What does your campaign write-up offer, beyond the story?

[Dr Midnight]

How do you get readers and KEEP readers interested in your campaign and/or story hour?

By that I don't mean do you write an intriguing story, though of course that's number one. I mean do you have ways for your readers to enjoy the campaign when they're not reading it? Sort of like merchandising. Hooks. Tease-candy.

Art based on the characters and adventures can be one way to do it. Posting the story in the Story Hour forum is another- people can interact and discuss plot points, villains, etc...

These are some of mine:
-Regularly updated campaign site
-Character bios, including (some) stats and a "graveyard"
-A poll on the main page about the campaign
-"Quote of the Week" -most memorable line from the session
-A page of song parodies based on events in the campaign, submitted by readers
-House Rules
-Campaign "teaser trailers"
-A guestbook
-Art based on the campaign
-My story hour here on the boards, where the readers chat it up

A better way to put this might be: If your campaign were a DVD, what special features would it have?

 

[Dr Midnight]

bump?

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

Wow! While I don't know much about story hour and think your post might get more response on that forum, I can appreciate the the work you are doing for your campaign.

I just checked out your website, and loved it! It has a very clean, easy to read layout, and lotsa detail, like links to PC's character sheets live and dead!

Good going Dr.! I'm gonna have to learn myself some HTML someday...

That said, I'm not sure if you are looking for advice, or just showing off!

Although you may have seen it already, here is a link to another DM's ( Mark Serrahn's "Falconmoor" ) campaign who maintains a lovely site detailing the ongoing adventures of his player's characters...

http://www.definitivewebdesigns.com/falconmoor/

 

[Dr Midnight]

That said, I'm not sure if you are looking for advice, or just showing off!

Uh... I can't deny there's a small bit of showing off (I am a whore, I am a whore, I am a whore), but really, I just want to know who else here does things like this, and what they do. I really just want to hear about other "gimmicks".

 

[Umbran]

Doc,
Have you considered asking this in the Story Hour forum? I mean, most of us out here dont have formal write-ups of our campaigns. You might have better luck asking where you'll see a higher proportion of people who do.

 

[Desdichado]

Also sprach BigFreekinGoblinoid
Good going Dr.! I'm gonna have to learn myself some HTML someday...

You really don't need to anymore. Frontpage and other editors do all that work for you.

But I'm kinda "old school" myself, I much prefer hand-coding all my websites!

As to the question at hand, I've not really done much of that, besides posting stats in between story installments. I've also offered no prizes to readers for answering certain questions. I practically stole one scene straight from Robert Asprin's Another Fine Myth for instance, and gave a no prize to the first person to recognize the source of the set-up.

 

[barsoomcore]

Killer site, Doc.

I'm not very concerned with traffic to my own site. It's really for the players rather than a general "Hey Everybody!" sort of place, so I don't have any worries about trying to pimp it (you are a whore you are a whore you are a whore). Link in my sig (I'm a whore I'm a whore I'm a whore) is as far as I go.

As far as Story Hours go, I just can't get one going. I do Journal logs for my site but they're really just mnemonics for the gang, reminders of what went on rather than full-fledged stories that someone who wasn't actually there would understand. The Journal on Barsoom is pretty much incomprehensible if you weren't there at the time. Even if you were it's often incomprehensible. But then Barsoom often gets pretty incomprehensible in its own right, so that's alright.

Where was I?

Oh, pimping.

So anyway, don't have readers, not really looking for readers, so can't help you.

It was nice of me to post, though, wasn't it?

 

[Piratecat]

It was nice of me to post, though, wasn't it?

You're enabling him.

Me? I offer ghouls. And politics. Politighouls! Mmmmmmm.

And Littlejohn and Sialia offer amazing art. Lots lots of people offer damn cool commentary.

 

[barsoomcore]

Me? I offer ghouls.

Man, you're ghoulcrazy.

 

[Dr Midnight]

Man, you're ghoulcrazy.

He's right, PC. I wasn't ghouling to say anything, but it's time you knew.