Why does the calender have so many D&D 5e ruleset used options?

[GenSmicer]

In the game calendar why are there so many 5e D&D variations in the ruleset used? Just clicking on the dropdown menu of it you already get 7 options or so. And then when you scroll down you see like 7 more or so, and each of them has a bunch of games attached to them.

Now you just don't see all the 5e games in 1 go since there's so many differently typed versions of them.

[Mask_of_winter]

Because it lists what the GMs have entered. When you create an event you type in which ruleset you're using, you don't choose from a dropdown menu. Some call it D&D 5e, other 5th edition D&D. So that's what you see here.

[Draca]

We should , as a community Standardize our listings.

[kylania]

SmiteWorks themselves haven't standardized 5E's name within their own product lines, so I think we're fighting a losing battle here. :)

(DD Lost Mine of Phandelver vs D&D Scourge of the Sword Coast)

[Tabarkus]

The Calendar needs a complete overhaul. I find it to be quite useless, which is frustrating.

[Crymoricus]

When you create an event you type in which ruleset you're using, you don't choose from a dropdown menu.

Ding! Houston, we've found the problem.

[damned]

Ding! Houston, we've found the problem.

This would fix it for D&D but it poses a small challenge when someone wants to run something thats not listed.

[Crymoricus]

This would fix it for D&D but it poses a small challenge when someone wants to run something thats not listed.

That sucks. I would have liked to believe someone would have the know-how to add an "other" option which would open up a text field to enter a ruleset manually, or something like that. In any case, I've heard a few complaints from folks about this issue with 5e and the calendar. It's one of those things that people who just stepped into looking at FG see and go, "that's ghetto."

[damned]

That sucks. I would have liked to believe someone would have the know-how to add an "other" option which would open up a text field to enter a ruleset manually, or something like that. In any case, I've heard a few complaints from folks about this issue with 5e and the calendar. It's one of those things that people who just stepped into looking at FG see and go, "that's ghetto."

It does need more work... it just doesnt appear to be at the top of the list just yet....

[Crymoricus]

It does need more work... it just doesnt appear to be at the top of the list just yet....

Understood and understandable.

Actually, I already figured as much. I just thought I'd pile on here while the subject is up because I personally believe the whole Calendar thing may be a bigger issue than SW gives it credit for. Can't say it's a fact, but if I were to guess, I'd think that a new Calendar would equate to a jump in sales.

Personally, I don't care about the calendar. But new people? That's all a lot of them can see as a way to actually get into games. If they check it out and it looks like a mess, well... you get the idea.

[GenSmicer]

The biggest reason might be that people not find games since there's so many different ruleset used entries of one thing, and they aren't all even on the same dropmenu before scrolling, and therefor maybe missing a lot of games. Since atm there are like 15 different typed versions of 5th edition to make it known it's a 5e game.

Can't it just be made so that it's a dropdown menu when you pick it? I mean you know it's 5e ruleset right? And if we gonna wait till someone else standardize(well something like that it's typed right?) things, you always will be after the facts :p. If you use a 5th ruleset then they are all the same right? There isn't 15 different 5th edition rulesets right? Can't we just make a dropdown menu where the GM's pick the rulesets used? We know what fantasy grounds has for rulesets used compatabilities right? And if they made some themselves not there they just do custom, since it likely will be something not that well known. And whatever else they need to type in needs to go in description likely anyway.

[Trenloe]

There are many, many, many more different games than just 5E - I know, shock horror! ;) A drop down could never be made that covers all of the RPGs that people might run. Yes, the calendar could be changed to have an "other" selection and then a freeform field - but that needs time to make the change, testing, etc. to make that work without blanking out existing entries etc.. I'm sure if it was an easy change SmiteWorks would have done it already. And even then, someone might select "Other" and type in "5E Dark Sun" - which wouldn't help much either... :-o

[GenSmicer]

Well it's just that 5e is the one that has that type of issue in a big way, while most of the others don't have it like that :p. And this forum is for Fantasy Grounds right? So anything Fantasy Grounds officially(or supports or however they do that) has released should be doable in a dropdown menu right? Anything else they can fit in under a custom game then right? And if players request for a certain thing to be added, it should not be that much of a hassle to just add 1 name to a dropdown menu then right?

Or am I missing something :p.

[Mask_of_winter]

With a two man team (at the moment) the issue is, would you rather have the DMG and bug fixes for 5e products or a rehaul of the calendar? Because these guys work hard but there's only so much two men can do.

[GenSmicer]

Guess I was missing something then ><

[ianmward]

The Calendar needs a complete overhaul. I find it to be quite useless, which is frustrating.
Rant warning!

I agree and have said this before.
It is completely useless for finding games. And only marginally useful for managing campaigns.
I'm sure that every new person on the forums goes through this frustration, some post suggestions or comments, then go on to ignore it.
It is missing critical information: the date and time of proposed sessions, in my Timezone, up front. This is, for most people, the deciding factor in whether we can/want to join in.
It simply is not a calendar, it is a list of campaigns.
I have suggested that there be two sections, a game calendar for finding games, usually one-shots but not necessarily, and another for managing ongoing campaigns. The list may be ok for the latter, though I'm not sure.

For the FG-Cons, I painstakingly create a calendar grid using excel so I can work out what goes when in Timezone. I cannot easily consume dates and times in other timelines and see how they fit into my schedule without some sort of graphical view. The SXG website has a calendar view for it's schedule but it's not perfect either.

[Trenloe]

Or am I missing something :p.
As mentioned above: "Yes, the calendar could be changed to have an "other" selection and then a freeform field - but that needs time to make the change, testing, etc. to make that work without blanking out existing entries etc.. I'm sure if it was an easy change SmiteWorks would have done it already."

Quite often, looking in from the outside it's easy to think that a change "should not be that much of a hassle" as you put it. As mentioned above, I'm sure if this was easy it would have been done already. Also, any changes have to take into account data that is already there on the game calendar - what would happen to all of the entries that are already there, using the multitude of different ruleset names, if a change was made to enforce a selection from a predefined list? So, then is there a manual process to take a record of each entry and go and manually change them afterwards.

And, remember that CoreRPG allows you to run virtually any RPG system, and there are many community produced rulesets out there, so to do it properly (there's no point in not doing it properly, right?) would need some research to come up with the list of predefined rulesets.

Yes, definitely not a simple change... :)

[Crymoricus]

Hehe, I just thought of a really simple solution to this. Granted, it's a bandaid solution, but it would be really easy for any amateur web designer:

Create a single web page linking from "Create New Campaign." This new web page would make one simple request of the user: Choose your ruleset. Below that, a list of clickable options (D&D 5e, Savage Worlds, Castles and Crusades, etc, and 'Other'"

If they click one of the listed rulesets, they are taken to the usual "new campaign" page that already exists, but with the "ruleset" section already autofilled. If they choose "other," no autofill.

Fixed.

[Trenloe]

Sounds like a great idea - are you volunteering to do the development? ;)

[Crymoricus]

Hehe, I saw that coming! I SWEAR I did. Hahaha.

Touche, Trenloe!

BTW, if you'd have asked me 3 years ago, I would have asked for access and had it done overnight. Today, you might as well give me a calculus problem. Now, if it could be done in Photoshop... xD.

[Shallowfoot]

Cause 5e is the best thing since 2nd edition.

[Gannon]

With a two man team (at the moment) the issue is, would you rather have the DMG and bug fixes for 5e products or a rehaul of the calendar? Because these guys work hard but there's only so much two men can do.

What if a overhaul of the calendars upped the conversion rate for the demo by 5%, because new players could find games more easily? Would you fix the bugs more quickly or grow the player base by 5%?

Granted its not as simple as that because people want a quality product too, but if you are looking for growth then you need to find a better balance between marketing and development. Anyone that's spent more than a few minutes on this website knows that it is a bit lacking in the marketing department.

Think of how many more players there we'd have here if they could download the demo, find a game starting in the next couple of days, and jump right into a beginner friendly 1 shot.

It doesn't help having the best VTT software on the market if you cant't effectively prove that to people.


I apologize if I sound too critical, I think FG is a great product and I'd love to see it and the community taken to the next level. :)

[Mask_of_winter]

What if a overhaul of the calendars upped the conversion rate for the demo by 5%, because new players could find games more easily? Would you fix the bugs more quickly or grow the player base by 5%?

Granted its not as simple as that because people want a quality product too, but if you are looking for growth then you need to find a better balance between marketing and development. Anyone that's spent more than a few minutes on this website knows that it is a bit lacking in the marketing department.

Think of how many more players there we'd have here if they could download the demo, find a game starting in the next couple of days, and jump right into a beginner friendly 1 shot.

It doesn't help having the best VTT software on the market if you cant't effectively prove that to people.


I apologize if I sound too critical, I think FG is a great product and I'd love to see it and the community taken to the next level. :)

I agree with you.

Keep in mind one-shots are dependent on FG users running them, and besides during the two community organised events (and supported by Smiteworks in the form of license upgrades), namely FG Con and FGDaze! ,the boards rarely see any of these as people tend to start campaigns or run modules instead.

[damned]

What if a overhaul of the calendars upped the conversion rate for the demo by 5%, because new players could find games more easily? Would you fix the bugs more quickly or grow the player base by 5%?
....
Think of how many more players there we'd have here if they could download the demo, find a game starting in the next couple of days, and jump right into a beginner friendly 1 shot.
....
I apologize if I sound too critical, I think FG is a great product and I'd love to see it and the community taken to the next level. :)

If converting the calendar did increase conversion rates by 5% you would be mad not to improve it further... I doubt that it would make one iota difference in finding a game... the hard bit of finding a game is finding a GM. GMs mostly have little problem filling their games.

As Mask says - most players and GMs are in established games and neither advertise games here or even visit the forums.

FGCon is our big event and we recently introduced FGDaze! to fill in the gaps between FGCon with more one shut fun - but it still requires GMs to volunteer their time - not just time to run but time to prep too.

Criticism is good and useful when its fair so dont apologise!

Are you an experienced GM? Would you consider running a one shot at the next event?

And if you are looking for a game Ive got a spot free in my Dungeon World one shot next Saturday - https://www.gamergeekend.org/events/event/dungeon-world/

[Gannon]

If converting the calendar did increase conversion rates by 5% you would be mad not to improve it further... I doubt that it would make one iota difference in finding a game... the hard bit of finding a game is finding a GM. GMs mostly have little problem filling their games.

As Mask says - most players and GMs are in established games and neither advertise games here or even visit the forums.

FGCon is our big event and we recently introduced FGDaze! to fill in the gaps between FGCon with more one shut fun - but it still requires GMs to volunteer their time - not just time to run but time to prep too.

Criticism is good and useful when its fair so dont apologise!

Are you an experienced GM? Would you consider running a one shot at the next event?

And if you are looking for a game Ive got a spot free in my Dungeon World one shot next Saturday - https://www.gamergeekend.org/events/event/dungeon-world/

to If lack of DMs is the root cause of the problem then that is another thing that could be addressed directly (DM workshops, some type of incentive to get folks to run a game, etc), but that is another conversation. The bottom line is that, whatever the reason, this is a growing industry (60% increase in table top RPG $ last year, WotC pushing D&D harder) and there are probably a lot more people that would play the game if it were more accessible and easier to start with. The calendar is a good place to start because if I am new to FG (which I am) and I am trying to get into a game the first place im going to go is the calendar (which I did) and see that it is an usable mess. Then I am going to start wondering what i spent my money on and fondly remembering steam's refund policy. The calendar on roll20.net is much easier to use, is used a lot, and seems like it works at least some of the time. I am not a programmer of any skill, but I doubt that calendar took a long time to develop (if it wasn't some type of bolt on plugin).

Something like the calendar works to develop the community and bring in another group of potential DMs, but they've got to start somewhere and can't be turned off early in the process.

If the answers to all these issues keeps coming back to the same answer (see: excuse): "The Community", then the developers have a vested interest in the development of that community and may need to take a more active approach in its development. There are plenty of ways to do that without spending a whole lot of resources or development time, but when SO MUCH of the game (or so much of the potential) is based on the community a lot more focus should be on actively developing it.

FGcon, FGDaze sound like great get together and I plan on cutting my teeth as a player next weekend at Gamer Geekend, but its 2015 and if I need to come onto a forum and find out about it from someones signature block its probably not getting full participation; forums are a dying medium. (I am not even going to get into the fact that there is an IRC chat channel on the main page circa 1998)

Also, yes I have DM'd before, but that was nearly 20 years ago and with AD&D 2e. I would like to play a few games from the players side before running a game, but I do plan on running one in the future. I am also working with a friend to develop a campaign based on Stephen King's The Dark Tower series.

Thank you for the invite to the game, I am signed up for the 5e game on Sunday and I don't think my wife will let me get away 2 days in a row :)

G

[Zacchaeus]

One thing that might help the Calendar somewhat is if DM's would clear up their entries. There are entries in there that haven't had activity in months, some games with lists of players into double figures without one player being accepted into the game (presumably they never took place or started). It looks like most of the entries have been abandoned long ago. Is it possible for those games to be taken down by someone other than the original poster? That might clear things up a little bit.

[GenSmicer]

Isn't it an idea, that instead of letting them search at rulesets, that they look at the lenght of a game thing? You either have oneshots, short terms, Medium term or those sandboxes(StoryStackers) or so(give them all a certain amount of sessions or so that makes clear what lenght which term is, short somewhere between 2-5 sessions or so, medium 6-10 and anything above that likely is not really determined anyway :p). Prolly easiers as there probably is not much gonna change on this front. And they still can add as much info as they want.

Also can't the entries delete after the start time already passed, since then they should have been removed anyway right?

Just thinking out loud, don't shoot me :p