I can't write quickly. Or at least, I can't write things I'm happy with quickly. It seems like my style of working is to have an idea, write lots of things in a very excited manner, obsess slightly to the exclusion of other things and then kind of slow down. Is that normal? I'm not sure it matters.
Some of the slowing down is just running out of steam, but another part (I like to think, at least) is the idea starting to roll around in the space inside my head, like a pebble in a stone polishing machine being chipped away until it emerges, all sparkly. It sounds good, anyway, much better than saying "I need time to weed out the rubbish and connect the good bits in a way that sounds convincing".
One big hurdle is trying to play test the thing out on my own - but then on the other hand, I'd also like the game to be able to work on a solo level. I'm playing with ways to handle what happens, what are the challenges and how do other people/creatures react. This tweet from Philippa Mort a few days ago pretty much encapsulated the whole thing:
Amen to that! There is often something very unsatisfying about making something up to try and solve it yourself. You need some help to create the obstacle so you can then overcome it.
I've not come across a way to turn a refereed game into a solo player affair that I've really found convincing. There are solo RPGs that I think work very well (Four Against Darkness and D100 Dungeon, for example) for a single player. I can also see a trend to use the many, many lists to generate crunchy detail approach, from adding a d6 table for creature's intentions to d66 (so 36 items) lists of swords, armour, potions and so on.
When I'm in the right mood, though, I can play test my game perfectly well on my own using just my imagination - I can put myself in the shoes of Alpha the spirit, piloting whichever inhabitant of Chaldford is serving as host at the moment. Tonight, Alpha and Olive Hunter are starting to investigate the complex at the end of the fissure where Honora Potter was attacked by Steam Crawlers. Honora, you'll be pleased to learn, made it back with only a scar on her left leg from a pincer to show for it and a worrying gap in her memory.
It occurred to me that if Alpha keeps possessing the people of Chaldford that can be used as host (there are 21 of the 52 inhabitants who are suitable, and three of those match both traits, which is going to be somehow special) then they are going to build up scars, missing memories and disturbing flashbacks as things progress. There's a friction there between saving the village while messing with individual villagers that I think I need to lean into. I want the spirits (characters) to feel the consequences of taking the villagers out on joy-rides.
All of which is 'refining the idea' - but it takes time. I've started writing questions to myself on a Discord server to make me think about things - "Do people know they've been possessed?", for example. That definitely helps.
Things I want to learn:
Layout - I've no idea about layout, I think that's pretty important
Coding - I can write a bit of Python, enough to create a piece of code to generate a set of villagers, but how do I turn that into a simple web page that can be used?
Right, that's the state of play, so off to do more playing!
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