Scrambling for Storyworlds

I’m scrambling. Specifically, I’m scrambling with last-minute preparations for Space City Con this weekend, so today’s post is one of those “rambling stream of consciousness” things rather than one of those “keenly insightful yet amusing and self-mocking” essays you’ve come to expect.

Amidst this week’s scramble, I’ve been working on a new collaborative world-building project and thinking about the best ways to establish a new storyworld. Traditionally, developing a new property is less about creating the world than it is creating the product associated with that world: the book, the movie, the game, etc.

But what if the point of the exercise isn’t necessarily to move units of a specific product? What if the point is to establish the world, and the products are secondary? If that’s the case, then a new question arises: what’s the best vehicle for establishing a new storyworld?

To my rambling stream of consciousness thinking, you’ve got three options:

• Traditional Media: Okay, I could have called this “passive” media, but that sound derogatory, even if I don’t mean it that way. “Traditional” includes movies, books, comics – any media meant to be consumed in a non-interactive way.

• Interactive Media: Yes, this is mostly games. Video games, board games, tabletop RPGs – they let the audience experience and perhaps even affect the storyworld, rather than just consume it.

• Transmedia: God help me, I’ve invoked the “T” word. But I think it’s apt, because transmedia — by its nature — straddles both traditional and interactive media. For example, part of the transmedia story may be strictly “traditional” in the form of a short story sent to your phone, but in order to unlock it, you have to solve an interactive puzzle based on what you’ve already learned of the world.
  

All these media have pros and cons, and different areas in which they excel. Where to start? That depends on your project and the goal of your campaign…. which may be the topic of another rambling, scrambling post later this week.