Community writing project PF choose-your-own adventure

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Discussion Overview

The thread discusses the creation of a SciFi "choose-your-own-adventure" story featuring Physics Forums members as characters. Participants explore various narrative ideas, character roles, and the overall structure of the story, including potential themes and plot devices.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • One participant proposes creating a story where PF members are characters, with choices leading to different outcomes.
  • Several participants express uncertainty about how the story would be structured and what roles members would play.
  • There are suggestions for character roles, including a hunky space captain and a newbie on a spaceship facing various challenges.
  • Some participants debate the plausibility of the main character being a child versus an adult, with concerns about narrative depth and character interaction.
  • Questions are raised about the parameters of the story, including whether selective physics can be violated and if humor should be limited.
  • Ideas for potential plot elements include a spaceship malfunction, a character awakening in a deep freeze scenario, and the challenges of communicating with a malfunctioning ship's computer.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express differing views on the main character's age and the narrative's structure. While some favor a child protagonist, others argue for an adult character to enhance the story's plausibility and interaction. The discussion remains unresolved regarding the character's age and the overall direction of the story.

Contextual Notes

Participants have not established specific parameters for the story, leading to ongoing debate about the inclusion of speculative elements and humor. There is also uncertainty about the roles of PF members in the writing process.

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I'm interested in creating a SciFi "choose-you-own-adventure" style story while using PF members as characters! It would be in the simple style of "story content" then choose "option 1" or "option 2" or "option 3" and repeat etc.

I can't do much writing, but I can put it all together and upload the interactive story to PF!

Anyone interested?
 
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I'm not sure how this would come together. Do you have an example?

BTW, I would be a horrible character. I sit at my desk most of the day, on the Internet and/or looking out my front window. At least I have birds to watch in the winter...
 
turbo said:
I'm not sure how this would come together. Do you have an example?

I'm just thinking of a traditional choose your own adventure style of having a bit of content and then having the user make an important choice on where the story goes by click a link.

turbo said:
BTW, I would be a horrible character. I sit at my desk most of the day, on the Internet and/or looking out my front window. At least I have birds to watch in the winter...

But in the story you could be Turbo, the hunky space captain that saves a planet of virgins from the evil dark lord of the Necian galaxy! :D
 
Greg Bernhardt said:
But in the story you could be Turbo, the hunky space captain that saves a planet of virgins from the evil dark lord of the Necian galaxy! :D
How many virgins, and how much time would I have to de-virgin them all?
 
I found it interesting, but what would be our (PF members) job on the process?
 
kevinferreira said:
I found it interesting, but what would be our (PF members) job on the process?

I think Turbo explained our commitment.
 
What are the parameters of the story?

Can we violate selective physics?

Can we introduce speculative notions?

Will we limit OmCheeto humor?
 
jedishrfu said:
What are the parameters of the story?

Can we violate selective physics?

Can we introduce speculative notions?

Will we limit OmCheeto humor?

Anything goes! Let's start off with brain storming a title and premise!
 
  • #10
How about all the members characters are based on their avatars if they have one. If not then we can be creative.

As for a title and premise, how about this:

The main character is a newbie on a spaceship. (Not sure what job) The ship suffers a massive hyperspace accident, or warp jump malfunction, or whatever accident and is left nearly powerless and stranded in an unknown system. They have to help find out what happened and repair the ship with the help of the rest of the crew. (PF Members)

Options include different areas for the main character to focus on. IE repair the sensors before the main reactor, figure out if that internal security alarm that is going off is really signalling an intruder or if it's just malfunctioning. Help Crewmember X over Crewmember Y when an accident occurs. ETC.

The ship is large, with multiple areas in different states of damage after the accident. (Play it safe by going to the lightly damaged areas first to get that backup generator working, or take a risk and head into the critically damaged areas to seal off that hull breach and get the main reactor up and running)

No title idea yet.
 
  • #11
How about the newbie is a kid and everyone is in deep freeze but he is the first to awaken and he doesn't know what to do. Problems with the ship's computer make it sound somewhat incomprehensible (the computer had a stroke) so he must figure out what its trying to tell him/her.
 
  • #12
Im against the character being a kid, as i feel it makes it too implausible for them to have sufficient experience to tell a good story. Plus if other crew members are already around it serves as a source of information about the ship and the situation from more than one single source. Plus i believe that it would be kind of boring to just talk to a computer for the first part of the story. Character interaction is much more exciting than a lone protagonist crawling through a dark ship in my opinion
 
  • #13
Drakkith said:
Im against the character being a kid, as i feel it makes it too implausible for them to have sufficient experience to tell a good story. Plus if other crew members are already around it serves as a source of information about the ship and the situation from more than one single source. Plus i believe that it would be kind of boring to just talk to a computer for the first part of the story. Character interaction is much more exciting than a lone protagonist crawling through a dark ship in my opinion

Thats the point the other crew members haven't woken up and may not due to the computer malfunction so there is no one around to talk to except a lame computer.

Also we need to not limit the writing initially in any way or limit it to within parameters set by Greg like what physics if any can we violate...
 
  • #14
jedishrfu said:
Also we need to not limit the writing initially in any way or limit it to within parameters set by Greg like what physics if any can we violate...

Fair enough, all's fair in brainstorming after all.
 
  • #15
jedishrfu said:
How about the newbie is a kid and everyone is in deep freeze but he is the first to awaken and he doesn't know what to do. Problems with the ship's computer make it sound somewhat incomprehensible (the computer had a stroke) so he must figure out what its trying to tell him/her.

I like this, very open ended, lots to work with. I agree with drak it should be an adult. A kid would be paralyzed.
 
  • #16
okay okay so we have a paralyzed kid ;-) (its beginning to sound like A Christmas Carol with Tiny Tim)

star trek guidelines suggest the computer should be female as the female voice carries better in noisy environments also males probably listen better too.

male or female human ? I think male as a counterpoint to the computer.

human occupation? pilot | navigator | crew specialist | tourist

backstory of human?

looming danger? BH or wormhole or neutron star or something else more exotic
 

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