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[Transcendant]

Thanks, that actually helps. I think. simplified huh?

Ok, so quasi 1986 graphics era mapping question though, well sorta: is there a way to make sure text symbols stay evenly spaced and close together? Or at least don't get moved/distorted by autoformat and space saving?

Example: Spaceship interior sections

Map Key:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

=Wall
-Window
+Door
1 Entrance/Exit
2 Hallway
3 Stair/Ramp
4 Cargo Bay
5 Medical Bay
6 Crew Quarters
6a Officer's Quarters
7 Ship/Docking Bay
7a Fighter Bay
7b Shuttle Bay
8 Bridge/Command
9 Recreational
10  Engineering
10a Shields
10b Reactor
10c Engines
10d Gravity Generator
10e Life Support
10f FTL Drive

Map of Ship (Not to Scale):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Top Deck
             =================================================================================================
======== 6a = 6a = 6a = 6a = 6a = 6a =6   =6    =6    =6   =6   =6    =6   =6    =6    =6   =6    =1= 9         =                                    =
-           =     =      =     =     =     =     =     =      =     =     =     =     =     =      =     =     =     =3=            =           9                       =
-           ==+===+===+===+===+==+===+====+==+===+===+===+==+===+===+===+===+==+==+======                                   =
-      8    +         2                 2                         2                    2                      2                2               +                                   =
-           ==+===+===+===+===+==+===+====+===+==+===+===+==+====+===+==+===+==+==+======                                   =
-           =     =      =     =     =     =     =     =      =     =     =     =     =     =      =     =     =     =3=            =                                   =
======== 6a = 6a = 6a = 6a = 6a = 6a =6   =6    =6   =6   =6    =6    =6   =6    =6    =6    =6   =1=  9         =                                   =
             =================================================================================================


Middle Deck
             =================================================================================================
             =         7a                                               =  9     =             7b                             =  =                                               =
             =                                                           =         =                                             =3=       4                                       =
             =                                                           =         =                                             =+=                                               =
             =                                                           =         =                                             =  =                                               =
             =                                                           +         +                                             +  +                                               =
             =                                                           =         =                                             =  =                                                =
             =                                                           =         =                                             =+=                                                =
             =                                                           =         =                                             =3=                                                =
             =                                                           =         =                                             =  =                                                =
             =================================================================================================
Lower Deck
             =================================================================================================
             =                                                                         =           =                               =1=                                                =
             =                                                                         =     5     =  5                          =3=                10abcdef                    =
             =                                                                         ====+==========+==========+=                                                =
             =                                                                                                                     =  =                                                =
             =                                                                                                                     =+  +                                                =
             =                                                                                                                     =  =                                                =
             =                         4                                                                                           =+=                                                =
             =                                                                                                                     =3=                                                =
             =                                                                                                                     =1=                                                =
             =================================================================================================

Example: Terrain

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

               ______________
_________/______________\________________
________/_________________\______________
_______/___________________\_____________
_______/__________________\_____________
_________/_______________\_____________
_________////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\_______________
__________________________________________

See how those move around and aren't exactly clear? Keeping in mind that habitable ship section is just a big rectangle. You throw in some angles or curves or even differently spaced walls and things get messy as all heck. Solution?

[IronyOwl]

Table tag:

[]	[]	O
[]	X	[]
X	[]	O

It's the grid button on the toolbar. Copy td tags for more items per row, tr blocks for more rows. Downside is that it makes it a pain in the ass to sift through to find what's doing what, especially if you're using tags around the actual components. You don't have to upload it, but I'm not convinced it's any easier than an image editor past fairly small, simple images.

[piecewise]

I've run what I thought would be good forum games here, but for some reason they all seem to fold up and die (though the last one was my health as a problem):
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=149463.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=149879.msg6141289#msg6141289
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=151766.0

I tried to make fun games, but they just seem to putter out on this board for some reason. How could these be improved?

I was particularly proud of the detail put into the zombie survival game's text area layouts, but I'm not sure they took. I thought the greater degree of customization, and detailed battle scenes in Bronze Age Peasant would play well, but.... Finally, the Dwarf Game was incredibly forum appropriate and had an incredible amount of flexibility and pretty detailed maps, but that had a hard time taking off even before my health dropped.

I made detailed names (with family lines), detailed locations (sometimes with pictures on grids), made things pretty open ended for a text game (always leaving open other options in suggestion games), let people craft things, etc. I even made detailed multi layered, multi area maps.

Question, what gives?

Am I not getting something? I mean, I thought people wanted a large degree of customization, and ability to set up their own situation with a detailed world. I thought I was giving them that, but for some reason, the games never seem to take off. I even invited people by PM but somehow, nothing.

Can I make some kind of game, maybe a suggestion one, on this forum that will take off and be fun for everyone? I want to try again, but ... if it just doesn't take off, then what?

1. Make the system simple or people will be scared off and you'll hate yourself later.

2. Leave room for lots of player freedom, which mechanics that empower them to change the situation and maybe even the game.

3. Don't hit them with walls of text or huge back stories. I know you spent a lot  of time thinking this crap up, but people balk at a novel's worth of set up.  Instead, give them just enough to know what the hell is going on with them right now and to give them an idea of what their goals are.  Then let their investigations uncover the universe.

4. Focus on the characters; namely the PC's. You want it to feel like they're seeing this complete world of yours from their own perspective. They  are small critters in a big world, and you want to focus on the interplay and how they can and do change things, as well as how they can't and don't.

5. Remember, don't be afraid to ask your players to help you do shit.

6. In the end, this is something done for the enjoyment of you and your players. If something is dragging on and you or they aren't having fun, just change it.

[Transcendant]

Glad to see more good advice. Thanks.

Was trying to avoid the whole overdone simplified stuff, because I've heard too many people complain about it. That said maybe that was just idle complaints. I still want  more customization that "you place a lumber mill and that gives you X." There's just more to it than that in real life but maybe I should start smaller and work my way up.

[Arx]

Table tag:

[]	[]	O
[]	X	[]
X	[]	O

It's the grid button on the toolbar. Copy td tags for more items per row, tr blocks for more rows. Downside is that it makes it a pain in the ass to sift through to find what's doing what, especially if you're using tags around the actual components. You don't have to upload it, but I'm not convinced it's any easier than an image editor past fairly small, simple images.

Not certain, but can't you just use [tt][/tt] truetype for monospace, which does the same thing? Might be misunderstanding the issue, though.

[Truean]

Hi again.

You seem upset your hard work hasn't paid off. Understandable. Frustrating. Difficult. Confusing. Regrettable. Your seeking help is wonderful.
If you'd like and if you think it may help, there are seven (7) points below intended as helpful hints. I hope they do help you.

1st, your games aren't bad. I've played some and happily helped out a bit.
2nd, (K.I.S.S.) "Keep It Simple Stupid." People should read. They don't. That's sad. Cope.
3rd, Homebrew can work (not always). Mine have, but you must boil it down. People have 15 second attention spans. It's sad, but true.
4th, FOCUS. You are writing scenes with SOME flexibility in them, but not total.
5th, Generally, what scenes are possible? Exploring/Scouting? sneaking? Combat? Tech/Mechanical? Crafting? Diplomacy? Where? When?
6th, Mechanically, how is the general scene done/decided? Dice rolls? When/determining what? What choices are available and to who?
7th, Specifically, what do you show in a given circumstance, picture, text, more choices, consequences, rewards? What?

You are writing a play and allowing for improv influenced by certain factors like player/NPC/area stats. (strong characters act strong;  fast ones ... etc).

Have an answer for what combat choices and consequences look like. Have an answer for what crafting looks like. Same with sneaking, and diplomacy, etc.

Finally, have an answer for what good, just ok, and bad, combat looks like for circumstances (win, lose, or draw). Know what could make it better and what could make it worse. Communicate this beforehand in short, sweet, easy to read parts.

I do heavy experimenting on complex homebrew. I eventually boil it down to avoid player head explosion. Few people want this for farming, even though it's cool. That's sad. Here's how I deal with it. A.) Come up with the awesome, complex system. B.) Create a simplified system while keeping an advanced version for advanced players. Even in the simplified version, farming benefits from engineered infrastructure, fertilizer, pest control, etc is yawn material, until you turn it into a player motivation and make it give them simplified stat bonuses, more food to sell and more money. Suddenly, rescuing that farm tool maker might matter and give the players real, understandable money instead of Link breaking pots/money appearing out of monster's butts. That's longer term though.

Short term, what happens when player meets monster or problem? What can they do and what does it look like when they do it? Use short but expressive sentences, referencing easy to understand meaning. You can do callbacks to some fairly intricate story stuff (maybe even embed a hyperlink to it and other reference materials). Who, what, when, where, why, how, are questions that need answered in simplified form.

Bottom line, you need a menu to order off with an a la carte section. Here's the menu, here's the people you're feeding; here's what looks delicious/why you're hungry; here's your budget. The kitchen can make X, Y, and Z happen in time. The blowfish is poisonous; I wouldn't eat it if I were you. Have a really cool atmosphere/theme for the restaurant. Have at it.

You've not done bad. You can do great.

I do hope that helps. If anyone would like me to elaborate, then that's doable, if you'd like.

[Transcendant]

Welp, thank you all again.

Uh, yeah, if you could explain that'd be nice, please. I kinda think I get it, but it's kinda hard.

[Truean]

Keeping in mind this is a simplified version of things made somewhat systematic/vastly scaled down.

Backstory:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This is the part you do get to write and it's the "HOOK" people were talking about earlier. Take your dwarf game, decent line, but no hook . You wake up on a beach, but why were you there in the first place, or rather why were you on the ship/where was it going and why should players care? I actually liked the minimalist part of it, but no hook....

You're neglecting the marketing. In one sentence or less, what is different and neat about your game (don't say it's different, show the difference).

Plot:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Make a flexible outline of how things generally go. Sometimes things just happen. The NPC king was planning on invading for ages, etc. There is a storm. I've put weather in fake calendars, along with holidays etc.

Leave room for improv. Players may influence some events, but probably not all events. This way you won't run out of steam/get as tired, and it will be easier to update if well planned out in advance.

Actions and Consequences:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

What will it generally look like when a player tries to do something? Win lose or draw, maybe as determined/influenced by combat rules from a system (dice rolls). Example, combat

Overly simplified player combat options:
Standard Attack, no modifiers.
Aggressive attack, less armor, but more damage.
Defensive attack, more armor, but less damage.
Complete defense, no attack, lots of armor.
etc etc.

"[Player name] [takes action] [possible counteractions] [possible responses to counteraction] [result]."
Round 1: John swings his sword at the orc, who tries and fails to duck and is wounded in the left shoulder.
Round 2: John dodges left of the orc's spear while trying and failing to counter and stab it. The orc swears.
Round 3: John thrusts at the orc, overextending himself. The orc stabs his right arm.

Round 1 is the win; Round 2 is the draw; Round 3 is the lose. This way have have options pre generated for easy and quick selection based upon dice roll/the system you're using. You can further break it down by bracketed section [Player Name] [takes action], etc, so things don't always look the same. There are tons of ways to say someone thrust a weapon at you. Have a dozen or so on standby for ease of use and rapid response. Be sure to add some small fluff in there too, but these are the quick and dirty fight scenes of your play/movie.

Note, this doesn't even take into account options like flanking bonuses, highground situations, cover and concealment, troop numbers, etc.

Same deal works with just about everything. What's the results of a win/lose/or draw of any check. Diplomacy is especially important on this result stuff. It doesn't have to strictly control your game, but it does give you something to work with.

If you want to do support infrastructure, then have that on it's own little card if it matters.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The easiest way is to say the town of wherever needs X farm's worth of food to survive. They have or need to get X farms. If they don't then they have to import food or starve. Defending/establishing farms and guarding the trade caravan can be a thing. It doesn't necessarily put a timer on things, but you as the GM know the goblins or whoever are going to attack farms A B and C. Maybe the Players should do something to stop them before the town a.) runs out of food production/eventually starves, and/or b.) can't sell enough of its surplus harvest to give the Players a nice reward.

Goods and services locations like shops and craftspersons need a menu of services for players to choose from.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The craftsperson might need ingredients 1 2 and 3 to make a certain thing (quest). They can be mundane (ore, special whetstone, special fuel/heatsource,and expertise from recipe), magical (dragon tooth, fire elemental ashes, information only gained by freeing person whoever from curse), technological (laser crystal, restricter diode, advanced thermal regulation node, etc) or however. This gives them a reason to get things from a menu of goods and services, which may change/improve as the game goes on depending upon events.

Locations need reasons to exist.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Have those reasons. Now, there are times when the players don't know this upfront, but have a way for them to get that information... (and unless there's a reason, fairly easily). Maybe you had a reason for all those apartment blocks on the street in your zombie game and it just wasn't shown. If that's the case, then don't plaster that stuff right away with no detail. Let it be discovered in shortform. Why do the players or anyone else care? Sometimes its an adventure location, other times its an economic resource or a goods and services provision place. Other times it's a venue to hang out in and perhaps get information. There could be an encounter for the players in there, or perhaps items they need. If you have lockpicking or computer hacking as a skill, then this could be provide access to areas and items otherwise off limits (giving those skills real tangible value on par with combat or other skills through experience and item gain, and avoiding damage from traps/turning traps against enemies).

As you can see it's somewhat complicated and is best demonstrated (in my opinion) by practical doing.

Perhaps someone else can give examples of a hook and the different types of hooks, even the legendary multi hook? I do hope that helps.

NOTE: Most of this will be in your notes and not shown to players. What it does is make it easier and more streamlined to show what is going to be shown....

[Transcendant]

Thank you, that's actually helpful. If anyone has any other tips that'd be nice please.

[AoshimaMichio]

<snip>
I thought a forum full of Dwarf Fortress players might wanna build a Dwarven Fortress and be dwarves building whatever they want if they can figure out a way to build it.
<snip>

A blatant misconception. Forum game players are lazy. We like complexity in DF because it is a computer game that can handle all that complexity fast (until FPS hits singe digits) and we know what to expect. Forum games on the other hand are glacially SLOW by default. The thing that takes in DF few minutes will take weeks in a forum game. And by that time it hard to remember what I was doing in first place.

[Nirur Torir]

Don't make complicated text maps. They're a pain, both for player and GM, and you're honestly better off with just a basic description and implying what's there. (This is an old, yet well-maintained freighter. It is unarmed, has 50 Standard Units of space, and cramped crew quarters for four.)

If you really want roguelike-ish maps, there are programs for that. Ex: ASCIIdraw, which I found to be a bit cumbersome to use.

Hexographer is useful for a general strategic level map. Beware, it tends to create larger maps: If players have to scroll horizontally to see the whole map, most won't even bother.

I've recently been made aware of MapTool, which is more for real time D&D games, but could work if you want to easily track exactly where players are in a room, building, or ship. You'll need the map images from somewhere else, but it might be worth playing around with. (I think you'd need to hit the printscreen keyboard button, then paste that into a paint program of choice to crop it down to just the map).

If you're feeling graphically creative, even quick MSPaint mouse-tier graphics are appreciated. Don't try to over-complicate things if you're unskilled, a basic room layout is fine.

[Truean]

Fairly true. Then of course things do move slowly in forums. There are some ways around this but they can be confusing: such as running multiple parts of a game at once. Example A.) Main line, B.) Separate Group of NPCs controlled by players, C.) Perhaps combat.

Even then, there's a certain slowness that can't entirely be avoided. Another way to look at it is the persistent play portion option. Basically, you play as normal, but also go off an "off screen" script portion. That's what the character would do usually in their spare time, or as a sort of routine profession, task, or other matter.

[Flying Dice]

<snip>
I thought a forum full of Dwarf Fortress players might wanna build a Dwarven Fortress and be dwarves building whatever they want if they can figure out a way to build it.
<snip>

A blatant misconception. Forum game players are lazy. We like complexity in DF because it is a computer game that can handle all that complexity fast (until FPS hits singe digits) and we know what to expect. Forum games on the other hand are glacially SLOW by default. The thing that takes in DF few minutes will take weeks in a forum game. And by that time it hard to remember what I was doing in first place.

This is another reason to keep your updates relatively short and to the point: if it's been a few days/weeks/whatever, people are much more likely to go back and reread the last update if it takes thirty seconds to skim rather than five minutes.

[Truean]

Reserve a summary page post or two at the beginning or as another thread. Link to it at the beginning of every post update.

Keep the summary short and sweet and if you want more detail, then provide a longer version with a different link. Perhaps embed hyperlinks to the actual posting updates in the short summary of each round.

The purpose is to centralize information in condensed form so people can keep track of what might be weeks, months, or sometimes years of information easily. Keeps it all together for more informed decisions. Also, you might consider linking fluff descriptions embedded into their word usage for location info, groups, nations, etc.

If you click on [whatever text] and it leads you to an explanation, then you're not confused. If you already know, then don't click and keep on easily reading.  Embedding hyperlinks may sometimes also be used to show exactly how a result was reached (i.e. the modifiers and die rolls) but that's time consuming and slows the game down somewhat. Basically learn something from and take the abridged wiki approach.

[Transcendant]

Well, with economics, I wanted something a little bit about production if that's doable. I don't want it entirely fixed, because skill or something should matter in how much is produced, at least a little. Truean's system is really impressive but if we're talking about being simple then I don't know how that'd work.

Needs to be simple but not too simple that it doesn't mean anything.

Same deal with the rest of it really.