Sir Lagsalot,
I absolutely am interested in your fine proposition.
Please, do tell me more!
I must also thank you for your kind words - you have no idea how badly my withered self-esteem needed that.
As far as sword-and-sorcery goes, I started early; I was introduced to Roger Zelazny's magnificent Amber Chronicles at the age of 12.
Great, I'm glad you're interested in both the genre and proposal!
Briefly, the project is a forum-based work of interactive fiction inspired by Choose Your Own Adventure (and similiar) gamebooks. The innovation is that, instead of turning to a specific page, players send bitcoins to the address which represents their choice; the storyline's progression is determined by the highest-funded address. The coins accumulate (minus creator fees) until the story reaches a crisis point - a battle or some other potentially fatal event. Players must then gamble on the correct choice, taking a chance at winning a share of the pot proportional to their bet.
You can find further detail and a few demonstration rounds in
this thread. I've since refined some of the mechanics (such as simplifying the randomisation method and handling fatal "gambling round" outcomes).
The "Coinan" setting was chosen for its familiarity - no special knowledge required for author or readers, just imagination. What's kept me from diving into this project is the challenge of consistency and it's here that I could really use your help, CryptoJournalist. I think if people are paying for content or risking money, they deserve regular updates and I just can't guarantee that working on my own. So, if you can reliably keep a fantasy story rolling along, you'll get to enjoy some very direct interaction with your readers. As for financial reward, it all depends on how this catches on... Given the popularity of Bitcoin gambling, I think there's a good chance of success... So, think it over and let me know.