An Alternate Reality Game (ARG) for RPG players

[nedjer]

Renegade, an ARG designed for tabletop RPG players is arriving for free over the next few days. There's an intro/ lead-in of sorts HERE. Anyone played any of these? Any opinions on ARGs or 'extreme roleplaying'?

 

[Plane Sailing]

what do you mean by 'Alternate Reality Game'? Are not almost all RPGs alternate reality games by definition?

i.e. I think you probably need a little more description in your post for people to be able to answer effectively!

Cheers

 

[Umbran]

Alternate reality game - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The form is defined by intense player involvement with a story that takes place in real-time and evolves according to participants' responses, and characters that are actively controlled by the game's designers, as opposed to being controlled by artificial intelligence as in a computer or console video game. Players interact directly with characters in the game, solve plot-based challenges and puzzles, and often work together with a community to analyze the story and coordinate real-life and online activities. ARGs generally use multimedia, such as telephones, email and mail but rely on the Internet as the central binding medium."

On the differences between an ARG and RPGs or LARPS:

"The role of the puppetmaster in creating ARG narratives and the puppetmaster's relationship with an ARG's players bears a great deal of similarity to the role of a game master, gamemaster or referee in a role-playing game. However, the role of the players is quite different. Most ARGs do not have any fixed rules—players discover the rules and the boundaries of the game through trial and error—and do not require players to assume fictional identities or roleplay beyond feigning belief in the reality of the characters they interact with (even if games where players play 'themselves' are a long standing variant on the genre)."

Anyone remember a Michael Douglas movie called "The Game"? Sounds like that game would be called an ARG.

 

[nedjer]

Ah, someone's pulled the goblin's beard out of the server

In RPG terms ARGs are maybe a form of metagaming. Kind of like community wide games? Here's a very short description.

Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) are shared social games that use digital media and social networking to involve players in collaborative plot development and problem solving.

Yeah, a bit Blue Peter, prepared earlier for a post.

They're used a lot as promotional events for things like Halo and also to encourage all kinds of community activities.

Until recently most were technology-centric, tied to specific locations, puzzle-heavy and one off.

Renegade is more about having a laugh while playing RPGs, not specific to any location, group or tech requirements - and as persistent as any group of RPG players want it to be. It's not aimed at videogamers or anything else other than tabletop RPG players and possible new recruits.

The other obvious difference with most ARGs is a split between putting Easter Egg extra content on the site/ running a few activities on the site and playing the game as a group at home/ out there. An ARG usually combines the two but Renegade keeps them separate, so after one visit for the downloads there's no need to go back. This hopes to keep it player directed/ choice and does keep it cost free.

A better explanation will be to get the content out. Time to get back to Illustrator.

 

[nedjer]

Alternate reality game - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The form is defined by intense player involvement with a story that takes place in real-time and evolves according to participants' responses, and characters that are actively controlled by the game's designers, as opposed to being controlled by artificial intelligence as in a computer or console video game. Players interact directly with characters in the game, solve plot-based challenges and puzzles, and often work together with a community to analyze the story and coordinate real-life and online activities. ARGs generally use multimedia, such as telephones, email and mail but rely on the Internet as the central binding medium."

On the differences between an ARG and RPGs or LARPS:

"The role of the puppetmaster in creating ARG narratives and the puppetmaster's relationship with an ARG's players bears a great deal of similarity to the role of a game master, gamemaster or referee in a role-playing game. However, the role of the players is quite different. Most ARGs do not have any fixed rules—players discover the rules and the boundaries of the game through trial and error—and do not require players to assume fictional identities or roleplay beyond feigning belief in the reality of the characters they interact with (even if games where players play 'themselves' are a long standing variant on the genre)."

Anyone remember a Michael Douglas movie called "The Game"? Sounds like that game would be called an ARG.

That'd be a real good explanation. One key difference for an RPG focus is rejection of the need for a Puppetmaster.

Technically, bonus Easter Eggy type content stuff will be set out and structured on the site by the 'webmaster', but playing Renegade 'in the wild' is a player/ group choice design.

 

[howandwhy99]

This is what I call a reality puzzle game. The point is to master the underlying pattern of the puzzle. It's how I run my OD&D game and is basically how almost every videogame that simulates reality is designed too. It's not puzzles like Myst, but rather the entire environment as a puzzle like Portal or Portal 2. Yeah, this includes most any MMO or CRPG.

What I do is tell the players the scope of the game is defined by the role they choose, this is the social role of roleplay simulation, the class. Then I create a cooperative simulation game based upon mathematical precepts found in sim games like wargames and use those as my script for answering the players attempted actions.

Any time someone expresses an effort too broad I drill down to the vocabulary defined by the coded pattern. Any time that expression is outside the code I learn how the player defines it in simple words (all of which I attempt to cover beforehand) and add that to the game.

It's a cooperative sim game hidden behind a screen with a "say Yes" programming model via language, text or oral, and realist artwork. The latter based upon points, lines, colors, and whatnot.

Gotta go, but could answer questions later tonight.

EDIT: Yeah, not sure if rep is for collaboration on game design, collaborative games where collaboration is a rule, or cooperative games where cooperation is an option during play. But thanks.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Every RPG game I've ever played was an alternate reality game. Capitalizing it just sounds (or looks) pretentious. Couldn't they come up with a better name?

 

[Dannager]

Every RPG game I've ever played was an alternate reality game.

No, it wasn't.

The idea behind an alternate reality game is that the game universe that all of the interaction takes place in is an alternate reality - in other words, it is typically contemporaneous with the modern day, and shares many similarities with the real world aside from a handful of new ideas which are typically introduced in gradual fashion over the course of the ARG.

ARGs are also novel in that they can potentially blur the line between game and reality - the interactions that occur within the game are often so genuine as to be superficially indistinguishable from something that could actually occur.

The gold standard for an ARG is the I Love Bees campaign that lead up to the release of Halo 2. There have been many other examples of successful ARGs before and since, many of them revolving around viral marketing campaigns for video game releases.

 

[Locien]

I don't think everyone understands what special about ARGs. It's a number of clues presented in the real world that are a part of a puzzle that usually takes the form of some fantastical plot. For example, to promote an album a few years ago Nine Inch Nails had flash drives dropped off in the restrooms of concerts, and those drives provided encrypted information, which in turn contained cryptic videos and linked to weird websites, and the chain continued on to whatever the end was. The important thing to remember is that the clues are all presented in a fashion that makes them seem to be a genuine part of the real world, even though they are about a fictional plot. Usually people collaborate online to solve the clues, like a people good at crypto decrypting files, and people that can make sense of those files then do whatever needs to be done, or people that understand a reference point it out, and so forth and so on.
While an ARG's method of cooperative problem solving is the same as a RPG's, the "in the real world elements" may be useful. I once read on a blog somewhere a guy adapted from ARGs emailing his players in character as a supplementary activity to add to the game. Can't remember the blog, but ARGs do seem to be a good source of ideas for a GM that wants to add extra elements to the game away from the table.

 

[Asmo]

The Lost Experience - Lostpedia - The Lost Encyclopedia

Asmo