I finished Harry Potter last night. (Don’t worry…you won’t get any spoilers out of me.) So the question is…if JK Rowling doesn’t write more HP books, where will I satisfy my craving for new spells, Quidditch, Harry’s burning scar, and bickering between Hermione and Ron? How about over at LiveJournal?
I had the good fortune to attend the TechSource Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposium a couple of weeks ago. Great conference! (You’ll be hearing more about it in future blog posts.) One session I attended was We’re in Ur Library Bein’ Ur Books: Making and Using Book-Based RPG’s with Middle Schoolers. RPG’s are role playing games, and in this case, I’m talking about a role-playing game, using LiveJournal, a popular blogging site, where players write in the voices of book characters. I did a keyword search of LiveJournal and found about 30 active Harry Potter RPG’s.
What a fascinating idea! How many times have you sat down with a book and imagined the story that isn’t written on the pages in your hand? I feel that way all the time, especially with a series like Harry Potter, where there are so many interesting characters that go somewhat undeveloped. Think of the great play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard, the story of two minor characters from Hamlet.
Why not try something like this for a library program? I think it would be great for kids and teens, but my bet is that you’d get interest from adults too.
Kit Ward-Crixell, the speaker at the symposium session gave these tips for setting a program:
- Set up a LiveJournal account for the game (or some other environment, like Ning or Yahoo Groups, where you can easily create a community)
- Create the community, with settings and backstory, and rules
- Some rules to start:
- Only write for your own character
- No posts that involve other characters without that character’s permission
- No killing off characters that aren’t yours
- Establish a “rating range” for posts—G, PG, PG-13?
- Establish a time period. How long will the game run? Don’t let it go on indefinitely.
- The moderator should make the first post and set up everything for the other players
- Players do introduction posts to start, laying out there characters
- Moderator decides how much to control the plot
- Create another community that is the “backstage” area where only members can post and read other posts. Players can use this area to share ideas without interfering with the storyline.
If you’re concerned about copyright, start with a folk tale and its characters or perhaps use historical figures in fictional situations. The point is to get your players to be creative, to write and to read other writing. In order to participate successfully, they have to read the posts of the other players and be more than a little familiar with the original work that inspired the game. Who knows, you may be able to foster the talent of the next JK Rowling.
