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Synopsis: Labyrinths and mazes may seem similar but they diverge in one important aspect. A labyrinth has only one path to its goal (linear) while a maze features multiple paths to multiple destinations (nonlinear). Bill and I talk about designing linear and nonlinear scenarios and their place in creating great campaigns. We also have shout outs and anecdotes!
Shout Outs
- The Labyrinth in Culture and Society:A fascinating examination of the trope from ancient to modern times.
- Retronauts podcast: Old school vidya games covered in detail.
- Ultimate Beastmaster: Why do I find this dumb show so entertaining?
- I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats: More than you could ever imagine about the band and their songs.
- Killing Floor 2: Now with chicken suit. All is complete.
- Node Based Scenario Design: Good blog article on the episode’s topic.
- Night in the Woods: Fun indie video game about living in a small town.
- Chillhop Music: A lofi hip hop record label. I dig it!
Song: Old Haunts by 2 Mello
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:16:45 — 35.3MB)
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As always, great discussion. I think it parallels the discussion between the “maze of clues” and “ocean of clues” approaches on last week’s Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff.
One of the interesting points (made by Robin Laws in that episode) is that in retrospect, story beats will generally seem linear – since you get a series of lines connecting the points that you explored.
Bill’s comment on how it’s better to use a more linear approach for particularly involved or strange settings made a few things click for me. Caleb did that to great effect in Know Evil, for instance – the first few sessions are very defined in their environment and objectives. I’m planning to run Unknown Armies soon and that’s a very useful insight. So is the idea about alternating them – I think that’s an aspect of strong storytelling, to vary up the beats, that can get lost when you’re in the middle of running a campaign with lots of moving parts.