So oftentimes I've had the experience where I start out the game imagining myself as the mage I'm playing, and then over the course of the game my imagination shifts from the perspective of a mage and the spells under his/her control to merely a birds eye view of the entire arena with the mage as just another creature under my control, rather than being me in the mage's shoes.
I love theme and I love strategy, and I don't like sacrificing one for the other. While this could be solved just by playing a mage that I really love and relate to, as a writer I feel that all of the mages can be relatable characters.
It's a grueling process to keep referring back to OCTGN game logs over and over again as I write a story about a Mage Wars fight. I ideally want to make the story as I play without detracting from strategy. But I don't want to make the planning phases drag out forever with narration either.
My solution is to make a sort-of alternate format specifically designed for making a beautifully written, EPIC record of your arena fight without all the hassle of waiting until the end of the fight and going over the game log again and again, or worse getting disconnected after forgetting to copy and paste the game log into a word document.
Here's how it works:
1. the Scenario
Why are the mages fighting in the arena? Who or what are they fighting for? What's at stake in their battle? (other than their lives, anyway)
This can include some character background. Also, you need to design your character around your spellbook design, so that they fit together.
2. The Narrator and the Expression/Dialogue step
Rather than the players talking about anything, they roleplay as their mages and other creatures they control. However, this is not restricted to the planning phase. Every creature has a Dialogue/Expression step at the beginning or end of its own actions or effects, and actions or effects that influence it.
They must stay in character though. An iron golem should not have a voice, but it can stomp the ground angrily. A bitterwood fox can growl, or yelp in pain, but it should never talk in words. Use your judgement to decide what is realistic expression for a creature. If you're not sure about how a non-mage creature should use its Expression/Dialogue step or even if it should do so, each game in this format has an NPN (Non-player Narrator), who will watch the game and narrate events that are not creature specific, or extra or longer creature narrations that a player cannot reasonably narrate while focusing on strategy.
During the upkeep phase and planning phase, the NPN should be doing most of the narration so that players are freed up to do everything they need to in the upkeep and to strategize and pick their spells during the planning phase. The exception to this rule is if the players have significant dialogue that they wish to write that can be conducted with a reasonable number of creatures participating in it.
Generally it would be the NPN's job to put all the narration and Expression steps together and make a story out of it.
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What do you think?
How many people are interested in trying this format? How many people are thinking they'd like being a NPN?
Also, part of the reason I'm writing this is that it sometimes takes me a long time to write out a narration of an arena fight, and if I get randomly disconnected without remembering to copy and paste the game log, then I'm stuck and can't recover it. It's better if I can get the story written during the game. Being able to write the story as the game progresses rather than waiting until after is more fun and less of a pain.
