Y'know..

[Anastasia]

To be critical.

Join *what* game, Drac? Most of the playerbase we have currently active don't really feel up to GMing (not that there's anything *wrong* with that at all), and we personally seem to prefer sticking to amongst ourselves.

What are people supposed to say? "Hey, come by! Have a look at these games- oh, the people running them are elitist pigs, and you probably can't play for another six months until someone actually decides to run a game."

Hey, to be fair, people can join games midway. I did that a few times myself in the past SM game, and it worked wonderfully. Brian did the same thing too with TDAT, right?

Games do cycle as well, and if it gets more people who can run games...everyone wins. Heck, even if it gets a few more PCs, it's a good thing.

[Dracos]

I dunno.

I for one would like to see some fresh blood in my games.  It's annoying and kind of silly to look at all the games you are in and see the same faces.  Even if they are good friends, that kind of defeats the purpose of playing with different styles.

People can join new games, but more than that, it seems like at least once a month someone flings out a game.  Even so, I think it's overstated the amount of players to GMs.  Sure, most games get filled quickly, but it's largely with the same folks.  There's almost as many folks GM'ing here as there are people playing at all.

Dracos

[Ragnar]

I'd do it, but you seem to want a minimum of once a day, which is impossible for me. On occasion, sometimes I only get to the forum once a week. Also, I only have a rather rough understanding of how these things work.

[Dracos]

Well, yeah.  On my games I tend to run a daily routine.  Though, there is a reasonable enough sized group of folks who aren't into that who are hanging around the forum that it should be possible to set a game up on that.

Dracos

[Kwokinator]

Hey, is it my fault every single game I've been in, Delphi or here, has died in midway without ever reaching any remote goal? ^_^

[Dracos]

Yes. =P

Dracos

[Kwokinator]

It can't be my fault! ^_^

It's only a coincidence, even if it's a batting-1000 coincidence! ^_^

I'm not the GM and I'm only one player, it can' t be my fault! ^_^

[Dracos]

Kwok, you are a talented individual the likes the world sees once every few weeks. =)

Dracos

[Kwokinator]

Only a few weeks? ^_^

[metroid composite]

With the whole cross-linking of the RPGDL...there's probably something we can do colaboratively.  The DL's third RP has...died even more painfully than the previous ones (last post is August 2; it's to the point that I've been writing a couple ideas for a fourth RP into a sketchbook for...over a month now; not that I've ever DMed before).  Not that RPs can't work well with this group, as the first one was about 800 posts and we have some very talented writers, just that some people got busy with exams and couldn't keep up with the post rate, then others fell behind.

Basically, this is the bill I've been trying to fill...

It needs to be scalable to high numbers of people (say 20 or so; quite a few people tend to get interested in this).

A number of the players should be non-central to the plot, in that it can carry on without them (exams happen; tendenitis happened in my case during the first one).  Of course there's ultra-dedicated people who will be around, and can play a central role.

Vast sprawling worlds don't actually work that well (in our first RP the "heroes" spent a good 400 posts getting together; we didn't make that mistake again...).


In addition I'm just hazarding a guess that something more comical would probably work better as it's easier to get into (and we've tried the dramatic/epic RPs a couple times now).

Though yeah, not sure if people are interested in collaborating on that.  At the very least, it won't be hard to improve on the DMing....

[Carthrat]

A bold plan.

May I quote some guy who I respect: "The enjoyment of a game is inversly proportional to the number of people playing."

To run a game like this, you need, like, full-time GMs. People who do nothing but sit down and GM shit. Daily. Paid.

Large group of people = Conflicts. Shit happens.

May I reccomend breaking down one large game into several smaller ones, perhaps set within the same world? Certainly, the GMs could collaborate; it'd still take a great deal of work, but it would be more managable.

Oh. We have enough trouble with timeslots with like, 3 people. Gawd. Managing 20 people would be.. hell. Even if only a few are the 'main gamers'.

Oh, and, er, glad to have you here.

[Anastasia]

I'd like to second Rat's comment about group size. What I would consider is a few 2-4 people groups. Each group would be bunched together according to good time chemistry and posting pace, and would be within the same world for all. The groups would interact at points and have some deals and effects, but would not be so closely related as to be dependant on each other.

In other words, lessen the troubles that large groups can cause. Also, two GMs splitting the wordload intelligently would be a fine idea.

[Dracos]

The largest game that has been held here in terms of number of people was tomb.  It had 15 people and was designed from the very beginning to both end quickly and prune folks.

You'd honestly need a full time GM to handle 20 people.  Someone who'd have around 10 hours of day to do it.  I personally don't have enough time to do such, nor do I think anyone here can manage that at the moment.

Group GMing could work, but it's very difficult to keep it working.  The reason small groups work better on boards is that the environment provides a lot of chance for friction and misunderstanding by structure.  The more people the more difficult it is to manage all these people.  When you have 20-24 possible fail points with 5-10 of them being critical fail points, it's really asking for trouble.  With a standard game you only have about 4-5 possible fail points of which only two-three being critical fail points that'll destroy the game in vanishing.  In any of the very fast and long running games here, they had only a few people in them.

Additionally, it's generally troublesome to get people to play a game as non-central roles.  Folks generally want to play important parts.  To have the game working around them and feel like what they do are important.

Good luck, but I'd suggest focusing the work on planning and preparation for handling a smaller group rather than a scalling setup.

Dracos

[metroid composite]

The largest game that has been held here in terms of number of people was tomb.  It had 15 people and was designed from the very beginning to both end quickly and prune folks.

Hmm, pruning; sounds like it could be interesting, and might actually work well with the group (historically interest has been high at the start of the board RPs, but a few people fall behind).  How, precisely, did this work?

[Anastasia]

The largest game that has been held here in terms of number of people was tomb.  It had 15 people and was designed from the very beginning to both end quickly and prune folks.

Hmm, pruning; sounds like it could be interesting, and might actually work well with the group (historically interest has been high at the start of the board RPs, but a few people fall behind).  How, precisely, did this work?

I'll field this one.

First, you need to know something about Tomb - it's based off of Tomb of Horrors, a legendary DandD module. In effect, it was a super glorified death trap adventure to kill all but the luckiest and best off. Tomb followed this pattern, with many PCs dying extremely fast.

I'll let you extrapoliate what that means in the current reference.