Campaign blogs
I’ve seen a few GMs with campaign blogs around, but I don’t ever recall seeing a multi-author campaign blog involving all the players – where they can post background snippets about their PCs and what is going on in-between sessions.
Such a thing seems like a good idea, though. Is this something that is around that I just haven’t seen? Or is it something rarely done…?
I’ve seen campaign wikis, but the learning curve on a wiki can be steeper than that on something like Blogger or WordPress… and, really, the time-sequential nature of a blog seems like it would be more appropriate for most campaigns.
I setup two group-editable blogs for my Mutants & Masterminds campaign. The first, Infinity Storm, a resource blog with adventure, PC and NPC writeups. The second, The Constant Sentinel is an in-character blog featuring fanboys debating the merits and flaws of the various superheroes in Freedom City.
Of the two, the “in-character” blog has seen far more activity from players than the campaign blog. I think that’s because the in-character one’s a heck of a lot more fun to post to. 🙂 Players have made a few edits to the campaign blog, and posted the occasional comment, but mostly they’re content to let me do the updates there.
We have a wiki for our campaign and, for the most part, it’s fairly intuitive. Most of the players have added info and changed stuff themselves. I disagree that blogs are easier. Depending on how the wiki is organized, it can be a lot easier to find information and then edit it with the click of a button. You can see what I mean here: http://rpgcentric.com/wiki.
Check out Obsidian Portal. It’s both a wiki and a blog, and specifically designed for RPG campaigns.
And…if you like it…blog about it!
Hrrmm??
I have two campaign blogs, and have participated in a Cormyr campaign that was also a blog, and an Original City-State of the Imperial Overlord Wilderlands campaign, but then I’m an old guy too.
Back in the day we used a YahooGroup for blogging, and before that, customized software (No longer available) However, I have archived the web pages and posts of the blogs… In each of these cases all the players participated in posting, in addition to the GM.
These were all password encrypted and closed boards so we didn’t have to put up with the inane stupidity prevalent on many of the public boards and blogs.
micah – I've heard good things about Obsidian Portal, but I've never done more than give it a cursory glance. I'll have to do that.
tony – Yeah, there are some pretty simple wikis out there. I think that it may just be that the ones I've played with require some pseudo-code.
nukehavoc & gamedaddy – Glad to hear that it has worked out for you. It seems like it should.