Just me picking up my #paxu badge.

Thanks @jennipowell.bsky.social & @moxreuby.bsky.social!

Watched the @umactually.bsky.social live show earlier this afternoon.

#MCVegas

Saw @joshleekwai.bsky.social this morning on the way to the convention center.

#MCVegas

Checking out the Commander at Home game with @goberthicks.bsky.social & @bmkibler.bsky.social.

If you look close, you can see me in the intro!

I'm at #MCVegas this weekend!

Let's start this thread with a pic of me playing Magic 30 years ago.

The Roleplaying of Narrative So far in this series, we’ve discussed a number of different participatory art forms. Branching forms that offer the ability to make decisions on behalf of characters at specific interactive touchpoin...

What do H.G. Wells and the Vietnam War have to do with Dungeons & Dragons? And how have #TTRPGs influenced other forms of participatory art?

Check out the latest installment of Narrative Evolution to find out!

#writer #narrativedesigner #DnD

www.linkedin.com/pulse/rolepl...

Likewise!

You do not have to consume every single tiny piece of bad news in order to be a good person. It’s ok to miss things. Traumatizing yourself isn’t the same as activism. Bearing witness to the point that you’re paralyzed with fear and horror and fury isn’t going to help us get through this.

The Theming of Narrative Part II Last article, we explored themed entertainment, largely through the lens of Galaxy’s Edge, the “Star Wars” land at Disney parks. Galaxy’s Edge opened in Disneyland in May of 2019, but about two years ...

In part two of my discussion of themed entertainment, I discuss Disney's #GalacticStarcruiser.

#writer #narrativedesigner #themedentertainment

www.linkedin.com/pulse/themin...

The Theming of Narrative Part I I’ve loved the “Star Wars” saga for as long as I can remember. I was first introduced to the saga when my parents took me to see “Return of the Jedi” in a second run theater in 1984.

Part I of two of an exploration of themed entertainment, through the lens of #StarWars.

Part 1 is about Galaxy's Edge, Disney's Star Wars land.

#writer #narrativedesigner #themedentertainment

www.linkedin.com/pulse/themin...

The Alternate Reality of Narrative When the online video streaming platform YouTube launched in 2005, none of us could have predicted how ubiquitous it would one day become in our daily lives. In providing a distribution platform for a...

Through narrative design, reality can wear a mask of fiction.

And Alternate Reality Games are one of the most compelling ways to create that kind of experience.

#writer #narrativedesigner #alternaterealitygames

www.linkedin.com/pulse/altern...

The Branching of Narrative “It follows that [for Happenings] audiences should be eliminated entirely.”- Allan Kaprow In our last article, we discussed immersive theater pieces like “Sleep No More,” which enfranchise their audie...

Choices are meaningful when they have a measurable effect on the story as it unfolds.

And choices are meaningful when they are mutually exclusive, when making one choice closes the door on any number of other possible options.

#writer #narrativedesigner

www.linkedin.com/pulse/branch...

Just waiting for that Hulk Secret Lair.

#Marvel #Hulk #MagicTheGathering #mtg #SecretLair

Question tonight at trivia: the most common male cat names in 2024.

My pitch: Careless Whiskers

I'm attending the Next Stage Immersive Summit in January! Who else is going?

This installment is about immersive theater.

Specifically, experiences that run multiple scenes simultaneously in different locations, forcing you to make choices about what you see, and when you see it.

#writer #narrativedesigner #sleepnomore

www.linkedin.com/pulse/simult...

What's Next? So, these last six articles have laid the groundwork for our discussion of the participatory arts. And as we transition into the next part of this series, I thought it might be a good idea to devote a...

An interstitial piece, laying out the direction for the remainder of the series.

#writer #narrativedesigner #immersive

www.linkedin.com/pulse/whats-...

The Transparency of Narrative I’ve said in this series that the more life-like an artistic experience is, the more meaningful it can be. And that is true, up to a point.

An article about the dangers of passing off fiction for fact.

On social media bubbles and how easily we are manipulated.

And how prone we are as human beings to get things entirely wrong.

#writer #narrativedesigner #transparency

www.linkedin.com/pulse/transp...

If anyone is going to anything interesting around #TheGameAwards this week in L.A., let me know! I'd like to get out and meet folks.

The Immersiveness of Narrative Rituals, we’ve established, are powered by belief, and ritualized participatory narrative experiences are powered by the suspension of disbelief. When a piece of art enables you to suspend your disbel...

When a piece of art enables you to suspend your disbelief, what you experience is called immersion.

And the ability of participatory art to facilitate in its audience a profound suspension of disbelief is the primary goal of the entire movement.

#writer #narrativedesigner #suspensionofdisbelief

The Design of Narrative We’ve established so far that participatory art is ritualistic in the sense that it’s transformative. We’ve further said that all participatory art features some level of game-like agency, and it is t...

Narrative Designer is a title that is typically limited to video games, but I've chosen to use it to describe all participatory artists.

If participatory art enables audience choice, the architecture of that agency has to be designed.

#writer #narrativedesigner

www.linkedin.com/pulse/design...

The Playfulness of Narrative Narrative Correlationism, we’ve said, defines participatory art as “ritualized behavior permeated by play,” borrowing nomenclature from Richard Schechner. (1) Traditional narrative forms are discursiv...

Play is fundamental to our development as human beings.

Play permission is about reminding people that gaming is for everyone

And participatory artists give permission to audiences to play in the narrative sandbox with them.

#writer #narrativedesigner #play

www.linkedin.com/pulse/playfu...

The Ritual of Narrative There is a strong case to be made that the forerunner of narrative art as we know it today may have been the distinctly human phenomenon of ritual performance, a practice which was participatory by it...

Participatory art - like ritual - is transformative.

Rituals are powered by belief. Ritualized participatory art is powered by the suspension of disbelief.

#writer #narrativedesigner #ritual

www.linkedin.com/pulse/ritual...

Realized afterwards that I was at negative life at the time, and I should have lost as soon as my Platinum Angel stopped being a Platinum Angel.

Still, it was a hell of a journey!

In my first game with my Iron Man + Bobbleheads Deck, I used Masterful Replication with Mycosynth Lattice on the board to turn all 44 of my permanents into Luck Bobbleheads.

After about 17 tries of rolling 44 dice, I hit 7 sixes exactly!

#mtg #MagicTheGathering

The Agency of Narrative The goal of art is to imitate life. And by extension, the more thoroughly a piece of artwork can simulate life, the more meaningful that art can ultimately be.

Participatory art is any form that enables the audience to make choices that impact their experience of the narrative.

In this installment we discuss one of the cornerstones of participatory art: audience agency.

#writer #narrativedesigner #immersive #agency

www.linkedin.com/pulse/agency...

Trying out my Iron Man + Bobbleheads deck for the first time today!

Any sneaky deck tech for this I might have missed?

#MagicTheGathering #mtg

Very nice!

The Pragmatics of Narrative: Part II On October 30th, 1938, the Columbia Broadcasting System’s regularly-scheduled programming was interrupted by a news bulletin about a Martian invasion of New Jersey; Or, at least, so it appeared to man...

Subverting non-fictional forms and genres for fictional purposes creates a new kind of narrative experience.

This post we discuss the "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast, "The Blair Witch Project," and "Fargo (the film and the series).

#writer #narrativedesigner

www.linkedin.com/pulse/pragma...

The Pragmatics of Narrative: Part I We’ve discussed at length in this series the ways that our drive towards meaning-creation can optimize how we process and store incoming sensory data. But the true value of this, from an evolutionary ...

There are many parts of a narrative experience that can be designed outside of the diegetic world of the story.

How can we use the pragmatics of narrative design to provide new kinds of narrative experiences?

#writer #narrativedesigner #diegesis #genre

www.linkedin.com/pulse/pragma...