New Player Welcome Idea's

[Supercape]

OK so this kind of came about from discussion with Thev, Ari, Thunder King, and KnightD today. It had been stewing in my brain a while too. 

 

It's basically, how do we do better and retaining and encouraging new players to stick around?

 

Ok, so I know we get a few dicks now and again, but if we could put aside those feelings - new players are I think the life blood of this site, and wherever we are now with them, it would be nice if we could have a little think about ways to get them more involved and make it easier for them to "Break in".

 

Ideas thrown around were:

 

1. A roster of GMs who were willing to jump in and offer threads to new players as soon as they had their PC approved (sounds excellent, and maybe players offering up to team up?)

2. Possibly matching GMs to what player wants - in terms of preference for combat / drama / trauma / detective / angst / awesome / whatever? (difficult to do?)

3. 1 page Crib Sheet for up to date canon and the main teams in action such as Interceptors/Claremont/Lab/Parkhurst (Great idea, but problem is this is naming the Cliques? no harm in this however!)

 

There may have been others too. 

 

I offer this up here rather than Refcave as I think its something everyone might have idea's on and everyone should pitch in on! I think it would be great if new players could get quickly and easily into the action rather than drift away fed up and frustrated. 

[BType]

The up-to-date timeline thing would be pretty helpful, especially considering how much has happened since this place has gotten up on it.
I myself love reading old threads and adventures, but an updated timeline and list of major things that has happened and how facts differ from the Freedom City core book, which at this point is technically eight years out of date even in canon since the Freedomverse moves along in real time!

[Ari]

By court order I am legally obligated to reply to this thread.

 

Agreed on the thread record front, we really need to get the timeline sorted out again. I'll gladly volunteer to sift through the threads and get the Chronicle thread up to date, at least with threads from this year. I am reasonably sure one of the others(perhaps Electra?) has the Timeline pages from the old Wiki, and will endeavor to get that most excellent resource back into play.

 

Outlining who's who wouldn't be that bad an idea Supercape, it would help get new lads, lasses and those betwixt up to speed on what the teams are like and if they have a character or plot idea that compliments how they're set up. That and getting an idea of what's out there makes setting up and differentiating their own groups and teams that much simpler. There isn't, for example, really a space-centric group, the closest being the generic science team of the Lab.

 

A roster of potential ice-breaking Game Masters and other players might work, but it's a problem when so many experienced ones are so busy with other threads and/or their lives they can't just take on new people at will. Of course, most people(unlike, say, someone who shall remain nameless but with whom I have a personal acquaintance and attachment) know not to bite off more than they can chew, and if things are really bad they can try out their character and writing with a good old fashioned solo thread. Speaking of which we could use a few of those. Ideally we could try to find ways to make beginner threads really short and sweet for the best possible introduction of their character, but all the known complications that can arise make any such efforts dubious at best.

 

As for matching Game Masters up with player preferences, that's a great idea! The usual method of having people get into a story they find interesting works well, but a common goal of fun provides that little bit extra. How would you classify, say, yourself?

[Brown Dynamite]

I don't think I could add to anything Ari has stated.  So I'll just throw in my support of said idea instead of racking my head to think of a way to reword a shared opinion.

[Thevshi]

Well Ari, having a list of possible GMs to help run threads for new players can hopefully deal with part of the problem you mention.  While a couple GMs might be too busy to add a new thread, hopefully there might be a couple who could.  As I mentioned in chat with Cape, I certainly would be willing to be part of that list.

 

Another idea that I mentioned in chat is having people reach out to new players to suggest possible connections their character could have with existing PCs.  Naturally this is not as easy to implement as most of the other ideas here, and is very dependent upon the new payer’s character background.  A character coming from another planet or dimension (or the like), obviously will have far less potential connections.  Since my return in December, I have done this with Velocity a few times (while not quite the same as a new player and character, still illustrative).  With both TheAbsurdist and Azuth65 (Asad and Silver Spider respectively), I worked out that Velocity has known both their characters, in civilian IDs, for years.  Clearly, this will only work on a case-by-case basis, as the connections should exist logically, but having them certainly helps to create more opportunities for threads, which will get new players involved, and that will help increase the chance they will stick around.

[Raveled]

Rather than writing those connections into the backstory, the players could work together to create those in the intro thread.

Try leaving a villain alive and at large at the end. Setting up a sequel is a great way to get folks started writing their own stories.

[GranspearZX]

I'm always up for GMing, whether it's new players or old. Don't have a real preference on story type, though I'd really like to try my hand at the more magically inclined of the PC populace.

[Tiffany Korta]

Maybe it would be worth creating a purely social thread  where people can just post a get a feel for there character, with little or no restriction where player's can pop in and out of as wanted. The obvious choice would be a Super only bar/club but I'm sure there are better suggestions.

[Thevshi]

Well, the setting actually has one (though I am not sure if it has ever appeared before), the Cape and Cowl Club.

[Supercape]

Cape and Cowl Club seems a useful resource. As does the social thread thing. 

 

There has been a little (and largely unfounded) concern in the past about the presence of meandering social threads of rather long length with little actual meaning. I mention this because whilst I think the Cape and Cowl Club is a good idea to get people involved it is important that PCs on this site actually do things, rather than fluff about boosting post counts. I apologise if this sounds blunt, but it is also important to get new players on the right track as well as started. 

[Tiffany Korta]

Well the easy way to do that is to say that it's worth less point's, or no points at all. But I would point out that a lot of the starting Claremont thread are just the new characters meeting some of there classmates.

 

I mean yeah if all the person did was post in a purely social thread without doing anything else that would be a problem, but if it's used to hook people up with each other then I don't see a problem.

[Thevshi]

That is what I did with the Midnight Society Holiday Party thread, and there have been a number of threads that were a result of the interactions that took place there.

[Ari]

Raveled, I get what you mean and largely agree, but there are a few obstacles to having villains escape in intro threads.

 

1) The primary goal of introduction threads is to demonstrate the character's personality and/or abilities, to see how they fit with people who might be their peers. Tied to that is a desire for them to NOT look ineffectual on their first day in the limelight, which includes letting bad guys go even under Game Master Fiats like teleportation and the like.

 

2) As someone who(for good or ill) runs a lot of threads, I can say with utter certainty that having them resolve satisfactorily is pretty important to everyone involved, and Fiating that the bad guy everyone has been fighting for ten weeks just up and vanishes can be a bit of a letdown. That and no matter how powerful they are, it always feels just a little cheap. This tied with the relative lack of long-running plots with recurring adversaries means that having the villain get away is a little harder to do right.

 

A good compromise is of course Set's introduction thread where the Assemblage of Adversaries was brought up as a long-term threat through their snakewoman minions, not saying it's a binary thing!

 

Worth keeping that in mind is all.

[Ari]

If nobody has any objections I shall start in on the Who's Who of Freedom City Play-by-Post. What do you fellows think of attaching links to their Reputation pages? Of course we could revive the old Intended Roles for Characters thread, but I'd prefer to start something else not attached to years of history. Current Teams of Freedom City Play-by-Post is a little less important as many characters mention their team affiliation in their sheets,  but I'll start that one too.

 

 

Rather than writing those connections into the backstory, the players could work together to create those in the intro thread.

That is a very good idea Raveled. Especially so with new arrivals. And ideally that could be the general form, with the intro thread players deciding if they'd like to have more adventures with the new character depending on how well they hit it off. One thing to keep in mind is that getting involved in the site's narrative that has been going on for more than half a decade can seem daunting.

 

Supercape, do you want to send out a call for people willing to be gamemaster for new players in a separate thread? I'll leave that to your discretion and greater experience.

 

Finally, should we do a general catalog of changes to the setting since the site began?

[Raveled]

Finally, should we do a general catalog of changes to the setting since the site began?

Very much this. It's been needed for a long time.

[Supercape]

Resurrecting this!

 

Would all players who would like to formally volunteer to help new players join this site and give them a warm FCpbM welcome by offering their GM service please indicate so by posting below!

[Ari]

Hear hear! I'm still up for this.

[Sticklefront]

For what it's worth, my "new joiner" experience hass been pretty good so far! Support while building my character has been top notch; and that's definitely something that's valuable to newbies!

[Brown Dynamite]

I have beautiful free time again. So am all for it.