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 Forum index » Meta » Puppetmaster Help
A bunch of PM questions
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zeeman
Greenhorn

Joined: 14 Jul 2007
Posts: 5

 		A bunch of PM questions
Hello. I have been playing ARGs passively for a while now, and have lately been thinking about running a very small one of my own for experimentation purposes. Of course, I've always been interested in learning more about being a PM, and have a bunch of questions, so I figured that I'd ask them all at once. Any help is appreciated!

1) How do you plan your ARGs? I was thinking of maybe doing a sort of "story web" first and then making "sub-webs" and so on, as well as writing outlines, but what do you think?

2) What are some good ciphers to use in puzzles? Obviously a basic substitution cipher will handle some things, but I want to use other, harder to crack ciphers, such as Vigenere or M Del Vayo, to make it more difficult to solve. Of course, these ciphers can take a long time for an amateur cryptologist to crack, so perhaps I should provide clues through one of my characters?

3) One idea I've had for a rabbithole is to send out a chain e-mail saying that I recieved a letter/IM/email/etc. from someone asking that I help them out by sending out the e-mail to as many people as possible, asking them to send it to as many people as possible, and so on. The email would probably contain two or three ciphers which would each use a different method of encipherment, and would give different clues to help you find out more about them and what they want help with, as well as clues about solving the other ciphers. Do you think this is a good way to launch a game, or is it to obvious or SPAM-y?

4) What do you think of an ARG within an ARG? Like, for example, as the player explores the trail, they eventually stumble upon a mistakenly placed link or something that leads them to a "secret" PM forum, where they find discussions and such, and learn about a plot to use the ARG to do something sinister.

5) What's a good way to hide messages in songs? I remix and DJ music, so I could probably embed clues in songs I remix, but what should I do? Would some backwards audio be too obvious? Maybe a code or something hidden in the ID3-tags (provided your audience has access to those, since you can't really read the ID3-tags while listening to the radio)?

6) What's a good way to avoid people who aren't aware of ARGs spoiling the game by calling the police or whatever, while still maintaining a TINAG atmosphere? I was thinking that if the ARG trail eventually led to some character being accused of killing someone or whatever, someone who doesn't really get ARGs might think it's serious and call the police, prompting an investigation. Obviously, a situation like that being handled poorly would rip the curtain to shreds, which would likely mean an implosion, since you would have to deal with telling the police about your game and making sure that everyone understands it's not real, while at the same time making sure that the TINAG atmosphere is still present (which is probably impossible).

Again, any answers are appreciated!

PostPosted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 12:52 am
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Caz
Veteran


Joined: 18 Aug 2006
Posts: 127

 		this is how i'v done things but it may not be the best for every one.

1) start of with a begging And the end of the Story and put them on paper. then make a flow diagram of all the clues that take you From the start tO the end. that the coRe of the plot then you can put on sub webs.

3) the Chain Letters an ok way of doing It. one aim of rabbit hole is to get it onto the uf forum bored wIth out Posting it your sElf. Witch this may do it Rigth.

4) a play wiTh in a play is an old idea. i arg with in arg may go to far. people may tHink thEre being story jackEd if they staRt finding New rabbits hOles and avoid The your sub arg.

6) a way tO stop the police raiding your house and locking you up is Not to make it to reaL. if a charter goes onto to there Blog and saY that kill some one real like an unsolved Crime you seen in aLl the paper. then the cops will investigate yoU and the arg and all its players.
But if somE one ringS the police and says that some been kill by a monster the year 2121 they will do nothing.
It also a good idea at some point to say it's a game.
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 8:49 am
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Rekidk
Entrenched


Joined: 19 Dec 2006
Posts: 992
Location: Indiana, USA

 		Re: A bunch of PM questions
Never been behind the curtain, but I still have some advice. Smile

---

1. There's this super-awesome program called Labyrinth. It can help you organize your story in a story-web fashion. It's very organized. You might not use it all the way through, but it will help you with getting your ideas together to start. (Also, it's great as a quick-reference to see how characters relate to each other.)

2. Make up your own. Although it's okay (and often necessary) to use ciphers in common use such as Substitution or even Vigenere, it's better to do something creative that your players have never seen before.

As far as giving clues through the characters... First, make sure that all the information necessary to solve the puzzle is available to your players. If you want to make your puzzle easier, eliminate all unnecessary (eg. red herring) clues. Then, come up with a logical way for the characters to give 'hints' to the players if they have trouble solving a puzzle.

However, you should really focus on making your puzzles solvable by themselves. It's far more rewarding for the players when they solve a puzzle without 'hints' from the PM.

3. Well, it gets your ARG out to a bunch of people, so that's good. Also, it lets your game reach out to a wide audience (friends of ARGers), so that's good, too. Smile However, the downside of this launch is that it mixes in-game and out-of-game, and it makes it more confusing to trace back the message to the original (in-game) sender.

In other words... If you think it over carefully and handle it well, it could be good.

4. I really, really like this idea. Smile But... You have to be extremely careful. First, you'll probably want to have the 'secret PM forum' on an already in-game website. (Eg. ingamewebsite.com/secretpmforum). That way, the players won't think it's a gamejack. Second, you'll need to differentiate the ARG that you're PMing (the overall game) from the ARG that the characters are PMing (the ARG-within-an-ARG).

There are two ways that I can think of offhand to differentiate the ARG from the ARG-within-an-ARG (AWAA). One way would be to have a difference in quality: the ARG to be high-quality but the AWAA to be low-quality. The problem you run into there is that you might lose your playerbase with a low-quality AWAA (that they think is the 'real' ARG) from the start. The second way to differentiate your ARG from your AWAA is to have different styles. (Eg. Have the AWAA be a romantic comedy and the ARG to be a thriller. Or have the AWAA be artsy and the ARG be realistic.) The problem with this is that you build up an audience who enjoys one style/genre, and then you slam them with the other style.

The best way to handle those problems is to have a bit of each. Have a slightly lower-quality game for your AWAA, and have a slightly differently-styled game for your AWAA. Change your ARG (the sinister PMs) in a few minor ways.

Also, your AWAA should not continue for long after you introduce the real ARG (the sinister PMs). If you are running two stories simultaneously for many weeks, soon the players will start debating whether things are part of the AWAA or the ARG.

(Another option: Have the AWAA be limited to one site, while the ARG stretches to many sites.)

So in conclusion... Great idea, but it must be handled with great care.

5. Backwards audio is good, and if you include it in bits and pieces (at the beginning or the end, or slipped in the middle somewhere), it won't be too obvious.

6. Meh, don't worry about it too much. Like Caz said, as long as you're not talking about killing a real person, it shouldn't be a big deal. ARGs deal with murder all the time.

Besides... If you are approached by the feds, you can handle it behind the curtain (usually). On top of that, even if the curtain is taken down, that doesn't mean that you can't have TINAG. TINAG doesn't mean that nobody knows who the PM is; it means that players choose to ignore that the ARG is just a game. they 'pretend' it's real. Smile (For example, everybody knows that GMD is running the game 'Eldritch Errors,' yet it's still a fun game with a TINAG atmosphere.)

If you're still concerned, though, an easy way to show that your story is not real is to present some sort of 'fantastic' element. For example, 'I Love Bees' had an AI from the future. That made it clearly fictional. 'MeiGeist' had psychic powers. That made it clearly fictional. But even if your game is totally plausible, generally the fact that it is too exciting to happen (the story is much more interesting than real life) lets people know that it's just a game.

I would just say that you shouldn't be concerned--at all--about someone reporting an IG murder to the police. And if it happens, you can handle it all behind-the-scenes.

(To read a bit more about TINAG and what it means, check out the thread in 'General META Discussion' entitled 'This Is Not a Game: The Most Misused Term in ARG History?'.)

---

Hope this helps! Smile
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 1:47 pm
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zeeman
Greenhorn

Joined: 14 Jul 2007
Posts: 5

 		Rekidk, I like your term AWAA. Basically, the focus of the ARG is the AWAA's PM's and learning about their plot, with the two "realities" running in parallel. Pretty much, the players would find out more about the ARG as they play the AWAA. I don't wanna say to much just in case this turns out being bigger than I'm planing (which has happened to me before).

On the topic of the chain letter rabbithole, I think that I'll avoid that, since it's a really big opportunity for gamejacking.

Thanks for the advice!

PostPosted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 4:24 pm
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