Recruiting for a Replacement in d20 Modern PbP plane-jumping game

successwarrior

Hello,

A couple of months ago, I asked my players to check around for a site where we could keep all our game information. A little over a week ago, one of them pointed me to Obsidian Portal. He and I surfed around for a couple of hours and now we are calling this place home for our game. OP states that it was built as a tool for tabletop games but it fits our PbP needs beautifully.

I've been playing RPG's since about 1981 when my parents gave me the basic box set for Christmas (much to their chagrin). My best friend and I killed off dozens and dozens of characters in the Caves of Chaos and rolled those little dice until they were pretty much round.

Since then, I've played in or read the rules to many, many games like so many of you that I have been reading about here. Right now, I'm running a d20 Modern PbP game and I am intrigued by the Dresden Files and may have to purchase the books, even if it's just for the read.

I am currently looking for a replacement player for one of the characters in my game. The female character (nickname "CB") is going to be taking levels in telepath and also sees symbols in her dreams. I'm looking for someone that is a team player (since all the characters are friends) and is able to roll with a mish-mash of rules. The players and I are using d20 Modern as the base but there are bits and pieces of other rules making their way into the game along with some homebrew stuff. One of the reasons that I love OP is that it's going to allow us a place to assemble all the House Rules. If you love being a chaotic character as a player that can quote rules, this is not the game you're looking for (insert jedi hand wave). If you want to play as part of a group of friends trying to get home and want to take an active role in game mechanics and storyline, drop me a line.

You can read more about the game here: http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/benders

I'm glad to have found the site and I've been spending some time surfing around the different games being played. Lots of cool ideas here and I'll be following along some of them.

Thanks,
Alan

arsheesh

Well hi there Successwarrior! Wow, I don't think I've ever seen a campaign with 10 pages of campaign logs before! I'm not looking to join a campaign right now but I just wanted to welcome to you to the portal. We've got a great community here so I hope you feel right at home. Have you also tried looking for players one En World? The forums here are great, but i think that they are primarily used by DM's rather than by players (though you do get a few players searching for campaigns now and then, it tends to be uncommon). Let us know if you have any other questions about the site, or have any HTML or Textile formatting questions.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

successwarrior

I had never heard of En World. I'll be checking it out. Thanks!

arsheesh

No problem, here's a "link":http://www.enworld.org/. Happy hunting.

successwarrior

It looks like I should be able to find a replacment there easy enough. They get thousands of views per thread. Thanks again!

As far as the number of Adventure Logs for Benders, I really like OP and wanted to have the players be able to access the entire story if they wanted, right here. So, I moved two years of gaming to this site. It will kind of make Benders stand out on OP since the majority of the games here are tabletop and the Adventure Log is an afterthought or a bonus. I've been surfing around a lot of games here and many don't have an adventure log because the players all know what happened so unless someone volunteers to update the log, it doesn't happen. I'm reading one now (S.P.I.R.E.) where several players write in their character's views on the battles. That's interesting and I'm enjoying it but it's a rarity from what I've found so far.

PbP though really does live by the motto that I've seen here, "The Story is the Game." Where the Adventure Log is a fun add-on for these other games, it's the core feature for my game. I think that if people find it, they will enjoy following along with the story.

arsheesh

Yeah the Portal can be used both as a handy little wiki to keep track of your own campaign info, and a way of showing off to others within the community just what your campaign is about. Some DM's are really only interested in the first task, in which case the adventure logs are not as important as say keeping track of the loot and xp that was acquired in each adventure. However i personally enjoy reading adventure logs and I find that getting players involved in the process of writing their own (in-character) perspectives of an adventure can really help foster their character's development. To this end, I have borrowed some tips from other DM's on creating a rewards system (which I have called "Prestige Points":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/tales-of-darkmoon-vale/wikis/rules )that gives players incentives for keeping an adventure journal. It has proven moderately successful in my Tales of Darkmoon Vale campaign. I write up a quick adventure synopsis, and then the rest of the adventure is filled out by the character journals (to see what I mean, check out our "Adventure Log":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/tales-of-darkmoon-vale/adventure-log page). Anyway, this has worked fairly well for us.

On another note, I enjoy reading a good well written adventure log, so I will certainly have to check yours out some time (though I am on vacation right now and probably won't have time to do so in the next few days).

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

successwarrior

I have put my SPIRE reading on hold as I read the Adventure Logs of your players. I really like the idea and think it's a fun addition to the game. I like how you have set up the home page of your Adventure Log. It looks great! So far, I have done very little in terms of adding graphics or playing with fonts as I try to get two years of gaming stuff moved to OP. Your page is a great example of what can be done. Love it.

We have had similar ideas on incentivizing player input. What you call Prestige Points, I call "Posting Points":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/benders/wikis/posting-points

I have been in quite a few online games and most of them have died a slow and painful death as players dropped off the radar. Posting Points has been one way for me to attempt to keep players involved. I've also set a breakneck speed for input lately and the players love it. Finally, I have lucked out and I have some wonderful players. I have never met any of them in person (something I'm hoping to change this fall) but after 2 years of playing, I consider them to be great friends and they have really helped shaped the game.

Okay, back to reading your players' entries into the log.

arsheesh

Your "Posting Points" certainly does look very similar to what I call "Prestige Points". I'm glad to here that they have worked so well for your campaign, and that in your Benders campaign you have managed to finds such a loyal group. That's no easy feat. And I know how difficult it can be to try to upload two years of campaign info onto the portal (I had to do that with the other campaign I'm running when I first joined the Portal). Anyway, glad you enjoyed my player's campaign journals (although I should mention that "Edmund" is run by myself). Like I said, I'm on vacation now, but i do intend to out your campaign logs as well.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

successwarrior

I'm about to read one of Edmund's longer journal entries (#6). It's fun to hear the story from the different views and how the characters think about each other, especially when the bargaining with the Reavers cost a life.

I think that one of the biggest differences between my Posting Points and your Prestige Points is that my players can use them to better their characters in ways that would normally only happen by leveling up. I did this because it can take a long time to level up when playing an online game. We've been playing for 2 years and they just barely made it to 3rd Level. By allowing them to use the Posting Points to buy feats, skills, and talents, they get to see some improvement in their characters more often than just waiting for that next level up. It keeps them interested in their characters and therefore interested in the game.