A mechanic I would like to add to the Alex the Dumbass (and possibly other) series is audience feedback and participation. An element that can highlight certain aspects of the story while complaining about others. Creating an in-world meta element which will impact the story’s focus and features.

The Audience Crafter CURRENT DRAFT

For below, the Fate Chart is uses to generate follow-up information. For this, use the general rubric: When it doubt, set Chaos Factor to 5 and pick a likelihood that roughly matches how positive the comment might be. However, as the group develops more of an audience, the reputation can be consulted on a higher Chaos Factor (more likely to be positive).

In this system, a “Yes” is positive, “No” is negative. Exceptional is that ++.

If you want more neutral comments then you can treat +/-15 of the Yes/No threshold as more neutral and “But…” territory.

Comment Content (d100)

This table roughly matches the shape of a normal Mythic Focus table but each category has its own specific sub-tables. If you want to avoid complexity, just go with vibes based on general results.

  • 01-30 | GENERAL COMMENT
    • Do a Fate Chart Check adjusted up and down from 50/50 based on how well the “content” went.
    • Use generic phrases to describe the content. “GOOD JOB!” “STUPID!”
  • 31-45 | COMMENT ABOUT THREAD
    • Roll on Threads list to discover which Thread
    • Do a Fate Chart Check using the above principle of CF = 5 and Likelihood = 50/50 as a base. Adjust to fit the fiction.
    • Use specific phrases to describe the commenter’s reaction to the Thread.
  • 46-60 | COMMENT ABOUT NPC
    • Roll on Characters list to discover which Character
    • Fate Chart Check
    • Specific phrases about character
  • 61-75 | COMMENT ABOUT PC
    • Randomly decide which PC
    • Fate Chart Check
    • etc etc
  • 76-90 | COMMENT ABOUT SPECIFIC SCENE
    • Use ONLY current Episode
    • Randomly decide which Scene (and/or specific element of the scene)
    • Etc etc
  • 91-100 | AMBIGIOUS/STRANGE COMMENT
    • Use whichever oracle works best to generate a comment which seems to be about nothing to do with the story but might be exposing some meta or interesting detail.

# of Elements in the Comment

Weighted D3. Roll 1d10: 1-4 = 1 element, 6-8 = 2 elements (roll twice). 9-10 = 3 elements (roll three times).

Creating User Names (Experimental)

User names can be created by a number of methods. I think my first attempt will be (consider this around alpha version -0.1)

Weighted d4 (d10, 1-2 = 1, 3-5 = 2, 6-9 = 3, 10 = 4) to determine how many pieces. Per piece, roll d100 and then assemble the pieces into a user name…

  • 01-10 {1d3} Random Numbers
  • 11-14 {1d4} Random Letters/Punctuation
  • 15-30 Name
  • 31-35 Title/Rank {King, Mrs.}
  • 36-40 Address {Chicago_, _205}
  • 41-50 Hobby
  • 51-60 Object
  • 61-70 Animal
  • 71-80 Color
  • 81-90 Verb
  • 91-00 Other random descriptor {NotThe, TheReal, Lil, etc}

Users Also “Grow” (very Experimental)

The plan is to build up a small block of users that show up and those with heavier weight have a bigger impact on the storyline. The ROUGH notion of how I want to do this [before the playtesting begins] is…

  • 6 by 6 grid
  • Roll d66 to see which slot makes the comment
  • 6,1 – 6,6 [the last row of the grid] is always “One-Off User”
  • The others can either be a new user if the spot is blank or a repeat user if it is not.
  • As users are repeated, they get some sort of points and as they grow their comments are considered more significant [to the point that they might stop being truly “random”]
  • SOMEHOW: some users are weeded out at the end of each arc to show folks unsubscribing, etc
  • POSSIBLY: At first you start with 5 people who take up a whole row. Then, when the first five rows are all filled up, each row (but the last) splits in half {1-3, 4-6}. Repeat until all are full and it becomes 1/3s (1-2, 3-4, 5-6}. Finally, once a fair number of those are filled up, it goes all the way to 1 – 6 being distinct slots. This allows a few key users to be generated to start with later users having less “plot armor.”

Is It Edited? (d100)

This is mostly to give a bit of flavor to things and can be 100% skipped.

Deleted comments/etc can help add to confusion and paranoia.

  • 01-05 = EDITED to ADD
    • Add one Random Element from above table
  • 06-15 = EDITED
    • No further details known
  • 16-90 = NOT EDITED
  • 91-95 = EDITED to REMOVE
    • Randomly remove one existing element. If that is the last element, then overwrite it with a seperate element
  • 96-100 = DELETED
    • Content deleted

Justification and Philososphy

I want to create a general use table to replicate audience feedback — see also stuff like Greek Choruses and Narrators — which is for my one campaign but where I could maybe tweak it in the future to be more generalized.

One of the meta-elements to the Alex the Dumbass series is that they are posting these adventures to Youtube and therefore there will be audience comments, likes, subscribes, and other metrics of feedback. Things going well will increase the numbers. Things going poorly might lose the team core their core audience.

In many ways, their character growth will be determined by how popular they are as content creators.

I am not interested in trying to accurately reflect all the vagaries of launching and maintaining a Youtube career. A lot of elements are too random, too based on luck, and too based on spending money to promote videos. Sponsors vs Demonetization. Scandals vs Cross-overs. There are a lot of factors and some are buried in the back-end of server algorithm and logs.

This will not accurately reflect a true density of comments. If you were to go into any video with dozens to hundreds (and especially thousands) of comments, you will find largely meaningless comments with fans trying to help the creator get noticed by the algorithm. A whole lot of “Legendary Refresh Pull!,” and “Best episode yet!,” and “I am so invested in this story!,” and “Don’t forget to like and subscribe, everyone!,” and so forth. Heart emojis. Or random hate comments about how stupid something is and lots of question about if this is for real or the venerable: “This is like a fever dream!”

Social media has trained people to sound like engagement bots. A reverse Turing Test.

Instead, while the tool should provide a few random + or – comments, I am thinking of it more like a sample of general highlighted comments. Using existing Mythic Threads and Characters, using existing Meaning Tables and some other oracles.

The goal is to generate a small weighted sample of feedback which will provide an additional narrative focus for the campaign.

Things the “audience” likes will get more screentime. Things the “audience” dislikes might be cut from later episodes. Random-sounding, ambiguous comments might hint at unexplored aspects of the story or at future campaign arcs.

A Thread that shows up in multiple comments might get duplicated in the Threads table and be more like to be important. This can compound over several sessions if something is a breakaway focus. OR, if the Thread shows up negatively, it might get cut from future episodes. Ditto for Characters.

Alex the Dumbass Is a Meta-Campaign

Remember that one theme of Alex the Dumbass is that we are primarily seeing — meaning that I am primarily playing — the edited “posted to Youtube” aftermath of actual events. There are potentially going to be scenes showing things as they actually are, but we are seeing the adventures boiled down to be their most entertaining and engaging.

It is entirely possible that some elements that are huge in the posted campaign would have actually been kind of minor. It’s even possible that some scenes are shot out of context. It is guaranteed that some moments were planned and at least semi-scripted. I’m still making the rolls and playing the roles as if they were live but the rolls and roles are intended to be artifice.

In this light, even though these episodes would almost definitely be posted some time after everything is concluded, audience members preferring some Threads and Characters over others can still have an impact. Alex, Abby, Gaz, and Skee could literally edit future episodes to have more of a focus.

At some point, this clash might be discussed. Live episodes where they can’t edit might be played as more chaotic and prone to failure. Something they claimed might get them in trouble when it is disproven. For the most part, though, it is never meant to be a big deal. It’s entertainment. The fictional overlay over adventures which did not go down that way but probably aren’t completely made up.