Thread by @maxgladstone

Re: LRT, it's worth discussing some of the hurdles former GMs encounter when trying to write long-form fiction!

Let's see if I can get this done in fewer than fifteen tweets, y'all

Many people are drawn to fiction writing and the GM life for the same reason: they're raw veins of storytelling. You're running the Homer game!

We talk about the two great breeds of bad GM, basically Joker and Hugo Strange:

Joker: A you round the bend you encounter *rolls dice* 6 *flips through monster manual* TERRASQUES
Hugo: Players will all please read the forty page backstory packets I have provided, and supplement

But there's a special danger a *good* GM encounters writing fiction—because a good GM pays attention to her players' interests and lays track in response to and conversation with them.

You'll have your backstory scheme, sure, but if players have decided that this one guy in a green cloak they happened to see fleeing the scene of the gnome riots is important, you have to be comfortable making that guy in the green cloak important.

It would be a novice mistake to make him the Big Bad. But if players spend that vital resource, game time, tracking Greencloak down, you best have something there for them to find, or else they'll feel (rightly or wrongly) you've given 'em the runaround.

Good GMs either develop subtle techniques of compensation and response so they can answer player interest, or a truly freakish command of detail and worldbuilding so they can *anticipate* player interest. Or both, in my experience.

Moving to fiction can be challenge those reflexes—because the writer now has to provide that crucial piece of magic, the characters who *want* something, even something trivial, in this giant built world—something often orthogonal to the world's maker's purposes.

The writer needs to provide the world, the rules, the arbitration, yes—but she also needs to provide characters who *relate* to that world like players do: characters who spread chaos, who don't quite fit, who, given a toy horse, will make a time machine out of the box.

I don't mean that all players are chaos monkeys, and much less that all characters should be. Just that your characters have to be more than gears—they provide weird motive force. Good GMs, used to doing everything in the world *but* that, may find the transition tricky.

In moments like that, it's important to ask what yourself what your players would do.

And, hey, look, fewer than 15 tweets! These thoughts brought to you in part by prepping for GenCon: see you there!

Those of you staying home, enjoy yourselves, and work for the liberation of all sentient beings.