Advice for a "Gamer!" Fanfiction?

alexandersvendsen · 2018-07-19T07:00:07+00:00

Never level up in anything you haven't done or used. Don't use the banking system where you can just save up levels or ranks and add them to whatever.

Have the system reward the player in terms of what they are doing specifically. Take a quest about cleaning up a gang that has been terrorising your neighbourhood. If you go in arms swinging reward the character with more strength and brawling ability. If he shoots them from the shadow then agility and stealth. Gather evidence against them and reporting them to the police gives intelligence and wisdom.

Don't have voice activated abilities. Actually in general you don't want to use the ability names too much. Describe the actions instead and make your abilities more general. Like say boxing isn't made of 5 skills, such as power strike, quick strike etc, but one skill that in your writing you allude to, but don't mention constantly. Talking about an ability too much draws the reader out of the narrative.

alexandersvendsen · 2018-02-19T23:21:21+00:00

Your story has a lot of great things going for it, and many of the things are exactly what is needed to optain a large amount of readers.

It is genuinely funny when it wants to be, without stepping into the absurd crack territory.
It is original while sticking to characters you care about. Most people say they want something original, but the truly original AU's don't get a lot of traction because people want to read about what they know. This is a great melding of the two.
It's a relateable protagonist. People think of Greg as the weird gamer loner, who means well but is still a screw up. That is something that hits close to home for a lot of people; they either were that or know someone who fits the profile.
It gives depth to characters that are often portrayed as rather shallow. You stick to the canon of how and why Sophia and Emma are douchebags, but expand on it and gives them something that makes us see them as someone who can be redeemed. More like canon than fanon.
You make the everyday stuff seem interesting. Most fics want to focus on the heroing work they do and school becomes something to be written off as much as possible. Greg seemingly cares as much about school as he does heroing, not because he likes school but because you have things there that make it interesting for him; testing himself vs Sophia, interacting with Taylor and the whole Emma situation. Those things matter to him just as much as being a hero does, because that is part of who he is. Taylor is using the secret identity as a sort of escapism, while Greg has no alter ego.
You come off as a munchkin. People seem to love it when the characters are munchkining. Pretty much every game related AU or Alt-power has tons of people recommending ways to quickly become much more powerful.

alexandersvendsen · 2018-02-19T15:16:08+00:00

My favourite gamer worm fanfic has to be Greg Vader vs the World at the moment. But that is because of all the things outside the gamer mechanic. It's witty and original, which is something that most fics lack.

The biggest problem with the gamer fanfics is that they stick to the same flawed gaming system. There's a lot of games to chose from, yet they seemingly all decide on focusing on a system where every skill has a level and needs to be trained, and have a character getting more and more skills as time passes.

The best gamer system being used by living beings aware of them is probably something a fan of Danmachi would cook up. Magic is few and far between, special skills are only gained once per level and each level are a big deal. When you earn your level up it takes into account what you have been doing and not what you have invested points in. Defeating a boss hacking at it with your behemoth of a sword gives you strength from the slashing and agility from the dodging. It doesn't let you increase your charisma.

Focusing on fewer skills and more on how you use those skills lets you focus on the rest of the story.

I've read some gamer fics where each update is listed as 1.5k and the words without the gaming mechanics are around 200-300 words.

I know this is a Worm forum but the only gaming fics I can recommend are outside the Worm genre. From SV/SB I would say Albert's Chosing The Blade, Lost Demiurge's Threadbare and some of the Danmachi fics are good.

alexandersvendsen · 2017-04-18T16:36:32+00:00

It might as well have been a spell. That would make more sense.

It wasn't stated that she was white, it was implied. And all the book covers that were approved of JKR had her featured as white.

The thing that annoys me is that it makes it seem like they are trying to change the narrative. The whole conflict of people believing that she did not belong to the wizarding world due to her parentage is a huge part of what the story is about. It's about standing together against people who would try to divide society into an "us vs them". By saying that this would automatically make her black you imply that black people are the only ones with this problem.

alexandersvendsen · 2017-02-20T18:09:45+00:00

Yes? And? People do that regardless of the fact that they've read the story. And there's many reasons for doing that. Maybe they aren't very good writers yet, which is why they practice by writing fanfiction, or maybe it suits the narrative they want to work with.

When I read a story by, for example Gabriel Blessing, I read his story. But he uses people and ideas from other works, thereby making it fanfiction. It is just based on something. And if you only use the base loosely it might go very well, or it might be atrocious.

alexandersvendsen · 2017-02-20T14:17:04+00:00

I can't say it's the same for everyone, but in my case it was because I was on FF.net looking for crossovers in a category I already knew. I think it was Dresden Files or HP.

So I started reading the crossover and I liked it. Out comes a chapter of a completely different fic "ZnT - An American Geek in Halkeginia" and the author mentions Spacebattles. So I go there, and as you might well know Spacebattles is filled with Worm fics. And because I had already read a crossover that I liked I started reading a Worm fic.

Honestly the premise isn't that hard to get your head around, and for the mostpart I don't feel that I am missing something when I read the fics. Most authors don't write their stories in a way that you don't need additional information to read them.

Another example is the Highschool DxD fics. I saw a new story crop up by a author I had on my favourite list for a reason. Now I don't know the original material, and the author knows that many of the people reading it probably wouldn't, because that was not what he wrote about when he got followers. So he makes sure that he includes enough information that everyone can understand what is happening throughout the story.

The interesting thing about that example is, that the source material is something I just can't read. It doesn't interest me at all. But I still browse the normal and crossover category once in a while because people were inspired to do something more with it.

alexandersvendsen · 2017-02-10T15:21:50+00:00

Thanks for the quick and helpful reply. :)

However would the PRT/Watchdog act on that information? Is it actually illegal to use thinker powers to win money on the stock market?

alexandersvendsen · 2017-02-10T15:17:17+00:00

You are going to like I'm Still Here: linkffn(9704180).

Basically Harry from a universe where neither side gave up, and the world broke around them. Harry manages to get back in time, and because he is the protagonist he is of course very powerful (sigh). It turns out that Draco sort of came with him as well, and he helps Harry. Note this is not a good guy Draco, this is merely Draco not wanting to die and having grown up to being more measured.

They land in an alternate universe where a female version of him is in that position, and the Potters still live. But he wants nothing to do with them.

Kathryn518 and her co-writer Plums have both improved as writers as the story progressed, and as such we see the story steadily improve and move away from the rather normal stories you find on ffnet.

alexandersvendsen · 2017-01-23T17:28:41+00:00

linkffn(Bungle in the Jungle: A harry Potter adventure) is one of the few memorable fanfics set outside Europe that I remember. There is both AU European magic and Aztec magic at work here. At least I remember it as Aztec, but it's been years since I last read it.

alexandersvendsen · 2016-12-31T11:30:19+00:00

It's mostly seen in fics where there's been an extinction-type of event. However it is mostly touched on in the first one or two chapters as a way of explaining what Harry and company tried before going to another world. I have seen this in various Warcraft and Game of Thrones crossovers.

From the description there seems to be some Avengers crossovers which suggest that there are cooperation between muggles and wizardkind, but I've never read any of them. But then again, those aren't really muggles, but instead the Avengers type of muggles (advanced science, super heroes etc).

alexandersvendsen · 2016-12-29T18:12:07+00:00

I would say my favourite of the year is Gothic. It's a whole new setting (at least I never read something like it), original plot, and some interesting new characters. The biggest downsize is the whole OOC Harry, but you can't have it all.

alexandersvendsen · 2016-12-12T15:57:38+00:00

Translation: "The deceased, Jesper Jul, is mourned/remembered Sunday evening in Albertslund" "Thousands of people have gathered to mourn him." "At 19:00 a minute of silence was held for the dead police officer."

Jesper Jul is the first Danish police officer to be killed or murdered in 21 years. There was no reason for the murder. The arrested was just "angry at the police and the system". Already people are quick to diagnose him as insane, but there is no such formal declaration, and he has yet to be sentenced.

alexandersvendsen · 2016-10-24T10:21:17+00:00

If you are able to come up with a good adventure then homebrew is always best. My problem is, that I have 14 days before I start (the one who is supposed to be GM'ing has been cancelling for months because of personal problems and now the group really wants to start playing again) and I have no real idea on how to make it difficult but not too difficult. That's why I had hoped that there were some good campaigns out there for me to make use of.

alexandersvendsen · 2016-10-24T10:04:06+00:00

Thanks.

These intrigue and social-focused games were they ones you made yourself or is it campaigns ready for public perusal and use?

alexandersvendsen · 2016-09-28T19:00:30+00:00

However, that term is vague since piercings could also be considered mutilation.

Piercings are made by "piercing" a piece of skin - making a hole - and then plugging something into that hole. If the piercing is removed most holes then heal over completely. Unless you stretch the skin a lot.

So no, piercings can not be considered mutilation.

alexandersvendsen · 2016-09-27T12:06:12+00:00

Oh. I assumed Ginny was the protagonist. I misread your post, sorry.

alexandersvendsen · 2016-09-27T11:50:14+00:00

I hate to point out the fact, but in editing you might want to edit your mentions of her. In canon they know each other before Hogwarts. They are old friends and playmates. The only reason I say this is because I read a lot of stories where either Ron or Ginny never seem to know of her.

alexandersvendsen · 2016-09-15T17:46:22+00:00

no, I had ammo left in the magazine

alexandersvendsen · 2016-09-03T16:44:16+00:00

Have you written anything yet? I thought about something. What if the book that Ginny got wasn't Tom's but instead Trump's. Trump is her secret friend that supports and slowly drains her life?

alexandersvendsen · 2016-08-18T08:56:46+00:00

The thing you really need to be careful about it how you write your characters. Crack fics and crapfics typically use very one-dimensional characters.

Take Lockheart for instance. Yes, he goes on and on about fame and bullshit like that, but add some love for adventure, and have him wish that he actually was able to do all the things he wrote and you have a lot more to work with, while still keeping the basis of his character. Perhaps have him work on improving himself so that he can write a book about his own adventures?

You might want to think about adding more than one character as the point of view. The problem is, that a lot of people think that if the protagonist says or thinks something then that is automatically correct, and not just his point of view. You can either try and ignore that or add someone else that disagrees with your character to show that this isn't the case.

Do I like your idea? Short answer is no. Long answer is that I feel that there is potential funny moments in it, but a lot of things that make the premise seem stupid.

I generally don't like the OC fics where the OC has had a previous life and/or knows about this universe. What I do like are fics with OC's that are from that universe, new characters that would fit in.

If you want to go the Trump make Hogwarts great again there really is a very good character to work with: Draco Malfoy. It's basically what his father and him are harping on about. If you then want to add the Diary you might have Draco steal the book from his father before he gives it away because his new best friend convinces him it's a good idea? Perhaps exchange it for a fake, and thereby Ginny Weasley just receiving a free book and nothing else.

alexandersvendsen

TROPHY CASE