NaNoWriMo 2007: Choose Your Own Adventure

Here is the visual map of the adventure. I will update it fairly often because I like looking at it, latest update is 2:30 am on the 2nd. I should go to bed.
***

This year for National Novel Writing Month, I am going to attempt to write a Choose Your Own Adventure story online.

So, since it's nearly halfway through October now, I am starting some preliminary preparation.

First is my initial design for the website where the story will be posted. It's all done with css, no tables, so I'm pretty sure it's all w3c compliant. (As if that really matters though). I think it's looking pretty good in both IE and Firefox at the moment, but suggestions are welcome as-to how I can tweak it for maximum readability.

Second is my big list of plot ideas. I wrote down a bunch of these in class earlier today. Suggest more in this thread, as well as any other helpful ideas. Also feel free to de-suggest any ideas you think are just awful.

Some plot lines will end the story, some won't, it'll be up to me.

In alphabetical order:
Adopt what you believe to be a domestic house pet, only to have it turn out to be something completely different...
Ascend to heaven (if you're lucky)
Battle a ninja
Beat the Master Computer at tic-tac-toe
Become a famous trumpeter
Become a fish
Become a master swordsman
Become a monk
Become a ninja
Become a pirate
Become a Pokemon master
Become a racer
Become a Wizard
Become a wizards apprentice
Become trapped in a computer game
Befriend a tribe of cannibals
Break the copy machine
break the master computer
Build a Rube Goldberg machine.
Build the world's largest theremin, which requires you to raise and lower your entire body over it with a bungie cord.
Bunt
Capture some pirates
Cause cancer.
Challenge the Master Computer at chess
Change a lightbulb
Chat with a mermaid
Climb a tall mountain
Confront a pretty witch
Cure all disease
Cure cancer.
Dance with a boy
Dance with girl
Date a famous person
Delve into a cave
Destroy the world
Develop film and/or print photos
Die (often)
Die and go to Hell (while evil), escape from Hell
Die,then realize it's just another world to explore...with people and things to do like that of on earth
Dig for buried treasure
Discover an uncharted land
Dive into the depths of the sea
Donate a kidney.
Draw a picture
Drink Immortality potion
Drop a flower into a pool of water and watch the ripples
Eat a grilled cheese sandwich
Eat cheese
Enter a fighting tournament
Escape from "the Matrix"
Explode
Explore a vast desert
Explore the woods
Fail at becoming a ninja
Fall in love
Fall into a bottomless pit
Feed a cockatiel
Fight a brick wall in hand-to-hand combat
Fight a werewolf
Fight Grendel in an abandoned mead hall
Fight the Gorgan
Find a pencil that has the words "Loaf Loaf" written on it.
Fix the copy machine
Forage for mushrooms, hallucinate
Form a primitive civilization of botched clones of yourself
Get a sex change, seduce your own clone
Get captured by an evil wizard and then saved by a sexy maiden
Get lost in the big city
Get lost in the big forest
Get magic'd by a wizard
Get married
Go bowling
Go snowboarding
Go to a party and refuse to dance at all
Go to a wedding
Go to a wild party, do some drugs
Go to college
Grow a beanstalk
Grow a tail
Grow wings
Have a sordid affair with the queen
Have an intelligent conversation with animals
Help an old person
Invade a foreign country
Join a gang
Join the army
Join the navy
Kick someone in the shins
Kill a wizard
Learn to knit
Live in a world where everyone rides bikes instead of cars
Lose your glasses
Make a Key Lime pie
Make a movie that has its own version of Monopoly.
Make dinner
Meet your arch-rival
Microwave something
Overcome your caffine addiction.
Paint a landscape
Paint a portrait
Paint a portrait of a soup can
Pay off your student loan.
Perform a play
Pet a cockatiel
Play a video game (readers could choose whether to jump on things or break bricks!)
Play God
Play hide-and-seek
Poison a crime lord
Prevent a hostile corporate takover by a foreign company.
Prove cancer does not exist.
Punch someone in the kidneys.
Reprogram the master computer
Restore an old car, only to have it turn into a spaceship
Reunite with a long-lost friend
Ride a primitive rocket into space
Ride a really cool bike
Ride a really crappy bike
Rob a bank
Sail the world on a pirate ship that is also a dentist.
Save a burning village
Save a damsel in distress
Save the world
Shrink, then get lost in the LITTLE forest
Slay a dragon
Smack a famous person
Smell a flower
Solve mysteries with a famous person
Solve mysteries with Velma
Start a delivery service
Start a farm
Start a musical career
Steal a kidney.
Steal third base
Stumble into the future
Survive a shipwreck
Swim in the ocean
Take over the world
Terrorize a county hamlet
Throw a rock at that annoying little dog.
Throw a rock at that annoying little kid.
Throw the kid at the dog.
Thwart a military coup
Time travel
Train to be a wizard
Travel back in time, inadvertently change a past event, then attempt to make things right and fix the timeline
Turn evil, then get confronted by a mighty hero
Use a camera
Wake up from a cold sweat...It was all a dream?
Waste your life on a computer game
Work on a fishing boat
Write a memoir

There's some technical stuff I need to deal with too, here's a tenative list.
[I]404 Page
CSS design
Page design[/I]
Scoring system
Should I disable the BACK button? If so, how?
Should I hide page filenames? If so, how?
Small, regular updates or large chunks all at once?
Unguessable page filenames

Edit: Added hlavco's suggestions
Edit Edit: Added Melted Jhonnycake, god, mario, X'o'Lore, Garnet, MrCheese suggestions
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Comments

  • edited October 2007
    Become a Pokemon master!
    Go bowling!
    Waste your life on a computer game!
    Become trapped in a computer game!
    Grow a tail!
    Become a famous trumpeteer!
    Dig for buried treasure!
    Meet your arch-rival!
    Fix the copy machine!
    Break the copy machine!
    Restore an old car, only to have it turn into a spaceship!
    Become a racer!
    Go snowboarding!
    Smack a famous person!
    Date a famous person!
    Solve mysteries with a famous person!
    Solve mysteries with Velma!
    Lose your glasses!
    Time travel!
    Help an old person!
    Get lost in the big city!
    Get lost in the big forest!
    Shrink, then get lost in the LITTLE forest!
    Steal third base!
    Bunt!
    Adopt what you believe to be a domestic house pet, only to have it turn out to be something completely different...
    Change a lightbulb!
  • edited October 2007
    You can put your 404 page anywhere you want provided your .htaccess file points to it, and you can put a new .htaccess file in a subfolder if you want to override some of the settings in the main file.
  • edited October 2007
    Thanks dude, I've got that checked off my list now.

    Coincidentally, since all dead links get a 404 error, there's now an ending you can get.
  • edited October 2007
    microwave something
    draw a picture
    capture some pirates
    go to a wild party, do some drugs
    perform a play
    dance with girl
    dance with a boy
    go to a party and refuse to dance at all
    ride a really cool bike
    ride a really crappy bike
    live in a world where everyone rides bikes instead of cars
  • godgod
    edited October 2007
    Throw a rock at that annoying little dog.
    Throw a rock at that annoying little kid.
    Throw the kid at the dog.
    Overcome your caffine addiction.
    Pay off your student loan.
    Prevent a hostile corporate takover by a foreign company.
    Build a Rube Goldberg machine.
    Donate a kidney.
    Steal a kidney.
    Punch someone in the kidneys.
    Cure cancer.
    Cause cancer.
    Prove cancer does not exist.
    Sail the world on a pirate ship that is also a dentist.
    Find a pencil that has the words "Loaf Loaf" written on it.
    Make a movie that has its own version of Monopoly.
    Build the world's largest theremin, which requires you to raise and lower your entire body over it with a bungie cord.
  • edited October 2007
    Eat a grilled cheese sandwich
    Travel back in time, inadvertently change a past event, then attempt to make things right and fix the timeline
    Play a video game (readers could choose whether to jump on things or break bricks!)
  • edited October 2007
    Battle a ninja
    Become a ninja
    Fail at becoming a ninja
    become a wizards apprentice
    kill a wizard
    get magic'd by a wizard
    save the world
    take over the world
    destroy the world
    Challenge the Master Computer at chess
    Beat the Master Computer at tic-tac-toe
    break the master computer
    reprogram the master computer
    Form a primitive civilization of botched clones of yourself
  • edited October 2007
    Paint a portrait
    Paint a landscape
    Paint a portrait of a soup can
    Make a Key Lime pie
    Smell a flower
    Drop a flower into a pool of water and watch the ripples
    Use a camera
    Develop film and/or print photos
    Wake up from a cold sweat...It was all a dream?
    Drink Immortality potion
    Become a Wizard
    Kick someone in the shins
    Go to a wedding
    Get married
    Swim in the ocean
    Dive into the depths of the sea
    Chat with a mermaid
    Become a fish
    Have an intelligent conversation with animals
    Die,then realize it's just another world to explore...with people and things to do like that of on earth
    Feed a cockatiel
    Pet a cockatiel
    Eat cheese
  • edited October 2007
    Explode.
  • edited October 2007
    I added all the suggestions up to this point.

    Now's the time people, there's less than a week left in October!
  • godgod
    edited October 2007
    Build an android.
    Fight an android.
    Buy an android.
    Fall in love with an android.
    Learn that you are an android.
    Learn that your mom is an android.
    Scare a small child.
    Get scared by a small child.
    Get scared by a smalll android child.
    Learn that your mom is a smalll android child.
    Fall in love with a smalll android child, for which you are shunned by society (and possibly arrested).
    Fight off a horde of zombies.
    Get killed by a horde of zombies.
    Command a horde of zombies.
    Get ye flask.
    Make an independant horror movie that developes a cult following.
    Make a crappy remake of a cult horror movie.
    Kidnap various famous people from the past to fight in your arena, but get killed be a misfired shot during the Shakespeare/Freud death match.
    Assasinate the emperor of the emperor penguins.
  • edited October 2007
    Write an essay for work
    Assemble a killer robot
    Befriend a gorilla
    Get wasted in Ireland
    The "We Need to do this Adventure" thread
  • edited October 2007
    Punch some people right before they eat
    Eat something off the ground
    Try to eat something off the ground, get punched in the face
    Eat some people with a glass of punch
    Never eat anything
    Get in a bar fight
    Get in two barfights at the same time
    Get in a bar riot
    Get in a regular riot
    Go to a gay pride parade
    Participate in a gay pride parade
    Get hella wasted during school
    Get hella wasted during work
    Get hella wasted in the middle of the road
    Get hella wasted at the library
    Get hella wasted and pass out at your parent's house three states over
    Refuse to get hella wasted
    Get hella wasted in the FINAL DIMENSION
    Makeout with a cat
    Makeout with a dog
    Makeout with a bear
    Fight a bear in space
    Fight a bear behind your house
    Fight a bear with a chainsaw
    Fight a bear at the library
    Make someone fight a bear for you
    Discover ultimate powers, abuse them
    Discover ultimate powers, use them responsibly, and for improvement
    Discover ultimate powers, don't use them at all

    Oh how I could go on.
  • edited October 2007
    Hack the Gibson
    Hack the planet
  • godgod
    edited October 2007
    Participate in a gay pride parade riot
    You forgot one.
  • edited November 2007
    Chiggity-check it out, I just finished mapping out what I did last night:

    Clicka!

    I removed the filenames, because that would just be cheating for you guys, that's about 2500 words right there.

    I guarantee that eventually it'll be a giant mess of intersecting lines.
  • edited November 2007
    Holy smokes! I can hardly wait.
  • edited November 2007
    So how goes the adventure?
  • edited November 2007
    I passed 10,000 words about an hour ago, so I'm 1/5th done and two days ahead of schedule.

    Check the map in the first post, I keep it updated.
  • edited November 2007
    There is a posting on Penny Arcade today informing us that there are job openings for writers at Bioware. Apparently good writers who grasp the "interactive fiction" thing aren't so easy to find. I'd say it speaks well of your choice of format for this month.
  • edited November 2007
    Do you have contact info? DO YOU?

    For the love of god send it to me.
  • edited November 2007
    I wonder if school newspapers are under the definition of professional...
  • edited November 2007
    More professional than anything I've done.
  • edited November 2007
    Well the link on PA went here.

    ETA: From Penny Arcade


    Hey Guys,

    So here's the situation we're in. BioWare games require a great deal of
    writing. Storylines, world building, characters, journals - and about a
    bazillion lines of dialogue. What makes my job harder is not only does
    all of this writing have to be high quality - something not always
    demanded in our industry - it can only be done by writers who understand
    the complexities of interactive fiction. Take the average screenwriter
    who doesn't play RPGs, place him in front of the writing tool from
    Neverwinter Nights and you'll get a linear story with a complete lack of
    Player agency and no interesting decisions. Just trying to explain the
    concept behind writing without a protagonist to someone who has never
    even been a dungeon master can be like showing card tricks to a dog.

    Which brings me to the current problem. The BioWare MMO is the largest
    thing we've ever done by leaps and bounds. We're talking a double digit
    writing staff working for years (yes we've already been working for well
    over a year). Now I've realized I need even more writers and I've got no
    reliable way of predicting where they're going to come from. In the
    history of the company, we've had published fantasy authors,
    screenwriters and editors all wash out of BioWare's training program. On
    the flip side, we've had fantastic kids right of college, an ex CNN
    producer and a former gift wrapping clerk from Singapore all succeed in
    the BioWare writer family. Previous job of lead writer for Baldur's Gate
    2, the highest rated PC RPG in history? Travelodge manager.

    So yes, we're shaking the usual trees and our HR folks are turning over
    all the rocks they can think of but I had to go through over three
    hundred qualified candidates to find the team I have now so a lot of
    those trees have done already been shook. With that level of challenge
    around finding writers, I want to throw out an open invitation for
    anyone out there that thinks might be the strange combination of RPG
    fiend and talented writer to grab a copy of Neverwinter Nights and start
    putting together a writing sample. I don't care if you can script, just
    put three guys in a field and attach conversations to them. Make the
    plot compelling, write the NPCs as real people who could exist in a
    believable world even if the PC wasn't there, give me an interesting
    choice or two and you're done -- easily something can be done over a
    weekend and there's a ton of great community support online if you're
    really tech deficient.

    Anyone out there want to write for the game company with three of the
    top five rated RPGs of all time on their biggest project ever?

    Head here: BioWare Jobs


    Cheers,

    Daniel Erickson
    Principal Lead Writer
    BioWare Austin
  • edited November 2007
    I've got a very small suspicion that this is just to sell more copies of Neverwinter Nights.
  • edited November 2007
    I'd say go for it! Who knows...maybe you'll help write the next KOTOR.:p Something like that needs to have many story branches and you're the fellow who can write very well.
  • edited November 2007
    WELL I DID RECENTLY DOWNLOAD NWN2, MAYBE I WILL INSTALL IT AND MESS WITH THE EDITOR PROGRAM LATER.
  • edited November 2007
    BUT WILL NWN2 WORK FOR IT AS IT IS IN FACT MADE BY OBSIDIAN RATHER THAN BIOWARE WHO MADE THE FIRST ONE?

    BESIDES, NWN2 FAILED TO MAINTAIN THE COMMUNITY SUPPORT THAT THE FIRST HAD BUILT UP. WITH NO PRC AND CEP AVAILABLE AND SUCH, IT'S JUST NOT AS AWSOME.
  • edited November 2007
    Oh, really? Well, back to the pirating then, I suppose.

    NANO UPDATE:
    I am almost done. Go me.
  • edited November 2007
    You're down to the last few days.

    As for the NWN games, NWN2 has potential. It's updated to be based on 3.5 edition rules which is neat and I dig the warlock, but if I can't be a trollish crystal dragon disciple with a cool Ice fiend model and a little imp voice then what the hell am I playing for?