[Meta] Story Hour Annotation? (for authors & readers)

[el-remmen]

Over the last two years or so that I have been wriitng my "Out of the Frying Pan" Aquerra story hour, I have been including lots of annotation on the story as I go along. I use footnotes to explain facets of the setting, as a reminder to the reader of relevants things that have happened in the past, and also I at times include what I call "DM's Notes" which are explanations of a house rule or an ad hoc ruling during a session.

Another thing I havse used the notes for is to cross-reference the story hour itself - when an NPC re-appears in the story, I try to include a note that explains when the NPCs was last seen (or first appeared depending on which is relevant), and use session numbers to refer readers back to previous scenes.

My question is this: How many other story hour authors do this? And how helpful do readers finds such things?

I don't think I'll stop doing it, if only because I spent my youth reading too many Marvel comics and the notation there was always so good and helpful, reminding you of back issue sub-plots and issues of other titles with related stories - and I guess in the end it is helpful for me as DM to keep track of things - I'm just curious how it works for others.

 

[Drawmack]

While my first story hour is only about a month old I do not use annotation at all. Granted it is a diary style story hour so I could put it right in the text.

I tend to view my story hour as more of a creative writting exorcise then as a game log. Sure I use the game as the basis but I change things, add a little detail here or there.

This being the case I only use this as much as I've run into in fantasy and sci fi novel series

 

[barsoomcore]

I think I side with Drawmack here.

I deliberately started my story hour right in the middle of the campaign, without explaining anything to the readers. My hope is that the story is engrossing enough that they will continue reading and thus learn more of the details of the world that way.

But again, like Drawmack, this is for me mostly a creative writing exercise, and is only incidentally game-related. So I try to find solutions to problems like "Do the readers remember this guy" that are incorporated into the storytelling itself.

That said, nemmerle, I really like your DM's Notes. They're a great stimulant to the imagination. I can really picture your group in the midst of play.

Of course neither way is better than the other. They're just different.

And now that I think about it, I have included a certain amount of "meta" information in my story hour -- notes on the player's reactions, or particular dice moments. They're not formal Notes or anything like that, just part of the dialogue with my readers, but I guess they serve the same purpose.

So I dunno. Um, what was the question again?

 

[el-remmen]

Well, I think the reason I include the "DM's Notes" anyway - is because I write mine in story form and sometimes I think people want to know how a good piece of story worked out game-wise - they are curious about the use of a skill or spell, or how much damage a critical effect really did, etc. . .

Also, I find footnotes do not clutter the action with too much exposition - what little exposision I put in there I try to convey by means of dialogue between PCs or between PCs and NPCs.

 

[Drawmack]

I, of course, was not stating that my way is better just that it's different is all.

My explaination was simply my reasoning for doing it my way.

 

[Insight]

My Story Hours so far are superhero/comic-related, so I use the "editor" style comments you'd see in a comic.

I have no idea if it helps out or not. None of my readers have said that it didn't, so I'm going to keep doing it.

That said, I don't use comments/annotation very often. I will probably do more of it as my Story Hours grow and change.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I find annotations helpful. As a reader, I want to get into the story, but some part of my brain always knows that it's just a story, no matter how compelling. So, the annotations do not detract from the verisimilitude any more than, say, the whirring of my computer fan.

I do think the lack of full HTML capabilities holds back the annotations. It would be nice to have popups, mouseovers, etc. instead of just normal hyperlinks.

 

[spyscribe]

I don't annotate a whole lot per se within story entries--although it's early days yet, we'll see if that changes where there are more recurring characters--but I do try to make sure the exposition gets in there. After all, without any extras the narrative gets reduced to:

Party gets attacked. Party kicks butt. Party investigates attack. Party misses obvious clues in favor of interrogating every NPC in the city...

That being said, the story hour also has campaign sidebars with world information, the pantheon, etc. which is just laid out for the reader Joe Friday style. It's generally information that is so ordinary to the characters that they wouldn't stop to think about it, but would be unfamiliar to anyone not living (or playing) in the DM's homebrew campaign world.

We've gotten good feedback on the sidebars so far. Ideally, they shouldn't be necessary for someone just interested in reading the story, but provide a bit more depth for the curious.

 

[el-remmen]

questions for spyscribe

Sidebars?

Do you somehow format your entries to allow real sidebars? Or do you have hyperlinks to some other site?



BTW, Which story hour is yours?

 

[spyscribe]

Re: questions for spyscribe

Sidebars?

Do you somehow format your entries to allow real sidebars? Or do you have hyperlinks to some other site?

Ah, it's a very technical process. I start a new post, and in the "Post subject" field I write "Sidebar x" where x equals one natural number greater than the last sidebar.

Didn't mean to lead you on.

Although this post reminds me that the "quote" vB Code is handy for setting off asides within story entries. I've used it for notes the PCs find and judicial precendents.

As far as my own reading of other people's story hours goes, I usually like to hear about funny "behind the scenes" table talk or cool uses of mechanics. The thing I find most difficult is keeping track of a whole lot of "this is what the world is like" at the beginning of a story. The hardest thing in writing mine (aside from making long combats interesting to read) was figuring out how much people needed to know right off and how much could wait.

I orginally didn't want any exposition outside the narrative, but the DM talked me into it. Probably a good thing too.

BTW, Which story hour is yours?

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