Organizing an DF RPG Online Game

[JeffVandenberg]

I'm starting to organize for an online chat oriented DF RPG game supporting play at any time. Right now I'm working on technical/development related tasks as me and the other owner are tossing around ideas for what the game should look like.  I'm turning to the experienced players here to see what thoughts, comments, or concerns there would be for creating such a game.

Cheers,

Jeff

[S1C0]

OK Jeff first find the pcs then brainstorm setting with them
add your own conflict related to the setting or players
and let things develop naturally

[Lavecki121]

That sounds sort of difficult. I would be interested to see how you pull it off. It seems like you are trying to mix PBP and IRL gaming.

[S1C0]

try a forum chat i am more pen and paper than typing stuff sorry if my help is not that helpful

[JeffVandenberg]

I've created WoD oriented chat based  games before, and am wanting to try something more fun. The character sheet alone makes me happier. The game will have a (java or flash based) chat component, and I am looking at a probable game size of 100 characters, at least that's my initial target. I was just curious if there was any other attempts like this that people were aware of. 

Right now, I'm thinking that it's going to be an 'Alt-Verse' to avoid some of the headaches of dealing with the (delightful to read) established continuity.

[Fyrchick]

We have run our game in a chatroom for a couple years. We use one that archives posts so we have a game record and use another for rolls and general chat. We can see the rolls which are posted to the game room. It is dependent on a pre-set game time, however. I suppose we could run it real time, and just keep the room open all the time, but it really is hard to play without some OOC chat and discussion as we go along.

There is another site roll20: http://roll20.net  which has a few chat/skype options and supports different game systems. I'm not sure about notifications or mobile apps but you can upload maps, rooms, etc. that everyone can see and use.  Log in, play the game, and roll all in the same room and it can be open all the time.

You can use this forum to post a game, and set up notifications so you can be alerted every time someone posts a reply in the game thread, but you'd have to use an external roller which makes it a bit cumbersome if you want a play at anytime sort of thing.

Were you thinking of something more instant-play like?

[OwleIsohos]

Hi, Jeff! *waves*

I'm new to the DFRPG myself, but most of my concerns would be the same ones you'd have in any chat environment. The biggest concern I have for any chat game is continuity and communication between GMs.  If you're going to have multiple GMs running plots at the same time, it'll be really important for all of them to communicate what the potential consequences of those plots are so they don't step on each others' toes.

Specific to the DFRPG, how would you handle milestones?  Chat sites for other systems tend to hand out a certain amount of XP each week, but advancement in the DFRPG is based on story milestones.  And, on a chat RPG like the one you're describing, not every character is going to experience stories at the same rate - some might never even get into a GMed scene at all!

My recommendation would be to make significant and major milestones chatwide - raise the skill and refresh levels for the entire chat at once, including new characters created after the milestones.  Maybe make them coincide with big metaplot events.  Especially in a system like the DFRPG, where a single skill point or point of refresh makes a huge difference, I think the game works better if all the PCs are on equal footing.

Also, you're going to want to have a clear policy about how magic items and crafting works.  I'm not actually familiar with these rules, but the discussions I've seen here give me the impression there's a lot of room for different interpretations of the RAW.

[KOFFEYKID]

I think one of the bigger problems is going to be people wanting custom stuff. In most games this isn't too much of a problem, but DFRPG encourages custom stunts and powers. You should have a fairly level head on your mods, mechanics wise, so they can spot any issues that might arise from such things fairly easily.

[JeffVandenberg]

Replying vaguely in order:

@Fyrchick
I'm thinking more instant play. It would have some similarities to roll20, but instead of being a myriad of distinct games, it would be a shared story in a single world. There would be scheduled scenes, but also plenty of opportunities for more unguided play where there won't be a GM involved.

@OwleIsohos
I've got 'Story Management' as a feature to build on the site, so that GMs can see what is going on and what characters are involved with which stories. 

Milestones is an interesting question. I've had some discussions about it with the other person I'm planning this out with. There are a lot of options on the table in terms of fixed progression vs story oriented progression.

As I dig into things more, magic items and crafting prove that they are the traditional bane of my gaming existence.

@KoffeyKid
Custom will be managed. I will maintain a list of existing powers and what is custom.

[Conor]

'lo folks, I'm the other founder of this project along with Jeff.

OwleIsohos: Hi, I know we met on Jeff's old World of Darkness site! I hope you're well.

To everyone else, hello, I'm a long time reader of the books, new to actually playing the RPG. Looking forward to discussing stuff with you all.

[Mij]

So let me make sure I understand this.  You're proposing to develop a chat site with a world set in the Dresden Files universe.  You then want to be able to have up to 100 characters in that world.  Those characters would be able to enter any number of ongoing campaigns run by (possibly independent) GMs.

Is that right?

[Conor]

Hi Mij,

We will build a team of GMs and Admins, we'll put together a DF-flavoured world to play in.

Then people can join, make characters. Usually on a chat-based game, a lot of the play is in the interaction between player characters, but there are also regular storylines and scenes run by GMs.

That's the model, pretty much. We wouldn't really have independent GMs so much, but anyone who wanted to run stories would be welcome. The bulk of stories would be run by the staff GMs, but in a game like this we would usually have an option for Player Run Scenes/Stories/Plots, that  someone could start running with a minimal barrier to entry.

One of the reasons we like the D F rules aside from the amazing backstory and world, is that they can be very collaborative, we're hoping to see some really interesting stuff emerge from that with a lot of player characters interacting with each other.

[Gilitine_Memitim]

This sounds rather interesting actually.

[JeffVandenberg]

So let me make sure I understand this.  You're proposing to develop a chat site with a world set in the Dresden Files universe.  You then want to be able to have up to 100 characters in that world.  Those characters would be able to enter any number of ongoing campaigns run by (possibly independent) GMs.

Is that right?

Close, except that it's not all independent GMs. There is a requirement for some measure of coordination between the GM staff.

[OwleIsohos]

@OwleIsohos
I've got 'Story Management' as a feature to build on the site, so that GMs can see what is going on and what characters are involved with which stories.

Awesome!

Conor: Hi!  It's great to see you again!  I hope you're doing well yourself.

This sounds rather interesting actually.

I played on Jeff's World of Darkness site for over a year, which used much the same model as he and Conor are describing here.  It was a lot of fun.  I'm looking forward to seeing such a thing using the DFRPG system.