Specific game forums

I'd like it if there was a dedicated portion of the forum that was dedicated to discussing the various game systems that are used on this site. For instance, a specific forum for "Game Systems" with sub forums like "White Wolf" and "Paizo" with further subforums like "Vampire the Masquerade" and "Pathfinder", with some moderators from the general community. This would first of all be great to get people talking, exchanging house-rules and talk about newly released applications and such, but also help people who are part of slightly smaller gaming communities find each other on here. For instance, there aren't that many werewolf the forsaken players on here. Actually werewolf the forsaken doesn't even appear on the list of games played here (last I checked), so I assume there are few to no fans of the system on here. This would breathe some life into the community forum for us less technical people who like to discuss primarily things within out fields of interest. The community forum currently seems mostly about the website as a whole, and less about the actual games being played, which feels a bit detached for someone like me who's used to being part of a big gaming community.

The current policy is that the forums are for topics related to Roll20 specifically. Apparently there was a time where other discussion was allowed but a few bad apples ruined that.

Sam said: The current policy is that the forums are for topics related to Roll20 specifically. Apparently there was a time where other discussion was allowed but a few bad apples ruined that. It was called off-topic forum and you can find the archive of it below the other forums. The gist of it being shut down was multiple flamewars breaking out and the mods and devs were getting swamped so they eliminated the problem by removing the forums so what you said about bad applwes is tr.ue

Also you have to expect that some "faction" of the community would end up dominating the boards, possibly ending up making Roll20 just seem to a new person that it's a D&D or Pathfinder forum/engine. Roll20 is for everyone, every game system. I believe it benefits by maintaining that reputation and image. However as I understand it there are thriving sub-reddits for many major game systems, so you may want to discuss your system and how it works on Roll20 there too (but please do keep dropping back in here - there's a wealth of interesting stuff no matter what your preferred poison is).

This quickly drifted in a wrong direction. Note that I suggested individual sub-forums for each "publisher" and "game system", with their own moderators. This should prevent flamewars and "system domination", and fuel communities into appearing on a broader level. That's how it normally goes, so unless you want to suggest that roll20 is home to more assholes in general than any other forum on the internet, and therefor cannot have nice things, then I fail to see the actual issue with my suggestion ^^ And obviously there are no more assholes here than everywhere else. I also want to add that going through the LFG lists, it's quite easy to see that there ARE indeed certain systems that dominate roll20. There can be no mistake about this, and trying to avoid sending such a signal is really just going to fool people, so I completely fail to see why there should be an issue with having certain subforums grow larger and more frequently visited than others. A larger fan community and player base quite simply means more activity. As it should be. Also, I'm not looking for a specific off-topic forum, I'm looking for a dedicated subforum catering specifically to discussions and community building around a shared interest in the various game systems. A place to share exciting news, ideas, house rules, ask questions, get opinions and find other people who play the same games, share experiences and such, or just a place to chat about the most recently released book in that system. I'm fine with the fact that a few of you might think that this isn't in the spirit of roll20, but frankly I'm not really interested in your opinions if you don't agree with what I'm suggesting or have your own similar ideas, so I'd like the "ney-sayers" and conservationists to keep out of my thread. Bear in mind that this is a suggestion, not a question, and therefor I don't expect an answer, but rather I hope for a result.

spammed & having "older" posts (like from yesterday) bumped because it's spammed & bumped so often that it's usefulness depends significantly on luck. if the post is about a game in one of those one of the "slightly smaller game systems" the OP mentioned.... If the post is about D&D/PF it's already almost guaranteed to be seen by the d&d/PF player/GM audience, but will often get bumped if nobody replies making posting for the last group even more pointless. Like the OP, I too am more than a little bothered by any suggestion aimed at helping games other than d&d/PF build communities needed to support the player/gm needs too simply find each other getting threadcrapped by a bunch of posters dismissing it with why the dominant systems would break it or why it's not needed (if you play d&d/PF). I've had similar results when posting about improving the player search tools needed for GM's to build/maintain a healthy game for any system... one of those "slightly smaller systems" especially There are few players for "slightly smaller systems"because there are few gm's for them.. There are few gm's for them because they get tired of having to spam for -any- players, -teach- those players, then watch the game start falling apart if they lose someone & need to replace them with a selection of barely interested "I want to do something while playing farmville" that need to be taught to play at the expense of the players who already took the time to learn.

Sami T. said: This quickly drifted in a wrong direction. Note that I suggested individual sub-forums for each "publisher" and "game system", with their own moderators. I'm sorry if I caused or help this post to drift in the wrong direction. I just misunderstood what you were saying. I don't think that it would happen because of the shear number of systems being played here. I would counter suggest that the individual forums would be created in the same style of grouping that the LFG uses.

Pat S. said: Sami T. said: This quickly drifted in a wrong direction. Note that I suggested individual sub-forums for each "publisher" and "game system", with their own moderators. I'm sorry if I caused or help this post to drift in the wrong direction. I just misunderstood what you were saying. I don't think that it would happen because of the shear number of systems being played here. I would counter suggest that the individual forums would be created in the same style of grouping that the LFG uses. It was actually mostly the post by Allan H that bothered me, though I want Allan and everyone else to know that I fully realize that Allan H was merely trying to be helpful, however I wasn't looking to start a discussion and as such Allan's post was pushing this thread in the wrong direction.

I think the only solution that won't cause the mods to hate their life would be to implement a "Group" system. Groups would be like clubs that advocate specific systems or ideas, like the "Anime RPG Club" or "Dungeon World Players Club". We currently have a pseudo version of this in the LFG system where there are games that act more like groups and have their own forums within (like the "Erotic Roleplay Group" for example). If we had this, they forums could stay topical to Roll20 and there would be a place for people to have "off-topic" discussions too. I feel like this would hit all the checkboxes we're looking for.

That's BASICALLY what I'm suggesting Sam, I'm just suggesting a forum version of this. The problem with what you're suggesting is that, say if a person was interested in getting to know system A, he'd HAVE to join club A to learn about it and read the posts, and be able to ask questions. If it was forum based, anyone with a user could post questions and such. I frankly don't understand why people are so worries about moderators and stuff like that, but then again I don't spend that much time on the forums. Quite frankly it's not my experience that people are rude here, or break the rules a lot. This isn't the comments section of youtube after all. However, if something like what Sam suggests were to happen, it would still satisfy my particular need to a necessary extent.

Sami T. said: I'd like it if there was a dedicated portion of the forum that was dedicated to discussing the various game systems that are used on this site...This would breathe some life into the community forum for us less technical people who like to discuss primarily things within out fields of interest. The community forum currently seems mostly about the website as a whole, and less about the actual games being played, which feels a bit detached for someone like me who's used to being part of a big gaming community. +1. Considering Roll20 is built around actually playing games , it would be nice to leverage the community in a way to create or return to a forum has a higher signal to noise ratio than other sites.

Sami , Roll20 used to have an off-topic area that was used for discussing game styles and game systems. However, there were people that abused it and as a result the off-topic forum was shut down. At this time it is the Roll20's policy that any discussion regarding game styles or game systems is off-topic and if you would like to discuss game styles or specific game systems there are other resources (like reddit) that can accommodate you. Alternately, some people have created a game in order to discuss things freely in either the game or the game's forums.

Gauss said: Sami , Roll20 used to have an off-topic area that was used for discussing game styles and game systems. However, there were people that abused it and as a result the off-topic forum was shut down. I agree with this, It was overly time consuming for the mods. I wouldn't say it was "asshole" people as much as you put it. More 'passionate' people, even I think i got into 1 or 2 debates with people over ham fisting their way as right vs others or arguing over house rules. (I was guilty of passively pushing mine too I think by good intentions turned bad) So its not so much that the forums was a bad idea. it was the degradation of most the threads derailing into debates/arguments/conflicts over "you are playing X system wrong" or "you are handling that situation wrong" or even "you are just outright table topping wrong" Since each player/GM has a general ideal of how a system should be played, or how roleplaying is best done...what would start as a innocent suggestion reply turned into 3 pages of "no no thats the worst way to go about that..here do it our way its GREAT!". Even simple character setup questions, or 'how would you handle this" questions quickly jumped track into people with good intent, but overly passionate about how to do it bickering. Im not suggesting it wouldnt be a good idea in concept. And yes there is many many other sites that do it. But have to remember the roll20 team is small compared to its base. The other sites usually have more moderators and even some directly deticated to policing those forums to keep the peace. Roll20 doesnt have that spare manpower. Perhaps someone here (a player/group of players/whatever) could do like many smaller MMO's and such do now. No official forums for ontopic system/gameplay discussion because of lack of manpower. But someone setup an unofficial "approved" fansite forums for systems that roll20 can link to in the wiki? (I'm assuming) that as long as it was well maintained, and professionally policed. They wouldn't mind linking to it as an "unofficial but approved" related site. But I cant say for sure.

Gauss said: Sami , Roll20 used to have an off-topic area that was used for discussing game styles and game systems. However, there were people that abused it and as a result the off-topic forum was shut down. At this time it is the Roll20's policy that any discussion regarding game styles or game systems is off-topic and if you would like to discuss game styles or specific game systems there are other resources (like reddit) that can accommodate you. Alternately, some people have created a game in order to discuss things freely in either the game or the game's forums. Other people in this thread have already made me aware of this. That doesn't mean that I necessarily agree with that policy. Quite frankly I find that to be a strange and off-putting policy for a gaming site such as this, and I find it out-right counter productive. You're currently repeating what some of the first people to respond to this thread said, and as a result, once more the thread has degraded into people trying to explain to me why it apparently didn't work out the first time. Once more, I'd like to remind you all that: I didn't ask a question. I made a request. Regardless of how many times roll20 may or may not have attempted to implement something nice for it's players, only to take it away because it didn't work out, I'm here asking for it to be implemented once more, and I attached a suggestion on how to make it happen in a way that shouldn't cause the same problems as before, or at least that's what I think (and you're more than free to disagree, but as stated earlier, I'm really not looking to start a debate here, so if you don't agree with my suggestion, I suggest you spend your time looking everwhere but in this particular thread). Also, just to clarify, I assumed the moderators I suggested be chosen would be found among the players. I play on roll20, with people from roll20. When I want to talk gaming and games, I wanna talk about it with people from roll20. I don't want to be a member of an "erotic RP campaign", I want to be able to access the forum and speak to my fellow players about my hobby that I share with them here ON roll20. It seems completely idiotic to a person like me, that I cannot do that without jumping through hoops. It should be easy and comfortable to find people to speak with about these things. That is my personal vision for roll20, to be able to have my hobby ON here. This place has a lot of potential, but without a community that speaks through this media, it's going to feel dead, and quite frankly I already think it does. Communities where people engage in debates is a pretty damn big part of the internet. Heck, even torrent sites, 9gag and other sites where people in general come to have a service provided have a community. I sincerely fail to see why it should be a problem to have one here. However once more, I'm not interested in starting a debate, however contradicting that may sound. As stated several times, this is a request.

There are communities of gamers here already with their own game forum. The GMA for example. They talk plenty about game specific things and are open to any players and certainly don't shy away from active "discussion" of topics. Perhaps your suggestion is already met in this way? You could definitely create a game for Pathfinder Players with open invitation and post in Looking for Group to get interested participants to join and discuss. You as GM can moderate and appoint other moderators. The reason it doesn't make sense to have these discussions in the main Roll20 forums is that Roll20 is a software product, not the games played on it. It would be like having English writing, French composition, and German research paper discussions on the Microsoft Word discussion forums. There are certainly people that would like that, but there are better places for it.