by Lyahdan on Sat Jul 28, 2018 12:08 pm
More information, also posted on the Hollow Throne Facebook group:
The Goal:
A fun space for shorter games online, that's a bit more focused on this community than say, Obsidian Portal. I'm hoping the shorter time and the technical support makes it a little less daunting for people to run a game, so that new GMs might give it a try, and oldtimers might find inspiration when not fettered by the need for elaborate forums and multiple subplots for a cast of dozens.
If it goes well, I'd like to do this once or twice a year, possibly branching into different systems (it seems like it would work well for WoD/CoD, for example.)
Timing:
Aiming to have forum information to April when I get back in town mid August. I'll have a submission form together at that point for folks who want to GM. As a heads up, I'll be asking for a short game blurb and details on what forums you want set up.
This lets me get sections on the forum set up for people between then and mid September or so.
Tentative convention dates October 6-20. Closing down game posting Oct. 24, though the con ooc space will remain open.
Game setup:
Much like a meatspace convention, my intention is to provide the organization and infrastructure, but leave individual GMs in control of most aspects of their game other than the offline timeframe. There may be technical limitations in some directions that I won't know until you ask if it's possible.
How many players per game? Up to the GM. Which books are legal? Same. What's the official place to roll dice? Well...everyone uses Orokos, but feel free to rebel (no forum integrated dice roller though...that's beyond my current technical prowess). Want to set up with pre-generated characters or run a published game module? Sure. As long as you're running in the L5R World (so things like LBS and Second City are fine); have some connection to the Bon Festival Theme; and keep the time limit in mind, you're probably fine.
Unless requested, your game section will be publicly viewable. I'd prefer that you not request privacy unless there's a solid reason, like using an organized play module. Yes, I can still tuck private character forums into a public section.
Forum setup:
If you look at this forum, it is set up with three (visible) sections: Rules and Registration, OOC Forums, and Dark Edge Village. For the convention, each game gets a section like that. Which means you can organize the game into forums and subforums, but you won't have sections. Given the more limited scope, I'm thinking this should work out ok.
There will be a section for convention-wide forums like a convention ooc for everyone to chat.
My inclination at the moment is to allow multiple accounts per email so players can create separate accounts/avatars/etc. for separate characters in different games. I am expecting most GMs to limit player numbers for these smaller-scope games, so I'm not sure how many people will actually be in multiple games. Hopefully this means setting up all those permissions won't be too much of a headache.
I believe I can provide GMs with the ability to admin their own sections without having board-wide admin rights to deal with (i.e. you won't be getting pinged with alerts that are in games you aren't responsible for). I cannot provide folks with those permissions the ability to do all the backstage player registration and permissions. Much like a regular convention, you will not be handling the registration database and badge printing and so forth. I think communication channels are decent enough to allow me to coordinate with GMs and players reasonably well for this. But it does mean that it's probably wise to have a registration deadline for your game that is at least a few days before game start, or you risk technical difficulties delaying some players. First time convention and all that.
I'd like to hope that people do not do something to get themselves banned in just two weeks. But, if you do get banned from an individual game for cheating or harassment, you will probably be banned from the con. Less serious offenses may leave your status up to the discretion of the individual GMs of games you are in. Likewise, I'm going to be harsh on folks who decide to snark on other games. You don't hang outside a con game room sharing your opinions on how much you hate that setting or that GM, so please don't do it here either.
Other stuff?
Feel free to ask questions. I've been fielding a few here and there already.