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[GlyphGryph]

RTDs are the only game I've finished. I think they are good for beginners because you've got a core rule set, loose result determination so lots of GM power. You still need to do a fuckton of writing, of course. I like the idea of giving players explicit goals, especially if you want the game to have a beginning, middle, and end - let them help you work towards that.

I was gonna repost the rules, but it might be worth reading the following, instead:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=24188.0

[MaximumZero]

Oh, a good tip, and the reason all my other forum games have died...

Don't take on too many people. Start small, say, four or five, and then go from there.

[GlyphGryph]

For a new host or depending on the type of game, imo, even 2 or 3 would be acceptable. But yeah, do NOT go over five players, that's asking for a headache and a half.

[Truean]

[nods] The more players, the more will be expected of the GM. Really, it sounds like starting small should be the way every game should go, because you can build up/add easily but it's a bear to scale down (boot someone out?).

As for the mapping stuff, at least with something on a DF board, you've got people fairly used to a fortress mode where they tend to stay put. Sure, you could do a bit of work tweaking that, by letting them venture out a bit, but the idea would be they always come back and don't stray too damn far. The centralization might help a lot. Same with the notion of organizing trips BEFORE they happen .

[Truean]

So I'm thinking about the mapping and how that'd work. There are a few aspects here:

I.) The overall goal.

Of course, there's the blatantly obvious, "to show how a piece of land looks," that's how and why maps work. There's another thing at play here, especially because the land doesn't actually exist: giving the players choices and places to make them. Choices are bound and limited by WHERE you make the choice and WHAT is there. If you're in a desert, you probably aren't climbing trees and your priority should probably be water. If you're in a place with ruins, then exploration becomes a possibility (reasonably). If you're in a place with forests, as opposed to plains, then things with trees come into play and so on and so forth.... That doesn't really even cover the individual things in the location. Maybe there's a shrine, cave, town, road, river, stream, animal den, enemy camp, rock formations, etc.

None of these have a point in an RP map without some kind of thing the players could potentially DO with, in, or around them.  When making some type of map, maybe think about what on earth the players could do there and why they'd wanna do it. Yeah, they're gonna find crazy crap to do that will throw you off, but at least if you have some plan, then it might be better than no plan.

Then of course there are the people/things that inhabit those places. They theoretically have goals of their own and contingencies to set in place if things go wrong. The Players are not the only ones who have thought about the possibility of something coming along in the night and posting watch. It never ceases to amaze me that video games rarely if ever seem to have an ALARM for the bad guys. Whether it's a high tech thing or just a very loud bell/gong, I just can't comprehend how they never seem to have a plan in case somebody comes around that ... shouldn't...? This is especially true for the "monster" races who basically live to raid/invade; it can't be beyond their thought process that somebody might do that to them or that another rival [insert monster type here] of the same kind might do it to them.... You never seem to have a group that has somebody with a loud as hell horn to call for help. Suddenly, instead of taking on the [dungeon, complex, whatever] and facing it room by room, congrats, now the whole place is up in arms. Even if they don't just send like 50 people (monsters, whatever) at you at once, they are now going to be harder to sneak up on, because they might not know that you specifically are there, but they do know something is up.

II.) The technique/How to make the map.

So do you hand draw, use a computer, something else? Has to be editable (by GM) and viewable by players. This is especially true if the entire point is to have the thing changed by the players (as it would be with a fort building RP).

This gets more interesting with potential detail. Skyrim is in its own way amazing, because of the insane level of detail they go into. They don't show you a static picture of books on a shelf. No, they render each individual book as a bloody separate item! This was unheard of before.... Now, you don't necessarily need something like this in an RP forum game, but the customization of individual items is also a cool little route the players could very easily potentially go (D&D had an entire section about custom items, mainly magical in its DM guide). The detail doesn't necessarily have to be in your face all the time, but having an inventory present from a group of shelves, chests, drawers, etc. in your room makes it that much more YOUR room. Same with decorations and everything like that. The detail might make it less "you enter your room" and actually into something meaningful. No, the whole bloody description doesn't have to be there every time you enter the damn room, but it's cool if the description and all the detail is AVAILABLE. This goes back to giving the player more choices, because it suddenly matters that there is a forging industry and a relationship with a blacksmith if that directly effects what the player can have. They might give a damn about protecting the craftsmen if they lose the ability to have things from said craftsmen if/when they die.... Same thing with the rest of the population. ( I think the disposable NPC syndrome leads to a lot of player apathy and often enough it's unfortunate results).

Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Random acts of [censored]?

[MaximumZero]

You mean you want your npcs to know that the players are screwing around? Just have them call for help.

[Truean]

You mean you want your npcs to know that the players are screwing around? Just have them call for help.

You know, honestly that was the other thing I was going to link to. Even though I haven't played that metal gear version (I think mine was Snake's Revenge) I've heard enough about it from Vector.

[MaximumZero]

Oh, True, you're missing out on...a lot of cutscenes. A lot of cutscenes. I swear, an average person could go through a bucket of popcorn during the intro to MGS3.

[Truean]

Oh, True, you're missing out on...a lot of cutscenes. A lot of cutscenes. I swear, an average person could go through a bucket of popcorn during the intro to MGS3.

Granted, but there's Youtube for that.


You know, I've been thinking about the future of video games and I think Toady might be onto something here. The notion of procedurally generated worlds has the theoretical potential to provide a ton of replayability. Example "Spore." Apparently you can have a nearly unlimited number of worlds with that. The problem seems to be a lack of "fit" and detail. This is why several of the human houses were buried under a layer of soil in the old DF version (not sure if they still are). Also, there are currently practical limitations upon what can be done in terms of detail at present.

Even so, there are a few things to be learned from this. First, regions and adjoining regions seem very helpful. Unfortunately in many RPGs geography is severely limited in terms of proximity. Things are pretty much right next to one another. I don't think this is typically how things pan out in real life. The problem with two different cultures being close to one another is, they're pretty much going to fight or somehow change each other fundamentally. One will absorb or influence the other or try to. Also, it's majorly difficult controlling real estate. Even today we're figuring out (expensively) that we need boots on the ground to do it and this is especially true in areas of different cultures/countries. Especially when you're talking about dark age technology, it's a major ordeal to control wide swaths of land and without some competitive advantage, it isn't going to happen easily.

This means a few things. You could have an "empire" (a la Rome) where the primary point of the thing is to control as much land as possible (Rome imported all of its vast food supplies for all intents and purposes). Or, you have other subgroups occupying the area allegedly controlled by some governmental system. In the case of a fantasy RP, this would be especially true with other "races," because they seem more fit to survive in varying biomes/areas and several of them can be hidden. Even people of the same fantasy race have different goals and throughout history many bandits were merely veterans whom Rome had not well paid.... ("Pay well your former Legions, else they shall turn to banditry, before an empty table").

All of this implies possibly detailing or at least profiling something akin to a character sheet about the area(s) surrounding the various points of interest that are mapped out.

[Willfor]

Building a world can be one of the most time-consuming things if you try to get every detail. I've gotten addicted to it in the past, and it killed the game concepts for me. I've gotten addicted to it during my novel writing adventures as well, and likewise, it killed those for me. Lately I've been painting broad strokes, and only detailing as necessary.

However, I will freely admit that this is not a technique that will work for everyone.

[MaximumZero]

Really, when I'm making a campaign that only has certain parts that I expect the players to interact with, I only detail those parts. Often, this leads to one of two situations:
1: "Guys, I'm not Skyrim. I can't just make up shit as I go along and have it be consistent."
2: "I made a random events chart in case you stroll off the path. Let's roll some dice!"

The usual responses are "Awww..." and "OH SWEET MOTHER OF GODS NO!" respectively. My tables tend to be skewed toward the horrible.

[GlyphGryph]

I'm one of the few hosts I know who can do that sort of off-the-path highly-detailed stuff without utterly breaking, and this is because I don't do everything in advance, with locations and references and whatnot. Rather, I start with dozens of general ideas for plotlines and hooks that will work wherever the players decide to end up, really, and I handle the details on the fly.

My last game failed in large part because I stuck too strong to the "script" and let the players use the map, instead of sticking to my usual approach of letting them tell ME where they wanted to go.

[Mullet Master]

Hi, I'm an unsuccessful forum game GM. Here's what I've learned about the whole process. Some of this is going to be repeats, but I feel they are important enough to mention again.

1) Consider your own personal time. Critically analyze your schedule for the next four weeks before even thinking about starting a forum game.
Players will drop out very rapidly if you don't post a turn least every other day in the first 20 or so turns.
Look at all the longest running forum games, they all have a GM who is willing to post multiple turns a day or post turns that are several hours of writing per player. And they do it consistently, for weeks on end.

I have learned that it takes at least 1 hour for a good but short turn, and realistically 1.5-2 hours for a turn that players enjoy. In my own personal life, I don't have the ability to spend 6 hours a week on running a single forum game, so that's basically why I quit doing it.

2) Keep overhead low. Making maps, adding pictures... all these items make you a more popular GM, but take time. Time that keeps you from doing the core of the forum roleplaying game - which is resolving player turns. If you have to do anything, a light usage of pictures is probably best, and don't spend any time on them.

3) Try it out. I can't stress this enough, because almost everything I've learned about being a GM comes from experimentation.
I have conducted a lot of games which were never intended on being a full game, just a little fun to figure out how to be a better GM.

Here's an example :
Outlaw Biker :http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=96671.msg2774721#msg2774721
This is decidedly a "simple" game. I was using it to test simple combat mechanics, short responses, and organizing the game space. The results I got from this : Even simple combat can take a lot time, 4 players is probably the optimal number for my own personal time constraints, and you can have fun even with a "short" story.

4) Drop unproductive games. If you have a game which you are no longer in love with, don't do it. There's nothing more frustrating than feeling compelled to write yet another turn for a game you hate. All your good story ideas will be wasted if the game inevitably fails, so save them for another time.
If you have argumentative players, unresponsive players, trolls, etc. either drop them out of the game (kill their character) or quit the game altogether. Some games are never going to be successful on the Bay12Forums, and that's a fact of life.

And now to conclude...

5) Don't force a story down the players throats.

One of the most enjoyable times I had as a GM was when I made a game which was essentially a story. It has a very linear plot line, so I didn't have to do much creatively each turn. Once I figured out the basics of each character, I just wrote turn after turn of what they were doing, without really listening to the players. The problem is, that's not a game. That's just fanfic writing.

A game is dynamic, both the players and GM must make the 'story'. As a GM , you should enjoy what you are doing, but remember that the players are there for enjoyment too.

[MaximumZero]

I'm one of the few hosts I know who can do that sort of off-the-path highly-detailed stuff without utterly breaking, and this is because I don't do everything in advance, with locations and references and whatnot. Rather, I start with dozens of general ideas for plotlines and hooks that will work wherever the players decide to end up, really, and I handle the details on the fly.

My last game failed in large part because I stuck too strong to the "script" and let the players use the map, instead of sticking to my usual approach of letting them tell ME where they wanted to go.

Well, I can do pretty good off the cuff stuff, too, but my maps get absurdly detailed, and sometimes my players expect the whole damn game to be like that, even if I've only been preparing for a day or so.

[Truean]

Good points, honestly.

It's for that reason that I might honestly just do a largely if not entirely text based thing. And if there was ever a place for entirely or mostly based text RP, then it's DF....Even with heavy text in game, a horrible picture might be worth a thousand words about object placement, especially positioning of trees, walls and other obstacles when getting into tactical combat, etc.

The other thing, no matter where it's done is player actions. That is, what the hell are the players going to do. Combat is the old standby really. Even with a fort building RP that could get old. Army life is pretty damn boring to tell you the truth. It's repetitive as hell. The drills; the exercises; the weapons inspections, all of that. Even the sparring becomes routine.

Its also periods of waiting around for nothing followed by action. When you're waiting you want something, anything to break the boring day. Then the action comes and you pray for the boring day....

That doesn't even touch the non combat people....

The problem I see with a fortress building RP is lack of options and repetitiveness. Not sure how to deal with that necessarily. Now, there's something to be said for either a.) running the place or some part of it, or b.) being creative in solving problems. Maybe that'd help as character actions. To some extent, you might be able to dual role a little between job and military, but that's tricky for all kinds of reasons.