I'm wondering if ya'll have Wiki's here, and if so, how hard would it be to set up a Multiverser exclusive Wiki.
Eric
I don't think so, but there are plenty of sites free hosting sites for wikis, as well as wiki software packages which can be installed as scripts for your own server/domain. There are are wikis for Star Trek (Memory Alpha), Stargate: SG-1 (Stargate Wiki), and the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages, which is an exhaustive site for the Elder Scrolls series of video games.
Anyway, I second the idea.
I'd be more than happy to install a wiki for people to use. Things are busy right now, but give me a week to dig around for various ways to do it and I'll get back to you guys with options. And if any of you have a wiki package you particularly like, let me know and I'll give it a look.
Looking forward to it.
Eric
Wikis are really helpful for most roleplaying campaigns, and I think would be a great place for character sheet storage, among other things.
If there is a Wiki, its going to be on a basis of anything on it that is not proprietary to Valdron is freely usable to moi or MJ. So, I'd be happy, most happy to have your character sheet on it, but you might end up in a book with your name changed to protect the guil....err...innocent.
After all, we can always use more characters. So, if you want to use it to help run a campaign, I'd be curious to see how that works. Have at it.
One of the things I'm curious about, and I might be willing to research this In Character as well... MultiVerser doesn't seem like it lends itself to multiplayer campaigns at all, what with the "multiversers don't cross paths very often" and "it's almost impossible to follow someone between Verses" things... So I wonder if it would be possible to develop a sort of "Identify/Manipulate Scriff" technique or something that would enable Versers to travel as a pack for a while.
We get that from time to time, so I've got answers.
- The separated characters in individual worlds actually works quite well for groups of three to six players who are friends, in part because everyone becomes interested in what everyone else is doing. It's not really that different from playing in any other roleplaying game, in which players take turns saying what their character will do and sometimes go their separate ways. Also, it works extremely well in those situations in which players don't really want the same things from a game, because the player who wants to get out into the action doesn't have to wait for the player who wants to go shopping for better equipment, for example. Also as an example, most players really would be interested in watching one guy attempt to win the heart and hand of the princess, but not if it means they have to sit around and do nothing in the interim. We are all playing the same game, and playing together, but having our own individual stories makes it more fun for everyone.
- There <i>are</i> gathers, times when player characters get together in the same world and do whatever they wish together. If the players want to do the same things, these work quite well; if the players don't share the same interests, they tend to fall apart, unless one emerges as the leader of the group and everyone else follows that lead. However, I've had some rather successful gathers, in which player characters did some wonderfully cooperative things. I don't often do the gathers on the forum, because there is a lot more trouble with people disappearing briefly or for extended periods--for example, we had six or seven players in the B Monster Movie world in which Ed and Eric are now the only two, but one of them dropped out of the game formally, one vanished without a word, and several times someone was absent for a stretch and we had to work around him. Gathers work much better at home than on the forum, and they occur more often in my home games when I have reliable players.
- Yes, you can create groups that have some ability to stick together. The chapter on scriff gives rules on associates. The usual associate relationship allows a player character to take a non-player character with him--as John I takes his wife Miralla and his orc companion Bob, Kyler takes his adopted sister Mariska and his dog Baron, and Adam is expecting to take his wife Geneice. The rules give rolls to determine whether the associate relationship is established and maintained, but also state that the rolls are not made if there isn't any real doubt on the matter--well treated spouses and pets don't usually leave. What matters is that there is an established relationship such that the associate is willing to go wherever the primary goes. Any player characters could establish this relationship between them (and it has been done). The only trick is that they have to agree between them who is the primary and who is the associate. If the primary verses out, all associates go with him immediately usually wherever he goes next (associates can be separated, but it's uncommon); however, if it is the associate who verses out, he's on his own adventure until the primary verses out, at which time either the primary will come to the associate or both will verse to another world. Effectively, though, two versers who decide that one will follow the other can stay together most of the time.
- There is no particular reason why a referee cannot run several gathers in a row. This gets awkward, though. If Bob verses out first, he's got to be put in the new world and start whatever he's going to do; whenever Bill verses out, you're planning to put him there, too, but at whatever time it is for Bob. If you've got a mix of cautious and reckless players, you can wind up with them separated in small groups across several universes (Bob in universe 4, Bill and Tammy in universe 3, Doc and Martin in universe 2, and Kyler still cautiously keeping himself alive back in universe 1). It's usually recommended that gather worlds not have plotlines/storylines, for precisely this reason: the referee can't know at what point in the story he'll be adding another player character, and it might not fit the story very well to have him arrive at the particular moment he dies in the other world. Still, it's an option.
So it can be done any of several ways, if that's your objective. I rarely do it because I prefer to have my players as individual heroes in their own stories, and because it doesn't work so well in online games with the comings and goings of the players.
--M. J. Young
Okay, finals are over so I now have time to get a wiki going on the site. I've dug around a bit and I'm looking at PmWiki (http://www.pmwiki.org/). It's software I've used before -- though quite a long time ago -- so I know I can get it running. Take a look at it and let me know if you all think it'll work. If so, I'll get it installed.
I tried to find one that would integrate with the existing setup, so user accounts would carry over, but no luck. The wiki will probably be at wiki.gamingoutpost.com and you'll have to setup new accounts for editing.