Christmas Eve

[sholio]

Technically it'll be Christmas in about 15 minutes, but here's how my Christmas Eve is going (other than writing Biggles Xmas fic). In general my family doesn't really do gifts much, and they don't live close, so this year I gave myself some new toys to play with.

Specifically, I treated myself to several new-and-untouched story and journaling card games, took them out of their boxes tonight, and have been having a creative free-for-all, including mixing and matching. It's unlikely I'll actually write anything based on these, although who knows, but it's terrific fun for general creative daydreaming.



(Click to embiggen.)

The games are (top to bottom):

• Pitchstorm, a competitive card game in which players create terrible movie pitches from Character, Plot, and executive meddling cards. (So, for example, "A shark with a human brain" -> "searches for their kidnapped truffle pig" -> "This is great, but what if all the characters worked in the circus?")

• The Plot Thickens, a collaborative storytelling game with Character, Place, and Thing cards.

• The Burn After Writing Deck, a journaling card deck with prompts for personal journaling. I was hoping this one might be useful for fanfic prompts in particular. At the moment I'm combining it with random draws from the other decks to see what happens.

Comments

[rheanna]

These are great! I’ve got a box of writing prompt cards called Storymatic lurking around the house somewhere. I never used them as much as I wanted to, but it’s a great idea. I adore the Pitchstorm concept.

Happy Christmas! It’s 9am here and I’ve just put a turkey in the oven. Have a great day.

[sholio]

Happy Christmas! I hope you and your family have a lovely one. ♥

I love this kind of prompting game; it's a combination of the wildcard creative prompts with the actual, physical objects that really does it for me. Maybe it'll even lead to actual fiction written based on a prompt, one of these days ...

[yhlee]

You'll find this hilarious: there was one year I sent board games to my literary and film agents because they both have kids who might enjoy family board game night and neither seemed like the type of gamer geek who would already own ALL the games. When I explained my shopping dilemma to Trey at the local game store, he pointed at Pitchstorm and said wryly, "BOTH your agents would HATE this game." This was after I was newly with them both so I didn't know if a game about PITCHING would go over well as a gag gift, so I didn't. But I've thought about it. XD

I'd love to hear more about Burn After Writing if you are so inclined!

[sholio]

HA. I completely get the issue with not wanting it to come across as the bad kind of gag gift! It looks fun, though. Of all of the ones I bought, that's the one I'd like to find someone to play with.

I'll report back on Burn After Writing! So far I'm finding the prompts fairly uninspiring ("What song is stuck in your head right now?") but they're meant for personal journaling rather than fiction, of course.

[yhlee]

I propose to you (and would be willing to run, although I'm not sure this would work on AO3): THE EXCHANGE OF (virtual) PROMPT CARDS. Which would run something like:

You sign up to give and receive ~ten ~card-sized (a phrase or 1-2 sentence) prompts for XYZ genre and/or relationship/pairing categories (established during nominations):

e.g.
- cozy murder mystery
- supernatural thriller
- reverse harem
- m/m
- isekai
- all gen all the time
- father & adopted daughter

...I am a loon?! (I'm a Yoon, anyway.)

[sholio]

I honestly LOVE this idea. To me it feels more like it might work best as a bingo type event? Or like a hybrid, if your card is being provided by someone else rather than randomly generated .... I'd be happy to brainstorm ideas for how something like that might work!

[yhlee]

I actually am not super clear on how bingo things work (I've gotten bingo cards but never successfully completed one and don't know how to generate cards other than the hard way) but I think you're right! That would give the prompt-filler more of a, hmm, choice of options? Would love to hear more thoughts on a good way to implement this :D

[leesa_perrie]

They look like fun! Enjoy! :D

[sholio]

Thank you! Merry Christmas! :)

[lunabee34]

Those sound like so much fun.

Happy inspiration!

[sholio]

Thank you! :)

[philomytha]

These look excellent fun! Especially Pitchstorm, that sounds ridiculous in the best possible way. Happy Christmas!

[sholio]

I honestly want to try to find some people to play it with; it looks so much fun ...

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Pitchstorm is going on the list for gifts for brother-in-law's family for next year! Really Loud Librarians was this year's from us, but they're also playing so many other games I had to tap out and sit quietly with my computer. Loads of shouting! It's fun, but I have to be at a safe distance now.

I"m glad you're having fun with them!

[sholio]

Report back if they play it! I'm thinking about finding someone around here to play it with ... maybe the TTRPG group might appreciate it for a break between sessions.

[shaddyr]

These look so cool! I hope you are having tons of fun with them!

[sholio]

I'm having fun, thank you! :D

Also, I realized that you don't have access and I just gave you access because there is currently a discussion of a possible gift/card swap for next year's holiday season going on in a locked post above this one, in case you are interested. (I know we don't know each other that well, but I do remember you from Writercon and LJ ...)

[shaddyr]

Excellent! I have left a comment!