Silver Moon]

I'm curious about how the story hour process works. (1) Do you guys take copious notes during the game to try and get all the details, or do you just kind of wing it from memory? (2) Are all the stories preety much exactly how the adventure goes, or is it often dramaticized a bit? (3) Do the players help write some of their character's actions in the story, or is it done soley by you?

My answers to your questions are as follows:
1. I do take notes, but I also try to get it written prior to the next game while the details are still fresh on my mind.
2. My stories are pretty-much how it went, but I will sometimes rearrange the order of paragraphs to keep related things together rather that switching back and forth. I do clean up the language and paraphrase some occassional adult detail to keep the Story Hour family friendly.
3. My particular Story Hour is written by me, but players will sometimes add a post if I have forgotten to log something.

Also, don't get discouraged if your initial Story Hour has a fairly low readership. There are so many long-running ones on the board with proven authors that new stories may not get sampled. (Mine seems to have a small but loyal readership).

 

[alsih2o]

I'm curious about how the story hour process works. Do you guys take copious notes during the game to try and get all the details, or do you just kind of wing it from memory?

Are all the stories preety much exactly how the adventure goes, or is it often dramaticized a bit?

Do the players help right some of their character's actions in the story, or is it done soley by you?

we game online, and i write from a log.

i dramatize very little, but am not above it.

i do all the writing for the story, and encourage my players to post in the voice of their characters

hope this helps

 

[diaglo]

i use my SH as a player journal. i am a player not the DM. it is written from my character's perspective. other players and the DM will add things if they want.

i try and take some notes, but i don't always suceed.

and yes, i tone down some of the language and activities.

Originally posted by Stalker0 [qb]Are all the stories preety much exactly how the adventure goes, or is it often dramaticized a bit?[/qb]

i write from my character's perspective. so i personally know some things (metagame) but i avoid putting them in the context of the story unless absolutely necessary for it to make sense. if i do add extra knowledge i try and ( ) buffer it so the reader knows.

 

[Celtavian]

Re

1. I take notes. My focus for notetaking is as follows:

a. General action taken such as where the characters are going and what each character did.

b. Major combat happenings such as who killed who or who was hurt badly or killed.

c. Any cool quotes from the players.

2. I dramatize alot of the story. I keep the events in order, but I definitely dramatize the dialogue. I use my story hour to practice writing, so I try to write as though I am writing a novel.

3. The players don't help much at all. For the most part, they could care less. My players are not really leader-type, aggressive players. They are more "fall in line", "do what you want" players.

Often makes for a boring game, where I end up having to tone down the enemies, but what can I do?

 

[Silver Moon]

Re: Re

c. Any cool quotes from the players.

That reminds me of another point - you should decide early on how you will deal with out-of-character or out-of-game comments with your Story Hour.

My players really enjoy the humor of the game, and reading "the jokes" makes even the most tedious module sound like a fun time. For that reason I include all of the humorous comments, even the ones that are out-of-character or out-of-game (although I make sure that I referece those as player rather than character comments). Several people have criticized that aspect of my Story Hour, but that is the preference of my players.

 

[seasong]

I'm curious about how the story hour process works. Do you guys take copious notes during the game to try and get all the details, or do you just kind of wing it from memory?

I take some notes during the session. The problem is that I don't want the note taking to interfere with running the campaign - the story hour is a bonus on the side, not the main course. It helps to have a good memory, however.

Are all the stories preety much exactly how the adventure goes, or is it often dramaticized a bit?

The answer depends on what you mean by dramatized. Some events are really adrenaline-soaked or heart-tugging, but happen so fast during the session (one or two die rolls) that they are here and gone... in the story hour, those moments can take whole paragraphs. That's certainly dramatizing it, but what happened hasn't changed.

I sometimes have to make modifications for the story hour format; I try not to write blow-by-blow combats, for example.

Do the players help right some of their character's actions in the story, or is it done soley by you?

My Light Against the Dark story hour (on these boards) is written by me; one player occasionally makes "in character posts", but those are pretty rare. My Queen of Shadows story hour is completely written by the player, with some factual input from me. I'm starting a new story hour which may or may not include player-driven narrative posts.

 

[Fenes 2]

I don't run a story hour on those boards, but I write a campaign history for my campaigns - if only to remember what happens and which loose ends are left after an adventure.
While I DM I write down what the PCs do, and what happens, with varying details. Sometimes I log a battle blow by blow, with the amount of damage taken and dealt, sometimes I wrap it up as "after a hard battle the foe was vanquished", depends on the mood. Usually I write the history the day after the game session, when my memory is still fresh. In addition to the history I use this opportunity to recollect and update my electronic notes, especially my NPC-files (like "killed by the group", "helped the group to get item X in Y" "escaped group at the battle of Z" etc.).

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I tend to write mine when I get back from the session, so that hopefully it's fresh in the mind. I'm terrible at names though, and often have to ask the DM about them!

Mostly I just write whatever I think would look or sound good, and if it's exactly how the story went...even better! But I'm going to try and take some more accurate notes in the future, and get more into fleshing out what happens. Hopefully I'll get some more readers that way...

 

[spyscribe]

Do you guys take copious notes during the game to try and get all the details, or do you just kind of wing it from memory?

I take a stupid number of notes. Reams of them. It started just so we'd have a record for in-game purposes. ("Did we cast detect evil on that roiling pit of blackness last week?" *flip flip flip* "Believe it or not, no.") But that and other factors eventually led to writing the story hour. When I don't remember something or need a name spelled, I'll call up the DM or one of the other players and we'll try to figure it out.

Are all the stories preety much exactly how the adventure goes, or is it often dramaticized a bit?

The best stuff in the story hour I could never make up just sitting in front of the computer. The DM and I do try to keep it factually accurate, but I'll add beats for flavor or characterization. I take the most liberties with scenes that probably would have happened if we'd taken the time to play them out. "Lira and Reyu have regular breakfasts together" in game turned into a fun little interlude to highlight Reyu's mission among the humans and Lira's high constitution in the story hour.

Do the players help right some of their character's actions in the story, or is it done soley by you?

Like some of the others here, I am a player, although I don't write from my character's perspective. Before things get posted I'll check in with the DM for fact check and suggestions, and if there's an important character moment for someone else's character I might send them the relevant section to make sure it reads true to them.

Right now the DM is writing the early part of the campaign before my character showed up, but aside from that and technical sidebars, the writing is mine.