Hawkes-Robinson's RPG Research Project

I thought I'd just post a quick link to W. A. Hawkes-Robinson's (this is an impressive individual) RPG Research Project.  He's doing some really great work and it's worth taking the time to check out.

Here's a blurb from his site:

"RPG (Role-Playing Game) Research is an ongoing long-term series of projects that include studies on the therapeutic and educational aspects of role-playing games, with additional emphasis on determining any causality related to participation in role-playing gaming. This research includes tracking any other projects around the world that use role-playing games as educational or therapeutic intervention modalities...

Utilizing a multidisciplinary approach, including disciplines from recreation therapy, psychology, cognitive neuroscience, education, and many other perspectives. RPG Research is a project of RPG Therapeutics LLC founded, and is the umbrella name under which the projects, website, communities, and other resources are identified. To date, this is a non-profit project founded (and funded) by William Hawkes-Robinson, with the helpful support of many others. This website is dedicated to supporting role-playing game research in general, and any other individuals or organizations interested in sharing research information about the therapeutic or educational aspects of role playing gaming."

Dang.  I'm impressed.

Mythos Machine on the Go

So there I was, huffing and puffing my way around town this morning doing my chores and shopping and stuff.  I stopped off to get some scrambled eggs, potatoes, toast and a cup of coffee.  And of course read the paper.  A story caught my eye.  And gave me a startlingly cool idea for the Yellow Stone Campaign... that frequently happens at the most inconvenient times when I'm on the go.  I used to, if possible, jot down the ideas on a piece of paper, and hope that I don't lose it in the grand shuffle that is my modern life.

Now, thanks to the Mythos Machine, I can use my Smart Phone to log into the application, quickly route over to my adventure, and add the idea right there at the coffee shop table.  No longer do I miss these opportunities to include great ideas in my world.  And once added, they stick.   Later when I get home I can modify and refine the concepts as I see fit.  But the important thing is that the notes get added right then, when I think of them.

The other nifty aspect of the Smart Phone use of the Mythos Machine is that my phone allows me to dictate into the Mythos Machine using speech recognition.   Of course there's the usual misspellings but when I get home I can tidy things up.  The important point is that my notes get entered into the centralized repository for my world when I think of them.   And that's actually a marvelous feature.

On the downside, and there must always be a downside, and I believe it's always good to mention the downside as a reminder that 1) nothing is perfect, and 2) there are things to work on for the sake of continuously improving the quality of the site ... the Mythos Machine is not currently configured for Responsive Design.  So the Smart Phone version, while perfectly functional, is not form factored for the phone's screen.  Thus, it does require some scrolling and zooming in at times.  But frankly, the ability to add my ideas to my world, create new creatures, weapons, armors or equipment, or anything else, on the fly while I'm on the go ... just makes the darn thing incredibly useful to me.

You are welcome to try it yourself for free by creating an Open Beta account at

http://elthos.com

... I look forward to hearing your feedback on it.  If you'd like to learn more about the Elthos RPG Mythos Machine before creating an account (understandably so) please read the FAQ here...

http://elthosrpg.blogspot.com/p/elthos-faq.html

Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you!

Elthos RPG - Progress Report

Just a quick post on the latest progress with the Web Application, now tentatively (ok pretty sure) named "The Mythos Machine".

A number of my play testers and some friends out there in Cyberland suggested that players are going to want to have the option to Allocate stats to their Characters in some kind of point buy system.  At that time (5 weeks ago) the idea was only a glimmer in my eye, and I fretted that it would take a long time to build that into the site.  But I decided it is a good idea after all.  So I programmed the application to allow the GM to choose what kind of Character Generation System they want.

1. Roll Random
2. Roll Random + Allocation.
3. Pure Allocation

Roll Random allows the Player to click a button and generate their Character's Requisites (along with everything).  The Gamesmaster can decide in their World Configuration how many Re-Rolls Players are allowed (otherwise nothing would stop the ardent Player from rolling as many as they could until they hit a Maximal Character).  The default is 3 Re-Rolls.   It lets you keep all three and then decide which you want to play.

Roll Random + Allocation allows the Player to click a button and generate their Character's Requisites, but then gives them the ability to move points from one Requisite to another in order to optimize the Character for a wanted Class or Race.  They also get to see a list of Races the GM has allowed Players to select from and will roll the Character so that it fits the selected Race's minimum and maximum Requisite limits, and does so randomly within that range.  If they roll well they can move points around to beef up (and diminish) their Requisites.   Again the GM can define the number of Re-Rolls.

Pure Allocation allows the GM to predetermine how many points in total can be allocated to the Character, and this is based on the Race Generation Dice that the GM has chosen for their World.  The Race Generation Dice can be 1d6, 2d6, 3d6 or 4d6, and there's pretty good arguments for using any of them.   The lower the Race Dice number the faster the game play tends to be as all the numbers are small and easier to work with.  It also happens that all the numbers in the game tend to track along with that choice.  For example in a 1d6 Race Generation Dice game the maximum Life Points at 2nd Level is 12 (if the Character has a 6 Strength).   For a 4d6 system the same 2nd Level Character will have 24 Life Points.   Monsters and NPCs work the same way.  So augmenting the Race Generation Dice bumps up all of the stats of everything across the World.

Which leads me to the next major change to the system.  I decided that if I was going to go so far as to allow alternate Character Generation Methods, I should probably go all out and create a method by which the GM can choose their World's Race Generation Dice as well.  Hitherto this, there was only one option, the simplified and fast-play oriented 1d6 system.   So with this change I am no longer emphasizing the ODS as "The One Die System", but instead I am referring to it now as the "The Optional Dice System".  I think this is a big improvement as I understand completely the reaction I got on a few occassions where perspective Players pretty much scoffed at a One Die Six System.  After all, they reasoned, who the heck can do anything with just one six sided die to run an entire RPG World?   Well, actually, I can.  But that's a quibble I would just assume live without, and so now we have The Optional Dice System and everyone can be happy.

What turned out to be necessary in making The Optional Dice System was I needed to factor in that Races and Classes will have to change their Minimum and Maximum Requisites Boundaries, as well as Character's Life and Mystic Points.  So I automated that process in the background.  The system will tell the GM what the effects will be if they go, for example, from a 2d6 System to a 4d6 system, or from 3d6 to 1d6, etc.  They can take a look at the effects on Races and Classes, as well as Character's Life Points and Mystic Points.  If they like what they see, and save the new setting, then all the calculations are done in the background and everything in their World flexes appropriately, including Requisite Bonuses.   It's pretty nifty and took a bit of thought to get that piece right.  (Pat on the back).

In addition, I took the opportunity to neaten up the Character Screen and make it both more orderly, and more handsome at the same time.  I'm fairly pleased with the results... not so much because it looks perfect (yet) but because in doing so I made it a lot easier for future embellishments to the look and feel of the screen, and the site as a whole.

These changes represent the last of what I have in mind as far as large-scale systemic modifications to the Mythos Machine.  At least in his Phase.   So I'm very happy that's all behind me now.  It worried me a lot before Christmas because I though these changes would take several months.  Good coding practices along the way, however, added up and it took far longer than I had expected.  Usually in the world of programming it's the opposite of that.  So another pat on the back for me.  Happy Happy.  :)

So this has been a pretty solid three weeks of effort coming out of the New Years and I'm happy with the progress being made.  Ok, that's all.   Back to the Salt Mine.

PS - the site will be changing over to an Open Beta in the not too distant future as we polish  up the look and feel and get it into a final shape that I feel is acceptable enough to show to the general public.  I hope people will find it a useful and enjoyable RPG System, and I think it can easily be used in conjunction with Virtual Table Top systems like Roll20.  We'll see.  I'm of course hoping so, but frankly, I won't know until we put it out there and get some real world reactions to it all.

Ok - salt mine is calling.  Ciao!

Elthos UI - One Small Step

1st Ajax call of Elthos

I don't usually write about technical progress with the Elthos RPG website, but this advance is kind of a big deal for the UI.  Finally, after a long time of working on other more fundamental aspects of the project, mostly on the back end, I have made a number of forays into the UI / UX space.   My first major accomplishment (those who know how easy this actually is, don't laugh please - I didn't know until I tried it myself) is the implementation of JQuery Ajax to call a (don't laugh please) WebMethod and provide a data table that shows up in a label on the form.

For those not too in-the-know about this sort of thing, it means that the page does not "postback" to the server, but instead smoothly glides the data onto the page unobtrusively.  So the page no longer vanishes and then reappears with the data.   And it's a much nicer User Experience. 

Now that I have that down, I can make advances towards generally improving the UI (that is User Interface).  I'm pretty excited about this.  It represents a sea change in how Elthos will be managing data going forward.   Of course, that sea change won't happen overnight, and I have a bunch of alternate paths to explore before making a final decision on whether or not to use WebMethods, or WebAPI, or WCF technologies.  All of them do the same thing, and there's pros and cons apparently for each.  But still, I made my first WebMethod call successfully today, and its implemented on the production server and works rather nicely.  I'm delighted!  :)

Ok, now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Elthos Web Application Overview

This does not represent all of the features, but does give a basic overview of the primary features.  The purpose of the application is to help the GM organize their materials and make game preparation faster and easier. 

There are a number of time saving features that are not shown above that should be noted.   Here are a few:

• Auto Generate Adventure Groups, Monsters and NPCs including assigning GM selected "default equipment" based on Race and Class, according to the GM's preferences.
• Print World - allows the GM to print out in one document all of the relevant materials for a Table Top game in one package, including World - Place - Campaign - Adventure descriptions, Maps and Images, and Character Stats in convenient tables.  
• Combat Matrix - color coded matrix that compares Combat Capabilities for each member of two groups against each other member of the opposing group.   Physical or Mystical can be shown.
• Experience Gains Calculators - for Skills and for Combat.  

Thoughts on Professional Gamesmastering

I'm interested in exploring the concept of Professional Gamesmastering.  I'd like to start by saying that I've done it myself several times, and it's been both a fantastic experience, and to some degree profitable.  You can read my notes on it here:  http://elthos.com/ProGM/ProGM.aspx

I'd be curious to hear what others think of the concept, and if anyone else has managed to make money Gamesmastering.

Where I'm going with this is ... I think the future holds in store for us the opportunity for a much more dynamic form of entertainment than simply going to the movies or playing video games.  The problem with these activities is that they are essentially passive.   Yes, even playing a video game is passive in the sense that you're not really creating something, but are following along in the groove of someone else's creation.   I'm thinking of first person RPGs like World of Warcraft.   In that style of game you are in someone else's world.   Yes, you can run around and do stuff in that world, but you can't really help to create it, nor can you really affect it very much by your actions.  That kind of gaming, while obviously far more active than a movie, is still passive in comparison to your average run-in-the-mill tabletop RPG.   In those games you participate in the creation of the actual history of the world.  You are, as it were, a main character in that story.  And that's a lot of what makes it so great.

In the future I believe we will have the tools, and I'm working on one aspect of that with the Elthos RPG system, that will allow for a much more dynamic form of interactive gaming.  Roll20 has brought us into a collaborative virtual gaming space and that's a big step in the direction I'm pointing to.  The next step, I believe, will be an online utility that parallels Roll20 and allows Gamesmasters to create their Worlds online, and play out campaigns in that world.   The Elthos Gamesmaster's Toolbox and World Weaver's Studio is designed to make Creating Worlds, and Gamesmastering them much easier by providing Gamesmastering functions that handle the number crunching and record keeping, leaving the Gamesmaster free to do the more creative work involved with story and world development.

Finally, I envision a further phase in which these worlds are tied to graphics engines that allow the Players and GMs to go fully into their Virtual Worlds en mass, and play in ways that games like WOW don't quite allow (yet).  With Live Gamesmasters who not only run the major NPCs (and mostly act like Admins in an IRC Chat Channel), but allow them to manage a large number of groups of players in their Worlds - all with the same virtues of tabletop RPGs, but with the added advantages of stability (ie - not losing track of stuff), accuracy (the computer does the number crunching), transparency (the computer could allow people to determine who did what when, and what the odds were / are), and enjoyment of mind blowing visualizations of people's worlds.

This all will give rise, I hope and believe, to a class of Professional Gamesmasters.  These people will have a combination of necessary skills to entertain large numbers of people with fantastic worlds, and exciting adventures in an online environment that I suspect will be emerging in the next decade or so.   The skills necessary for Professional Gamesmastering involve knowing the tools, as well as all of the current challenges that GMs face, such as social skills, math skills, knowledge of history, of story arcs and character development, and of the ability to improvisationally represent multiple non-player characters as well as monsters (to name a few off the top of my head).  Yes, there's a lot of skills required for the successful Gamesmaster.   But mastering those skills is incredibly rewarding.  And I would love to see a future in which those Gamesmasters who excel in their art are also able to be rewarded financially as well, so that they can take the hobby to the next level and make it into an experience that extends and enhances the entertainment possibilities for society.

Yes, people will still read books.  I know I will.  But I would also really enjoy being able to play the hero of a story that I am helping to create in a fantastic virtual world whose concepts I would never have imagined on my own.   And that, friends, I'd be willing to pay for.  I think many other people would, too.  And that would be the basis for starting to think about Professional Gamesmastering as a serious pursuit.

Would you be interested in a gig as a Professional Gamesmaster if the tools and infrastructure were available to you?   I would.   Would you be interested in participating in the advancement of this concept?  I would.

I'd love to hear peoples thoughts on this!  

Elthos RPG Weapons Skills Selection Update

My play testers have consistently identified areas that need further genericization in order to make a truly generic RPG game system that allows GMs to configure their worlds in whatever way they want. This is of course one of my primary objectives, and I'm grateful to my Play Testers for pointing out areas that need improvement.

One of those areas was the Edit Weapons feature. Previously I had no way to associate weapons directly with skills. However, since having learned skills for weapons usage affects the Attack Level calculations, it was necessary to include some code that associates certain weapons with certain Skills. An example was "Ranged Weapons". When the Character is using a "Missile" Weapon the code would go and look to see if that Character had learned "Ranged Weapons", and if so they got the correct Attack Level calculated. The problem was that this was quite brittle, and requires every GM to have a "Ranged Weapons" skill in their world, or missile weapons would not get calculated correctly. As long as the GM kept "Ranged Weapons" then everything was ok. But what if they want to change the name, or split it into alternative sets of Ranged Weapons, such as "Hand Guns" vs "Bows", which if you think about it, are two completely different skills.

Therefore I modified the site to allow GMs to associate Weapons with whatever "Combat" skills are in their World. Did you add a Combat Skill for "Butterfly Knives"? Ok, so now you can add a Weapon named Butterfly Knives and associate those to the Skill. Thus, when the Character purchases their Butterfly Knives and learns the Skill, he will have the correctly calculated Attack Level.

This was a very solid advance as it allows GMs much greater flexibility to define their Worlds the way they want.

New Feature - Group Cloning

Pistachio Nut Shell Pieces, yes.  :)

Things are coming along well with the game testing, and the modifications to the Elthos Web Application are making steady, albeit museum-speed, progress.  The latest game tests were a bit disrupted by the fact that the web application can auto-generate adventure groups, and I created two groups of six fighters each for the tactical board game - however, my players, who tend to be more observant than I, noticed right away that the two groups were different.  Very different.   The Adventure Group Generator randomizes the rolling of Characters within the group.  So while you can create two Adventure Groups defined as six fighters of maximum 3rd Level, you can't get it to generate two groups that are exactly the same.  In this case, Adventure Group A was far heftier in terms of bonuses from higher Requisites than Group B.   So whoever got Group B was kinda under the gun in a big way.  I thought that was kind of cool and random.  But my players pointed out - it unbalanced the test results.   We're testing combat tactics in the board game aspect.  Ok ok!   Off to the salt mines!   So.... I needed to clone Group A.   But I have no Clone Adventure Group feature on the web app.   Correction:  I had no Clone Group Feature.  Now I do.  And it works marvelously!  :)

My Selected Badges for Elthos

Ok after much hemming and hawing these are the badges that apply to my GMing style:

Story Aspects

Story - I tend to put a premium on Good Story in my world. If you Role Play your Character well, and don't take foolish chances, then I find that tends to result in better stories.  Meanwhile I try my best to build the back story based on literary sources and classical themes that tend to help bring out certain literary qualities into my game world.  I have written up my actual game stories and posted them here:  Elthos Example Games.

Drama - My games do tend to focus on interesting Characterizations and Drama, including romances, betrayals, and the great wide spectrum of human glory and folly. Definitely.

Exploration & Mystery - The essential plot lines of my world largely concern exploration, and the solving of mysteries.

Mechanics Orientation

GM Fiat - My world is not an Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune. The GM has the final say. Period.

By the Dice - I play above the table, open dice rolls, with the odds of winning stated in advance in most cases. However, that is only true for rolls where the Player Characters are involved directly. When it comes to behind the scenes things, such as whether or not a villain decides to sneak up from behind or wait until another day, I do those rolls without announcing their intent. Leaving those kinds of rolls a mystery for the Players, I find, enhances the game.

Tactical - Since I play by the Dice, it is considered good form in my world to consider the tactical situation and maximize your chances of success if you can.

Character Death - I do play by the the dice, and so Character Death is something that can definitely happen. That said, in the past, I've allowed some Characters the chance to escape Death's grip, and return from the Other World, so keep that in mind.

Run Away - Because I roll above board and stick to the outcomes indicated by the dice, and I allow for Character Death, Players are advised that sometimes discretion is indeed the better part of valor, and running away from insurmountable odds when you can is considered a sign of wisdom in my world. Of course, there is nothing wrong with a heroic death, when the end result is something worthwhile. And again, some Characters may simply feel that running away is cowardly, and so they will not do so, and thus take their chances. The odds of such Characters dying in combat is relatively high, but then again, they are more probable to be remembered as heroes by their posterity.

Use Your Brains - Player Skill is important in my world. If you can role play your Character well, then a lot of times you can make up for deficiency in particular Character abilities, work around them, or render them unnecessary. I put a premium on Role Playing over Gaming when it comes to the Story aspect of the game. Of course, that does not mean I will fudge skill rolls or allow players to succeed at skills they do not possess just to advance the story. But just like in life, play to your strengths for the best chance of success.

By the Book - I have a set of medium-weight traditionalist Character Generation rules, and relatively simple Conflict / Skills Resolution System, which I don't usually deviate from. The operative word there is 'usually'. I do not believe in *never* deviating from the rules, and so I allow for some (albeit rare) exceptions to existing rules, or modifying the rules over time when it becomes apparent that they are not balanced, or do not produce the desired effect.

Tinkering - While this may seem somewhat a contradiction to Playing by the Book, my rules are somewhat in a state of flux while I iron out the details based on actual game results (a very long process), though mostly stable, so yes, I am still in tinkering mode, and probably will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

Improvisation - I tend to improvise quite a bit on Non-Player Character descriptions, personality, and decision making. However, I will often know prior who the NPC is, what they are trying to accomplish, and what powers and capabilities they have, and strongly resist deviating from preset abilities.  I also value Players who are able to improv their Characters as well.

Mirror, Mirror - Although it may not be obvious, I do absorb Player ideas during the course of the game, and may, or may not, reflect those ideas in the story over time.

Elthos ODS Rules: Skills & Kills: Calculating Experience Gains

I'm currently working on the Experience Gains section of the Elthos ODS rules with the help of my play testers.  The results have been to simplify the Experience Gains system considerably, and I believe that the math is now both easier to perform, and also the results align better with the Experience needed for Leveling in the ODS System.  Before continuing I should point out that the numbers are very small, and that is by design.  What follows is my current draft of the revised rules that will go into the Elthos ODS Rules Book:

---

Skills & Kills: Calculating Experience Gains

When Characters successfully use Skills or Mystic Powers that they have learned, they gain Experience Points, however, the successful use of unlearned skills is considered pure luck, and does not earn experience Points, though the GM can override that rule if circumstances warrant. Calculating how many Experience Points are gained is easy. In the case of non-Combat skills is simply the value of the Difficulty Level of the task succeeded at (which is a value between 1 and 6 points). In the case of Combat Skills, Experience is earned when the opponent is killed, and is calculated by adding the specified stats of the all of the Vanquished Characters together as follows:

Total Vanquished Experience Gains = SUM(Character Level + Armor Class + Damage Absorption + Modified Dex Bonus + Strength Bonus + Wisdom Bonus)

Note: default Base Kill Gain Multiplier = 1 but can be adjusted to increase or decrease the rate of Levels advancement. The higher the BKGM the faster the Characters will gain Levels. The default of 1 seems to provide the best value for Campaigns where the expectation that Characters will advance to 6th Level (maximum in most cases) in approximately a year of play.

Example Experience Gain Calculations
Character: Tang (CL: 4, AC: 1, DAB: 1, MDB: 0, STB: 0, WSB: 0) is defeated by Gorgar, then the calculation is:  

XP = 1 x (4 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0) = 6 Experience Points

If a Character wins a Solo Combat, such that no other party members are in range to provide support, then the experience is not shared, and the value of the Experience Gain multiplied by 2. Otherwise, however, Combat Experience is shared with all of the members of the party equally.

Calculation for Learned non-Combat Skills
If a Character tries to perform a learned skill such as swimming across a fast moving river, which the GM has assigned a Difficulty Level of 5, then if he succeeds by rolling above the Chance to Succeed value, he accomplishes his goal and gains 5 Experience points.

Calculation for Special Cases
A special case might constitute any situation in which the normal amount of Experience Gain seems insufficient. For example, if the opponent in a combat situation is using magical weapons or armor, the GM might add a bonus Experience Point for each bonus value of the magical item. Conversely, if the Victor was using a magical weapon or armor the GM may wish to reduce the experience gained by an equivalent value.  The use of Mystical Powers earns Experience Points as does any other learned Skill or Combat Skill depending on the nature of the Mystic Power.

---

To give you an idea of how these small numbers of Experience Gains relate to how much Experience is required for Character Leveling here is the Chart. You will note that the top value is the Experience Base for the Class, and it doubles for each level, which makes calculating the required amount reasonably simple. Remember that the idea of the Elthos "One Die System" is to keep the numbers small so that they are easy to handle during the game. The current configuration should allow Characters to get to Level 6, on average, in about 1 year of play if the GM runs the game once per week, more or less.  

	Fighter & Thief	SpellChanter & Cleric
Levels	20	30
1	0	0
2	20	30
3	40	60
4	80	120
5	160	240
6	320	480

Note that Multi-Classes combine the bases -10 / additional Class to so that a Fighter(20)-Thief (20) has a base of (20+20)-10=30, a SpellChanter(30)-Thief(20) has a base of (30+20)-10=40, and a Fighter(20)-SpellChanter(30)-Cleric(30) has a base of (20+30+30)-20=60.

---

Elthos Guild Classes

I've been tooling around with my Play Testers on the question of Guild Classes, and how much Experience it should take to go up in levels.  I think we've made some great progress on it, and so, as a kind of teaser, I'm going to toss up the Guild Class Configuration Screen from the Elthos RPG "One Die System" Web Application.

In the not too distant future I'm going to ask for Gamesmasters to Beta Test the system.  I have no idea, really, how the application and the rules will be received, but I'm hoping that if people are willing to give it a try that they will find it useful and give it a thumbs up.  The system is mostly geared toward people who would prefer to play with a rules set that is traditional in nature (based largely off of OD&D) and with small numbers to keep the math easy.   The combat and skills resolution system is very easy to work with, and the character generation can probably be described as medium weight in terms of complexity... but there is the Web Application which does all of the heavy lifting, number crunching, and record keeping chores.

And so, there you have it.  Progress is being made, and I'm hoping to make the system available to Beta Testers within the next few months.   If you happen to be interested in becoming a Beta Tester, please drop me a line via the Blog and I'll add your name to the list to be emailed when it's ready.

:)

IRC RPGing

Recently my play tester group has gotten shaken up with scheduling conflicts, and in addition I have two of the main players who are about to leave the area.  So given the difficulties with scheduling locally, I am thinking about trying to run my game on IRC.   I tried this before a few years ago, and it went reasonably well, though I think I overcomplicated the effort with too many rules for managing the IRC channel.  That was long ago, however, and things have probably changed since then.  So I'm looking for the most effective modern way to handle IRC RPGing, and am hoping to get some advice on how to get started the right way with it.   I went to MagicStar and asked in the #RPGNet channel and got some good starting advice.   This is the summary:

• Use Google Docs Drawing for White Boarding - Some experimentation shows that you can import images, such as a gaming map to White Board and create icons to move around.   You can share the Drawing with your friends, and that should be good enough as a game board.  
• Conversely, there are applications such as Map Tools that can be used for the same purpose.
• Use Yahoo groups for between-game communication, scheduling, and file storage.  
• Conversely there is Obsidian Portal which is reported to be quite good for helping to maintain game info.
• OOC in parens in the main channel is ok.  That is, it turns out, probably less confusing than created a separate OOC channel for Out Of Character conversation (which is one of the things I tried before).
• Use die roller script for rolling in the IRC Channel.  You can find die rolling script information at http://www.d20source.com/roleplaying-tools/dicebot
• Feel free to say, "Ok, guys, I'm a bit overloaded, can you slow down a sec and let me think?"
• Make use of Private Messaging to give players info only their Characters would know, but keep PMing to a minimum to help keep players engaged.
• Keep to Small groups.
• Keep your plots small.
• Realize that IRC is slower than in person play.
• You can solicit for Players in IRC Channels related to RPGing.  A list of such networks and channels would be nice.

All of this seems like good advice.  I'm wondering if anyone else has advice, and/or better yet a website that gives a good old run down on how to get up to speed on this in the right way.  Something along the lines of "IRC RPGing For Morons" would be great.  The questions I'm looking for opinions on are: What are the best cheap/free tools for IRC RPGing?  How and where to solicit IRC RPG Players?  How to maintain a long term campaign?  How to handle Player Character absences?  And any other advice anyone cares to offer.   

Thanks!

Elthos Web Application Progress

Ok, things are moving along slowly but surely.  I was very happily working on the next set of enhancements to the Elthos Web Application when I found that my hosting company, Arvixe, has been updating their database system.  So I ran into a big fat hairball when I tried to deploy my changes to the production system.  Oh joy.  That took about a week of communications, research, trial and error to resolve, but finally - the site has been updated.  The new feature is to allow Gamesmasters to select one of a number of Skill Learning Point Advancement Rate formulas from the World Configuration page and apply them to their World.  It's probably something of a senseless feature that I will eventually remove, but for now, while still in the testing phase I think it will be handy to use to compare the different formulas.  I may keep it anyway.  Depends on whether or not Gamesmasters actually wind up needing it.  My guess is that they will use the default.  But then again - maybe not!  Time will tell.  In the meantime, I'm pretty happy with the functionality so far as my own purposes as concerned.  :)

The Windmills of the Gods...

... grind slowly but surely.

Latest update on the technical front: I finally got the Elthos RPG Web Application switched over to the new hosting service. Hopefully this will vastly improve the site's performance. It will probably be a couple of days before I have all of the configuration work finished and the site back up and running, but for now, I'm OK with the switch. It was a bit more complicated to do than I expected, and the regestrar for the domain is still not switched over. For that I will have to wait two more months and try again. Not the most efficient infrastructure I've ever seen, but that's the Internet for ya.

On other news, I went to the Small Business Administration and found out some interesting stuff. My question was: What do I need a Patent for? This conversation went on for an hour. The upshot is that there are no clear answers. Making such decisions are the equivalent of being a commander in the middle of an ongoing war. You have to quickly size up the terrain, make a decision, run with it, adjust as you go, hope you didn't make a business-killing mistake. It's fun.

The questions around patenting Elthos RPG boil down to two things:

1) is it worth trying to protect the application from copy-cats?
2) is it essential to have a patent in order to partner with other companies later on?

In both cases the answer is (predictable enough): it depends.

For example, it depends on who you are trying to protect from copying your application. Is it a small company that could be deterred with a few legal notifications? Or is it Microsoft or Google, who have infinite resources to crush you in court?

The same "it depends" applies to the second question. Of course.

The problem with the Patent is that it can be enormously expensive ($200,000+) to go through the process of applying for it, it can take years, and it can in the end be denied by the Patent Office anyway - in which case you spent a fortune for nothing. On the other hand it could possibly cost as little as $3000. How do you know what the cost will be? You don't. Why? Because - it depends. How many times does your lawyer have to go back and forth with the Patent Office? It depends. How many billable hours will it take to create the documentation for the Patent? It depends. Etc.

Then there is the question of "What does a Patent do for me exactly?" ... Again... it depends. In some cases it might help to deter a small company from trying to copy your product, or it might encourage a mid-sized company to negotiate a deal with you. On the other hand, if the company copying your product is large and doesn't give a damn, then the Patent is only as good as the amount of money you have to spend in court trying to sue the offending behemoth. Others have tried to do the same, and died in the process. So, it depends.

Another irksome issue is the question of International Patents... you can get a Patent in America, but in the case of an Internet application... if the copy-cat is in China, then forget being protected by your American Patent. They won't care. And then again, if you do have a (much more expensive and time consuming to obtain) International Patent, which is really getting an individual patent in every country on earth that allows it (not all do), they still may not care. And when you go to sue the copy-cat in Bangladesh, their Authorities may just laugh you off the phone. So what protection does a Patent afford you? It depends.

Overall, the setup is fraught with perils. It's a war out there, and if you're going to head in that direction, you better be prepared to take your chances.

Which gives some idea why Entrepreneurship in the Capitalist world is so exciting, and so risky. You *can* make it big - but you are definitely spending your resources on a risky venture in which there are never clear answers. You just have to try it, and be prepared to be destroyed by the competition, and lose everything you put into it, and then be galled to watch others make their fortunes having stolen your idea. If you feel that you could not possibly stomach that outcome, then according to the powers that be - just stick with your day job, and forget about inventing anything and bringing it to market.

For me, I'm in the process of evaluating the options, and trying, like any good wargammer, to maximize my chances of success. Unfortunately, time is also a factor. The longer it takes for me to sort through all of this and learn the ropes, the more chance there is that someone else with better connections and understand will produce something close enough to what I'm doing to make all of my efforts in vain.

There is risk in every direction. Of course.

It's Alive (again)! (elthos web application news)

Ok this post is about the trials and travails of hosting Elthos RPG Web Application out there in the horrible "real world".

First off the hosting company migrated my project to a "new platform" in mid April. Fine. Except: they broke the site in numerous ways that made it all but impossible to work on, or even get to, for quite some time. You have no idea what I've been through with this. Good thing I don't have any users on the system at this time. Whew. Because otherwise I'd have been S.O.L. It took until two days ago (July 19) for them to get the site back online. That was April-July. Wow. That's like totally crappy service! Amaaaazing.

But anyway, after much gnashing of teeth it is online again. Superior! I can now go back to what I was working on. My World.

And now for the good news. I really like the Elthos RPG Web Application. I mean like A LOT. Why? Because it does quite a lot for me. The coolest thing, I think, that I realised today, is that it stores my world information in a nice tidy place so I don't lose stuff. Instead my stuff accumulates over time. In a nice easily accessible-from-anywhere location online. That's pretty sweet. So I can be on go, and see something that gives me cool game-world idea and through the website I can update my world. I can upload photos of places I see along the way from my phone, if I want, and add them to my world, too. That's just freakin cool, as far as I'm concerned.

The other things I like:

1. The math is simple so that even though the computer does the math, with a little effort I could easily do the math too. But the computer is faster, and makes fewer mistakes than I do, so still the computer is a plus on that.

2. The Web Application lets me print out my stuff in quick, but convenient (though not very fancy looking) format. So I can print-n-run to the game, and I know I have everything I need.

3. The Elthos Rules can be played pretty much on a picnic table with minimal equipment or books. That's a plus.

4. The rules are simple enough so that I can be reasonably sure how to build scenarios that balance without struggling with a zillion gotcha-rules. It makes improv-GMing much easier.

5. And it's must faster to generate monsters and NPCs using the Adventure Group Generator. The nice thing is that it gens not only the NPCs randomly, but equips them based on their race or class as well. So minimal post-gen work is needed. It doesn't, for example, assign spells or miracles to the mystical classes.

6. It's kind of fun to use, to. Oh, and if I do the data entry, it also keeps a nice historical record of what has transpired during the campaigns, and what each character did, and even records stuff that lets me determine the alignment of actions taken and adjust the character's alignment accordingly - automagically. It's a neat feature, though I suspect not everyone will use it. It's not necessary, but it's still pretty neat. And for my World of Elthos, Alignment makes a difference, so it works for me.

So anyway, enough about how great this is... the game sessions continue at pace, and we are making good progress through the Game Testing Phase (one of them, anyway). So that's great too. I'm pretty thoroughly psyched.

The bad news: I can not for the life of me figure out at this point whether or not I should throw the doors open to the world and let the Application out into the "wild", or if I should (and must?) get a patent, and build up a legal framework by which I can continue to control it going forward.

There are Pros and Cons on both sides, and I'm having a devil of a time working my way through the details via research and conversation with those who may know something helpful. It's a slow process.

But in the meantime, things are going well. The master is pleased.

:)

Stabilization Complete

All Systems Are Go

The Elthos ODS RPG Online Web Application has been stabilized on the new platform.

The Elthos ODS RPG Online Web Application is a utility to help Gamesmasters run the Elthos ODS RPG by providing a comprehensive array of GM support tools. The Elthos ODS Rules have been designed for fast easy play, and the computer support provides additional ease of use for the system.


http://www.elthos.com



:)

Stabilizing On the New Platform

Things are working out well with the web application. It is currently stabilized as I have switched over to StateServer, rather than InProc (well, that does work on my dev machine, and I didn't have any issues with it on the first Hosting Service, but still, StateServer is better in any case). So that's good news for the Web Application. However, I am still getting intermittent errors with objects vanishing. So that suggests that the problem with the session is not truly solved. But I do notice the site is working better, and the loss of objects seems much less frequent. So ... what can I say. It's a step in the right direction.

In the meantime, the play testing is coming along well, the world is growing by leaps and bounds, and I'm having a good time with it. So that all counts for a lot.

In other new I decided to foot the bill for having the face cards created for the Elthos Tarot Deck so that I can have it published as an actual deck. At first it will probably be used on the site in some manner, but afterwards as I get feedback and work on that system, I will post the cards for physical publication. Most likely through U.S. Games, Inc.

And so, all is well. Progress is being made. And that is good.