Am thinking of setting up a website for my players to receive and respond to game information. I know its been done and that there is a excellent example here on the forums. However I have a few concerns. Is it worth it? Does the site add significantly to the players enjoyment and how difficult is it to keep such sites in step with the game?

You do make sure that anyone with workable net access has access to some basic data about your campaign. If that helps depends both on the detail level of information you put online and on the nature of your players.

I've done this as a GM for SR and DnD campaigns and been part of several from a player's perspective.

If everyone participates, then yeah, it is worth it, but from my experience, not everyone keeps participating consistently (even when awarding karma/exp) and everyone tends to lose interest.

Its interesting, but a lot of players tend to only think about the "game" when it is time to play. I know I had a tendency to do that as a player. But most GMs are thinking about it all the time, so think this is a good idea...but normally, players are there to play and don't put too much time into the game outside of the session (with the exception of maybe chargen).

On a positive note, its really easy to setup (a website, that is) and all you really need is a forum...

Well I am gonna give it a whirl on Sunday and see what happens.

Which offers the option of putting extremely pertinent info on it in some form and then steamrolling them in a session if they never looked at it. . . .

I haven't done it for an SR game, but for a science fiction mish-mash game I ran with a heavily modified white wolf system I made a yahoo group where I kept files (stuff like timelines, equipment spreadsheets, fiction, etc) and made XP announcments and stuff. The group used it pretty regularly... of course, I gave bonus xp for posting useful files or making IC commentary on stuff.

- Scope

All sounds cool. The following is what I am planning on including:


â—?Matrix Messenger (News)

â—?Street Samaria Catalog (Weapons, armor and anything else I can come up with)

â—?Awakaned Critters (Just like it sounds)

â—?Guide to locals in the Shadows (Points of interest that can be used for meets or possible contact points)

�Maps – this would be a link to Google that has several maps that have been modified for Shadowrun 2070, including Hong Kong.

â—?Comlink (ie. Forum, more general communication other than Shadowtalk)

â—?Profile (Players & NPC's of note)

â—?OOC - Home rules, Tables & Charts

(The first four would have links to the forum for Comments which players could partake in.)

Can any one think of other things to put on the site?

Do you guys know about wikispaces? You can make content and everyone can change it around and stuff. Its free and you can restrict it to players only.

If I ever GM I plan on using wiki heavily. I think its a great way to show who is ready to move forward and who isnt. A great way to store character information and stuff as long as its uniform. When people start making their own pages and whatever order they want it looks real sloppy.

A good idea if you are going to run multiple campaigns is to have different google docs (one for each campaign), then allow your players to manipulate the docs. That way you can make the page look like whatever you want but the players can mess around with them as well.

I setup a messageboard at first and just kept it one category...then after some players posted, I would reorganize. With every group of players, they are going to be interested in different things, and while I think you initial outline of content is good...I am sure some of the stuff you are not going to maintain or it will get kinda old, and then that will be a negative to the site cause it just sits there.

At this point in our campaign (which we are on our 28th session), the only constant has been my GM Log at the end of each session. My players enjoy reading a third person perspective of what they did each session, along with a little dramatic flair from time to time, but no one ever posts their own...

Well I went and looked at what was offered through my Comcast Website pages and could not make heads or tails of it. I know I should be able to get it set up the way I want but no idea how to get there. Now I know how my parents felt when I set the cloclk on the VCR as a kid, lol

We actually run a site for our group as well, and it works out great. The GM can post news articles as needed, and the players can respond as if they're runners or what have you to make sure they're up to date with info. We run a separate message board for histories, bluebooking and the like.

I use a Yahoo group for my campaign. I've been using it for almost two years and it's an extremely effective tool for us. There are times when there are a lot of posts or just a few. I have a lot of folders set up for various things so the players can get to anything and everything they need.

The calendar and polling functions are also useful for a variety of reasons. It's far easier to post changes on there (like dates/times/cancellations) than it is to call everybody.