Story Hour feedback

[the Jester]

All right, not that I'm pimping or anything, but why is it that some story hours get tons of feedback while others don't? What is it that makes you want to post in someone else's story hour versus just reading it? I notice (at least of the ones I read) that Piratecat's gets tons and tons of feedback, and in fact it's taken about half a dozen threads to contain it (between his main thread, the challenge my party thread, the early years thread, etc... okay, maybe not exactly half a dozen, but still!)

So: why post in someone else's story hour? I like it when it happens, but it doesn't seem to happen in mine very much even though I update a lot. Is it because only two people actually read mine or what? What's the trick? Do I need to link it in my sig?

On the other hand, why don't you post in someone's story hour that you read? Is it to avoid clutter? Piratecat can trim out the weeds (as it were) since he's a moderator, most of us can't; does that have anything to do with it?

Just curious...

 

[Enkhidu]

Jester,

I think a lot of it is longevity of the story hour. P-kitty has one of the oldest story hours on the boards, and he posts regularly to it. Also, when the Story Hour thread was opened, his was one of the very few that existed (others included Rangerwickett's Savannah Knights, which I enjoyed immensly, and (contact)'s Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (now continued in the Liberator's of Tenh)). So, it sort of makes sense that his story hour, and others of the same age, will have more traffic - more people know about it.

It doesn't hurt that it's by Piratecat, who is not only a dang good DM, but who is regularly recognized as one by the RPGA community as well.

Give it time, my friend.

 

[Piratecat]

Incidentally, I can let people clean out random comments from their own story hours if they need to. Just email me and let me know.

I'm not sure what the answer is. I know that in my case, I comment regularly on a few story hours, whereas I just read a few more. Why? I dunno. I always try to comment when something cool catches my eye, though.

You'll notice that in many threads only a few people write most of the comments. The number of comments also rises dramatically when something exciting is happening in the story. My campaign is currently in a really combat-happy, dangerous plot arc as they fight against a kingdom of ghouls; it makes good press. In comparison, I go through periods when no one comments because nothing interesting is happening. *shrug* Such is life.

If anyone is curious, things which I think help catch peoples' attention include: consistency, good spelling and grammar, vivid descriptions, sneaky or conniving plots, not too much dialogue, and a good sense of timing. Some stuff is fun to repeat verbatim; in other cases, it's important to know when to edit stuff out. Stuff like the cool song in a recent post of yours is the kind of thing I remember!

 

[Horacio]

I read and comment more than 20 story hours regularly.

But I'm an addict...

 

[Femerus the Gnecro]

I read and comment more than 20 story hours regularly.

But I'm an addict...

Well then... might I suggest... mine? I'm hellaciously behind in terms of games run, but that also means I know exactly where the plot is heading. There's a lot of exciting story coming up fast!

Once the PC's stop making fools of themselves, that is.



-F

 

[Nail]

....things which I think help catch peoples' attention include: consistency, good spelling and grammar, vivid descriptions, sneaky or conniving plots, not too much dialogue, and a good sense of timing. Some stuff is fun to repeat verbatim; in other cases, it's important to know when to edit stuff out.

...What he said.


For What Little it is Worth, I'm drawn to story hours that:

• have decent grammar and spelling
• have a campaign-style I like

Example: I don't like super-heroes stuff. So I don't visit those story hours. (No offence, Horatio!)


EDIT: Fer grammar, a'course!

 

[Dr Midnight]

When I started my story hour, I was very depressed over how few people checked in. Eventually I gave up on being a well-read story hour creator and just did it for myself and my players. After a while, I found that with time and posting regularly, I had a halfway decent number of readers, and was mentioned once or twice in "What do you read?" threads, which feels GREAT. It's worth it to keep going... just put in the initial investment of effort.

Also, I've found: Don't try to compare your story hour's popularity to Piratecat. Just don't. "He's got the cash and the credit to turn out your lights." -Casino

 

[Lazybones]

I agree, it takes a long time to get noticed, and I've read some excellent story hours (like Kid C's) that don't have a lot of regular posters (except his players). Most of the great story hours (with the exception of Wulf, Sep, and Piratecat, which EVERYONE reads) have a core cadre of 4-5 loyal readers, who provide most of the bumps and comments. You can tell by clicking on the number of posts to get a breakdown of who posts in each thread.

I agree with Doc that writing for accolades is a tough business, especially these days where there's so much competition for attention (I refer both to the internet and to the publishing world in general). Write for yourself and for your players 1st, and if other folks come around consider it an added bonus.

 

[the Jester]

Heh... I wasn't trying to compare my story hour to Piratecat's, are you kidding??? He's got the very best one that I've looked at (no offense to anyone else), with some of the greatest depth in terms of sheer material on the site with his 13 threads about it (okay, a small exaggeration)... I was just curious as to what inspires people to comment on, not read, story hours.

Heck, I feel like mine has a decent number of readers- I may not have the million views that Pkitty has, but I've already topped 200 and I just got started a couple of weeks ago! But I wonder how many different people are reading it? I get comments occasionally from one or two folks, but are they the only ones to look at it? I doubt it. Still, I'm very curious as to what other people think of my game style- and granted, you can only tell so much from reading a story hour, especially one written months after the games took place (uh, who did what again?)

On another story hour topic, how far behind is everyone else? I get the impression that Piratecat is generally somewhere around 3-5 games behind; I know that I'm exactly five behind now (updating frequently, gaming infrequently at the moment due to getting ready to go traveling for a while). How do you all keep things accurate? Or rather, how accurate do you all keep things? I track all the combats imc in a spreadsheet so I can look back and see who did what (roughly) in a given fight, but I don't know how accurate a lot of the rest is. Sure, I know it was Horbin that stroked the whale in the orca's penis ring incident, but I'm not totally sure who used the orc ring when they approached the pirates. Etcetera.

Anyway, just curious...

 

[ForceUser]

I could have brought mine current, but decided not to upon the advice of my players. I'm running one session behind, which is anywhere from 5-7 posts behind, depending on how descriptive I'm feeling

Writing it is a big job, but breaking it up into bits isn't so bad. Woo's player tells me that the story is already up to 44 pages, which surprised me! Didn't know I had it in me

Re: page views. Feh, they're nice, but not the reason I write. See, I'm too lazy to put up my own webpage, but I wanted a "campaign site" for my game, thus, the story hour forum became the solution. I should really get around to making my own campaign website one of these days though; someplace the players can stop by and read background info on the world.