I'm thinking of designing a PbP message board system as a way to "break into" GMing for my group (too many GMs right now).
I figure I can start out with a basic message board and then add features like a die roller that stores rolls, interactive maps, Character Builders (at least storing the basics), some kind of campaign manager (wiki and another?), and an option for character journals (blogs?).
What resources would you suggest to get the idea of how PbP works?
What features would be helpful to a GM?
What features would be helpful to a Player?
I've done Play by Chat before on the old days of AOL (TSR Era, which I tought worked well but scheduling was an issue) and one PbEmail but didn't care for the abstact nature of combat for the email game.
|
I'm thinking of designing a PbP message board system as a way to "break into" GMing for my group (too many GMs right now).
I figure I can start out with a basic message board and then add features like a die roller that stores rolls, interactive maps, Character Builders (at least storing the basics), some kind of campaign manager (wiki and another?), and an option for character journals (blogs?).
What resources would you suggest to get the idea of how PbP works?
What features would be helpful to a GM?
What features would be helpful to a Player?I've done Play by Chat before on the old days of AOL (TSR Era, which I tought worked well but scheduling was an issue) and one PbEmail but didn't care for the abstact nature of combat for the email game.
As a DM, I'd say features were a dice roller, and a place to store DM notes that is accessible from anywhere on the internet, along with the character sheets. As far as character sheets, see the people who put them on pbp's here, they are mostly just a text box that handles BBCode well, and they work. See the players in my pbp if you want examples.....there is enough information, but not too much computation.
As a person who has made a decent attempt at writing an open source character generator I'd say, don't go there. Stay away, other people have already done it, and will be far better at it!!!
Then again, that could just be because I started and was presented at every turn with far too many options to compute.....
As a DM, I'd say features were a dice roller, and a place to store DM notes that is accessible from anywhere on the internet, along with the character sheets. As far as character sheets, see the people who put them on pbp's here, they are mostly just a text box that handles BBCode well, and they work. See the players in my pbp if you want examples.....there is enough information, but not too much computation.As a person who has made a decent attempt at writing an open source character generator I'd say, don't go there. Stay away, other people have already done it, and will be far better at it!!!
Then again, that could just be because I started and was presented at every turn with far too many options to compute.....
Thanks for the suggestions! I've done a little more research into the SIMM world, but only scratched the surface.
This is mostly just a chance to stretch my coding wings. A pet project if you will. Basic is always nice. I always say "get it up and running, then make it better."
I've done 3e/Modern character generation, but was left unfinished because I learned the wonders of Apache, MySQL and PHP.
Contributor
|
You may already be aware of this site, but RoleplayMarket.com is specifically designed for PbP games. The features that it offers are:
- Map feature. You have the ability to use images as a map background, although it's not a direct upload. The maps currently lack certain elements like "fog of war" and templates, but those features are on the "future design" list.
- Secure dice roller that supports any rules system.
- Scripting functions for non-standard dice rolls.
- iScript coding for "fancier" stuff if you know how to use it. (I don't, but I still managed to create a function that allows people to "draw a card" from the Critical Hit deck...though I haven't really implimented it in any of my games.)
- Private messaging within a post. Allows players and GMs to post info visible only to an individual or group of players.
- Easy HTML coding for formatting posts.
Lots of other stuff, plus a very proactive administrator and a helpful community.
Anyway, check it out. If nothing else, it will likely give you some ideas on where you might be able to improve things.
Cheers!