(ACTIVE) Growing A Tree

[White Masquerade]

Growing A Tree.


A re-doing of the idea by our group member @LunarShines, it is designed to help the GMs of young role-plays. The point here would be to give them support, enough to hopefully get things going and running well. We'd be giving them advice developing story, stories of what we've learned from own our past tries, insights on what could happen to their RP down the road, occasional bits of advertising, and whatever else they may need.


The Caveat





Yes, the point of this is to help the creators of small, promising roleplays, but we are not there to stay by their side forever. We help and then we leave for GM to run it on their own. Be very careful not to get attached. We give assistance and then we go. The help is to jump-start the roleplay and assist the GM in being ready to handle it by themselves.


The Starting Points


The starting points. These are few of the things we'll need to nail down before this can begin. If you have any comments or answers, please don't hesitate to speak your mind on how you think we should go about this.

• How do we go about choosing which one wins? 
  
• What exactly would we help the GM out with?
  
• What things won't we do for them as a group?
  

If anyone has something I don't see, comment on that below so it can be added here. Or..just put it yourself.   :smile4:  You should be able to edit this post. If not, let me know. Looking forward to seeing how we can get this started. Hopefully it will be able to tackle the problem of when good RPs die because of lack of help.


@LunarShines

Project Outline
​

• This contest will be semi-annual. Meaning we will do this twice a year.
  
• RPs will be chosen by us. One pick for each member of the group. (The search will last a period of 1 week). They will then be placed into a public thread where users can vote on who we should help.
  
• We will assist with Lore adjustments (not creation!), Plot outlines, Mechanics, and have a Question & Answer session with the GM. We can also help with advertising and recruiting players.
  
• We will not be GMing a roleplay for anybody.
  

Work Flow 1:


Browse the site (most likely the 'Interest Check Forums') and ask the GM of a roleplay you're interested in, whether they'd like to participate in the 'Growing A Tree' program. If they have questions you can tag someone from here to tell them more about it.


Each member of Story Mode can only  nominate 1 RP to be in the competition.


Work Flow 2:


Each RP chosen by a member of Story Mode (And the GM accepts) will be placed into a public thread highlighting their work. Users will be able to vote on this thread, for the RP they want to see the group help with.


This public thread for voting will be open for 1 week. After that, it closes and we will have our winner. In case of a tie, we will vote amongst ourselves for which one we'd prefer to work for.


Work Flow 3:


The winning GM will be invited into the Story Mode group to have conversations with us on how to help make the roleplay work and get from us any assistance they need. After the GM feels ready (Or after 2 weeks; whichever is earlier), the user will be removed from the group and left to work for their RP on their own.

 

[Lunar]

Is this where we can work through the Starting Points or is there another thread?

 

[White Masquerade]

Is this where we can work through the Starting Points or is there another thread?

Yup, this is the place. You edit whatever you want, how you wish

 

[Reinhardt]

Ayy, I'm gonna put some work in this while fandom lore is on hold. Anyway...

How often should this be? Monthly (Every month)? Bi-monthly (Every 2 months)? Quarterly (Every 3 months)? Semi-Annually (Every 6 months)?

I think bi-monthly and quarterly are both good choices. Still it relies on exactly how long we will be helping the winner/s. If it will take longer than expected, then most likely we will have to adjust the frequency of this event-thingy(?). Bi-monthly makes it more frequent and recurring, but certain possible complications may occur that would hinder it from being fully utilized. Quarterly takes a longer wait time, but it also gives us some room for adjustments. 


At this point, I'm leaning towards quarterly. Heck, I might be convinced to go for semi-annually, or even annually.

How do we go about choosing which one wins? 

You know that old competition you held in the RP Discussion & Advice forum, before the update? The ICC (Interest Check Competition)? We could incorporate that here, and modify its aspects, criteria and reward to fit the theme of this project. It could also double as advertising their RPs, so it's a win-win in my perspective.

What exactly would we help the GM out with?

That depends on what the GM needs to work on, or needs help with. If we're going for the standard here, then I think helping them with lore creation, plot outline, and mechanics development would suffice.

What things won't we do for them as a group?

First and the most important of it all, we will not GM for them. What follows next, I'm not entirely sure.

 

[Axiom Days]

Well, I mean for starters, we'd have to tell the GM first. So that its not like we just glomped them with help.

 

[White Masquerade]

@Dullahan Shinigami


Of course. In that case it's better this thing would be every 3 or 4 months. So we have a good group of willing GMs wanting to participate. Will add that into the post.

 

[White Masquerade]

@Reinhardt


Reindo, you must feel like kicking butt today off of your avatar yeah? I do agree, it's better that this is infrequent. I would be willing to make it semi-annual too. It does give space and time for the lot of us to work with. Thinking about it now, I think semi-annual would be the best choice. Not enough to make it tiring, but enough to be relevant and active in it. I'll go with each 6 months.


So you saw the competition, but didn't join? >_>. What a bystander. So basically throw up all of the picks and have users vote on which gets the group's support? That does seem like a good way to get other people in the community involved. Good exposure all around. Will add that.


Lore creation, Plot Outline, Mechanics development, with Q & A. This sounds good to me. I will list that.


Good start. Will list that under what not to do.

 

[QuirkyAngel]

Expanding on the gm's lore and helping develop the plot is a good, but I'd be wary of changing too much of his/her original ideas. This is the gm's story after all. One thing we don't want to is get ourselves too involved...to the point where it'd be difficult to extract ourselves without consequences to the rp. 


I agree with Semi-annually. We don't know how long it'll take, considering this will be the first time we've tried something like this. 


I imagine with could help with a bit of advertising/drawing in interested players. Find ways to make the rp look good and all that. 

 

[White Masquerade]

Expanding on the gm's lore and helping develop the plot is a good, but I'd be wary of changing too much of his/her original ideas. This is the gm's story after all. One thing we don't want to is get ourselves too involved...to the point where it'd be difficult to extract ourselves without consequences to the rp. 


I agree with Semi-annually. We don't know how long it'll take, considering this will be the first time we've tried something like this. 


I imagine with could help with a bit of advertising/drawing in interested players. Find ways to make the rp look good and all that. 

Will add in the advertising bit. I agree, ideas are touchy business so that's one place it can get sticky. As for making a thread look good...


xD  thinking about HTML makes me shudder. Not sure how we can do this. I don't think I know of any HTML expert.

 

[Reinhardt]

thinking about HTML makes me shudder. Not sure how we can do this. I don't think I know of any HTML expert.

Ugh. killme


I would have been useful with HTML, but I forgot all about it since it's been 6-ish years since I studied about it. Yeah, I could try to review and re-learn what I forgot, but I'm not really motivated to do so. Or let's say, I'm too lazy to do shit about it.

 

[QuirkyAngel]

I'm sure at least one of us knows our way around coding...(not me)


If not, we'll do what we can. Organization is White's strong suit, after all. And the Naruto Rebirth rp looks nice, even without anything fancy. 

 

[QuirkyAngel]

Ugh. killme


I would have been useful with HTML, but I forgot all about it since it's been 6-ish years since I studied about it. Yeah, I could try to review and re-learn what I forgot, but I'm not really motivated to do so. Or let's say, I'm too lazy to do shit about it.

Don't worry about it. I'm not sure I'd be willing to learn HTML for someone else's rp either.

 

[White Masquerade]

Ugh. killme


I would have been useful with HTML, but I forgot all about it since it's been 6-ish years since I studied about it. Yeah, I could try to review and re-learn what I forgot, but I'm not really motivated to do so. Or let's say, I'm too lazy to do shit about it.

No need to re-learn. I actually halfway have a solution. The problem I can't get past is how you insert CSS code into HTML. Not the external method, but the Embed method. I can get what I want to work in offline HTML editors, but on RPN, my cope flips out. There's some kind of restriction they still have inside the coding. =/.

I'm sure at least one of us knows our way around coding...(not me)


If not, we'll do what we can. Organization is White's strong suit, after all. And the Naruto Rebirth rp looks nice, even without anything fancy. 

Haha, I'm glad you think it looks nice! I had an HTML code for the overview but, the site's not editing it how I need =P. We can def at leaat make sure it's organized.

 

[Reinhardt]

There's some kind of restriction they still have inside the coding. =/.

I think CSS was not included? It was just HTML for beta-testing. So, CSS codes may work in preview, but it becomes trash codes when you submit the post.

 

[White Masquerade]

I think CSS was not included? It was just HTML for beta-testing. So, CSS codes may work in preview, but it becomes trash codes when you submit the post.

You are a genius. I had NO idea. Thank you very much.

 

[Lunar]

Its ironic, I've taken an HTML Web Design class and now im in a Mobile App Development class that uses Java and I suck at both :/  

 

[White Masquerade]

Its ironic, I've taken an HTML Web Design class and now im in a Mobile App Development class that uses Java and I suck at both :/  

LOL. Don't be so hard on yourself. HTML'ing assistance I don't think would be a good use of time anyway. Better to focus on assisting with substance over style.

 

[White Masquerade]

So I'll finally be starting on this, this weekend as a heads up to all still waiting.

 

[White Masquerade]

Alright, continuing with this, I've set it so each member can pick 1 roleplay to be placed into the contest of who we should help. So 1 entry per member of Story mode.

 

[White Masquerade]

The opening post here is updated with the process and relevant details. Any questions, please let me know. I think it'd be possible to start this by the middle of December!