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[WonderPsycho]

like the title said, i would like tips and some info on how to start a community game, (as in a community game based on playing DF, like succession games, or community fortresses.) so any of you have any tips, or ideas for starting one, my first one didn't went anywhere.

[NJW2000]

Make sure you have time to manage it - keeping links to each turn in the OP, waitlists, etc. Be prepared to chase people for saves, and skip their turns after a certain amount of time. Don't make the aim of the succession game too long-term or complicated - if it only starts to pay off after a few dozen turns, it's likely to take too long.

[Urlance Woolsbane]

Make sure you have time to manage it - keeping links to each turn in the OP, waitlists, etc. Be prepared to chase people for saves, and skip their turns after a certain amount of time. Don't make the aim of the succession game too long-term or complicated - if it only starts to pay off after a few dozen turns, it's likely to take too long.

Pretty much this. As far as getting attention is concerned, it pays to have some sort of gimmick. It needen't be anything too fancy; just something that will make a prospective player think "You now, that sounds fun..."

[WonderPsycho]

Make sure you have time to manage it - keeping links to each turn in the OP, waitlists, etc. Be prepared to chase people for saves, and skip their turns after a certain amount of time. Don't make the aim of the succession game too long-term or complicated - if it only starts to pay off after a few dozen turns, it's likely to take too long.

ah, thanks for the tip

[Telgin]

Agreed with all of the above.  I can add a little more about community games that are not succession forts though.  That is, one that you control entirely.

Keep in mind that I have not read your previous fort (I don't read any these days), so none of this is a criticism of anything you might have done.  Just a suggestion.

Gimmicks definitely pay off here, but I also strongly encourage you to take time to make your fort updates worth reading.  That is, try to work a little narrative into important things that happened, include screen shots, and so on.  Those were the things that sucked me into Boatmurdered before I started playing DF, and which have kept me interested in any that I was part of.  Nothing turns me off from reading a community fort than finding one with zero images and only a single sentence for every date mentioned in the update journal.

Boatmurdered would have been way less interesting if it went like this:

"1st Granite

We killed a lot of elephants but there are still a lot outside."

instead of like this:

"1st Granite

I can hear the elephants at night.  During the day, we look out from the walls and can see them.  They're standing there, staring back, with beady little eyes full of hatred and the lust for dwarven blood.  Right now, I hear them again.  The trumpeting chills my soul!  The trumpeting!"

Or however it went.  Too lazy to go look it up and find the post I'm thinking of specifically.

That's all outside of your control if it's a succession game.  You can still try to hook people with a good first post / update, but once you hand it off to others you're at their mercy.  You can see this in Boatmurderd too, for that matter.  Many will not have the investment to put in that much effort, and this is a big reason that I haven't been part of any succession games.

Worth repeating that a good community game is a lot of work.  Making updates worth reading like I said above takes time.  I probably spent 30-60 minutes typing up each update I posted in my own forts, even when there were few or no players at the time.  It helps to write them as you're playing though.  If something interesting happens, pause, take a picture and write up the paragraph or whatever in your fort update right away.  If you wait until it's time to post, it's way harder to get the motivation to type it all up.

[WonderPsycho]

to be honest i've been planning on making a community game where players get to do whatever they want with the world, and yes it will feature adventure mode in it, to be honest my community game might become the first community game featuring adventure mode, unless someone already did that with their community game, there will be a turn list for which person goes next on changing the history of the world, and i sure hope i finally get it to work, to be honest i wanted my community game to be original, and be like the start of a new type of community game based on playing DF, other then Community Fortresses, or Succession Games. I personally feel like there has never been a community game based on having adventure mode as a special feature to it, or based on doing whatever you want with the world in your turn, like feeling like your playing a open world game's online free roam multiplayer mode, except you have to take turns with messing with the history of the world, and to be honest i just want to bring this idea of mine to life. hopefully i succeed and bring that idea to life. i know it would be hard to make a community game like THAT, but i really hope i succeed.

[Shonai_Dweller]

to be honest i've been planning on making a community game where players get to do whatever they want with the world, and yes it will feature adventure mode in it, to be honest my community game might become the first community game featuring adventure mode, unless someone already did that with their community game, there will be a turn list for which person goes next on changing the history of the world, and i sure hope i finally get it to work, to be honest i wanted my community game to be original, and be like the start of a new type of community game based on playing DF, other then Community Fortresses, or Succession Games. I personally feel like there has never been a community game based on having adventure mode as a special feature to it, or based on doing whatever you want with the world in your turn, like feeling like your playing a open world game's online free roam multiplayer mode, except you have to take turns with messing with the history of the world, and to be honest i just want to bring this idea of mine to life. hopefully i succeed and bring that idea to life. i know it would be hard to make a community game like THAT, but i really hope i succeed.

There aren't many, but there have been some. There was some kind of museum succession game I recall. In which adventurers would have adventurers, bring stuff to a museum and start new fortresses if they had time left on their turn. Succession world. Very fun.
Especially fun now that players can send raids to previous players fortresses and adventure sites.
Or, more ambitiously, accidentally leave the goblin's favorite artifacts lying around another player's adventurer site and then go spread rumors about it. It's not spite, it's Science!

[WonderPsycho]

to be honest i've been planning on making a community game where players get to do whatever they want with the world, and yes it will feature adventure mode in it, to be honest my community game might become the first community game featuring adventure mode, unless someone already did that with their community game, there will be a turn list for which person goes next on changing the history of the world, and i sure hope i finally get it to work, to be honest i wanted my community game to be original, and be like the start of a new type of community game based on playing DF, other then Community Fortresses, or Succession Games. I personally feel like there has never been a community game based on having adventure mode as a special feature to it, or based on doing whatever you want with the world in your turn, like feeling like your playing a open world game's online free roam multiplayer mode, except you have to take turns with messing with the history of the world, and to be honest i just want to bring this idea of mine to life. hopefully i succeed and bring that idea to life. i know it would be hard to make a community game like THAT, but i really hope i succeed.

There aren't many, but there have been some. There was some kind of museum succession game I recall. In which adventurers would have adventurers, bring stuff to a museum and start new fortresses if they had time left on their turn. Succession world. Very fun.
Especially fun now that players can send raids to previous players fortresses and adventure sites.
Or, more ambitiously, accidentally leave the goblin's favorite artifacts lying around another player's adventurer site and then go spread rumors about it. It's not spite, it's Science!

to be honest thats my goal on trying to make, also the name "Succession World" sounds like a better name then what i was thinking for the name of my type of community game, to be honest having a world where players can start they're own raids, create factions, stealing artifacts, placing them in other player's sites and spreading rumors about it, and having a fortress being populated with other player's adventurers, sounds absolutely amazing. so i might try to start this idea of a community game up in the community game subforum, and hopefully i actually succeed this goal, it will not have too much rules and will have less limitations, so basically my type of this new possible genre of community games will be more of a anarchy type of one, in which every player gets to do whatever they to the world as long as they follow a few rules. also thanks for telling that there are a few community games out there that actually uses adventure mode, at first i thought i was the only one trying to give adventure mode a little bit more attention.

Update:actually it has its own name and someone made one its called "Succession World DF 2017: Keas Everywhere" i guess what i actually want is to resurrect this idea and hopfully give it alot more attention.

[WonderPsycho]

heres a link to the succession world if anyone's interested:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169247.0