yWriter - uses for Game Play and/or Scenario Design?

One of the blogs I follow is Dariel Quiogue's "Hari Ragat Games" - I love the setting and am looking forward to the Vivid game set there. Anyway, Dariel is a writer and he just posted about this software package he uses when he is writing:

yWriter

It's a free download so I thought I'd check it out. Not least because my Dad is doing some writing and I thought it might help him out. I also was curious about what other uses it might be put to like game play and scenario design. Many games - for example, Mythic - define the game as a series of scenes and that seems to be how this yWriter organizes the writing process.

It seems to me it might be possible to enter the characters from a scenario into yWriter as if they were characters in the book you were writing. You could then treat each scene in the scenario as a scene in the book - or vis versa. I haven't gone too far into this experiment as of yet, but I think it might have potential. One benefit is that the scenes would already be set up in a format set to be published and a "Wargame's Diary" is often a good thing to have, though hard to accomplish.

The Heroic Journey?

Not having anything of my own to post, I'd like to point out that Dariel has posted some really cool ideas about how to handle the "There and Back Again" bit of an adventure.

The Turin River Snakes Through the Chakan Highlands

As photographed by Dariel Quiogue - owner of the Hari Ragat Games blog.

Hari Ragat Games

In case you missed them, Dariel Quiogue over at the Hari Ragat Games blog has been posting a great series about Heroic warfare, the use of Glory, organization, etc. Check out his June blog posts, starting with "A Fistful of Spears"...

Hari Ragat Games

I found a new blog recently (via Ix's Blogroll - tip 'o the hat to the Drune) that I think Tékumel gamers should take a peak at even if you have a system you like. I'm referring to Dariel Quiogue's Hari Ragat Games, which is a role-playing blog with an Asian flavour, coming as it does out of the Philippines.

Dariel has been blogging about a system he is developing "Vivid" - and I think quite a lot of the concepts are applicable to Tékumel gaming, especially if you are adopting the concept of the players aspiring to be the Heroes of the Age.

In his games the players are intended to play heroes - as opposed to sneak thieves and other low types. His system incorporates the characters heritage and accounts for retinues and domains (which may be of interest to those following the thread on domains over at the Hill Cantons.)

I think a concept such as Noble Action would be a nice fit in such a system. He already has a thing called "Taint" which primarily seems to affect sorcerous characters but could also be used to model something like nakome status.

This post in particular, about Epic Feasts makes me think of Tsolyani society. I think a scenario could easily be built up around "Lord So-and-so's Feast."

Anyway - check it out. Use the categories for Hari Ragat and the Vivid system to get straight to where I am pointing.