Some CYOA LP I was thinking about.

[Kz3r0]

EDIT:
INDEX

Solomon Kane like character

Original Post:

Inspired by the exploits of the Barbarian, Root, and Grotsnik I have entertained the idea to try one myself, sort of a Survival Horror with puzzles, but my English skills and being stuck at the moment made me to desist, however I wanted to discuss the elements that I would like to see implemented in these LPs, hoping that if not me, someone else with more skills would do it.

Puzzles:
Yeah, the part that I would love the most to see, but probably that will turn away the vast majority of players, so, how would you like that, or you hate the very idea?

Pornography:
In the horror adventure I was thinking about this would have been an important aspect, more trying to evoke the physical repulsion present in Lovecraft' stories that anything else.
Would you like it done in a serious manner?
Or you prefer that is done only for teh lulz?
Or you prefer to totally avoid it?

Multiple characters:
The general Idea was that of a determined story, advanced trough different characters, hostile to each others in some case or non-human, letting the players to figure out the best course of action to determine the final outcome, in some case figure out the motivations of a character would be a puzzle, and a narrative element, all in itself.

Quick-time events:
Moments where the players must make a decision when faced with a danger, previous knowledge acquired in the game or reasoning will be required to take the best course of action.
Maybe you prefer a more action oriented choice instead?
Better no QTEs?

And finally the LPs that I tried to devise until now:
Pentadimensional Horror, heavily inspired by Lovecraft's works but not constrained by them, with different factions.

Wulfen Effect:
A biowharian LP, more for teh lulz, and trying to develop my skills.

Arcanum Mysteries:
Inspired by the recent RK47's Arcanum LP, a Sherlock Holmes like story, with different subplots, trying to combine various stories from Victorian literature with Arcanum's world, League of the Extraordinary Gentlemen style.


Thoughts?

 

[grotsnik]

Pornography:
In the horror adventure I was thinking about this would have been an important aspect, more trying to evoke the physical repulsion present in Lovecraft' stories that anything else.
Would you like it done in a serious manner?
Or you prefer that is done only for teh lulz?
Or you prefer to totally avoid it?

I've ended up avoiding doing something like this so far. Just 'cos no matter how gut-wrenching, horrifying, and utterly monstrous you work to make the writing, there's always going to be someone who won't be able to resist the temptation to post the gif of the little fapping gentleman. Which'll make your scene feel lulzy to other readers whether you intended it that way or not.

Anyway, really like the sound of the Lovecraftian one (have you thought about using some influences from Kult? God, I'd love to see some Kult in an LP. Some useful thoughts there for other writers, even if you don't end up using them yourself.

 

[Kz3r0]

Anyway, really like the sound of the Lovecraftian one (have you thought about using some influences from Kult? God, I'd love to see some Kult in an LP. Some useful thoughts there for other writers, even if you don't end up using them yourself.

I will check that out, maybe I will manage to finally realize that idea.

 

[Azael]

Kult: Death is Only the Beginning, would indeed be great material for a game like this.

 

[Orgasm]

Ask Dicksucker for tips.

I like pornography for the sake of pornography. You know, what pornography is made for.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Puzzles: I would love some. However, designing a puzzle that would be both accessible and challenging to such varied group like codexers will be difficult. Word-play based puzzles will alienate those who do not posses advanced command of english for example. Additionally, the amount of hints you will need to provide might differ wildly depending on who is reading the LP.

Pron: If you want to evoke any emotions you might do it via proxy. Describe what characters feel without necessarily providing the exact reason. Imagination of the reader can fill many gaps for you. You might use stuff that lots of people are typically afraid of - being humiliated, betrayed, put into unfamiliar situations, bugs, etc. If you create a good character and develop his emotions well they will transfer to the reader.

So I would avoid overly explicit stuff in favor of subtlety.

Multiple chars: yes. Different points of view, different perceptions of the same situations can be great narrative tool.

QTE: I like choices that could kill you, as long as you have enough information to allow you to choose correctly the non-lethal course of action. No random shit like wandering to the left instead of right in some corridor you see for first time and having the ceiling fall on you just because.

Setting: lovecraftian themes in modern society. Cthulhu on facebook etc. Could be done both serious or lulzy.

 

[Crooked Bee]

I probably won't have the time to be following it. :/

 

[Kz3r0]

I probably won't have the time to be following it. :/

:/
Well, it's not that I'm going to commence them anytime soon.

 

[Kz3r0]

let's do it, broheim

I think that I will try with the Ass Effect LP as experiment first.

 

[Kz3r0]

I am almost ready with the Mass Effect-like LP, an half parody and an half serious attempt to write an LP.
I will try to satisfy the need for moar extreme showed in other LPs without going full retardo.
About the options for the choices I was thinking to implement a series of stances or attitudes instead of full fledged decisions, in the true next-gen spirit, obviously this will add some randomness because the end result can be quite different from what the players thought.
Opinions?

 

[Kz3r0]

All right, half-way writing the first update of the Wulfen's Chronicles I thought of introducing interactive flashbacks, but that would hinder the narrative flow, how about some sort of origins, introducing the various characters and choices that will cause some change in relationships and the development of the main story?

 

[Crooked Bee]

Just do something, goddammit.


Er, I mean

 

[GarfunkeL]

I like them in the beginning but my attention starts to wander around at some point and then I realize I have 10+ pages to read to catch-up and I go all CBA and slit my wrists and listen to My Chemical Romance since I'm obviously missing quality stuff.

But it's not like the TrueFans could be expected to patiently wait a week between updates... :D

 

[Kz3r0]

Just do something, goddammit.


Er, I mean

All right, first update will be ready for Monday.

 

[Orgasm]

I like them in the beginning but my attention starts to wander around at some point and then I realize I have 10+ pages to read to catch-up and I go all CBA and slit my wrists and listen to My Chemical Romance since I'm obviously missing quality stuff.

You are not missing quality stuff...

 

[Kz3r0]

All right, I am going to propose one of the puzzles that I have developed, just to see the reaction.
This is part of a puzzle themed LP I was thinking of.

Faun's Labyrinth

Awakening from a deep slumber he found himself in the garden of the accursed villa.
Making out the features of his surroundings was made difficult by the mist that invaded every corner.

With difficulty he got on his feet and began to explore the garden.

After a while he realized to be surrounded by high hedges, which openings were the only passage available.

Must be one of that labyrinth like garden, he thought, not that he was surprised.

After a while that he was wandering trying to discern the labyrinth disposition he got the clear impression of being followed and began to peek over his shoulder.

Now a muffled sound of hooves was steadily becoming louder, that was a lingering fear transformed in panic.

He began to run desperately chased by what had become a thunderous sound.

He throw himself through every passage he saw, losing his sense of orientation.

When he thought that he couldn't resist any longer a circular patch of grass opened in front of him, at his center was what resembled a little temple, with a dome standing on four columns, and an altar inside of it.

Driven by an irrational hope he reached for it.

Many figurines were scattered on the ground around the altar.

Completely exhausted he stopped by it, and the he saw what chased him till that moment.

A grotesque nightmare stood in front of him in all its repulsive bestiality.

The faun,as described by the myth, in flesh and bone, licking its thick lips it began to advance towards the temple, its obscene lust fully displayed by its erect sex.

When the beast was near enough to smell its foul stench it flinched for a moment seeing the figurines near the altar.

Noticing the reaction the man quickly picked up the figurines.

The faun now was immobile, observing the man with keen attention.

The man noticed a groove carved in the altar, of the right shape and size for hosting one of the figurines in his hands.

Seeing the man's indecision the faun advanced towards him.

The man frantically realized that he have only few instants to put the right figurine in place.



Which figurine would you choose?

1)A naked woman standing on a seashell, covered by her hair.

2)A warrior wearing only his weapons, depicted with an erected phallus.

3)A young man with winged feet holding a wand with two serpents twisted around it.

4)A feminine figure softly dressed in drapes that expose the back and the breasts, looking closely it can be seen that possess male genitalia.

5)A woman clad in armor with shield and spear.

6)A girl with bow and arrows.

 

[Kz3r0]

Come on guys, I wasn't asking for a literary critique.
The idea of the ass-raping faun wasn't mine by the way, it was on an horror short story, of which I forgot the author, that was so successful to be transformed in a novel.
The real point was what do you think of this kind of puzzle.
It's based on general culture, Greek mythology to be precise, do you think that even so more clues should be present to solve it?
Would you like to see implemented it in a LP even if in a different way?
Or are you just averse to this type of puzzle or puzzles in general?

 

[Esquilax]

A puzzle-game LP would be pretty cool, but you have to be careful with it. You have to be very subtle with it, and you have to drop hints as to what the answer to a particular riddle or puzzle is. And if the players fuck up, you have to provide interesting consequences instead of dead-ends like instadeath. Obviously, if you fuck up horribly and make many consecutive bone-headed choices, you should die, but you gotta offer some leeway for such inevitabilities and interesting outcomes for failure as well. (i.e. screwing up a puzzle teleports you into a pitch-black area, where you can hear inhuman growls in the distance. You need to find some way to navigate through this area and back into light, while avoiding whatever creature is out there.)

It's tricky to write such an LP, because you have to provide just enough clues so the player knows what's going on and can make an informed decision, but leave enough things out that the player really has to consider things carefully. It's a difficult balancing act.

Oh, and:

4)A feminine figure softly dressed in drapes that expose the back and the breasts, looking closely it can be seen that possess male genitalia.

I'd be careful of putting stuff like this in an LP. This is the Codex after all, if you're aiming for a horror vibe, people will just laugh when they see something like this. You'll just have a bunch of people posting this:

 

[Kz3r0]

A puzzle-game LP would be pretty cool, but you have to be careful with it. You have to be very subtle with it, and you have to drop hints as to what the answer to a particular riddle or puzzle is.

I take that puzzles based on the game-world logic are preferable to puzzles simply relying on the real-life knowledge of the players.

And if the players fuck up, you have to provide interesting consequences instead of dead-ends like instadeath. Obviously, if you fuck up horribly and make many consecutive bone-headed choices, you should die, but you gotta offer some leeway for such inevitabilities and interesting outcomes for failure as well.

That was my intention all along, the idea was to proceed for themed chapters where the way how puzzles are solved determines the final outcome.
Substantially this means that can be more solutions to one puzzle and the player must figure out the best or the most appropriate of them.
For example in the puzzle that I have proposed three of the figurines are directly related to the faun but only one of them is the most suited for that particular occasion.
On a side note this means that tricky options usually used to misled the players can be easily transformed in different outcomes based on how much they approximate the right solution.

It's tricky to write such an LP, because you have to provide just enough clues so the player knows what's going on and can make an informed decision, but leave enough things out that the player really has to consider things carefully. It's a difficult balancing act.

Let's hope that someone could pull it that off then.

Oh, and:

4)A feminine figure softly dressed in drapes that expose the back and the breasts, looking closely it can be seen that possess male genitalia.

I'd be careful of putting stuff like this in an LP. This is the Codex after all, if you're aiming for a horror vibe, people will just laugh when they see something like this. You'll just have a bunch of people posting this:

Being afraid of what Codexers could do it's not the best thing to do if you want to make an LP.
However that was a mini-puzzle in itself, I could easily put the names of the deities that the figurines represent instead of letting players to figure them out on their own.
Worst comes to worst I can always make an erotic LP.

 

[Esquilax]

I take that puzzles based on the game-world logic are preferable to puzzles simply relying on the real-life knowledge of the players.

That's what I meant. You drop hints based on game-world logic, situational awareness, and clues within the text that will allow the players to infer what the most likely outcome is. Like I said, you have to be very careful with this and perhaps get someone to edit for you in case you are giving too many details away / leaving things too vague. Throwing a few red herrings might work, but you also have to be careful with this.

It's a great idea, though.

That was my intention all along, the idea was to proceed for themed chapters where the way how puzzles are solved determines the final outcome.
Substantially this means that can be more solutions to one puzzle and the player must figure out the best or the most appropriate of them.
For example in the puzzle that I have proposed three of the figurines are directly related to the faun but only one of them is the most suited for that particular occasion.
On a side note this means that tricky options usually used to misled the players can be easily transformed in different outcomes based on how much they approximate the right solution.

Great. Screwing up has to create interesting scenarios as well. The voters are bound to make a few mistakes, so creating interesting possibilities in case of failure is a must.

Being afraid of what Codexers could do it's not the best thing to do if you want to make an LP. However that was a mini-puzzle in itself, I could easily put the names of the deities that the figurines represent instead of letting players to figure them out on their own.
Worst comes to worst I can always make an erotic LP.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't do it if you feel that adding something bizarre, creepy and sexual might add something to the LP (it may add to the whole horror aspect), just that you should be aware of your audience; Codex are probably going to laugh when they see mention of chix with dix or tentacle-rape or anything like that, so you have to be careful of how you present it.

I'm assuming that this LP is going to have more of a horror vibe, which I feel works best when things are a bit vague and ominous. I would leave just enough details to frighten the reader, while letting their imagination do the rest of the work.

 

[Kz3r0]

I am resurrecting this thread to present some other idea.
I have finally figured out how to create a mystery LP, not that I am any time near to realize one.

Setting and Rules
First, the setting in which you operate, the LP I was thinking about would take place in the Arcanum world, conflict between technology and magic with its implication.
Obviously other settings can be used.

First Things First
Put yourself in the role of the perpetrator, being a murder, a theft or something else.
After you have realized how the whole thing would work track what could go wrong and what kind of traces would remain.
Being a game giving clues to the players is fundamental, in this way would be more organic than just juxtaposing some elements later to facilitate the solution, or, worst of all, the usual gimmick in movies and TV series of the usual all revealing documents or the smoking gun.

Players Interaction
If your LP is very successful and your players gladly interact that's great, however would be better make the update with all the elements useful for the solution included and giving well determined choices that contains the possible solutions instead than rely on input from the players for progressing the investigation.

Voting
Considering the nature of such LP other than the usual majority vote a qualified voting mechanism should be used too, namely that if one of the players has figured out the solution and gives the appropriate explanation why he is choosing an option his vote is the winning vote even if he is the only one to have picked that option.

This is all for now.

 

[Hellraiser]

That sounds like a good concept, as far as the setting is concerned it cannot be too high-tech or you will end up with everyone and their mother wanting to do a spectrography analysis of unknown substance X or DNA analysis. Arcanum could have worked because we would have pure oldschool criminal science and a lot of Holmes-esque deduction rather than the all-mighty technological oracle spoiling all the fun, although magic could replace it but I guess you would solve that somehow. Hell pretty much anything before the advent of DNA testing would have worked. Maybe even a modern day setting where religious zealotry led to the ban on biological and medical research (because evolution contradicts what god/the gods said in the holy books and is thus blasphemy) making you end up with a world with no DNA testing. It could make for some interesting conflicts or motivations for crime.

 

[Hoodoo]

Players Interaction
If your LP is very successful and your players gladly interact that's great, however would be better make the update with all the elements useful for the solution included and giving well determined choices that contains the possible solutions instead than rely on input from the players for progressing the investigation.

been playing with an idea that would allow for voters who were interested could to do their own stories within the setting, with me linking em up to the main story. (Summin like Moorcocks Eternal Champion traveling through time and literary history)
Intertextuality is always neat for player interaction as well, allows for the best kinda puzzles and could be done more.

 

[Kz3r0]

That sounds like a good concept, as far as the setting is concerned it cannot be too high-tech or you will end up with everyone and their mother wanting to do a spectrography analysis of unknown substance X or DNA analysis. Arcanum could have worked because we would have pure oldschool criminal science and a lot of Holmes-esque deduction rather than the all-mighty technological oracle spoiling all the fun, although magic could replace it but I guess you would solve that somehow. Hell pretty much anything before the advent of DNA testing would have worked. Maybe even a modern day setting where religious zealotry led to the ban on biological and medical research (because evolution contradicts what god/the gods said in the holy books and is thus blasphemy) making you end up with a world with no DNA testing. It could make for some interesting conflicts or motivations for crime.

Ideally the best would be getting rid of all the gimmicks in a way or another, the solution should primarily come from a narrative device or character interaction, however, if the setting is well known by the players toying with the peculiarities of the game world could be interesting too, another good setting would be one similar to The Name of the Rose, medieval monks and all that or agroup of people stranded on a desert island, all in all it depends on how much the writer want to rely on the investigative aspect or the thriller aspect.

 

[Kz3r0]

Players Interaction
If your LP is very successful and your players gladly interact that's great, however would be better make the update with all the elements useful for the solution included and giving well determined choices that contains the possible solutions instead than rely on input from the players for progressing the investigation.

been playing with an idea that would allow for voters who were interested could to do their own stories within the setting, with me linking em up to the main story. (Summin like Moorcocks Eternal Champion traveling through time and literary history)
Intertextuality is always neat for player interaction as well, allows for the best kinda puzzles and could be done more.

That would be great, but you need a group of dedicated players, that's hard to came by on a forum.