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What is this guide for?
This guide is designed to give hints and tips on running an online adventure for a group of players. It is not a set of hard and fast rules but I will try to give over some tricks and tips to help you survive this arduous yet rewarding past time. An online storyteller has a similar role to that of the Games/Dungeon Master in traditional tabletop games. The process of online adventuring is somewhat similar to a tabletop adventure ie having a plot but there are a number of obvious differences such as your group is not sitting around you at the table but can be thousands of miles away.
Who are you writing for?
This is your first question, your target group of players. This could be a single online companion, your guild or even a number of guilds. You have to build your sense of scale according to the target group. I mainly write stories for my guild, Desert Winds, to take part in. Once you have your target group try to tailor your story according to their interests. I will use DW as an example here. Desert Winds are a group of terrorist eco-warrior types and as such our stories and events will generally cater to this interest, for example we once took part in a story about a virus originating on the shores of Newland Lake. However, do not fall into writing the same type of story it can very interesting to throw in some random ideas to ****e things up.
Lets make a story
This is quite a general title and one that will have quite a long discussion as an answer.