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See, back in the day I wrote a nifty guide, and since that time I have encountered other moderately decent introductory guides, and explanations of how to intelligently argue and propagandize. I'll share my original post on the topic, and hopefully a collection of other nice threads on the topic in hopes that it spurs a bit of forum involvement. Flame away, I don't really care if you're so inclined. I felt that since the Propaganda contest is now halted due to a lack of participation, it is only fair to help people with ideas. To my knowledge, I never actually finished the guide, so in the next few days I'll try getting around to it. At the moment it is late, and I have a heap of Algebra and German homework I need to get done, so I'll leave you guys with a sampling to tide you over. I am posting the unedited original version. Again, if I find the time I'll edit it up a bit to further address the needs I've seen in these forums.
Since a great deal of people are interested in making PnP to succeed in Krieg's Propaganda Contest, I figure that this would be the better place to start for the time being. I'll try to walk through my process of writing a PnP thread. The example I'll use is Freak Out!
To start with, most good PnP has a catchy title. A big misconception is that one has to put [War], or (PnP) in the title. That is not the case. If you do it properly, people will be capable of figuring out what your thread is about. The thread's title should be interesting, and entice people to come read. In my case, it was a repeated phrase in the song I chose to base my PnP around. (That will come later). The title could really be anything, but the most important thing is that it catches people's attention. It should be short enough that people don't get bored by the time they read the end of it, but long enough that you provide a sense of intrigue. It is after all, the first thing that people see when looking at your thread. I came up with "Freak Out!" for this thread. The reasoning becomes rather evident once one reads the thread.
Okay, so you've got a cool title and you're ready to get into the meat of your Propaganda. Not quite yet. First you need an idea of what your propaganda's theme, or major elements are going to be. You should think about the best way to both entertain, and inform the audience of what is going on. In my case, I thought that the song Le Freak was a solid choice. It had some nice repetition that could be used to include my important links and what-not. It also rather clearly stated precisely who Jungle was going to war with. It was fairly easy to assume what was going on without overtly saying, "Jungle is going to war with Freaks".
So I've made it clear who the target is, and I have a relatively interesting hook to keep people interested. Now it is time to include some evidence to make people think my tribe is going to wipe the floor with them. One of the best ways to do this, is to include reports and evidence of enemy tribe's leaders (or members) making fools of themselves. In my case, it was both. I had ample evidence that showed the leaders "betraying" their tribe to save their own skins, and I had a large number of reports of Jungle members wreaking havoc on Freak villages. On a side note, people hate leaders that betray their tribes. Targetting a tribe's leaders is usually the best way to cause instability in the opposing tribe. After all, if the leader thinks there is no hope, how will they convince the members that they have a chance? The second best way is to make them think their efforts are useless, and their task seems too immense to succeed. For the sake of this explanation, I targeted the leadership.
By making the members of the tribe worry for their safety, and show them that their leaders could not be trusted, I established a a wall of distrust between the members and the leaders. This inevitably led to a total break down of the tribe. This let us mop up the individual players with little to no resistance from any sort of coordinated strike.
And that is about all I have to say about that. That is my process. The thing you need to take into account is entertainment vs information. You need a solid balance of both. Otherwise no one will read what you're writing, or no one will believe what you're writing.
I will likely edit and add some more later, but for the time being I have things of my own to attend to.
To start with, most good PnP has a catchy title. A big misconception is that one has to put [War], or (PnP) in the title. That is not the case. If you do it properly, people will be capable of figuring out what your thread is about. The thread's title should be interesting, and entice people to come read. In my case, it was a repeated phrase in the song I chose to base my PnP around. (That will come later). The title could really be anything, but the most important thing is that it catches people's attention. It should be short enough that people don't get bored by the time they read the end of it, but long enough that you provide a sense of intrigue. It is after all, the first thing that people see when looking at your thread. I came up with "Freak Out!" for this thread. The reasoning becomes rather evident once one reads the thread.
Okay, so you've got a cool title and you're ready to get into the meat of your Propaganda. Not quite yet. First you need an idea of what your propaganda's theme, or major elements are going to be. You should think about the best way to both entertain, and inform the audience of what is going on. In my case, I thought that the song Le Freak was a solid choice. It had some nice repetition that could be used to include my important links and what-not. It also rather clearly stated precisely who Jungle was going to war with. It was fairly easy to assume what was going on without overtly saying, "Jungle is going to war with Freaks".
So I've made it clear who the target is, and I have a relatively interesting hook to keep people interested. Now it is time to include some evidence to make people think my tribe is going to wipe the floor with them. One of the best ways to do this, is to include reports and evidence of enemy tribe's leaders (or members) making fools of themselves. In my case, it was both. I had ample evidence that showed the leaders "betraying" their tribe to save their own skins, and I had a large number of reports of Jungle members wreaking havoc on Freak villages. On a side note, people hate leaders that betray their tribes. Targetting a tribe's leaders is usually the best way to cause instability in the opposing tribe. After all, if the leader thinks there is no hope, how will they convince the members that they have a chance? The second best way is to make them think their efforts are useless, and their task seems too immense to succeed. For the sake of this explanation, I targeted the leadership.
By making the members of the tribe worry for their safety, and show them that their leaders could not be trusted, I established a a wall of distrust between the members and the leaders. This inevitably led to a total break down of the tribe. This let us mop up the individual players with little to no resistance from any sort of coordinated strike.
And that is about all I have to say about that. That is my process. The thing you need to take into account is entertainment vs information. You need a solid balance of both. Otherwise no one will read what you're writing, or no one will believe what you're writing.
I will likely edit and add some more later, but for the time being I have things of my own to attend to.
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