SPAM Campaigns

Are there really campaigns that run using more than One game systems? I find the "Spam" campaigns, those campaigns that advertise over multiple game systems to a hindrance to potential gamers looking for campaigns. It doesnt seem to serve any purpose to false advertise the game system you are planning to run IMO. I meet people looking for an obscure game system, and these "Spam Campaigns" show up in the LFG search results.

We're talking about ways to fix this problem in the near future.

I know what you're saying Justin. To directly answer the question, yes, a good combination of 2 "games" from the drop-down is D&D + Old School Revival, or AD&D + OSR. Of course OSR isn't really a single game but refers to the widespread rebirth of popularity of clones & simulacrums of early D&D, which could be: Basic Fantasy RPG, Dungeon Crawl Classics, OSRIC, Swords & Wizardry Labyrinth Lord anything like that combines well with original D&D or AD&D All these games are cross-compatible with D&D and the campaigns frequently combine official D&D adventure modules, with the newer clone rule systems which are available (sometimes for free). Or vice versa: using new OSR modules and megadungeons, with original D&D rule sets. Some GM's might also tag this D&D + Other Games, if not OSR. For this reason, allowing the flexibility of listing 2-3 games in the field has proven useful. But the games that list 5-10-15 games seem like too much, to me.

But there are some campaigns that are more of community building other than games themselves like the GM Academy or the Welcome Wench. They are groups geared for specific things. The GMA covers all the systems for it is about GM's supporting and helping GM's no matter what the chosen system is so it makes sense for them to have more system tags listed then most. The Welcome Wench is an old system community and it spans most of the OSR systems, not just 1e or 2e so they will have more tags listed also. What you are suggesting for limiting tags could hamper groups such as them and others of similar setup. I don't know what to suggest otherwise but if options are limited then members could end up leaving. RPG's are a social event and there needs to be a sense of a community for them to grow. It is human nature to group together with people that have similiar likes and dislikes.

Gold said: For this reason, allowing the flexibility of listing 2-3 games in the field has proven useful. But the games that list 5-10-15 games seem like too much, to me. +1. I'm pretty sure I used three tags when advertising an OSR game as their wasn't a perfect match based on the available listings. Running a combination of games (like say GURPS Traveller or Savage Worlds Shadowrun) happens often enough to allow more than one tag, but I struggle to see a need for more than three of them. Having a "Community" tag would be a feasible way of moving things like location, theme and kink based groups off to their own searches. I'd also like to see a general clean-up of the LFG search listings that remove full groups, old and inactive listings, or the things that deliberately were scheduled for three years in advance to avoid people having to remember to change the next date constantly.

Nolan T. J. said: We're talking about ways to fix this problem in the near future. This is great news. Pat S. said: What you are suggesting for limiting tags could hamper groups such as them and others of similar setup. I don't know what to suggest otherwise but if options are limited then members could end up leaving. RPG's are a social event and there needs to be a sense of a community for them to grow. It is human nature to group together with people that have similiar likes and dislikes. Can't they advertise specifically for "community building" or a Tag for Communities? Or why not use G+ or Facebook for such? I don't know what are the technical repercussions of using Roll20 as a social media tool when the bandwidth and funding is limited? Also it gets "in your face" when instead of attacking a specific group: Like GMs, Newbie GMs, or Newbies, etc...

I have to admit, I too get a little bit annoyed if I look for a specific, possibly a little obscure system, I get 5 hits, but 4 of them are those Community groups. Sure I learned by now to just read over them, it's fairly easy to see if they got a whole bunch of Systems listed. On the other hand I wouldn't have found the "European Players" group, if it hadn't been for that. That also answers Justin's question. I don't use FB or G+. I don't look there for groups having to do with Roll20. But I look at Roll20.

I think a "community" tag like Dave suggested is a great way to clean this up a bit. It could be for any "themed" groups that dont really care what system they play, but want to play a specific setting, or style. Maybe you have a drop down for community type with default being "all games" but the other options like "anime", "specific language", etc. are options you can select, and if you search in one community type, it excludes all games tagged with a different community tag? Maybe the individual communities could just get their own sub forums inside the LFG forum? That way they don"t need to have the crazy 30 tag game listings that clog up so much of the LFG results, and you can limit the number of system tags a game can have to prevent the kind of abuse currently seen.

Something like that would work for groups that are building a central community.