Dedonus

All-Star Marvel: Audax Mundus Novus - Season 1 (Completed)

@Sep: Definitely have this in a separate thread so that things do not become confusing.

All-Star Marvel: Audax Mundus Novus - Season 1 (Completed)

@natty I'll be working on the Amazing Friends post for the next thirty or so minutes. Just fyi.

Maximum Comics: Dawn of Justice | REBRANDING - PLEASE STAY TUNED

@Dedonus

Originally, I started Maximum Comics for just the reasons you stated: the concurrent games were spread too thin. Back a few years ago we had an Indie Comics, One Universe, Ultimate DC, and All-Star Marvel game; and my belief was adding a concrete foundation for a true singularization would make them all not needed and thus folks who I value as talented writers could focus their efforts on one game. Unfortunately between my timing, setup, activity, or whatever other effects… it just didn’t work and I began to doubt myself. I take a lot of the blame for this, but I keep thinking in my head that I didn’t build this game for nothing so I really should find a way to make it work; your version of ASM is a good standard to prove that it works. But my activity was jagged for a month and a half…. and folks gave up. I don’t know if ASM has luck or just more determined folks, but it does give me a glimmer of hope for Maximum.

I just need to talk with my players and find out how to do just that.

@Gowi

I think ASM was a combination of good luck and determined folks. In one of my in-progress player recruit drives, I lucked into attracting players like @Sep and @Natty (and others) who have proven to me to be reliable writers who I can count on even if I am a little behind on my posting schedule. So, I think luck goes hand-in-hand in finding those "determined folks".

You also bring up another good point. Not only are there similar games being run on different sites, but the All-Star, Ultimate DC, One Universe, Indie, Maximum Comics games also compete with themselves for players on the same site. People fall behind on posts if they have to write for 3 characters in multiple games. Unfortunately, I am not quite sure how to "fix" this problem besides properly timing when you put up the game.

Also, I remember three more pieces of advice.

First, although I don't really have any comment on the start date itself, I think it might be beneficial to allow a range of where the players characters can be in the superhero careers. In other words, some players can have a character in their first year of superheroics, while someone else can have his/her character in his 3rd year. As long as you establish guidelines for this, I think I can mix things up (i.e. we don't have to go through everyone's origin story, which we have all heard a gazillion times). For instance, you can say that your character can be anywhere between year 1 and year 3 in their career and certain characters, like mutants, cosmic characters, etc. can have a little bit more leeway. I don't know if you already are doing this. If you are, just ignore me.

Second, for these "one universe" games, the GM needs to take into account the landscape of the roleplay when considering which non-DC and non-Marvel characters should be allowed to be applied for. I honestly think you actually did a fairly good job on this. The Singular Universe game on SuperHeroHype, on the other hand, kind of got out of control in this aspect. It is fine if the characters fit into what has already been established in the game, but when that game started accepting Godzilla, the Power Rangers, James Bond, and other characters, things got, in my opinion, too unfocused. An example of doing this correctly would be accepting the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when there are a couple other NYC street-level characters so that it does not seem like they are separated in their own little bubble.

Finally, for relaunching Maximum Comics, it might be wise to wait until after the holidays before you start recruiting more players. Even though this holiday season does include winter break for most students, people also get busy around this time of year too. When I first started All-Star Marvel, I had to soft-reboot it once because I tried to launch it right after I finished my exams but we all got busy over Winter break. While it might seem like a good idea to launch a game during a break from school, it might be better to wait until after New Years because people will not have as many responsibilities for their families as over this holiday season.

Also, when determining whether you want to do a hard reboot (clean slate) or a soft reboot (carry over characters, but allows a good jumping on point for new characters), I think you need to consider who in this game currently will be coming along and, as a result, which characters will be doing so as well. How much of the current lore be salvaged when certain key characters might be changing?

Maximum Comics: Dawn of Justice | REBRANDING - PLEASE STAY TUNED

In regards to feedback/criticism, all I can say is that after participating in three games of this style, one of them being my own, I think the primary reason for loss of interest is the lack of engagement. By that, I mean that players are given so much freedom, and the overarching plot is pushed so far to the background, that eventually everyone's left thinking, "Now what?" So, long story short, I think a way to guarantee the game lasting longer is to put more emphasis on the main plot. Retain the sandbox element, but with a larger focus on the bigger scope of things. I hope that made sense.

@GreenGrenade

I don't necessarily agree with this feedback (or at least it is not true all the time). The Create-A-Hero RPG has been going strong for two entire years so far (and that's not counting how long it was going before the guildfall). My own All-Star Marvel has been chugging along for almost a year now, too (mattering which thread you count as the 'start'). In neither of these two games have we gotten to the "main plot" (although in All-Star Marvel, we are starting to put together the Avengers for the first time). There has been solo and collaborative story arcs, but these (particularly the collaborative arcs) stories have been rather limited to a few characters.

Furthermore, there have been game-wide events in CAH RPG, but these have been rather player driven instead of GM mandated. The closest thing to a "main plot" in the CAH RPG was an event that a new player pushed out (ironically this player also disappeared, leaving us to finish it off). But there was no real planning for this (or at least on my or Nitemare Shape's part). It was spontaneous and, while it did result in a rule being made where you need to consult the GMs to make sure an event does not conflict with anyone, gave certain characters reasons to push their character(s) forward.

So, for my own feedback (although I was not really involved in this roleplay - I will try to give feedback from my experiences in the Create-A-Hero RPG and All-Star Marvel, the first thing to make these games successful is having an active GM. Please don't take this as a personal attack or anything, Gowi. And when I mean "active GM", I don't mean "post in the IC everyday". Instead, just make sure you can consistently make posts. Furthermore, while you don't want the OOC filled with pages and pages of discussion that might be better for a chat room, I also believe that having a somewhat active OOC in general is beneficial. And again, what I mean by this is that, if the last OOC post was from three (or more) days ago, then I think there is a problem.

Next, you also need at least a dedicated core group of players who you can rely on to post and keep the ball rolling. I have found this true for both CAH and All-Star Marvel. Sometimes you just need those two or three players who know what direction they want to take their character(s) and can keep the IC active while other players try to find what direction they want to push their characters. I have done this before in the CAH thread in its infancy after guildfall and I have had other players in All-Star Marvel do this. Basically, if your thought process, as a player, is "I will wait to post until others post", then the roleplay will imminently run out of steam. Any roleplay (whether a roleplay like this one, All-Star, and CAH, or something else on this website) is a two way street. Both the GM and the players must be active and motivated.

Another improvement that might help is enforcing the "one character at first, then two more characters are 'unlocked' after a few posts" rule, even for the "veteran" players. I think that if you allow players to start out with three characters (or even more) at the very beginning, they might be overwhelmed with having too many tools in the tool shed. It is either that or players need to know when they are taking on more than they can handle. I feel that if the game would grow "naturally", then it might help out. What I mean by this is that each player at first take one character and start making posts. After two or three posts, if the player feels that they can take on another character, then allow them to make another character sheet.

Another thing I learned from running All-Star Marvel is, especially in the games infancy, you need to be able to be flexible with players who "disappear" (especially for months at a time or even not showing up again at all). For All-Star Marvel, I allowed potential players to retcon the history of characters who have "disappeared" because usually the type of player who does this disappearing act will only have made a few posts that have not interacted with anyone and it makes it very easy to retcon without messing with the roleplay's lore. Furthermore, I feel that the "first arc should be a solo arc" really facilitates this and weeds out people who would disappear anyways. While this might not be necessary for the first arc for your third player, for new players, this makes sure that if they disappear without any explanation, they are not going to screw over that character.

Unlike Create-A-Hero, where we can just ignore the characters of missing players, since they are original characters and someone making a CS for a specific character does not affect the availability of another character to another player, these games where you base the characters on established comic book characters do not have this liberty. This is why I like the "retcon" option and the "first arc must be a solo arc" because it prevents a situation where someone might make a character CS and screwing over that character (and other characters who would interact with that character) for future, potential players.

Okay, I think I am going to stop here for now. If I think of anything else in the next few days, I'll let you know. I hope some of this will be helpful. I really do enjoy these types of games and really don't want to see them whither away due to inactivity.

@Gowi

P.S. Okay, I lied. One more piece of advice. While this might not apply as much as it did a month or so ago, I think we need to make sure our player base is not split. What I mean is that (I am overusing this phrase ), at one point, we had similar games (Marvel, DC, combined) running both on this site AND SuperHeroHype. While some players do participate on both boards, I feel that having two "All-Star" Marvel, 2 "Ultimate" DC, and 2 "One Universe" games going at the same time just divides the potential players in half. Either that, or the players who are participating in both are too stretched thin.

All-Star Marvel: Audax Mundus Novus - Season 1 (Completed)

<Snipped quote by ChildHoodRuined>

Spider-Woman doesn't currently exist in this timeline.

@Sep

^ This, plus you still have yet to fix the issues that I have already mentioned.

@ChildHoodRuined

I still feel that the first paragraph of your character sheet remains too plagiarized.

Here is your first paragraph and the first paragraph on Marvel Wikia that correspond to yours. The bold highlight identical phrases. I do have to say that after looking over the application, the other paragraphs are much better.

Your

A few weeks after Norman Osborn was arrested by the S.H.I.E.L.D, and his identity as the Green Goblin was revealed to the public, Osborn Industries was left abandoned. Nearly two months before Peter Parker's death, a criminal named Aaron Davis broke into Osborn industries. Unknown to Aaron Davis, a spider genetically enhanced with a OZ formula crawled into his bag.

Marvel Wikia

After Norman Osborn was arrested by S.H.I.E.L.D, and publicly revealed as the Green Goblin, Osborn Industries was left abandoned. Nearly two months before Peter Parker's death, a thief broke into Osborn Industries. Unbeknownst to the thief, a spider genetically enhanced with the Oz Formula crawled into his bag.

While you did fix the whole situation dealing with using a dead character (Cletus Kasday was only mentioned in the Ultimate Spider-Man run), it still leaves many questions unanswered. How did Cletus Kasday get a symbiote (Venom already absorbed the 1610 Carnage into itself) and how did he get that device? Why would he have it? If you wanted these answered to be left as a "mystery" that will be revealed as the roleplay advances, then I would like you to PM me the answers to these questions so that I, as the GM, can know what is going on.

Also, you still mention Doc Ock in your sample post.

@Dedonus

All-Star Marvel: Audax Mundus Novus - Season 1 (Completed)

maybe a 5th string mutant villain like Vanisher

@The Kid Lantern

Vanisher is already on the Brotherhood is involved in the X-Men/Ms. Marvel crossover arc in Boston.

The Twelve Labours: General Discussion

Wait, is it December already?

And here I am already behind schedule. Tsk tsk.

Of course, recalling one of my earlier posts, I cannot actually be certain that the next Labour will be starting yet. If anybody is paying attention and would care to chime in: Should I run the Sixth Labour during December, or wait until after the New Year?

If nobody answers I will default to the presumption of delay due to holiday-induced apathy.

@Terminal

You might want to hold out until New Year. The next week or two will be exam week for most people, so that might take up people's time.

All-Star Marvel: Audax Mundus Novus - Season 1 (Completed)

Hey @Dedonus you haven't pre-determined where the Triskellion is have you?

@Sep

No, I have not yet established where the Trikellion is.

Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG (Closed)

Settler's Clearing is a nature reserve just outside of the city. I think it might be right up Athena's alley. In fact, it's where Kyle and Addie when when they learned each other's secrets.

@nitemare shape

Sounds like a good idea. We don't want this meeting to be too public. ;)

<Snipped quote by Dedonus>

Don't worry, you'd blend right in, you could say you'll be undercovers...

@VATROU

I don't think that all the character invited to this are ready to reveal their identities yet (although Iron Knight will probably just stroll up in a limo ). Also, we don't want to feed the media with any juicy headlines.

"Lyger and Icon spotted at local strip club."

Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG (Closed)

<Snipped quote by Dedonus>

A Str-- I mean Gentleman's Club. Err yes. Secluded with plenty of.. Entertainment.

@VATROU

We're trying to not bring a lot of attention to ourselves.