This (and any future posts) will be marked with [D&D Game] in the subject to allow those who are not interested to skip over them.
For my D&D game, I'm planning on picking up many of the things I've liked about previous roleplaying experiences and combining them and hopefully seeing if they work.
For example:
- While I think background about the world is a good thing, I could never be bothered to read dry lists of historical actions on particular dates, or even potted histories, so why should I expect anyone else to? The obvious alternative is to use modern world history, but that is a) out of genre and b) doesn't suit my desire to escape connections to real life. So, combining my desire to write stories, I think I will write some short stories which should entertain as well as provide some background on the world in which my players will be operating. If I can't be bothered to do that, I'll just hijack another world that has stories written for it :)
- Second, I really really loved the role playing that could happen through online forums. Some of the best roleplaying I've seen has happened there. I'm after some more immediacy though so I might suggest an IRC-based medium, one nick/room for the in-character stuff and one for the out of character stuff. Real-time mediums would also neatly confine the game to a set period of time, which was one of the problems with forum-based methods. Online roleplaying also has the advantage that my players don't have to be local either.
- There already exists open-source software that will allow remote players to share maps and tokens, and IRC and dice bots, etc, so I need to investigate those for use.
- Wikis and the like may be used as well, although that may be a little over the top.
- I've not decided yet whether this should be 4th edition or 3.5.
Comments? Anyone interested in taking part? I doubt this will happen any time soon though.