Campaign Management in the FG Forums

[TMO]

Merry Christmas everyone,

I started my first LFG thread that was quite successful and our campaign is going to kick-off on January 3rd. I did create a Game Calendar as well which I have used to post GM announcements.

My question is about ongoing communications relating to this campaign. I thought the Game Calendar discussion feature would be useful for this, but I find the Game Calendar utility to be rather limited and sometimes just doesn't post messages (or player's have reported they are not seeing messages.)

I see a lot of people use the original LFG thread to keep players updated on when the next game will be, character backgrounds, etc. Up till now this is what I have been doing also. However, it seems like the LFG forum should be limited to LFG details (for instance, when a spot opens or if the campaign is going to start over.)

One of my players made me aware of the Groups area. Is this the best place to move my campaign correspondence? Just looking for suggestions as well as guidance as to what is the "official" way to use the resources here.

Thanks!

[damned]

One of my players made me aware of the Groups area. Is this the best place to move my campaign correspondence? Just looking for suggestions as well as guidance as to what is the "official" way to use the resources here.

I dont think there is any official guidance on this. Additionally Ive never seen any negativity to carrying on the campaign in the forum if it works for you.
Some use tools like Obsidian Portal etc to do this stuff, some do it via email, some here etc..

[TMO]

I dont think there is any official guidance on this. Additionally Ive never seen any negativity to carrying on the campaign in the forum if it works for you.
Some use tools like Obsidian Portal etc to do this stuff, some do it via email, some here etc..

That's helpful, thanks. Never heard of Obsidian Portal before so I took a peek. Looks cool. It is probably beyond my time and energy resources now to put up something there so I'll just keep it local in FG. I'll scope out the Groups to see if that is a better fit for our needs, but it nice to know that we have flexibility.

[Griogre]

Check out the Yahoo and Google groups as well. Either can be very useful.

[Ellspeth]

Not mentioned here but two of my GM's use it, it has superb game management options, places players can post in and out of character, calendars, between game role-play etc, is Epic Words. Like many things in the online FG community different folks find different things work for them.

[Mellock]

My first game was all coordinated on the FG forums, with some help of the FG Calendar. A second game was organized all via skype and a free freeforums.net forum. I liked the extra forum so much that for a next game I hosted one myself, and I think it's great. You have the extra room to neatly organize game annoucements, in and out of character chat between games, loot wishlists, house rules, and session recaps. For my latest game I added a custom made website to the forum for extra convenience. Doing this takes a lot more work though. Some players preferred to stay in touch via the IRC chat channel. I personally prefer a 3rd party forum because you have the room to keep things organized, and it's interactive.

[Griogre]

All great points by Mellock. The groups I suggested allow you to get the same type of features but for less work - and less custom options but with any group you'll get a message board and a place to store files on a 3rd party server.

I'll have to check out Epic Words it looks like an obsidian portal type site.

[JohnD]

I use the Calendar for my campaigns. There is the ability to post comments in there, and scheduling sessions as well.

I also require each player give me an email address that I can use to reach them. I send out group emails to inform of upcoming sessions (and remind that voting in the calendar is necessary), as well as take care of anything else between game that's needed.

Other websites are great, but I personally don't have time for that - I'd rather be building or gaming instead of maintaining a website.

[Skellan]

Although I am guilty of having long threads in the LFG forum, I agree it would perhaps be better to have ongoing campaign threads in a different forum(probably best hosted by a 3rd party), so it is easy to see which games are still actively recruiting.

I'll have a look at some options.

[pacio49]

I use RPOL.net for my current game. Simple forums interface, you can lock it to your gamers only, or open it for public viewing, your choice. You can see when your gamers have last logged in to check the boards so you know if folks have seen the latest info or not. And free.

I'll have to check Epic Worlds or Obsidian Portal to compare.

[TMO]

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. I'm certain if this campaign matures then I might consider a dedicated resource along the lines of Obsidian Portal.

[Diomitus]

How do you schedule a play time in your game calendar?

[TMO]

How do you schedule a play time in your game calendar?

In my game calendar I didn't use the scheduled play time feature. I find the game calendar to be limited and not as well polished as the rest of the site. It feels like a plug-in that was tacked on as an afterthought.

[Trenloe]

How do you schedule a play time in your game calendar?
Type the day, month and time (use 24 hour or am/pm in hh:mm format) in the "Suggest new game time" fields and press the arrow button.

Make sure you and all the players have their time zone set in their profiles (you can see this for the players in the TMZ column) and the time will be converted for them.