New Role Play Game (Created from Scratch)

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I have plans to make a new Role Play game.
A play-by-post role-play game (in forum form).
What is a play-by-post role-playing game? 😎
Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play-by-po ... aying_game

I have seen a few people making role-play forums based on existing games.
For example, Harry Potter. Some are even advertised on Forum Promotion. 😉
However, these topics are too widely discussed. Everyone knows Harry Potter!

I want to create a new game, from scratch. Totally new idea.
A Sci-Fi based game along the lines of Halo, Star Wars, Star Trek, blah blah blah.
Except nothing like the above. Just wanted to give you a rough idea of the setting.
Which, in case you haven't figured...is space. Or planets other than Planet Earth. 😉

What would you guys think about this? It won't be easy.
And I would appreciate your support in brainstorming ideas.
I will be creating my own characters. Anyone good with graphics?
It will be a play-as-you-go sort of game. As there's no actual story.
The story will be created as we go along. Nothing like ever before. 😎

*continues to brainstorm* :idea: :idea: :idea:
 
Oh Quiver! I am so much into this!!

I handle twenty Harry Potter characters at a forum I RP on and I would love to switch genres and experiment! I am so much with you!!! 😀<br /><br />-- 03 Apr 2013, 10:56 --<br /><br />Oh Quiver! I am so much into this!!

I handle twenty Harry Potter characters at a forum I RP on and I would love to switch genres and experiment! I am so much with you!!! 😀
 
Lord Roco said:
Oh Quiver! I am so much into this!!

I handle twenty Harry Potter characters at a forum I RP on and I would love to switch genres and experiment! I am so much with you!!! 😀

-- 03 Apr 2013, 10:56 --

Oh Quiver! I am so much into this!!

I handle twenty Harry Potter characters at a forum I RP on and I would love to switch genres and experiment! I am so much with you!!! 😀
Click to expand...
That's good to know. Like I said, this will be like never before.
Considering I can make it work of course...would need help. 🙂
Creating the characters, etc. I'm quite good at making stories.
Anyway, I am set on the Sci-Fi niche as this appeals to me. 😎

Anyone else care to share an opinion on this? 😉
 
Yes! If you ever want Beta's, call me in 😛 I am appreciably fine at making new characters 😀 My character drawing boards are awesome! 😛
 
I've been around a few roleplays before (and even run my own roleplay site) so I have a bit of experience here.

I don't know how much experience you have with roleplays (either creating or joining) so what I'm going to post you might already know some/all of it. If you do know it, sorry for wasting your time. Otherwise I hope this helps.



There is a LOT to think about when starting a roleplay. (Probably a ton more than a general forum, bordering on a promotion forum level of things necessary.)
Before you begin, you need to figure out more about your setting and select a site name.

For setting, it's import to know where and when you want to set your roleplay. Since you've decided on a Sci-fi setting you need to figure out:
- Races (will there be aliens present? What will they look like? Do they have any special capabilities or limitations? EX- Can't breathe in oxygen rich environments. Can people play as these races? Also look at what level of tech they'd have and how their home planet would have affected them.)

- Technology levels (What kind of technology is available? Is is a far future setting where kinetic barriers/shields, faster than light space travel, multi-language communicators, nanomachines, androids and cybernetic implants are all commonplace? )

- Locations (Where will people be able to go? Will some places be restricted? If so, what places and why? What is the history of those places? This will help when you decide to create the forums for people to play in so you know which places are important and should have a whole section devoted to them.)

(You may also want to consider having a wiki alongside your site. A wiki can definitely help you organize and keep track of all the information you'll need. Especially for a Science Fiction site where you'll end up with tons of races, characters, technology, planets/locations, etc... Plus a wiki has a nice bonus feature if you allow users to post their characters there then you can track when changes are made to characters so if someone tries slipping in new powers/abilities that they shouldn't then you can tell when.)


Next you need to look at your forum rules and decide what to have...
Generally the fewer rules the better. But ones you'll need to make note of:

- Whether you use Account per Person (APP) where people get 1 account total and all characters are played with that account (easier to manage for staff, but players tend to hate APP since it doesn't let them have individual graphics for each character and they can't search for posts of one character as easily.) or Account per Character (APC) where each character gets their own account... which is harder to manage for admins, but players tend to like more.

- How many characters a player can have. Since you may want to make it so that people don't have 20-30 characters that only 1-2 of them are ever actually being used. (Especially if you employ face claims... and people want to make characters using those taken, but not actually in use, faces.)

- Whether you use face claims / Playbys... (Face claims are when players reserve a famous person's image, EX- David Beckham, to use as their character's image/avatar. Usually only one person/character is allowed to use that famous person's image on that site. You can go with variations, but they tend to create drama when two or so people all want to use the same face and start arguing over it...)

- Your stance on HTML in posts. (Because you will find that many roleplayers love using specialized html templates inside their posts to make them look pretty. Sometimes adding effects where you have to hover over the post to see any actual text. So you'll need to decide whether you allow them or not)

- What rating you allow. Since a lot of roleplayers tend to snub sites that are anything less than R (according to MPAA ratings) because they tend to want sex, sex and more sex. (Or at least the freedom to write that in as graphic detail as they want. Even though in truth they would need NC-17 to go a graphic as they often like to.)
As a note, if you allow R rated content don't be surprised to see people focused primarily on sex scenes because it will very likely happen. And unfortunately once this starts happening a lot, it can be hard to stop.

I don't know who you're using for a host... if you're self-hosted this may be less of a concern, but if you're using a free forum host then you have to keep things PG-13 otherwise your site could get reported/deleted.
If you are self-hosted, you very likely won't be able to put ads on any roleplay site simply because it's going to end up well into territory that ad companies won't like. ( Though roleplayers may very well get into pornographic levels of sex so even self-hosted ToS could be an issue. Definitely something to watch out for.)

Also, if you're going self-hosted with this, you'll need to carefully consider what software you use. Roleplayers tend to like SMF for it's sub-account mod... but SMF tends to be a pain to design skins for. MyBB on the other hand looks more like IPB based software (which roleplayers tend to like) but it's sub-account mod (titled Account Switcher) isn't as advanced. (Plus MyBB is a lot easier to skin.)
If you plan to use paid forum software... Avoid IPB. (I know I just stated that roleplayers tend to like the look of IPB... But they hate some of the latest IPBs features. If I recall right, IPB 3.x only allows one account per email address... Which make things more difficult for roleplayers who use the Account per Character style.)

I think that's enough from me for now. If you want to know more, I'd be happy to help.
 
Actually, do add a little more info on this, RPers love phpBB! 😀 And yeah, there is a BETA account switcher which seems to work on the current phpBB software. It works for me atleast. So fi you want to use phpBB, that might be a good idea 😀

Also, most RPers tend to dislike anything of character restrictions. So, it would be in members best interests, that you set a specific restriction on character creation, but let members unlimited characters (as much as they can handle)

I suggest you make your board PG 13 so that we could take in all levels of RPers 😀 As for the faceclaims, scratch them off! The bets thing is ti let members keep any faces as long as thats what they choose for. Faceclaims are old concepts that need to be scratched off 🙁

Offering a bit of things from my part: I can help you draft guides, rules and almost anything else that you need. Here is a site where I store most of my guides and other stuff related to RPing: http://theriddlediary.empirehostings.ne ... /index.php


There are more guides and sheets than you can see, but I have stashed those into admin only forums for privacy sake 😀 If you want to read them all, just PM me 😀
 
I'm sure there are more RP admins who use phpBB, but there just doesn't seem to be the same love for phpBB there is for SMF or MyBB. And phpBB isn't a terrible software. (If anything it's probably better than SMF, especially since the new account switcher mod is actually getting development where SMF's sub-account mod, last I heard at least, hasn't gotten any new development and it's a real effort to make sub-accounts work with certain versions of SMF. Some versions even require turning off error logging because the sub account mod throws so many exceptions it fills the error logs up.)

It's true that many RPers hate character restrictions, but at the same time as an admin you don't want to encourage people to make 50 characters and then do nothing with them. Since serial character makers tend not to drive plots forward very much. Or if they do push plots along, they tend not to for very long (since it won't be long before they're bored of current character and need to make a new shiny).
So in some cases it's best to have a more fluid policy of "As many as you can realistically keep up with" so that players who can keep 10 characters active can do that, but someone who has 8 characters and keeps letting 7 of them go for months without posts (only posting in them every so often just so they won't get deleted or whatever) from making the 9th character so they can pretty much abandon yet another character.


PG-13 is a good level for content (enough to explore darker issues without getting into constant sex and violence) plus most people are generally unaware of just how much room there is in PG-13... There are a lot of movies that are PG-13 and feature some pretty crazy things. (See a list of the top 200 grossing movies that are PG-13 and see how many you recognise...)
But like I mentioned, most roleplayers do want more than PG-13. They want to go into R rating with sex scenes. (Don't believe me? Have a look at a bunch of various RPG boards... see how many of them are Rated R or M. Most of them are.)
Also when it comes to ratings... Please be honest about them. PG-13/R is confusing (Is that PG-13 or R). PG-15 is confusing (no one knows what that means). If you allow R rated content, just state up front your site is Rated R. (Also you'll need appropriate splash pages and whatnot to "ward minors off" or basically say "Hey these aren't for under 18's, by clicking here you indicate you are 18. If you're not 18 and are here then you've lied to me and I accept no responsibility for your lies or you seeing anything that might offend you." )


In regards to playbys and faceclaims... I agree, I hate them with a passion simply because they tend to bring so much drama into RPing. (From people who ship characters based on faceclaims to drama about who gets to use which faceclaim... Especially in regards to activity requirements.)
Either way though faceclaims and playbys are a large part of RPing and so a policy dictating how that board handles them is necessary.

Though fair warning, pretty much every decision you make in regards to an RP forum is going to turn some people away. Like with any forum project it's impossible to please everyone. (RPers though will often be more vocal about it. And in some cases they'll leave snippy comments in chatboxes if given the chance.)




When it comes to advertising RPG boards, there are plenty of directories... But some of them are worthless unless you are "one of the accepted". So if you hold any different views/practices you might as well skip those sites because you'll be wasting your time with them.

Lots of RPGs still use guest friendly sections to let other RPGs post in. (Fair warning here... if you have rules about your guest friendly section expect them to be broken. Practically no RPG admin reads those rules. They just do whatever they want. Rules be damned if it inconveniences them 30 seconds to read some rules.)

I've also written a fair bit about various things related to RPGing so if you want to see those, I can PM the links to you.
 
Quiver said:
I plan on using XenForo. Will stay well away from phpBB. 😀
Click to expand...

Jeez! Dont say me that XF doesnt have a account switcher! I couldnt survive one month on a RP forum without one 🙁
 
Lord Roco said:
Quiver said:
I plan on using XenForo. Will stay well away from phpBB. 😀
Click to expand...

Jeez! Dont say me that XF doesnt have a account switcher! I couldnt survive one month on a RP forum without one 🙁
Click to expand...
To be honest I don't know if they do or if they don't.
But I can't stand phpBB or any free forum software.
 
I think this is a great idea. The whole space/planet system idea is great. I wouldn't reuse the planet names in our solar system. If you build this from the ground up, then everything should be nothing that is out now.

Never try that account switcher. I could test it if you want me too. That is if I can download it.
 
This is actually a pretty nice idea!!! I'm curious how far you'll be able to take it. I just hope you don't give up on it. :/
 
Hmm...How interestingly RPers take XF is something we have to wait and see 🙁
 
I think SMF has a lot of mods to help a RPG site. Multi account and dice mod are 2 that I see with a quick search.

Have to setup the XF and see where it goes. Always change if things don't go well on it.

EDIT: I was just trying to think of a name for this. No clue what it could be.
 
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