Planning Thread: New CCRP

LEGO gaming, including group role playing games
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Black Ranger
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Planning Thread: New CCRP

Post by Black Ranger »

Matt BeDar wrote:For those few of us that remain, there is the serious question about continuing on with the RPG in its current direction and plot, letting the RPG go toes up and die, or if we should scrap the current RPG and begin anew with different characters.

Please choose which one you would like and we will go with the majority vote.

P.S. Here's another solution! You could ignore this post and just get on with your lives. :)


Edit: With the main core of experienced writers leaving I fear that the RPG will go toes up and die rather quickly. :cry: If it does, it is no ones fault. It is simply a busy time of year and a lot of the experienced writers are going off to college, are in college, or have a job and a family to support. Still, if this RPG dies out, I will be very sad. :cry:
Sadly, I fear it will... Maybe we should start a new. But talk more about the Plot-Line. Have: 1. A topic for sign-ups. 2. Another for talking about the RPG. 3. A place to post the story.

What do ya'll think?
EDIT: As a matter of fact: It did...
Last edited by Black Ranger on Wed Dec 12, 2007 1:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by HeartOfDarkness »

I don't think it has to go so quickly. It still has some worth. However, maybe a new thread, using exclusively Lego characters, could be started for those who prefer it. It might be fun to start anew.
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Post by Black Ranger »

HeartOfDarkness wrote:I don't think it has to go so quickly. It still has some worth. However, maybe a new thread, using exclusively Lego characters, could be started for those who prefer it. It might be fun to start anew.
*nods* agreed... Just LEGO stuff (though I still Elves count)
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Post by doodstormer »

Now, now, let's not split this into 2 million different variations to suit each person's tastes, why don't we try to take a break and think all this over, set the universe's races, weapons, factions, heck, even make a map, to limit all this "z0mg r w3 m4k3 al3n$ 4774ck zomgroflolol". I have experienced that kind of crap, it's very irritating.
we have too broad of a world to reasonably play in, we need to try and slim this down, get a GM to guide everything, and just overall organize this.
So my suggestion is, wipe this clean, make a new slate. And do the following:
- Get a GM to guide the players, tell them the results of their actions, approve signups, answer questions via PM, etc.
- Establish the world, at least strongly enough to allow the GM something to go by.
- Draw a nice map, detailing locations, so that the GM and players can figure out where they're going.
- Determine factions' rivalries, like KK@ vs. Crusaders, etc.
- In fact, let's change up these factions, give them our own names and histories.
- Establish a history to this world, along with Major gods and continents.
You see, we need to flesh out this LEGO world. Instead of the History brains having to struggle to keep up with the Fantasy, we need to establish this, make it a world, not just a big book of random adventures and battles.
From what I've seen, everyone is just making up locations and geography, heck, we're turning this into a global slaughter.
So, in conclusion, I'll just repeat myself and say I think we need to just wipe our slate clean, then retry.
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Post by Formendacil »

doodstormer wrote:Now, now, let's not split this into 2 million different variations to suit each person's tastes, why don't we try to take a break and think all this over, set the universe's races, weapons, factions, heck, even make a map, to limit all this "z0mg r w3 m4k3 al3n$ 4774ck zomgroflolol". I have experienced that kind of crap, it's very irritating.
we have too broad of a world to reasonably play in, we need to try and slim this down, get a GM to guide everything, and just overall organize this.
So my suggestion is, wipe this clean, make a new slate.
I've had virtually nothing (maybe it would be more fair to say "absolutely" nothing) to do with this third incarnation of the CCRP, but I have watched it with one eye, whenever I've been online, and I'm still an official Gaming Mod--the only one regularly online these days. Not only was I intensely involved in the first CCRP as both a player and a moderator, I was the driving force behind the second (shortest-lived) incarnation. With all this in mind, I have a few comments on your suggestions below which all of you can take or leave, as you see fit.

Note, I agree with most of your criticisms above about what was wrong with the RP as it was going, and don't have so much a problem with those as with a few of your suggestions. Anyway, whether you listen or not, here are my thoughts on the following:

- Get a GM to guide the players, tell them the results of their actions, approve signups, answer questions via PM, etc.

Definitely needed. The 1st CCRP had all sorts of issues until we had a final authority to sort things out. Even better, though, would be to have a GM with one or two assistants--but only assuming the assistants and the GM thought on the same wavelength, communicated easily about decisions (this is why we have a PM box), and understood that sometimes their own preferences aren't always enforceable.

- Establish the world, at least strongly enough to allow the GM something to go by.

Bang on! You need an objective authority.

- Draw a nice map, detailing locations, so that the GM and players can figure out where they're going.

Absolutely necessary. The biggest problem with the 2nd CCRP was that I left it open-ended mapwise, so that people could add to it themselves. Well, they had a lot of fun with this, but instead of RPing, most of the creative energy went into map-making, and we had a massive world that exploded like a balloon stretched too thin.

At the same time, be wary about making the map TOO detailed. Coastlines and borders were all we had with the first CCRP; everything else was RPed in later. Personally, I would have coastlines, borders, mountain ranges, major rivers, and capital cities, but leave the rest to chance. I'm sure all sorts of people will volunteer to draw the map if a CCRP IV gets going, so I'll be the first to do so now--if you want to use me--just to keep hard feelings down. Also, any inadequacies about the map can be blamed on a single scapegoat. In my experience, however, no matter where you get the map, once you have it and people are aware that "it's the map", there's not much of an issue.

- Determine factions' rivalries, like KK@ vs. Crusaders, etc.

I'm not sure this is a good idea... I'm going two ways on it. In the 1st CCRP, the faction rivalries grew up as the CCRP grew; nothing was predetermined. And it worked, and it was fun. However, I can see how chaos like this might be a problem...

- In fact, let's change up these factions, give them our own names and histories.

I do NOT recommend this one. We tried it in the 2nd CCRP, and it flopped. Majorly. My chief reason for not recommending this is that this is supposed to be a LEGO forum. And, let's face it, there's precious little LEGO in the CCRP beyond faction names as it is; that's just the nature of the beast. However, since this is a LEGO forum, and since there are many other RPs out there that are bigger and more vibrant, it seems pointless to lose the one selling feature we have. Furthermore, it gives everyone a common vocabulary. I mean, everyone can remember what a Black Falcon is, right?

- Establish a history to this world, along with Major gods and continents.

I recommend only the barest of bones where the history is concerned. Too much history stifles the creativity and fun of writing, and like too much map-making, tends to absorb the creative processes, leaving a flesh-outed history but no RPing.

As to "gods" and "continents", I say no to both. To the first, it's really just a personal preference, but the 1st CCRP was practically godless (other than references to "Chodan", who really had no religion), and it worked really well. Also, possibly, there's the rather religion-less Lord of the Rings as a creative background many/all of us are familiar with. That's just a preference, though.

To "continents", I really don't recommend making a whole world. Keep it smaller than that--and more manageable. That was the problem with the 2nd CCRP: it got too big, whereas the 1st CCRP was just right: one continent and offshore islands: large enough to have everything, not so large that it was unwieldy.

You see, we need to flesh out this LEGO world. Instead of the History brains having to struggle to keep up with the Fantasy, we need to establish this, make it a world, not just a big book of random adventures and battles.

I agree with your last statement 100%... but instead of trying to get rid of history and geography by planning it all out ahead of time, I suggest planning out SOME of it ahead of time... and then not RPing just about random adventures and battles. Have a story in mind for YOUR character, but keep it lose so he/she can have fun with other characters and do random stuff. But if you want to avoid random adventures and battles, the best thing you can do is plan other sorts of stuff. Include a romance, have parties, scheme a lot. If a movie could be made out of it, it can probably be RPed. And trust me, this stuff is the most fun to write.

Those are my suggestions... make what you will of them. They're the product of some experience in the matter, so don't discard them out of hand, but if you've got a good reason to do so, then by all means proceed. The thing about personal experience is that what happens to one person may not hold as universal truth. But they can help you guess what will work better.

~Michael A. Joosten - Gaming Moderator~
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Post by Matt BeDar »

Doth mine eyes deceive me? Are you volunterring to do the map, Formendacil? SWEEEEET!!!

So we're all in agreement that the current RPG needs to be shelved and a new one started? I'll help whenever a I can if this gets off the ground and starts flying.

Oh! Before I forget. Since there are now Lego dwarves, can they be a faction? What would their faction name be though? Dwarven Crown's? I don't know what their called, but my point is, could they be a faction?
Dwarves shall conquer all!!!
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Post by Formendacil »

Matt BeDar wrote:Doth mine eyes deceive me? Are you volunterring to do the map, Formendacil? SWEEEEET!!!
Wow! I feel famous!

Yes, you read it aright: if you guys decide to do another RP, I'm volunteering to do a map for you.
Oh! Before I forget. Since there are now Lego dwarves, can they be a faction? What would their faction name be though? Dwarven Crown's? I don't know what their called, but my point is, could they be a faction?
I'm just the mapmaker, but I would say that if you decide to go with an official-factions RP, then it makes sense to have the dwarves. They ARE an official faction, after all.
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Post by HeartOfDarkness »

Keeping in line with the Lego-centric stuff, when intorducing a characer, let's drop the 'blue eyes, six feet tall...' kind of description. Minifigs don't have eye colors, and they're all the same height. Instead, why not describe their torsos and heads. With structures, use terms like bricks and studs instead of stone and mortar.

If Lego is what makes this RP unique, then why not focus more on Lego?
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Post by doodstormer »

Y'know, I was thinking... maybe we could make the map with LDraw? It'd be a massive project, but it would be awesome. In fact, I think I'll see what I can build right now...
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Post by Formendacil »

HeartOfDarkness wrote:Keeping in line with the Lego-centric stuff, when intorducing a characer, let's drop the 'blue eyes, six feet tall...' kind of description. Minifigs don't have eye colors, and they're all the same height. Instead, why not describe their torsos and heads. With structures, use terms like bricks and studs instead of stone and mortar.

If Lego is what makes this RP unique, then why not focus more on Lego?
A good idea--but don't take it TOO far. Try and think of LEGO as a medium for story telling. I think back in the first CCRP, we had at least the registration part of this well-balanced. Virtually every character registered had a picture of him/her (usually hosted on Brickshelf). For example, here is the folder with all my characters from the first CCRP:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=92561

However, within the text of the story itself (and remember, my own experiences bias me in favour of this), I never made reference to LEGO things like "studs" "bricks" "abs" "minifigs"--although they might get spoofed in a humourous post.

The way I always thought of it, the Roleplay was basically a writing down of what you would get if you started playing out an epic fantasy with LEGO. When you're playing LEGO seriously (at least if you're me), you never pretended that your Royal Knight refered to himself as minifig, or his sword as made of ABS, but he was a serious hero with a sword of steel.

Am I making any sense?

P.S. I'm seperating off the last few posts here as the start of a new Planning Thread.
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Post by HeartOfDarkness »

That does make sense. On the subject of physical dioramas, what if a group of volunteers illustrated certian scenes (or at least relevant landscapes) out of Lego? That would certianly be a big help to those of us in need of inspiration, for one thing.
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Post by Formendacil »

HeartOfDarkness wrote:That does make sense. On the subject of physical dioramas, what if a group of volunteers illustrated certian scenes (or at least relevant landscapes) out of Lego? That would certianly be a big help to those of us in need of inspiration, for one thing.
I've no idea how that would play out, since it's not something I've any experience with. To the best of my knowledge, visual aids are something that have never really been present with the CCRPs. This is not to say that dioramas did not crop up... quite to the contrary. Digging back a couple pages in the Gaming Forum, one comes up with the Classic-Castle Roleplay: Creations and Illustrations:

viewtopic.php?t=2314

As far as I know, all these illustrations were made AFTER they had been roleplayed. While sporadic and non-pertinent to the story (and sometimes not exactly portrayed the way they were written), I think they did an awful lot to make the 1st CCRP feel more "LEGOy", since it provided a tangible link between the storytelling and the LEGO inspiration.
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Post by Black Ranger »

This seems good. (Who by the way, made this topic?! I didn't and yet I did. Mod? Admin?). Here are some random ideas for factions: Notice; These may change as we progress the idea...

Black Falcons
Black Knights
Bull Knights
Classic LEGOland
Crusaders
Dark Forest
Dragon Masters
Forestmen
Fright Knights
Knight's Kingdom
Knight's Kingdom II
No Faction
Pirates
Royal Knights
Shadow Knights
Vikings
Wolfpack
Crown Knights
Crown Dwarves
Skeletons
Trolls

Formendacil: The Map doens't have to be huge, but the sizes of the countries can give a little backqround of the faction (i.g. small forest=forestmen, due to their lack of proporly trained armies... (Note thois is NOT a real idea)
Last edited by Black Ranger on Thu Dec 13, 2007 9:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Formendacil »

Black Ranger wrote:This seems good. (Who by the way, made this topic?! I didn't and yet I did. Mod? Admin?). Here are some random ideas for factions: Notice; These may change as we progress the idea...
That'd be me. I split it off from the old thread. A new roleplay = a new thread.
Formendacil: The Map doens't have to be huge, but the sizes of the countries can give a little backqround of the faction (i.g. small forest=forestmen, due to their lack of proporly trained armies... (Note thois is NOT a real idea)
If you guys are willing, I can make a map which you can take or leave on its own merits. I'm willing to do my best to fit in all the factions, make it interesting, make it manageable small, make it decently large. Given how many Philosophy lectures I've frittered away this semester drawing maps (never mind earlier in my life...), I think I can do a decent job.

But since I'm not committing to being a part of this new RP (though a part of me would REALLY, REALLY, REALLY like to), I don't want to impose anything on you other than my unsolicited advice.

And my mod-like powers to smite evil. :twisted:
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Post by Black Ranger »

Formendacil wrote:
Black Ranger wrote:This seems good. (Who by the way, made this topic?! I didn't and yet I did. Mod? Admin?). Here are some random ideas for factions: Notice; These may change as we progress the idea...
That'd be me. I split it off from the old thread. A new roleplay = a new thread.
Formendacil: The Map doens't have to be huge, but the sizes of the countries can give a little backqround of the faction (i.g. small forest=forestmen, due to their lack of proporly trained armies... (Note thois is NOT a real idea)
If you guys are willing, I can make a map which you can take or leave on its own merits. I'm willing to do my best to fit in all the factions, make it interesting, make it manageable small, make it decently large. Given how many Philosophy lectures I've frittered away this semester drawing maps (never mind earlier in my life...), I think I can do a decent job.

But since I'm not committing to being a part of this new RP (though a part of me would REALLY, REALLY, REALLY like to), I don't want to impose anything on you other than my unsolicited advice.

And my mod-like powers to smite evil. :twisted:
(Cool thanks. We needed a new plan) Ahhh... Come on, it'd be fun! And your advice could be formed into a map... :wink: If you want to just make an outline, I could kinda take over. But only if you want, I'm not the best map guy, but when I want to I can crank out a map or two...
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