Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Writing my own game poems?

Game Poems are a short form RPG, designed to be done in about fifteen minutes. The first game that used the term was Stoke-Birmingham 0-0, which consisted of pretending to be bored and depressed sports fans for fifteen minutes. (Seriously, I wonder what Andy Warhol would think of think of Norwegian LARPs)

I've been looking into Game Poems to try and find one that could easily be adapted for play-by-post. My usual crew is busy during the summer but I've been jonesing to play with them so I wanted something that could be done in three to five posts apiece. 

And, honestly, I haven't found anything that seems really adaptable. Which makes sense. The form was clearly designed to be played in the moment, which doesn't really work with play-by-post.

So I've decided to actually try writing some myself, with the hope that I'd come up with something playable. 

I can't actually say it's harder than I expected since I pretty much expected it to be tricky. I will say a lot of my ideas, after I got them on paper, were clearly unsayable, although they were interesting thought exercise.

In general, Game Poems seem to have elements of improv exercises, narrative RPG and party games. It's a bit like a photograph as a role playing game. There's just enough room for one idea, one emotion. So you have to make sure they have some punch.

And they are addictive to write. The eternal question is if they're any good.

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