More than a third (it used to be more than half) of the things I’ve bookmarked at del.icio.us/xorphus are related to role-playing, in theory and practice. I wasn’t sure why, exactly, until a couple of days ago. Hopefully in a few days it will become clear to you too.
Anyway, one of the links I just got around to reading today is the brilliant Roleplaying Theory, Hardcore. Unfortunately it doesn’t have permalinks or anything, but if you scroll down you’ll get to an entry called “A Small Thing About Suspense,” which suddenly makes clear to me things I should have realized a long time ago about scenario creation and writing in general.
I want to design games for a living, but I come up with ideas for stories much more often than I come up with ideas for games. I want to reduce that ratio, and I’m hoping all this reading and That Which Will Become Clear will help.