Friday, November 30, 2012

Social Networking and Tabletop RPGs

As I run down on my 100th post, I made a decision to re-visit the 10 most visited posts I've made since I started this process back in May, and possibly add something to each of them.  In that same process, I've watched as this blog went from around 100 pageviews a month, heavily reliant on advertising I did myself via Facebook, to over 400 a month with most of the hits coming in from Google itself, while I've done little advertising.  What started out as a little experiment turned into something that was much more, and I have to say, I'm rather proud.

The 10th most visited post was an editorial I wrote about the necessity for tabletop roleplaying games to adapt to changes in social media and interpersonal networking. Dated May 21st, it was one of the first articles I published, and one of the ones I put the most effort into. It generated a huge spike of initial interest thanks to my advertising on Facebook, and has since trickled down to about one visit every ten days on average. It's something I fully believe in, and something I've been looking to implement for my next campaign, which should be launching in January. So, without further ado -- the social media tools I'm looking at incorporating in my campaign.
Obsidian Portal - A wiki that you can create yourself, and show player and DM information that you can slowly update as players explore. This is going to be the primary tool for backstory exploration.
Facebook - Facebook group pages allow for easy updates that plug directly into a social network my players already use. This is great for scheduling, discussion, and keeping player engagement high even outside of game days.
Twitter - For quick updates, messages from NPCs, and reminders, Twitter is a great way to disseminate quick information that players can browse and leave.
Blogger - I plan on running out of character updates on this blog, as well as possibly running an in-character news service, either on this blog or another.
Finally, I'm also considering virtual tabletops, especially using either Roll20.net or Google Hangouts. This would significantly increase my pool of available (as well as probable) players.

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