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View Full Version : Homebrewing an online game for 20+ players.



Leewei
2010-05-14, 08:47 PM
Hi all,

A few of you may have participated in Concillium, my effort to make an online game for a larger number of players. I'm soliciting advice from people about this sort of thing. Is there interest? What are the challenges to running a game on this scale?

Why would anyone be crazy enough to try this sort of thing?

The last question, of course, is hypothetical. I know why I'm crazy enough. Set the Way-Back machine to many years ago, when I helped run a massive LARP at GenCon. It wasn't a vampire or werewolf game, as such (although we had a handful of each running about). It was a gaslamp whodunit involving the theft of H.G. Well's time machine from the Cairo museum.

The game was a blast. We counted over 300 player participants. I'm hoping to recapture this sort of experience online using forums such as this one (I'm also looking into Myth-Weavers). If anyone has suggestions for other online forums or tools, I'm all ears.

The last time around, my online game peaked at about 10 players. I had fun, and believe it was more or less a success. Even so, I ran into some issues on which I could use some advice.

1. Player recruitment. Some real life friends joined the game, however I had a real hard time recruiting online. Players were very wary of joining a game where they didn't know the rules. I'm working on a player's guide to help with this, but could also use tips regarding where to post and what's important to entice a player into a new experience.

2. Player participation. This seems to be an issue in common with other online RPGs. Some people joined the game and took turns irregularly or required reminders to submit their turns. I'm thinking RSS or something like it may be the way to go with this.

3. Controlling player communication. I honestly don't see a way past this one. If people choose to talk or exchange emails outside the game, I can't stop it. My real desire is to keep meta-game discussion down to a minimum so that people stay in character in their posts and emails.

4. I'm also looking for advice regarding format for online game rules.

Feel free to throw in your 2 cents regarding anything else I haven't covered. If anyone is looking to proofread a set of online rules, I can certainly post these as well.

Thanks!

Milskidasith
2010-05-14, 09:23 PM
Meta discussion is par for the course in online games. Regularity is not. Fixing these issues is nigh impossible.

Leewei
2010-05-14, 10:05 PM
Thanks for the feedback, Milskidasith.

Coercing the players into a regular schedule may well be impossible. I'm thinking of mitigating the regularity issue by game design as well as using technology. Allowing players to "queue up" future activities a bit will hopefully help address this item. Of course, the player will be missing the fun and won't be interacting with others, but they'll at least be somewhat involved with the game.

I should probably state the meta-gaming issue differently. What I'm looking for is something along the lines of a forum for each major world location where PCs can talk. PCs using a spell or traveling would post in the in-character forum for a given location as appropriate. I'd keep a master forum for PC activities as well. The downside to this is that anyone playing could then check into the activities of anyone else. Ideally, I reduce the visibility of PC actions to other players to avoid people using game knowledge inappropriately.

ThisOne
2010-05-14, 11:10 PM
Mythweavers' game system gives you a game forum you have full control of along with private tags to control information. It also integrates a lot of useful GM tools and provides a solid recruitment base. If you're looking for a lot of people you can advertise off-site (here) but MY doesn't allow advertising for off-site games (which wouldn't apply here of course)

Leewei
2010-05-15, 07:05 AM
Huh. Would you believe that I knew of those Private tags but hadn't thought of using them for turn submissions? Thanks!

Lysander
2010-05-15, 09:19 AM
How about getting rid of turn based combat? That will speed things up. Figure out a way to make combat simultaneous so players can submit their actions and you can apply them in any particular order.

Each real world day can be one round of in game combat. Anyone who posts an action that day has the result implemented at the start of the next round. Anyone who doesn't post within 24 hours just doesn't take an action.

For example if you "attack wolf" and succeed on your hit, the hitpoints won't be subtracted from the wolf's health until tomorrow morning. Even if the wolf would die from the blow, it's still free to make an action that turn if it hasn't already. Of course the wolf's action won't take effect until the start of the next turn either. Harmful conditions would also work the same way. If a spell is cast to make you sleep, you don't fall asleep until the start of the next round.

Defensive moves and healing spells also wouldn't take effect until the next round, but would apply at the same time as any attack. For example if your ally was hit for 30hp and would die at the start of the next round, and you cast a healing spell on them to restore 20hp, the two would take effect at the same time so your ally would only lose 10hp at the start of the next round.

Actions could be posted for everyone to see. So if you see your ally is attacking the wolf and doesn't need help, you can use your action for something else.

I think enemy npcs should work differently and either post their action before all the players or after all the players. It's better for the players if enemy npcs post before, that way players can respond. Perhaps the party can roll for initiative, and each enemy npc individually has to beat their score or be forced to take their action first.

Darakonis
2010-05-15, 10:00 AM
1. Player recruitment. Some real life friends joined the game, however I had a real hard time recruiting online. Players were very wary of joining a game where they didn't know the rules. I'm working on a player's guide to help with this, but could also use tips regarding where to post and what's important to entice a player into a new experience.

Make sure your recruitment post can draw people in. Take examples from real-life advertising. Start with a teaser, a quick read that will entice players to want to learn more. Don't start with an info dump--that will scare off players. Having links for "further reading" is a good idea, such as your player's guide.

Most PBP games die out fairly quickly, often because the DM flakes out. Post your credentials, if any. You don't just have to advertise your game, but yourself as well.


2. Player participation. This seems to be an issue in common with other online RPGs. Some people joined the game and took turns irregularly or required reminders to submit their turns. I'm thinking RSS or something like it may be the way to go with this.

Before any player even joins your game, establish the posting schedule you expect from your players, as well as your rule governing what happens if a player fails to meet the schedule.

e.g. Players who do not post within 24 hours of the DM will have their characters NPC'd by the DM as appropriate.

Further, you can add a rule about players being dropped if they cannot maintain a regular posting schedule.


3. Controlling player communication. I honestly don't see a way past this one. If people choose to talk or exchange emails outside the game, I can't stop it. My real desire is to keep meta-game discussion down to a minimum so that people stay in character in their posts and emails.

Hmm... If you want your players to stick around, you probably want them interacting with each other out of character. Include an OOC thread where the players can get to know each other, talk about the latest Iron Man movie, etc. It's fair to say that meta-game discussion isn't allowed in the OOC thread, but don't disallow any kind of game discussion. If they want to mention how they didn't expect event X to happen, or they thought villain Y was particularly deadly, allow them to. Coming up with plans, tactics, etc. should be done in-game.


4. I'm also looking for advice regarding format for online game rules.

Not much to add here other than have a good idea of what you will do with the characters of players who drop out. Within your first month or so, you may lose ~50% of your players through no fault of your around. Try to get players who seem committed, mature, and in it for the long-haul, and expect to nonetheless see a big player turnaround.



For a few years, I played in a PbP game that involved about a dozen players. Only a couple of those players saw it through to the end--many players came and went. The DM had a very loose posting schedule, updates only came once a week (so a single battle would take a couple months to resolve), and he was very much a softie when it came to players getting lazy and not posting.


Peace,
-Darakonis

Leewei
2010-05-15, 10:17 AM
Thanks, guys.

The credentials idea is a good one. The game won't involve tactical combat (weird, I know), so players won't hold each other up too badly on that account. Setting expectations and establishing a schedule are both good ideas. The expectations thing is hard to pull off on an online forum. Maybe I could do occasional chats for player Q&A and feedback.

The comments on player turnover are depressingly true. When that happened the last time around, I was wondering if I sucked as a DM. Feedback from remaining players was fairly positive, so I kept up the effort and eventually had a fairly stable player base. The biggest effort I had to put into the last game was maintaining the number of players at a point where people could interact with each other.

Building community is, I think, important to the game. Putting a forum in place for OOC discussion sounds reasonable. The game is team-based to an extent, so I'm looking to prevent one team from learning what others are up to via game posts, then using it in-character. The players should instead be sizing each other up and swapping intelligence (or fabrications) in-character.

Darakonis
2010-05-15, 11:01 AM
Building community is, I think, important to the game. Putting a forum in place for OOC discussion sounds reasonable. The game is team-based to an extent, so I'm looking to prevent one team from learning what others are up to via game posts, then using it in-character. The players should instead be sizing each other up and swapping intelligence (or fabrications) in-character.

No tactical combat? Team-based PvP challenges with mind-games and counterintelligence?

Heck, where do I sign up.

But seriously, if you start this up on Myth-Weavers (which I highly recommend for its advanced functionality, secret threads accessible only to players of your choice, etc.), I'd be interested in checking it out. Do you currently have any place where I can read more about your campaign/idea?

After years of PbP, I'm largely out of the scene. PbP combat bores me to death, and the campaign I enjoyed most was one based on the TV show The Mole, wherein I made secret alliances with players, played them against each other, and schemed to uncover information about the identity of the mole, all the while openly pretending to be a useless dullard (was a bard :P).

Peace,
-Darakonis

Leewei
2010-05-15, 11:12 AM
:smallbiggrin:

I'll be in touch, Darakonis.