#ddo

Although it sounds like some nonsense corporate jargon designed to sell more AI waifu apps to kids, its kind of my main deal and what i intend to one day make my full time job. This post is going to roughly explain what it is, how i do it, some ways you can apply it to your own work, and some cool examples of multimedia stories that i really like.

So: multimedia storytelling is exactly what it says on the complicated non-euclidian tin. It is a method of storytelling in which the author combines multiple mediums of art to tell the same story. I tend to apply this mostly in the form of a single setting in which multiple stories of different mediums (podcasts, roleplaying games, short, short stories, books, drawings, ect.) take place. The most common multimedia stories are a bit less complicated than that: a comic book that goes along the story of a video game and adds some details, augmented reality games that follow analog horror series, and movies or shows that take place in the universe of a video game or book are decently common these days and are pretty solid examples of multimedia stories.

Infamous (2011) was a video game that had a comic series along side it that added details and expounded on empty moments in the games.

Payday 2 (2013) was a video game that had a live action trailer series that basically became a small tv show for awhile

Uuuh five nights at freddys? Has books? I think that counts

Dungeons and Dragons (please hear me out) has the TTRPG, the MMO, the movie (Honor Among Thieves), and several video games in its setting

The Magnus Archives (2016) is a podcast with a tabletop roleplaying game

The way i put together multimedia stories is very much the D&D way of things. I read a bunch of the Dragonlace books at a super young age and it got me into the whole “one world, one hundred stories” way of thinking, from that point on all of my writing followed that sort of path, multiple narratives in the same setting, occasionally these stories crossed over or took place regarding the same events and sometimes they didnt.

Then ARGs happened. I love the sort of interactive storytelling ARGs employ, websites, videos, phone numbers you can actually call in some cases its just so fun and engaging.

So! What I do is as follows:

I build my setting, writing pages and pages of world building so that all of my stories have a setting bible to cling to.

I start planning stories, if one would do better in an audio format i go grab my microphone and write the script, if it would do better as a short film i grab a shitty camera and a group of friends and go film something.

I always, ALWAYS, build a tabletop roleplaying game that fits my setting, i dont change my setting to benefit game design, i simply make the game fit my world. If i like how the game came out i force my friends to play it.

I then write as many short stories as i can, small stories about simple boring characters and large narratives about important events. If i like how one turned out i keep expanding on it until i cant anymore.

Now! The part you guys actually care about; doing it for yourself can be really hard, but only if you stretch yourself too thin. I only engage in art forms that i actively want to do if an idea feels like it would make a great podcast episode but i hate my voice that day im gonna just move on for the day.

If you want to draw something in your story draw it, dont force yourself to write it if drawing is what feels best that day.

Your art is at its best when you let it be what it wants to be.