[Under Construction] How to create a web sited, text based Role-playing game.

[Naomi Tsenzori]

How to create a web sited, text based Role-playing game.

Under construction please do not post.

Contents
0. Title Page and Contents << You are here
1. Time, Place and Dimension

a. What era
b. Where
c. Which Genre are we in again?

2. Your first Character

a. Biography.
b. Personality
c. Future development

3. Back to the game with fundamental rules

a. Freeform or D20
b. What (not) to do.
c. Rules of the world.

4. Designing your Website

a. The basic layout
b. Organisation.
c. Adding new features, forums, blogs, irc
d. Adding pizazz
e. Testing. The horrors of Internet Explorer.

5. Hosting your Website

a. Finding a place to host and costs.
b. Using File Transfer Protocol
c. Getting Live!
d. Maintenance and updates.

6. Attracting more members

a. The perils of groups
b. The incessant clicking of TopSites
c. The annoyance of banner exchanges
d. The Joys of the Good Word.

7. Creating a direction

a. The basics of story telling
b. Plot Design 101
c. The dummies guide to plot twists
d. Inclusion vs exclusion

8. Saving Logs from the fire!

a. IRC log storage
b. Forum log storage
c. Email log storage.
d. Storing logs in an attractive and readable manner.

9. Personnel Management

a. The rules of engagement.
b. A guide to discipline
c. Keeping the peace
d. Keeping up activity.

10. Achieving Nirvana

a. What to do with god like status.
b. Keeping up appearances
c. Putting on events.
d. Make your site even more attractive.

[Naomi Tsenzori]

Contents | Time Place and Dimension | Your first Character | Back to the Game with Fundamental Rules | Designing your Website | Hosting your Website | Attracting more Members | Creating a Direction | Saving Logs from the Fire | Personnel Management | Achieving Nirvana

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Time, Place & Dimension

Picking an Era

Before we know the place, the genre, or for that matter the concept of the simulation we must first understand when the role playing game (RPG) or Simulation (Sim) takes place. For many this is any choice, especially those who are not doing original simulations and already have a time frame selected for them. However, for those who want to be different, picking an Era can mean the life or death of an RPG.

Era's can be broken down into various forms, the one I've found that is most informative is broken down as follows.
(Starting from the most distant in the future)

1. Future Era.
   1. This Era is usually far enough in the future that the years are described in letters rather than in numbers. However one could easily assume that the future era starts around 2000 years from your current time.
   2. Future Era ends at the same time as the universe however that doesn't always mean the end of your RPG. It does however leave you a very puzzling situation.
2. Futuristic
   1. Commonly called the sci-fi era, the Futuristic era is usually set between 200 years and 2000 years after your current time.
   2. Most sci-fi tends to operate within these boundaries, such as Star Trek, Star Wars and many others, mostly because it is easier to extrapolate technology between these era's.
3. Post Modern era
   1. Set between a decade after your time and 200 years later, the Post Modern Era is a great era for post apocalyptic simulations as current world tensions can make for a dramatic story line where otherwise it would seem out of place.
   2. Post Modern era's are also used for 'nitty gritty' space travel and realistic weaponry such as projectile weapons rather than phasers or light sabers. It's usually an excellent era for new technology going drastically wrong. Depending on the game, Post Modern can also mean Super Modern, where new tech has been invented which the real world doesn't have.
4. Modern Era
   1. As the title dictates this is the modern era and generally set between up to five decades before your current time and a couple of decades after. This does overlap with Post Modern Era, however the difference is, most of the rules conform to real world specifications and there aren't as many problems or disasters
   2. Those who wish to use Modern Era are usually those who want to check out how other species would react in this environment, how they would be coping, or even simulating real world conflicts. Again the Modern Era is nitty gritty but it is often less gritty than the Post Modern Era.
5. War time
   1. Set between 30 years ago and 150 years ago war time is a favourite amongst those who wish to simulate World War 1 or World War 2. Usually this very gritty and passionate with overwhelmingly faulty technology.
   2. War time can also be used as an era for those wishing to find out how they would survive in that situation.
6. Empire Britannia
   1. Set during the time when the English Empire effectively ruled the world. Roughly about pre-victorian era. It's an old world style used often by crime-writers.
   2. Many choose to use this era for Feudal Japan as well.
7. Empire Khan
   1. Before the rise of the Republic of China was the horde of Genghis Khan. As the one time largest empire of the world, the mongolian armies were feared world wide.
   2. This era is set way before the america's were founded and many story writers tend to use this era for adventure, exploration although there has also been numerous war stories, effectively something for everyone.
8. Empire Rome
   1. One of the most widely known empires even today. The Roman Empire was awash with combat, glory, passion and technology.
9. There are many other era's before Rome, however few of them are used and instead are often labeled as Pre-historic.

Where

Where is a little easier than when after all, the only thing you have to do is create the world, the government, the historic buildings, the civilisation... maybe I overshot that a little.

However you do have to find out where you are basinging your RPG. Some choose outer space as is most often the way with Science Fiction fans, some choose a completely different world or even a different dimension of which to base their story.

The combinations are limitless and you are only bound by your own imagination. A good way to create your own world is to check up on Fractal Map Generators and go ahead and pick one, then scatter a few cities, before long you'll have your imagination thinking up history for you. To be honest it depends on your own personal taste.

Which Genre are we in Again?

This question will often be the most difficult to answer. As there are countless different genres out there. Horror, War, Vampire, Adventure, Epic, Fantasy, Comedy.

The best way I have found to pick a genre for my RPG's is to simply find a list of Genre's then pick words which best describe my RPG then create a shortlist. of about three. More than likely your RPG will also fit into multiple Genre's it's really up to you.

Bear in mind though, that too many genre's will complicate matters and destroy the feeling of the RPG. Atmosphere is just as important as content, but we'll get onto that later.

[Naomi Tsenzori]

Contents | Time Place and Dimension | Your first Character | Back to the Game with Fundamental Rules | Designing your Website | Hosting your Website | Attracting more Members | Creating a Direction | Saving Logs from the Fire | Personnel Management | Achieving Nirvana

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Your First Character

Biography

So you have decided to create your first character of your RPG. Usually this character has the highest authority in the RPG, although some choose to make it the protagonist. The decision is purely yours. However, which ever choice you make there are certain features each Biography must have.

First of all you should set out how you wish your biography to look. Some like to put everything in prose, others like to set it out lie a resume, others set it out as if it were a character design. Which ever method you choose you have to make sure everyone knows, who, what and the history of the character. A simple format is provided below with instructions.

Each biography is often drastically different but you must be aware of certain features that may make your character unfavourable to other players in the simulation, it is all about taste. A 'Mary-Sue' is a character which is liked by the author and has positive traits to the extent that they are liked too much. A way to avoid this is to follow certain online tests, however a much better way is to make sure your character has weaknesses.

When you construct your character include as many details as possible including previous adventures, experiences, dreams, weaknesses amongst other things.

Click here to see full text

Name: <The full name of your character>
Age: <Choose the age of your character, or birthday>
Species: <The species of your character, human usually>
Race: <The ethnicity of your character>

Physical Attributes: <Height, Weight, Eye Colour, Fashion Sense, Body Build, Hair Style/Colour. Scars, tattoo's, birth marks, lost limbs, how many limbs do they have>

History: <From the birth of your character to their current age, what happened, what did they do, problems? how were they solved. Imagine that you are telling your own life story. How would you tell it. >

Personality: <Please look at the next heading>

Major Strengths: <Strengths, perhaps physical but also mental>

Major Weaknesses: <Weaknesses, you would usually have more weaknesses than strengths. Balance out the strengths, for every strength there is usually a price to pay after all. >

Family: <Think about mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, what do they do, where are they? Try not to kill them off, give your character as many family members as possible and give a paragraph or two to introduce each one.>

Personality

A character's personality should be just as diverse as their history. You should make your character as multidimensional as you are. Are they aggressive? Opportunistic? Do they have an autistic streak and prefer to tap their nose for every important decision?

There are many helpful sites on the net designed to help you tell what your characters personality is. One method is to determine a set of parameters and role a dice to tell just how the character is. However, most RPG's tend to make this freeform and encourage the player to delve into the history of their character and pull out traits which the character would have learned.

The latter of the methods requires a lot more study of your character however, that method allows the character to be filled out. The former version is often favored by table top gamers for the sheer ease of use.

The author personally recommends Similar Minds

Future Development

Once you have created your character, filled out the biography and created a personality, then you now have on your hands, a monster with the potential to take over the world!

With all seriousness, your character could well do that, however with a little reasoning and a dash of imagination we might go for something a little less cliche and a little more enjoyable.

In ten years, where do you want to be? Nice car, nice house? A job? Kids? In ten years, where does your character want to be? What do they want to do, how do they want to do it?

The more questions your ask yourself, make sure you ask them of your character as well and keep interrogating them until you know every little detail about their lives and where they want to go.

You will likely find a character that wants to be more than just supreme commander of the universe. You'll find a character that craves interaction, faith or even a small family of their own. Maybe they just want to hide from the oppressive government and live on a farm in peace?

You should consider at least three things about character development.

What personality do you want them to have? How are they going to get to that personality?

What job do they want to have?

What relationships do they want to have? Family, friends, lovers?

[Naomi Tsenzori]

Contents | Time Place and Dimension | Your first Character | Back to the Game with Fundamental Rules | Designing your Website | Hosting your Website | Attracting more Members | Creating a Direction | Saving Logs from the Fire | Personnel Management | Achieving Nirvana

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Back to the game with fundamental rules

Freeform or D20

Now to decide how you are going to play your RPG. It is common practice to replicate or create battle systems depending on the game. Some battle orientated games prefer to use the D20 system to make things fair for everyone.

D20 is a shorthand term for a 20 sided dice, but the reference also refers to the Wizards of the Coast D20 battle system, which is often used by table top role-play games which uses dice to decide how battles unfold.

Most web based games use forums or IRC which have random number generators in order to make things fair. However using a D20 system or Battle System cans shorten the amount of quality in the role-playing game and it is up to the game master to ensure that this quality isn't diminished more than is required.

Another system popularised by writers more than gamers is the freeform system, which completely eradicates dice from the system and focuses on quality of literacy. Mainly writers tend to lean towards this method due to the fact that there is a high emphasis on actual writing and reading text.

Gamers tend to prefer the D20 system because it is quick, efficient and fair to all gamers. The D20 system also completely eliminates so called godmodding which often dogs Freeform gaming. God modding is defined below but it generally where the player is magically able solve situations that logically they would be unable to solve.

There are many other types of systems but these are the extremes. Which one you choose is up to you, depending on which type of RPG that you want. Neither are incorrect but both sides get flak from the other as each have various weaknesses that the other claims to solve.

What (not) to do

So you've been told the basics so far. Yet there are still a number of things we have to talk about about. Inclusion, Exclusion, Ethics, Mary Sue, Super Hero Syndrome.

Inclusion & Exclusion

Throughout your RPG you should be looking to include various types of people. You will find that if your site doesn't cater to certain people, you will turn away more than just those kind of people.

Studies suggest, that you should use a highly contrast RPG. Use a lot of different ends of the spectrum and try not to use a lot of the same tone. While at first you might think this helps those who are colour blind it has also been shown to help those who happen to be dyslexic.

Try not to make the players work too hard to get results. Players will join your RPG to have fun, but they won't join if they find they have to do lots of complicated math all the time. You will end up losing members. That's not to say math is a bad thing if you must, do it yourself, that is what a Game Master is for.

Race and Religion is important within your RPG and I don't just mean in game. Try to refrain from religious over tones and stay away from anything that sides to any religion. If anything, your site should be Buddhist. //The point is, in Buddhism, there are so many ways to the same destination, treat every view with respect. //

Gender is also important. Too much action will exclude girls who want to involve themselves in the relationship side of the sim. Have a girls section, have a boys section, try to make sure that everyone is satisfied. While it is not going to please everyone, your RPG should try to be attractive the highest possible number of people throughout the world. One option would be to have a language plugin to enable different languages to connect easily.

Ethics

Ethics, right or wrong. Inclusion and Exclusion are part of ethics but you should know what is right and wrong and so should your RPG. Make sure everyone is aware of each others rights and responsibilities and don't just look at your own laws, look at the laws of other countries too.

Each RPG should have an age rating. America forbids participation by minors without Parental Consent, other countries are far more lax about this. Although you should try not to exclude these players you should be aware of them and look after their interests as they are vulnerable.

When you set your age rating, try to stick to it. It is ethically wrong to display PG13 while have explicit scenes throughout the RPG without warning. Fun? Perhaps. Mentally Scarring? Definitely. If you want to know what is ethical about gaming send an email to the ESRB Certification organisation.

Mary Sue

"An original and overly perfect character created by the writer and often acting as their alter-egos. They often end up bedding other characters or acting as matchmakers for the intended ship. " http://www.ralst.com/Definitions.html

There are a number of litmus tests out there, but you should avoid a Mary Sue character for the sake of making the RPG fun for your player.

One way to solve this is to just make sure that you are thinking about your character as a real person and considering what you don't like about that character.

If you need a Mary Sue character don't have them as a playable character but as an NPC which has no real effect on the plot line. Make sure all characters are aware what the purpose of the character is.

Super Hero Syndrome

More frequently called Godmodding, is a problem that inhabits most text based games. Here's a definition from Urban dictionary. [AVOID AT ALL COSTS]

"God Modding" is in essence when someone’s character has the ability to do practically anything without limits or boundaries. And example is when they simply cannot be harmed by any and all means other RP-ers try. -It can be killing or injuring a character without the player's express permission. -It can be when they simply can’t be hit and dodge all attacks or anything for this matter aimed at them. -It can also be using other characters that other people RP with. In other words, if you do not RP as Legolas, then you cannot have Legolas say anything, or do anything, without the player's express permission. The absolute worst is when they make out another character to be what they’re not, just to make their own character seem superior. They make others seem weak, screaming for help, when they’ve made it quite clear about their advantages and strengths. This is called power-play. It’s a strain of God-Modding, but instead of just being irritating, it’s offensive to boot."
http://www.urbandictionary.com/defin...=god%20modding

If you find yourself subject to SHS you will find how distressing this can be and annoying. A strain of this is called Autobotting. Whereby a player controls another player without consent. Some game members realise there's a need for this, but it is rare.

Rules of the World

There are many rules you will often impose in the world, but there are some boundaries you should set to make sure that everyone knows what they can and can't do.

A simple limitation would be: It's not possible to leave the planet.

This would be an environmental limitation a more social limitation could be: 'Displaying 'magic' in the city will get you arrested'.

A physical rule, which can be imposed on species could also be: 'You can't get more than 8 pints from a human body'. As surprised as you may be, certain browser games claim to be able to extract two hundred plus pints of blood from a human body so physical limitations should be put in as well.

These are rules that most civilisations and games have in order to make sure that the city doesn't spontaneously explode and that all players will know their limitations so that they know when they're godmodding.

Of course these should be just guidelines, there'll always be exceptions to the rules but it is the Game Master to decide who, when and where these rules can be broken. Players should also be made aware before or after an offense that may breach these rules, through no real fault of their own other than human error.

[Naomi Tsenzori]

Contents | Time Place and Dimension | Your first Character | Back to the Game with Fundamental Rules | Designing your Website | Hosting your Website | Attracting more Members | Creating a Direction | Saving Logs from the Fire | Personnel Management | Achieving Nirvana
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Designing your Website
<section needs improving>

The Basic Layout

Your website is your most important tool to recruit new members, without it, your chances of a successful RPG are almost halved. That's not to say you can't get a successful RPG without it, it is just that achieving success will take longer.

Each website is fairly unique and you can have any sort of website, a popular format is to use a ready made website and while this is easier, it is by far the most repetitive and this section is to help you design your website from scratch.

What are you likely to need? Basic PHP, HTML and CSS knowledge. For those who are complete beginners, you are likely to need to head over to w3schools. Now with that over let us move on to actual design.

In order to come up with a design you need to look at what your site is going to do.

The website is going to do the following

1. Provide information to your players
2. Archive Posts
3. Allow users to log in to manipulate their information.
4. Allow interaction between players

You must keep these in mind while designing your website.

The first thing to do however is to design how your website is going to look. The author advises a quick sketch on pen and paper as to what your website is going to look like when a user first accesses your site.

There are numerous methods which are allowed, some have been deprecated by the W3C (The people who created the web as we see it today).

The first of such methods is to use a table, this is highly valid and there are many many websites which still employ tables, such as Ebay, Amazon and Microsoft. Tables aren't bad, but the W3C are increasingly putting pressure on web designers and browsers to slowly remove them from being used as a design interface.

Tables are simple HTML and the main disadvantage is that they are very susceptible to bloating. You will find yourself getting lost numerous times if you are hard coding.

The second method is to use 'div' tags. Div tags are used in combination with CSS to remove the amount of code in the displayed information and prevent bloating. This should make it easier to design a website.

Depending on which method you choose doesn't actually have too much effect on how you design your layout.

Authors Advice: Do not use Flash Websites, they look cool, but they are often graphic intensive and alienate users with slow or mobile connections.

You will want to refrain from using too many graphics as well and as such you will want to be careful with how big each page is.

Many websites choose to go with column layouts and for those using dreamweaver will find that creating a layout will be remarkably easy as they have templates already installed. For those without, you will want to take a look at w3schools into how to create layouts.

One tip to use is to look at other websites, unmaximise the browser and see how the page changes when you manipulate the browser. You will find certain objects don't move while others do. You'll want to annotate this on your design.

Once you have your layout put together, you'll want to start putting it to actual use.

Those who use PHP will be aware that it is a serverside system and they'll need to upload to see results. HTTP/CSS users will find that they can see results instantly.

The Author recommends
Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 (because she's not up to date with that software)
or for hard coders.
gedit or Notepad++

Organisation

Organising your website is the most important thing you can do to make sure that all your links work correctly. Once you've got your basic site together with the links, you'll notice how you have plenty of files all over the place, in no real order.

Separate your files into different area's. Html files need to be in their own folder, with jscript, css and images in their own respectively.

Once files are in their appropriate areas and your links are relative, you will find that making additions will cascade a lot faster, not only that, but you and others will know where to find things.

Adding new features, forums, blogs and IRC.

There are many features you will want to add many of these have their own software to just slot in.

PHP Bulletin Boards (PHPbb) and Simple Machines Forum (SMF) can easily be downloaded and uploaded to the site, installed and can be effectively used to allow your users to interact. The author would recommend that you create your own forums, however, security issues recommend that you use a pre-made system for sheer speed. It is easier to design a custom skin for the forums as well.

Another useful item is called Mibbit. Mibbit is a web based IRC chat room. IRC is Internet Relay Chat and allows multiple users to talk to each other in real time and it is free of charge. The files can also be logged and stored.

Adding pizazz

Now, adding images, videos and other media is all well and good, in terms of audio media it is even recommended as long as the content doesn't start 'onLoad', but they can weigh the site down.

Try to use file types such as gif, jpg, or png for your images as these are relatively low byte usage compared to other formats and easier on the end user. Gif file types support transparency and are ideal for small logo's and very small images. Jpg is one of the more common file types used and while it doesn't support transparency it is one of the best file types for compressing information. Png on the other hand compresses at a higher quality but bloats slight higher than Jpg formats, it also supports transparency.

Unfortunately the author is only aware of one file type that is useful for video media called wmv. Unfortunately this compresses horribly but compared to file formats such as avi it causes less load on the end user and is far more desirable that the bloated avi which would take a while to actually load.

Testing. The horrors of Internet Explorer.

When you are testing, you will find this statement to be true, especially if you originally tested in Firefox. Internet Explorer is Microsoft's way of saying, 'screw the rest of you, we're doing things our way'. While that's not a bad thing, it doesn't help web designers.

Each website will have its own problems and the only real solution is to implement jscript for two css files, one which works with IE which according to w3c still holds the majority of Internet users and one css file that works with everything else.

You should always test with Safari as well, while it's rendering system doesn't look too different, how it does render information can look dramatically different compared to both IE and Firefox.

[Naomi Tsenzori]

Contents | Time Place and Dimension | Your first Character | Back to the Game with Fundamental Rules | Designing your Website | Hosting your Website | Attracting more Members | Creating a Direction | Saving Logs from the Fire | Personnel Management | Achieving Nirvana
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Hosting your Website
<needs more work>

Finding a place to host and costs

Finding a place to host your website can be very troublesome, but this is your website. If you wish for your own domain name such 'www.simName.rpg' you'll need to buy that as well. Domain Names and Hosting is provided on a yearly cost.

It is also possible to find hosting for free, there are a number of organizations that will give you access to a database and also a portion of their webspace.

If you're still struggling, send the author a personal message. Plug over. You will have to be a member of the band of brothers though ^-^.

Costs for a small webserver can cost between £7 a year through £50 a year. Depending on the website some hosts are more reliable than others. Emonsterhost.com provide a good deal, especially if you need reliability and a lot of help setting up.

Click here to see full text

Hostgator provide server space for approximately $10 a month.

Emonsterhost provide server space for approximately $5 a month or $50 for the year.



Emonsterhost also help purchase domain names. They can be purchased for around $7 through $40 a year.

Using FTP

File Transfer Protocol, the method of uploading and downloading from your website. If you have your website hosted by a company they will have given you an FTP account.

Usually they follow this rule.

username @ website.com

and each ftp account uses port 21, although some hosts use different ports.

A popular client for FTP transfer, is called FileZilla, this operates well on both Linux and Windows operating systems.

Once you have connected to your server, it should be childs play to drag and drop information from your source folder to the destination server folder. Make sure you only drag the parent folder for complete synchronization.

Getting Live

Once your website has been uploaded to your site, your website should be live and you should be able to access it using the web address given to you, or the domain address you purchased. If not, contact your host at your asap.

Once your website is live test it again as if you were a user coming to your site. Does everything work properly? If not, why? Test on multiple browsers as well.

Maintenance and Updates

Once you have found your website to be working, you should also be able to put your website into Maintenance mode, a way to take it offline temporarily. Many choose to restrict access to all the web pages.

If you have put all your html files in one area and your index file is being used as a redirect, then it should be as easy as changing the index file and restricting access to the folders by manipulating permissions.

Your website should under go regular maintenance. Roughly about once a month your website should be checked for inconsistencies.

If possible, include a way to report bugs in the system.

You should update your site at the bare minimum monthly and at the most, daily. In order to give users a sense of current affairs without lagging behind. If you find yourself dating more than once a day, try to consider launching an RSS feed to make sure that everyone is aware of the updates in a daily digest instead of having to track down each update.