a community for rpg bloggers, podcasters, vidcasters, and their audiences

Let’s all put our minds together, RPMN Blog Carnival anybody? Social Media and its impact on RPGs!

Building off form Michael’s earlier post today, I think that collaborative endeavors like Blog Carnivals are a great way to build a sense of community, start discussions and collaborate in some way despite distance, differing views or tastes. How does that sound to you?

Since this network is a RPG themed social media outlet I propose our first topic should be the impact of social media, firstly in the RPG hobby, and secondly how the evolving social media changes what we do as bloggers, podcasters, etc.

As a relative newcomer to the blogging scene I have just plunged right in to all the possibilities. At the moment I am just blogging, but I’d love to podcast and here in the RPMN participate more activelly and help promote a sense of community, or partnering up, to not only cheer each other on, but to help and aid each other when we need technical help, inspiration, discussions, etc.

Personally I am also using social media to keep in contact with my gaming group. I use a combination of e-mail and Facebook posts to remind players of our game schedule, distribute information about the campaign and do some campaign upkeep between sessions or when sessions need to be reschedules or cancelled. On the off week when we can’t meet I can use Facebook to do some light role playing and keep the events of the campaign fresh on the player’s minds despite interruptions.

I have even used my posts on Stargazer’s World to showcase fiction about an upcoming campaign, granted with limited success, but experimentation is part of the social media experience. You have to try it out and see if it works. I’d love to try Wikis and maybe a dedicated forum for my long running campaign, but not all my players are as interested in social media as I am. Any idea how to motivate and involve players in the experience to enhance RPG games more?

We even have used social media as a way to bring together the role playing community in Puerto Rico where I live, and through online forums and groups organized RL activities like geeknics (picnics for geeks) and demonstrations at local conventions. A stronger, better informed and more unified RPG community, virtually and in real life, translates to a more vibrant and involved hobby.

How does that sound, any takers? Doesn’t have to be everybody… If we write it they will come!

Feel free to join in and offer your views and opinions on this matter. Make sure to link back to this post so we can hear what everybody has to say. Thank you in advanced for your participation.

Have a good day everybody.

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Comment by Michael Wolf on December 8, 2010 at 4:48am: Not at the moment, I am afraid...

Comment by RPG Circus on November 23, 2010 at 7:36am: So any new news?

Comment by Jonathan Jacobs on November 19, 2010 at 7:28pm: NICE! Madbrewlabs and I blogged about this topic a while back - so, if it's OK I'd like to add these links to the mix:

Role Playing Games, Social Media Games, and the Shared Fence
January 12, 2010

I'm super stoked to see this site so full of vigor again. Definitely need to make sure I keep my RSS feed-reader pegged here.

Bridging the Gap: RPGs and Social Media
JANUARY - 14 - 2010

Social Media RPG Platform
JANUARY - 15 - 2010

Comment by Sunglar on November 19, 2010 at 5:08pm: Thank you everybody for responding and especially to Michael Brewer for his AWESOME post on social media. I felt like I Was reading a textbook on the subject, but a really good textbook, not the boring ones!
Thanks to RPG Circus for the offer… I have the itch to podcast but not the time.
I like the idea of a set schedule as well, lets you plan ahead.

Comment by Michael Brewer on November 18, 2010 at 6:46pm: I have a contribution going live on Mad Brew Labs tomorrow morning (0800EST). I'll cross-post an excerpt to my profile here too once the primary article goes live.

http://www.madbrewlabs.com/social-media-rpgs/

Comment by RPG Circus on November 16, 2010 at 3:31pm: If popular enough you could have two topics per month even.

Comment by Michael Wolf on November 16, 2010 at 8:31am: Jeff, I really like the theme idea. Perhaps we can come up with 12 themes for blog carnivals we regularly host at the RPMN. What do you think?

Comment by RPG Circus on November 16, 2010 at 5:40am: As far as a blog carnival goes, It might be interesting. I know the current RPG Blog Carnival has waned somewhat. Like many efforts, there needs to be two or three people to make sure things happen. While a single person can do it, there is the burnout factor and the real life factor that can make it hard for a single person to do it. I'd almost say that "theme" might be a better word than topic. Of course that's just semantics. I also think if there was already ten to twenty themes already setup that would be good too. All to often, I have seen a general scramble not only to find a host for a carnival but also for a topic for the month.

While it could get boring, I do think that certain months should just have set themes. That reduces the number of new themes/topics one would have to come up with each year.

@Dennis - What kind of topics could you write about? Would you be willing to host a carnival?

Comment by RPG Circus on November 16, 2010 at 5:32am: If you ever decided to do any podcasting, I would be more than happy to give you pointers on what we have learned doing RPG Circus.

Comment by Michael Wolf on November 16, 2010 at 12:12am: That sounds like a quite interesting topic for a blog carnival. Thanks for posting this here, Roberto!