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

The Poll

Well, I've been pushing for a poll for at least a few days now. My only remaining suggestion would be to add a 'I don't plan to participate in the NSWRP Flagship anyway'.

And I would actually agree with Mitthy's statement that the flagship should probably not start with separate threads. I don't know if any single RP has ever done a multi-thread start before, and besides, we can always split it later.

 

As for why Hammer's not approved it, as I understand he's in the midst of finals. I imagine he'll get back to it as quick as he can.

 

Of course we'd start in one thread. It's just we're planning to build up to the scope of a multi-thread game.

 

Honestly you shouldnt be at the planning stage yet until you've heard from the community on what they want. Because what they could want could be the exact opposite of all that you have planned for already and so you ended up wasting your time for nothing.

 

Hey alls...

So yah, I've just finished finals week, and this weekend I am busy w/ Easter Festivities...

Right now all I have time for is holding down the fort keeping order...

However, come Sunday night, I'll be back here.

We'll talk polls, and I'll get the awards up...

So hang tight til then.

-I_H

 

Sounds good.

And since my time travel idea is getting some negative response, I'm going with the alternative universe/Nexus idea.

 

I think the response to the time travel idea may have been a bit harsh - it's a great idea, and if done well, could work out awesome. I actually kinda resent the general opposition to time travel - some people went as far as to say it never works out and always sucks. That's just not true. If you feel that way, go read Slaughterhouse Five. Anyways, I like the time travel idea, but I think it's too risky to implement it in the Flagship. It'd be highly innovative, and if things didn't turn went wrong, the time travel could completely undermine our efforts.


And I understand Mitthy's point that the community is important. Hell, community is practically the point of this whole project. That's why I've been pushing for a poll since the early stages of this project. However, I don't think we should suspend discussion until we get a poll up, and when the poll does go up, I don't think we should necessarily take the community's word as law. Their perspective is important, but it's not the defining factor; in fact, I wouldn't necessarily say it's even the most important factor. It'd help to know how they feel, but I don't see it being a game-breaking factor for us.

 

Agreed, Ham. I'd go so far as to say I don't think we really need to get the community's opinion on every minute decision either. If we start asking the community on everything, where can we surprise them? If we let them select our initial worlds from a list we provide, we maintain control over the game. If we maintain control, we can keep it moving in the right direction (which, ideally, would coincide with the fun direction for the game). We give away too much off the bat, we don't have much to offer in reserve.

Also, it feels odd to make a post without posting about how much better Multi-worlds would be than single-world, so "MULTI-WORLDS IS BETTER THAN SINGLE WORLD!"

 

I wouldn't necessarily say it's even the most important factor. It'd help to know how they feel, but I don't see it being a game-breaking factor for us.

Actually it is the most important factor. They will be the ones playing the game. If they don't like the genres and franchises you chose, then they wont play the game. The players will be the core of this game. The designers have to revolve around them and their preferences, not the designers preferences. If this was just some random game that was being designed in the GDG then it wouldn't matter what the players thought. The game would either be a hit or a flop depending on the interests of the players looking at it. But this is the flagship game that is suppose to draw in and accommodate as many players as possible without pushing them away. You cannot accomplish that if you leave the development of this game in the hands of a select few.

I'm not saying that a poll should be made for every decision or option made. I am just saying that a poll needs to be made to get the opinions of the players first before you start designing the game. You may find out that they don't want or are not interested in a multi-verse. Then what are you going to do with all this stuff you came up with for a multi-verse? It just sits there collecting dust.

It's like writing a persuasive essay. You have to do research on the topic you are writing about before you can convince the audience to be persuaded to your point of view. In this case you will want to convince the audience to play your game and the best way to persuade them is by appealing to their desires, their interests, their emotions and self-importance and hyping up the idea. Get them excited. Make them feel a part of the discussion even if they do not directly participate in the discussion. You can still keep parts of the game a secret to make it worthwhile when it is finally released.

We give away too much off the bat, we don't have much to offer in reserve.

As long as this is being discussed in public, anyone who is interested in this game will know what to expect by reading this thread. So really keeping secrecy is a moot argument here.

 

Well, I think community input matters more on some issues than others. I think it's critical that we pick a genre (or genres) that people are interested in. I don't think it matters so much for the single vs multi debate - so far, our debate has mainly focused on the issue in terms of game mechanics, and IMO, it's the engineers who are responsible for the mechanics. Though maybe it would also be good to set up a poll regarding this issue. I don't know, I imagine the options would be something like this:

It doesn't matter, I'm not interested either way
I'm strongly in favor of single - if it's multi, count me out
I'm in favor of single - I'd be far less interested in multi
I'm slightly in favor of single, but it's no big deal either way
I'd be fine with either
I'm slightly in favor of multi, but it's no big deal either way
I'm in favor of multi - I'd be far less interested in single
I'm strongly in favor of multi - if it's single, count me out

 

Hmmm...Im going to say something...just for the sake of saying it..


You guys ARE SO STRESSING out over the multi-world vs one world senarios and such..and working about MAKING a flag ship....

When Bop and IBoP came into being..i dont think that LSA was really TRYING to make a FLAGSHIP...

He simply was making a game that he thought would be enjoyable to many people, and he had his own ideas on the subject.

Then again, when he TRIED to make a Flagship RPG, it failed..

Maybe you should focus on the actual game, and no so much on what how you build the sucker. If it is a GOOD game, and folks are interested, it will become a Flagship worthy game.

You can sit there, and argue what worlds senarios work best, till ya all turn green, but if nobody gets off their collictive butts and actually put forth a game idea, talk is only that...talk.

Just work on trying to make a GOOD game..and if it is, well..like the folks say...


If you build it..they WILL come!


**goes back to plotting...**

 

Thats how it usually happens with Flagships anyway. They start out as regular games that become quite popular then branch out into Flagship games.


How about this instead. Lets take a look at games that are popular and make one of them into a flagship RPG?

 

Well, I've put my idea out there already.

The NSWRP is different from the SWRP forum. Everybody on the JC's already familiar with Star Wars; however, there is no unifying franchise over on the NSWRP forum. We can't just say 'everybody go play X-Men, it's the flagship', because not everybody's into X-Men. And presumably those of us that are are already involved in the X-Men RP.

 

Look ... I can't speak for all of us, obviously, but what I would like to do here is help make the kind of game I would absolutely love to play. Maybe it'll take off and immediately become the Next Big Thing, maybe it won't, obviously I hope it will, but whatever happens it'll be fun. And when a game is fun, people play it, and eventually it can grow into a flagship.

Really not that complicated.

 

QFT

 

Exactly. I like what both Ktala and DarthXan have said.

It seems as though we have been focusing too much on making it the Flagship, making sure that this will be the big game for the NSWRPF. For exampl: 1) we had initially started out with an idea for several threads. Thankfully we have all agreed one thread is good for starters. 2) We even have decided to call the GM the flagmaster, with the intention of several other sub/co-gms. Why not just focus on one GM and a co/sub-gm?

But, to sort of reiterate what has just been said, we need to focus more on just creating a game, not The Flagship. Concentrate on making the game fun, and then the flagship will be born out of that.

 

Well, I was kinda against the whole 'fun' idea.

But we could always do a poll on the matter.

 

I agree w/ Ktala and Xan on the focus-on-the-game idea. Its important to know what you're designing before you're designing it.

Now on this though, I thought this was decided, no? This group seems to be interested in creating a game where multiple genre of role playing can interact with each other under a single plot.

Is this what you guys want to do? Do you think this will make a fun game?

I don't think it has to be the multi-world formula at all for it to be a flagship. A very popular single genre can be a flagship too. As a matter of fact, back when I started in '04, I remembered that there was a very strong Harry Potter RPG that I at least thought was right up there at flagship status for non-Star Wars games.

I think there are plenty of franchises that can pull people. HP, Disney, Matrix, Western (Blazing Saddles, Lone Ranger) , Adventure (Indiana Jones), Spies (James Bond), Classical/Rome (Greek Mythology), Pirates (PotC) and more. I'd say that (generally) any best-selling/cult-classic movie has enough fans out there for there to be a familiar audience for it.

After you have your idea set, you can move on to plot and beyond....

I would suggest something like this (roughly) as a guide to get this project out of drydock.

1.) Game Idea (Is it Fun? Would you play it? This can be general)
2.) Game Specifics (Storyline and Plot)
3.) Game Mechanics (How to transform this plot into a viable, workable RPG)
4.) Game Technicals (Rules, Character Sheets, HTML)
5.) Game Marketing (Building up the momentum to secure a player base)

My 2 cents!

-I_H

 

IH makes an excellent point about using existing franchises...

And you know, glancing over at the regular RPG discussion thread, it strikes me that a very viable, very straightforward and very attractive option (to myself, anyway) is to simply make the flagship game a Kingdom Hearts game.

Immediately we have the solution to that multi-genre problem that people were stressing over. We can use other worlds besides Disney. A James Bond world. An Indiana Jones world. A Harry Potter world. Or just worlds based on specific genres- steampunk, western, sci-fi, etc.

Players travel around in their gummi ships between worlds. The Heartless/Nobodies/Organisation XIII provide convenient antagonists for the GM to use in a overall storyline.

And before anybody claims non-KH fans will be left out, let me say this: not only are the concepts of KH extremely easy to grasp, learning about it would be no different from having to learn about a world of our own creation.

 

I don't know to much about kindom hearts and i wouldn't want to have to to pla in the flagship, the same foes for HP.

 

The problem with that, though, is that building existing franchises into KH for some reason seems to bother every KH fan that isn't me. I had established in my mind an elaborate little set-up for a KH game when one was being discussed a while back that involved drawing Keybladers (as one of my villains called them) being drawn from a number of existing franchises, such as a Halo Elite with a Plasma Keyblade and a Jedi with a Keyblade Lightsaber, and a large contingent of purists shot that idea down almost as soon as I'd posted it.

As for using existing franchises, I don't know if we could easily sell people on a bunch of franchises interacting with each other, KH-style or any other way. For one, it'd seem kinda like a rehash of Exiles, but with possibly more or less freedom. Two, if we limit it to only certain established franchises, we'll have people whining about wanting to play characters from other franchises (which reminds me, we'd also need to establish rules about existing characters). I don't see a really good way to do a crossover that doesn't create more problems than it solves.

 

It's interesting that Hammer mentions Harry Potter, because I really think that if the right GM managed to get his hands on the Harry Potter RP, we'd actually do all right. As it is, though, the Harry Potter RPs have a very rough history, even though on at least one occasion a quality GM has stepped forward and offered to helm it. I'm a strong advocate for opening up the possibility of a second Harry Potter RP, if the GM first obtains mod approval.

But that's beside the point. Moving back to the discussion at hand: I'm not well-acquainted with Kingdom Hearts. Can somebody outline what we would be taking from it?

 

Where's Elu gone?

 

Poor Harry's been and gone so many times... always popular, never long lasting.

Well since the end of the books anyway.. I love me some Harry.


OT: I have been following this, slighty... but I'll wait til I have something coherent to suggest before I do.