I’m not sure if Peter is scheduled for a post tomorrow, but I thought I would write a quick post with some random items that have been on my mind of late.
- Discord. I’m still trying to get my head around the Discord server and it’s overall utility. Does it add functionality beyond the RM Forums? I feel like I’m missing something, and normally I’d say I was showing my age–but all you other RM players are my age as well!
- Was there a Gen Con or was it just a virtual convention. Does that work? I’m looking forward to Hurin’s report on running a game.
- We have started our new “50 in 50” this past weekend. The first adventure hook is The Haunted Dagger. Like virtually all of my mini-hooks they were extracted from past games or ultimately intended for the Shadow World setting. I mostly strip setting specific material out.
- Reviews. Obviously we are not writing these adventures for any real monetary motivation, but sales and exposure can depend on reviews. Three of my adventures have gotten poor reviews: The City of Spiders, Bokars Wagon and Curse of the Ancient Tomb. So CoS I get–the reviewer wanted more “meat on the bone” in terms of city maps etc. That would be nice, and perhaps some day we’ll expand upon these with new, more evolved versions. However, I was surprised by Bokars Wagon. I thought it was cool and Adrian did a solid floor plan of the wagon. It was an interesting little NPC drop-in. Unfortunately, all I can see is a 2-star review with no feedback on what the issue or problem was with the product. The same for “Curse of the Ancient Tomb”. 1-star! Really, I’m no Stephen King but I didn’t think it was that bad. I had to make some changes to strip it of SW stuff, and the Time magic might be too complicated for a GM come on–if you gave me the 1-star I would appreciate a few sentences explaining why. Now that we are writing more adventures, ANY feedback is helpful.
- RMU. We seem to be getting closer…
- Pandemic. Will we see an increase in gaming from people/families/friends being forced to stay at home and quarantine? Is this an opportunity to reach a broader market while people are spending so much time online? Is RM Forums, Rolemasterblog etc seeing an increase in registered users and traffic? Just curious.
Stay safe!
You ask a good question vis-a-vis Discord, but it could be expanded to any number of other ‘social’ media platforms. Frankly, I mentioned that very issue to Colin and Mr. Caldwell during the virtual GenCon Q/A sessions they had. After all, there’s a pile of them, and how do you constructively determine which ones you should be paying attention to? Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Discord, Reddit, … I feel for Colin.
Back to Discord: Several points.
1) The younger crowd knows jack about Forums. If you plan to expand your audience, you owe it to yourself to at least have a presence where a target audience is. Those of us on the Discord channel know it is not a replacement of the Forums. But it has its place for facilitating casual, informal, free-flow conversation. And that’s even before you bring in voice chat.
2) There were several of us that made the suggestion that ICE should have an OFFICIAL Discord server. Yes, there is an unofficial ‘ICERPG’s’ server, but it’s not the same thing (nor does it try to be). Every session I was in (9) at virtual GenCon, the voice and chat were conducted over Discord (via WotC, Paizo, Monte Cook games, etc..). Heck, Piazo had both text and chat channels for every game they ran, and when you consider they had like 800 games over 4 days, that’s saying something). Having a dedicated place allowed GM’s to answer questions on games well before the actual session, easing the burden of all involved. Everyone could see the question, and the GM’s answer (unlike email tends to be).
3) A fair number of younger players play RPG’s via Discord. Sure it’s all theater of the mind, but that’s what they do (my 17 year old daughter is a prime example). With an official ICE channel, they could easily (and cheaply) provide support for those players via a dice-rolling bot. When one (which was contributed by a kind member at the ICERPG’s channel) was shown that could do table lookups, Mr. Caldwell seemed quite impressed. The bot would be owned by ICE, and *could* provide easy access to things like Weapon and Critical tables, MM results, etc…
There was a Gen Con — virtual only — and I am putting together a report, which I hope to get out in the next day or two. It will show that RMU is indeed getting closer!
The Discord server provides audio chat functionality. I think this is it’s main appeal, but am not entirely sure.