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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Delemental" data-source="post: 1991026" data-attributes="member: 5203">I should clarify one thing off the bat; I'm a player in this campaign, not the DM.  So while I could try and kill off some characters, I think that I'd end up being the only player that would end up leaving the game.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Also, thanks for the comment.  I was beginning to wonder a bit if I still had any readers.  I know you're not supposed to write Story Hours just to get comments, but lets face it; it's a nice bonus.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Admittedly, the fact that this is based of the actions of a rather large group of PCs does present its own challenges, and I'll admit that it's probably less effective a story than if there were fewer characters to focus on.  But the truth is that this is a Story Hour based on a real game, and not a fiction novel where I have complete control over the characters.  My challenge is to craft as good a story as possible within those bounds.  The reason I do this is because I enjoy it, and it helps me improve my writiing skills.  This SH is still fairly early in the campaign; I think that I get better as time goes on (my SH posts are about six months behind the actual game), so some of the problems with coherency may ease as the characters become familiar and settle into their roles more.  Bear in mind that as players we're still fleshing out these characters at this point in time, which doesn't help.  Also, at this point in the game I was still hand-writing notes during sessions; later I switch to a tape recorder, which makes a world of difference.I think the major difference is that in a work of fiction, there's one or two central characters to hang the story on.  Here, I have eight.  In fact, a lot of my struggles in this phase of the campaign was trying to get the other players to contribute side material that I could incorporate into the SH in order to keep their characters fleshed out (inserting little vignettes, internal monologies, private conversations, etc that would give them depth beyond the in-game interactions).  My biggest fear is that I end up focusing on one character for the sake of making writing easier, but by consequence turning the other PCs into secondary characters.  After begging for material for a while, I finally gave up and started making stuff up for them, and basically said "if you don't like it, tell me and I'll change it, otherwise it stays".  So far no one has complained that I got their character 'wrong'.  I do think there are some characters that come out a little flatter than others (Xu Dhii Ngao is one I have trouble with).Right now I'd say my biggest challenge is narrating large combats.  Tracking the actions of eight PCs, plus multiple enemies, in a way that doesn't sound like a financial report isn't easy.Well, that turned into a long response to a relatively simple comment.  I must be feeling wordy today... I should probably be writing.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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