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Post by mormonyoyoman on Sept 23, 2016 10:41:58 GMT -5
Should we make a special place just for you Chet!??! Sounds like a threat. All seriousness aside, it seemed as if someone needed to lighten the mood around here.
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Post by Admin Pete on Sept 23, 2016 11:50:24 GMT -5
Should we make a special place just for you Chet!??! Sounds like a threat. All seriousness aside, it seemed as if someone needed to lighten the mood around here. I like your instincts! Have an Exalt!
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Post by robertsconley on Sept 23, 2016 11:51:06 GMT -5
Actually why not just make a sub forum title the RPG Campaign? Have it focus all all the ways a RPG campaign can be developed and managed and not just sandboxes. That way the inbetween cases that are still related to RPG Campaigns can be on-topic.
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Post by tetramorph on Sept 23, 2016 12:32:07 GMT -5
There is a folder: campaign workshop.
Also: refereeing a campaign and
Research for campaigns and settings.
They are all way down at the bottom.
Maybe they should come up top.
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Post by Crimhthan The Great on Sept 24, 2016 7:15:17 GMT -5
There is a folder: campaign workshop. Also: refereeing a campaign and Research for campaigns and settings. They are all way down at the bottom. Maybe they should come up top. Perhaps a bit of reorganization of the board. The main forum below is Campaigns & Settings Resources, so how about dividing that into two forums - one for creating campaigns and one for running campaigns with appropriate division of the existing subforums between them. Your three groups above could be split between the two, as in advice for all three about creating in the one forum and advice about running the game in the other forum. For example: Creating Worlds, Settings, and Campaigns (as the main forum heading) * Advice for the MIY Designer creating All Original Material directly from the Primary Sources * Advice for the DIY Designer creating Significant Original Material from Primary Sources and Using Published Resources *Advice for the Time-Strapped DIY Designer Weaving Together Mostly Published Resources and then the other Running Game Worlds, Settings and Campaigns * Advice for the MIY Designer On Running the Game * Advice for the DIY Designer On Running the Game *Advice for the Time-Strapped DIY Designer On Running the Game
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Post by robkuntz on Sept 24, 2016 7:38:25 GMT -5
There is a folder: campaign workshop. Also: refereeing a campaign and Research for campaigns and settings. They are all way down at the bottom. Maybe they should come up top. Perhaps a bit of reorganization of the board. The main forum below is Campaigns & Settings Resources, so how about dividing that into two forums - one for creating campaigns and one for running campaigns with appropriate division of the existing subforums between them. Your three groups above could be split between the two, as in advice for all three about creating in the one forum and advice about running the game in the other forum. For example: Creating Worlds, Settings, and Campaigns (as the main forum heading) * Advice for the MIY Designer creating All Original Material directly from the Primary Sources * Advice for the DIY Designer creating Significant Original Material from Primary Sources and Using Published Resources *Advice for the Time-Strapped DIY Designer Weaving Together Mostly Published Resources and then the other Running Game Worlds, Settings and Campaigns * Advice for the MIY Designer On Running the Game * Advice for the DIY Designer On Running the Game *Advice for the Time-Strapped DIY Designer On Running the Game This appears well organized and distinctive to me. <=== my vote...
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Post by bestialwarlust on Sept 24, 2016 8:51:19 GMT -5
There is a folder: campaign workshop. Also: refereeing a campaign and Research for campaigns and settings. They are all way down at the bottom. Maybe they should come up top. Perhaps a bit of reorganization of the board. The main forum below is Campaigns & Settings Resources, so how about dividing that into two forums - one for creating campaigns and one for running campaigns with appropriate division of the existing subforums between them. Your three groups above could be split between the two, as in advice for all three about creating in the one forum and advice about running the game in the other forum. For example: Creating Worlds, Settings, and Campaigns (as the main forum heading) * Advice for the MIY Designer creating All Original Material directly from the Primary Sources * Advice for the DIY Designer creating Significant Original Material from Primary Sources and Using Published Resources *Advice for the Time-Strapped DIY Designer Weaving Together Mostly Published Resources and then the other Running Game Worlds, Settings and Campaigns * Advice for the MIY Designer On Running the Game * Advice for the DIY Designer On Running the Game *Advice for the Time-Strapped DIY Designer On Running the Game this sounds like a good idea.
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Post by Admin Pete on Sept 24, 2016 12:38:18 GMT -5
If there are any other suggestions, please feel free to make them. I will get started on some reorganization as well. My monthly game is tonight, so this may take a few days to complete.
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Post by The Archivist on Sept 24, 2016 13:03:42 GMT -5
I am in favor of the above suggestions!
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Post by Admin Pete on Sept 24, 2016 13:12:25 GMT -5
Alright I have done the initial part of the reorganization. I have not yet opened the new forums up to posting yet (as I said I have a game tonight). So go ahead and look at what I have done so far and give me feed back. I am going to be referencing this thread in some posts that I will be adding to the beginning of each forum in a sticky. I propose that in these forums we have threads designated for suggestions and advice, separate threads for dicussion and so on, so as to avoid derailing the topics and to make it easier to find information and advice. So I will be placing a "Please Read Before Posting" statement in these forums. Feel free to make suggestions about what that post should contain. I want to allow debate without clouding the advice and suggestions.
I will likely be working on this for most of the coming week and your input is both welcome and needed. I also anticipate that some existing threads may need to be moved. If you have suggestions about that or changes to the existing sub-forums, please let me know. As an example I think the sub-forum titled "Campaign Workshop" can likely have its threads relocated, as that purpose has been filled by the "Rules/Campaigns Projects (Both Joint & Singular)" Category since the Space: 1977 project began.
Thank you all!!
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Post by tetramorph on Sept 24, 2016 15:56:46 GMT -5
As we are not exactly a forum exploding with regular posters, I would suggest that less is more.
3 or 4 main folders should do the trick.
Remember, the forum is about conversation, not information aggregating. I would suggest names based upon the nature of the conversation, not the kind of information it may or may not generate.
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Post by Admin Pete on Sept 24, 2016 20:52:07 GMT -5
As we are not exactly a forum exploding with regular posters, I would suggest that less is more. 3 or 4 main folders should do the trick. Remember, the forum is about conversation, not information aggregating. I would suggest names based upon the nature of the conversation, not the kind of information it may or may not generate. Thank you for bringing that up tetramorph , because that is what convinced me to go ahead with the whole hog. When we started back in mid January 2015 we averaged between 21-24 posts per day through the first 6 months and then we dropped down to about 17 posts per day by nine months. For the first full year we were averaging just a little over 15 posts per day. We are currently averaging about 14.5 posts per day since the forum opened. I understand the summer lull, but June, July and August were really low and this month is only a little better. Over those three months and this month the only threads with over 20 posts are: 50 posts - Adventurer-Explorer by captaincrumbcake 35 posts - Worlds (Campaigns) without Dungeons by captaincrumbcake 21 posts - idea: a shared "mini-module" project by tetramorph 70 posts - Help with making a Sandbox by bestialwarlust Since the four most popular threads all concern design and I am wanting to hopefully provide a place to talk about what people want to talk about, I went ahead with construction of such a space. I thought I would go ahead and use the "if you build it they will come" principle since that is the way this place started to begin with. I want both conversation and usefull information as I am hoping to build something that others will want to continue long after I am gone. That may be a pipe dream, but it is mine. If a few months shows this needs to be pared back or tweaked it will not be the first time. I know you have taken your project to your blog; however, I would love to have it hear in the Project forum. And had I not been mostly out of things for about two weeks I would have been highlighting it on my blog. Many people on here do a lot of creative things and I have a goal of calling attention to the good stuff that any member of this forum is doing. Since I am only one person, I need help doing that and if anyone is doing something, please feel free to let me know about it. I have a number of backlogged blog posts I hope to get to this coming week or two. We have 22 posters with 100 or more posts and we have 46 of 160 members who have not logged in since 2015. Several very active and interesting posters have stopped posting or post infrequently. I have no way of knowing the reasons for this other than the few who have let me know about their busy schedules. I just want to make sure that for those are not posting, it is not because I am not providing a space for what they are interested in. I realize this is a niche of a niche, but I also believe that we are far from maxing out our membership and far from maxing out the things that can be done here. I hope that posting will pickup, not just for the sake of activity, but because we are meeting a community need.
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Post by tetramorph on Sept 25, 2016 18:10:51 GMT -5
Wow, Admin Pete, that is some good and impressive info! I am sorry my post sounded rude. I really just mean that less is more and fora are better for conversation while things like wikis are better for information gathering and display. My points were supposed to be more philosophical.
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Post by Admin Pete on Sept 26, 2016 7:20:55 GMT -5
No problem, tetramorph! Attention everyone, the new forums below are now open. If there is any one of them that you cannot access please let me know. Thank you!
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Post by hengest on Oct 23, 2019 21:59:30 GMT -5
Good advice. I agree as creating as much "noise" as possible allows you too see what things interest the group the most. Which makes it easier to craft future rumors and adventure hooks that will get your players really into the game. Right. It creates a synergistic tidal wave of information sources and application avenues for them. How have you guys presented rumors? Had a set that you have them hear at "random," like six rolled up from a list of twenty, with false leads, wrong infor, distorted info, etc?
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Post by ripx187 on Oct 26, 2019 14:22:49 GMT -5
My games are linear than most as far as the design goes around here, for rumors I generally just stick with 6-8 well-written ones that help advance the story, but a few of them could lead to news from far away which is a different table and just help create the illusion of a living world. For the most part, rumors lead to activities which can make things easier (or even possible) to deal with the major threat. Some NPCs are designed to have info that nobody else has, this is usually in my notes as well and isn't random at all.
There is also research available at larger cities with resources, this can be really good stuff. I break that up into 4 different qualities, with accuracy based on a percentile roll. This generally tells the player lots of hints and legends in regards to the sandbox itself, but it is time-consuming, very expensive, and can only be done once.
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Post by hengest on Oct 26, 2019 15:05:51 GMT -5
There is also research available at larger cities with resources, this can be really good stuff. I break that up into 4 different qualities, with accuracy based on a percentile roll. This generally tells the player lots of hints and legends in regards to the sandbox itself, but it is time-consuming, very expensive, and can only be done once. I really like this idea. I wonder whether anyone on here has a "timeline" a little ways ahead of things that happen without the PCs input so that they will encounter things or not based on what they're doing? i.e. if they're doing overland scouting on a given range of days, they might see a caravan, but if they come through after the end of the window, then they hear about it or see evidence of it.
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Post by ripx187 on Oct 26, 2019 16:10:18 GMT -5
I like to experiment a lot, one of my games was a village game where the players and the villain had 8 moves. This was a big day for the bad guy who was cleaning up loose ends and going to significantly increase their power. There were some strange rules, you couldn't leave town, well, you could but it cost 3 moves.
I had predetermined where the villain was, it was a witch who was going to restore an ancient coven turning her from a quiet but tough threat into a visible powerhouse taking control of the entire area. If the players chose a spot where she happened to be, they encountered her doing her dirty deeds. Everybody in town had a little piece of the pie, each turn lead to a clue, folks were dying and each turn got more and more intense.
Prior to beginning, I made sure that everybody understood the rules, we went over everything that the characters already knew and the importance of getting the most out of each turn. It was a lot of fun! The players carefully debated about where they should go, why, and what they can gain from doing it. There was a lot of strategy involved, I remember that they foiled one of the bad guys plans right away and forced her to make a move that she didn't want to, and her murders or spells cast were distracting them from their goal.
The players didn't win the scenario but had a great time.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Mar 30, 2021 10:43:17 GMT -5
A lot of good info in this thread and it is about a year and half old, so a good time to bump it back up for some fresh input.
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Post by hengest on Mar 30, 2021 17:27:26 GMT -5
My point is that the internet has changed radically how niche hobbies develop over time. It doesn't matter if the larger hobby resorts to pre-canned products. The people who prize doing it yourself can find and share information. Moreso with the internet they can be found by random people who may wind up finding that this style of play appeals to them. Which will at the very least sustain the niche. Second, I don't accept the idea that just because it something published that it is plug and play. You are about to publish a book, by your logic anybody following its prescriptions will be engaged in Plug and Play behavior. And to be clear I am being sarcastic, I get the intent of your book and support where you are going with it. You are using the medium of writing to communication your experience and what you found through research. I am being defensive about the OSR because I know a good deal many of the people who publish and why they publish. And their goal is show other hobbyists the possibilities. Most OSR products are written in the expectation that it will mashed, twisted, torn apart, and combined with with other things including original work by the campaign's referee. Kitbashing is expected to be the norm among OSR publishers not the exception. And people very interested become better designers hence the appeal of your book to many. Your characterization of the OSR as prizing Plug and Play as you put it is not accurate. It certainly not true of what I published as i took great care in formatting them to make it easy for people to tear section out of them and ignore the rest. I make sure I explain the most important design principles in the book itself. And use my blog for the rest. I publish primarily because it allow me to present my stuff in a better format than the wall of text and jpegs that is my blog and my older web site. I can pay for art and people obtain it readily in print form. The fact I turn a small profit is just icing on the cake. And I am not unique in doing this. Finally I hope you realize I respect the work you done and looking forward to read what you do in the future even though I may not agree with everything you say. Well The idea of adventures are to be played as is. That's why companies make them and very few gamers use them otherwise. From most of my inquiries of people who play these they are played as is. This started with AD&D. If the OSR was really about DIY it would concentrate on what we were doing BITD, making it yourself, MIY. One only needs the rules, a fertile imagination and some primary source material for that (encyclopedias, etc.). The thrust of the OSR, according to one of its stalwarts is all about "Product" Note. There is no distinction made as to what kind and degree of product. But the proof is in the pudding as they say. Just like with post AD&D the product is more often pre-made adventures. If the OSR had any depth whatsoever it would be sending the past message of DIY with an appropriate line of PRIMARY products that wholly represented that expansive concept. There would be more in-print coverage on design, design philosophy and the possible future of Arneson's far-ranging concept. There is none. Zero. It is not happening, and has not happened as far as I can note. The same disposable model is in place from TSR's day, and for all the talk about diversity and tinkering the product lists remain the same and people line up for more of the same, just as they do with WotC and Paizo (as these two also embrace TSR's disposable model). Now let's get back to the Sandbox topic. I'm finished with the sub text here and I maintain that (currently) the OSR is not advancing the concept, it is circling it as TSR did and as suggested above. Good luck with your trajectories, always! RJK I'm sure RJK knows more both about the business end and the creative end than I do, but I will dare to add a little something here. I think there is not only the desire to sell (evidence by proliferation of rulebooks and so on), or at least to have your product out there 'circulating' (a little different), but also (on the ref's or potential ref's end) an inability to trust one's own imagination. I feel this myself and I don't think it's purely a personal wart. Most people think they can't draw, can't write, can't imagine much. I would guess this has to do with cultural and technological shifts that have happened since the OD&D era. In the 70s there were only a few channels, distribution of films was less even across the US (and other) landscape. In the 80s home video and cable television exploded and TSR D&D was changing in this period as well. Even through the 90s, 2nd ed AD&D as well as "D&D" were both published and supported (I think the "basic set" was in print through '94, right?). There was more room to breathe. With 3E in the early 200s we start to move into the time of Netflix and consumption of video entertainment (including fantasy) at a rate that I am sure was unimaginable even ten or fifteen years before, let alone 25 years before. People also work longer hours and are more shrunk inside themselves. A lot of people who are adults or even middle-aged adults now never really got to know their own minds. So, this post isn't intended as any kind of diatribe, and I imagine this has been said more accurately and better. But what I mean is that the long, slow shift from MIY to "pre-planned adventure" and "rule bloat" makes sense given how things have changed in the past ~50 years. So... a sandbox can be threatening to the ref whose entire life in fantasy has been rather pre-packaged, and for whom childhood games of imagination are wispy memories at best. Maybe this isn't worth posting, I don't know. But apart from the (obviously good) advice on here already, I think it makes sense to address why people can feel so frozen that they don't trust themselves in a sandbox.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Mar 31, 2021 3:42:53 GMT -5
hengest, I am (IIRC) within a year or so of being the same age as RJK and like he I am a voracious reader and there is a lot of overlap in the things we have read and a lot of overlap with Arneson and Gygax as well. I lack the wargaming that they all had in common. I started with nothing but the 3 LBBs in the box, so I started with DIY and MIY as the only option and I've never done anything different. I said all of that to say that I think you make an excellent point. Although the shift from MIY to pre-packaged happened extremely fast for the bulk of the market. But I started with MIY and have never felt the need or desire to change. The Born in the 50s, raised in the 60s and 18 in 1974 provided me foundational reading that even then only a few people had.
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Post by hengest on Oct 13, 2021 13:40:06 GMT -5
The world noise works at all levels of party integration with the world, but seems to take upon its own expanding form at name level where, in extended campaigns, the PCs give individual orders about their backgrounded intentions, this while still interfacing, as it might occur, in the party for adventuring purposes. It becomes interesting in this latter regard when the PCs themselves, and often unbeknownst to them, then get entered as part of the current batch of rumors! This happened many times to PCs, either individually or collectively, in the Kalibruhn and Greyhawk campaigns. Nice post, and good thread overall here, worth a bump. Of course, this applies more to an ongoing campaign, not one that is perpetually getting started (ahem, mine). BUT the point can be taken and used anyway...one could run a one-shot online, or on Zoom, or as a PbP, OR a solo adventure (like Morose has posted about in the last couple months), and feed the results into the rumor mill of confusion, fear, and hope. Kudos also to tetramorph for some very practical advice in post #2 above. The one thing that makes me think I could run a PbP is the possibility of setting up possibilities without having to flesh them out at all until the players go there. I know some refs can do that at the table, but I don't have the experience to imagine it's going to work.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Oct 13, 2021 14:08:41 GMT -5
The world noise works at all levels of party integration with the world, but seems to take upon its own expanding form at name level where, in extended campaigns, the PCs give individual orders about their backgrounded intentions, this while still interfacing, as it might occur, in the party for adventuring purposes. It becomes interesting in this latter regard when the PCs themselves, and often unbeknownst to them, then get entered as part of the current batch of rumors! This happened many times to PCs, either individually or collectively, in the Kalibruhn and Greyhawk campaigns. Nice post, and good thread overall here, worth a bump. Of course, this applies more to an ongoing campaign, not one that is perpetually getting started (ahem, mine). BUT the point can be taken and used anyway...one could run a one-shot online, or on Zoom, or as a PbP, OR a solo adventure (like Morose has posted about in the last couple months), and feed the results into the rumor mill of confusion, fear, and hope. Kudos also to tetramorph for some very practical advice in post #2 above. The one thing that makes me think I could run a PbP is the possibility of setting up possibilities without having to flesh them out at all until the players go there. I know some refs can do that at the table, but I don't have the experience to imagine it's going to work. I have never fleshed anything out before the game play starts. I really wish we could play together face to face for a week, so you can see what that looks like. Way more often than not, I create the possibilities on the fly with nothing setup ahead of time. Sometimes I start with some ideas, but those usually get changed, twisted or discarded and replaced as I start talking.
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Post by hengest on Oct 15, 2021 15:51:20 GMT -5
Yes, I also wish that could happen...
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Post by Morose on Jan 31, 2022 15:19:35 GMT -5
Yes, I also wish that could happen... We all wish that could happen.
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Post by hengest on Jan 31, 2022 15:34:12 GMT -5
Yes, I also wish that could happen... We all wish that could happen. Hey, at least we have a new play-by-post going. Join us if you like in the Sunflower forum!
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