Giving NPCs a Voice Outside the Game

[Badmedo]

So, using social networking, I setup a facebook group that specifically acts as a twitter feed for NPCs; giving them a voice outside the game. Ideally it will reinforce a busy, city-focused game, and keep the audience engaged between sessions. My other hope is it will make NPC names stick a little more, as they're easily forgotten between sessions.

I completely ripped this idea off of Swords & Sworcery, a iPad/PC game which did something similar.

Opinions?

[TiresiasBC]

Reminds me of the webcomic Achewood's character blogs. Sometimes characters wouldn't be seen in the comic for months, but had elaborate adventures they reported through the blog. It also revealed their writing voice - capitalization, grammar, and word voice are all distinct from character to character.

My question: how are the characters supposed to know what's going on the NPCs' lives? Or is it strictly out of character knowledge?

I like the principle. I'm interested to see how it turns out.

If I ever run a modern or futuristic game, I might try the same thing.

[Kublai]

I like the idea. I recall in the old West End Star Wars game, there'd be scripts to read aloud that highlighted what the NPCs were up to. It was fun and invoked the movies very well. I imagine success in your own game would depend on the setting and mood.

[Badmedo]

My question: how are the characters supposed to know what's going on the NPCs' lives? Or is it strictly out of character knowledge?

It's strictly meta game knowledge, or more specifically audience knowledge, we being the audience.

Examples of Feeds:

Shade - Loyal Dog
"BARK BARK BARK BARK!"

Xoshak - Forgery Expert
"Shit, Marshal Dorn is getting too close, I gotta sell off my assets and leave town."

[Badmedo]

I've been doing one post a day for about a week so far.

It took about 2 days, but all three of them started posting responses to the NPC comments; as an audience does towards TV show characters. So, I'm keeping them engaging in the game outside of a session environment.

I run tomorrow, I'll have a follow up post to this experiment.

[Leonides]

This is fun. I recently began doing something similar. Instead of having our game synopses written from the perspective of some unknown, omniscient narrator, they are now told from the POV of one of the PC's that interacted with the players. It works well, and is a lot more fun to write.

[Fuseboy]

This is fun. I recently began doing something similar. Instead of having our game synopses written from the perspective of some unknown, omniscient narrator, they are now told from the POV of one of the PC's that interacted with the players. It works well, and is a lot more fun to write.

This is awesome!

[Michael Maleficum]

This is awesome!

So it is. This thread makes me want to play Shadowrun!

[Leonides]

Glad you guys dig it. Here's a fun example from our most recent game.

http://www.obsidianportal.com/campai...er-17-synopsis

I liked writing for Grór because I got to use words like "dunderskull."

Typically I read this aloud before beginning the next game, as our "Last time..." synopsis.