Creating a Fanventure: A Collaborative Effort

[PhosofRadiance]

The process of creating a Fanventure can be an intense, laborious one.
This thread is for helping each other develop their own adventure, their own game.

[rookie1978]

is there some kind of timeline of the trolls session? the rest of the fanventure writing is fine, but it's feeling like a major slog trying to figure out the start of the game, mostly just due to gaps in memory and my own lack of understanding. I'm writing a 12 player session so seeing another one and how it progresses laid out simply would be pretty useful as a base.

[PhosofRadiance]

is there some kind of timeline of the trolls session? the rest of the fanventure writing is fine, but it's feeling like a major slog trying to figure out the start of the game, mostly just due to gaps in memory and my own lack of understanding. I'm writing a 12 player session so seeing another one and how it progresses laid out simply would be pretty useful as a base.

Start of Hivebent https://www.homestuck.com/story/1989

We do know through specific interactions the Trolls have with the Humans that their session began before the Humans'.
And while the timeline of Hivebent tends to go back and forth, we can presume Karkat entered first with Feferi being last.

Karkat telling the Humans' about what happened to their universe/the trolls' Genesis Frog https://www.homestuck.com/story/4017

First interaction between Jade and Karkat (by HS pages) https://www.homestuck.com/story/859

Rose being pestered by Kanaya on her birthday https://www.homestuck.com/story/1093

However, there is a discrepancy because we know Kanaya had learned of Rose through her SBurb Walkthrough.

I can collect more information for later.

[heroboof]

However, there is a discrepancy because we know Kanaya had learned of Rose through her SBurb Walkthrough.

iirc, it's because that particular walkthrough was preserved by the horrorterrors and transmitted to alternia via a server in the Furthest Ring?

[MorganMustDie]

However, there is a discrepancy because we know Kanaya had learned of Rose through her SBurb Walkthrough.

iirc, it's because that particular walkthrough was preserved by the horrorterrors and transmitted to alternia via a server in the Furthest Ring?

Time stuff in the outer ring is very difficult to keep track of. Technically, all of the troll session and beta session happen at roughly the same time, they synchronise at the critical moment when the Scratch happens and Bec enters the troll session at the same time

[RoyalFiddle]

Paradox Space is fucky wucky, weird time shenanigans are common, don't worry about it too hard because that shit won't change!

[rookie1978]

How do Exiles work? How are they supposed to help the players, considering they don't know much if anything about the players themselves or their journey? Is there always one exile per player? If so, did the trolls session have 12 different exiles?

[calamityCons]

As far as we know, there are only ever 5 exiles at once in a session. This is because in the Beta Humans' session, there are five (WV, PM, AR, WQ, WK) and in the Troll's session there are five (SS, DD, HB, CD, BQ). Diamonds Droog was explicitly seen guiding two different characters at different points in time, Aradia and Tavros, similarly to how PM was able to command John because she was accessing the console for him. BQ was also seen guiding Vriska and Terezi, though Vriska was completely unresponsive to BQ's guidance. John and Tavros have both been shown to be commanded/suggested by two different Exiles. John is guided by WV and PM, while Tavros was guided by HB and DD. Other characters tend to only get one seen exile: Rose had WQ, Dave had AR, Karkat had SS, and Sollux had CD.

[Dream Muttman]

is there some kind of timeline of the trolls session? the rest of the fanventure writing is fine, but it's feeling like a major slog trying to figure out the start of the game, mostly just due to gaps in memory and my own lack of understanding. I'm writing a 12 player session so seeing another one and how it progresses laid out simply would be pretty useful as a base.

The trolls engineer their entry, with the whole double reach-around bit, then they grinds through land quests, forming groups. Eventually they make a deal with Jack Noir to get the Queen's ring. Once they finish that and successfully exile both Dersites, they deal with their denizens individually and finally confront the Black King.

There's a few independent points in the timeline I don't remember an exact placement for:
[*]The King initiates the reckoning at some point.
[*]Kanaya "completes" her frog breeding duties at some point.
[*]Karkat completes ectobiology at some point

How do Exiles work? How are they supposed to help the players, considering they don't know much if anything about the players themselves or their journey? Is there always one exile per player? If so, did the trolls session have 12 different exiles?

The trolls didn't seem to have any more exiles than the 5 that were shown, but since they also would've had to have 12 different kinds of consort and those aren't shown, it might not be so clear. We know the humans had more exiles than players, but one of their exiles was time-capsule'd so he wouldn't be able to participate in the game, secretly talking to the players, so he might not count.

Most of our time with the exiles is spent with WV, AR and PM, who don't really know anything other than WV having met John in the futurepast. The troll session had more knowledgeable exiles, though. It's clear that the Derse agents and queens can recognize the heroes on sight and would know things about them and their roles from their titles. The human session might've just gotten duds because they had the trolls to make up for it. It's up to interpretation.

[arachonteur]

How do Exiles work? How are they supposed to help the players, considering they don't know much if anything about the players themselves or their journey? Is there always one exile per player? If so, did the trolls session have 12 different exiles?

This is mostly a personal reading so grain of salt, the role of the exiles is more along the lines of rebuilding society on the far-future version of the planet that enters than it is direct help - most of the exiles carry some piece of societal infrastructure along with them. WV carries the idea of democracy, PM infrastructure like the mail system, AR laws and regulations, WK/WQ bringing along the guillotine industry, etc. etc., it's instituting these ideas that seem to be the point of them arriving on a session's former planet - PM still carries her packages with her, and WV, after rising up, focuses on DEMOCRACY. You could theoretically use this to further some themes you've got going, but Homestuck fanventures typically eschew those.

The mechanics of exiling and how many exiles there are in a session are mostly related to the Reckoning - exiling the Black Queen in the troll session was supposedly a deep web of political intrigue and such, a power play to make it so that there was only one extremely OP boss to fight, but comparatively, AR is exiled just by being on the ectobiology lab meteor when the Reckoning happens. How many exiles a session has really depends on the session, and what the players try to accomplish.

Very funny though, is that the trivia on the Exiles wiki page notes that aside from the Midnight Crew and Sn0wman, that would leave 7 exiles, which is as many characters as there are between Team Sleuth and Mobster Kingpin. So take that as you may.

[aeonic maiden]

this thread seems to be mostly to be about helping people make a fanventure so ill give a bit of advice do not make a bog standard story I hate ot say it but their are thousands of fanventures which are basically sburb but with one tiny twist so one thing I would say is don't make a standard sburb session make something completely different or if you want sburb do the VE thing and change it completely unless their is a very good reason for the lack of uniquity all im saying is lots of people use a carbon copy model and just attempt to build the rest off of character alone and that isn't that much so if you wish to reinvigorate a story use the memetic symbols but make everything else whatever you want you don't have to have sburb be well sburb make it different make it unqiue give it a feel that is unique

[1011686]

I would say you don't have to change sburb to make a good story. There are indeed thousands of fanventures that are very similar, but I would say that's because of two things.
1, they all start the same way with some kid in their room with various interests who talks to other friends online and fools around in their house until they play sburb,
and 2, they're all really short and never actually get to sburb >90% of the time.
Like seriously, consider the number of sburbventures that get into the Medium. I seriously doubt I know of more than a few dozen, and I read a ton of adventures. And if you went through that sample of sburbventures that actually got somewhere, and then compared how good they were relative to how closely they followed sburb's rules, I don't think there would be any correlation.
The thing about Sburb is that it's really broad. There are an extremely large number of stories that could fit within it's limitations without an author needing to change anything about the game. For example, Wake Up.
The real place originality is important imo isn't breaking away from Sburb, but breaking away from Homestuck. Minor example, kids' browsers using the same names as their denizens isn't part of Sburb, it isn't a rule you need to follow in order to stay canonical. It was just plain old narrative foreshadowing. If you're making a sburbventure, you might want to stick to sburb's rules, but you really shouldn't stick to foreshadowing things the same way as Homestuck did. Same with gags and jokes. It's better to come up with your own than just use the same ones Homestuck does.
This "guide" basically displays everything I think is unhelpful to believe you need to stick to. There is a lot of patterns and rules established in Homestuck. But that's different from them being established as rules in Sburb, and thinking you need to follow them is just going to get in the way of writing a good story.

[Joyfulldreams]

this thread seems to be mostly to be about helping people make a fanventure so ill give a bit of advice do not make a bog standard story I hate ot say it but their are thousands of fanventures which are basically sburb but with one tiny twist so one thing I would say is don't make a standard sburb session make something completely different or if you want sburb do the VE thing and change it completely unless their is a very good reason for the lack of uniquity all im saying is lots of people use a carbon copy model and just attempt to build the rest off of character alone and that isn't that much so if you wish to reinvigorate a story use the memetic symbols but make everything else whatever you want you don't have to have sburb be well sburb make it different make it unqiue give it a feel that is unique

I'd like to rebuke this because nothing stymies creativity like telling people not to do something just because lots of other people have done it before. Screw THAT. Make what you want! Who cares if it's not super original or whatever? You make it because you want to make something and have fun doing it, and have the catharsis of making a thing. And then so what if you don't finish it, or don't get very far along, or it isn't great? You had fun making it while you were working on it, and there's no point stressing yourself out or beating yourself up over not finishing something that was just supposed to be for fun. If it isn't fun and it isn't fulfilling, then you are under no obligation to keep doing it. It says nothing about you as a person other than that you had fun making something for a bit and then moved on.

AND ANOTHER THING. So what if there's a million sburb sessions or whatever? None of them are the one YOU would make, so that automatically makes the one you make valuable and unique. If it isn't your magnum opus then whatever, you'll learn some stuff along the way of making it and so the next thing you'll make will be better.

TL;DR

SCREW THE HATERS MAKE ALL THE CRAPPY FANFICTION YOUR HEART COULD POSSIBLY DESIRE AND THEN STOP WHEN YOUR HEART NO LONGER DESIRES IT. LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO NOT HAVE FUN. MORE CONTENT IS ALWAYS BETTER AND MAKING STUFF IS FULFILLING SO GO DO IT!!!

[Darth_Energon]

I haven't tried doing one but I wouldn't start with
A young man stands in his bedroom. It just so happens that today, the 13th of April, 2009, is this young man's birthday. Though it was thirteen years ago he was given life, it is only today he will be given a name!

What will the name of this young man be?
Or anything similar, it's so worn out at this point.

[calamityCons]

My real advice for any fanventure is to consider the coconuts WHY you want to make it. Don't think about the pieces of the puzzle and copy them beat by beat. Originality is appreciated, and when a story touches you it usually touches you on an emotional level. Find out what that emotion is, and build up ways to achieve that. If you'd like to have the same feelings of curiosity and wonder that Homestuck Act 2 had, consider what would be wondrous or intriguing about YOUR fansession, or fanventure, or regular old story. If you want to evoke the feelings of exhilaration and brutal intensity of Hivebent, consider what kinds of brutal circumstances and awful feelings of betrayal and revenge you could evoke on your own.

If you want to do something just for fun and to see if you can do it, PLEASE do! I know you can, and if you think you can't then you won't know for sure until you've tried. And once you've tried, you'll automatically improve, because the more you do something the more your Storytelling Muscle will develop and strengthen. Creating for fun is creating for fun. Creating because you want to make something great is only slightly different, and might require more thought, but I'm encouraging everyone to do it anyway. You won't know until you try.

[1011686]

I haven't tried doing one but I wouldn't start with
A young man stands in his bedroom. It just so happens that today, the 13th of April, 2009, is this young man's birthday. Though it was thirteen years ago he was given life, it is only today he will be given a name!

What will the name of this young man be?
Or anything similar, it's so worn out at this point.

Yeah, as far as specific non-general advice for something you should probably do goes, starting differently is a good idea. Platitudes about the nature of art and creating things for fun are good, and i stand by them, but if you're like "how can i make my sburbventure stand out", just, start differently. I mean who even stands in their rooms like that, it's unrealistic.

[Sahxyel]

My advice is find something that's within your talent wheelhouse to work with and have the passion to really see it through. If you reach too high you can disappoint yourself while progressing simply because what you're making isn't satisfactory to your expectations which can put you down very easily. If you have some grand Homestuckian vision but not the talent to pull it off you might want to hold your horses and practice art/story with something looser and easier to do before tackling a massive project that can potentially wear you out before even lifting off the ground. Shorter stories and projects can be fun and because it isn't as precious as your big vision and you'll be more amenable towards feeling you how to structure your adventure and the limits of what you can produce.

Basically: know your limits and work at a pace that is comfortable (but not exhausting either physically or emotionally!) for you!

[rubs juice]

Basically: know your limits and work at a pace that is comfortable (but not exhausting either physically or emotionally!) for you!

This. This is very important not only to write a fanventure but to create content in general(fiction, comics, videos, whatever). If you force yourself into a pace, even if you think you can achieve it, it'll pressure you into doing it even if you don't feel like it and it's gonna turn something that should be fun and challenging into something exhausting.

As far as fanventure advice goes, I'd say that being able to adapt to the reader impressions (or to their commands) is important to make it enjoyable, and that's a good advice especially for those who're coming from a background of fiction writing, where the author has all the power about where the story is gonna go next. It's okay to not have a perfect outline of how everything's gonna go, as long as you have reader input to help guide you. Picking and choosing commands is also a good practice, especially if you don't want your adventure to just go on forever with silly nonsense.