unforum

[Robodashy]

Some questions I'd like answered

[konamouse]

TINAG is not about "reality" for the players, it's about the characters. The characters think it is real. The players know it's a game.

That is why games set in the future, or the past, work. *We* know that a website from 2045 doesn't exist, *we* know that an AI from a space ship isn't real, *we* know there isn't any 'men in Otis Elevator vans controlling our lives'. But the characters in the games think they are real and this is their lives.

Create your game in a make-believe world. Have unicorns and cyclops. As long as *they* think their world is real, then TINAG. Nothing in their world has to be real in ours. Have fun with it. If you try to make it "real" in our universe (ala "The Game") then you run the risk of a player thinking it *is* real and calling police (if there are any laws broken). Or bothering real businesses with phone calls & emails (if you use a real company in your story - that happened in Chasing the Wish, but it was set up ahead of time and the receptionist taking the phone calls had a set script to follow).

As far as character interaction - that depends on the story & the PM (it's pretty time consuming depending on the method(s) you use for interaction).

[Robodashy]

Ok well that explains it then.

I guess my train of thought was along the lines of (not giving too much away) - if no laws are broken and I'm just creating something very creepy, and people outside the ARG universe come into contact with it and it peaks their interest, maybe they too will become players of the game.
I know that it's very useful for players to be aware that it is a game, but what if we were to open it to a broader audience by making it something accessible to anyone without their full knowledge of what it is they're getting into? (Think of the movie "The Game" - but without the taking/ruining part).
If something has the ability to get the attention of the "outside" world then isn't that a good thing?
In relation to making mention of real companies / events / products (not in an advertising way) - again has the possibility of bringing more people to the game, as well as giving people an additional "common ground" with the characters.

Gotta run to work now (not literally), but keep the responses coming

[konamouse]

You tread a fine line if players don't know it's a game. There was a commercial attempt at this with a husband kidnapping (played out on uF) that caused some serious backlash.

Bottom line, the "general" public who doesn't know about ARGs/CF will react "OMG! Call the Police" much more often than "OOOhh, this looks likes fun".

Recommendation - make it obvious to the players that it's a game. Make it "real" to the players by making the scenarios and the character responses plausible. But don't make it REAL LIFE just to draw in new players.

[Robodashy]

Hey konamouse, can I PM you with some outlines of what I'm thinking of doing so you can direct your thoughts to them individually. I'm totally understanding (and agreeing with) what you're saying, but want to double check.

I think to a certain extent people are smart enough (HAHAHAHAHA this coming from someone who HATES people in general) to realise that something not quite legit is going on and looking into it, realising it's all fake (people are more used to viral marketing and would consider it as such) and then deciding whether to play or not. Would rather be straight with you and give you specific examples of what I'm talking about though

[ndemeter]

Robodashy,

This is nothing new. Every once in a while someone comes along with that kind of thinking and believes that it would "revolutionize" the genre. In truth, it does nothing more than confuse the heck out of players (at the mild side) and quite possibly subject you to serious consequences with law enforcement authorities.

Bottom line: Don't do it. It's not worth it. It has been proven time and time again that it will not work and it's a rather dangerous line to cross.

[Robodashy]

Gotchya

This post can now be closed / locked. Thanks

[konamouse]

[Robodashy]

Great response Konamouse. Thanks heaps. It actually clears up the whole point of what I was getting at.
I honestly agree that not all people are smart enough.

Let me ask this then:
Trailhead or whatever takes you to blog, blog creates backstory for character - character reference something from real world ... does that = bad?
Then say for example character links to something (fan site for example) of real world topic/game/movie/whatever ... does that = bad? Even if fan site or whatever is "in game" and is not linked to anything in game (privately hosted maybe, not sure how you'd get around google searches etc)?

What I'm getting at (I hope) is - is it cool for the characters to reference something "OOG" in an "In Game" kinda way?

[cyng]

You really need to check up on the blog or forums rules number one. Number two, it is polite to talk to the admin first to see if they are game for it.

For example, the Conspiracy for Good used the Pirate Bay to leak sensitive in game material. After which, the fictional bad guy corp, Blackwell Briggs released a press release threatening to sue the Pirate Bay. The Pirate Bay responded to their legal threats. It is pretty clear though that the Pirate Bay was in on it.

However, there were numerous consequences of this "hoaxing" style that pissed off peeps who didn't realize it was fiction, and when they found out: weren't happy.

Other campaigns approached forums/blogs looking for support, demonstrating to the admin FIRST why this would be fun for the community. Of course, some forums/blogs will blatently say no.

But to just go and do it? Without permission, is pretty bad netiquette.

[Robodashy]

All good points, and to be honest I hadn't really thought of that side of things.
Main thing though is that the blog would be the characters, so that's not the problem. The problem is say the character makes a blog post something the lines of "blah blah blah, I've had enough of this crap - game time methinks. SC2 or CoD?"

Referencing 2 IRL games (may even have links to fan pages - made for the ARG but also being legit (people would need to look at the source code etc to get to the puzzles / arg'ness). Those sorts of things. Subtle, but real life enough so that he's a normal guy that gets frustrated and would like to go splatter some pixels for a while ... i guess. Something like that?

Thoughts? (I would do well to say that I may need to ask if I can mention a developers game wouldn't I? Or is it a case of "All publicity is good publicity" as long as the characters aren't saying anything negative about the games right?)

[konamouse]

Characters who play online games that exist IRL has happened before. Some of these games have chat rooms associated. Old skool example might be a free game like poker in Yahoo; a character sits at a table and players try to get into the same table to chat with the character.

So you might have a character who loves a game system and posts in their forums? Usually these places have ToS and may not like using their site for fiction - and players will cause increased traffic (depending on how many you are expecting to be active). To get around that you could create a fake game site, populated the forum with fake posts from multiple characters (most would not have to be active during the ARG), but this method is a TON of work (unless this forum is central use for ingame communication with players). YearZero did this (created a forum but players couldn't post, we just read).

[Rogi Ocnorb]