MSPAFA General Chat: Adventures are really good

[1011686]

This is a classic thread from the old forums I thought I'd bring back.

You can talk about whatever you want here, as long as its related to adventures in some way, doesn't necessarily have to be ones on this forum. You can ask for advice with your adventure, or talk about your favourite ones, or muse about the nature of adventures overall as a medium of storytelling.

Let me start with a topic. The old forum had a lot of adventures. Most of them were discontinued soon after starting, but some went on, and are still going on, and are actually getting close to completion (and I really hope this forum makes some of its own longrunning adventures). Fortuna, All Night Laundry, Waterworks, Superego are all getting pretty close. Which one do you think will finish first?

(also you dont have to necessarily talk about this specific topic if you have something else you want to say, this thread doesn't need to follow perfectly logical transitions or anything)

[Zerio]

I certainly approve of this thread.

As for which of the old adventures I think will finish first, personally I'd say Waterworks. However... I admit I haven't read the new version of Fortuna or any of All Night Laundry yet, and this is a good reminder that I should get around to those one of these days.

Also not sure if it's old enough to really count as being in the same boat as the others, but my own Sweet Hella Quest has been around since 2012 and I hope to finish it eventually; hopefully before TOO much longer.

[calamityCons]

Fanventures are probably the most fun and exciting thing for me. I've done a fanventure before and I've found it extremely engaging and fun, it helps me connect directly with the audience that wants to see what I have to say, and it's probably the best feeling ever to have people come up to me and ask me if their theory is correct, or noticing something I put in the background that was an accident. I also love how the collective imaginations of people can lead to such off-the-wall scenarios.

[Auntie]

I really like seeing joke prompts played out (and, conversely, playing out joke prompts) especially if it's worked well into the pacing of a comic because it's just such a fun and interactive direction to take.

[Levenfish]

Those are still going? Good grief, some nice nostalgia. These forums feel a bit like home again. Wonder if we might ever see a new tide of adventures one day.

[egg]

Fanventures are probably the most fun and exciting thing for me. I've done a fanventure before and I've found it extremely engaging and fun, it helps me connect directly with the audience that wants to see what I have to say, and it's probably the best feeling ever to have people come up to me and ask me if their theory is correct, or noticing something I put in the background that was an accident. I also love how the collective imaginations of people can lead to such off-the-wall scenarios.

What I love the most about things like this is that, in some adventures, what the audience chooses can go completely against your plans in a good way. One example of this that I really loved was in RubyQuest, which was a 4chan quest (same thing as an adventure, pretty much) where the audience managed to save a character that was doomed to die by blindsiding the author. It's one of the reasons why I'm upset that Homestuck abandoned command prompts, though I understand nothing would get done with them still around.

[Darth_Energon]

Fanventures are probably the most fun and exciting thing for me. I've done a fanventure before and I've found it extremely engaging and fun, it helps me connect directly with the audience that wants to see what I have to say, and it's probably the best feeling ever to have people come up to me and ask me if their theory is correct, or noticing something I put in the background that was an accident. I also love how the collective imaginations of people can lead to such off-the-wall scenarios.

What I love the most about things like this is that, in some adventures, what the audience chooses can go completely against your plans in a good way. One example of this that I really loved was in RubyQuest, which was a 4chan quest (same thing as an adventure, pretty much) where the audience managed to save a character that was doomed to die by blindsiding the author. It's one of the reasons why I'm upset that Homestuck abandoned command prompts, though I understand nothing would get done with them still around.

I read Rubyquest ages ago, which character are you talking about?

[egg]

Fanventures are probably the most fun and exciting thing for me. I've done a fanventure before and I've found it extremely engaging and fun, it helps me connect directly with the audience that wants to see what I have to say, and it's probably the best feeling ever to have people come up to me and ask me if their theory is correct, or noticing something I put in the background that was an accident. I also love how the collective imaginations of people can lead to such off-the-wall scenarios.

What I love the most about things like this is that, in some adventures, what the audience chooses can go completely against your plans in a good way. One example of this that I really loved was in RubyQuest, which was a 4chan quest (same thing as an adventure, pretty much) where the audience managed to save a character that was doomed to die by blindsiding the author. It's one of the reasons why I'm upset that Homestuck abandoned command prompts, though I understand nothing would get done with them still around.

I read Rubyquest ages ago, which character are you talking about?

The cat boy, I forget his name. He was originally supposed to sacrifice himself, but the fact the audience put the photo in Stitches' locker allowed Stitches to 'find himself' and save the day.
There was also the crow guy - he was also saved by the audience.

[calamityCons]

Oh I one THOUSAND percent agree. One of my favorite aspects of Homestuck, the Exiles? Their whole Civil Service shtick was inspired entirely by that one goofy command to get WV to Become the Mayor of Can Town. And it colored his whole arc and made him such a meaningful character, trying to grow past his trauma and develop into something new. Shit like that is fantastic.

[1011686]

I really love the suggestion aspect of adventures as well. Just having a command chosen and reacted to is fun and interesting in a typical adventure, but when adventures are strategic, as in there is a specific goal the readers are trying for and they can fail if they don't give the right suggestions, things can get really crazy, with readers typing up massive plans and co-ordinating their suggestions together. Some adventures that have meta elements (where the readers canonically exist in some fashion or another) get even weirder. Like, just recently in Lucidstuck (which is another longrunning adventure that is close to finishing i forgot to mention), there was a section where the main antagonist had captured the protagonists and was holding them at their mercy, and was trying to get the readers to talk to them directly (because Lucidstuck was that kind of meta adventure). And every reader just posted "==>" and nothing else. It was really quite amazing to see, because just as there is a ton of cooperation in strategic adventures, there's also usually a lot of arguing and dissent, and i'd never seen that level of consensus before.

[Sp00kyrex]

I think something else unique about suggestions is sometimes the subversion of those suggestions or expectations surrounding them. Where, say one person can suggest one thing, but the story can, in a tongue-in-cheek way, subvert it, usually in the interest of comedy. I just think it's funny that people can try really hard to get one outcome to happen and the exact opposite will happen because it's funny to play off of expectations like that. I really think that sometimes suggestions can be a stepping stone for moving the story in a direction, even if that direction is the exact opposite of what's intended.

[1011686]

What are the most interesting suggestions everyone's gotten? Have you ever received one that caused you to completely change where your story was heading? Or have you ever given a command that had that effect?

[Sp00kyrex]

What are the most interesting suggestions everyone's gotten? Have you ever received one that caused you to completely change where your story was heading? Or have you ever given a command that had that effect?

Ok this isn’t really a suggestion per se, but it did change the course of my story significantly. I put up a poll earlier in Firequest that basically asked “Ok should caveguy put on the crown to escape a predicament he was in or shouldn’t he?” So I was totally expecting one option to win and to my surprise the poll was at a tie for the longest time. Now the deadline I set for the poll was rapidly approaching and the set of events I was completely prepared for was looking like it might not happen. So I asked one of my friends who reads the comic, “Hey have you voted yet?” and they told me, no they haven’t. So I asked them if they could vote on the poll so that the thing I had planned could happen. And so they go and vote and I check up on the poll to see how it was going and I find that they voted on the wrong option. At this point it’s basically too late to do anything about it since they physically couldn’t change their vote and so the deadline soon comes and goes with the option I didn’t expect to be chosen being chosen.

It really threw me for a curveball because I was mentally psyching myself up for the one option only to be presented with the other. The whims of democracy truly are hard to understand at times, I suppose.

[Morphimus]

Even though forum adventures did exist in other places, my interest in adventures dwindled around the time the MSPA forums died.

I don't know what it is about this place though, probably the nostalgia, but my interest in them has been renewed. It's really cool to see all these little stories cropping up, even if most of them never go much of anywhere.

There's so many adventures. So many old familiar faces to catch up with, and even a plethora of new ones. It brings a smile to my face.

[calamityCons]

Forum Adventures are truly one of my favorite parts of the Homestuck Fandom. Different people taking inspiration from the weird and experimental nature of Homestuck and earlier MS Paint Adventures to create some SICK CONTENT. I'm really happy to see so many right now, and I love the interactivity inherent in the production of these things.

[23toedbasket]

What are the most interesting suggestions everyone's gotten? Have you ever received one that caused you to completely change where your story was heading? Or have you ever given a command that had that effect?

The idea of commands really caught my eye, and I decided to open it up to ABSOLUTELY anything. I started AVOID with a black screen, which started with "change color" then eventually settling on "green" and it's developed into a 3 dimensional story which is still highly connected to its origin of being such an abstract thing as the color 'green.' It's so cool what some people come up with, because when you set laws in your head sometimes they'll do something in just such a way that twists that rule totally unexpectedly! The command system also allows for a story to be told from three perspectives essentially in real time... well, only TWO are going on currently (3 comics to update was crazy). Big fan of this medium, even more than the comics I read as a Kid in the eighties!

[luigi]

Oh wow I didn't know we were allowed to make any threads that weren't adventures. Thanks 23TB for bumping this thread back to life, I've been wanting a place to discuss for a while now.

I'm really sad about the fact that most of the adventures here are currently inactive. I wish there were more fun adventures to comment on :(

[RoyalFiddle]

Semi worry Luigi, I want to make an adventure of my own, but my own Executive Dysfunction has kept me from fleshing out the rough story idea. Plus, I'm no artist, which shouldn't matter but in my own particular case it does.

[luigi]

Semi worry Luigi, I want to make an adventure of my own, but my own Executive Dysfunction has kept me from fleshing out the rough story idea. Plus, I'm no artist, which shouldn't matter but in my own particular case it does.

[censored to be more palatable to a general audience because apparently the f word is too strong for some people on this board. -> ]

[1011686]

Semi worry Luigi, I want to make an adventure of my own, but my own Executive Dysfunction has kept me from fleshing out the rough story idea. Plus, I'm no artist, which shouldn't matter but in my own particular case it does.

you honestly don't need to flesh out an idea that much in order to start a forum adventure. Starting with some ridiculously simple premise and then building on it with reader suggestions is a very common method for adventures. The most important thing, in my opinion, that you need to start a forum adventure, is some kind of direction or goal. It could just be to escape a room, or find some magical artifact, but it could also be more abstract, like getting memories back, or finding out more about the world. It can basically be anything, as long as readers can come up with suggestions that might possibly bring them closer to it.