Could a campaign post etiquette be established?

Hi folks, Just some feedback from a new player. It is extremely frustrating searching for a game type (eg. 4th Ed), getting excited at the list of 20+ games available and then realising that over half of them are for other systems but just put 4th Ed to boost visibility. Other than that Roll20 is awesome and I hope to get a game soon! Best, Pete.

Hi Kristin, Thanks for the info. Happy gaming, Pete.

Each game should only have 1 system listed. Perhaps if more than one is selected a "Hybrid" label should automatically precede the listing, and it should be up to the GM to explain what " Hybrid: Ad&D 2E & Monopoly " means, if anything. I know I have talked to people who have shown interest in my 2E games that then wanted me to switch to another system they are more familiar with. Of course people do not seem to read descriptions much. I recently posted " AD&D 2E monthly game Second Sunday at 16:00 EDT(GMT-4) " and had replies asking if we played on Saturday, if we used Pathfinder, and if we could start 6 hours earlier to match their schedule.

I understand that al e. I have people wanting me to use voice instead of text. I have reasons for text only but that would become a rant. Anyway, a post etiquette could be somewhat nice but not sure how effective it would be.

Limit LFG postings to ONE game system. Period. That'll solve the majority of the problems. And provide a way to flag people that still try to abuse the system by advertising one thing using the tag and putting something else in the description.

But what about people that use "old school revival" with the "other"? What about a gaming group that like to run a variety of different systems but tend to use one board? I've been in groups that ran various one shots games of different systems using the same board. Your solution would force them to either edit the board evrytime they wanted play a different system or make multiple boards which could increase the lfg listed dramatically when they are looking for new players. I'm sure the devs are thinking hard on this one so it can be implemented to the best for the community.

Pete++ said: Just some feedback from a new player. It is extremely frustrating searching for a game type (eg. 4th Ed), getting excited at the list of 20+ games available and then realising that over half of them are for other systems but just put 4th Ed to boost visibility. Other than that Roll20 is awesome and I hope to get a game soon! I felt that way at first too. But you get used to it. You can visually filter the listings on a quick glance, once you get in the habit of checking the LFG search of your choice, daily or weekly. I find this site isn't so much "show up, choose a game & start playing". It takes more work, searching & finding the right group for you. New games are listed every day on here. The slots fill up quickly in the good games. Your best approach is to continue repeatedly searching the LFG for your favored game(s) and day(s), and keep looking every day or every week. In the long run you'll find several game listings to apply for, in this way. The search listings are actually quite legible, if you narrow your search to 1-2-3 games you're interested, and just visually scan the listings. It's usually only 1-2 pages of listings, which is digestible with a few minutes of reading and skimming. Then click-open the few that look promising, and read the description. Apply if it seems like it might be a good fit. Enjoy & happy adventuring

Kristin C. said: Devs have noticed that this is a problem. They're currently looking into the LFG tool to see what they can do to avoid that from happening in the future. The current system is very frustrating both to find a game as well as to find players for an existing game. LFG & LFM are not the same thing & should not be treated the same. This could be done by copying the coad, adding a db column to indicate if a posting is lLFM/LFG & list accordingly... technically it could even be done without the copy/paste of code by triplicating the systems list & appending "LFG/LFM/full-waitlist"

But if they fix it how will I be reminded that the Erotic Role play group is Looking for any 18+ erotic roleplayers every time I search for any game ever?

notBowen said: But if they fix it how will I be reminded that the Erotic Role play group is Looking for any 18+ erotic roleplayers every time I search for any game ever? I should investigate this. You know, for science. But seriously, I think James might have a good idea. With a potential split between LFM and LFG.

I think if the posting lists other games it takes all the games on the list. So I look for d&d4e, d&d next, and get listing for pathfinder and other games. really should make other not include the systems listed. And make the lfg tool actually streamline the searches being conducted.

They could use two fields. Game listing Primary field is limited to one game system and is searchable. Optional Secondary field lists all additional systems used or none. Searching for games Primary is the system you are searching for Optional is an addition field you can search for also or leave blank for none.

notBowen said: But if they fix it how will I be reminded that the Erotic Role play group is Looking for any 18+ erotic roleplayers every time I search for any game ever? I see a lot of con checks happening in these type of campaigns...

There's going to be a limit... probably two types, as some groups truly do have that degree of flexibility. We're also trying to see if there's a way to help these groups that are more concerned about player types (whether it's language, erotica, or anything else) than game types. Beyond that, though, we've got a short list of changes we've taken from other threads like this recently... if there's something you haven't put forth previously about this area of development, worth giving a suggestion in this thread now!

Perhaps the answer isn't in the LFM/LFG tool. Maybe what we need is a group system that players can join that host their own games within that group. So you'd have the ERP group and they have a list of games that people made to associate with that group, games that other groups won't see because they're not in that group. These games can span multiple systems, and maybe the group's "Currently Playing" tags could be dynamic based on what games are actually made for that group right now. This idea is pretty stream of consciousness right now, but I can probably make it clearer if you'd like.

Sam said: Perhaps the answer isn't in the LFM/LFG tool. Maybe what we need is a group system that players can join that host their own games within that group. So you'd have the ERP group and they have a list of games that people made to associate with that group, games that other groups won't see because they're not in that group. These games can span multiple systems, and maybe the group's "Currently Playing" tags could be dynamic based on what games are actually made for that group right now. This idea is pretty stream of consciousness right now, but I can probably make it clearer if you'd like. Something like that is happening right now in various campaign boards. The members are posting their games in the campaign forums for members of that group instead of posting out in the general public.

I think I have a simpler solution that might be even more useful. Auto-sort the listing by number of current players. Smaller groups (the ones that always fill up super fast) will be listed first, and actually give people a better chance at seeing them before they fill up. Those big groups will always be listed last. If people want to find them they are there, after all, and listed for all systems, but with 60+ members will never be listed with most standard RPGs. Done. :D I think it might help if GMs were reminded to turn off their LFG status. Is it possible to do this automatically once the required players number is filled up and the open slots = 0 ? The GM should be setting that number anyway right? And it wouldn't restrict invites in any way. If you really want to see games that are over-full, maybe add a checkbox, just like when you look for games that "welcome new players," have one that says "include full games?" and then your listing starts with games that have negative player slots. I like the simplicity of this idea. And I think it addresses what you guys are after.

Perhaps when the user is checking the filter options on the LFG page there could be an option called "Exclusive". Selecting this filter would only search on the first game type selected in the "Playing any of these games" filter box. So if I select D&D Next and select the exclusive check box only games listing D&D Next exclusively in the playing field would be displayed, because I'm not interested in games listing ten different systems because I'm only interested in playing D&D Next. Another option would be to add a game system called "Multiple" (or something) to the list of games that could be selected to describe what game your campaign will use. Only one game option may be selected. If your campaign plans to play multiple one shots of different systems then you would select the "Multiple" option and then describe what game systems will be run in the LFG description. Just a couple of ideas.

There's definitely a problem with LFG, but I don't think limiting games to one system is a good solution. Some systems, like anything in the d20 family, inherently combine well, so a PF/3.5/Call of Cthulhu/Other campaign is a perfectly coherent concept (the game uses content from 3.5 and pf freely and the CoCd20 supplement with an additional home-brew system). Similarly, sometimes you might want to take parts from multiple systems, so a World of Darkness/Spirit of the Century game might take the world from WoD and filter it through the rules and time period of SotC. Quintus said: I think I have a simpler solution that might be even more useful. Auto-sort the listing by number of current players. Smaller groups (the ones that always fill up super fast) will be listed first, and actually give people a better chance at seeing them before they fill up. Those big groups will always be listed last. If people want to find them they are there, after all, and listed for all systems, but with 60+ members will never be listed with most standard RPGs. That and the groups suggestion sound like good idea. Adding on to that, being able to filter by desired/current players would also be a nice touch. I know, personally, that I can get a bit picky about how big my games are and being able to say "Nothing with more than 7 slots, thank you." would make searching a lot easier.

When faced with a similar situation, I ended up implementing a regex search feature. With some buttons it's pretty simple to manage something like 'search for D&D (4e|3.5|Next) & not pathfinder' to find D&D games which specifically don't include the pathfinder tag, which lets you filter for what you want, with an incredible amount of flexibility, while also letting you avoid extraneous hits. By some buttons I mean you do something like an expanding form for 'first tag: <input> (AND/OR/AND NOT/OR NOT) second tag: <input>', with a button to add another row for another condition, which builds the regex for you. Of course power users tend to like being able to enter the regex manually to do really fancy things :)

That sounds like the best solution.

Like Sam mentioned above, I think a group system needs to be implemented. They are using the LFG system just to gather people to create their own community. Give them an alternative so they stop using the LFG system for it.

Roll20 need age filtering: I only want to play with people that are older than 18. I suggest having a users age poster by there names so I is visible.

Or here's a novel idea, how about you go in and delete the obvious spam groups and issue warnings to the founder?

Critter said: Or here's a novel idea, how about you go in and delete the obvious spam groups and issue warnings to the founder? Unfortunately, as long as an explicit group function doesn't exist, those groups can serve a useful purpose. Having a place for like-minded people to gat

Rob, this is the internet, age filtering doesn't work very well. Inside your game, it's your game, but advertising on Roll20 is a public thing. Unfortunately, we can't turn it off if someone wants to advertise the hentai-maid card game (as an extreme example). I think Roll20 has full rights to restrict what it allows people to advertise. Critter, I agree with your sentiment. However, I'm not hopeful that the Roll20 Mod team will want to make that one of their regular functions. Epsilon, I also agree, they can serve a purpose, but the cross-talk makes it feel like 2 different streams of purpose are mingling in the same pool. I think both sides would benefit by finding, "their own place," to do their business, and I feel Roll20 is more appropriate for those who are advertising actual game sessions. The forms ask for your next session time, and # of players needed, after all. People who want to gather general interest groups are misusing the forms. Imagine the difficulty if Roll20 became a haven for "those groups" and they outnumbered the actual number of games being advertised. I know that I wouldn't want to waste my time trying to advertise my games here anymore. There are other VT options that don't carry the NOISE that is being offered by "those groups," IMO. This is more serious a problem than what it appears at first glance. And the Roll20 team needs to address it. And they've said they are already looking into it. I, for one, can do without the "Erotic Role-playing Group" showing up on my game search pages from now to eternity. Thanks, but no thanks. And the great thing is, is that I can take my supporter dollars with me if I continue to disagree with Roll20. I know this, and I think the Roll20 team knows this. So, yes, I am very cognizant of the fact that I can take my gaming toys with me if I don't want to play in their playground anymore. I don't see it as unmanageable to work around the issue right now, but it is a definitely growing problem . And so is my dissatisfaction with constantly being reminded of "those groups." Sorry for rambling. I hope further replies focus on solutions. (lots of edits, but I think I'm done now + I always edit spelling :D)

Meh, I'll do it for free.

I don't really see how it can effect someone that much. I mean, I agree there should be something done with it, but it surely doesn't make me want to seek another service. If anything, it just puts me off of the LFG function, which I barely use anyways. Forum + reddit usually gets me the fastest results as a GM recruiting. Maybe its worse for a player searching for a game.

I don't use the search much either. I either find or post the game in the forums or post a recruitment in my system's forum.

Thank god.

Will you be adding a groups feature as well, because as much as some people are complainging, that IS a useful function that shouldn't be ignored. It's just that it also shouldn't get rolled into the normal game search.

Epsilon R. said: Will you be adding a groups feature as well, because as much as some people are complainging, that IS a useful function that shouldn't be ignored. It's just that it also shouldn't get rolled into the normal game search. We're still looking at what we might do here. Right now our primary priority was to help people have an easier time finding games.

Fair enough.