Of Beardage and Burnout

[Dog Pants]

I've noticed sonething about tabletop games recently. When I was a teenager playing RPGs at my mate's house, we would play a game for a few months before the GM would burn out and someone else would be itching to try something. It wouldn't happen too often because the books were expensive and hard to find, although factors such as the GM's attention span and the longetivity of their campaign idea would also affect the lifespan. I ran SLA for about 5 years on and off, Star Wars for maybe 6. On the other hand I ran all kinds of crazy things which lasted for an adventure, or sometimes even less. My buddies did likewise, and I had a folder jammed with characters, some old and tattered veterans, others never used.

Beardy RPGs play differently now though, for me at least. Using a forum turns a game that was played intensely for a few hours a week to a slow burning played continuously, allowing multiple campaigns to run at once. The internet allows books to be found and distributed quickly and, potentially, for free. It's so much more convenient than it was. This has advantages and disadvantages. Groups are no longer restricted by geography and having to find a time slot convenient to all. Everyone can get copies of the rules to peruse at their leisure, and the player base is worldwide, rather than a small group of friends. On the other hand, I'm now finding it is all too easy to be tempted to run everything I read, and I want to play everything anybody else runs. It has the effect of diluting my concentration, and I've noticed that by dividing my attention I'm diminishing my enthusiasm for each game, even though my total enthusiasm for the games as a whole is on the rise.

There's no point to this post other than to open up a discussion about the rise of the beard in 5punk, and tabletop games in general. For my part I've lately been cultivating a multitude of RPG ideas, from new campaigns (Rifts), to directions for old ones (SLA), and even considering creating a forum outside 5punk to host an integration of tabletop games with internet technology. This is something I've not really seen done with any conviction outside here, the furthest advance being running a game on a forum. I'm thinking of extending that to collaborative online character sheets, custom dice rollers like those Deject and Baliame designed, and integrated wikipedia articles.

That's my meandering thoughts on beardage, what do you bummers think?

[Baliame]

A forum does not necessarily have to be outside 5punk, we could in fact have a more open forum on the same domain, as if I get this correctly you'd have no problem with outsiders joining up. I'd be more than happy to do the PHP part if this ever becomes reality.

[Dog Pants]

Well that would be FJ's choice, since it's his site. This is only the seed of an idea, and probably too grandiose for me to actually achieve (although I appreciate the offer of help, thanks). You're quite right though. I did think of asking for a seperate forum for beardage, but despite the threads having a lot of activity there's not actually that many of them. I think most GMs could probably fill a wiki and a forum with information about their game though, but it would require a larger membership than that which we have here, and I wouldn't necessarily like to dilute 5punk's community with a load of people only interested in beardage. On the other hand, the games often go hand in hand with video gaming, and might attract people to 5punk. At any rate, (a few) other sites already exist for forum based RPGs, but none that I've seen have done anything other than be a forum with a few rules stickies. In order to attract enough membership to make the venture a worthwhile prospect I'd want to integrate game mechanics in such a way as to tailor the games to online forum play. I think there's a future in it and I'm surprised no company has ever created an online/tabletop hybrid.

[deject]

I think a dedicated Beardy5punk RPG forum with some custom tweaks to better suit it for forum-based RPGs would be a great idea. We could use some features to facilitate gameplay like a quickfire chatroom and a built in dice rolling.

[amblin]

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[Dog Pants]

Well that's partly why I had no inclination to ask to make all this part of 5punk, because it falls outside the general interests of the majority. The news forum doesn't show new posts for anybody though, so can you tailor it to a user? If beard threads never showed up as new posts for me then I'd never see them, and I expect there are other threads that other people have no interest in (the TV show thread for me, for example).

[deject]

Would this be a good time to ask for it to have the same 'Mark Read' functionality as the News Feeds section? Whilst I love the fact so many 5punkers have so much fun playing the beardy games, I've no interest, so look into general gaming on seeing the blue splat only to click the button at the top straight away.

That could just be me though.

There is a Mark Read link for every forum actually, on the top right of the topic list area.

[amblin]

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[Dog Pants]

Extra tools for those of us who duck certain threads would be nice, which was why I brought that subject up, but perhaps 'mark read' all over the front page wouldn't be necessary if we could click 'ignore topic updates' on some threads - then you can happily ignore the TV topic, whilst still seeing other new posts in Entertainment.

Sorry about the tangent!

Yep, I agree that it would be nice. I seem to remember Stoat saying it was tricky though. I could be wrong. I won't be ignoring anything though - I still scan threads I'm not interested in just to keep an eye on things.

[Joose]

Personally, I think splitting off the beardy games out of the General Gaming forum might be the best idea. Then people who are not interested can just ignore the thing, like a non MMO player would the MMO forum.

I did think of asking for a seperate forum for beardage, but despite the threads having a lot of activity there's not actually that many of them.

That could be partly because they are in the General bit. I know I would have started a bunch of other beardy discussion threads where it not for the fact I didnt want to flood general with Shadowrun talk, as I know theres a fair few people who wouldnt be interested at all.

As for the original subject, Ive been considering doing some sort of basic online tools for RPGs myself, actually. Online character sheets, handy GM tools, etc. Ive not really got past the basic plans stage, but would be happy to pitch in.

[Baliame]

Y'know you can have all the old runs there as well, they could be a good read for new'uns (how things work and such) and reference for the long timers, it's a pain looking for that stuff anyway with the search still disabled. It'll pile up eventually, I mean it'll probably have more average activity than the waugh.

[friznit]

I like the idea of a beardy games forum, not because I want to ignore it, quite the opposite: as it's become more popular I hate to see them crammed into some borrowed corner in General Games. I think it should be given more room to flourish, with perhaps some short introductory welcomes to explain wtf it's all about to us non-innitiated (I played Shadowrun once, a long time ago). Maybe spice it up with some art and links to rule books and wikis, like the MMO forum has been. This might even encourage new people to give it a go.

Also, online collaborative character sheets sounds like a fascinating idea. Just off the top of my head, would it be easy to create something like that in a Google Docs Form?

[Dog Pants]

Also, online collaborative character sheets sounds like a fascinating idea. Just off the top of my head, would it be easy to create something like that in a Google Docs Form?

That's kind of what I was thinking. I've never used Google Docs, but I believe it's the sort of thing I'm thinking of. A collaborative sheet where both player and GM can view the same document would solve allsorts of headaches with them having a copy each which is inevitably different.

[friznit]

I use Google Docs extensively for that game , and have recently started running my life more on it because it's cheaper than MS Turd and easier to use then Open Orifice. Googlesheets would actually work pretty well, you can allow editing/viewing rights easily and have multiple pages on your sheet which would be convenient for additional characters. And you can access it from anywhere with an internet connection and a browser, which is win imo.

[HereComesPete]

Just beware uploading some spreadsheets as it's formatting can make a horrible mess of the final product.

A beard forum would be excellent, a place where we can put all of Grimmie's collected artworks, links to maps, scenario's that we will run, links to the wiki on house rules etc, other beard games we may run or like the look of, ideas we know we don't have time for but someone else might be able to use, general stock pictures to help flavour stuff. A gm screen might be useful as well, a bit messy given the run form of me and Joose at the moment, but if it does expand then a separate bit for runs and sharing experiences of gm'ing them can make the players and the gm's better at their job.

I've got a million ideas that I would be very happy for a more experienced gm craft into runs if they wanted to, I know for a fact I don't have time for them all.

Can pimp it on the dumpshock forums too.

I've been perusing the 40k inquisitor type p&p stuff whilst spending monies in the travelling man/forbidden planet and I do like that whole universe, I'd find time to learn and run that if I knew I'd get players to participate.

TJ - anyone seen the new spacehulk release from whorewammer? It looks fucking excellent and it may well tempt me back into painting miniatures.

[Dog Pants]

They're releasing a 40k RPG soon.

[Baliame]

[FatherJack]

A seperate forum for beardy games would be useful both so people can ignore it if they want to and so that they can spread out a little, have their own info threads as stickies and the current runs as active threads.

It's not a single game but a group of games, so doesn't break the criteria we used when rearranging the forums, but there is the issue of diluting the enthusiasm of the pool of mods we have by spreading them too thinly. Also we would have to be careful it did not become an isolated area, making sure that both the ethos of the main site was carried through to it such that it would still be accessible and understandable to all 5punkers, and that new members joining for the beardage were made welcome on the rest of the site.

The 'mark read' thing is just an edit of the description field to include the link from the top of each forum, it's trivial to add it to any/every forum if desired.

[Stoat]

It may be easy enough to let your account ignore a whole forum; certainly easier than specific threads. I'll look in to it.

edit: It can be done. New topics would still be highlighted if you went to the forum you have hidden. Would you prefer it to just not to be highlighted on the forum index, or do you want it not appearing in New Topics too? I was going to add a 'Mark All As Read' link to the New Topics page anyway.

[MORDETH LESTOK]

It may be easy enough to let your account ignore a whole forum; certainly easier than specific threads. I'll look in to it.

I think since it looks like the beards are going to have their own forum the rest is a mute point since it was directed at specific threads in a forum which I doubt would have been a "easy" task.

I don't think anyone wanted to hide a forum...just "new topic alerts" for evil threads within a forum. (by "evil" I just mean threads they have no interest in)