Help! Game Request FAQ

[Aethera]

Greetings RPGXers!

I present to you this extra FAQ thread, just for questions about how you create a thread here and how you request a game. Yes, this thread is a copy of a much older one, but it seemed about time to make it a bit more obvious and this newer thread sticks to the very top of the forum. My thanks to former admin Sedracus for the original help thread, and all the moderators who have helped elaborate and answer questions.


To request a game...
First, go to the Tools dropdown menu at the top right of your screen, and click the Request a Game option.

 

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Second, fill in the form - note that the Game Name will be the name of the game forum and your advertisement thread title, and that the game request form does not like the & symbol! While you can return to the form and edit some fields, none of the changes made through the Dungeon Master Control Panel will change an advertisement thread once it has been posted. (To fix typos in your ad thread title, please PM a moderator.)

In your advertisement, please tell your players NOT to roll any dice in the ad thread. (The problem here is that since you don't have GM privileges in the Games Seeking Players folder where your ad will be posted, you don't have any way of knowing if a player is trying to cheat. There could be ten sets of rolls in secret text and only the best one displayed.) If your game requires dice rolling up front before even a concept can be created, this is your only warning.

 

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Lastly, click the "Request Game" button at the bottom of the form - you will be taken to a screen confirming that your game has been requested, and you'll receive a PM with a link to your advert thread, if you selected the option for an advert thread to be made. One of the moderators assigned to game approvals will check out your request in the next day or so and either accept it for creation or give you some feedback on what you need to do to get the request accepted.

Game Approval The game approval mods generally look for a certain amount of interest in your game before the forum will be created, and this can take time. If people show up in your advertisement and post their character ideas, your game will be created faster. (This means fleshed out applications, not just placeholder posts.) Once you have accepted players, if you have not already received a forum, please edit your game request (from DM Control Panel under Tools menu) to include the usernames on the 'accepted players' line. The list of accepted players is administrative only; it shows the game approval mods you're ready to go. It doesn't lock the game in any way, so you can bring in anyone you like at any time. If you wish to have a game forum created immediately, regardless of interest, consider becoming a Community Supporter.

View and Edit Current Requests
After you have requested your game, click on the "Dungeon Master Control Panel" button in the Tools dropdown menu to view the current status of your current and requested games. This is also where you can view the details, edit them, or – if you're a CS or a member with over a thousand posts and have gamed with us for six months or longer – you can add and edit folders in your games.


Ad Threads and New Recruitment
You can always use your original thread! All you have to do is update it and it will show on the first page of the forum again. If you edit the opening post with your new requirements and information and then duplicate that later in the thread, linking the first post to that later post with a note like "see page 5 for beginning of new recruitment conversation", it becomes pretty obvious what you're doing. If that isn't enough, you can always PM a mod and request the ad thread title get changed, perhaps adding "(New Recruitment)" to the end. That way, even if people see a lot of pages on your thread and are uncertain about reading it because they assume it's overflowing with apps, they will know that at least some of it is not relevant to the current recruitment process. I would personally suggest this option, because it keeps your ad thread linked to your game forum in the DM Control Panel where all your game forums are listed. You never have to go searching for it, then.

Note: If you never had an advertisement thread (such as games started by inviting friends), you can add one to your existing game forum: go to your Dungeon Master Control Panel, click on the question mark next to the appropriate game, and hit "Game Description and Advertisement" at the bottom. Fill in the information, and you'll have a post advert link to click once you're done.

Because of how our Games Seeking Players forum is automated, if you really feel strongly about having a new thread for recruiting to an open game, the only way to create new threads is either to use the game request system but label it in big letters so the mods delete the forum request (leaving just the ad), or to have a mod move a thread you posted elsewhere into GSP. Because of just how many forums we have to scroll through when moving things, we prefer that you use the first option, and submit a game request clearly labeled as needing no game forum.


One-to-One Games
Our Solo Games forum is designed to grant solo-game requests only when a GM and player are already chosen. This results in a single game thread. We recommend using some of our formatting options to set out-of-character comments and dice rolls aside, such as the fieldset option and/or the spoilerbutton ( and ).

Alternate Solo Games Options
If our single-thread solo games aren't enough for you, or perhaps if you're ready to GM but don't have a player yet, you might want to consider checking out The Solo Bazaar. This is a project by a small handful of our members to develop and grow a community for one-to-one gaming. All are welcome to check it out!


Happy gaming!

Note: New members still wearing that Yellow name cannot request a game yet. Please shed that new member status by making a few posts, you can find more information in the New Members forum.

Last Updated: 2021-06-16 by Aethera


PS. Below you can find the compiled Q&A from when this system was implemented and PMs to the game approval mods, so you don't need to search to find out whether your question has been answered already.

 

Question: Can I get a game forum created before I post my ad so that I can set up the forum how I want it and plan out my GM notes?

Answer: If you are a Community Supporter, yes. If you are not, then we look for a certain amount of interest in your ad before the forum gets created, as there are vastly more ideas for games than actively running games on site.

 

Question: What will happen to interest check threads? How will they be handled? Will we still be able to make those?

Answer: If you are unsure about your game idea, you are welcome to post an interest check thread in the Miscellaneous Game Advertising forum.

 

I will request that you please not ever place dice tags in the game request form. I'm not sure why anybody would, but suffice to say - it is not a good idea.

EDIT: There are no GM rights to your ad thread, so if you ask players to roll dice, be aware that you could get a player cheating and not know it. Once you have a game forum, you can have the players begin character creation there and see any attempts at cheating.

 

Question: What if you have a game page already and simply need a player or two? I see some people have these adverts (looking for replacements exc.) up already, so I know there is a process. Unfortunately, I can't seem to figure it out.

Answer: If your game already has an application thread from the game creation system, simply revive that and edit the first post with your replacement information. If you want your thread name changed to reflect this more clearly, you can contact any of the moderators associated with the Games Seeking area; please provide them with a direct link to your thread and the new name you would like it to have.

If your game does not have an application thread from the game creation system, please go to your your Dungeon Master Control Panel, click on the question mark next to the appropriate game, and hit "Game Description and Advertisement" at the bottom. Fill in the information, and you'll have a post advert link to click once you're done.

 

Q: Can I make a game twice so I have two folders, an Interest thread, and a Recruiting thread?

A: If you make a second request for the same game, it will likely be rejected because you've already got that game. You can't make the game twice just because you want another workspace and/or another thread. If you want to have a workspace, most members can create (or request from a mod), a folder within the main game forum:

Originally Posted by Site Rules

Community Supporters, as well as Staff members, can manage any number of folders in any order, to any depth of hierarchy and with the possibility of adding passwords. Other members will need 1000+ posts and 6+ months on the site in order to receive the privileges to use folders.

 

Q: Won't losing Interest threads as a separate entity to Recruiting threads cost me players?

A: This system makes recruiting threads into something a little more standardized, and that builds certain expectations which should work to your favor, not against you. Hop in early, ask questions. Hop in late, things are more detailed - but you might miss out on the game entirely if others piled in on the early concept. Do both, and things are best for you.

No game is fully fleshed out at the time of setting up the ad thread. I've seen some very detailed ad threads, even for existing games, and there was still a Q&A section in them. If somebody's not going to look twice at a game because it suffers a disappointing lack of detail, they'll either quickly learn to give a game some time before looking or that all the games they look at with only a few replies lack detail. And they can always ask for clarification.

 

Q: We could spend up to several months working on a homebrew setting within a folder before posting all the information up on an advertisement thread. How do we do that now?

A: You can still build your setting the same way that was available to you before. Open your favorite online or local text-editor, type away, and get ready to copy-paste when you've got the space to fill.

Also, please consider this. Pages full of history, houserules, and maps can become a mountain that very few potential players are going to wade through. Remember that they're not all getting in, and that they've got to weigh applying for your game against applying for another game. If you've got twenty pages of game information, you need a short version for potential players to look at. Only the people who are fairly sure of getting in your game should be reading the whole thing.

Plus, you'd be pretty unhappy if you built all that stuff for a game that didn't make it, or that ended up with players who obviously didn't read half of it. So much work can go into a setting, you should be looking into potential players long before you get to your second page of houserules.

Personally, I've ruled out a couple of interesting games simply by virtue of the required reading. I'm in one now that required a lot of Follower- and stronghold-creation on the players' part, and it's struggling to get off the ground because of the amount of work required of the players - my group is the only one which seems to have survived the pre-game preparations.