The Pros and Cons of Blue-Booking

[Susano]

Way back in the much venerated Strike Force Aaron Allston mentioned something he called "blue-booking" (name taken from the blue composition books he handed out to players to keep notes in). According to Aaron, the players would do more than keep notes, they'd write comments to the GM, each other, and engage in separate and/or solo activities within the context of the primary game itself. He even goes to far to state that not only did some PCs engage in extended solo adventures during a group session, some group sessions were nothing but blue-booking!

Back when I was first running my Kazei 5 campaign, one of the players found himself at a computer for extended periods with not much to do (he was running UNIX scripts/programs if I recall). Anyway, he started to do a lot of what we called "blue-booking" via email. This eventually became a feature of games to follow, where the players in many local games will regularly engage in interaction via email between game sessions. This interaction takes the form of written stories, and often don't require minimal GM involvement. The purpose of this interaction can vary, but often it lets PCs have extended discussions without slowing down game play, makes romantic entanglements a little easier to deal with (especially with an all male player group, but a mixed gender PC group), and lets players engage in solo pursuits without requiring the GM to put the rest of the group on ignore.

Probably one of the most extensive cases of "blue-booking" I've been part of was the Shadows Angelus campaign. Over 24 episodes, it featured something like 90-96 stories, some done as solo works, some involving the entire play group. We are starting Shadows Angelus II: Ten Years After and already the "blue-booking" count is 8-10 stories (mostly backstory to set up the first few sessions).

Personally, I like blue-booking a lot. It helps me to explore a character in different way, helps my writing skills, gives me something to do in between service calls at work, and makes the world seem more real in many ways. However, I do think it can be used as a crutch ("oh, we'll just blue-book that") and can get very confusing if more than a 2-3 people are involved.

Anyone else have any opinions?

[Supreme Serpent]

I like it, and sometimes it can work well. I've seen it be frustrating as well.

Like so many other things, its success depends on the GM and the players. If your players don't want to get involved with it, it falls flat. If one party doesn't get into it, can't do side conversations/situations involving that character. I've been in games where the GM said wanted to do it...I tried, but didn't get responses, or by the time the responses started to come in were made obsolete by other events in-game. I've been in games where the GM ran wild with one player's blue-booking, but stalled everyone else and stonewalled us in the FTF game because it might interfere with something in that player's blue booking.

I have had success with some fellow players doing side conversations and such, character development and 'getting to know you' type things that don't impact the FTF plot/etc. as directly.

And in online games, the whole thing's pretty much a big blue-book, so can work pretty well in that environment, sometimes better than FTF IMO.

[input.jack]

Ive never really been in a game where it was done, so Ive no experience with it. Although a friend once ran a game by e-mail where he would ask us a series of "WWYCD" questions, we would answer in as much detail as we wanted to (varying from "Id run away" to 15 pages of story), and he would splice the answers together and fill in details, creating a "novel" about our characters' exploits. One of the interesting features of this game was that, while we all got to read everything that happened, both to our own character and to everyone elses', we dodnt know WHO the PCs were, or even how many Players there were! (Apparently, at one point, since I wrote such detailed and lengthy answers, and since the GM and I had been friends for over a decade so our literary "voices" sounded much the same, so one of the Players deduced that my character was a "primary NPC"!)

[NestorDRod]

I'll chime in with a comment (although as one of the players in the upcoming campaign Susano mentions, I may be a bit biased.)

My wife and I played in a superhero campaign where extensive blue-booking was going on. I mean, entire novels were coming out, painstakingly written out post-by-post.

It turned the game into a chore, like having homework ("Gotta read chapters 2 to 4 by Saturday"). Players started shunting off the roleplaying to the "off-stage" and wanting to do only combat in the FTF sessions.

One thing that helped in the SA campaign was that the side interactions were usually written out by the players involved (with GM supervision) then sent out to the group at large when finished. That way you didn't keep getting the same story over and over again, with just a bit of text added at the end.

Bottom line, the success of blue-booking does really depend on the level of interaction by all the players.

[Curufea]

I've noticed blue booking happening mostly in LARP games that friends are in or run. More things happen off screen than when the games are actually run.

[Cancer]

I'm in a few campaigns where this kind of thing is done. In one, actually, I play a character whose basic premise precludes him keeping any sort of written records, so all I have in mine is notes from table-talk about ideas for character development ideas (powers to buy, usually). In others, where the character is more literate and introspective, the diary is rather extensive. Still, I haven't developed any of it into fanfic at this point.

[Susano]

I'll chime in with a comment (although as one of the players in the upcoming campaign Susano mentions, I may be a bit biased.)

My wife and I played in a superhero campaign where extensive blue-booking was going on. I mean, entire novels were coming out, painstakingly written out post-by-post.

It turned the game into a chore, like having homework ("Gotta read chapters 2 to 4 by Saturday"). Players started shunting off the roleplaying to the "off-stage" and wanting to do only combat in the FTF sessions.

What game was that?

You can PM/email me if you wish.

[rjcurrie]

I'll chime in with a comment (although as one of the players in the upcoming campaign Susano mentions, I may be a bit biased.)

My wife and I played in a superhero campaign where extensive blue-booking was going on. I mean, entire novels were coming out, painstakingly written out post-by-post.

It turned the game into a chore, like having homework ("Gotta read chapters 2 to 4 by Saturday"). Players started shunting off the roleplaying to the "off-stage" and wanting to do only combat in the FTF sessions.

One thing that helped in the SA campaign was that the side interactions were usually written out by the players involved (with GM supervision) then sent out to the group at large when finished. That way you didn't keep getting the same story over and over again, with just a bit of text added at the end.

Bottom line, the success of blue-booking does really depend on the level of interaction by all the players.

That's always been my worry about blue-booking. There always seemed to be the danger of pushing the interesting stuff (character interaction) off-stage, leaving the boring stuff (combat) on-stage.

Also, as a player, I tend not to think about or want to think about games other than the time at the table.

[Zeropoint]

I've noticed blue booking happening mostly in LARP games that friends are in or run. More things happen off screen than when the games are actually run.

To me, this seems to highlight one of the biggest problems of LARPs: you can't actually DO anything but stand around talking.

[Manic Typist]

I like it, and wish I could encourage a bit more.

[Killer Shrike]

Its another tool in the toolbox, but more of a power tool and not safe or suitable for all people or groups equally.

Primary PROS: (these are assuming that BBing is done correctly and not a blanket declaration of automatic benefits sure to flow from each and every attempt at it):

* Adds depth to the game
* Enables groups with limited F2F time to still have a fully featured campaign
* Allows players that want to pursue aspects of their character that are not group-oriented without bogging down the game to do so.
* Allows F2F time to focus on significant events and not worry about skipping some filler scenes from fear that one or more characters wont get a chance to properly react / portray therein.
* Allows creative players that have a good combination of talent, desire, and ability to self-editorialize to express themselves and possibly strengthen their buy in to the campaign as a whole
* Provides ready-made memoirs suitable for reading again years later which can be both a healthy way to reminisce and also serve as new inspiration for current games.
* Some players are poor actors but good writers and can shine via BBing.

Primary CONs (again, possible flaws, not necessarily guaranteed ones):

* Despite the promise of minimal GM involvement, in reality it can be as or even more difficult / time consuming to administer / arbitrate / interpret / incorporate elements from BBing into the campaign as a whole than the actual F2F aspect of the game.
* It rewards / encourages players whose commitment to the campaign borders on or passed over into the obsessive, and punishes / discourages players whose commitment is either more casual or edged into an otherwise busy schedule.
* Not everyone enjoys writing. More significantly not everyone is good at writing either. Often the people that are most enthusiastic and the people that are the least able to write useful, relevant content are the same people. This leads to complex and not always easily resolved interpersonal issues, particularly for the GM who might have to act as ruthless editor or re-interpreter, or even have to veto submissions.
* Not everyone wants to interact with a game by reading about it. A large part of the appeal of F2F gaming for a lot of people over other similar hobbies such as MMO's or reading SciFi is the ad hoc / in the moment, spontaneous social aspect. If they wanted to READ about high adventure there are shelves of such tales peddled at pretty much every bookstore chain, written by putative professional authors no less.
* Overuse of BBing can marginalize, cripple, or otherwise detract from what can be effectively done in actual F2F session. The tail wagging the dog in other words.


There are more PROS / CONS of course, but I think this covers most of the key things for me fairly well.

Personally, I like to blue book within limits, but at a certain level its just "wanking" as the brits call it. Once it starts getting past an occasional filling of idle time that would otherwise go to waste, I tend to hesitate for a lot of reasons. One, its very easy to get too caught up in escapism if you aren't careful. And two, if I were really going to take the time to write reams, I'd rather focus on writing an actual book for commercial publication and pursuing that.

I've used it somewhat successfully in some campaigns, and I do use a toned down version of BBing between session via email where players can, if they chose to, email me their versions of what their characters do between sessions where there is lag in game time as well, or if there is some things that need to be resolved but that only involve a small fraction of the group (or an individual) and I just can't devote the F2F time to make it happen.

[Supreme Serpent]

Good breakdown KS!

[teh bunneh]

In my games, we frequently have in-character discussions in email between game sessions. Like "Do we head to the city or do we go back into the cave?" or "Now that we've captured this guy, what should we do with him?" discussions.

I also sometimes shunt things off to email during the face-to-face sessions. "I want to talk to this guy and ask how he knew about my father" might get an "OK, let's do that in email this week so the others don't sit around looking bored while you and I roleplay."

I don't know if those count as blue-booking or not.

[Susano]

In my games, we frequently have in-character discussions in email between game sessions. Like "Do we head to the city or do we go back into the cave?" or "Now that we've captured this guy, what should we do with him?" discussions.

I also sometimes shunt things off to email during the face-to-face sessions. "I want to talk to this guy and ask how he knew about my father" might get an "OK, let's do that in email this week so the others don't sit around looking bored while you and I roleplay."

I don't know if those count as blue-booking or not.

Actually, I think they do. This is often the same sorts of things that crop(ped) up in the Shadows Angelus game and led to blue-booking. The setting was dangerous and a number of characters ended up hospitalized, which was a perfect time for such discussions. We also saw a lot of "after-action" recaps, in which PCs would recount what had happened in a previous session in story form.

[Cancer]

This kind of thing also helps considerably for those groups with a bad case of "ooh shiny" and time-slice their gaming among several campaigns. (Our group has a horrible case of this.) Our pattern is to play one campaign for 4 meetings or so, then put it back on the shelf for a while. And "a while" is anywhere from 8 months to 2.5 years.