ARG: Players

[jeregenest]

There appears, as far as I can tell, two approaches towards ARGs out there (if you know of other variants, please let me know!): catering to a standalone player, or catering to a hive-mind community. Now its safe to say that the community element is part of the definition of an ARG, and definitely the part that interests me, I would be looking at this as a large experiment in social engineering around game playing. But I don’t like the hive mindedness of so many of the ARGs I’ve seen. I also don’t like that separation between player and event, there seems to be lacking the fictional character lens that often benefits LARPs and table-tops (yes I know some in the Scandinavian scene would argue about that lens and I think there may be a viable discussion to it).

Writing a game for a smaller group, one that has pre-selected itself and has that fictional lens should really help in expectation management, which strikes me as a crucial element (the Lost ARG is a good example of one that seems to have fallen on their face here).

Also, the smaller number makes it easier to love your players (something that’s top on the list of my returning to roleplaying, lets say I had some issues last year). It’s easy to get drawn into a combative relationship with the players, and players often tend toward an adversarial relationship with the development team. I want to avoid the seduction of setting challenges and tangle plot with the sole intent of stumping the players, and I think a smaller more personal player basis would avoid that.

By having the players have fictional identities it serves to allow more content to be generated from them. For example grabbing a player and shooting a scene and then posting it to drive a plot point based on activities. Also allows some constrained writing aspects to come through.

This also allows a nice potential narrowing of some of the concerns of geography and time in ARGs. More about that latter.

A major difference in this than the ARGs I’ve been following is that it will require some player recruitment, which means writing almost two overlapping games. One for the recruited layers with the fictional lens and one for more casual players.

Comments

[spiritseeker.livejournal.com]

I have been thinking about the use of plants, or false players, in LARPs lately. It might be applicable here as well. Specifically, I was looking at having a staff member impersonate a player for a well contained horror LARP. The staff member would come to all the player meetings, get packets, ask questions. Characters would be tied into that staff member's character (and plenty of others as well). Then, that player would be rigged with blood packs, and dramatically and publically killed as part of the opening of the game (probably an hour to two into the session/weekend).

It's a method of breaking down that barrier between player and character and pushing for more intense RP. Maybe it's a good idea, maybe it's bad. But I can see where this type of boundary disolving might fit with what your talking about.

Personally I'd be against fictionalizing characters, that makes it more of a LARP. But a few good scenario at geographic locations, and some well disguised cameras could be worthwhile both early (to make a point) and late (to build excitement) in the game. And a shill player could do it exactly as you'd have it done without breaking the continity of the environment.

The real concern here is players that the intensity could distrub some players or lead to situations where their judgement is affected by the blurring of reality/fantasy lines.

[saffrongraphics.livejournal.com]

You might like to take a look at a friend's website. He's created an RPG (ARG) - he wrote a novel which sets a basic framework for the story, and various game stories have evolved over the last few years. I'm currently involved in one of the games every other Saturday afternoon; it's quite hypnotic and addictive. We often discuss the strengths and weaknesses of certain players, what happens when personalities leave the game and are replaced by vastly different ones who choose to take up the same character, etc. All very interesting as a potential social anthropology research subject.

http://www.majellan.net