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Independant Gamer Perspective

Character Blogs

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by
templeorder
, 07-05-2011 at 11:13 PM (848 Views)
I gave my players an opportunity to earn rewards - action points in the system we use - for blogging about their adventures in their characters voice. More if done from a literacy view limited by appropriate level of literacy. A couple people clamored for it, but it turns out in several months not one player did it. I'm not sure what point this proves, or why i'm even bringing up the point, and i wont say i'm not disappointed... but i'm not surprised either.

I guess i was hoping in some weird way to get some feedback as a GM. The players give me some pretty heavily filtered feedback in offhanded comments, but i was hoping to get some better ideas on character directions coming straight from the "characters" themselves. It could help me tailor the campaign more to the group as well... so now i just go back to keeping things told mostly as i feel they need to be told. Maybe i just have a lazy group. Everyone's got a life - including me (more so than most), but a few moments of expressing myself seems like its pretty easy.. oh well. I think i have a pretty good group of players - some are power/meta, one more MMO and "points" driven, but most are very story-centric and go along with the epics i tell. I wish i would get them involved more somehow. Sometimes i wonder if its because i do so much that they do not feel like they have to. One player is taking over GMing, and here i am writing materials for him to test running... I need to stop obviously and enjoy my short break.

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  1. Q-man's Avatar
    That's something I've tried to get my players to do as well. It certainly helps the DM understand what the characters are up to, but it also helps the player keep things straight since its a good reference for whats been going on.

    So far I've only had one player who's actually done it though. I hadn't considered offering in game bonuses as rewards for it though, it might be something worth considering.

    Another trick I've seen is to give the players a quiz at significant milestones in the story, where correct answers give similar in game rewards. Nothing too serious, "Who is this NPC?" or "Why did the party assault this fort?" sort of questions. General stuff that gives you an indication of which portions they paid the most attention to.

    I suppose the two things could work together, since if they have the character's journal to look at they'll have pretty much all of the answers for the quiz.
  2. Blond Gamer Girl's Avatar
    I've had the same experience as well.

    Q-man: Like the quiz idea. Mind if I use it?
  3. templeorder's Avatar
    I might try that... i'm just trying to incentivize (can't find a word here!) their interaction a little more without giving away too much.
  4. Q-man's Avatar
    Have at it, I don't charge a license fee for the quiz idea
  5. Dalkiel's Avatar
    I actually started having players fill out questionnaires... One player questionnaire, and one for each character they bring to the table, to be filled out from the CHARACTER's point of view. Nothing really long or complicated, but I get an overview of what all the players are expecting in a game group, and the character form gets them to imagine how the character might think, giving a jumpstart to the development of a personality. They seemed to really like the idea, and I got a lot of positive feedback.