# Which Story Hours are still being updated regularly?



## el-remmen (Oct 1, 2008)

I'll be nice and generous with my definition of "regularly" and say at least 4 times a year (every 3 months).

I just have the feeling that the story hour forum has quieted down some and there are not as many regular on-going story hour threads as there once were, and while we can never really tell for sure what the largest number of active threads at any given time, I thought it might be cool to just gather some data about what is going on now.

So if you update one or mores story hours at least four times a year, leave a word and a link to it (why not?) and let us know how long you've been keeping it up and if you have had any significant breaks in your updates.  If you've done more than one story hour, tell us about each of them.

I wonder if there is a lifecycle to a story hour thread.  It might be fun to try to figure one out. 

I'll post about mine in the morning.


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## Caldarion (Oct 1, 2008)

Hi el-remmen

I just posted today about my story site at D&D 4e The Order of the Vanguard | A Tale of Mythgara  It's fairly new, so it should be quite active.  I'm working on the Prelude/Overview section.  I hope to finish it soon.  Take a visit and leave some comments via the Blog or my e-mail dcpev@shaw.ca  I need as much input as possible.  _hint, hint!_


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## Mathew_Freeman (Oct 1, 2008)

As noted in my sig, I have two current story hours.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-hour/240851-tallarns-keep-shadowfell-updated-30th-sep-08-a.html - this is the game I'm DMing and so I'm hoping to continue to update this at least once every two weeks for the foreseeable future.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-hour/240783-swordlands-updated-22nd-september-08-a.html - this game I'm playing in, rather than running. Again, I'm hoping to be able to update it every two weeks at least.


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## talien (Oct 1, 2008)

Heh.


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## Tikigod (Oct 1, 2008)

Here is mine: http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-hour/238447-heroes-winterhaven-d-d-4th-edition.html


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## el-remmen (Oct 1, 2008)

Wow. So far the only story hours posted are all less than a month old. .  .

For my own part, I am still updating "The Second Son of a Second Son", which I began in February 2007, about a month after the campaign started. There have been breaks as long as 5 or 6 weeks between installments, but mostly I update every week or two (usually I will update every week for three or four weeks, take two weeks off and so on. . .)

Before that I posted (and completed) the "Out of the Frying Pan" story hour, set in the same homebrew setting (see sig), which I completed in December 2006, after starting back in February of 2001 when these were still Eric Noah's boards, and covering 5 threads and over a thousand typed pages in Word.  There were times in those nearly 5 years that I posted every 5 days or a week, but by the end I was only posting about twice a month to every three weeks.

I had several cases of story hour fatigue while writing the first one and had some breaks of weeks and even months when I grew tired of writing it, or simply could not get in the mood.  However, I think in the long run the experience of the first one has taught me how to pace myself for this second one and I have not had to deal with that inertia of not writing (yet).

--------------------------------------------------

Anyway, I see Sagiro updated late last night/early this morning, and he has updated fairly regularly all these years (with a few breaks), but his is the only story hour I still follow - the others were either completed or abandoned (or I lost interest).

Who else has been updating regularly for a significant chunk of time?


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## talien (Oct 1, 2008)

I have two story hours running.  I update them daily.  They're all pre-written.

The Arcanis story hour is thirty chapters behind, which means it will finally conclude some time in 2009, I'm guessing.  At this point the story hour has been around a long time, but not nearly as long of the staples here. 

The d20 Modern story hour is ongoing, but because I write scenes (vs. summaries) the story hour is still several chapters behind.  Unlike the Arcanis story hour, where we knew we were moving towards a conclusion, I'm not entirely sure how much staying power this d20 Modern game has.  We only play once a month for an eight hour block, when I try to cram in three different scenarios.  I'm planning to run the campaign books At Your Door, Goatswood, and Nocturnum.  We'll see how it goes.

About the only breaks in my updates is when life interferes, I get sent on a business trip, I get really sick, or there's a power outage.


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## the Jester (Oct 1, 2008)

I keep my current story hours linked in my sig; all of them are updated quite regularly, which is to say, generally about 2-5 times per month. (Although I just posted my first update after a couple month hiatus, and finished the halfling story hour off- it's now complete.)

Also, I anticipate starting my 4e story hour before too long.


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## el-remmen (Oct 1, 2008)

talien said:


> I have two story hours running.  I update them daily.  They're all pre-written.
> 
> The Arcanis story hour is thirty chapters behind, which means it will finally conclude some time in 2009, I'm guessing.  At this point the story hour has been around a long time, but not nearly as long of the staples here.




Daily since 2004?  Is that just weekdays?  What do you mean by "pre-written"?


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## el-remmen (Oct 1, 2008)

the Jester said:


> (Although I just posted my first update after a couple month hiatus, and finished the halfling story hour off- it's now complete.)




Wow, the one you just completed started in 2003! That's five years. . . That is dedication!

How old are the other ones?


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## the Jester (Oct 1, 2008)

el-remmen said:


> Wow, the one you just completed started in 2003! That's five years. . . That is dedication!
> 
> How old are the other ones?




Well, the epic SH is on about thread 4 or 5... it has been running since prolly 2000 or 2001.

_Three Kingdoms and Empire_ is prolly only about 2 years old? Maybe 3? That's my 'beta' group, so it gets a lot less play- we've haven't had a session since late August, and it's looking like a disintegrating group, unfortunately.


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## talien (Oct 2, 2008)

el-remmen said:


> Daily since 2004?  Is that just weekdays?  What do you mean by "pre-written"?



When ENWorld went down (was that early 2007 maybe?) and we lost threads, I switched to daily.  

Yes, that includes weekends.  

By pre-written I mean I've written them all.  It's done.  60+ chapters of MS Word docs for Arcanis.  Modern is currently up to date (but ongoing).

Here's how I do it: right after the game, I spend the week writing the story hours.  Sometimes this takes a couple of weeks -- especially with the Modern story hours, which is usually two or three smaller stories.  Then I send them to my players.

The players in turn correct them for errors.  I forget things sometimes (easy to do when my son isn't sleeping, I'm sick, my job is stressful, or I was caught up with one part of GMing while the players were talking).  Sometimes I edit the events in such a way to make them cooler or fill in the blanks, and the players don't agree with the change so I have to change it back.  There was recently a huge blow up over the depiction of a character using charm person (I showed it as street hypnosis, he wanted it as a more FX effect) -- so there IS a review process of sorts to ensure accuracy.

Then I edit the whole thing one more time and post it once the story hour gets to that point.

Because I write each story hour as a chapter, broken into smaller scenes, the two story hours take a very long time to play out.  I don't mind this.  I also post a summary of it to my blog.  This has skyrocketed my Google rankings, as Google loves active blogs.  As an experiment, if you type in "Arcanis" and another word, like "lizard" or "legionnaire," the thread shows up in the top 10, and sometimes even #2. Heck, "Modern" and "Delta Green" causes the other story hour thread to show up in 4th place. 

What probably helps is that I advertise new installments everywhere.  Gonnes, Sons, and Treasure Runs was regularly advertised on the Living Arcanis Yahoo group, Yog-Sothoth, and the Green Ronin forums, depending on which adventure we were playing.  The Beginning of the End is advertised on the Spycraft, Monte Cook (d20 Cthulhu), Yog-Sothoth forums, and the Delta Green Yahoo mailing list.  

And then there's my new column on RPG.net about my gaming group, 
which is a behind the scenes look at the Beginning of the End story hour.  

So in other words, I actively cultivate links to the story hour beyond ENWorld.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Oct 2, 2008)

Mine's still kicking, despite some downtime here and there that mostly killed my 4-year long once-a-day updates.

But that's what happens when you're an art major, apparently...I'm currently swamped with work and get in updates as I can. Not daily anymore, and not even under a schedule really, but I still manage to get in somewhere between 2-4 updates a week.


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## Sagiro (Oct 2, 2008)

While my erratic posting schedule has probably cost me a large number of readers, I see I've posted about 17 times in 2008, so I guess I meet el-remmen's criteria.    Family and work obligations prevent me churning out updates the way I used to.

The game itself is still going strong, though the Story Hour is currently lagging about 20 game sessions behind.   I tape all of my sessions and play them back to help write the story. 

I expect to continue posting at a rate of approximately once every 3-4 weeks, with occasional longer gaps.


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## Rackhir (Oct 2, 2008)

The frequency gets more erratic when Shilsen is back in India for the summer, but he still generally manages to get out an update roughly every 2wks to a month. So his story hour in my sig definitely fulfills the requirements.

The Chronicles of Burne, alas doesn't. Having a second kid has seriously cramped his time and inspiration.


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## akira1 (Oct 2, 2008)

*Still Alive*

My story hour is still running.  Terrace and the Rise of Evil.  I am updating approximately 3 times per month.


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## Medriev (Oct 2, 2008)

*FR Keep on the Shadowfell*

Mine is relatively new to these boards but has been running as a campaign since 4th Edition came out in June. 

http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-hour/241863-forgotten-realms-keep-shadowfell.html

This is literally how the campaign action is recorded since, in the absence of time and players, this is a solo D&D campaign. The concept is best explained by the OP in this thread on the WotC boards:

 Solitaire D&D Explained 

Have posted two chapters so far but at present, I am finishing off Chapter 19. Will try to post a chapter a day or so until I am up to date.


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## Nightbreeze (Oct 3, 2008)

Lazybones' current storyhour is updated thrice a week, and is relatively recent.

Quick question: how can I access storyhours that are not listed in the current 2 pages? I need to find one that was started and interrupted almost an year ago, as it had some hilarious pieces.


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## el-remmen (Oct 3, 2008)

Nightbreeze said:


> Quick question: how can I access storyhours that are not listed in the current 2 pages? I need to find one that was started and interrupted almost an year ago, as it had some hilarious pieces.




Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the story hour forum and on the left can be found "Display Options" -  Change the dropdown for how long it should look back from 100 days to "Beginning".  That should do it!


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## Iron Sky (Oct 3, 2008)

The story hour in my sig is updated every Wednesday.  We finished the game about three months ago and I'm about 1/3 through converting my session notes into narrative and posting them.  I originally thought I'd post more than once a week initially, but life conspires to keep me busy.


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## Nightbreeze (Oct 3, 2008)

el-remmen said:


> Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the story hour forum and on the left can be found "Display Options" -  Change the dropdown for how long it should look back from 100 days to "Beginning".  That should do it!




Domo arigato.


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## havenstone (Oct 3, 2008)

*Talismans of Aerdrim*

I started posting stories from our college campaign in late June 2008 under the title _The Talismans of Aerdrim_.  The campaign itself ran from 1996-1998 regularly, with a series of reunion games from 1999 to 2006, and I'm hoping to eventually run another couple of games to wind up the major outstanding plot points.

I update it in bursts -- every few weeks I'll have the time to write up a few more updates, which I'll then post a day or two apart.  I'm a bit distracted by work, but definitely plan to keep posting, and probably have enough material to last a few years.


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## barsoomcore (Oct 9, 2008)

I started my original Barsoom Tales Story Hour in January of 2003, and wrapped it up just about two years later, in late 2004.

I completed both my Kung-Fu Angels and Dead Man's Chest Story Hours over the next couple of years.

Late last year I finally figured out how to tell the SECOND part of my Barsoom Tales campaign and am still updating Barsoom Tales II once a week (there was a bit of a gap over August and September, but we're back online now and should be wrapping up around the end of the year).

I love the story hour format -- for some reason it seems to really fit with my imagination and work habits.


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## shilsen (Oct 9, 2008)

Rackhir said:


> The frequency gets more erratic when Shilsen is back in India for the summer, but he still generally manages to get out an update roughly every 2wks to a month. So his story hour in my sig definitely fulfills the requirements.
> 
> The Chronicles of Burne, alas doesn't. Having a second kid has seriously cramped his time and inspiration.



What he said. I just posted after nearly 2 months, which is (I think) the single longest hiatus in posts on my SH. The SH has been around for 3 years, since the earliest post is dated 10 May '06, and I know I had to restart it after the original one was lost in an ENWorld server crash a few months after it began.


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## Silver Moon (Oct 12, 2008)

I've fallen behind but I still have some that I have been trying to catch up/keep up with.  They are:

1.  "The Keep on the Borderlands"   AD&D 1st Edition 
http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-hour/206603-keep-borderlands-b2.html

Originally posted over on Dragonsfoot.org as "Silver Moon: The Early Years", this thread chronicles my weekly gaming group's initial games from the mid-1980's.    The Story Hour currently covers our first dozen modules, played from 1982 to 1984.   The one being posted now combines TSR modules B2, A1 and A2.   This is updated every other week.

2.  "Seven Outlaws in Search of a Bank"  Sidewinder Recoiled.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-...search-bank-sidewinder-recoiled-game-5-a.html

D20 traditional Western.   This is a rolling GameDay campaign, where I have been doing two games a year, same chracters different players, since 2005.   The story hour is posted for the first four games.  I am currently transcribing the tapes from the 5th game, played June 2007.    This is updated once or twice a month.

3.  "Lost Conquistador Mine".   D&D3E/Boot Hill

http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-hour/227828-lost-conquistador-mine-boot-hill-module-bh2.html

Wild West table game started a year ago using hybid D&D3E and Boot Hill rules.   The game mechanics are primarily D&D and the module being used in TSR Boot Hill module B2.    The Story Hour is currently at the end of the first game.  Three games have been played thus far, with the 4th and final game scheduled for December.    Some of the characters in this game were played in my PBP campaign that ran from August 2004 until April 2007.    Going forward I plan to update this one at least twice a month until it is finished.  


I have other Story Hours of my weekly gaming group, but probably won't get back to regular updates until after #2 and #3 above are caught up.


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## Nightbreeze (Oct 12, 2008)

Silver Moon said:


> The Story Hour currently covers our first dozen modules, played from 1982 to 1984




Wow. I can imagine the nostalgic feelings.


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## Silver Moon (Oct 14, 2008)

Nightbreeze said:


> Wow. I can imagine the nostalgic feelings.



Indeed.   I kept a running log from all of our games for our first decade.    They were written using an old fashioned device know as a typewriter, didn't buy a home computer until the early 90's, so I'm still in the process of coverting them into electronic form.


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## el-remmen (Oct 14, 2008)

Silver Moon said:


> I'm still in the process of coverting them into electronic form.




I hope you use a scanner!


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## JollyDoc (Oct 15, 2008)

I update JollyDoc's Rise of the Runelords every week.  We game weekly, on average, and I try my best to have the previous week's update posted before our next game time.

The JollyDoc SH's have been alive in one incarnation or another since...2003?  Give or take.


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## Nebulous (Oct 15, 2008)

I had my Masks of Nyarlathotep linked for some time, but recently removed it for space reasons.  It had a lot of pictures.  I'm updating our Star Wars campaign regularly but it has come to a shuddering halt at session 9 and probably won't get off the ground again.  I like 4e better anyway. 

Once we finish KotS i'll start posting those.  I have them all written and ready on our private server (i tend to crank out an adventure summary the day afterward so it's fresh in my mind). I'm guessing we only have about 3 sessions left.


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