Forum RPG

[TheLastDays]

Hello everyone!

This is merely a "should I do this?"-thread at the moment...

I have been thinking about it for a while now. I have succsefully played and hosted numerous Forum RPGs on other sites, predominanty on german speaking boards, and I have always enjoyed these kinda games and so I thought about hosting one here at the .org

It would be my first FRPG in english but there's always a first time, right?

An FRPG is basically a story that the players create together, sometimes with pretty strong involvement from a GM, sometimes almost anything is made op "on the go", by what the players do. These games tend to have less rules, or let's say, less strict rules, than i.e. a Mafia-Game and focus more on the RP element than the actual "I want to win this"-motivation.

I know a game like this would of course go on for much longer than the usual games in the gameroom, although it wouldn't tie up that many players... you can't really play these with too many players anyway...

I've seen whole message boards that actually were dealing with, for example, console games, being held up only by a thriving FRPG community, now that's certainly not needed here as the forum is doing well but it never hurts having a new fun game going, does it?

So my questions are
1) Is there interest in this kind of game? That's what the poll is for.
2) To the mods: Please tell me if that's not really what you'd like to see around here and I'll understand

Also, of course I wouldn't want to start anything like that during the Gameroom Anniversary time, it would take some time to develop anyway.

So just tell me what you think!

[B-Wing]

I'm pretty sure I'd be all in for this, but I'd like to know more about the idea you are proposing. When I think of RPG's, I tend to think of Dungeons & Dragons. Are you talking about something like that?

[TheLastDays]

Well, thanks for posting, so I can go into a little more detail without a double post...

Do you mean D&D rulewise or storywise?

About rules:
I've seen different approaches to FRPG rules, there have been games without any rules other than you can't kill another's character without his consent. These RPGs focus solely on the writing and developing of the story. They usually generate some situations where people start fighting over different approaches to a resolve but they can work out if you are willing to talk about some compromises.
Then there's FRPGs where basically you have a ruleset like D&D with random rolls, a lot of stats and such. These seem to focus more on the actual "playing" rather than writing.
My approach is somewhere in the middle I'd say. As much as an FRPG is about the story, you're gonna face fights and combat situations sooner or later in a story like this, so you have to deal with it somehow. At the moment I'm not set to how I want to do it and it is a bit dependant on the others who participate.

Some possibilities that have, imo, worked well in the past:

1) Fights are written "turn-based". While usually you can post whenever and there is no posting order in an RPG like this, as soon as a fight begins, all involved character post their moves in a set order, beginning with what makes sense story-wise (if one character jumps out behind a tree to ambush another, of course that would be the character to post first). Every involved character reacts to the other's moves and tries to do his own moves. After, let's say 3 moves the GM decides who has "fought" better and declares the winner who can then post a last post in where he triumphs. Wether he can actually seriously hurt or even kill the other char depends on what has been defined earlier, usually he can't. Sometimes this works with the GM deciding, sometimes it works out with the involved combatants agreeing on who wins the fight. The downside of this is, that the GM can't really insert his own character in the game as he has to remain as unbiased as possible.

2) There's some sort of rule-set, usually rather basic like a simple roll on who wins a fight. When the winner is determined both would still "play out" the fight storywise, just the winner is already fixed. Sometimes the roll can be biased, if both agree that one character should have the advantage in the fight or sometimes there is a rock-scissor-papers system in play with, i.e. elementary alignments or something like it.

3) Sometimes the two are combined. After 2-3 "turns" they would either agree on who has the upper hand or the GM decides that and then follows a biased roll in favor of that character. This way it's story oriented but still holds a random element.

In any way "powergaming" is frowned upon in such games... and even if your character is an axe-wielding giant with armor like a german Panzer he can still be beaten by a young boy with a stick... this is an extreme example of course but some of the best posts and situations arise when this happens and the combatants have to find a way to work it into the story. After all this is about the story, not about "pwning" other players.

There's not many rules on anything else but combat, it's rather a sensible approach to what makes sense, whats in-character for a certain character and such. Usually most characters have their own hidden, or non-hidden, goals in the course of such a game and will try to influence people to go their way or sometimes groups break apart for a time. Basically anything that makes sense can be done as you are not bound to a "game engine". I'm not a fan of the heavily rule-oriented FRPGs with rulesets like D&D.


As for the story aspect of the game, the setting is completely open to imagination. I've played FRPGs in "classical" fantasy settings, steampunk, cyberpunk, modern, sci-fi, mixed genres... anything, it's all up to the creativity of the GM and the players.
At the moment I have a few ideas that are floating in my head, storywise, but I'd like to see how much interest the idea in itself can get before I indulge myself in creating them to more depth...

So the way it would usually work is that the GM creates a world and backstory and then people create their own characters within what makes sense in the story-world (meaning that in a realistic RPG set in modern times you wouldn't create a mage). Then everyone would start playing, posting their entry into the story, find each other over time and start to work towards the (sometimes very subtle) goal of the game. Usually in these games there's a thread for the actual RPG and the OOC thread, sometimes also a characters and backgrounds thread... it all depends on how elaborate the world and backstory is. The OOC thread is usually needed to discuss things that have to be discussed between all players. Most story-relevant discussion between a small group of players or a player and the GM would happen in PMs...

So I hope your question is answered, if there's any more, just ask!

[Diamondeye]

This sounds sort of like CFC's Never-ending stories (http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=69), of which I am an avid fan and player. So yes, I'm interested.

Especially if it's D&D. I really want to try that "for real" instead of NWN or DDO.

[shlin28]

I would definitely take part - how structured they are is your choice, though like DE I wouldn't mind trying D&D rules!

My summer however is kinda hectic - won't be free till August. :(

[TheLastDays]

Well, I don't think I'm going to go the D&D route, that's just too much rules for my taste...
So from the poll it seems there is at least enough interest to start working on it and none of the mods have said anything against it yet.

So... is there a way to get rif of the poll and open another one in the same thread? I would like to briefly describe some story ideas and see which are the most popular...

EDIT: And don't worry about not being available until August. As stated in the OP this won't start erlier anyway

[Visor]

August? Should have time. I'll try it.

[TheLastDays]

Alright, I've talked to the mods and I'll probably start it a little earlier than I thought, giving people time to sign up.
I'll still need a little time to prepare and plan it though, but expect a sign up thread withing two weeks or so.

I'll go with a certain story idea I have and will not do the poll thing for that for now. If really no one likes the backstory I might change it to another :wink:

So look out for this :yes:

[B-Wing]

Awesome, glad to hear it! :D I look forward to this, though I still have no idea what exactly I'm getting into. I've never done a pen-and-paper style RPG before, only played computer games based on them, so I'm pretty excited.

[Double A]

Let's play DnD. I've always wanted to learn.

Cent, get a shovel, let's go dig up CDf.

[TheLastDays]

Signup thread poste here (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?136201-Lassara-Shards-of-Neril-OOC-and-Signup-Thread);)