Why was my proposed game unpopular?

[zlefin]

I tried to make a pbp arena style game on here, and got not a single reply;
I'd like to know why; is it just arena's not being that popular? Was it the rules I used? Sometimes about the way I spoke that made people disinterested? Did I screw up the formatting? Something else?

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=331556

Thank you in advance for help. Then I'll use that to figure out what to try running instead.

[Falcon X]

I'd say a couple reasons:

1. You didn't really ask any questions. You just posted your idea and hoped people would think it was awesome enough to generate it's own questions. Which is pretty rare.

2. Most people in the 3.X forum just aren't into discussions on completely new ideas that will likely not be applicable to their own games or feel like they are helping you in some way.

In short, people here aren't much into giving other people a pat on the back. They also aren't going to adopt your game as their own because they already have established styles.

People here want to help people, if you want to talk about new styles, go to the Homebrew Forum.

EDIT: Just noticed that your post was looking for players. The heart of the matter there is that not many people are on the forums looking for other people to play with.

[Crake]

I think your proposed style is just pure number crunching who can come out ontop style. You can get a much better experience of this by just playing almost any video game out there.

People use play by post as a last resort from what I've gathered, and thus a play by post game needs to offer something that video games cant, which is usually unscripted interactivity between players and the world.

And before you say that people play arena style games at tables, thats because playing at a table offers a social experience as well, something a play by post cannot offer.

[Captnq]

Well, ya know, I've been working on something and maybe it would interest you.

HERE (www.uploadmb.com/dw.php?id=1393222403) is a rough draft of something I've been working on. Basically a Strategy/Tactics guide to D&D for noob DMs, but I'm thinking of expanding it. It's in alpha release. I'm still trying to figure out a standard format.

Basically what are standard formations, what sort of tactics do you use with certain types of units, that sort of thing. Real number crunching type stuff. If your interested, take a look at the file and PM me any comments or suggestions.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Play by post can be trickier, as a player, than regular. If you want to atfract players you have to offer up a solid premise and an exciting world. Yours.seemed a bit bland, so it was.not attractive to the average player.

[HammeredWharf]

I don't think there's anything wrong with your campaign idea. It sounds like a decent set of rules for an arena game, but maybe you should spice it up a little? Right now, it sounds like the most basic D&D adventure ever. For example, you could have a real story about a tournament, with some dialogue and possible back-stabbing between matches. You could have various objective-based fights, like capture the flag without lethal damage.

[Averis Vol]

Quite honestly it seems like your game was who can roll dice the best, and with exception of single play type, most people don't want to do that (as it's mostly used in theorycrafting).

if you want to Arena though, you can do it, and well. Go ahead and give this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=244374) a read through. The DM threw them into a pit fight, but also kept a story behind it, giving people something to look forward too besides eventually dying when the dice screw them over.

EDIT: also, a thing to note about PbP is that it is much more of a narrativist playstyle than a gamist one. So in the PbP forum, you are going to get less people who just want to roll dice, and more who want to collaboratively tell a story (dont mistake that for people not wanting to try out strong builds).

[weckar]

In addition to what has been said above, I don't think level 1 characters will give very interesting matches... Most fights will be over in one or two rolls.

[Segev]

Speaking from my own experience, the real problem with any combat-focused game (and an arena game definitely would be) is that play-by-post is inherently slow. And it is slower the more back-and-forth is required. Combat requires the most granular back-and-forth of any activity in RPGs, because of all the "I do this with these numbers" to be countered by "I do this in response with these numbers" followed by "okay, my results are..." "...that hit/missed..." "...and damage..." etc.


It's easily a dozen posts per individual character's turn in a single round.

You'd probably be better off if you had the arena match-ups arranged in PbP role-play, but made sure to have scheduled times in a chat client (IRC works well, in my experience) to run the actual combats more real-time.

Better still if you can use voice for OOC chatter (including mechanical exchange of information like what rules you're invoking and what your numbers are and roll results are) while using the chat service to just post the "RP" parts of it (the descriptions, the prose version of "what is happening on screen" so to speak).

[Red Fel]

Looking at it, I'd say my biggest problem is how cold and academic your pitch is. A good game proposal is like a good sales pitch - it has to grab the audience, make them want it.

There should be several parts to a very solid game proposal:
1. Flavor about the setting
2. Why the players should want to play (this ties in to flavor)
3. Mechanics involved, rules, etc.

You skip past the first two almost entirely and dive into the mechanical aspects. Now, that's not inherently bad; a "Test of Spite" doesn't have to be all that flavorful (although the classic one actually has a fair bit of flavor). However, flavor is what will bring more players to the table; players seeking purely mechanical games have probably already found theirs.

Further, you have observed that it will be combat-focused. Now, as with ToS, that's not outcome-determinative - there are some good arena-styled games on PbP. But announcing right out of the gate that:


All challenges will be primarily combat challenges, though some may feature traps supporting the foes.
Some setups will be basic open arenas, some will feature more complicated terrain and/or structures.

The implication is not only that it will be combat-focused, but combat-exclusive. Even ToS had RP in it.

Which brings us back to the ToS comparison. ToS set a stage. There was actually a point to the elaborate and lethal challenge structure. Players had the opportunity (and to an extent, were encouraged) to RP, and this was made reasonably clear in the original post.

Your proposal lacks flavor, or really anything other than rules; it emphasizes combat almost to the exclusion of other considerations. Finally, as an aside, ToS is an established brand; yours is not.

Bottom line: Put some flavor in your pitch and some RP in your combat rules. Then you might see some results.