D&D subforum discussion

sullivlo

Hello lovely Forum Games folk.

I was approached by members to ask admin for a D&D subforum for playing the games to keep track of them. They’re not overly keen on the idea for whatever reason (they quoted some sort of stats that I didn’t understand), but they offered an alternative for the game.

How would people feel about a label system for thread titles, this would then facilitate “filtering” of sorts so that only D&D threads would be active.

Have a chat amongst yourselves and let me know. If the consensus is no, and there are valid reasons for it, I’ll bring it back to admin and re-negotiate!

Let me know

Tigger

There is a table top gameijg forum why don’t we just play there

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1358

Its very low traffic

Necro

It's not that per se Tigger, I think we're fine where we are tbh. Wouldn't like to impose on other mods or people in the forum when it's working ok at the moment.

I'm going to sound like an eejit here, but I'm not quite sure what labelling/filtering entails? :pac:

I suppose from my perspective the issue with it being top level is that anyone can wander into the game thread and post like they did once before.

Like the WW game threads would be handy to keep them private to players only.

At the moment the labelling might work, there's only one game and a handful of threads but if there were to be a number of games running at once it could get complicated...

Tigger

Necrominus wrote: »

It's not that per se Tigger, I think we're fine where we are tbh. Wouldn't like to impose on other mods or people in the forum when it's working ok at the moment.

I'm going to sound like an eejit here, but I'm not quite sure what labelling/filtering entails? :pac:

I suppose from my perspective the issue with it being top level is that anyone can wander into the game thread and post like they did once before.

Like the WW game threads would be handy to keep them private to players only.

At the moment the labelling might work, there's only one game and a handful of threads but if there were to be a number of games running at once it could get complicated...

It will for me cos I’ll be playing in all of them and when my 12th level cleric runs into an elder god from mountains of madness from the wrong thread it will be interesting

Banjo

Tigger wrote: »

It will for me cos I’ll be playing in all of them and when my 12th level cleric runs into an elder god from mountains of madness from the wrong thread it will be interesting

Oh no! Spoiler that out! No one needs to know that Goodie will eventually repent his innocent-head-shotting days, retire to a monastery and then be called back into service for one last exploding arrow frenzy in the land's darkest hour!

I'd love to know what the stats are.
Right now, creating a sub forum with unique access rights for 8 or 9 people seems a little extreme but as it is those 8 people have at various times over the last month pushed nearly all traffic except the code names game off the front page when the party got split, XP was handed out and some ooc chat got going, it would strike me as being unmanageable unless it dies out with this game. Filtering will make it easier for us, but not necessarily for the other patrons of Forum Games.

If this first game attracts more players, if a second game gets going, if someone else decides to try their hand at DMing, this fair corner of boards will be buried under a thread deluge, the likes of which has not been seen for a thousand years,and it won't be stopped unless some brave and unlikely her- oh wait, I think it's starting to affect how my brain works. Could we get a sub off the Mental Health forum maybe?

Worse, if this game attracts unwanted attention - which, given WW is gaining traction in AH is not too outlandish a fear - it's going to become a headache for mods and potentially drive players away from the site.

Is filtering where you can label the threads "d&d" or "electrical" (one of those is from BargainAlerts - guess which!). If so will the labels be customisable so we can filter by game DM rather than getting all D&D games under the same filters?
Will other games get filters too?
Even i#spy? No forget I asked that one.

If yes, that's a workable solution as long as it doesn't negatively impact the forum itself, as potentially given the volume of posting we're doing now projected forward, a newcomers first impression would be that this subforum is specifically for D&D and they'll miss out on all the other goodness. And eventually we drive everyone else away and get our wish via plantation.

robyntmorton

Labelling (you can see it in the likes of help desk, the talk to forums and so on) could be a good compromise. It means that the admins don’t have to listen to requests for sub forums for every little thing, while still giving some sort ability to the players.

Saying we do go in that direction, can we make the work as easy for Sully and the admins as possible, what labels are most needed?

On the disruptive people wandering in like a member of Elin’s Undead army that hasn’t dined in hundreds of years, lured by the smell of brains (dammit, now I’m doing it, Banjo) unfortunately during a session with lots of posting we will always be near the top of the latest post list. How we combat that is another discussion.

TL;DR: My current take. Labels, try get more traction, revisit the sub forum idea, which only starts to be really viable with multiple campaigns going.

Necro

robyntmorton wrote: »

Labelling (you can see it in the likes of help desk, the talk to forums and so on) could be a good compromise. It means that the admins don’t have to listen to requests for sub forums for every little thing, while still giving some sort ability to the players.

Saying we do go in that direction, can we make the work as easy for Sully and the admins as possible, what labels are most needed?

On the disruptive people wandering in like a member of Elin’s Undead army that hasn’t dined in hundreds of years, lured by the smell of brains (dammit, now I’m doing it, Banjo) unfortunately during a session with lots of posting we will always be near the top of the latest post list. How we combat that is another discussion.

TL;DR: My current take. Labels, try get more traction, revisit the sub forum idea, which only starts to be really viable with multiple campaigns going.

Agreed. As Banjo said it's only 8/10 people tops driving discussion at the moment. A 2nd and 3rd campaign might give us an argument. At this point only in teething stages (while it's going super well) the labels are a better option.

Mollyb60

If the sub-forum is a total no-go then the labelling would be the next best thing. I assume each campaign then would have to have a title? For example Fourier's current game could be titled 'D&D: Quest for Soet' or something like that. My problem is would the thread titles then become really long? Like would it be 'D&D: Quest for Soet. Scene I Act I, The slopes of Sandjarn'? It could make the forum look quite cluttered.

Sully have they just outright said no? Or is it just that we're too small at the moment? Would they be willing to re-consider if more campaigns got started? Cos while at the moment we might have one campaign with, what.....8 threads? At least 3 of those which will be constantly up the top of the main forum. If more campaigns start up with at least 3 threads current for them that could very quickly overwhelm the front page of the forum.

OldGoat

Mollyb60 wrote: »

If the sub-forum is a total no-go then the labelling would be the next best thing. I assume each campaign then would have to have a title? For example Fourier's current game could be titled 'D&D: Quest for Soet' or something like that. My problem is would the thread titles then become really long? Like would it be 'D&D: Quest for Soet. Scene I Act I, The slopes of Sandjarn'? It could make the forum look quite cluttered.

Sully have they just outright said no? Or is it just that we're too small at the moment? Would they be willing to re-consider if more campaigns got started? Cos while at the moment we might have one campaign with, what.....8 threads? At least 3 of those which will be constantly up the top of the main forum. If more campaigns start up with at least 3 threads current for them that could very quickly overwhelm the front page of the forum.

As you say, if there is just a single campaign going on then simply including "D&D" in the thread title makes it searchable. If another campaign kick off concurrently then perhaps the labeling system would help. We would have to use that in a sub-forum too if we had one for the same reasons, to keep different campaign threads separated.

TL, DR: Happy enough with using D&D in thread titles at the moment. May become problematical if other campaigns start.

Lord TSC

Mollyb60 wrote: »

My problem is would the thread titles then become really long? Like would it be 'D&D: Quest for Soet. Scene I Act I, The slopes of Sandjarn'? It could make the forum look quite cluttered.

One thing is maybe each act doesn't necessarily need a new thread, but at the beginning of each act, maybe a new post could be made (Maybe the DM or someone playing can write a quick summary, or a post explaining NEW ACT BEGINS HERE), and then the mods could edit the first post of the thread with a link to the beginning of each act? So each game would have three active threads....

[Gameplay] D&D The Game Name - Thread One
[Character Stats] D&D The Game Name Stats
(Off Topic] D&D The Game Name General Chatter

And when the gameplay threads hit 10000 posts, you'd start a new thread at that point? Getting the mods to edit the OP regularly might reduce the "clutter", for lack of a better term, down a bit.

Mollyb60

Thats an idea but you saw with the temple and dwarf city, 2 of the group were back at the temple whilst the rest of us went on to the next scene. It would be very difficult to arrange that within a single thread. It's much easier to seperate out the main scenes to keep track of things. Especially for Four when he's trying to deal with multiple side quests and storylines. Stuff could get lost easily.

Necro

Just to follow up on this. As the games continue to multiply and increase in numbers, it's going to swamp the front page of Forum Games maybe hiding sign-up threads for other games.

The tagging just won't work. A Play by Post RPG sub-forum really would be the best option for everyone concerned in my opinion.

Also Codenames is popular enough to warrant it's own one, but this thread isn't about Codenames

Banjo

Worth bearing in mind, now that we can look back at the previous game and see how it developed, at one point we had 3 active story threads running as well as the out of character chat and the character sheets thread. Thats 25% of my view of the forum, don't know how yours is configured. and that's not including the Shadowrun and Call of Cthulhu discussions. When you factor in Codenames, (Current game, bump to discussion and prev game) and a WW sign up, there's very little room to develop anything else.

With Vampire running, Deadlands about to kick off, both CoC and Shadowrun gearing up and a slower paced PbtA game, all of which will be a minimum of 1 thread, and probably between 2-4 each, well all I can say is god help the I Spy thread.

sullivlo

Leave it with me folks

Tigger

The charter spefically states that each game type should get its own sub forum

Each Game type (werewolf etc) will then have a sub-forum to host the game threads and game thread chats allowing for privacy for the role players without having to worry about trolls or spoilers.

Top level should b about inviting new people in and then each sub for the game itself

sKeith

Banjo wrote: »

god help the I Spy thread.

Its already been pushed back to page 4

Banjo

Page 4???? So You can't see the I Spy thread! That's the antithesis of how that game works! Won't someone think of the children???

sKeith

Banjo wrote: »

Page 4???? So You can't see the I Spy thread! That's the antithesis of how that game works! Won't someone think of the children???

You could always bump it

Necro

Tigger wrote: »

Top level should b about inviting new people in and then each sub for the game itself

Yeah that was kind of my thought too.

So we'll say Fourier, or even someone else wants to run a seperate RPG - they can post up a sign up thread in the Forum Games forum.

Current format is that it's buried in a 2,000 odd post thread. Sign up thread for a new game would be buried within a few hours at current rate between Codenames, Vampire, D&D etc.

Anyways, sully has said to leave it with her so hopefully we get a good outcome.

sKeith

I would hope that this is a good problem to have, it means that Forum games is very active. The people that oversee these decisions need to realise that putting the games in sub forums will not detract from fourum games activity, but make it an easier place to game for its users.

Mollyb60

Well on my front page currently are 5 stickied threads and every other one is either related to an RPG or Codenames. There's not a huge amount of other threads that are active in the Forum Games forum. If you move both of those games to a sub forum what else will go in Forum Games?

(btw not saying I disagree, I'm just pointing out that Codenames and D&D take up an awful lot of space on the forum)

Edit: Just saw the 2 WW threads so not every single thread but the vast majority.

Necro

Mollyb60 wrote: »

Well on my front page currently are 5 stickied threads and every other one is either related to an RPG or Codenames. There's not a huge amount of other threads that are active in the Forum Games forum. If you move both of those games to a sub forum what else will go in Forum Games?

(btw not saying I disagree, I'm just pointing out that Codenames and D&D take up an awful lot of space on the forum)

Edit: Just saw the 2 WW threads so not every single thread but the vast majority.

Game sign ups and information threads, which is imo the idea of top level. Poor old Digi just had to bump his WW sign up thread there as it had dropped nearly off the main page.

I just think it's better to remove cluttered game threads to their own homes and make the Forum Games part open to new players.

sKeith

Mollyb60 wrote: »

Well on my front page currently are 5 stickied threads and every other one is either related to an RPG or Codenames. There's not a huge amount of other threads that are active in the Forum Games forum. If you move both of those games to a sub forum what else will go in Forum Games?

(btw not saying I disagree, I'm just pointing out that Codenames and D&D take up an awful lot of space on the forum)

Edit: Just saw the 2 WW threads so not every single thread but the vast majority.

Currently, there is 6 days exposure to front page, if your signup thread has not been touched by somebody, it gets lost after 6 days to page 2. There is talk of a new RPG game which has one or 2 posts a week. That thread will be lost to page two all the time, if people ever see the signup thread due to being way off the front page.


With gmae threads being but in sub fourums, the forum games main thread will be a signup and general discussion haven, like the charter intended.

A role playing forum used to exist on here about a decade ago. It died due to inactivity. We've come full circle.

Necro

What's that I see in the forum.. so exciting!!

Great job sully and all involved

Fourier

Wow!

The presence of an actual subforum does make the games much easier to handle and clearer. Thanks for your effort on this sullivlo. I was a bit worried about this as it was essentially a problem "caused" by my arrival at the start of November.

A knock on effect from this is that I can now bring the threads closer to how Play by Post games normally function. Typically there are more threads than I made for D&D (it doesn't matter much for D&D, but for some other RPGs it does) and I held back on making the standard amount for fear of flooding the forum.

Really great result for the RPG games.

Baggly

Thanks a million Sully for the shiny new Codenames sub forum!

Necro

Fourier wrote: »

Wow!

The presence of an actual subforum does make the games much easier to handle and clearer. Thanks for your effort on this sullivlo. I was a bit worried about this as it was essentially a problem "caused" by my arrival at the start of November.

A knock on effect from this is that I can now bring the threads closer to how Play by Post games normally function. Typically there are more threads than I made for D&D (it doesn't matter much for D&D, but for some other RPGs it does) and I held back on making the standard amount for fear of flooding the forum.

Really great result for the RPG games.

You're screwed now Fourier, you HAVE to stick around and put up with us now :pac::pac::pac:

sullivlo

I think I moved all of the threads correctly. If any more need to be moved, send me a PM.

Baggly

Thread subs appear to be gone. On app anyway. No biggie. Thanks sully

sKeith

Banjo wrote: »

Page 4???? So You can't see the I Spy thread! That's the antithesis of how that game works! Won't someone think of the children???

It's now page two

We need to get 6 more threads moved..

Theres necros vampire thread, it could be moved

Fourier, are you gonna try a game of WW?

Necro

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

Fourier, are you gonna try a game of WW?

He said he would if you play one of his RPGS :p

(May or may not be true)

OldGoat

Sub forum needs sub forums.

sullivlo

Am un-following this thread now. PM if there’s anything else needed.

Baggly

Anyone else using the app?

If i login on desktop, my thread and forum subscriptions are fine - Codenames sub forum is right there. Not so on the app. None of my codenames subs or the sub to the sub forum itself is showing up....

Necro

Pter wrote: »

Anyone else using the app?

If i login on desktop, my thread and forum subscriptions are fine - Codenames sub forum is right there. Not so on the app. None of my codenames subs or the sub to the sub forum itself is showing up....

No issues for me tbh

Baggly

If anyone was having trouble finding the codenames sub forum on responsive or app, that issue should now be resolved.

Baggly

Same for the D&D forum and its threads actually.