Your game master (or you have) decided on a new gimmick for the campaign.
Once every 3 or 4 sessions the players must write a short letter from the perspective of their character to an NPC they know.
A friend, a relative, a lover, etc
How would your group/you take it?
"Dear NPC,
This game sucks, I wanna die.
Love, user."
Nah, fuck that m8
Barbarians don't know how to write.
Sounds like my DM thinks they're an english teacher assigning me homework
My group would do it. They're good roleplayers, really into their characters and the world.
But mandatory shit is less fun. I just encourage them to make game-related art in general. That's how I got a painted, framed gameworld map hanging on my wall. Oh, and you know the murder-wall thing, where you're trying to figure out a mystery and you put up a bunch of pictures and news articles and connect them with pins and colored string? They made one of those for the campaign. It's a hilarious clusterfuck, but not totally off the mark. They'll be able to figure out the main villain if they look at it long enough.
>Dearest friend
>I apologize but I have had to hire assassins to kill you so I dont have to write more letters
>Love user
Interesting idea, sort of like De Profundis. I can it working well for games about sprawling mysteries or globe trotting conspiracies.
Also it would suit games such as Call of Cthulhu very well, not just for the abovementioned reasons but it also means you are developing a network of contacts who can be drawn into the game in various ways, perhaps even as PCs when your investigator gets eaten by Deep Ones or something.
I have done similar things in the past but never on a once every x sessions basis. Still I think it could work, but requires a lot of enthusiasm on the part of both the players and GM. If you have players like these retards...
.... I wouldn't bother.
Asking if a player would be willing to do this is a good way to filter out shit players.
Where do you think you are?
When was the last time most players ever wrote a letter from their own perspective to a person they know?
It's an interesting idea, to be sure, but writing a letter out in full and from the perspective of someone in-setting is a somewhat different skillset from roleplaying a character as we're no longer used to communicating in such a one-sided manner thanks to modern communications technology.
A classroom of clearly mixed ability...
You're making this sound harder than it is.
>Open notepad
>Write 250 or so words in the span of a few minutes
>Possibly even less
>Send to GM over one of many IMing programs
>hurr i don't play online
You don't live in the stone age either you fucking dinosaur.
Well, it's a good opportunity for them to learn.
I'm not saying it's difficult; just that it'd be a rather odd request when examined. What does it achieve for the campaign and for the players?
Do emails count?
It's not an odd request if your players are role playing worth a shit.
This is just an extension of that to the character building and story.
And I'm saying--composing a communique in-character is different from roleplaying a character the same way people write differently from how they speak.
Yeah but that doesn't mean it wouldn't work. We all know tg isn't representative, but uh...
Hey, tg, how's your manuscript going?
I can't imagine a situation where I would FORCE my players to do something like that; but in two of the campaigns that I run, they do things of that nature voluntarily.
In my Dark Heresy campaign; after each mission, the players all put their heads together to write a report to their inquisitor; trying very hard to find the perfect balance between thorough and succinct since it needs to be sent via astropath.
In my Iron Kingdoms campaign, one of the PC's is a displaced Llaelese noble; and the players writes in-game letters to various allies and family members all the time.
It's a good thing my players are always
>swinging swords
> practicing magic
>turning into animals
>killing zombies
>talking to the king
>Rewriting hyper dives
>talking to girls
>saving the world darkness
>driving sport cars
>reading maps
>swimming in a stream
>setting campfires
>reading old dusty tomes
>going outside
>going sailing on an airship
This actually sounds great. I'd totally get into it.
Not everyone role plays using voice. Some of us role play exclusively through text.
You can assert that all you want. I'm not convinced a drop of effort wouldn't fix that.
Settle down. Stop defending your shitty idea that would never fly with 90% of the ppl I've ever played with
>type out 250 words
>message it to my DM
>hurrr you don't live in the stone age
No, and I don't live in my parents basement either. I have a wide, kids, a job and shit I volunteer for in addition to gaming. I'm not adding even more homework to an already tight schedule, sorry.
These games are an escape, not another reason to put in more work on an already tight schedule
>I have a wide,
Freudian slip?
And yet you can find enough time to bitch and argue about dumb bullshit on Veeky Forums.
This. The fact your here means you got time to write a short letter. Or do you think the GM should be the only one adding to the game
>I'm so amazing just being there makes the game better, my wide says so
Actually, if my group survive the summer, I may start GMing with a letter from a npc to the group.
And they may later have to send letters to other npc to gather support for an expedition. Will see.
Thinking about it for a little while I would do
If you write a letter to an npc you get a fate point / re roll / few gold coins / xp
Getting more points for the ^better ^ its written
>stone age
>dinosaur
Flintstones really fucked people up.
This post is about half the length of what your saying your too busy to do.
I like this. Very cool.
I...see...what you mean...
You must be...new...here...
>Has the time to write a shitpost the length of the letter in question
>Couldn't find time to write a letter ICly once every month if his game master asked
Fuck off, retard.
It's thanks to the Flintstones that I took up smoking.
Thanks to the Flintstones, that huge hole in my floorboards is a conversation-starter rather than a dangerous issue.