Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Why Aren't You Reading?: What Does the Protagonist Want?

A new feature for Antagonist Relations, "Why Aren't You Reading?", where I'll blab about some book, blog, comic or some other thing(s) that I think that you (yes, YOU!) should be reading.  First up is Todd Alcott's fantastic What Does the Protagonist Want?

Alcott is a screenwriter who puts up great posts where he dives deep into the screenplays of many movies and other media artifacts, like his great series on episodes of the Venture Bros.  Recently he started an incredibly detailed series diving deep into the Avengers, which as of my writing this post is already at Part 6 and only 30! minutes into the film.  Alcott's screenwriting observations on what works and what doesn't in a script are not only fantastic and interesting reading, they're also easily applicable to GM'ing.  Reading the series on the Avengers, where he discusses how the movie manages to juggle the various ensemble characters without letting the audience become disinterested, has already made me think about how I can juggle the PCs in my ensemble Reign game without the other players getting bored as each gets their moments.

So, what are you waiting for, go read his first post on the Avengers and then dive deep into his very excellent archives.

1 comment:

  1. I just finished reading it, and you are correct it is fascinating. It is going to make me rethink how to drive the narrative effectively in some cases. Luckily we are coming to the natural 'break point' in the current campaign. This will give me a bit of time to figure out how to implement what I'm taking from this.
    The second group will have to be my test subjects for implementation. Great find.

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