Timewaster's Guide Archive
Alternate Realities => What's this? => Topic started by: Entsuropi on May 16, 2003, 05:46:09 PM
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This is probably not about AORP but eh.
I followed the link when i read the AORP post, and i see you are intending to put a game on here, for the reason i noted a few days ago.
One thing is for sure... people are posting A LOT more than before the game. It's insane - we usually only have a burst like this after someone arrives, but only then from that 1 person - now we have it from everyone. If you bring your players across... damn. I'm having trouble following you and Jeffe - with another bunch of players, the forum will be... big.
So anyway, are you intending to do this? I would be interested to see if it results in a drop of posts to the oher game, or whether people are happy to post to both. If there is no problem, it makes the forum perfect for RPG game playtests, with lots of RPGers already posting.
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I don't think it will result in problems with the other game. If it happens.
For one thing, there isn't a lot of cross over. Fell (and nominally 42, maybe) and I are the only ones in both games currently. And Fell and I are each running one of the games.
But I think there should be some sort of rule established about the number of games you can be in. I can't see people involved in more than two games able to dedicate enough attention to them both.
But if TWG got as big as predicted, and we built up an even bigger review data base, we'd be a mega-cool, mega-popular web portal. And you knew Fell when! Aren't you cool and indy and ahead of the Joneses!
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It sounds great... SE was originally envisioning something like this for AORP itself I think.. sadly I think for the foreseeable future, the AORP dream may not happen if SE moves the game to TWG. But perhaps it can still happen through TWG.
I don't know about limiting to only two games, but I do think if TWG ever became a recognizable hotspot for Play-by-Post RPGs, it would be good to regular games this grows happens TWG ought to figure out SOME way that players can "guarantee" they will post frequently.
There are few things more frustrating than when players have promised to post frequently and then forget all about your game.
I've always thought it would be cool to have a consolidated spot for PbP gaming though.
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I've already alluded to this in another thread, and I don't want to start getting anyone's hopes up prematurely, but in the relatively near future the Play-by-Post games should get a lot easier to run on TWG. I'm thinking of designing a forum built specifically for that purpose.
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Yeah, Tage, I have a lot of thoughts for add ins for something like that. Let me know if you want feedback.
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Same here. I've actually set to work three times to develop something like this, but always get sidetracked -- and lose interest because I'd have to develop it alone.
I'm really quite experienced with PHP, so if you'd be developing it in that, I'd be interested in helping out, if you needed it.
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I will be developing it in PHP, and once I get a framework set up I'd be glad to let you help out. Especially the "posts since you were last here" function. ;)
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I was also going to suggest moderated posts. IE, if you want to go with my first idea, where you get xp per post, then you have available a choice (only as the moderator of the forum) to assign each post a value between 0-10 or soemthing. the total xp is available in a separate place and is forum specific (so the same player could be in two different games on the same site). I'd also make it possible to hide the xp award for each post from everyone but the moderator. That would be a useful feature for me.
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I will be developing it in PHP, and once I get a framework set up I'd be glad to let you help out. Especially the "posts since you were last here" function. ;)
Sure, though I suspect I could contribute a bit more than just that. Thats a pretty simple thing to code.
I'll briefly throw out one of my own ideas for a PbPRPG forum:
One thing that I think would be important for a forum like that is Character Profiles. In other words, members sign up with ONE member ID, and then can have up to X character profiles, with independent stats, bios, pictures, signatures, inventories, and so forth. Also, it'd be cool if Character Profiles could have Alter Egos, for the purposes of Disguises, Secret Identities, etc. Alter Egos have different pictures, names, sigs, etc, but share the same stats, inventories, and backgroud info since they are technically the same person.
You could do this using an SQL table for Members, one for profiles (with an ParentMember ID column), and AlterEgos (with a ParentProfile ID column).
Member 1
|-- Character Profile 1
| |-- Alter Ego 1
| |-- Alter Ego 2
|-- Character Profile 2
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Ya we've talked about that in a old topic. here (http://www.timewastersguide.com/boards/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=rpgs;action=display;num=1047411569) if you want to see the discusion. It would be cool if Tage codes it.
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That was actually the first feature that came to mind for a PbP Forum, Brian. Additionally, there will be game and non-game threads. Only game threads will allow you to post "in character." Also, when you create a "player" profile, you submit it to a game thread, and the GM for that game approves whether or not you can post to that game. You can only post in character for profiles that have been approved for certain games.
The biggest issue Fell and I have discussed is how to handle character sheets. Personally, I think the best thing would be to just store everything in a giant MySQL Text field, allowing for absolute flexibility. The downside, of course, is that we wouldn't be able to code in any mechanics involving any character information.
I wasn't really planning on coding up many mechanics anyway, just to keep it as open as possible. What are your thoughts on the matter?
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when you say mechanics do you mean the chracter creation process?
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Mechanics can include that, yes.
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I like the idea of leaving the forum as mechanic-less as possible, because it will allow for a wider variety of games. If we code in all the rules for D&D 3e, how could we play a game using Palladium or CODA or Pinnacle? It will be much easier if the forum just carries information, and the GM has to deal with the mechanics (such as dice rolls and attributes and whatnot) on his own.
Even so, I'd love it if we could have some actual character sheets. It would be cool to do them as forms, so the player could fill in each field with attributes and skills and background info and stuff, and then save them in a standard character sheet layout. The fields and stats wouldn't "mean" anything to the program, but at least the resulting character sheet would look better. We could make a bunch of templates for the major game systems, and then when a GM starts a game he can choose which character sheet to use. This would require a lot of work to create and code--maybe that's something Brian could help with?
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I agree with Fell, but to make a different form and mechanics for each games, someone needs to code a different one for each game. And that's a pain. But if your willing to do it you'll get no compliants here.
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I said no mechanics, just the form for the character sheet. It would still be a pain, but not as big of a pain.
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Making forms for character sheets would still be very limiting, IMO. And writing up the forms for each type of sheet is annoying. Still, if Brian is willing to do that, I'm sure it's possible.
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We could still keep the blank field, since I think it's a good idea. That way there's a sheet available for those who want one, and an open field for those who prefer more options (or are running a weird game we don't have a sheet for).
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The fields and stats wouldn't "mean" anything to the program, but at least the resulting character sheet would look better. We could make a bunch of templates for the major game systems, and then when a GM starts a game he can choose which character sheet to use. This would require a lot of work to create and code--maybe that's something Brian could help with?
Yeah, I think this is the best way to handle it. Here's how I would probably do it: I'd create one complete MySQL table for each character sheet type (i.e. one for D&D 3e, one for Palladium, etc). Each individual character sheet is stored on a single row in the table, with one column of the table relating back to the Primary ID in the Character Profile column (which would store the Bio, character portrait, and other non-system-specific info). One benefit of separating the Character Profile from the character sheet is that it is very easy to transfer a character from one system to another. From a technical standpoint, it separates dynamic data from static data, which isn't 100% necessary but is highly preferable in my mind.
Its a pain to create a separate table for each system, but I really think thats the way to go. I'll certainly do what I can, although I have almost no experience with any system other than D&D 3e.
Edit: Of course, if someone wanted to send me free books, I'd happily make the effort. ;)
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So here's a question: Within a character profile, what should the player be allowed to edit? If the player has access to everything, would we be worried about new feats popping up every now and then, or other such things?
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Let the player create his character and then submit it into an approval queue for the GM. If the character gets messed with again, it goes back into the queue so the GM knows he needs to look at it again. Or just lock it, so that the character can't edit it until the GM says (when levelling, for example).
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I agree with Fell but would add have everything but say equipment and such locked. Then just have that be a text field.
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In AORP, Saint Ehlers takes full responsibility for levelling characters and so forth. But he also offers the option to players who want to level their own characters.
I'd suggest letting the GM have full access to the sheets of any character in the game, and letting him lock or unlock the character sheets for their owners at will.
Though as Spriggan said, I'd leave the inventory up to the player. Inventory is going to change frequently anyway, and it would be a pain for the GM to have to update that all the time.
If you wanted to get really fancy, though, one thing that might be kind of cool is for players to have to specify where/when their char got a particular item. You could use a separate table just for inventory, which would have four columns: Owner Character ID, Item, Justification (Why the player has this item), and Equipped (Yes/No). Optionally you could also include item weight. Since inventory/equipment is pretty universal, I dont think it needs to be associated with a particular system at all. If this is unclear feel free to ask for clarification.
A text box for equipment would be just fine too, of course. But theres always the possibility that players might feel inclined to be sneaky and add inventory items. Then again, the GM is likely to remember that the player did not recently acquire a particular magic item.
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I'd be more worried about players screwing everything up if they have access to editing everything rather than power-cheating.
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Hard to keep up with Jeffe and Saints posts? Well we are the most prolific talkers in our groups so it figures that we're the most prolific writers too....
I dont like limits, but thats just me....
I personally wouldn't play in tons of games anyway but some people can do it....
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On the subject of Tage's PbP forum, I wanted to quickly comment on the format of Game templates for character sheets. (Er, that was kind of a funky run-on-ish sentence, but I'm too lazy to sort out what was wrong with it.)
I've been toying with a database design for the D&D 3rd Edition template, and I've realized that there's no acceptable way to fit all the necessary data in one table. We'll actually need multiple tables -- for instance, spells would all be in one table, feats in another table, skills in another, and so on, with one primary table holding the actual character data.
Thats probably going to be the case in all of the game systems that are prepared for the forum, depending on complexity (I suspect that a single table would be sufficient for TWERPS for instance). :)
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Why does it have to be that complex? We're not talking about a system that needs to interpret the data in any way, just show it. A few text fields would be fine.
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A valid question, but trust me -- anytime you have to show the same data in multiple records (such as when you have 6 characters with ranks in the same skill, for instance) its much easier to just enter the data once and store it in a separate table, than to re-enter it for every character. I understand how what I'm proposing could seem more complex, but really splitting the tables is a matter of convenience as well as efficiency.
It all comes down to something called database normalization, which is a standardized method of -- well, of making things more convenient and efficient.
I dont think having multiple tables will really make things more complicated -- it should actually make things much easier overall. I just needed to let Tage know that this would be the case, because he may need to take that into account in developing the character sheet interface.
Of course, this is still subject to Tage's personal preference. I'm just explaining how I would (greatly) prefer to develop the template.
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Also Brians way would make for more customablity later on if we wanted it. Like in displays and such.
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As it is, those're great ideas Brian, but right now I'm much more worried about starting on the BB than worrying about player sheets. I'm probably going to simply have the player sheet be a text field until the more important pieces are done.
Also, I've mostly convinced myself to use phpBB as a framework for it. It's got a mod for layered threads that could be very helpful, and I like the overall feel of it. I'm going to see if building off that will be faster than trying to write from scratch.
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My one and only complaint with phpBB is that it doesn't have a real template system, the way YaBB and YaBB SE do. This makes it significantly more time-consuming to change the colors, graphics, and layout of the board. But I understand why you chose it.
I've been wanting to actually build my own forum software from scratch, combining what I feel are the best elements of several different packages. The biggest obstacle is the fact that I hate doing the web design part of it.
But are you sure you don't want to just start from scratch? As I've mentioned before I'd be happy to help out where I can. I have a few of the fundamentals out of the way already, and would be happy to contribute them to the project.