Okay, first of all, I have absolutely zero knowledge and experience in gaming. Even when my brother would binge play video games, I wouldn’t give a shit because I wasn’t interested.
So, how do you write novels like a game? (Sorry for sounding like dimwit lol. I never even read LitRP
Not a problem! A few PDFs and some scratch paper, pencil and dice and you're ready to rock.
The simplest game that I give as an example is
Thousand Year-Old Vampire which you can get here free and just go down to Community Copies and grab this one.
You start by creating your character and this game, mechanically, operates on a series of writing prompts and it's a journaling game so all you need is the PDF, Dice, or a dice roller app (you'll use a Six and Ten-sided die respectively) and then you start at prompt one, write out an entry with the criteria set by the prompt and then roll. Subtract the number on the d6 from the d10 if your answer is negative you go back (can't go back from one so move to the next prompt on the page) and if it's positive (say a three) then you move forward that many prompts. That's what I used to kick the entire thing off and then RK and I started playing World of Darkness and the TYOV stuff tied in.
Now, how we're doing it right now.
I'm still playing TYOV. I do all this stuff in cheap composition books and on paper first. In World of Darkness or whatever we happen to be playing (We're using nWoD's stuff as a setting) We roll and determine what is happening to our characters that we're playing. We're taking notes about major events the entire time.
What you're reading is the result of the dice rolls and notes. We flesh that out by turning it into a story. That's really what I'm talking about. Your game isn't gonna go offline or anything like that. The thing about writing is it's so akin to these roleplaying games that it can make writing even more fun because it puts the characters you've created into situations that you as a player need to resolve. Going through those moments with your character can make a heckuva lotta difference. Journaling is something that has helped me in a ton of ways. Writing has always been an outlet of mine for the past 34 years so putting games and writing together is like handing me Reese's Peanut Butter cups, you know I'm gonna enjoy it like you read about...no pun intended.
The real trick to all of this is, you're not writing a story like a game. You're turning a game into a story. Since you share a love for writing same as I, I wouldn't recommend video games for something like this. I'm more recommending something that starts at the literary level and makes it a bit more fun. When something's fun, you'd rather do that. Well, that's the conclusion I met and that's why I share it.
If you want another free one to try, go to
Chaosium's site, grab the Call of Cthulhu Quickstart rules, Alone Against The Flames, the fillable character sheet and a set of dice and try that game out, again, completely free. Those free games I'm recommending are just something to try out, see if you like it. If you don't like a rule or something in the game, change that sucker. There's the biggest difference. You can tailor the game to whatever you want. It doesn't have to be what it says on the cover.
Also, before you grab any game I recommend, I do recommend that you look at your genre first. Search for tabletop RPGs that closely match and play your characters in that game and see what happens. If that doesn't work out for you then you're no worse off than when you initially started. Don't worry about questions seeming "dumb" because honestly, only dumb question is the one you didn't ask. Everyone starts somewhere. None of us started out with a decent vocabulary or the means to convey our ideas, we had to start somewhere. That's the important thing. Start.
I've been planning on buying the LOTR books for months. Guess it's a sign. Appreciate the suggestions!
I got some cool leatherette pocket editions on Amazon in a little slipcover for something like $25. Jumped on that sucker immediately. Lemme see if it's still there...
Okay so it's $35 but here you go. There's a paperback set for I think the same price but I have these and the print is kinda small but I'm alright with it. They're really cool and I love reading them...especially The Hobbit.
