This might be OT for this forum, if so I apologise deeply. Feel free to move this where it belongs.
I have a PBP campaign that's been going on for just over 2 years now, somewhere around 2500 posts. I'm starting Act II of the campaign and was wondering if there was a way to leave the "Act I" thread still attached to the campaign but to attach a new PBP thread as the new "Act II" thread?
I'd hate to create a second campaign to get a new PBP thread in but is this the only way to do such a thing?
Advice on how to accomplish something like this in general? Or is there really no way to do it?
If you don't get a response, you could e-mail the paizo webmaster on this topic.
As that would also be useful in the campaigns I am running.
I think I know a way post a link to it using the url tags in the campaign info page. That is the easiest way to do that. This might just be a workaround that works.
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As a GM who is not the OP, I'd see utility in greater re-readability (i.e., smaller chunks that are self-contained), the psychological "break" of starting over with a new section, and greater ease in tracking down specific events that might not show up readily with the forum's rather-uneven search thread function...
As a GM who is not the OP, I'd see utility in greater re-readability (i.e., smaller chunks that are self-contained), the psychological "break" of starting over with a new section, and greater ease in tracking down specific events that might not show up readily with the forum's rather-uneven search thread function...
+0x80 (translation from hex to dec: +128)
So basically, the campaign I'm running is a 3 act campaign. Each act is a "module+" of information, and the first act has taken somewhere just over 2 years to get through with over 2500 posts.
Just from a "first perspective" on this, I cringe when I have to go back through that many pages of posts to get information. With the introduction of a new act, all of the "old" act mysteries and twists have played through, any that haven't will be introduced in the opening setting for the act.
In essence I'm looking at this as a way to "archive" a couple years of game play where it's referable without getting in the way of new play.
Is there any real reason why I can't just continue down the same campaign thread I"m using now? No, I guess not...we'll end the campaign with 7 - 10K posts in the thread I suspect, but I guess that's not a big deal.
Still, from a consolidation of information and a cleanliness of play, it becomes easier for me to manage a campaign broken into acts with different play threads like I"m requesting than trying to run it all together.
For instance, lets assume a year from now we're half way through act II and I want to figure out what some of the names of NPC's the players have been introduced to in this act were. I'm not going to remember that page 47 (or whatever) is where I ended Act I, so I'm going to end up going through tens of pages of text to try to figure out where my act ended and then tens of more pages of text to figure out what the players have met / seen.
This has gotten to be HOURS of process for me when I do experience allocations that have literally not been given for months because we've only covered a couple days of game time. Having to go back through 20 - 30 pages of posts to determine experience gains is hard enough, having an additional 50 pages of text prior becomes a real challenge to manage.
Obviously there are better ways of doing this, and if I were a bit more organised of a DM I could probably find better ways to handle this, still, being able to subset portions of a campaign into smaller play by post threads and link all of those to the campaign instead of huge blocks of pages of text does make it easier for a DM to find information.
Even a solution whereby I can "bookmark" important posts in a campaign would help with some of the organizational stuff...
Lastly, the way my campaign is setup, there are logical breaks where I am allowing players to duck out/duck into the campaign at good "stopping points". Allowing players to come into what looks like a "Fresh" campaign and not be intimidated by 50 pages of previous posts is encouraging as well.
Just a few thoughts that come to mind while thinking through why I'd prefer to split a campaign up into multiple threads instead of just one huge one.
I'd be happy to discuss/chat with anyone further about this through either e-mail, PM or here.
--Illydth
Even a solution whereby I can "bookmark" important posts in a campaign would help with some of the organizational stuff...
Actually there is a way. For my game (which just passed 8000 in a single thread), I use the "List" function to bookmark important or memorable posts. Then, in the description field for that entry, I add keywords that would be relevant for if I wanted to do a simple Ctrl+F style search right from within my web browser.
Rumble in the Jungle Table of Contents
The other trick I use is at the start of each day, and at various points throughout the day (in-world time, not real time), I will add a notation of what the date, time, and moon phase are. I keep the current day/phase marked with asterisks so I don't forget where we are. Check out the shortkeys links in my profile for how to implement something like this easily.
Raw Scripts:
Time: :00db md et nf (daybreak morning midday afternoon eventide evening nightfall night, :00)
Darkshoal: New Moon - Waxing Crescent - First Quarter - Waxing Gibbous - Full Moon - *Waning Gibbous* - Waning Crescent - Last Quarter
The good thing about this is that it then allows me to search them game thread itself by including the year and month name.
Let me know if you need more info on how this works, the Table of Contents list alone will REALLY help, trust me! Just make sure you update it about once every week or two. :)
Even a solution whereby I can "bookmark" important posts in a campaign would help with some of the organizational stuff...
The simplest way might be to just put a link to your important posts on the "Campaign Info" page of the campaign. Otherwise, you could try using lists like Laithoron suggested.
Interesting solution Laith, I'm going to start digging into what you're doing a bit more to see what I can steal from you for implementation in my campaign.
Anyone else have useful tips on managing huge threads? I'd still be interested in being able to break a campaign into multiple play threads for clarity sakes, but some of these tips I'm sure are invaluable. :)
By all means, feel free. :) If it interests you, one thing I've started doing lately is compiling an Advice List of posts that I've found (or in some cases made) that I think/hope might be useful to other GMs. For instance there's a great thread down in GamerTalk right now where a cartographer is sharing their mapping tutorials on Facebook and Google+.