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[Robot Parade Leader]

So I looked over at the forum games section and I don't get half of them. I'm pretty stupid at times, so it's probably my fault. This is the most honest thing ever put on the internet.

So talk about forum games and roleplay things and how do to them and I guess where? Please.

[IronyOwl]

...uh... you mean, on this forum, how I roleplay?

Half the forum games on this site are extremely weird, so that might be part of it. Otherwise, there's a few different types, so that might be throwing you off.

A lot of the games here are called "Suggestion games," wherein the GM makes a thread, then everyone else suggests actions for the character in question. The GM then takes the best/most/popular/however they decide ones and implements them, and then they continue the cycle.

Most of the rest are at least vaguely RPGish, especially in the RTD subforum. Those ones tend to work more or less like tabletop RPGs, only the GM rolls your dice for you. Follow the rules to make a character, if/when you get in say what your character does (usually in bold so your action can be differentiated from random chatter), wait for the GM to process the turn and tell you what happens, repeat.

There are also occasionally actual tabletop RPGs organized here and then hosted realtime on IRC or Maptools or some other proxy for actually sitting around a table talking. Most such threads will mention in their OP whether they're play-by-post or using some client at certain times.

Finally, there's the Mafia subforum. Mafia is kind of a complex, involved gametype centered around investigation and deception. Unlike most of the games on here, you actually need to learn how to play Mafia before you just jump into any old game.


Does that cover what you wanted to know?

[Robot Parade Leader]

That actually helped a lot yeah.

I mean, overall I guess it also comes down to if they have any common elements (other than just being on the same forum).

I'm really surprised there isn't an RPG forum game where you're a dwarf building a fortress. I know there are some sorta things that look like let's plays in the community games stuff, but those aren't exactly what I mean. I guess I'm just a lil shocked that there don't appear to be any RPG games on a forum for DF about something DF... ish. I don't see anything about having a character that is a dwarf and having some skills and getting together to make a fort or something. Have to say I'm surprised by that....

Many of the games seem to be "you are a _______." Then there are like 20 people saying what they'd do. I guess that's the suggestion game you were talking about, but I'm not entirely sure. No?

I think I'll hold off on Mafia, because I don't get it. Same with "Picture Fight."

[Fniff]

Yes, the ones with the You Are A _____ are suggestion games.

[IronyOwl]

There have been a few dwarf fortress themed games, but they tend to die off due to overcomplexity. Rather fitting, I suppose...

There's similarities between several games and types of games, but no overarching forum-wide coherence, no. The RTD subforum is based around a particular key for the results of a d6, for instance (1: Critical failure, you make things worse; 2: you fail but don't necessarily injure yourself or others; 3: you partially succeed; etc), and there's god games, You Are X games, dungeon crawling games, and so on.

[Robot Parade Leader]

Yes, the ones with the You Are A _____ are suggestion games.

Thanks.

There have been a few dwarf fortress themed games, but they tend to die off due to overcomplexity. Rather fitting, I suppose...

There's similarities between several games and types of games, but no overarching forum-wide coherence, no. The RTD subforum is based around a particular key for the results of a d6, for instance (1: Critical failure, you make things worse; 2: you fail but don't necessarily injure yourself or others; 3: you partially succeed; etc), and there's god games, You Are X games, dungeon crawling games, and so on.

Aww, I'm kinda say that the DF based roleplays die off. I really would like to try something like that, but I'm not entirely sure how to go about anything like this. Part of me thinks that if other people on this board that do a whole lot more of this stuff than I do can't manage it, then I'm not sure I can.... Hum. I dunno. Something to think about I guess.

Sounds like there's a wide variety of games here. The RTD sounds like it might be promising. Might check that out. Any thoughts on that?

[IronyOwl]

Aww, I'm kinda say that the DF based roleplays die off. I really would like to try something like that, but I'm not entirely sure how to go about anything like this. Part of me thinks that if other people on this board that do a whole lot more of this stuff than I do can't manage it, then I'm not sure I can.... Hum. I dunno. Something to think about I guess.

Well, you could search around for how others did it for inspiration, then ideally come up with something simpler and more manageable. Cobalt Fortress would be an example of an insanely complex one that was awesome, Fortress Mode 2.0 was I think simpler but still ended up overwhelming, and Roll to Dwarf is probably the simplest implementation I've seen.

Sounds like there's a wide variety of games here. The RTD sounds like it might be promising. Might check that out. Any thoughts on that?

Sounds like a good idea. RTD is a very simple, flexible system, so it's easy for people to pick up and unpredictable enough to be fairly innately entertaining. There's also a fairly active thread for discussing them, though it tends to be harder to get advice out of it than you'd expect.

[Robot Parade Leader]

That's ... actually quite cool.

I mean really. The notion that somebody else tried to run a roleplay DF did cross my mind, but thank you for being so nice about putting them right up there for me to look at. I looked at the simplest one, but I still need to read over the other two to tell you the truth. I don't know how to really do something like this but I'd like to learn.

[freeformschooler]

I should make a side-note that a lot of the time it's not necessary to understand all the rules of a game as, on a forum game/online RPG, the GM usually does a lot of rule/math/dicework behind the scenes and shows the interesting parts to the players. Don't be discouraged if there's a lot of confusing rules and the GM uses a confusing external program just to make their rolls (*cough*adwarf*cough*)

That said, the main way to learn how to run one of these games is to read some Suggestion games are usually the easiest for reading through.

[Neonivek]

I personally use chat programs or programs made for running roleplaying games like OpenRPG or IRC.

[Robot Parade Leader]

Yeah, I guess the thought and theory seems to be somewhere along the lines of shared pretending. Really, people need to be able to keep on the same page at some point when doing something like this, because otherwise it will fall apart. I'm still working through the stuff posted as examples of doing this, but they seem relatively good so far. It does seem like a lot of some of those threads are spent arguing about the rules and hashing it out though.

Seems there was some talk about how much food a dwarf should eat over a period of time etc. I wouldn't want it to turn into a math test, but I suppose some measure of consistency would make some sense.  Does that make any sense really?

Other issue seems to be consistent mapping, especially when digging the entrance by the cliff in 2.0. At least I didn't exactly get what they were going for right away, though maybe that's just me.

[Doomblade187]

Personally, I find RTDs the easiest to get into/understand, but I am kind of biased. Though in the case of the 'minimalist' RTDs, there's really no plot to worry about.