Training Grounds or Alternate Dimension

[Sylver Shadow]

Hey! It's everyone's favorite cat loving role player. So I have a suggestion and this is kind of a general interest check. I have noticed that many players are having a hard time getting into games because most of them have been going on for a while or they don't want to GM or whatever. What if there was a thread section where players could do one offs and short RPs that give them the opportunity to experience how the game works, learn how to GM or just do a one off because they don't want the long term commitment of a big game. Or maybe they are testing a CAD or doing a simple battle between characters. I feel we need something like this to promote more play, and I think it will get a lot of the newer players less likely to leave out of boredom.

Thoughts?

[RidiculousNinja]

Seems like this would need a very dedicated GM or small group of people of people to run. I think only hoots and manah are on enough ot do it. Im on everyday but mostly I only have time to look around real quick. although after this year ill have a lot more free time. but yeah this requires one of us who have been here for awhile to initiate. Unless im not getting what your saying?

It's a good idea though and we need to come up with more ideas to get people into the forum but more importantly to want to stay.

[Sylver Shadow]

See what I'm suggesting wouldn't necessarily need a full time GM. The idea would be that although you would need a GM to set it up, you would only need whoever was running the game (Say a player who wanted to GM a solo game for one of his friends) to run these single one off friends. You see one offs are common in the RP world but not necessarily in this forum that I see. The GM would only really have to make sure players are following the rules. Or at least that's how it plays out in my head. 

[Janus]

Ok, so curiosity got the better of me. How many people do we have in the 'New Players who can't find a game' category? I only ask because I was going to do a intro game for a new player called Zrex629 and he vanished when I sent him off to create a character for the game.

We did have a thread for one off games, and I'm willing to help out here, set up threads for stuff to happen in, set up games etc etc. I just need to know what I'm working with.

[Sylver Shadow]

Okay. I honestly don''t how many myself. I think that's the con in all of this is we don't know how many people are going to take to this. Me personally I'd easily plug into to five or six of these at a time. But that's me. For me it's an idea that I'm not entirely sure how to execute. What exactly would you need to know that you are working with?

[Dhark]

For a long time there WAS a dedicated area for this. It’s challenging enough to keep players posting consistently in an long-running game where players and ST alike have an emotional investment... the “one-off” mentality spawned LOTS of good ideas and games that rarely lasted more than a week or two IIRC. Occasional slow-posting ones lasted longer, but glacial posting rates lead to attrition and death.

Breaking into an existing game is tough for this same reason. Inserting an unknown can alter game chemistry and pacing in detrimental ways (or beneficial)... most ST’s are loathe to gamble.

[Janus]

How many people, what style of game they are interested in, what their expectations of the game might be. That kinda thing.

I've found murpg to be best as a story telling system with lots of power and responsibility type of play, 'Clobbering Time' style play really doesn't either work (in my opinion) or do it for me.

I found from my previous experience that new players have pre conceived notions about the game. For example that the CADs from the books are definitive stats for the characters, or that games have got to be about a certain thing or in a certain background or that more stones means more fun.

It's really useful to know what these preconceptions are are what players are looking for in a game before I start the game

[Sylver Shadow]

Mar 15, 2018 20:19:05 GMT -5 Janus said:

How many people, what style of game they are interested in, what their expectations of the game might be. That kinda thing.

I've found murpg to be best as a story telling system with lots of power and responsibility type of play, 'Clobbering Time' style play really doesn't either work (in my opinion) or do it for me.

I found from my previous experience that new players have pre conceived notions about the game. For example that the CADs from the books are definitive stats for the characters, or that games have got to be about a certain thing or in a certain background or that more stones means more fun.

It's really useful to know what these preconceptions are are what players are looking for in a game before I start the game

I'm with you in the sense of style. I too have found that story telling is more my cup of tea than say having two characters God-mod the crap out of each other. But I also have to consider that not everyone is like me or you. You raise a lot of good points in the sense of what players expect. I don't know. I can't speak for others but I can speak for me.

I would simply like the opportunity to post more. I'm an avid writer and this is a great outlet for my spare time and creativity. I, like you, prefer a story telling system. I like to be able to put a lot of time into my character and make some long posts and work on character building, or test out new concepts that I think no one has never tried (or recently tried). So my expectation would be: to post more, to maybe give people the opportunity to try different  things and broaden their expectations of the MURPG format, and to have some fun in being more creative and not being forced to have a couple of characters over long periods of issues and missions that take a long time for whatever reason.

[Janus]

OK, well why don't I run a quick one shot for you, see what your writing style is like. Send me a PM and we'll figure something out. Sound good?

[Janus]

Oh, as a additional thing, I could create a stickied thread here to allow new players to introduce themselves, announce they are looking for games to be involved in, say what sort of games they are interested in. That sort of thing. What does everyone think?

If people think it's a good idea it would be great to get feed back about what sort of things other players/GM's think would be interesting/useful information to know.

[Sylver Shadow]

Mar 16, 2018 11:13:32 GMT -5 Janus said:

Oh, as a additional thing, I could create a stickied thread here to allow new players to introduce themselves, announce they are looking for games to be involved in, say what sort of games they are interested in. That sort of thing. What does everyone think?

If people think it's a good idea it would be great to get feed back about what sort of things other players/GM's think would be interesting/useful information to know.

Ok I'll PM you. 

I think the stickied thread is a good idea. 

Something I also realized is that this could give people the opportunity to learn how to GM themselves with a small one off and then be able to have the confidence to do a bigger game instead of diving in head first and GMing a long game. 

[Ricochet]

So, like a Contest of Champions?

[Sylver Shadow]

Not necessarily, the contest of champions is solely about combat. I guess alternate dimension is a poor word choice. Think of this as a place that allows multiple smaller games instead of one big game. So like you could have a group do one mission together then disband for the sake of learning the game or just not making a big commitment. You could have combat threads like the Contest of Champions, but that would not be the sole purpose of this.

[WildKnight]

This is a good idea, except that a lot of the people who really got into running this system use a significant amount of house rules, which means that a lot of the best GMs are also not going to be really helpful in getting someone familiar with the RAW 8)

[Sylver Shadow]

This is true. But I think even getting the basics down then going into a game where the GM says "Alright you know the rules now just add these" would be better than a player going in blind. Plus this is only one function of the idea. There are multiple uses