Terry Greer
Sage
I was once an avid tabletop RPGer and games master - haven't had much time to do this of late though.
However, I was plotting out a story a little while back and it suddenly occurred to me that dice (or random events) could be a really useful addition to the plotting process.
Say you get to a particular point in a journey and two characters square off against each other. One may even be the one that seems to be shaping up to be the main hero (so far anyway).
Rather than actually decide who wins, turn it into a dice roll - he has - say 80% chance of winning.
You roll the dice and then as a writer deal with the outcome.
If he lives - he carries on for now.
if he dies then the other characters have to react accordingly.
You don't do this for just big events though - but any meaningful choice in the story. As the author gets to actually assign a % chance of an outcome some chances could be almost certain 99% - with just a tiny chance of failure, others 50:50 or very unlikely. So the degree of randomness can be easily made sensible and contextual for each situation.
Of course this does force the writer to continually adapt what they were going to do, and be open to an unexpected change in direction - but I think it could be a really good way of adding the unexpected to stories.
It also means its really only suited to stories with multiple characters and multiple POVs.
The one thing it does do is force the writer to deal with the unexpected and do things that they may not have done if they just decided for themselves.
On the face of it it takes away the author's input - but I don't think it does - I think this approach in fact encourages the author to properly explore every choice and decision their character's make, and helps prevent a story from becoming too predictable.
Of course the author can ignore a result they really don't like - but that would really defeat the objective.
(If nothing else it would be a fun exercise).
Any thoughts?
However, I was plotting out a story a little while back and it suddenly occurred to me that dice (or random events) could be a really useful addition to the plotting process.
Say you get to a particular point in a journey and two characters square off against each other. One may even be the one that seems to be shaping up to be the main hero (so far anyway).
Rather than actually decide who wins, turn it into a dice roll - he has - say 80% chance of winning.
You roll the dice and then as a writer deal with the outcome.
If he lives - he carries on for now.
if he dies then the other characters have to react accordingly.
You don't do this for just big events though - but any meaningful choice in the story. As the author gets to actually assign a % chance of an outcome some chances could be almost certain 99% - with just a tiny chance of failure, others 50:50 or very unlikely. So the degree of randomness can be easily made sensible and contextual for each situation.
Of course this does force the writer to continually adapt what they were going to do, and be open to an unexpected change in direction - but I think it could be a really good way of adding the unexpected to stories.
It also means its really only suited to stories with multiple characters and multiple POVs.
The one thing it does do is force the writer to deal with the unexpected and do things that they may not have done if they just decided for themselves.
On the face of it it takes away the author's input - but I don't think it does - I think this approach in fact encourages the author to properly explore every choice and decision their character's make, and helps prevent a story from becoming too predictable.
Of course the author can ignore a result they really don't like - but that would really defeat the objective.
(If nothing else it would be a fun exercise).
Any thoughts?
Last edited: