Advice/Help Big project, need help.

[Zero Two]

So I have an idea based on the anime, Infinite Dendrogram. It's an anime based about a full dive VRMMO. The NPC's are basically about as realistic as me and you, they have their own personalities and thoughts and the world feels about as alive for them as the real world feels for us.

Might sound cliche I know, but hear me out. I'm apart of a couple roleplays at the moment, however they're really slow. My plate isn't full, not even close. I'm a college student and I don't have a job so my schedule is free, as I don't really have much to do... the more I roleplayed on this site and others... I began to think about a pretty big ass project based by this anime. The world is already there, the lore, the mechanics, everything. It's a super cool world and could give everyone and their characters the chance to be unique, standout and be powerful.

So on another roleplay website someone had a roleplay going on similar to the idea I have, multiple threads spread out for different locations for players to rp in.

I'm thinking an arena, guild halls, dungeons, and different cities. It would be a big RP project and would require a couple GM's. It would have the potential to have a lot of characters and might be too big of a project to handle... but I have faith and if it works out, could turn into something really big.

Everyone would start at level one and could rank up by completing quests gave out by guilds, NPC's and job boards, that people would RP completing, take their character to the appropriate thread, do the quest and return. Fight bosses in dungeons and get cool loot that we feel like is appropriate to give our characters. Jobs exist and I'll go more in-depth about all that later and what not... the arena exist for players to rp and fight each other... no mary sues pls... GM's will exist for this reason... when a player dies they are locked out for 24 hours (3 days in game) when a NPC dies, they die for good. Any NPC has the capability to die. The world of Dendrogram is popular because of its infinite possibilities, any NPC can give out a quest.

HOWEVER, after reading all of this. I need advice and your thoughts... is is plausible/possible for this to work and if it is I need volunteer GM's. If you are interested in this and want to see what the project could turn into, let me know and I'll add you to a group PM. Thanks C:

 

[still watching fma]

I'm always skeptical of collaborations because people on here have essentially never replied to me again. xD However, I would be interested if you were planning on finangling some dice rules from various table top games, coupled with custom spell effects for this. It's just my current muse, dice related stuff. I've already tried freeform ideas like this and tbh, it wasn't my cup of tea. We were running around with the idea that, " There were no rules but there were rules". ;-;

It wasn't a terrible rp site or experience. It just wasn't my cup of tea. However, if you do want someone to bounce ideas off of, I can at the very least do that. I would like to see this idea succeed so I can try it in the future. lol

 

[Zero Two]

still watching fma I live by the philosophy that it is always nice to try new things. Of course getting enough people to partake, finding co-gm's, and actually getting the rp off the ground... seems hard to do. However, I don't feel like giving up... I'll work with this idea and try to reboot it for as long as I'm active on this site.

Of course they'll be rules, but not very strict ones. I don't want Mary Sues running all over the place, but there will be characters stronger than others... I'm thinking of running the collaborative team like a tyranny. I'll be at the center, throw in ideas and rules. The people helping me will tell me their opinions while also throwing in ideas and rules... however ultimately I'll decide what is what. I feel these things work better if someone is told what to do instead of letting them decide for themselves, GM wise.

 

[Heyitsjiwon]

I've seen my fair share of RPs that try to bring a game to life with mechanics, levels, and multiple GMs. Unfortunately, it seems like very few make it very far.

One of the major problems is that each GM might not have exactly what you have in mind. For example, loot. What do characters get after defeating a mob and how much of it? One GM might be more generous than another, which will make the game aspect of the RP pretty unbalanced if one GM constantly gives 100 gold per enemy while the other one only gives 10 gold. You would have to do a lot of work to try and make things standardized.

This brings up the next point. Managing and running a RP like this takes A LOT of time and consistency. What happens if, in the middle of an adventure, half of a party vanishes because some people lost interest/become busy? What happens if a GM becomes busy with real life? What happens if YOU have to stop GMing for a while due to finals? Does the RP get paused for a few weeks? That tends to deflate a lot of the momentum, excitement, and energy in a RP, which I've seen kill a lot of RPs as most people lost interest after a bit of time.

Ultimately, I think an ambitious project like this requires a solid set of mechanics and back up plans. Maybe try running a smaller version of the idea first? Before getting GMs to help, I think figuring out mechanics for a game like RP would be your most important goal. Then once you have good, clear mechanics, find people who would be willing to learn the mechanics and then apply them as GMs with their own parties.

 

[still watching fma]

I agree with a lot of what Jiwon said. Ultimately you have to spend a lot of time creating a bunch of rules and regulations, then present them to the community after you're done. Starting with a smaller goal can eventually lead to a bigger project when you've already got people loyal and interested.

As for being a tyrant. I'm always the type of gm to see it as a two way street. My plots are only as good as my player's willingness to play within them. So I think you're better off showing people your idea and capabilities as a gm. Then forming a partnership that is based on trust and performance, rather than a dictatorship.

 

[Zero Two]

Heyitsjiwon I agree, which is why I wanted help. Your post is super helpful and enlightening honestly. It seems rather hard to do...

Hmm. Maybe have a thread and list of mobs that reside in each dungeon and the contents they drop. And for the dungeon bosses have a random drop generator with custom drops added to the generator and when your character and team kills the boss, you can click a link located at the top of the dungeon thread and generate your boss loot?

 

[Zero Two]

I def plan on creating the rules and preparing everything in my spare time and then try it on a smaller scale after considering what has been said :3 thanks ya'll.

 

[still watching fma]

np np, feel free to show me what you have and if you want, I can dm you other sites which have tried what you're doing in some capacity or another.

 

[Heyitsjiwon]

Wish you the best of luck with the project! I'm usually itching for a good RP, so I hope it works out. Just be prepared to put in a lot of work and thinking into it cause you're essentially developing a game too. That's what seems to kill a lot of RPs like this either the lack of solid RP/game mechanics and/or the GM not having enough time/energy to run an ambitious project like this for longer than a week or two. But yea, always feel free to reach out if you want opinions, suggestions, ideas, or even a tester.

 

[Idea]

On RPN at least there are these things called ‘hosted projects’ , which are essentially what you are looking to create - more localized assortments of threads within the same setting, which can interact with one another and so on and so forth. If your goal is to create an RP with multiple threads or even multiple RPs working within the same project, then aiming to be able to make a hosted project might be your best bet.

That said, as you may imagine it won’t be easy. There’s a bunch of requirements for it, not that I know them by heart though. So I would personally recommend starting by trying to just make one RP within the setting- use that to work out how exactly you’re gonna play it out in terms of mechanics, policies (for solving disputes and degree of faithfulness to cannon etc...) and assess whether you’d be able to go through and maintain the project as you expand it.

 

[Kazami42]

Could work, but only really in hosted projects section. In my experience such big RPs or ideas in general, are destined for the eradication of your current mental state on RPN otherwise.

You would still get a lot of traffic, but depending on your ruleset and mechanics, not that of which you might be looking for. You might get casuals, you might get the detailed, you might get both, or you could end up with totalitarian Leonardio Mabellio. Being a hosted project, you at least get more of what you want from it without having to dumb it down. You'll find the hardest part isn't working all day and night to invent up a detailed idea and losing it, but having to overly simplify and potentially make it too vague, because the standards up to date elsewhere is barely known and immensely varied on here.

That is dependent entirely upon the available information. Depending on it you also get your community. You can't detail it without losing more of the casuals guaranteeing lower number. You can't simplify it without losing some of the detailed players. This is why smaller character projects are more abundant and varied. For example some understand the work for a character and will want to work to keep them alive. Others are against death in general. Another group prefer only the GM doing it regardless of logic, the rest want it standardized. But if you do end up finding the middle man of systems, the holy grail of it all, crank up Jojo's "awaken" because you've just become the ultimate being.

 

[Alteras]

I love Infinite Dendrogram and would definitely be interested in joining.

As stated by many, Hosted Projects are the prime example of what you're looking for. That being said, you can do the same thing in normal forums using Threadmarks. I give you these two examples:

SMITED:

Realistic or Modern - SMITED [Urban Fantasy][Closed]

SMITEDSMITED - Supernatural/Mundane Institute for Threat Elimination and Defense - is an international agency that focuses solely on issues of a supernatural nature. Due to modern technology, it has become more difficult to hide the presence of beings and creatures that were believed to be...

www.rpnation.com

This RP is run and maintained by a fellow admin. They have more or less taken the approach of having multiple ICs for different ongoing missions occuring simultaneously in their world. At the moment the RP has slowed down due to external reasons, but during it's prime, it was operating with quite the number of people.

Kolan and The Guild Wars:

Fantasy - Kolan and The Guild Wars [Closed/Hiatus(?)]

font-family:'Oldenburg'; font-size:20px; text-align:center; Welcome to Kolan and the Guild Wars!

www.rpnation.com

Made by our fellow mod, this RP runs with two concurrent ICs in the same world. The ICs are divided into their respective Guilds.

Both of these RPs were originally Hosted Projects but have seen been downgraded to the normal forum system since they aren't as "super big" as the others. They serve as prime examples of Threadmarks done well.

While it is easy to think of using multiple threads for different locations, I have to advise against that. It makes continuity very confusing, as you'll have to flip through different threads to follow along. Ideally, you'd want ICs to instead follow group parties, or maybe even just Arcs in your story, quests even. I can see a good integration between constant location threads and disposable single use quest threads. This can be done using the Threadmark system, which provides easily navigable tabs at the top of your threads.

Threadmark Tutorial [with Images]

This is what a created threadmark index looks like. It appears at the top of the thread(s)

www.rpnation.com

 

[Zero Two]

Alteras Kazami42

Thanks for the detailed input, it makes me happy that they're so many nice people here on RPN. I'm kind of new, so I was a little naive when I initially posted this. I've learned a lot about how to realistically pull this off, granted it would take up a lot of my time. It isn't easy to do and I still want to attempt to do it, of course on a smaller scan than I initially wanted, but at a later time. Infinite Dengrogram is such a nice, new, anime that really gives the VRMMO genre a refreshing take. I'm glad to have found another person who enjoys it. - Right now, I'm wanting to make a fandom-esk roleplay centered around a team of 4. People can play embryos, or not, up to them. I'll use it then as a stepping stone and build experience that I'll use when I decide to try and tackle the bigger project.

c:

 

[HarryPlopper]

Definitely interested. Loved the show. Will be following to see if this actually moves forward. And if a CS pops up I'll definitely make one.