RPR Archive Hammer's Guide to the RPF's Leadership Transition

Hmm...some pretty good ideas. I like the idea of a flagship RPG, but why limit it just to the NSWRPF? Why not the SWRPF as well? I really enjoyed IBoP...that was a great game.

I also am a fan of bringing in users from fanfic. We can bring some pretty good talent in from over there.

 

AFAIK, the 128 ABY game is filling that slot over in the SWRPF, and the SWRPF already has some guaranteed readership, seeing as how this is a Star Wars board. There is no such luxury for the NSWRPF.

 

Hey everybody! I've been busy as hell for the past few months, so my apologies to anyone who's noticed my absence. There weren't too many RPs I was involved in at the time, but I'm sorry to those I've deserted.

In any case, I'm looking at a decent amount of free time for the next several months. Which makes this the perfect time for me to reengage in this wonderful little corner of the JC. Before I begin saying things, I'd like to leave a bit of a disclaimer: I'm no authority on any of this stuff, as I haven't really gotten a chance to dive as deep into RP as I would like. I've probably played about a dozen RPs here, but none of them really lasted half as long as I would've liked. There've been a couple that I would've liked to join but just didn't have time for - I tried to get in on Senate, but that was a very busy time for me, and I've always wanted to dive into 128, though it looks a bit intimidating. Maybe now that I've got free time I'll have the opportunity to engage in one of the big (and thus more stable) RPs.

So, onto the issues. Hammer's very right: the Resource and the NSW forums are a bit lacking, especially compared to the big 'ole SW RP forum. I think some of the SWRPers even forget the other forums exist. Which isn't really all that hard to do - the NSW forum really hasn't had that many home run successes. Most of the threads there end in failure. Of course, the lack of success means fewer people drop by the NSW forum, which then translates into even less activity. However, I think if we could get a 'flagship RP' set up, we could turn things around. It would take a fair amount of effort, but I believe it would be very much worth the work.

If we're serious about this flagship, we should get started on it. Someone has already suggested turning to the GDG; I would favor starting a fresh thread in the Resource. I mean, it's not like the Resource is overcrowded. Quite the opposite, in fact - the Resource could really use a few more threads. I think a lot of people are afraid to post in the Resource, as it's mainly composed of big old guilds. It gets a bit stuffy, I think.

So I feel like a thread would be good. I'm really tired right now, or else I'd go on for a while. But I figure I ought to stop at this point. I'll be back. Ask me about Google Documents, the NSWRP social thread, or the good ole flagship when I'm back around. I've already said things about two of those topics, and have some ideas for the third.

 

Actually, something I'd like to see in the RPR is a Roleplayer/Game Master's Guild. We have the CDG and GDG, but no threads actually dedicated to playing a character or running a game that I can see ... and considering our RPF Awards are Best RPer/GM and not Best Designer, I think it's be great to have such a thread.

 

Ah...I hadn't realized that the 128 game had been considered that...sorry about that.

I agree with Hammurabi about starting a thread here in the resource to get things started on it. Not to say it should be a rushed process, but the sooner it is started, the more thought out the game will be.

Why don't we have another Council like we had a few years back? Bring in a few ideas and such...

 

Although it is now locked there once was a Game Master's Guild.

 

Speaking of locked threads, I've got some sticky goodness to propose.

No, it's not what you think. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Seriously, there are some threads here which I think do bear being put permanently up the top of the group -- specifically, the General Introduction to Roleplaying and the various Tips/Advice threads. I say that because ultimately stickies do seem to attract attention, and those are threads which provide basic (as in fundamental) roleplaying advice for new people to the threads. The stuff in the tips/advice threads was written by some very old hands at this game, but it's still great advice, and it doesn't deserve to languish among the locked threads. (It also contains some of my Brilliant Writing On The Topic, so I have something of a bias here. )

I'd also tentatively posit a sticky for the SWRPG and NSWRPG as a type of FAQ, and titled "Read this before posting a new thread. Not kidding." It seems to work for the fanfilms forum and eliminates a lot of trash that would otherwise wind up over there. The tone of the FAQ thread would be friendly, but the title should be an eye-catching and stern title like that.

 

So, Imperial_Modder, when are you going to start campaigning for a NSW Fan Fic forum? I need one now, please, thanks.

 

Good ideas, Saint, especially considering I can't even find this "General Introduction to Roleplaying". But it certainly sounds like something that oughta be stickied up at the top of the page. But stickying all the other Tips/Advice threads might clog things up, so maybe throw links to them within the general thread.

And as much as we discuss improvements, it won't do any good without action. If I weren't such a newb, I'd already be making threads and taking names. Our first priority right now should be to come up with a single thread to coordinate everything - either we do that in here or create a whole new thread in the Resource. But that might disperse things too much, so I dunno. Maybe keep all the general discussion contained within this thread for now, but make a sticky thread just as a list of who's in charge of which projects.

Anyways, the projects so far are (as far as I can tell):
1. Reemphasizing the rules - this one's already being handled by Hammer and (very soon) his co-mod.
2. Outreach (emphasis on Comms, Welcome, Fanfic, and EUC) - so far, this is in Hammer's hands (as far as I can tell), though if he needs help, I'm sure he could find some support in the RPFs.
3. Revitalization of NSW and Resource - still a very broad, general project
4. NSWRP Flagship - Nobody right now is in charge of this one. And I don't think there should necessarily be a single leader at this point. But I'm ready to start a thread, just so we can get busy discussing this one.
5. New Guilds (for RPers and GMs) - I actually really like this idea. A general RPer guild just seems like common sense, and a GM guild could be very helpful. I've always been interested in GMing a thread, but have never wanted to deal with all the responsibility of such a task, as my time is pretty limited. I imagine one function of such a guild could be the coordination of co-GMs. Which could help bring a lot of new people into GMing and reduce the workload our dedicated GMs have to deal with. Also, any thread with multiple GMs is that much more stable, as the whole thing doesn't rely so much on one person.
6. Recognition Projects - Hammer's already preparing for our next awards ceremony, and Mitth also mentioned some good ideas earlier.




Another idea that hasn't been mentioned yet (and one I forgot to mention earlier) is the rule in the NSWRPF that limits each franchise to only one RP. I don't think that this rule works out very well right now, and in some ways, it has been very limiting. My biggest example would be the various Harry Potter RPs that have popped up over time. We've got a pretty consistent record of inconsistent GMs, which is particularly sad considering there's been considerable interest. I can think of two possible options: either force GMs to get approval before helming a big franchise like Harry Potter, or allow GMs to seek approval for additional RPs (I imagine they'd have to send in the whole starting post at least). The decision would then go to Hammer. Hammer would then decide whether the new idea might be an improvement (as in Harry Potter) or if there's already a very solid RP (like X-Men), making the existence of a second rather unnecessary.

 

I actually wrote an opening post for a Role Players Guild a while back, but have since deleted it due to the fact that I had no intention of actually managing it. I do remember sending it to NP in a PM once, so I could probably dig it up if you guys want to see it and try to work with it, not to mention find someone to run it.

*grabs shovel*

Edit: Well, that didn't take long. Thank Bale I sent it to NP via a sock with only 4 pages of Sent PMs. Here you go (please note that I am hardly proud of the cheesiness and violation of Hammer's "copyrighting" you'll find below):

---

[image=http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/8711/rpg6bn.jpg]

[i]Mastery Through Unity[/i]

-The Coat of Arms and Motto of the Role Players Guild

[b]Introduction[/b]

Hello, and welcome to the Role Players Guild. In creating this guild, my goal as the Guild Master is to establish an abiding group of dedicated role players to discuss and learn all of the aspects of the wonderful art of role playing, newbies and oldbies alike. Games will be designed, characters will be designed, games will be managed, but playing in the games is what keeps them, and this forum, flowing smoothly. This guild will also serve as somewhat of a social thread, a band of brothers (and sisters), if you will. The motto of the Role Players Guild, "Mastery Through Unity," sums up our aspirations quite nicely. Through uniting ourselves as a whole, our goal is to master role playing, and execute it to its finest form.

[b]Membership[/b]

Anyone and everyone is welcome to be a member of the Role Players Guild, and it is encouraged that you are an active role player in either or both RPF?s.

All members, upon joining this guild, have agreed to respect and venerate his/her fellow Guildmembers. Even if they are rarely seen, there are a great deal of role playing techniques that are utilized by some. If you stumble upon an IC post that you feel the need to criticize, make it constructive. We are a group of comrades, not antagonists.

Also, as a sign of our community, we ask that all RPG members to mention their affiliation with the guild in their signature and/or user bios.

[b]Non-Playing Discussion[/b]

Social discussion is a crucial ingredient in the recipe of prosperity in a Guild, to evolve and uphold a mutual camaraderie between all of its members. However, we do have a distinct purpose to advocate, and thus the Guild Master will be sure to supervise the ongoing discussion in order to keep it at least somewhat centered around the objective at hand. A pure Social Thread can be found here, so if you?d like to discuss topics irrelevant to the current intention, we ask that you visit the preceding link.

[b]Role Playing Discussion[/b]

Frequently, the RPG will be discussing the topic of role playing, debating on all sorts of aspects that fall under this category. Discussion topics will be set by the Guild Master, and will be rotated as the community desires.

[b]Competitions[/b]

The RPG will host competitions on a semi-regular basis among its members on a topic that will be decided by the Guild Master (suggestions are welcome). The topic will revolve around some guideline; mostly generically based (create the best introductory post/ post set in a certain time / post under a certain circumstance).

Judging will be done at the Guild Master?s discretion after a period of discussion about the posts presented. The victor will be rewarded by the fame of winning the competition and of a job well done (and possibly other prizes that may appear).

[b]The End [/b]

That is all, and we hope you will join The Role Players Guild!

 

That looks good, and I think we'd do well to have an RPG around these parts.

 

I like that RPer's Guild idea...that post is pretty good too.

I want to comment on the outreach: I_H isn't the only one who can help with that. What's to stop us from going into the Welcome New Users forum and going into individual threads and attempting to recruit some people. If we're nice and everything, then they will most likely be willing to check it out. Me and some of the people in the old New Sith Order and the old Sith Trials thread use to do it and we recruited some good people into it and some of my best friends on the forum.

 

Confusing acronym is confusing...

 

I was just gonna say that. I like the post, though, confusing acronym and all.

 

So does anyone have any comments on my suggestions/points? As a recap:

Why don't we have another Council like we had a few years back? Bring in a few ideas and such...

I want to comment on the outreach: I_H isn't the only one who can help with that. What's to stop us from going into the Welcome New Users forum and going into individual threads and attempting to recruit some people. If we're nice and everything, then they will most likely be willing to check it out. Me and some of the people in the old New Sith Order and the old Sith Trials thread use to do it and we recruited some good people into it and some of my best friends on the forum.

 

By the way hammurnai, the senate game is recruiting again until the end of the month if you want to join in.

Anyway I'm likeing the ideas being brought up but would like to ask a question. What franchise/type of made up universe should the proposed flagship game for the NSWRP forum be?

 

I like the way you think!

I also can appreciate the idea of the NSWFF Forum, too!

 

Oops, sorry for the double post.

 

I think a good series would be Heroes. It's a large universe to explore, and it has barely been explored. Although, a problem with that unlike Star Wars is that not everyone has seen Heroes. But, I think can be a problem with any NSWRPG. There's always going to be someone who has not seen it, and therefore, less likely to join. But I think we are just going to have to look past that.

A NSWFFF...that would be pretty cool. What would the chances of something like that being made?

 

What were the odds of Han Solo successfully navigating the asteroid field? These are worse.

Anyways, you will not be able to get a flagship franchise RPG off the ground, at least if you go about it the way you normally would. This being the board system for a Star Wars website, Star Wars is common ground for everyone here. There is no one here who does not like Star Wars on at least some level. The same cannot be said for anything that isn't Star Wars. The popularity of a franchise may bring in a few more players, but it will not help you create something bigger just by itself. A massive Non-Star-Wars game has to be built up the hard way, by laying out everything before the players. Descriptions of the setting, options, factions, history, tons of things that lazy players don't read. If you're going to go that far, it's possible just to build a world of your own, even if you resort to the "kitchen sink" method of throwing together various ideas from various sources.

If a setting were built, the best thing to do would probably be to figure out the basic zeitgeist of the world. Despite what some may think, "WAR!" is a rather pointless way of doing things, because if you found something entirely on a war, then it pretty much ends when the war ends, and Warhammer this ain't. You might get more mileage out of a period of heightened tensions between several factions/nations, a period similar to the time between the two World Wars. Personally, I'd prefer an age of adventure and exploration, like something out of the pulp era, where none of the factions are waging outright war, but there's plenty of stuff to do. Then again, that's probably better off as a campaign setting for a single party.

 

Well, darth-nemesis and LightWarden, you make a fine point. I feel that is probably one of the truer observations yet regarding the NSWRPF. Star Wars is a given. I imagine few people are here that didn't come because of Star Wars. For Non-Star Wars it is often the fans that pick up those universes to play in. Rarely do Harry Potter haters enter Harry Potter games, for example.

What of avoiding that by developing a non-Star Wars flagship that explores a number of different facets of a given world? Personally, what I found most intriguing of IBoP was that I could pick a faction, a world to play in. LS_A created a thread for each faction. At the time, I was new and unchallenged. I wrote New Republic characters and later a young Jedi. I had no interest in the Yuuzahn Vong, Dark Side, or Imperial factions.

The nice thing was that these individual threads survived because not only could they stand on their own and go along at their own pace, but would interact in a separate thread that was created for such interactions. Other times, the Imps came in the NR thread and so on.

Particularly where the Non-Star Wars fan bases are concerned I think you're right. It's likely to be almost impossible to set up a game that everyone will want to join. The multi-thread system, however, allows fans of other factions to build and interact.

A non-Star Wars version, for example, could, instead of factions have each thread be a different major destination. Say a city. We can choose a major metropolitian from the real-world. Say, New York City. Most people can write what its like to be in a city, even if its not NYC, or San Diego, or London, etc. I'm just giving an example. This world can be for the villains, the mofia, the cops, the thiefs, etc.

To pull a line from Star Trek, the original series and The Next Generation had an underlying story of "The Preservers." These were a super-race of beings that picked up endangered races and put them on other planets where they would be protected. This being why the original crew found an entire settlement of Native Americans - all mixed together from other tribes. They were on a distant planet and had no idea of their beginning or that they hadn't always been there. Further, parellel histories took place on planets were there was a Roman Empire that didn't fail until much further into the 24th century, or a Nuclear War that wiped out the Yangs (Americans) and Kohms (Communists).

A non-star Wars story could have a simple underlying element that something unknown brought all these diverse people together. Perhaps some of them don't even know the others exist. The interaction and the realizations would be intriguing.

A second destination on the same planet could be something of the fantasy world. Here Goblins, Wizards, witches, enchanters, elfs, etc exist. They have a "city", or a settlement across a vast backdrop. It's on the same planet, but the featured GM and story arcs of this universe would uphold the Fantasy genre in this city.

Another city could involve a vastly advanced race of people - eons in the future where technology is concerned. Call this our Super Hero world, if we need one. Similiar character-types of futuristic genres could survive here. Say, Aliens-type technology. A world of a different problem.

Another city, a fourth, could be a civilation that's been war torn with its neighboring city, so combine two civiliations. Pick an era. This could cover your military buffs.

However, each of these civilations, with the exception of the above, is unaware of its counterparts. I'm sure the individual CO-GMs, or City Leaders, could conjure up enough intrigue for each of the individual cities. As would the RPers that uphold their responsibility to introduce their own obstacles and problems. A mafia war inadvertently affects a student's teen angst, a mother police office fights her own demons of her (cliched) past, a wizard wants to utilize goblins for a special kind of green jelly, and any number of super-techno problems in the other city. War, as far as the fo

 

Yeah...this is a lot trickier than I had originally assumed.

I like some of your suggestions Kalio. I do think it may be best to create sort of our own world, and mix genres from different types of shows and other things, like you suggest Kalio. But how well would something like that be managed and also how would it be received by the community?

Maybe we could take a poll of what the users would most want to see. Make a list of the most popular NSW movies, TV shows, books, games, etc.

 

I personally loved Kalio's ideas and would like to add a Genre/city/world.

A horror one perhaps? Your vampires, werewolves and such? not to mention slayers?

You would need a lot of CO-GMs for a game like the one suggested.


I agree with the idea of a poll but personally i think a refioned version of Kalio's idea would work.

 

If you guys can give me a minute, I'm working on a post that will flesh this out a bit more. It's long and taking a while, but I should have it up within the next half-hour or so. It's a lot more involved than my prior post.

Sorry.

 

Honestly, as I said, that entire idea was just tossed up there in a moment of inspiration. There was little thought put into more than a frame work.

If there is interest, I would be more than happy to create this and flesh it out more.

I like the idea of a poll-system being set up, though, I would encourage that poll not to go up until we've fleshed this out some more. As I see it, and I may be wrong, a flagship RPG should be able to achieve a few things. Primarily, be a lasting and workable game. It should also carry a format which allows for easy gameplay. Most importantly, though, I think it should be able to do both those things and raise the standard of RPing in the RPF. For this game to work it has to be a balance between action, character development, interaction and style. If it, in any way, becomes only one of these things predominantly, the game is doomed. Failure to produce a challenge will decrease the amount of players. On a personal note, I find it enjoyable to read the RPF threads and follow the storylines.

To be honest, right now, not so much. I feel that there is lack of the four things I mentioned above. Character development, interaction, style and action are either all there in one facet or two, and the rest goes by the wayside. A flagship RPG should be as entertaining to read as it is to play in. This will get other people into the threads because, honestly, if its fun to read and one comes to care about the players than by-golly, they'll want to have a part, too!

So, to do any of these things in a single Flagship, we'd need Co-Gms and a few of them. More than numbers, though, we'd need dedicated GMs that would have a handle on those things. I think we have those sort of people here. A good many of them hang out here in the RPF Resource.

What would you think of a single GM or maybe two, that head up the whole thing? They'd be the powers-that-be. In the true essence of the word, they'd be the Gamemaster. Not necessarily playing along activingly but keeping everything going. The two, perhaps dividing the work load between the civilizations (say 2-2 or 3-3), would be the ones that the Co-GMs defer to.

1. Game Management

1.A. Co-Gm/Sub-GMs

Yuul_Shamar, I'm given to agree with you. A few GMs are needed. The exact number could be fleshed out and refined, but just guessing I'd think at least two per thread. Unless you've got one dedicated Co-Gm that knows his/her stuff. I'd petition for a Co-GM/Sub-GM set-up.

The Co-GMs, for lack of a better name at the moment, would be in charge of the development of a given civilization and thereby, that thread. Let's use the Earth-City. Mafia, crimeworld, petty theft, cafe workers, cops, fashion, business moguls, actors, etc. What ever the ideas that could float out of that "world" or isolated civilation could give birth to a number of story arcs. It would be the Co-GMs responsibility to A) see this does not get out of hand and B)doesn't become a series of vignettes and C)the four goals are happening. Let's call them Cardinal rules of the Flagship.

----. Cardinal Rules of a Non-Star Wars Flagship
--------- Character Development
--------- Action
--------- Style (by which I mean IC/OOC/Tags/style/etc.)
--------- Interaction

They'd have the powers of a normal Co-Gm, having the ability to manuever plot, deal with OOC issues, protect against god-modding and breaking the rules, encourage the Cardinal Rules, and accepting/refusing character sheets. Deference to the Flagship Gamemaster(s) would be nice on matters of plot.

Because that's a huge job and some threads may have more interest than others, sub-GMs could be appointed by the Co-Gm, after discussing it with the Flagship Gamemaster(s). The sub-GM would have similiar powers with the exception of manuevering game-effecting plot (like blowing up the planet) and accepting new players. Having one person accept/refuse sheets just cuts down on the confusion.

A sub-Gm would come in handy particularly when oppossing f