[De Profundis] Play-by-blog

[GreatWolf]

Recently I happened to remember that, back in GenCon 2002, I had purchased a copy of De Profundis, a Lovecraftian roleplaying game...of sorts.  This was part of Hogshead Publishing's line of New Style roleplaying games.  The entire game is supposed to be played out in correspondence.  You take on a role, creating imaginary events that are unfolding around you, and then you write to another person, telling him what you are experiencing.

I never played.

However, since entering the blogosphere sometime last year, I've been toying with the idea of a roleplaying game that could be played via blog.  Suddenly, these two things bumped together in my head.  Oddly enough, this happened right as I was in the middle of moving my family across town.

Thus, The News from Orange Street was born.  The idea is to open the game to anyone wandering by, so long as they demonstrate that they actually are willing to play along.  In other words, I do moderate initial comments, and I'm willing to delete stuff that is off-topic.  So far, though, I haven't had to exercise this power.

In the various sidebars, I discuss what is going on on the blog, as well as how to participat in the game.  So far, most people have elected to play through comments.  However, my wife has already created her own linked blog (At Home on Orange Street) to provide additional content and feedback to the game.

So far, most of the comments are from friends of mine, although there are the occasional exceptions.  However, I'm happy to say that most of the collaboration has actually occurred online.  I've touched base with people regarding their contributions to make sure that I wasn't going to step on an idea that someone had.  Also, Crystal and I have occasionally coordinated our continuity.  But these are merely procedural.  If it gets said online, it's "real".

I think that this is working so far for a couple of reasons.  First, the blog owner (either Crystal or myself) ends up in a GM-like position.  Since we're the ones writing posts, we are better able to introduce new material or manipulated comments to our own ends.  So, the entire project isn't as much of a free-for-all as it looks.  Second, much of the writing (especially in comments) has to do with an individual's reacting to or interpreting the events created by the blog writers, rather than actually creating new objective events.  This provides inspiration for the blog writer (usually me) to craft further events, but it is less likely to cause a conflict in our imaginary reality.

Oddly enough, this whole experiment seems to be an exercise in classic Simulationism.  That wasn't a conscious goal when I started, but I do think that it makes for an interesting study.  The authority distribution definitely fits.  As a blog writer, I wear a GM hat by inventing new events that have occurred.  Then, I put on my "player" hat and start writing about my experience of this event.  Then everyone else joins in, too.  So far, it seems functional enough, but I'll be curious to see how it develops.

Another interesting effect of playing a game this way is that, at the end, it produces an actual artifact of play.  At the end of this game, the blog will be a record of the results of play.

I mentioned all this to Ron and, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I said that it might deserve an AP writeup.  He actually agreed, and, the more I thought about it, the more I thought that it might be of interest to the group.  If nothing else, it is an interesting experiment.

So, thoughts?  Questions?

[Tim C Koppang]

I think I picked up my copy of De Profundis around the same time you did. What I'm getting at is that it has been a while since I gave it a read. But if I remember correctly, the game was originally written as a two-player back and forth via snail mail. Of course hand-written letters are preferred. As such, all of the narrative control was supposed to be shared equally, no? Does the collaborative nature of what your doing get in the way of the game? It seems like your version, and I'm not criticizing by the way, is much more sprawling -- more like a public meeting than an intimate exchange of letters.

[GreatWolf]

You are correct in all respects.  However, I opted for this medium for a couple of reasons.  First, I rarely send paper letters anymore, so writing letters in the way that the game describes would be more work than I'm willing to put forth.  Second, I am already part of an informal blog network (comprised of friends and family), which is how I actually do most of my news and correspondence. So this medium already feels natural to me.  In general, those who are participating are those who actually do read and write on my blog, so the game tends to be limited to my already existing social network.

That being said, there's been an interesting development in the game.  Someone (probably the administrator of the blogsite that I use) has set up another blog (redrum) to take the role of the monsters (or at least their spokesman).  In addition, this individual has tweaked and disabled certain aspects of the other blogs, allowing him sole access to the templates.  This has allowed him to "possess" the blogs, as you can see if you look today.

As I said, I'm fairly sure that I know who this is, and it's an amusing development.  I'm curious to see how it will play out long-term, though.  I'm hoping that this mystery player is able to work within the bounds of collaboration, even though the medium of interaction is...unusual.