Help Me Learn

I am not new to the concept of TTRPGs or PbP, not even close. I wrote my first gaming system in the late 80s, which was sold, outright, to TSR and became the proficiencies and feats which were later introduced in 2e D&D. In 2013, a bit after getting out of the military, I wrote my second gaming system which I hosted on another site from 2016 until this year. The other site became unviable.

As Gulf War Syndrome should do me in sooner rather than later and having no family to inherit anything, I no longer care about trying to sell or make money on the system. I want to share it in the hope that others will enjoy playing it.

I have watched the video put up be qrallaq, which is quite informative, but I think that it is from an older version of this site and his express familiarity loses me from time to time. Kudos though for the great effort and interest in helping others. I would like to break the necessities into smaller packets so that I can better remember them and I would really love some site help.

I know how to create a game from my home page. Do I need to create that first and then make a recruitment thread? If so, where should I make the recruitment thread?

I have a ton more questions, hopefully not to the point of exasperation.

You have an idea for a game

0) Make an interest thread: Are there people who think your idea is interesting? Once you find that there are plenty of players who love your idea, you move to

1) Create the game forum. Make the game and start the sub-fora. Order your thoughts on setting, tone and describe them. Make the initial threads (OOC, Character generation, Setting information, Lines and vails if needed ect.
Personally, I also make the opening game post and lock it, as I believe that players can use the opening to create their character.

2) Create your recruitment thread. Now this can be your interest tread and sometimes it's a new thread. You can link your recruitment thread with the game, under the game settings.

3) Invite players and start playing

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Now the order of operations is not always important. 1-2-3, 2-1-3, 0-2-1-3, 0-1-2-3

There is a Discord channel for #pbp_advice and #gm_mentoring_project that you can use. You can also be cheeky and create an interest check thread and say you are looking for players for X, but you want an experienced player to support you with the technical stuff. You should not be afraid to set expectations for your players.

Fine and dandy. I clicked on "create a new game" from my home page. I typed in my information or at least something; but when I click "create" at the bottom of the page, nothing happens.

That usually happens if some field is filled in incorrectly.
Commonly it's because people forget to add a sheet type - did you click on a small plus sign next to the chosen sheet type to add it?

That must have been it. I thought I had selected "custom," but this time it worked. At the moment the game is junk with almost nothing in it. Hopefully I can begin to edit it and fill in real information.

BTW, I love your stuff in the game we are playing together.

Yay, glad it helped!
And thank you, I love your writing too. :D Can't wait until our characters meet so we can combine our powers for the ultimate occult experience.

Since most people on this site will not be familiar with the gaming system and I own the rights, I intend to provide all information for free. The current system is specifically designed for PbP, keeping the numbers small. I have some players who followed me from the unviable gaming site, but I hope to attract others as well.

(1) Would it be best to create a sub-forum to hold the technical information and have the character generation information contain a link to jump to that location as well?

(2) I figure that should be able to develop the recruitment thread and game thread simultaneously. Where should I go to make the recruitment thread?

Organization is a matter of preference. I find using forums to organize helpful. There is a guide about this in the General Guides
https://gamersplane.com/user/13719
There are likely more but that is the first I found.
Be cautioned that deleting forums in a game has had issues but you can always rename something. Just didn't make to many then regret it

Recruitment threads go in Games Tavern. There is a guideline thread How to Write a Recruitment Thread if you need inspiration for what to include in it, or any examples.

As for organisation, I love when games have a separate subforum/thread for rules and character generation, but it is a matter of preferences. I think it's a good idea to add a link in either case, make it easier to find for new players. :3

I prefer to keep active threads at the top level and use forums for archives and reference material.
If you ever have to split a game and want separate threads with restricted access them you can use forums for that at well.

Is there a way to adjust the size of an image in a post?

Yes. If it is from imgur. There is a section on that in the BCC Guide

No problem with the upload from my computer, but I am not seeing anything in the thread you linked about adjusting the size of it in a post.

Also, if I lock a thread, does this prevent others from posting to it and can I go back and edit it later?

If you expand the "Tip" spoiler below the Upload Image section it details suffix that can be added to imgur URL to alter the image displayedLocking a thread prevents others from posting
Game owners and GM can still post

You can also wrap any image in a f tag like these:

[f=display:block width:100%][img]https://i.imgur.com/nH9jJWU.jpeg[/img][/f]
[f=display:block width:50%][img]https://i.imgur.com/nH9jJWU.jpeg[/img][/f]
[f=display:block width:25%][img]https://i.imgur.com/nH9jJWU.jpeg[/img][/f]

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Thanks for the help.

At this point, I have a mass of information loaded in the forums within the actual game thread, but I need to create a recruitment thread. I now know that this is posted in the Gamers Tavern, and writing one is no problem. Looking at other recruitments, there is technical information about the game at the top of each thread and a button for "game details" that is a link to the actual game.

How do I generate all the technical stuff for people to move between the threads?

BTW, The title of the game is The Burning Sands and it is visible by "browsing games;" although, the status is private and closed because I am still trying to learn how the site functions and is programmed.

To attach game details to the recruitment post, first you have to make said recruitment post. Then, go to your game page, edit it, and you'll see a field for recruitment thread - add a link to your thread here, and it'll automatically attach all the technical info.

Edit: and by add a link, I mean complete it, since the field already has "https://gamersplane.com/forums/thread/" part. You just need to add the last part, the numbers.

thanks. Hopefully tomorrow!

Super cool. I am drawing some interest. How to I get people into the actual game forum? How do I send an invite?

You can use the Invite form and button in your Game Details page

Or players can apply by going to your Game Detail. If you linked your game to the recruitment thread it will have a button to go there at the top of the thread

That is what I figured, but I had to go into edit mode of my game page in order to see the invite slot, and then I pasted the name I copied from a recruitment post which in turn game me drop down menu of similar names.

Oddly, now that I have done that, the Invite slot is plainly visible where it should be.

I have a recruitment thread and a game design page and am generating some responses. How do I submit a character? I do not know if there is a link for players to this, and I do not remember how I did so in the games that I am simply playing.

GM and players in the game go to the Game Details page. There is a section for players and characters. GM and players in the game can submit characters that match the required sheet format

I must have missed something when creating the thread. When I go to the Game Details page, there is nothing around the words Submit Character that allows that to happen.

There being nothing means you don't have a sheet which can be submitted (all sheets are already attached to games, or no correct sheet type). Don't worry, your players will see the button if they have a sheet to submit, it should be user-dependent. You can also test if it works by making your own test sheet.

Okay. Thanks. How do I do that? For TUW gaming system there is no need for a specific character sheet. There is not that much data, but I would like to make things easy for players.

I mostly meant to just make a throwaway empty sheet and see if you can submit it, but if you mean making your own sheet template, then you can use this code!

[charsheet=Sheet name here]
Sheet code goes here. Here are some simple fillable fields!

[b]Attribute 1:[/b] [_=0]
[b]Attribute 2:[/b] [_=0]
[b]Attribute 3:[/b] [_=0]
[/charsheet]

When you post it, it'll look like below, and players will be able to click Create character button inside to copy the code.

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For how to code custom character sheets, this guide has information about most features, and this thread has a lot of custom-made sheets you can browse to see various examples.

Or you can just let your players make their own sheets - everyone can make a custom character by going to their characters page and using New Character section at the bottom.

The problem is that I do not know WHERE to do this. I have "custom" sheet added in order to create the Game Details page, but I see no way to do anything with it.

You'll need to create a character.

There's a few ways to do this, but one is to click on "All Characters" in the bar at the top:


At the bottom of that page you can create a new character.

Once it's created you can add it to your game.

Another way is to click on "Create Character" button in a character sheet template like the one that FlyingSucculent posted above. Click on the + sign to expand it and then on the create button:



There are also tons of other templates in the link that FlyingSucculent included above. You can use any of those by click on the create character button in them as well.

Thanks. I am going to try this.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That worked!

I was able to make a sample character and submit it following y'all's instructions. I would like to create a character sheet template for the game I want to run. In order to use the information like a couple of you have provided, do I go to "Characters" at the top of my screen then "All Characters" to get started?

You can make a character sheet template pretty much anywhere, including in this thread as a post, or on your already created sample sheet. There is no specific method - as long as it is within [charsheet] tag, it'll work all the same.

I'd recommend making it in an actual character sheet (like you just did). It's good to test it out there because sometimes things render slightly differently when wrapped in the charsheet tag.

Once you have it the way you like it, then you can share it by copy-pasting it into a charsheet tag where ever you plan to share it. Ironically, one of the places that the charsheet tag doesn't work is in the "Character Generation Info" section of the game details page, so it's better to share it in a thread in the game forum or in the recruitment thread or in the public repository of custom sheet thread, which was linked by FlyingSucculent in one of the post above.

Thank you all for all of the help. Most of this is starting to make sense.

nothing to see here, yet. I figured out the answer to my last question.

Is it possible to replace a recruitment thread with a new one?

I would just open a new thread and if you want to redirect people from the old one you can link it

Remember to update the game details recruitment page with the new thread id

Thanks.

Clicking on "Characters" then "All Characters" takes me to the page where, at the bottom, I can create a new character. The first blank has the word "Label" beside it. What is that? I crashed the site by leaving it blank.

The label is basically the sheet's name, how it will be listed in your My Characters list and on the Game Detail pages (as opposed to character name on the sheet itself, which is displayed when you post as said character).

Thanks.