Do you or have you ever Blue Booked?

It's basically where you take roleplaying to a written format (stereotypically a blue notebook).  It's good for doing roleplaying with specific players between formal tabletop sessions.  It's also good for focusing on character centric subplots which the larger player group may not be interested in.  And another perk is that it serves as a written campaign log which can be referenced back to or enjoyed at a later date.

I haven't blue booked in a while.  I used to do it quite a bit.  I had a couple of 5.25 floppies formatted for Commodore 64 with word processor files that I'd pass around with a couple of players.  In between games we'd write about what happened to the characters.  I also had a couple of notebooks, but none of these have survived to present day.

(Could some moderator change the topic title to add "not Holmes D&D"?)

No. Never been interested in that degree of involvement in subplots that don't occur at the table. I guess it's cool if your group is that involved in their PCs and have the time.

Quote from: Gabriel2;835481Do you or have you ever Blue Booked?

Yes and I love it. I am open to that with all of my Players. However, I find that not many other GMs share my enthusiasm.

I was expecting investigating UFOs. I used to do that as a hobby. Not this though.

I thought you meant Holmes D&D's blue book!

I have never heard of this practice pre-internet. Sounds interesting. I guess that's now done via email? I had a GM years ago who had a private forum for us to post IC between games. That kinda fell away, but we did continue to post IC in email a bit for that campaign.

Yeah, I thought he was talking about the old Blue Book DnD. Had plenty of fun with that, in, 1976 or so, but I don't see me going back. RPGs have come a long way since then (could you imagine playing a cleric who doesn't even get a single spell until 2nd level!).

A friend of mine and her first GM did that.

I've written up a few of the Star Wars adventures from our old campaign. I've written up a lot of the adventures for H+I. But doing a draft write-up and editing takes a lot of time and effort to and sometimes I'm just not in the mood.

I actually prefer to play stuff out. The interaction of human creativity with randomness adds a level of unpredictability that is part of what I really enjoy in gaming. Given the choice, I'd rather spend the time playing or running a new adventure rather than writing up an old one. But having a nicely written up adventure is great. I'm sure I'd do more write-ups if the players also did some drafts.

re: the term "blue book," I'd only very, very recently heard this term referring to RPGs.

Yes - aside from text-chat online games where we might use a bulletin board to supplement, in my 4e tabletop game we used the Facebook group for some character-centric stuff. Worked well, especially where I copy/pasted it to the game blog.

Isn't "blue booking" what Aaron Allston called it 30 years ago in Strike Force? Not a new term.

Quote from: jeff37923;835487Yes and I love it. I am open to that with all of my Players. However, I find that not many other GMs share my enthusiasm.

And not just that.  It is rare to find players with the enthusiasm for it.  When it gets right down to it, blue booking is work, after all.  So that rules out the vast majority of players right there.

Quote from: JeremyR;835493I was expecting investigating UFOs. I used to do that as a hobby. Not this though.

I used to love that show (Project Blue Book) as a child.  I watched an episode some time more recently and it was boring as could be.  I think what I liked about it were the short special effects sequences of the UFO encounters, and I'd basically just watch the show to see those.  Other than that, I used to be a big UFO buff in my youth.

Quote from: Spinachcat;835507I thought you meant Holmes D&D's blue book!

I have never heard of this practice pre-internet. Sounds interesting. I guess that's now done via email? I had a GM years ago who had a private forum for us to post IC between games. That kinda fell away, but we did continue to post IC in email a bit for that campaign.

Sorry, I  didn't even think about potential title confusion.

I think I heard about blue booking sometime in the 80s.  I don't remember how I was exposed to the term.  I think I was already familiar with it when I saw it mentioned in Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads for Cyberpunk in the early 90s.  I think Amber mentions something about it, but I no longer have that book either, so I can't check.  I know I did something similar in a D&D game I played sometime in 1984, but I don't recall if I labeled it blue booking at that point.

Quote from: Bren;835513I actually prefer to play stuff out. The interaction of human creativity with randomness adds a level of unpredictability that is part of what I really enjoy in gaming. Given the choice, I'd rather spend the time playing or running a new adventure rather than writing up an old one. But having a nicely written up adventure is great. I'm sure I'd do more write-ups if the players also did some drafts.

Oh, definitely.  I'd prefer to play live too.  I've found blue booking is good for those situations where people can't get together to play in real time, but can spare some time elsewhere to write about what is going on in the RPG world.

Man, I'm like a fly to flypaper with thread titles like this.

I have been known to Red Book(1). And Little Black Book(2). And Big Blue Book(3). And Big Gold Book(4).

But I've never Blue Booked, in the OP's terms.

1. Moldvay Basic
2. Classic Traveller
3. Hero/Champions 4th Edition
4. Basic Role-Playing (2008)

Yep. It works best in my group when we're playing highly political games like WoD stuff.

I don't do it too much for D&D.

Yes. An excellent GM I had back around 1992 introduced me to the term "blue booking" and used it in his fantasy Hero game. It was fun as all the PCs had side projects that didn't involve the others and we never knew the full extent of each others contacts, goals and wealth.

I'll gladly use it in my future game if the players are right for it.

I don't think I've ever done this.  Notes? Yes.  E-mails? Sure.  
Books? No.