A thread to discuss the technical details of expanding the Asheville Pathfinder Lodge...
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Awesome opossum.
I for one like the Google Docs Spreadsheet for it's simplicity for the time being.
I am happy to contribute with what meager skills I have in web related stuff.
Here is the website I am working on for my homebrew game Tirlan
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ah great minds thinking alike and what not.
After I got a PM from Luth, I have been taking bits of time between tasks to set up a database, download the latest Vanilla forums package and it is currently uploading to one of the servers I use.
I was thinking more of taking it to completely off line (i.e. have a GM meet up) or set up a forum for multiple discussions (APL Site Discussion, GM Assets Discussion, etc) so we can have multiple discussion threads going on at once and would not be crowding out the Paizo PFSGL area of these message boards.
I'll send out PMs once the forum is set up (should be later today) to those GMs I can remember the board names of, and will include those in each PM so any GMs I missed can be notified by others as well.
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Nice, man! Thats really cool. I'm all about us having a website to get more organized and help grow the lodge, I'm just useless with HTML or photoshop or anything fancy. Wordpress I can do, anything beyond is out of my skill set. I'm fine with whatever solution we end up with, but of paramount importance is ease of use. If the majority of the people showing up don't use whatever sign-up system we use, there is no point in using one at all.
The google docs option is certainly an elegant short-term fix, but we'll want a more robust system for the long run, I think.
To me it seems that we have two alternate options - a wiki or a custom webpage.
The wiki is tempting because it would require minimal setup and it is more egalitarian in that any member can freely edit the contents. It would decentralize administration as Nansen mentioned. The drawbacks are that on pages that anyone can edit there's great potential for someone to accidentally (or maliciously) erease or scramble information there. Also keeping a consistent clean format may prove to be very difficult.
Venture-Captain, New Zealand—Dunedin
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APL's second discussion thread...*sniff sniff*...this little lodge is getting so big already!
I, too, agree that ease of use is the key feature. We've got this nifty-looking technical gizmo at work that lets people know where to find us in our various clinical rooms. Thing is, it's user-hostile. No one uses it. Waste of time.
We've got some GMs who are tech-savvy, and some who are tech-ignorant. We should pitch it just right to both. There was an Asheville RPGers MeetUp that was active up until November of last year, but no one paid the annual dues, and it went ka-poof!. When I had checked it out, it wasn't much different than what we have here, or what's offered on Pen and Paper Games. Methinks keeping it here or on our own website is the way to go.
A custom site requires much more work but can be catered to fit our needs. I personally think this is the way go.
I can do HTML, php, sql and javascript if you need it, Zylph. I know you're busy as hell but I also know you do all of this professionally. Too many cooks in the kitchen spoils the soup so I'll pipe down and follow your lead.
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A custom site requires much more work but can be catered to fit our needs. I personally think this is the way go.
I can do HTML, php, sql and javascript if you need it, Zylph. I know you're busy as hell but I also know you do all of this professionally. Too many cooks in the kitchen spoils the soup so I'll pipe down and follow your lead.
Congrats man, you just bought yourself admin privileges when we get the initial points worked out. ;)
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So now that we know generally what we're looking to do, how organized do you believe we can be? And how far in advance do we want to start planning sessions?
One thing I'd like to suggest is that we feature series. There are several scenarios (Quest For Perfection, Written In Blood, etc) that could be run as a long term thing over a couple months worth of meetings. We could run 2 or 3 of them per session, and then at the end (when we'd run everything 2 times, maybe, to allow folks to play in all of them), we'd have a game that the players could choose to make it up if they missed.
Del recommended this, and I think it's a really savvy way to go.
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Venture-Captain, New Zealand—Dunedin
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Just a thought....as both zylphryx and I will be headed to Redmond soon, we can take the temperature of other VLs and VCs there about how they've handled chapter growth, organization, etc, etc. Del's advice is indispensable - let me be absolutely clear here - but group intelligence sometimes is a powerful thing.
Sometimes. And then there are those times that group consciousness tells you to march out into the swamp in the middle of the night in a fit of drunken bravado to deal with a band of goblins.
Nevertheless, I'm back in this mo-fo for good with both sleeves rolled up, ready to hammer and chisel out the marble-and-redwood-inlaid walls of the Asheville Pathfinder Lodge for posterity. I'm simply happy to have all these helpful faces hanging 'round.
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Another thought to consider- to what degree should we attempt to involve the fine folks at The Wyvern's Tale in the coordination of events and the like?
They've provided us with a phenomenal space and atmosphere, and I know I have personally tried to spend all the gaming cash that I have available there. But it is a mutual relationship, and they can really assist us in maintaining the momentum that we've garnered over the past few months.
I do think we'd be benefited by a little more advertising. Between the events at GeekOut and Free RPG day, we've really raised our profile. Coordinating our involvement in other similar events would be really helpful, and so, I think, would more flyers on the major campuses as school started back up. This is the type of thing we could coordinate with The Wyvern's Tale, and help them as we help ourselves.
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Venture-Captain, New Zealand—Dunedin
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I had an idea...why don't we create an APL bookmark (full-color) that gets inserted into every Pathfinder related book purchased at the WT? I'm sure they wouldn't mind; it'd fan the flames of interest in PF and it would be cheap and free advertising for people who are obviously interested in our organization.
Yes, I know the majority of people buying PF books at the WT are already involved in APL, but it would pick up the occasional greenie who just moved to town, etc, etc.
If anyone has an open line of communique to Decklin or Simeon...
Who wants to tackle a bookmark graphic design project?
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Venture-Captain, New Zealand—Dunedin
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I think, in response to strangepackages post regarding gaming schedule, that we should create a rotating line-up of GMs.
We can identify 5 or more of us who are more interested in running games than playing and plug us into a rotating group, with 3-4 of us scheduled to run games each week. Folks who are running multi-part adventures are not taken out of the list until their adventure is completed. Of course, people can opt out based on their availabilities.
Thoughts?
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Sometimes. And then there are those times that group consciousness tells you to march out into the swamp in the middle of the night in a fit of drunken bravado to deal with a band of goblins.
And for some reason half a dozen chickens got roped into the whole thing...
I was thinking more of taking it to completely off line (i.e. have a GM meet up) or set up a forum for multiple discussions (APL Site Discussion, GM Assets Discussion, etc) so we can have multiple discussion threads going on at once and would not be crowding out the Paizo PFSGL area of these message boards.
I Agree, we need to have more GM coordination. I think Strange's idea about running 1 or 2 tQfP for the next few weeks is in the right direction. I think we need to run blood under Absalom sometime too, 3-4 tables of Pathfinder working toward the same goal is awesome.
We can identify 5 or more of us who are more interested in running games than playing and plug us into a rotating group, with 3-4 of us scheduled to run games each week. Folks who are running multi-part adventures are not taken out of the list until their adventure is completed. Of course, people can opt out based on their availabilities.
Sign me up, I love GMing for the lodge and having two sessions a gameday makes my weekend like a mini Con every other week! And with all these games on off weeks and Cons I get to play quite a bit anyway.
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I think it would be awesome to coordinate with the SCARAB guys for Blood under Absalom. It was an absolute blast at their con, and having 4 or more tables of the same thing was really exhilarating, but took some serious GM time management. It would be a great event to run at TWT tho, especially if we could use the SCARAB resources for maps and the like.
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I suggested we do Blood back when we were approaching Geekout... I'd love to play or GM a slot either way... I am going to work through all of Session 0 for the rest of this year if that's o.k. with the rest of the gang. I'll play also of course but the majority of the time I'll be GMing. I can give you guys a list of what I'd like to GM for the rest of the year shortly.
EDITS: Here's what I'd like to run tentatively
07/07/12 - Murder on the Silken Caravan
07/21/12 - Black Water
08/04/12 - Mists of Mwangi
08/18/12 - Silent Tide
09/01/12 - DRAGONCON so I'll be in Atlanta
09/15/12 - Tide of Mourning
09/29/12 - Perils of the Pirate Pact
10/13/12 - Decline of Glory
10/27/12 - Vacationing in Florida :)
11/10/12 - Birthday Week Probably not around
11/24/12 - Thanksgiving week also probably not around
12/8/12 - Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch
12/22/12 - Probably doing Christmas Stuff
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I suggested we do Blood back when we were approaching Geekout... I'd love to play or GM a slot either way... I am going to work through all of Session 0 for the rest of this year if that's o.k. with the rest of the gang. I'll play also of course but the majority of the time I'll be GMing. I can give you guys a list of what I'd like to GM for the rest of the year shortly.
We get a new special after gen-con so no real point in saving it but It would be fun to run a special at a con. We should get some practice in though, maybe do the other one that's already out, whatever its name is...
Stu and I are doing season 0 and 1s, for a while (after QfP) I have almost all of em and we fairly see them at Cons...
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I suggested we do Blood back when we were approaching Geekout... I'd love to play or GM a slot either way... I am going to work through all of Session 0 for the rest of this year if that's o.k. with the rest of the gang. I'll play also of course but the majority of the time I'll be GMing. I can give you guys a list of what I'd like to GM for the rest of the year shortly.We get a new special after gen-con so no real point in saving it but It would be fun to run a special at a con. We should get some practice in though, maybe do the other one that's already out, whatever its name is...
Stu and I are doing season 0 and 1s, for a while (after QfP) I have almost all of em and we fairly see them at Cons...
Duh, yeah sorry... not Blood under whatever... but Year of the Shadow Lodge... it is 3 tables running at the same time and each table can be different tiers too!! lets do this
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OK, so it's 1030pm and, save for a break for dinner, I am still working.
I have the bare bones of the APL GM Forum created and am going to set up the folks who have sent over email addresses (or whose addresses I already have) so we can start testing out this forum app.
Keep an eye out on your inbox.
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emails sent to everyone I have emails for. I used folks handles on these boards for the names ... it seemed fitting. ;)
People who have been emailed can invite others to the forums (should most likely be limited to GMs at this point).
If anyone has any issues, PM me here, or send me a message through the APL_GM Forum (yes, there is a messaging system that can be used between users).
And any GMs who have not PMed me their email address (except those folks whose addresses I already), PM them to me.