Forums » RP Discussion » I've had a really great idea!

Okay, so this is a complicated idea but bear with me.

What if we had an open-world style RP group? One where every RP topic was not a scenario, but rather, a location? And people could come and go as they pleased? This could call for majorly fun stuff, such as giant hide and seek games (maybe, I'm sure we could figure out the rules for that somehow) or just a realistic life-simulation of what a world would look like. We could keep track of time passage and have events happen that are unrelated to any "specific" RP just like in the real world!

For instance, say there were a few RP "topics" in a forum. The forum could be a major city while the topics could be the streets, major buildings, and landmarks within said city. Say I had an assassin character targeting another character. We could work out a system where I could only move my assassin to one location at a time (and then wait, giving my target a chance to move. We could track this via PM or even announcements) and move from place to place, trying to trace my target's tracks while my target is avoiding me. Other characters within the forum's threads could be helpful in locating or diverting my assassin, depending on what the target does. This could greatly utilize the "live chat" function of the forums.

I realize there's room for Power Play here, but with live chat and real time movements chances of that are slim. And the assassin scenario is just an example. The possibilities really open up when we allow for real-time RP movement between forums, and such.

Better explanation: Forums are larger locations, such as cities or states/provinces. The topics within those forums are smaller locations within the larger areas such as streets, buildings, landmarks, and things of that nature. The entire group is the world. We could have a real time RP, and build a game out of real time passage, and things like that. The game world could have its own universal time so people don't get confused with time zones, etc. Every forum topic would utilize the chat function.


What do you think? Good or bad idea? I'd love to hear your feedback!

This sounds like an fun idea! Count me in

Sounds like a good idea, but I'm terrible at keeping up with forums so I don't know if I would join in

That would be really awesome actually. People could make guilds and gangs, and you could make it like their backgrounds are essential; if they start off rich that's how it is, most people I see don't generally have much in the way of money for their characters (i.e. they go around like they do but don't say it so they can change it up. Much like DC Comics does with all of their characters; This guy is rich... now he's completely broke and living out of a box, because I said so; type deal.)

You should figure out a way to moderate the money scenario is what I'm getting at. But I like the idea of different places cause none of my characters are from the same place. I don't know if any of you have seen the Anime, Sands of Destruction, but it'd be cool to have the main elements of the planet; (Desert, Forest, Swamp, Mountains, Jungle, Plains, Ocean.) And the timeline should always be consistent, no medieval characters in in modern day times type deal. You should have rulers of each place, like say a kingdom, and there would need to be jobs, can't have a civilization without workers.

Also dice rolls like DnD plays, otherwise there is too much controversy, cause one person wants to do something that somebody else doesn't agree with. Your assassin example is perfect for what I'm saying: You move, you're stealthy cause that's what you do, coming up on your target you kill him/her and make that your post, that person comes back and says, "No, i didn't die cause I don't want to be dead." Blah blah, useless banter, too much arguing. So to eliminate that everything you do is determined by the dice.

I have seen this concept work successfully many times, though with a few caveats. RPs, once begun, are "fixed" in time. This means that if the scene begins on a Tuesday and it takes the players two weeks to finish typing everything that occurred on that Tuesday evening, it's all assumed to have occurred on Tuesday night, not in real time.

And if people are coming and going without being first vetted, you MUST have a rules system in place for resolving conflicts (such as a simple dice system). You're also going to have to have good moderators that aren't afraid to boot people for causing trouble!

I can see fixed RPs working with this, although if there are enough people online at the same time we can move things along pretty quickly.

I also like the dice idea, despite not using it in my RPs. It would bring a level of fairness to the game. If I were to start something like this I would definitely plan on having a bunch of mods. Maybe an admin for each forum and then a moderator for every few topics?

You must understand, I'm trying to create a massive overworld here. (Think: MMO-type stuff, but with Role-Play style writing instead of WoW or Diablo III or whatever it is the kids play these days.)

Bearing that in mind, I'm torn between having an application system in place or allowing people to come and go freely. I know the RPR community is mature (much more so, in fact, than any other RP community I have witnessed thus far,) but there is still room for errors here. At the same time, I don't want to give off a vibe of exclusivity.

The idea would take some work but I think it would pay off if I could get it off the ground.

For locations, we could have each forum topic give a basic description of the area, and then links you can click that are directly accessible from that location. Kinda like one of those text-based adventure games. ("There is a door to your east. >GO EAST You go to the door. >USE DOOR It's locked. >LOOK ROOM The room is bare, except for the desk, which is empty. >LOOK DESK The desk appears bare, but there are drawers on it as well. >USE DRAWERS You found a key.") Perhaps we could work out a system that prevents people from just teleporting from place to place, too? Perhaps every time you have a character join the group, you pick an area to have your character start out at and then you have to move him from place to place, making a minimum of an entry post and an interaction post in each area? And there could be a train station, and we could have shops, and businesses... Wow the more I think about this the more I want it to happen.

Anyone interested in assisting me in this endeavor?

This has been done before, and quite successfully. Many years ago, I used to staff a MUSH(Multi-User Shared Hallucination). We used relatively simple text only interfaces to move about from room to room on a grid that was defined by a map and some very simple code. As Kim was kind enough to point out already, once a specific scene starts in a room or thread, it becomes its own clock, defining time's progression as appropriate to the scene. This is mildly problematic in Forum RP because the delay between responses tends to be hours or days, whereas a MUSH is more like a chat room with response times measured in seconds, minutes at most.

It may be much more practical to create a Group that embodies the world you have in mind, then create Forums within the group for broad locations, like cities. Then individuals could create scenes with Threads within the Forums that each represent their own distinct scene. Presumably the first post would include a specific local, such as a tavern or shop in the marketplace for example. Now that we have the RP finder, Groups are easier to find than ever. Thanks again Kim for making projects of this magnitude viable with the RP finder.

That is exactly what I had in mind. Especially the response time of seconds/minutes instead of hours/days. That's why I said we could utilize the forum's Live Chat feature! Seriously though, that's the exact idea I had.

Sounds awesome! I could really get into this.

Also with the dying issue, you could have clerics or priests (Regardless of faith) to bring people back to life, and magical items that have a very limited use before needing to be recharged. (Say like 10 or 20 times of use.) And teleporting could be done if you have a Mage- based character. Cause that's what Mages do. lol

Also with the dice i would only roll for actions that affect other people, like X is attacking Y cause he looks funny or something. Otherwise it would totally be pointless in my opinion. It'd also keep the die roll to one die and make it incredibly simple, with only one or two dice to worry about.

Also immortality is immortality, there is no; what if i did this? It's just the way it is. Otherwise I'm totally on board with this, it sounds interesting, although I don't post nearly as much as some people it seems. I'm about three or four times a day.

ALL the forum RPs I did back in the day were set up with multiple forums representing different areas, and used a website to link everything together. Then each thread on the forum was one set of interactions somewhere in that place, and people who wanted to RP would just go to the desired place and post at will, then maybe someone would come along and join 'em. I would love to return to this and I've been kicking around the idea (very very different from your idea, no worries ) of an "old-school" RP group that would satisfy my nostalgia...

This. This is what I'm thinking of.

Just... Just all of this. And pretty much the other comments too.

Seriously this is why I love RPR.

In some ways I actually already have this going. In others not so much but still. Hmmm...