An Interactive Shadowrun Webpage, I'm taking suggestions and requests... Options

[DV8]

I've been part of the Shadowrun Online Community almost as long as Adam has, and for most of that time I maintained www.wiredreflexes.com (down now, due to a server migration), which some of you might still remember. I haven't updated it in a long while, mostly due to the inactivity of my own roleplaying campaign that I based the entire website on, but I've got the web-development bug again, and I would like to develop something new.

I had a large selection of characters and NPCs from my own campaign displayed for general perusal on my website, and I got tonnes of requests from people asking me if I could display their character on there, too. I always steadfastly refused and said that the website was a personal project, for my home-campaign, and that I wasn't too keen to throw other characters in the collection of characters that I used in the game. But it got me thinking, perhaps it's something that people would want, a place to upload and maintain their own character and npc portfolios. That's the reason why I'm here, to see how many, if any at all, people would be interested in that, and what shape it would or should or could take.

One of the things I'm really quite keen on, in all of this, is to make it an in character website, and not, like I've done in the past, mix in-character elements with out-of-character elements. It doesn't exactly do the overview of the website any good if on one page you're looking at flavour-material and on the next page you're discussing house-rules and game-mechanics. Seeing as how there are plenty of websites dedicated to game-mechanics, Ancient History's and Raygun's websites both diverse and brilliant examples of that, I thought I'd want one to (try) and stay fully in character.

Ideally, a member of the page could maintain his or her own collection of characters, as well as create gaming groups, designate certain other members as members of that group, and allocate their characters to different runs or stories. On top of that, each member should be able to maintain a journal of each of his or her character's experiences - sort of like a blog, if you will - and update their characters information as their games progress. Some of this information should also be designated as private, so that other players within a group aren't able to read about it, but the designated GM of the group can. (I don't know exactly how that'll take shape, I'm just going with the flow here for a moment.)

I think that this could become a nice resource for the many online games that are out there (PBEM, PB3, etc.) and perhaps even for GM's of a homegame that are unwilling to put the time into maintaining a website to support their campaigns.

Now, I might be completely delusional into thinking that there's a demand for something like this out there, in which case I'll let you guys talk me out of it, or perhaps there's a demand for something (slightly) different, in which case I'll listen to everyone's suggestions and requests and see where things lead.

So please, fire away.

[Nidhogg]

I likey. I would definately use the resources the next time I ran a game.

[SL James]

[DV8]

I have been visiting Shadowland on and off for a couple of years now, so it's not that I haven't given it a chance, and I, personally, have never found it useful, inspiring, intuitive or fun. I also know that I'm not alone in that opinion. If Shadowland is your cup of tea, then cool, but give me some constructive criticism, something that I can do something with, instead of telling me that Shadowland has done it before. (Poorly, in my opinion.)

[Ancient History]

Sounds cool to me, DV8.

[Jrayjoker]

I don't know that I or my crew would use it at all (bunch of fukin' luddites is what we are) but I wholly support you. Sounds like a good idea to me.

[DV8]

Hey, if you made your way here, you can't be that much of a luddite, now can you? :)

[Jrayjoker]

Well, for a bunch of people who play SR, work in the tech, science, and engineering industries, have tons of electronics, etc. they seem to be reluctant to use teh intraweb for gaming purposes.

[Adam]

I can understand that, to a degree -- when work and play get closer together, the play generally begins to feel like work.

[torzzzzz]

I would give it a go

torz x

[emo samurai]

[eidolon]

The last SR game I ran was the first in which I really utilized computers. During the game for notes and resources, in between games for character dev, stories, news, etc. I loved it, but it was difficult to get the group interested (and motivated) enough to really do anything with it. We had a private forum set up and everything, and there were maybe 20 posts related to the ongoing game (mostly from me as GM).

With the right group of people, the internet and just computers in general can make a fanfreakintastic addition to a game. Now to find that group of people. ;)

[Trax]

Go for it.

[Bodak]

I stumbled across the wiredreflexes site a long time ago and was very impressed with it. I could tell a lot of effort and skill had gone into making it. I think if you could make a login-driven site as you suggest, where each login has access to a group (like a yahoo egroup for example) which contains a bunch of characters, and they have read-access to some and write-access to others, and they can upload information there about character background, inventory of their flat / roadmaster / backpack, who their contacts are in a phonebook system with a few details on them... if you made it like a pocsec interface with a log of appointments (upcoming runs) outstanding debts (or johnsons to get revenge on) shopping lists, expenses, details on cyberware installed (for when you visit the shadowdoc and he needs to know what issue it is and you can't remember the serial number yourself for each piece)... well I for one would use it to keep track of each of the PCs, and notify them of upcoming meets with their johnson, and let them know when a fence is moving gear or their fixer's feelers have picked up a lead or whatever. I think it would be excellent. My players are (mostly) pretty techy and keen on using the wibbly wobbly webbly for anything they can though so maybe it's not for everyone... still, I think it would add great atmosphere to a session.

[DV8]

Interesting, I hadn't really thought of anything like that. Like a PDA-type system. That would be quite a step away from what I had initially thought of, but it's certainly worth considering. I'll mull it over a bit.

[Critias]

[SL James]

Crit's become diplomatic during his sabbatical. What is the world coming to?

And, yes, that was the point. There's no point in reinventing the wheel... unless you're adding something neat like spinners.

[Sahandrian]

I'd be interested in seeing it, if nothing else. Might drag my players into it.

We usually have to play online, since we're spread over 10 states now.

[DV8]

[Critias]

[DV8]

Done.