unforum

[LordIllidan]

Logging onto chat as a character

[konamouse]

It really depends on your character and why would he chat online with strangers.

If you are a character, you have to BE that character. And stay in character. Jan Libby (Sammeeeees) told us that her friends thought she should be an actress - they would watch her write emails in character and said her body language would take on distinct mannerisms depending on which character she was writing. And her emails had very distinct wording and syntax that allowed us to "hear" the voice of the character - everyone had a different flavor.

With live chat you don't have the chance to think before responding. And you can't edit your replies (like you can with emails). And you have no control over the players - you can get questions thrown at you out of left field that could really change the direction of the game (with emails you can "pretend" it was lost). So you have to be really good to maintain control in a chat environment. That takes a lot of experience - unless the character you are portraying is very close to yourself.

Put yourself in the situation of the character and then decide if chat is appropriate.

[SirQuady]

You could always create/write a character into your ARG designed to allow for chat participation to exist, if you really want to. But, again, don't force it. Some of the early chat interaction i had with Ariadne in The Lost Ring really it it home to me how tough keeping in character is in chat. To be honest, she seemed to loose her character during chat as I'd pose questions to her. It seemed to me that it was as if she was reciting her answers, not saying them, if you know what I mean.

But if you can and want to, go for it! Just don't come into #unfiction in character to give us the trailhead in the form of "WHATS GIONG ON IM TRAPED SOME1 HELP ME PLZZZ!!!! YOU CAN CONTACT ME AT THIS EMAIL THING AND SOEMTHIGN WEIRD IS GOING ON WITH TIHS WEBSIET! OH NOES"



If you go for it, good luck!

[LordIllidan]

Thanks for the input! It never would have occured to me that chat is actually a hard thing to do (Then again, quite a few things never occur to me )

I'll be sure to take this all into consideration during planning.

[Nighthawk]

Problem with something like IRC is that there is a fine line between being "IG" and "OOG".

The Project Ophiuchus chat had that problem... People would come in there and not know what to say or how to act. It's very hard to enforce a complete OOG atmosphere, especially if you're going to use a public IRC server where other OOG channels exist.

Lots of games use AIM because, when you try to initiate conversation with an IG character, it's just that: IG. It's not random conversation, and it's not conversation "en masse" with several others.

And my LGL flier to ARGn apparently *did* get thrown out in the junk mail...

[anonymousloli]

My thing with gmail is that I would always get caught online because I forget to sign off. ;D And I hate chatting on gmail chat.

So make sure you're offline if you need to be.

But as for when and why, it depends on the character. If you have a step in the plot that you want to put forth, chatting is a good way to do it because it awards instant gratification. Try not to be in chat for no reason, though, because just chatting for no reason will lead to contradictions with your story, and that I can almost guarantee.

ILLIDAN IF YOU MAKE A GAME YOU BETTER SEND ME THE TRAILHEAD.

[LordIllidan]

[BubbleBoy]

With "Avelon" I found responding too e-mails quite a task. I was working full time and creating the game at the same time so checking the account and responding took up so much time. I tried IM and even that got overwhelming as players began bombarding me with conversation every time I would log on.

Eventually I asked a player if there was an easier way to communicate with everyone at the same time. That was how I got invited into an IRC chat room and the rest was history.

So, as for the "why" part, it was either that or try and respond too as many e-mails as I could in a day while creating the game at the same time.

For "how long"? It depended on the day. Sometimes I would just go in and chat about really nothing important for an hour or so. Sometimes there would be something important that I needed to say and I would stop in for a few minutes. One time the chat room became a place for the "get-away" scene to occur with the players help.

IRC started out as a necessity but grew into a "tool" that I used to try and entertain and inform the players as best I could.

Every character had their own personality, and that was harder to try and nail down in the chat room. I mean, I've done some acting before, but never as a woman. Add that to having more than one character in the same chat room at a time and your head begins to spin a bit from changing from one character too the next in a matter of seconds.

You really need to be "ON" at all times because the players will pick up on it and wonder if they are talking to the same person. And you also have to remember what you said in the chat room and who said it. Luckily, the players posted the chat logs so I had something to refer too later (this was before I knew you could log your own chats).

In short, IRC or any other chat program is a neat tool in my opinion, but it is something that you will want to use carefully.