RPR Archive The Think-Tank: NSWRPF Flagship Planning and Discussion Thread

I think Elu and Kailo should have a cage fight to determine the flagmaster.

It's a good idea, Prenn, but that wouldn't be fair to Kalio.

I suppose it goes without saying: I'm interested as the Flag-Master

And, Kalio, I must disagree on one small thing on your agenda. We should focus on the mechanics before the Co-GMs. That is my opinion. Get what is important worked on first.

I think the co-GMs should have a greater say in the mechanics of the game they're to be running - so we should pick them first. (Incidentally, I believe the "RPF Poll" is when we'll be picking worlds, and once we do that we need the GMs for them.)


Anyway... for what it's worth, (and nothing against Elu, here) I think Kalio would be great as a head GM.

I can understand that, I was talking more Central Mechanics than Specific Genre/World/Whatever Mechanics however.

*shrugs*

We are, Elu. Last time I was in school #4 came before #6. But I could be wrong there. j/k.


#7 I placed there as a "Finalize". I imagine after we get the ball rolling and the mechanics nailed down, as well as the genres most wanted by the RPF, it would be necessary at some point to change those preconcieved ideas. Say, we've worked on the planets and it comes up during the individual game creation that the idea before wouldn't work. Whatever idea it is, we change can change it there when actually put into practice. We finalize it.

Ah, I see that now. *face palm*

Sorry, I've had a loooong bad day and I'm quite tired, so I'm not at optimal levels at the moment.

No problems. I'm nodding here as well. Have a great night, all.

Sorry for the double-post, but it's been nearly 12 hours since the last post.

Just a reminder as to what we are talking about today. We want to set up the list of Think-Tankers and also look at who wants to be the Flag-master. Darth_Elu and myself have both put our names out there.

Something we've already worked out is the GM Structure, the duties of the GMs and the structure of the game. So, what we're looking at right now is heading this up by following the guidelines we created. As a reminder, here's the GM structure and what the Flag-Master would need to do. Remember that we're following a Flag-master, Co-Gms, Sub-Gms structure.


1.A. Co-Gm/Sub-GMs

The Co-GMs would be in charge of the development of a given civilization and thereby, that thread. Let's use the Earth-City. Mafia, crime-world, petty theft, cafe workers, cops, fashion, business moguls, actors, etc. What ever the ideas that could float out of that "world" or isolated civilization 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 maneuver 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 similar powers with the exception of maneuvering 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 opposing factions become evident in the game. We can expect the generic good guys/bad guys. A Co-Gm may not have ability to play both sides well. A sub-GM could help him out.

Structure, at least, is never a bad thing. It shouldn't be all willy-nilly.

1.B. GM Structure

Nemisis makes a good point and a truly valid claim. How could it be managed? I mean, surely, we're talking about a huge community based game.

Utilizing the structure I laid out above (Flagship Gamemaster, Co-Gm, Sub-Gm) would be key in keeping this managed. Each individual civilization will have their own in-game problems and arcs inherent to that genre. These are the responsibility of the Co-Gm and his/her Sub-Gm for the civilization. I'd imagine that difference in GMing style and opinions would affect a due amount of variety. In the Gamemasters Guild for example, it's been postulated that there are a number of to GM-variants - either as a character, utilizing NPCs, as a main PC, etc. It depends on the Co-Gm.

However, I would encourage a resolution that the Flagship Gamemaster(s) not be active players in the game. Only because I expect them to have quite a workload. Hence the management. But, I digress.

The Co-Gm/sub-GM manage the thread under their jurisdiction, whatever they happen to be.

Ahead of them are the Flagship Gamemaster(s) - herein referred to as Flag-master. I am a great advocate of constant, honest and confidential discussion amongst the GM-Squad. It would be the Flag-master's responsibility to keep in contact with all his/her Co-Gms and their sub-gms. Perhaps more so with the Co-Gms than the subs.

This contact will be from every aspect of the game experience, so I would expect the Flag-master(s) to be dedicated readers of the entire Flagship RPG.

1.B - Subsection :Flagship Gamemaster's Duties

---Communication. That's first and foremost. From settling g

Wow, this is going to be a lot for the GMs to handle. This is just a suggestion and some people, mainly Elu, may agree but it may be best if there is an offsite for the GMs all to discuss and post ideas and such, privately away from the members. Whether you use the Dreamwrights, or create a board solely for this new game, I think that'd be a great idea, and allow all the GM's to be in sync with each other.

I am going to go ahead and announce...I DO NOT want to be flagmaster.

I wouldn't trust myself as Flag-master, though I'd happily Wing-master one of the subsidiary threads (ideally my own, if the voice of the RPF permits it into the game...)

That's right, just as I went ahead and started trying to get "magick" accepted as the term du jour in the Dreamwrights discussions, I'm proposing Wing-master as the title for Thread GMs. It goes with the territory, and is a minor enough contribution that I don't feel too bad about posting it in class

My name does not have an underscore!

Anyways, I would probably consider being a Co-Gm or something along those lines. Although I would say I am better at designing games rather than actually running them.

I DO NOT want to be flagmaster. Although I might be up for a sub-gm slot though. I just don't thin k I'm ready for the load of the flagmaster or the CO-GMs(who in this game will kind of be like a full gm in many ways)

I actually prefer the one really big world idea.

Whomever takes the votes on Flag Master should not be someone who is running for the position. Just thought I'd put that out there basically. And I would add more to duties and so on and so-forth. But Kalio has stated it all already. It's all common sense really.

Edit: My opinion, the one big world is a tough way to go about it. If they're all together, why are some civilizations so far backward than the others? Doesn't make much sense to me.

I'm more than willing to be the vote-counter and arbiter for the Flagmaster vote.

I'm not interested in the position, anyway.

If people are uncomfortable with me or someone else doing it, we can always ask IMP.

Guys, it may be better to avoid doing the whole "pick a leader" until the point wherein you actually have a functioning idea, because you'll want someone who's invested in it. For now, let Elu or Kalio push the discussion around and see if you can get something that doesn't suck.

I personally am absolutely not running for Flagmaster. I can't imagine doing Wingmaster either, but I would be interested in a Submaster position (and yes, I'm now calling it that). Though we're nowhere near that point yet. And I haven't RPed extensively with either of our two current candidates (though I'm still waiting to see who else is interested), so maybe it'd be good if the both of you (and anybody else who's interested) post their RP credentials. Y'know, which RPs you've GMed, maybe with links to the threads if possible.

But I think Light has a point - it still feels too early to me for us to be picking a definitive leader. Especially when we've no idea regarding the form our RP will take.

Here's what I think we should do. We let Kalio and Elu take charge of the discussion, and we nail out what exactly this game is going to be. Then, we decide on a Flagmaster...THEN we decide on sub-masters or wing masters or Not-So-Masterful Masters.

That works too, actually.

Sounds good to me.

Alrighty then lets get started

I don't know how much we need direct leadership right now, and I don't think we should limit things to the two candidates out there. It hasn't been a day since we started looking for leaders, so there still might be some people out there who are interested. That said, Elu and Kalio have been providing great leadership thus far, so I think we should continue to look to them for guidance. That said, let's take a look at our agenda:

1. List of Think-Tankers
2. Interested Parties for Flag-Master
3. Appoint Flag-master
4. Worlds vs. One World & Nexus vs. Time Travel
5. RPF Poll conducted
6. Appoint Co-Gms
7. Finalize game mechanics/rules/first posts
8. Late Items

Bold items are currently being discussed. The sky blue indicates we've already covered it, red signifies a top issue at the moment. I colored item 3 green because that one's kinda up in the air right now, we might just decide to postpone it. And I colored four and five purple because I'd like to start discussing these soon.

Of course, there's also some gaps in our current agenda; though we've got finalization and late work listed, there's no time for detail work, no time for defining our worlds. And I think that should be inserted, but I feel like a lot of that should take place in the eventual three separate threads we create for that purpose. And I'd like to get those threads started as soon as we work out the basic ideas behind the Nexus, because once we figure that out, we can devote this thread more fully to general mechanics and Nexus detail while simultaneously working on our three subworlds in other threads. By splitting early, we can increase the amount of discussion and ensure that each of the three worlds and the Nexus gets fully fleshed-out.

So I would suggest our new agenda focus now on finishing up our Flagmaster discussion, then moving on to establishing the basic guidelines of our RP (one world, three worlds, or timeshifting) and then (depending on what the basics of our RP turn out to be) getting that poll set up. From there we determine the basic outlines of our four worlds (counting the Nexus) and then make the three sub-threads in the Resource. So:


Proposed Agenda
1. List of Think-Tankers
2. Interested Parties for Flag-Master
3. Update agenda
4. Worlds vs. One World & Nexus vs. Time Travel
5. RPF Poll conducted
6. Set up sub-threads and work out all the details (at one point determining who all the GMs are)
7. Finalize game mechanics/rules/first posts
8. Late Items

Ham, do you work for the DoHS?


Ok so Worlds Vs. One World


IMHO the one world idea, while it has it's merits, is seriously lacking game play values and would be all around too hard to work with. Especially in the fact that you must explain the varying level of technology, inhabbitant creatures, and who wants to have a game where world wide weapons from another location will effect your location when you had no power to stop their use.

So, Worlds is my vote.

Haha, what makes you ask?

And I'm actually starting to favor the one-world solution. If we did that, we wouldn't be able to include Modern settings, Fantasy settings, and 'Dark' settings - as you just pointed out, there really isn't any sensical way to blend all three on a single world. What we'd have to do is something more along the lines of what LightWarden was discussing: a more organic approach, where we blend some genres, but only blend genres that makes sense, genres that have enough similarities to be feasible. It would be something like the Gothic/Steampunk/postapocalyptic/Western world I described, or the Caribbean/Fantasy/Steampunk world LightWarden suggested (which was only an example, but sounds awesome). If we did something like that, we might not have as broad an appeal, but we'd also get a more organic, more open world. It'd also be more detailed, because we'd have more focus on one world, and everybody'd be in (essentially) one place, so we'd be able to have more factions within that world.

The problem with splitting into three worlds is that essentially, we're turning our flagship into three RPs that are only separate, only barely connected by some tenuous mystery Nexus. And if we don't get enough support to sustain our three RPs, this whole thing will collapse. The one-world approach is safer and more sensical.

Worlds doesn't necessary mean three distinct RPs that happen to share a mystery Nexus. The whole beauty of having multiple worlds is that you can shift between worlds easily - and yet if you want you can just play in your own world. There's also a lot more scope for expansion - new worlds can be 'discovered' any time, new areas in each world can be discovered.

The impression I get of the Worlds idea is: there are many (say infinite in theory, but in practice only 3-4 to start) worlds that have 'developed' in sort of parallel. One world's got magic and evolved into our fantasy world, one world tore itself apart and is our apocalyptic/steampunk/dark/etc world, one world uses modern-day technology and so on ... and the Nexus is just another world, but a world that at some point managed to forge gates/links to other worlds. Not some mysterious construct in the middle of a space-time rift or something.

It's also a clear separation between worlds. To me it just feels like ... if it's one world, why would there be different levels of civilization? Unless we go with the Unknown Alien Race Divided The World idea, it'd end up being just like Earth with different types of countries... and I dunno, that just sounds boring.

Hmmm. As an aside, in that scenario, sub-GMs would more become factional leaders rather than masters of entire worlds.

For a one-world scenario (which I'm not personally in favour of, but which does have some appeal) it does mean you'd need to create a single world in some detail to sustain all those factions.

Just a random comment...