Rick Healey wrote:Tom wrote:Something cool would have happened at the end, but it would have been different. Without playing the game differently, and forcing us to plot a different endgame, it's somewhat impossible for us to tell you what it would have been.
Of course, this goes into one of my (no, not really) sequel ideas. At first, it appears that the game *is* starting all over again... until all the people involved realize what happened, and they all see that they're in a Groundhog Day Loop. The different parties all start gambitting against each other, some trying to cause things to happen as they did before, and some intentionally pretending like they will so that they can change the outcome of the game.
(For reasons why that actually wouldn't work, keep in mind that it'd involve us basically taking EVERYONE playing this game and turning them into at least confederates to the puppet masters, if not full-fledged puppet masters themselves, in order to fully present the illusion that the loop was happening again - and all that for no guarantee of a new audience. It'd basically be a theater troupe doing an improv play online rather than an ARG.)
I've been thinking about an ARG that would work like this, where the line between puppet masters and players blurred and overlapped. I think it could be done, if there were some rules established, and not everyone would be an equal puppet master, there would have to be some canon and so on. It would be not only improv play, but an Improv Reality Game.
It could work where to get PM-like leverage, you'd have to progress through some kind of obstacles, and even PMs could get demoted (with the exception of some core team that handles canon and meta-rules.)
Having the postmortem to build on could help everyone take a different approach to the meta, even bringing meta directly into in-game discussions while maintaining immersion, becausing PMing would be part of the story. Writing could remain a key part of the game, and there could even be a protocol for introducing new characters and storylines.
Finally, the game could have outputs that are marketed to the general public or a larger audience than the active player base. The best writing, comics, songs, or videos could have a pipeline to a published canon and purchasable merch. That really takes it in a new direction, but why not? Transmedia is all around us, and the original PMs could quit their day jobs and hire assistants so they can get some sleep.
