What is a good length for an addventure episode?

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I know my episodes are very often too long, but recently we've seen an explosion of three liners.

My question is, what is the right way? Is there a middle ground that would work?

[Leviathan]

Just follow the guidelines set up in the instructions for the Addventure. Those guidelines are written very well, and they are put there to help you understand how to write good episodes that are in the best spirit of the Addventure.

There is such a thing as too long IMO, just as there is such a think as too short.

[Zorlond]

It's kinda hard to judge length, considering everyone has their monitors set to different resolutions, and on 1600x1200 (which is what mine's set at) half a page can be quite a lot of words.

But, IMO, half a page to a full page (at the aforesaid resolution) is generally where I try to aim. More than that is usually too much stuff for one episode, too much like railroading the story along. Less than that tends to stifle creativity. But then, it all depends on the material. Some stuff's only worthy of 3 lines. Some has so many possibilities, it just feels proper to branch off as soon as possible. It all depends on your needs.

Frankly, I like your stuff, CV. It may take time to read it all, but it's well-spent time. Work with what feels right, and you probably won't go wrong.

[midsize]

I think it has a lot to do with the type of story, and  your intent for that particular episode.

Some people do a good job of livening up a plot with just a few sentences that present some clever new options, or spin the story off in a new direction. However, a story that's nothing but 3-liners is pretty puerile. I like a balance, where some episodes are there to flesh out the characters, and develop the plot, but others are there to speed things along. Addventure stories have a tendency to either stagnate or decay into nonsense.

I think it's impossible to consider the quality of a single episode outside of the context of the whole thread (at least its recent history). There's not much point in writing a long, wordy episode in a 'Billy' story, or an MC-remote thread -- those are just one-off cum shot threads that really don't have a plot. On the other hand, it seems almost insulting to put some 2-second blurb into a thread that's obviously a well thought out, fairly literary story -- doing so often kills such threads, as those episodes are usually written by a hack who has no class.

As for the Addventure recently, I'm sorry to say this, but it is deteriorating rapidly. I think you're seeing so many 3-liners right now because that's about all most of the current crop of active 'authors' can manage.

[Zorlond]

The AddVenture has seen such 'deterioratiton' before. It's usually because the authors who wrote well before have either reduced their activity or departed entirely. They either have run out of creativity or desire to contribute, and thus no longer display how the AddVenture can be done and done well.

Do not worry. The 3-line authors have their time now, but it will pass, as it has before. IIRC, the last time was a bit before the inception of Backstage, as it exists now. Of course, that was a year ago, so this is probably overdue...

I sound like an old fogey yet?  

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Yo CONRAD!  

Haven't seen you around for a while, but, then, I haven't _been_ around for a while.  I've been reading bits of that whole Bush/CATS thread thingie, and I am just falling on the ground.  "What's he trying to say now?" when he goes into badly-translated '80s video game speech..."I am a perfectly mature and normal teapot!"    And Ralph Nader having _druidical_ powers, oh, gods...

TOO funny.  

As for the cyborgs and warp gates and stuff, I've been (re)playing Phantasy Star III lately, and I am SO tempted to have the male cyborg in the "Day of Davos" episode turn out to be Wren.  Of course, that'd be a slight setback since he's programmed only to take orders from a direct descendant of a certain family that has never existed on Earth, but HEY!--maybe _that_ directive can be one of the things Lucca removed, too.    
Wren is a cool cyborg; he can also transform into a submarine, plane or aquaskimmer if you get him the right parts!  _And_ of course he wields a high-tech gun about as big as he is without suffering any recoil or anything.  (He's a little BITTY cyborg.  Well, human sized, but _short_, around 5'4" if that I'd guess.  It's NEVER explained exactly _how_ such a teeny cyborg can transform into a vehicle large enough to carry four people...it's one of those "just go with the flow" things that video games tend to do.)

Mieu would probably come with him as they usually work as a team.  Mieu is a very realistic looking, tiny, curvy little redheaded female android with big blue eyes (that never blink) and a skimpy red, armoured, leotard.  I'm SURE _somebody_ would try to hit on her at some point.  I'd LIKE to SEE them TRY....bwahahah...  
(No, she does _not_ transform.  Not that we've seen in the game, anyway.)

And as for the dragon people we also have "Dragon Knights" in PS3...genetically engineered people who can turn into a dragon at will.  They're very rare by the time the game starts.  Having an _untrained_ one--a guy who turns into a dragon at random times, say, triggered off by very strong emotions--would be fun and cause lots of entertaining chaos.  (My personal fanficy theory is that this one third-generation character who is the grandson of a Dragon Knight from the first generation inherited his ability without knowing it, and tends to change uncontrollably in times of great stress, but that's neither here nor there.)

If I hadn't taken a Vow of Silence from the Addventure, I would be VERY tempted to bring these characters in.  But, sigh, I really don't want to ever go back there and expose myself to L.E. again, and I guess it's really better that the characters I like so much from Phantasy Star III _aren't_ tossed into such a dangerous mix.

But...well, they'd just fit in SO WELL, dammit!  Ah, well, sigh...

As for the original question, how long should an Addventure episode be, obviously _I_ can't help you.  I have the exact same problem you have!  

Anyway, HI, CONRAD!  WHOOO-HOOO!  (waves her arms around like an idiot.)

Mello

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Er...nothing to do with anything, but I can't read the D&D thread.  Every time I try, I just get this really weird "The user you are trying to access (some long number) has no profile" or something like that error message.  Dude, um, I WASN'T trying to read anyone's profile, I was trying to read a _topic_....anybody else getting that?  Weird.

Mello

[Zorlond]

Backdraft from the 'changing of the guard'. Apparently somebody's profile number got seriously corrupted, and any thread they contributed to's gone MIA. Who it is, I dunno.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Dear Mello,

HOW ARE YOU GENTLEMEN!!!

I'm swamped w/ real life right now and can't really post anything serious (the other day I had written a Stefi episode that was I guess about two pages long, but Windows brainfarted on me).

Many thanks to you for letting me discover Chrono Trigger (I was out for Phantasy Star ROMs, and that was in the same category), it RULES.

I confess being behind the Bush vs. CATS bit (okay, that wasn't hard to guess) but it looks like it's got a life of its own now... too bad you don't write anymore, it would really be nifty if you added to that.

The male cyborg in the "Day of Davos" episode (for those unprivy to, little play on words here: Davos is the name of the big WTO meeting and the Day of Lavos is the apocalypse day in Chrono Trigger, hence Chrono and Marle and Lucca's confusion) was originally supposed to be the Annoying Soviet Cyborg, but if you want to make that into a CT/PS crossover, more power to you... (A more power is you!)

Anyway, here is the explanation behind the ASC:

He is a parody of a self-insertion character. Self insertion characters are always invincible, powerful and supposed to be really cool, right? Well, this guy is indeed powerful, but he's (intentionally) lame as they get and he's only "invincible" in that he keeps getting pummeled and rebuilding himself. Thus he spends most of his life in a lot of pain and quite a lot of it in garbage cans and such (particle man, particle man..)

The Dick Cheney/Batman joke was just up for grabs. It's hard not to make fun of someone named Dick on a spinoff of a porn site, after all.

Anyway, HI MELLO! WOOOOOO!

Oh, and by the way:
http://www.newgrounds.com/collections/sonic.html

Wacky Sonic vs. Mario flash animations
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view.php?id=33283

Bush vs. All Your Base (probably the one time I supported The Shrub)

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Yeah, I call him "Shrub" too, heh...

As for Phantasy Star, by the way:  I don't know if you've actually played any of those games yet, but let me tell you right now--I just finished playing Phantasy Star 2 for the first time and it is OVER-RATED. Seriously.  Everybody goes on and on about how WONDERFUL it is, and, okay, it _is_ very important to the continuity of the storyline; before I played it I was totally confused and now, I still am--but it's a higher _grade_ of confusion.    Seriously, though, I got to actually see a lot of the events I just heard people MENTION before.  
And I guess at the time it was way revolutionary.

But it is a game from 1989, and, alas, time was not so nice to this one...

It's not just the graphics, which are colourful and anime-ish.  No, it's the old-school style programming.  It is SLOW and it is incredibly BORING.  Stuff happens, but it happens way far apart with not much other than just levelling up in between, and you will spend many many countless hours wandering back and forth over the same patch of ground in order to earn up enough money to buy the INSANELY expensive upgrade weapons, especially at the end of the game. And the stuff that does happen...is SAD and DEPRESSING!  The ending is a total _downer_!

My advice?  You don't have to play this one if you don't want to.  PSIII is also slow, but it's different, has a complex multi-part plot, and is at least pretty to look at, and PSIV ROCKS. But the "classic" oh-so-wonderful PS2...sorry, but I will never be joining its fan club.

Anyway...carry on...

Mello