Making a role playing theme

[Former Member]

What codes work best on a role playing theme? What are good layouts? Topics, how many is to many?

[Former Member]

bump!

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Swift theme

[David Clark]

Apr 26, 2014 7:00:42 GMT -8 STLUEE said:

What codes work best on a role playing theme?

A lot of RP forums use the Monetary System and the Gold Shop plugins. Some of them use the VDice plugin for combat systems in a D&D fashion. Some might use the official Thread Meta Data plugin (look at the screenshots on the library page for some possible uses).

What are good layouts? Topics, how many is to many?

I don't have anything to say on these matters personally as I believe the answers are subjective.

[Kami]

May 15, 2014 15:34:31 GMT -8 David Clark said:

Apr 26, 2014 7:00:42 GMT -8 STLUEE said:

What codes work best on a role playing theme?

A lot of RP forums use the Monetary System and the Gold Shop plugins. Some of them use the VDice plugin for combat systems in a D&D fashion. Some might use the official Thread Meta Data plugin (look at the screenshots on the library page for some possible uses).

What are good layouts? Topics, how many is to many?

I don't have anything to say on these matters personally as I believe the answers are subjective.

I think there are a few things that aren't subjective.

If you're just starting out an RP, you don't want to overwhelm your potential members. Make general areas at first and get more specific if your member base grows. For example, if you are making a Harry Potter RP, there is no need to make a board for each level of the school when you are just starting out. Start with generic areas, like "class rooms", "houses", "grounds" etc. The actual # of "too much" is subjective, but having a lot of very specific locations when you're just starting out is really overwhelming. I remember one anime RP board that literally had a board for every location in the world, subboards for every city, then subsub boards for individual establishments per city. They had something like 50 boards to start off, and maybe 5 members. That's gonna be a huge turn off if you're just starting. The general consensus I've seen in the RP community, going to a brand new board with dozens of boards & subboards is really overwhelming, especially when a lot of boards have 0 posts.

On that note, your boards should all have at least one post / thread in it. As the admin you need to plunge into the RP headfirst. Too many admins start off their forum with zero topics except for rules / character sheets, and wait for the members to start things. It's up to you to start things.

As far as a 'good layout', objectively, good design rules apply: make sure your colours have good contrast without being overwhelming, use cohesive graphics, don't overwhelm people with fancy bells & whistles just for the sake of having fancy bells & whistles, make sure that all important "read before starting" information is easily accessible / findable.

From that point, just let your members dictate how much to add by observing their RP behaviour. If you notice a bunch of threads in a generic area (eg, if you have "Particular Village" board, and everyone is making a "pub" thread) maybe consider making more topics/locations.