THE RPG COUNCIL ROOMS
Written by Weasel Overlord, Coded by Crystal Tears

Welcome one and all to the official RPG Council Rooms again! Now comes in a completely wank-free flavour! Here you will find the comprehensive list of what the Council is working on and the progress we've made on these issues, as well as the low-down on precisely what it is that they (and we) will be doing for RPG. This will also be the place you come to if you have a problem that you think the Council can solve, an idea for the betterment of RPG, a complaint about something you think we're doing wrong or that we could be doing better, or simply to discuss what you think of the changes we plan to implement over the next few months.

First thing's first, the tasks of your Council;

1) They will, first and foremost, be your portal to getting things done in RPG. They're not mods or admins, they are normal members who you see around every day in your RPGs. We think that this will make the Council more approachable than us mods, if this is a problem.
2) They will be your brainstorming effort; working closely with the mods on ideas to better RPG, and to keep an acceptable level of activity.
3) Linked with (2), the Council will help us to work out rules for Tournaments, brainstorm new ideas for activity, discuss revamping and refurbishing RPG and to bring a series of polls and discussion topics to RPG itself. The main idea behind this Council is discussion, working together and ideas.

Of course, this list is not exhaustive. There will be other duties, such as helping with the Newsletter, should we wish to “revive” it again, and other efforts that will come up as and when they are needed.

Second thing's second, here is the list of what we are working on at the moment (not exhaustive);

RPG Board colours and banner
Revamping the Ideas Topic
Revamping the Away Topic
Revamping the Chat Topic (Twilight Town)
RPG Graveyard
A series of polls
Unfinished discussion/ideas, including; RPG Catalogue, Mentoring System

All of these ideas will be outlined in greater detail once they are agreed upon, settled or a poll has been decided on.

Right, the deal with the new Rooms. Here are some very basic rules. There will be NO WANK. This includes flames, being off-topic, being aggressive and generally being argumentative. We are all (mostly) adults, we will discuss things in a civil manner. This especially includes myself. Any post containing wank/flames/the aforementioned things will be deleted with no warning. A repeat offender will get an official warning. Use your brains for what happens next.

Now what else do we have? I've taken every idea from the old topic and put it in this one for discussion. We will go through the ideas one by one, discuss, and then move on. We will not discuss things that cannot be changed, such as "oh people don't join my RPGs," or "RPGs always die!" We know these things happen, but short of literally forcing people to bend to our will, we cannot do anything about them. Anyone in the RPG Chat today will know my feelings on this topic. Instead, we will talk about things we can do to improve - like the ideas in this new topic do.

1) How about looking into new kinds of RPGs here? More or less every game here is 'fill out a form', 'post occasional updates to progress the story', 'no real rules apart from no-godmodding'. I'd be interested in seeing some games with a rudimentary combat system and stats, how to implement it well in a forum setting is the problem though.

2) I would greatly enjoy if more people tried out various kind of roleplaying.

3) What I propose is that more RPGs should use a very basic system that gives guidelines to how players should play but is also freeform enough to allow flexibility and allow the GM to not have to put in so much effort. For some of these games, it might have to be the case that the GM himself doesn't participate in the RPG itself but acts as a 'dungeon-master', guiding the players with narratives and NPCs, for example.

4) The Established "Thing" RPG
- The idea with this one is to take a popular Thing (book, film, tv show, whatever, you name it - for the sake of examples, I will go with Supernatural).
- The DM should ideally know their source material, but it's not essential
- There is the series of established characters that you see in the Thing - in my example, there would be Sam, Dean, Bobby, Castiel, John, Uriel, Ellen, Jo, etc.
- The players would pick a character each and effectively "be" that character. The DM would post a version of a signup form for each character, so that the players can get a feel for them.
- The last point is a question: if this was the case, would the DM follow an established plot from the storylines in the Thing, or would they make up their own? There would be the problem of fitting in with canon, but then, since every RPer is different, no canon-telling would be the same as the canon anyway.
- I was thinking as a trial, we could go with a Star Trek RPG in this style, since I know we have quite a few fans in RPG. Of course, this is all open to discussion.

5) The "Choose Your Own Path" RPG
- This idea is based off the books I was obsessed with as a child, written by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson. They're pretty self-explanatory; you play one person, you choose options and then go to the numbered page and find out the result. My idea is a modified version of this.
- There would be one narrator, the DM, as usual.
- They would have an already plotted storyline, and it would be posted in chunks as the story progressed.
- Group of players - given options, they discuss among themselves
and then decide what to do.
- Result of the choice is posted by the DM, then the game continues.
- Scheduled DM pauses - items, battle encounters, etc.
- There would be an items system, so anything you get along the way can be used or sold or whatever - some are cursed or dangerous.
- The battles would be in normal RP format. The DM posts a basic description of the monster, and could give choices as to what to do, if that's what people wanted.

6) So my idea is Adopt-a-Character. If the RPer is unable to post, then someone who is part of a line of experienced RPers can jump in and take over with that abandoned character. They may or may not already be part of the RPG. It's kind of like in the ASB forum, where someone can request for a substitute ref.

7) What if we only had a few roleplays going at once. And I mean, a few. Like three. These roleplays cannot be the same kind of ANYTHING. Not the same genre, style. WTF ever. If you wanna roleplay, you'll roleplay in these.

8) When a roleplay is finished, another will take its place. A single person won't be able to start up a roleplay twice in a row. And if you sign up and don't play it through, you'll be dismissed from the roleplay area like a kid who skips too many play practices.

9) One idea that I think HAS worked, even though I'm loathe to admit it, is the 'invitation-only' RPG. Sure, it is incredibly cliquey, even though I disagree that 'cliques' have anything to do with the failure of RPGs, but it keeps numbers down and people feel more obligated to keep interested and posting in the RPG.

10) Another idea that works, and one that I feel is contributing to the success of my RPG Dragonball: SU is co-GMship. Blade is effectively the 'Dungeonmaster' due to the fact he is in control of the villain and his forces, whereas I, the GM, just sort out plot progression and the other behind-the-scenes aspect of the game. We each have a degree of autonomy that allows us to act if the other one is inactive. The efforts of Master Rudy and Bear as well, in the RPG, the Lounge Topic, and by PM, has also been a massive help.

11) I'd recommend every RPG has a lounge thread and people stay active in that. A lot of people who are inactive in RPGs are active across the board but find it hard to keep up with an RPG. A lounge topic, I feel, maintains a strong link between regular member and active RPer.

12) Limited Numbers. Kind of like an invitation-only, but you allow people to sign-up but stress there is a cap on the number of sign-ups that will be approved.

13) Smaller, 'novel-sized' RPGs. Instead of having one epic, perhaps splitting up an RPG into smaller 'quests' that max out at about 150 posts, allowing people to drop in and out between 'quests' if they feel they can't stay active. These would only hopefully take a few months to complete, but allow people to carry persistent characters across.

14) Kind of like the VS-Seeker in ASB, people would simply list what RPGs they are in. I think some people do lose track of what RPGs they are in, but also it would allow GMs to vet prospective sign-ups: if they see the member signing up is in about 6 other RPGs that he hasn't posted in in a few months, then that might ring alarm bells.

15) Maybe we could implement a feedback system for failed RPGs, where people could say why they didn't want to join a certain one.

16) Perhaps we could play with the ideas that I've seen in the past in PCG. Namely, I think a few RPGers will remember the variations on the Werewolf Game that were pretty popular. I wonder if we could put our own spin on those and turn them into a type of RPG people would want to play. *ponders* I know that Roy attempted to do a version of the Werewolf Game a while ago (Stalking Golden Eyes, I believe it was called?), but as far as I can remember, it didn't take off. We could work more with the idea that people sign up and fill set roles - like the party game Murder in the Dark, have people heard of that? One person is chosen secretly to be the "murderer," and when the light goes off, they "murder" one of the other players by touching them. This is similar to how the Werewolf Game works, but I think we could combine these ideas to make something different.

17) Anyway, I wont go into much detail about the plot, but it's basically happening during a war. Now, the RPG will be split into two topics, one focusing on characters on each side of the war. This would be two storylines going on simultaneously, with events from one affecting the other. Of course, the main problem is working out what would happen if both groups met and interacted. Like I said though, I'm still planning it.
Well, the RPG would have two scenarios, taking place in the same world at the same time. Major events one party causes could affect the other and so forth. It's like two parts to one big story. I'm still not sure what would happen if the two parties met. I think two topics for it is pushing it, let alone a third one for battles. I would probably try to keep the two parties separated from each other, at least until I can think of something.

18) This really in on topic, exactly, but--Can we do something about the RPG fanart section, please? I always wanna post there, but no one ever goes. Can we boost buzzing there? Maybe get rid of the no double posting no matter what rule. I deleted my last post there to make way for another that never came :B But I have tons of art from RPGs and character pictures. It's almost like we need another sister forum for it, instead of just a loose thread?

19) Also I would like to throw out a idea of my own. Possibly make a RPG Best of the Best, or what ever you wish to call them. Where we look over some of the past RPGs as far as we can go and determine which ones are the real quality ones of the RPG Forum, which ones truly represent the best in creativity, and have a sticky topic with links to them, or maybe have a section on the main site for it. It could help promote the forum, as well as giving us something to point to and show off as the cream of the crop of the RPG forum.