Is It Possible to Improve the LFG Forum?

[LordBalkoth]

I think one of the steps that could help, would be to add a sub forum for individual rulesets, that would at least be a step in one direction for organization.

Indeed. That's one of the two suggestions I made in the OP (the second being splitting LFG/LFP into two forums).

[Myrdin Potter]

I posted that I was starting a new 5e campaign and had filled my six players in hours and then even more players came and asked to join.

It is the same for AL Online and my whole in person gaming time - DM's are always in high demand.

I was able to fill my original 6 person game with old friends I used to game with. That also was remarkably easy to get off the ground.

For the game I am starting up, 100% of the players are new to me. I am actually going to "accept" the next two as alternates as I know getting people to show up consistently can be difficult.

[Trenloe]

For the record, I've played two FG campaigns both of which ran to completion and I'm running two FG campaigns. All four were advertised for a specific day/time.

Well done! Sounds like the system's working then. As I mentioned above, as the FG game calendar doesn't force the GM to enter times, when they do it is usually because they've already discussed with some of the first players to respond and have decided on a time, or they are sure of the time from the start and will stick to it. As roll20 forces a GM to enter a time, if they're not sure they still have to enter something and so can be totally inaccurate relating to what the actual session time will end up being.

Indeed. That's one of the two suggestions I made in the OP (the second being splitting LFG/LFP into two forums).

I think that could be a good idea to try. Would you be willing to work with the forum administrators and get all of this setup and then check into these forums to keep them moderated (posts in right place, guidance for GMs/Players to post the right information, cleaning up old threads)? It's a serious question - because that is what it's going to take to make this work.

[damned]

I think one of the steps that could help, would be to add a sub forum for individual rulesets, that would at least be a step in one direction for organization.

I understand why this is suggested but in my opinion this will simply lead to less games being played and less players playing games.
Your looking for a D&D 5e game and someone posts a Castles&Crusades game and its in the perfect timeslot for you and the story they are playing is perfect and its with a bunch of players of similar age and maturity.
You will never even see it.
And the C&C group will miss out on the potential recruits from 5e.
Swap the ruleset/genre for any other. Deadlands, Rippers, GURPs, 3.5e, Dungeon World, Trail of Cthulhu, ShadowRun, Savage Top Secret, Call of Cthulhu, Pathfinder, Dungeon World and the list goes on and on.
You might not even know about a game system and yet when you see its description it sounds like fun. But you would never even look at that subforum because you are sure that the only thing you want to play is 5e between 6 and 10 on Thursday or Saturday. And you just missed two games that run in that time because they werent 5e. Or this week your schedule was different and you were available Friday and there is a one shot in a system you dont want to campaign in but hey look at the other players and that looks like fun...
Im not saying there arent other ways to do this or that this cant be done better but I dont believe fragmenting the posts will achieve the outcome you want.

[Myrdin Potter]

I agree that one forum is plenty. No need for one for each ruleset. You never know, you might suddenly decide to try a new rule set.

The calander is not the easiest to use. I set it up and manager to get to work but I am still not 100% certain if it exactly as it should be.

[dulux-oz]

It sounds to me like one of the best ideas is for someone to volunteer to "clean-up" the calendar of old/expired entries (as JohnD has suggested previously) - or for us to get it automated somehow.

The second thing is to realise that there will always, always be more players than GMs, so if people aren't willing to step-up and run a game or two themselves or too look at gaming a different system then perhaps the situation won't improve - and no, I'm not talking about that who are completely new to RPGs or those who can't - as opposed to won't - run a game. So its up to the individual - I know my games don't get advertised because I've got a stable group and a waiting list, and I suspect this is the same with most GMs.

So can the "system" be improved - sure! Will it be easier to get a game when you GM then when you play - absolutely! But are we here to role-play in the RPG hobby or are we here to play a single sub-set of the hobby and thus restrict our potential pool of opportunities?

As I sad: that's up to the individual - but as an individual what can I do personally to improve my chances of finding a game (rhetorical question)?

[Ken L]

The calendar/forum model is outdated, and cannot scale easily... Imagine for a moment, a good situation where there's a draft of new users. The calendar will easily become overwhelmed and the forum saturated. Relying of forum filtering options at that point is a poor man's ghetto solution.

The ideal approach is to make a search paradigm to find either X game type being run at Y time. That in itself will easily show players what games are open, and if the time slot fits. Players need not specify time in their search, but upon finding all GRUPs games for instance, they can see times on each posting to find a match for them.

Yes, there will always be more players than GMs, so making it easier to find games as opposed to sifting through several pages of forums or calendar entries makes it easier for new players to find others.

[Ken L]

There's also a number of old guard here I see whom haven't really tried other platforms. I suggest to them to try others to see why others like them as well as to keep a beat on the innovation front. There are clearly features that won't match FGs, but there are ideas that should be looked to as examples. Roll20's LFG is one of them, D20pro has an excellent Load on demand model, Skirmish has a great Fog of War implementation.

I believe that 'My castle is best' mentality is kinda what keeps the perception that FG is outdated from younger VTT users. A quick look at twitch's TTRPG streaming phenomena shows FG in the dust. Merely promoting FG streaming is one thing, making it easier for the new videogamer generation to jump in is called evolving with the times lest FG rely solely on old blood.

[Trenloe]

@Ken L - I don't think the majority of "the old guard" as you put it has a "My castle is best" approach to this. We are trying to discuss possibilities, find out how other systems work, and try to find a workable solution within the current environment. The fact of the matter is that Smiteworks have a lot of priorities on their plate and I very much doubt if there will be a major overhaul of the current game calendar/LFP environment as that could well be updated with the Unity system. So we're looking for good solutions with what we have now. This forum is very open to understanding how other systems work - we just don't clamour for significant changes all the time as we know that there are other development priorities currently.

[LordEntrails]

To try and help facilitate this discussion, I'd like to layout how I see this.

There are two ideas here to make getting GMs and players connected.
1) Re-organizing the forums.
2) Modifying the calendar function/capabilities.

#1 has the benefits of it is something that the community here can pretty much do on it's own. The downside is its debatable as to the effectiveness of such a change.

#2 is something the SW team needs to get involved in, and we all know their resources are limited. The good thing is I think everyone feels the calendar could be improved upon.

So, I suggest we consider both of these as separate approaches and discuss accordingly.