Campaign City News

[薔薇語]

Recently I have started to listen to "Welcome to Nightvale" again. For those who haven't ever heard of that podcast before I will do a brief summary. 

There exist a town called Nightvale. In this town, things just aren't right. It is a slightly comedic take on a Lovacraftian horror story town. In this town there is a Community Radio host called Cecil who does rather standard (for the setting) news updates and discussing of his personal life. This Podcast usually runs just shy of 30 minutes. 

While I have been catching up with where I left off, I found myself thinking of Hermit's "The People of Campaign City" thread where he has done a great job in expanding upon the random character suggestions in the book. I know that many of us have kept game notes for sessions and a few of us even do full on write ups for stories but has anyone thought about doing this as a Fake-News podcast? 

Currently I am toying with the idea of a "New Media News Team" set in "[Campaign City Name]" that discusses the happenings around the city. Not exclusively on the Champions of the city - I mean, those people get enough press as it is - but on all the happenings in the city that would strike any normal person as odd. Like how Old Lady McGraw has been swearing up and down since Tuesday that her Toaster has been recording what she's been up to. Could it be Mechannon preparing a new invasion? Maybe Ms. Magic, the City Champion, has been summoning a few too many demons? Who knows?! [Podcast Name] News is on the case and will figure it out while also bringing you up to date information about the latest bank robbery in progress, too. 

Anyway, I was curious if anyone has ever done something similar to this. I think the most likely parallel is that some of us have probably done mocked up news flashes on the latest campaign events. 

While I don't have enough time right now nor the expertise to sink into doing something like this, I thought it was a novel idea and see what others thought. Any ideas? Any ideas for possible news stories? 

SOAR.

[BoloOfEarth]

Not as broadcast news, but I put out a news sheet most game sessions.  It's usually one article to recap the prior adventure and at least one article related to that week's adventure, with another article or two of either filler or foreshadowing coming events.  It works well for presenting some basic information that the PCs may decide to pursue, or will look back on later and have an "A-Ha!" moment.  I've also found that occasionally, the players will latch onto an article that I put in purely as filler, which has led the game in a new direction.  I've attached a few examples.

 

There exists in my campaign world an online resource known as Hero.Net -- providing information on supervillains, go-between for heroes looking for specific help, etc.  They put out a weekly news sheet (the Hero.Net Herald) with news that may be of interest to an individual subscriber.  (Most hero teams will get the same news, though occasionally one member of a team might get a news item on his sheet that is different from everybody else's.)

 

Following your idea, though, I could definitely see Hero.Net doing a podcast.  It would need an appropriately unique individual to give it a "voice."  I'll have to work on that.

 

 

Heronet Herald 20150705.pdf

Heronet Herald 20150817.pdf

Heronet Herald 20150907.pdf

[薔薇語]

Thanks, Bolo!

 

I didn't make this very clear (Actually, quite the opposite). While I am thinking of the medium in which this kind of entertainment / media would be distributed in is the Podcast format, I am not set on the format of the Media itself. That is to say, while "Welcome to Nightvale" is a podcast, the show itself is a radio broadcast. So maybe something similar. Maybe a "Live Stream News Stream" for the modern world. ^^

SOAR. 

[BoloOfEarth]

With a nod and thanks to SOAR as I borrow some of his post...

 

The Webcaster

 

"... so what say you?  Is it Mechanon?  Demonic possession?  Maybe the precursor to an alien abduction?  Or the genesis of the first Talkie Toaster?  Only time will tell, folks -- and hopefully before Old Lady McGraw is toast.  Well, folks, this has been your Friendly Gnu with some wild Wednesday weirdness.  Tune in tomorrow, for Thursday's tall tales on Gnu's Gnews.  Until then, keep your eyes open and stay safe."

 

Wally Tucker is the man behind Gnu's Gnews, a nightly live webcast featuring strange goings-on in Campaign City.  (It was originally The Smoking Gnu until he got a cease-and-desist order from Terry Pratchett's estate.)  Thanks to a growing and diverse fanbase (plus his share of internet trolls) emailing him information, "The Gnu" (Wally's online alter ego) is able to bring some interesting tidbits to light.  Like all things on the internet, a good number of these tidbits are either overblown or outright false, but Wally has a talent for finding a few real gems each night to bring to peoples' attention.

 

While he does find nuggets of gold among the piles of pyrite, Wally is a bit of a conspiracy nut.  Thus, he likes to garnish the facts with links to his conspiracy-of-the-week.  But if a listener can ignore that, he or she may just find something useful to the current investigation, or perhaps future goings-on in Campaign City.

 

 

 

Wally's webcasts are coming to the attention of forces both criminal and parnaormal, and they're not happy that someone is airing things that they'd prefer be quietly ignored by the masses.  Thanks to a tech assist from Spider (Florence Glickman), it's rather difficult to trace the origin of the Gnu's Gnews webcast.  But Wally does occasionally let slip bits of info in his webcasts that may help somebody find him.  With luck, the heroes can intervene before the Gnu is permanently silenced.

 

 

[薔薇語]

I am loving that angle, Bolo! Thanks for the tidbit. I do have a quick question about Gnu, though. How do you pronounce that? Is it the same as "new" or is the 'G' actually pronounced? 

I might spend this week trying to find some free downloadable software that I could do a podcast on. I am terrible at reading things without error but I am going to give it a go with a new bit or two from what you linked above. It would be interesting to see what doing a podcast is like. 

Thanks again for the help! ^^

SOAR. 

 

 

Edit: Off hand does anyone have any recommendations for software to use to create a podcast? I am a bit of a noob at such things so simple and free is best for me. ^^

[BoloOfEarth]

I believe the "g" is silent, at least in the animal "gnu," so it should be pronounced like "new."  However, in my mind I hear Wally pronouncing the "g," albeit as lightly as possible.

 

Wish I could help on software and podcasting, but I'm clueless in that regard.

 

Thank you, by the way, for the link to WTNV.  From listening to the pilot, it sounds quite interesting and entertaining.  I'm hoping I can use bits from varoius podcasts to inspire some news items in my game.

[薔薇語]

Yeah, WTNV is a real hoot of a show. The only issue I have is typically with the "weather". I am not a fan of most of the indie music they showcase. So with little exception  (and there have been exceptions) I just skip the weather. Actually, when I first got into WTNV, I would create a short playlist on youtube and listen to them as I fell asleep - I normally need something playing in the background to go to sleep quickly. It makes for interesting background noise when you are alone at night in the dark as you are about to fall asleep; especially so with that sign off that Cecil does. 

 

I believe that WTNV was one of (if not THE) most downloaded podcasts on Itunes for some time. I doubt that it still is but it certainly is popular enough to warrant it continuing on for almost four years now. 

SOAR. 

[薔薇語]

I have completed what should be considered an extremely early and prototype version of a news cast as Gnu. In the last couple days I have learned quite a bit about doing even the most basic things with audio recording. I still have tons to learn but I am already learning a few things to look out for when doing recordings in the future. Settling on a script is was hard. Then keeping to that script was even harder. I have spent tons of time recording because of wanting to redo something because I had a mistake and / or editing the audio directly because there was a mistake. I have also learned that I should wait until I have all of my audio recorded before fiddling with the effects on it because the exact same effects might not change the tone and volume for each affected section equally. Also I have a better since of how much my voice can change between each recording despite my efforts to maintain a single voice. Lastly, it is hard to find music that I can openly use without copyright violations. To kind of skirt around this issue I have just left this video unlisted. Hopefully this will work fine until I decided if I want to commit to this enough to actually find a music service that will let me use their music in my own podcasts / youtube videos. 

Anyway, without further adieu, the attached video is my initial Gnu attempt. Assuming you are not a fan of the initial opening music, feel free to skip to 25 second marker. From that point on my voice comes on and the music fades. Although the balance of my voice to music isn't quite what I wanted. 

 

Any thoughts? What should I be looking out for with this? Voice, music, speech patterns, stylings, etc. 

 

Also, thank you very much Bolo for the Hero.Net Harold articles. I decided to just settle on one of them and provide more info about it. I did add in a lot of personalized names (Plasma, Jewel, Garrik, etc). 

SoaR. 

[BoloOfEarth]

I rather like the intro music.  Not overpowering, and it doesn't seem to conflict with your voice when you start talking.

 

Nice suspicious conspiracy tone, right off the bat and then occasionally throughout. 

 

Got a chuckle from the "boys in blue... and blue tights..." bit.  Also the "beasts crawling out of our toilets, like last time."  Comments like that latter one make me curious what the story was behind it.  If there were past broadcasts, I'd probably go through them to try and find that story.

 

I didn't hear anything the least bit jarring in your voice tone and volume.  Granted, it changes occasionally throughout, but it really should. 

 

As to editing mistakes out of the audio, I'd suggest only doing that if it's an egregious error.  We all have pauses and occasional mis-speaking when we talk.  Unless you're making mistakes every other sentence, I don't think it would be terribly disruptive.

 

Overall, I liked it.

[薔薇語]

I am glad that you liked the music. I really enjoyed it too and thought that the rather steady sound following my edit was good. But having listened to it a few dozen times while recording - especially certain sections - I just found myself less and less confident in my choice. 

"The boys in Blue tights" and "like last time" lines I thought would be a bit humorous. I am glad that they hit their mark. 

Most of my edits (that I kept) were simply splicing in new audio sections after a small pause. trying to isolate and cut out single words was quite hard and I had to scrap all of those edits. But because of the splicing and me knowing where those cuts are, I can really notice it when my voice changes and when some bits of the audio editing weren't treating the recordings exactly the same. 

All in all it was an interesting experience and I will try do do one more and see how it goes. 

If anyone has recommendations for where I can find background music, I would be really happy. Especially repetitive music so I don't feel the need wrap up faster than I like. I originally had probably another 10 to 20 seconds of script for the second story that I cut just to make sure it all fit with the music. 

 

Thanks again!

SoaR. 

[薔薇語]

I have created a second short cast as an evening followup to the afternoon one before. I think this one worked a bit better than the previous one but there are still issues I want fix / just generally get better at these things. Also, I am starting to get a foggy idea of the campaign Heroes and some other characters that exist but there is still work to do. I think just getting news story ideas and hopefully ones that flow together in some kind of way will help a lot. 

I have also created an preliminary official logo for GnuGnews. What do you all think of it? Off hand I want to make the letters darker - so that they are completely black. But the off grey /black seems acceptable for now. 

 

If you want to skip to the actual news bit, it starts around the 27second marker. 

 

 

Lastly, since I was interested in the idea of having a twitter for the character, I tried to set one up. But doing so I learned that GnuGnews was an already taken handle. Who'd of thought. But NNJGnuGnews was open so I took that (News Net Junkies Gnu Gnews). 

 

Any thoughts on this episode or on the endeavor in general? (/Edit) Praise and Criticism alike are both equally welcomed. I want to know what is working and what isn't so I can continue forth in a good direction. 

 

SoaR. 

[薔薇語]

One thing I have been trying to think of is what kind of sections should be created for this kind of show? What I mean is that news / information shows are normally broken up into several discrete sections. And while my two 'episodes' have a main story and secondary story, that is it. Other sections I could think to add would be things like: Weather, Traffic, Interviews, and play by plays of battles. While I could see a use for all of those I wonder what I could do to keep them entertaining. Referencing Welcome To Nightvale again, they get away with doing them in a unique set of ways: They always have weather but weather is just some indie music, traffic and general news tends to be the same but with a quick 10 or less second reference to something trafficy, doing interviews is much easier because they have a team of talent. The play by play bits I think would be a very compelling thing to have but I think that having a) battle music to run would be good and a source for sound effects to help add to the drama would be a must. 

 

One more unique idea I had for GnuGnews was "conspiracy corner" where he goes into some of the true and less than true conspiracies that have happened and / or are happening in Campaign city. I think this will take a bit of time to really develop as I will need to really sit down and start plotting out the various powers that be in the city so as to have an idea of what events / struggles / perceived struggles could exist. Any ideas on this front would be helpful. 

I had fiddled around with trying to alter my voice enough to make it sound feminine that way I could have a second show on the New Net Junkies' platform. If I do do that, I would need to think of developing a "voice" for her. But having two hosts would mean I could bounce them back and forth off each other. Off hand I am thinking of her as being a bit more Scully to Gnu's Mulder.

SoaR. 

[薔薇語]

Episode three up posted. This time I decided to change things up a bit. Working from Bolo's original article, I make a slight reading error while talking about the source and to me it sounded like I could have been referencing another host. So I decided to go with that angle. Since I kind of settled on the idea in my head of these being part of a larger online news network currently named "News Net Junkies" (NNJ), I figured there would have to be other content producers on that channel. Perhaps something more akin to how TYT (The Young Turks of youtube fame) have many hosts that work together and independently.

So this time I decided to draft up a logo for "Hero.Net Harold" and go with him doing a generic morning news cast. I think having at least two distinct personalities on the channel would allow me to have greater balance. HNH being a more professional news anchor and Gnu being more conspiratorial. This also means that I can craft generic news events and have HNH deliver them and then have Gnu respond to them without having to do the extra work of explaining the story in the Gnu Gnews. 

I also referenced another female caster named "The Marvelous Ms. Mary" (I am just now realizing that I probably thought of that name because of Mary Marvel...). I am not sure if I can adequately do a female voice or alter any attempt I make enough to cause it to sound naturally feminine but I might try. This also means I need to think of an angle from which this personality could work. Any ideas? Something that isn't flat news nor conspiratorial. The Cliche option would be for her to gossip and celeb news but with a Millennium city vibe (Did you hear who has been trying to find alone time with the Diamond Lady Jewel? ...). Perhaps she could be more focused on doing interviews with the community? But that means a LOT of voice work for me to try and work around. I am not sure if I am up for that quite yet. Again, any ideas? 

Then of course if I do get all three sections going, I might be able to find a way to do a three way cast akin to what is actually done on TYT. That could be an interesting challenge in terms of script production, recording, and production. 

What other things could I do to make this cast come more to life? I am not a particularly good artist or anything so I think creating artwork for all of this is not going to be something I could do. I could potentially do long form blogs as the characters about the goings on. Even mock up "official" press releases and such. What do you all think would be a good way to help engage with an audience? 

Anyway, below is the newest Episode. Skip to the 19 second marker to skip the intro music if you wish. 

 

 

I also have two other cuts of this version that has reduced music volume and one that has no music at all. I am trying to think of which of the three works best. For now I am keeping with the formula I have but if anyone is interested I can send you the others if you could give me feed back on what you think of them - especially as the compare to the current format. 

I have also attached the Logo for HNH. One thing I would like to do with this logo is completely cut off everything not inside the rounded off rectangle. I do not know how to crop things on a curve with my software. 

Anyway, that is probably enough for the night. This weekend has seen me be more productive than I thought I would be. Getting out almost 15 minutes of unique audio content despite this being my absolute first time to ever do audio recording, much less editing. Yippy for me. 

 

Soar. 

PS. In this episode I make reference to Mayor Brannon (I think I pronounced it correctly but perhaps not). While it was just two lightly dropped in references to the character that Hermit created, I thought they were appropriate. 

I am also linking to all content I produce in my signature for anyone interested. 

[Marcus Impudite]

I recently listen to your broadcasts and they sound pretty good. I like the personality you give your anchorman.

[薔薇語]

I am glad you enjoyed it. I am currently trying to think of how to do a three person cast for a 20+ minute cast with Hero.Net Harold, The Magical Ms. Maryann, and Gnu Gnews. That would hopefully be a set of 1) hard news 2) interview and celeb dish 3) conspiracy corner and stories. I have a script in place for HNH already, working on the one for MMM's interview of the Art Gallery owner, and have a couple ideas down for how Gnu's Conspiracy Corner will go. I hope to have them out by next weekend. So if you have a few minutes to spare come ThanksGiving weekend, please listen and review. ^^


Soar. 

[薔薇語]

I thought about creating a Campaign City News 2.0 thread but decided to revive this one instead. 

I have gone about creating a few things for this idea. The most important bit being that I created a new full length (maybe?) episode that is just shy of 15 minutes long. It was surprising how hard it is to get that accomplished when one is as big a procrastinator as I. I have uploaded this episode to Youtube and Soundcloud for people to listen to and review. I have also created an NNJGnuGnews twitter handle that I hope to use to help post ideas and content. I set up a wordpress where I might post mocked up HNH new articles. Indeed, part of the reason it took so long to get this episode out was because I wanted to create two separate sources of info - a news article and a broadcast script. Now I just need to add in one more quick news story to the HNH piece and I will try to post that later tomorrow. 

Since this is something I would like to create and publish without getting in trouble, I decided to ditch the idea of having background music in it. I need to do more work to find some creative commons music that would be okay to run in the background. Also, to avoid any issues with DOJ games, I am making sure to not use any listed organizations or characters. This is why I will not be linking to those other videos that do indeed have references to things like PRIMUS and Millennium City. 

One thing I struggle with the most in this and I think needs to be in it is conspiracy angles and distraction stories like the toaster idea from Old Lady McGraw. I am hoping that I will have more inspiration as time goes on. There is at least one more bit I want to see if I can create to go with the story lines but I am unclear how to do it yet in an effective manner. 

Anyway, I welcome anyone and everyone to click below and listen. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated!!!

 

https://youtu.be/RP5_5m1rj3o

 

https://soundcloud.com/gnu-gnews/gnu-gnews-ep-1

 

Twitter: @NNJGnuGnews

 

Soar.