Does writing effect your gaming?

[ThisAdamGuy]

And vice versa?

This is something that just occurred to me, and I thought it was kind of interesting. I love video games. They're my main hobby, right below writing, and I rarely go a day without playing them at least a little. But I've noticed recently that that what games I play and how I play them change depending on where I am in my writing process.

For example: right now, I'm just beginning a big new project. That's where the majority of my thoughts and energy are going, so when I sit down to play games, I gravitate towards ones that can be played in small, bite sized chunks for quick bursts of gratification. Something that'll keep my brain active, but isn't too challenging or frustrating. Right now, Humanity and The Blue Prince are my go-to games. I'm also more prone to get bored and hop from game to game when I'm in this state since my brain is still running on "new" juice and will drop anything thatdoesn't satisfy that for "newness." This isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but I do tend to buy a lot of games during this stage, which can lead to...difficulties. (Help me)

When I'm neck deep in a story I've been working on for months and am at risk of burning myself out, I'll play more open ended games. Either ones that are big and have a lot of choices as to what I want to do next, like Skyrim or Breath of the Wild, or simple and relaxing "go at your own pace" games like Stardew Valley of Terraria. These games might have a good story (I always appreciate that) but that isn't what I'm looking for here, so it'll usually be something full of sidequests that I can distract myself from the main plot with indefinitely. I might play that game exclusively for weeks or even months. At the end of the year, I can tell when I was in this stage when Sony and Nintendo send me my yearly roundup and I see that I put hundreds of hours into a single game in a short period of time.

When I'm between projects and looking for inspiration for my next book, I lean toward story heavy games. That usually takes the form of a JRPG like Final Fantasy, Tales Of, Persona, etc.

What about you guys?

 

[jthornfield]

Since I started writing my story, I have only subscribed to FFXIV (a game I've been playing since 1.0's beta!) for one month, and I barely played it during that time. I actually almost resubbed this morning, but then I think that I should be working on my story or another project, and I'd be wasting money by having a subscription I'm not using enough. It's different if I buy a game, because it's a one-time purchase and I can return to it whenever I want.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

That's where the majority of my thoughts and energy are going, so when I sit down to play games, I gravitate towards ones that can be played in small, bite sized chunks for quick bursts of gratification. Something that'll keep my brain active, but isn't too challenging or frustrating.

That's pretty much how I've done video games since the 90s myself, with a few rare exceptions (like the first game in the Elder Scrolls line that birthed Skyrim, "Arena").

However... my first paid writing was for games (table top roleplaying games), so my writing kind of IS my gaming.

For example -

• Several of the characters from the Jack Diamond stories are old Champions characters of mine (Jack was an intended PC I never used; Morgan Price was an "update" of a character from that first paid module (Demons Rule), as are the demons Alzol, Conflar, Zoligahr and Shargaas).
• In Between Worlds, Pyrroth was the world I created because I didn't want to use any "canned" D&D/AD&D worlds back in high school as I wanted a world that I could do whatever I wanted to without people saying: "that's not right" (unless they were pointing out mechanical errors, of course). As an aside, many of the names I developed for that world were used (with permission) as part of the Shining Jewel campaign for Pathfinder. And Pyrroth itself was destroyed in the background for another paid module, Dead Gawd's Hand for HackMaster 4th Edition.
• In Strange Awakening, Sparrow and one of foes (Drakon) were created with the Mighty Protectors rules (I considered even running their fights with the game mechanics but decided against it). Templar was a character created for a Dark Champions game but never used. Equinox was a character I drew on a character sheet templates but never fully statted out.
• True Blue was a television series mentioned in the Omniverse Project, a "shared world" fiction side project of The Clobberin' Times amateur press association, watched by some of the superheroes there (and if I had stayed with the group a bit longer, would have played a major part in the ongoing stories but I just did not have the time to devote to it after getting married)- The Clobberin' Times was primarily dedicated to HERO system gaming, and the Champions game specifically.
• Digital Cowboy has a setting borrowed almost whole cloth from Aces and Eights, and some of the mechanics are based on it - and I was going to use the "cheating" rules for the card game but the way the cards fell out, they would not have changed the outcome.

 

[Deleted member 206441]

I lean more to sandboxy and management games than I used to.

 

[Garolymar]

A lot of my side characters are named after RPG characters I used. Actually my most important side character is named after my Rimworld colonist, the leader of the first colony that I ever finished the game with. Others are like my BG3 avatars and stuff like that. As for how it affected my writing, I think for me, lore in general is a big thing that I've taken from video games, it's what I started fleshing out first before main characters. I like worlds that feel like I could hop in and live in. As for how it affects when I write... Well right now I haven't really touched much on word since Clair Obsur came out. It's been eating up all my time, it's a really fun game and this is what usually happens, something cool comes out and obliterates my schedule.

 

[Golden_Hyde]

to put it simply without having to read the main thread, yes. I often neglecting my projects whenever I got hooked at a game. Done that with Wuthering Waves, and I almost left some of my projects filled with dust

 

[ThisAdamGuy]

without having to read the main thread

 

[Golden_Hyde]

Alright, alright. I was getting a little too lazy at reading since my attention was going somewhere else. But...

My answer is: it depends.

Most of my inspirations were from light novels and anime and whatnot, but for combat system, that's actually where I started to develop one for myself, particularly derived from Korean MMOs like Elsword or Grand Chase or anything else. I had to admit, they're sick AF. But I guess that's where they're excels at, and not the story itself.

All in all, sometimes when I play games or write something, it does affect (affect, not effect) my story writing and my gaming preference, but most of the time, I just shrug it off and just do it.

 

[Our_Lady_in_Twilight]

I'd say that writing and playing heavy RPG games tend to occupy the same brain space. When I'm not writing I'll plan out a complex character build on Pathfinder or Baldur's Gate, but when I am, I prefer something linear and simple like Assassins' Creed or Super Mario Galaxy.

And there is certainly cross-pollination as well. I'll sometimes throw in game character names as an easter egg, and conversely, I did three runs of Dragon Age Veilguard over Christmas, each with a Rook inspired by different MCs from my fantasy stories. :)

 

[Pulpitt]

It's the other way around for me.