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

I like it all. And I'm more than willing to help out wherever I'm needed (especially in the Superhero department).

I like how you pointed that out. I remember a long time ago, back when I had recently registered here, I joined pashatemur's Galaxy at War game. I don't think I need to tell anyone that the size of that RPG is gigantically daunting when you're a new player. I made my first post, and sure enough, Sith-I-5 complimented me on it, and I got a huge boost of confidence that encouraged me to press on. Sometimes, it's little things like that that can save games.

 

Yeah, I am liking it. I think I would be willing to help.

Although, I am thinking it would be better to flesh out the story sooner than later. That way we can base the actual system around the game. But, I guess I don't exactly have experience in designing games, as I have only made a couple. It just seems to make more sense to me to decide what the game would be based on.

[iI like how you pointed that out. I remember a long time ago, back when I had recently registered here, I joined pashatemur's Galaxy at War game. I don't think I need to tell anyone that the size of that RPG is gigantically daunting when you're a new player. I made my first post, and sure enough, Sith-I-5 complimented me on it, and I got a huge boost of confidence that encouraged me to press on. Sometimes, it's little things like that that can save games.[/i]

QFT. Even now, whenever I get compliments, it is really a big morale booster, and it encourages me to make better posts. And especially when I won the Best RPer, I was like "woa!" and it felt great. So, I try and do that whenever I find the chance. I haven't been around for a bit, but I have made a point recently to compliment others.

 

Friends, the same here. Encouragement is such a great thing. It seems that a lot of us pour our hearts and souls into these games and characters. It's nice to know that it's not all for naught and that somebody enjoys it. It boosts one's confidence, boosts one's chances of encouragining somebody else, and to go on and do more. When writing the RPF HoloNet, one of my favourite things was seeing our featured player or our feature game just take-off. The featured game - everybody would applaud their success and try to top their last. That was great. I received PMs of gamemasters telling me of this new development. For other, thankfully more modest GMs, I loved finding their threads and getting the opportunity to be riveted by a storyline or characterization on my own. It's powerful. We have great RPers on this board.

But, to answer a comment, the reason I feel the storyline should be hidden a little more is more from the stand-point of a problem that's apparent here on the RPF. Looking in most of these games - unrealistic acquiring of knowledge comes into play a lot. I suppose we could flesh this out but I'm only afraid that doing so here would allow, if not encourage, later players to come here for their plots or utilize our planning knowledge as there "I believe" quotes. Maybe that's not likely and I'm overthinking.

If that's the case and the general consensus, I'd love to flesh that out a bit more too. I have at least two ideas of the overlying storyline and I'm sure we here could come up with more. It's a group project, no? I'd love to have a part in this game as a whole. What ever position seems reasonable.

I have the idea in my head as to what I'd like it to be. So, if the consensus is that we should flesh it out, I'll offer my idea and we can go from there. If you have other ideas, that's great too. We're all on the same side, it seems, and looking at the same goals.

EDIT 2: (I changed my mind about Edit #1
What about forgetting what I said before? Why not do the poll now as was suggested before?

If this idea seems generally accepted, why not give it the chance to be formed by knowing where we are coming from? I see a world with things ripped from genres. Horror (as suggested by Yuul) giving us possibilities of vampires, monsters, etc. Science Fiction giving us Aliens/superhero type technology. All of them being from a number of realities. After we see what sort of genres people want to play in, we can create the world around that - including the Storyline. What good would it do to carry on an underlying story arc that would be stupid from the selection of games that we get?

Once we know how many "worlds" or genre-civilations we have. We can appoint a flag-master. The Flag-master, assisted by people that want to be GMs, could start fleshing these things out genre by genre. We could utilize this thread, the Game Designer's Guild, or keep it regulated to the Co-Gms and the flag-master via another source (like a private off-sight message board).

So that rather than stepping backwards after a giant step forwards, we could get the gist down and then formulate.

The Gist: Civilizations from across numerous realities are for some reason collected onto a planet togther. With the exception of one class - they are all unaware of their counterpart's existence. A mysterious Super-race has put them all there and divided a large planet to them. Restricted by borders, the civilizations never venture beyond their vast allowances - never knowing what is outside their sphere.

But, within these sphere is a world unto themselves covering every facet of life. Each civilization is pooled from a select and strict genre. In the fantasy genre - goblins, ghosts, wizards, etc. live in one place altogether. The city-genre encompasses earth-like life with Mafia, an criminal underworld, business owners, cops, taxi cab drivers, families, etc. And we go on and on.

Each civilization based on their drama will piece by piece, slowly become aware that they are not alone on that flo

 

I agree with what you said, although I would like to add something. It is a request on my part, as a hopeful player, that when making this game those creating it MAKE SURE that the Flag Master, AND the main CO-GMS are known to be on often, preferably once a day. And that when they volounteer or are chosen have already made sure they have time for it. I have seen TOO MANY potentially good games, and those that I enjoyed playing ruined because the gm didn't plan ahead for their available time. The same thing can derail a game if done by a player, but it is nearly guarunteed to do so if it is the GM that does so.

I'm npt pointing fingers, just pointing it out as a warning.

 

Yeah, I think it would be best to do the poll now...but that is only if I_H approves. When I originally suggested the poll, I had intended for things like actual movies and TV shows as the poll options, but, now that I think about it, I think the genres as poll options would be best.

Well, I agree it is annoying and frustrating, but there is nothing we can do about some of the things that come up in real life. Real life is of greater importance than this RPG and these boards. So, while I agree it would be best to get a more active GM, we can't get angry if something comes up.

If a GM would need to back out, then hopefully said GM would let everyone know and bow out with a replacement ready.

 

I don't mean emergencies or things that come up without notice, but I mean things they knew about well in advance and didn't take into account and vanished for days and weeks without saying anything. Or not giveing the players a notice of it.

 

Yeah, nothing kills a game faster than a GM who updates once a month or something.

 

I agree it's a valid concern, but disagree that it would be a problem with this game. At least in the long run.

I only hope this doesn't sound like tooting my own horn. I'm just thinking that with the Flag-master, his time is dependent on how much time he can devote to reading and that big section I mentioned about communication. Where perhaps something comes up with time, said flag-master could still do his job. Maybe take on that second -flag-master to balance things out. Basically, I see the flag-master as the being the gamemaster, just to repeat myself. I see him as being the administrator of the game, in a sense. Dealing out information, appointing people to make those decisions in the Co-Gms and generally being the driving force behind the management team.

The Co-Gms, if real-life becomes an issue will have the Sub-Gms to hold down the fort. In the event the Co-Gm decides he just can't do it anymore, dealing it out to the sub-gm would be expected.

In a nustshell, I think the system itself will be self-sustaining. While each person is integral to his job, it's not to say it's all on one person's shoulders.

EDIT: I mentioned before how I'd like to see the Flagship be the paragon of RPF standards and by it's position and scope, seek to uplift and encourage the RPF as a whole, but also boost the NSWRPF. The things I mentioned were those Cardinal Rules. If you don't remember, that's ok. It was a long post.

To the point, not only could the Flagship game be a place to encourage a growing standard in RPF gaming and RPing by the players, but would be a nice training ground for our GMs as well. I'd suspect the Co-Gms to have a good handle on their world, even if not experienced GMs. Their sub-Gms, though, could be groomed so to speak as future GMs.

If any of that makes sense.

 

I think the idea is good. Though there is still a long way to go here. Not only does the worlds need to be nailed down, but the GMs need to be secured (no small feat), the external scope fixed (how many threads), and the internal story-lines established. What has been done here, such as the GM structure and general idea of the game, seems well-thought.

I think is worth bringing up that you don't want to make this game too big at first. You risk collapse a la Ultimate Fantasy. I would like to see the game start in a single thread with maybe two co-GMs and a flagmaster. Then, should the game do well, and everyone can see the need for more living space, we can move to more threads and even more civilizations. Maybe three threads at start could work, if each is as developed as a stand-alone game. It would be as if three GMs ran each of their own games and were just cooperating together. That would be something that would need to be decided here in Resource. It probably depends alot on the GMs too.

If Kalio and whoever so feels the need, this discussion has my blessing to move out of these drydocks and into its own personal thread in Resource. There you can start doing the real nitty gritty of picking GMs and worlds, as well as hammering out a first post and all the rest.

I look forward to seeing the final result of these discussions.

-I_H

 

Yeah, that's a good idea, I_H. I can see how a game that is too big at first would have a pretty big failure percentage.

I will allow Kalio to start the thread outside this thread since, so far, he is the brains behind this.

EDIT: Hey I_H, perhaps you could get this discussion, well, this entire thread into the Around the Boards thread in Comm this week. It may bring in a couple of people, or at least it will spread the word about your plans. Just a suggestion though.

 

You will always get people who "just want to RP" - they don't care about the RPR or learning to RP better or any of that stuff. It happens everywhere and there's really not much that can be done about it ... I mean, it's a "can lead a horse to water, can't make it drink" sorta deal. IMO, anyway.


Kalio, I agree completely with what you're saying, but GMs disappearing is still a problem. That's how it worked in IBOP (LSA as head GM, a bunch of people as sub-GMs), but he wouldn't take over for a sub-GM until it was clear that they'd gone AWOL. Which is fair, I think, because the sub-GMs ran things with a lot of autonomy, but by then some of the players waiting on that sub-GM would have disappeared as well - hardly the death of the game, but you know what I mean.. it's still not good. Having a GM team certainly has more failsafes than a single GM, but it's not perfect and GM availability is still important.

 

If you use the words "us" and "them", I think the answer is therefore "yes".

We clique. No real surprise there. Similar styles, similar tastes, similar interests, shared games, shared experiences, familiarity, skills, whatever works.

 

Once again, great points. I've got say I'm slightly taken aback that this has so much interest and that people are liking this. I see it as a group effort - completely.

I'm am exhausted at present from a 14 hour work day - work split wide open Wednesday. It all comes to a screeching halt tomorrow night as things return to normal. My mind is foggy so I'd make little sense, that is if I'm making any now.

I will post tomorrow. In the meantime, thanks for your interest and , Nemesis, that was an awful nice thing to say. Blushed and everything. "Brains" Ha!

If that is alright with people, sure, I'll start the new thread. I'll start working on a "Workshop Thread" tomorrow.

 

I feel this should be mentioned in the public sooner, rather than later, lest all our hard work fall to naught as it's replaced by a similar game whose main advantage over ours was that it was public sooner: A group of us, including Reynar, Saint, Peng, Elu, myself, Hammer, and a few others, have begun work and discussions on a similar game concept over at Elu's and spacey's RPing boards. Far be it from me to assume the authority to invite any of you, but if you'd like to join the group and contribute to a game which really should have as much of the RPFs' good ideas thrown into it as possible, I'd like to invite you to get a hold of Darth_Elu, the unofficial head of the project (and host of the board) to join us.

 

Or you guys could save them all the trouble of registering to an entirely different forum and talk about it over here. The game is taking place on TFN, I don't see the point of the discussions taking place elsewhere. It is, after all, being called a "community" game.

 

This is a good point. I say that a lot, but it's true.

It's not perfect and unforeseen occurrences are going to get in there. Real life is a pain. On top of that, I think what we should do invite Co-GMs who are checking in every day at least. Issues with leaving are big, we would have to be alert and ready.

That's brief. I know. I'll be back tonight with the thread. I'll type it up once I get home from work.

Sephy, do you think they would mind visitors? And is that idea a game already standing or a discussion of what would work?

As said, TONIGHT!

 

Word?

 

Yeah... the key is basically communication. So long as people know what's going on and who's MIA for a while, the system should work out fine.


As for the offsite, it's just discussion about what would work at the moment. Personally I'd rather we talk about it here actually.. we can just copypaste what we've got so far over and see what the community thinks, but I'm fine either way. So long as we get a good flagship game up, it doesn't really matter how.

 

No problem.

Ahh! Proboards!?

Yeah, I am kind of in agreeance with Reynar though. I think it would be best if the discussion for this game would occur here. That way, people who don't know about that website can also contribute. Also, it's hard remembering other passwords for other boards.

 

Heh, Nem, it took me so long to realize it was an I and not an E in your username.

 

Wow...it's taken you long enough! And how many times have we talked on IM?

 

Well, no, I realized it before now! But it did take a few months way back in '04 before I clued in... I made many posts tagging 'darth_nemesis.'

 

The Discussion Thread