Can't Find Info for running games online. - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Can't Find Info for running games online.

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
Kagehito
Apr 30, 2008 20:23:06 I know that it exsists, because I read it when I first joined up as a DM, but I can't find it now.

I just need the rules for running games online. I have a group lined up that would like to play on RPOL, but I wanted to make sure I actually could do it. I don't want to mess something up and have my players get no points and whatnot.

Can anyone provide me with a link, or anything else for that matter, cause I'm a little lost at the momment.

Thanks in advance,

-Rob
#2
pedr
Apr 30, 2008 20:35:51 Can you tell us more about what it is you are trying to do?

Are you trying to earn RPGA points for self-written adventures, or are you planning to play an RPGA campaign?

If it's the former, you don't need to do anything special - order 'Home Game' scenarios for your 'event' (which you can list as 'Home') and earn one point per person per session - though you'll need no fewer than four and no more than six players plus one GM for each session to earn points. If you are planning to play Undermountain Adventures, that's pretty much the same as this too.

If you are planning to play Xen'drik Expeditions, Living Greyhawk or Star Wars: Dawn of Defiance, there are some other things to consider so let us know and we'll try to fill you in.

One issue: I have a suspicion that RPOL is a forum-based rpg site, rather than a virtual tabletop kind of system. You may well find some serious problems playing RPGA campaign modules in that kind of environment, though as I've never tried I wouldn't know whether they can be overcome.
#3
Kagehito
Apr 30, 2008 21:22:43
Can you tell us more about what it is you are trying to do?

Are you trying to earn RPGA points for self-written adventures, or are you planning to play an RPGA campaign?

If it's the former, you don't need to do anything special - order 'Home Game' scenarios for your 'event' (which you can list as 'Home') and earn one point per person per session - though you'll need no fewer than four and no more than six players plus one GM for each session to earn points. If you are planning to play Undermountain Adventures, that's pretty much the same as this too.

If you are planning to play Xen'drik Expeditions, Living Greyhawk or Star Wars: Dawn of Defiance, there are some other things to consider so let us know and we'll try to fill you in.

One issue: I have a suspicion that RPOL is a forum-based rpg site, rather than a virtual tabletop kind of system. You may well find some serious problems playing RPGA campaign modules in that kind of environment, though as I've never tried I wouldn't know whether they can be overcome.

Yes, it will be a homebrew Home game.
Yes its a post per day format, so I need to know what consistutes a "session." It has an integrated dice rolling feature that the DM can track everything a player rolls, so it covers the "no cheating" clause.

I know that post-per-day, and post by email options are supported, cause I swear I've read them before.
Theres like a limit of "Atleast 5 posts per week" and you get "points as if playing one session every two weeks, (or twice a month, whichever is the lower amount" or something along those lines.

Though this was last october that I read this, so maybe they arn't allowing it right now to transition us into using the D&DI virtual table when the software is released.

So once again, Anyone have any links, or can give me the end all be all "yes" or "no" answers?
#4
kenobi65
Apr 30, 2008 21:26:34
If you are planning to play Xen'drik Expeditions, Living Greyhawk or Star Wars: Dawn of Defiance, there are some other things to consider so let us know and we'll try to fill you in.

As pedr is alluding to, there is no blanket policy for online play that covers all RPGA campaigns; each campaign is allowed to make its own policy as to whether it'll allow online play, and under what restrictions, if any. So, for the information you're looking for, you'll need to consult the campaign rules for the particular campaign you're wanting to run.
#5
kenobi65
Apr 30, 2008 21:29:05
So once again, Anyone have any links, or can give me the end all be all "yes" or "no" answers?

I don't think there *is* a clear answer to your question. At least, I've never read anything that covers it, but maybe I've missed something, because you think you *have* read something about it.

In theory, as pedr noted, there's no reason you *can't* do it. The question that comes to my mind is this: how do you define a "session"? Reporting of RPGA events (even homebrew home-play stuff) is done on a per-session basis. I suppose you could count each week's play as one "session", or something like that, but there's no RPGA policy that specifically covers your case.
#6
Kagehito
May 07, 2008 13:39:17 Ok, so I sent an information request to the standard question section of the RPGA like 5 days ago, and no one has gotten back to me.

Grrrr......

Anyway, Anyone know ofthe right person I should talk to to get the information that I need?
#7
pedr
May 07, 2008 16:29:44 What do you mean 'standard question section of the RPGA'?
#8
Kagehito
May 08, 2008 15:14:03 the General Questions Email as well as the sanctioning questions Email. No response from either.
#9
pedr
May 08, 2008 15:56:26 I doubt that the information you're looking for exists, if you're just asking questions about how to sanction play-by-forum games.

A case could be made for saying that play-by-forum games cannot be sanctioned per the RPGA general rules - after all, you cannot say when and where you are holding the event, which is a requirement of sanctioning. Even if you say that the 'where' is online, as the ordering system allows, you cannot give a precise date. Now that would be a highly restrictive reading of the rules, but not an implausible one. If I were you I'd just go with whatever seems appropriate to you, and make some kind of decision about what you call a 'session'. To be perfectly honest, I doubt anyone will notice or care about what decision you make!

Note that [email]rpgahq@wizards.com[/email] no longer exists, and [email]rpgasanctioning@wizards.com[/email] has not proved to be terribly reliable for me, in terms of getting a response. If you do have questions to ask of WotC Customer Services, use the http://wizards.custhelp.com website, though I doubt you'll get any clear answer from them on this particular question.
#10
ah_don_holt
May 30, 2008 8:57:43 My experiences using RPoL.

I signed up about 3 months ago. I found the site very difficult to use. My first problem was the general interface appeared to cumbersome and slow. As many of these menu's would not be part of a player's usage, I thought I could live with it.

I went through the difficult game and character creation menu's and finally had a character I could use and made a post. Several weeks later I wanted to make another post to the same thread, but I could not find the the Reply to Thread button. Notice on this forum, it is in a large font, at the upper left. At RPol it is in a tiny font, lower right. But unfortunately, I did not see this until much too late.

I took a guess and thought that perhaps a new person had to reply to the thread before the originator could respond. As I said the site is a bit baroque in usage, and this was about the most baroque I could think of to get the reply button to appear.

So on a different computer of mine, I created a second account to test my theory and to try their interface at adding new users. I wanted to make sure I knew how to use the interface, too, before cajoling my players into signing up for RPoL. Now the site has a ban on multiple accounts for the same person. These bans stem from abusive users that try to get readmitted to games, but not to say my children that would want to play my game. In this case, my children would be coming from the same IP address (my router's) and probably have my email account as well. This is what flags an account i.e. must be one of those terrible impersonators, though this type of usage is expressly allowed. You can see the sinister nature of my actions, right? So whether I violated the "Site Policy" is very much a gray area.

The account was flagged and I was banned. At this point I was fed up with RPoL's user interface and decided that between the slow speed of the service and the difficult user interface, I would just place a BB on my own game webserver. No big deal.

I contacted the moderator that "banned" me, said I really didn't like the site (BIG MISTAKE!, ALL HAIL JASON is the correct opening to all correspondence with site officials.), don't reinstate my account, but return my IP (intellectual property/postings), and btw what software bulletin board package did Jason start using (before it was hopeless mangled.) I was hoping to get a jump on a BB I could place on my own server. But I was wrong in my assumption, Jason had written this travesty of code all by himself. (I can't believe that any good programmer would not piggy back onto some code from sourceforge.)

The moderator, Cruinne is the screen name (**edit** It is against Wizards policy to distribute personal information about other users **/edit**), focused on the last part of the query. Her assumption was that I was trying to steal Jason's software. She had already taken ownership of my game, and now had decided to delete the postings.

On any normal site on the net, what can you say. But this site, at least in their own documentation, was trying to claim protection of IP. What they mean is that if you are a player, you are warned about theft of IP from your GM, and if you are a GM you are not permitted to use other people's IP in your game. But if you are the owner or a moderator, you have no obligation to even preserve any IP. To me, that does not mean "protection of IP."

No doubt RPoL has the right not to let me use their site. This was never an issue nor a desire on my part since the banning. I did wish for my IP to be returned. Thank goodness I really hadn't started using the site.

So if you ever decide to leave RPoL and go to more user friendly sites like Myth-Weavers:

1) Never create a second id at RPoL to test how to use the site.
2) Make sure you never say anything bad about the site to Cruinne before you are ready to leave.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Kagehito Apr 30, 2008 20:23:06	I know that it exsists, because I read it when I first joined up as a DM, but I can't find it now. I just need the rules for running games online. I have a group lined up that would like to play on RPOL, but I wanted to make sure I actually could do it. I don't want to mess something up and have my players get no points and whatnot. Can anyone provide me with a link, or anything else for that matter, cause I'm a little lost at the momment. Thanks in advance, -Rob
#2 pedr Apr 30, 2008 20:35:51	Can you tell us more about what it is you are trying to do? Are you trying to earn RPGA points for self-written adventures, or are you planning to play an RPGA campaign? If it's the former, you don't need to do anything special - order 'Home Game' scenarios for your 'event' (which you can list as 'Home') and earn one point per person per session - though you'll need no fewer than four and no more than six players plus one GM for each session to earn points. If you are planning to play Undermountain Adventures, that's pretty much the same as this too. If you are planning to play Xen'drik Expeditions, Living Greyhawk or Star Wars: Dawn of Defiance, there are some other things to consider so let us know and we'll try to fill you in. One issue: I have a suspicion that RPOL is a forum-based rpg site, rather than a virtual tabletop kind of system. You may well find some serious problems playing RPGA campaign modules in that kind of environment, though as I've never tried I wouldn't know whether they can be overcome.
#3 Kagehito Apr 30, 2008 21:22:43	Can you tell us more about what it is you are trying to do? Are you trying to earn RPGA points for self-written adventures, or are you planning to play an RPGA campaign? If it's the former, you don't need to do anything special - order 'Home Game' scenarios for your 'event' (which you can list as 'Home') and earn one point per person per session - though you'll need no fewer than four and no more than six players plus one GM for each session to earn points. If you are planning to play Undermountain Adventures, that's pretty much the same as this too. If you are planning to play Xen'drik Expeditions, Living Greyhawk or Star Wars: Dawn of Defiance, there are some other things to consider so let us know and we'll try to fill you in. One issue: I have a suspicion that RPOL is a forum-based rpg site, rather than a virtual tabletop kind of system. You may well find some serious problems playing RPGA campaign modules in that kind of environment, though as I've never tried I wouldn't know whether they can be overcome. Yes, it will be a homebrew Home game. Yes its a post per day format, so I need to know what consistutes a "session." It has an integrated dice rolling feature that the DM can track everything a player rolls, so it covers the "no cheating" clause. I know that post-per-day, and post by email options are supported, cause I swear I've read them before. Theres like a limit of "Atleast 5 posts per week" and you get "points as if playing one session every two weeks, (or twice a month, whichever is the lower amount" or something along those lines. Though this was last october that I read this, so maybe they arn't allowing it right now to transition us into using the D&DI virtual table when the software is released. So once again, Anyone have any links, or can give me the end all be all "yes" or "no" answers?
#4 kenobi65 Apr 30, 2008 21:26:34	If you are planning to play Xen'drik Expeditions, Living Greyhawk or Star Wars: Dawn of Defiance, there are some other things to consider so let us know and we'll try to fill you in. As pedr is alluding to, there is no blanket policy for online play that covers all RPGA campaigns; each campaign is allowed to make its own policy as to whether it'll allow online play, and under what restrictions, if any. So, for the information you're looking for, you'll need to consult the campaign rules for the particular campaign you're wanting to run.
#5 kenobi65 Apr 30, 2008 21:29:05	So once again, Anyone have any links, or can give me the end all be all "yes" or "no" answers? I don't think there is a clear answer to your question. At least, I've never read anything that covers it, but maybe I've missed something, because you think you have read something about it. In theory, as pedr noted, there's no reason you can't do it. The question that comes to my mind is this: how do you define a "session"? Reporting of RPGA events (even homebrew home-play stuff) is done on a per-session basis. I suppose you could count each week's play as one "session", or something like that, but there's no RPGA policy that specifically covers your case.
#6 Kagehito May 07, 2008 13:39:17	Ok, so I sent an information request to the standard question section of the RPGA like 5 days ago, and no one has gotten back to me. Grrrr...... Anyway, Anyone know ofthe right person I should talk to to get the information that I need?
#7 pedr May 07, 2008 16:29:44	What do you mean 'standard question section of the RPGA'?
#8 Kagehito May 08, 2008 15:14:03	the General Questions Email as well as the sanctioning questions Email. No response from either.
#9 pedr May 08, 2008 15:56:26	I doubt that the information you're looking for exists, if you're just asking questions about how to sanction play-by-forum games. A case could be made for saying that play-by-forum games cannot be sanctioned per the RPGA general rules - after all, you cannot say when and where you are holding the event, which is a requirement of sanctioning. Even if you say that the 'where' is online, as the ordering system allows, you cannot give a precise date. Now that would be a highly restrictive reading of the rules, but not an implausible one. If I were you I'd just go with whatever seems appropriate to you, and make some kind of decision about what you call a 'session'. To be perfectly honest, I doubt anyone will notice or care about what decision you make! Note that [email]rpgahq@wizards.com[/email] no longer exists, and [email]rpgasanctioning@wizards.com[/email] has not proved to be terribly reliable for me, in terms of getting a response. If you do have questions to ask of WotC Customer Services, use the http://wizards.custhelp.com website, though I doubt you'll get any clear answer from them on this particular question.
#10 ah_don_holt May 30, 2008 8:57:43	My experiences using RPoL. I signed up about 3 months ago. I found the site very difficult to use. My first problem was the general interface appeared to cumbersome and slow. As many of these menu's would not be part of a player's usage, I thought I could live with it. I went through the difficult game and character creation menu's and finally had a character I could use and made a post. Several weeks later I wanted to make another post to the same thread, but I could not find the the Reply to Thread button. Notice on this forum, it is in a large font, at the upper left. At RPol it is in a tiny font, lower right. But unfortunately, I did not see this until much too late. I took a guess and thought that perhaps a new person had to reply to the thread before the originator could respond. As I said the site is a bit baroque in usage, and this was about the most baroque I could think of to get the reply button to appear. So on a different computer of mine, I created a second account to test my theory and to try their interface at adding new users. I wanted to make sure I knew how to use the interface, too, before cajoling my players into signing up for RPoL. Now the site has a ban on multiple accounts for the same person. These bans stem from abusive users that try to get readmitted to games, but not to say my children that would want to play my game. In this case, my children would be coming from the same IP address (my router's) and probably have my email account as well. This is what flags an account i.e. must be one of those terrible impersonators, though this type of usage is expressly allowed. You can see the sinister nature of my actions, right? So whether I violated the "Site Policy" is very much a gray area. The account was flagged and I was banned. At this point I was fed up with RPoL's user interface and decided that between the slow speed of the service and the difficult user interface, I would just place a BB on my own game webserver. No big deal. I contacted the moderator that "banned" me, said I really didn't like the site (BIG MISTAKE!, ALL HAIL JASON is the correct opening to all correspondence with site officials.), don't reinstate my account, but return my IP (intellectual property/postings), and btw what software bulletin board package did Jason start using (before it was hopeless mangled.) I was hoping to get a jump on a BB I could place on my own server. But I was wrong in my assumption, Jason had written this travesty of code all by himself. (I can't believe that any good programmer would not piggy back onto some code from sourceforge.) The moderator, Cruinne is the screen name (edit It is against Wizards policy to distribute personal information about other users /edit), focused on the last part of the query. Her assumption was that I was trying to steal Jason's software. She had already taken ownership of my game, and now had decided to delete the postings. On any normal site on the net, what can you say. But this site, at least in their own documentation, was trying to claim protection of IP. What they mean is that if you are a player, you are warned about theft of IP from your GM, and if you are a GM you are not permitted to use other people's IP in your game. But if you are the owner or a moderator, you have no obligation to even preserve any IP. To me, that does not mean "protection of IP." No doubt RPoL has the right not to let me use their site. This was never an issue nor a desire on my part since the banning. I did wish for my IP to be returned. Thank goodness I really hadn't started using the site. So if you ever decide to leave RPoL and go to more user friendly sites like Myth-Weavers: 1) Never create a second id at RPoL to test how to use the site. 2) Make sure you never say anything bad about the site to Cruinne before you are ready to leave.