Hi everyone -- I've been lurking around these parts for awhile now. I value most of your opinions so would like to get your feedback on an idea I had last night.
The idea stemmed from a comment Mike Mearls made during the "What is happening to tabletop roleplaying games?" panel that took place at PAX East (can't post link, sorry). Mike mentioned that old school D&D depended on the the free-time, away from other games, of players and DMs to prepare for later roleplaying sessions. He stated that there is little free-time now, since games are so easily available to everyone via our cell phones, Steam, whatever. His solution to this problem is to streamline D&D to make it more accessible in small time chunks and require less preparation. My solution, which is not necessarily mutually exclusive to his, is to extend the campaign experience outside of the roleplaying experience so members can interact with it as individuals - essentially take over the time spent playing other games.
I would like to hear if you would be interested in something like I am about to outline or if it would "muddle" the RPing experience. I am also posting it here because I don't have time to Kickstart this so I'm hoping it sparks something in someone else. Because I want it to happen
(TL;DR) Overview: It is common for a week or more to pass between roleplaying sessions due to difficulties of getting all members together for a long block of uninterrupted time. Between sessions, individual players and DMs are left with many short blocks of time where they are forced to find other distractions or other means to “scratch the roleplaying itch”. The Downtime Ecosystem has the purpose to “scratch” this “itch” between roleplaying sessions by offering numerous and customizable game modules for players and DMs to independently interact with their campaign in short blocks of time.
Hypothetical scenario: After weeks of trying, a group of players finally find a block of time to come together around a table to roll some dice. Steve, the DM, logs into the Downtime Ecosystem website using his laptop. Steve selects his current campaign and marks the session as Open. Just then, a notification pops up on Lily’s iPhone, John’s Android phone, and Bob’s email tracker. The notification states that the roleplaying session that they are involved in is now open, so they each log in using their app or a browser window. Once they log in they are presented with a control panel showing campaign information. The players see a Journal entry that Steve wrote after their last session (and it has 10 upvotes and 200 views, the Downtime Ecosystem community really liked this entry). The players also see that Steve has fleshed out more of the game world, and submitted a few new items to the Community Database (the user’s cannot view the details of the items to avoid spoilers). Steve has been busy!
Meanwhile, Steve sees in his control panel that Lily has been busy too. Steve’s control panel notifies him that Lily played 10 hours of ArmorForge (a connect-three game where you create ever better suits of armor) garnering her PC, Goldmoon, some gold. In-game, the PCs have been in between quests so a week of game time passed of which Goldmoon spent raising gold through her craft – blacksmithing. The in-game downtime mechanics in the rulebook states that Goldmoon gains 10 gold but Steve unlocked ArmorForge to simulate Goldmoon’s extra efforts – since Lily played 10 hours, Goldmoon put in some long hours at the forge! Steve also sees that John gained some gold by playing 20 minutes of Heroes, a tower defense game that changes level and difficulty based on the experience level of Arax, John’s PC. Heroes simulates PCs that act as town guards. Steve gives the gold to Arax, and makes a note to himself to create a hook for a later quest using the fact that Arax was out slaying goblins during his downtime. Finally, Bob spent time playing Slasher, a cut-the-rope type game. Slasher is different from ArmorForge and Heroes, as it does not give gold to the PCs. Instead, Slasher is linked to a magic sword owned by Bob’s PC. By playing Slasher, Bob has recharged the magic item, giving the sword an extra 1d4 damage to its next two attacks. Knowing that the party is about to see some large battles, Steve goes ahead and unlocks to bonus for Bob’s PC.
With everything ready to go, the players open their character sheets and see everything updated by Steve. They play for a few hours, tracking changes to their stats and inventory using the Downtime Ecosystem app. Once finished, Steve closes the session and sees that he has now logged a total of 100 DMing hours. Having over 100 hours of leading roleplaying session unlocks a suit of new items for Steve to use to outfit his Castle. Steve also sees that one of his submitted items reached the Most Downloaded list – gaining him a new badge and more items for his Castle. Steve is too excited to go to bed, so he spends some time decorating his castle then updates his public profile to show everyone his new digs.
-----
Anyways -- I outlined some technical details too but this post is already too long. And I don't want to get too far off topic from D&D Next.
The idea stemmed from a comment Mike Mearls made during the "What is happening to tabletop roleplaying games?" panel that took place at PAX East (can't post link, sorry). Mike mentioned that old school D&D depended on the the free-time, away from other games, of players and DMs to prepare for later roleplaying sessions. He stated that there is little free-time now, since games are so easily available to everyone via our cell phones, Steam, whatever. His solution to this problem is to streamline D&D to make it more accessible in small time chunks and require less preparation. My solution, which is not necessarily mutually exclusive to his, is to extend the campaign experience outside of the roleplaying experience so members can interact with it as individuals - essentially take over the time spent playing other games.
I would like to hear if you would be interested in something like I am about to outline or if it would "muddle" the RPing experience. I am also posting it here because I don't have time to Kickstart this so I'm hoping it sparks something in someone else. Because I want it to happen
(TL;DR) Overview: It is common for a week or more to pass between roleplaying sessions due to difficulties of getting all members together for a long block of uninterrupted time. Between sessions, individual players and DMs are left with many short blocks of time where they are forced to find other distractions or other means to “scratch the roleplaying itch”. The Downtime Ecosystem has the purpose to “scratch” this “itch” between roleplaying sessions by offering numerous and customizable game modules for players and DMs to independently interact with their campaign in short blocks of time.
Hypothetical scenario: After weeks of trying, a group of players finally find a block of time to come together around a table to roll some dice. Steve, the DM, logs into the Downtime Ecosystem website using his laptop. Steve selects his current campaign and marks the session as Open. Just then, a notification pops up on Lily’s iPhone, John’s Android phone, and Bob’s email tracker. The notification states that the roleplaying session that they are involved in is now open, so they each log in using their app or a browser window. Once they log in they are presented with a control panel showing campaign information. The players see a Journal entry that Steve wrote after their last session (and it has 10 upvotes and 200 views, the Downtime Ecosystem community really liked this entry). The players also see that Steve has fleshed out more of the game world, and submitted a few new items to the Community Database (the user’s cannot view the details of the items to avoid spoilers). Steve has been busy!
Meanwhile, Steve sees in his control panel that Lily has been busy too. Steve’s control panel notifies him that Lily played 10 hours of ArmorForge (a connect-three game where you create ever better suits of armor) garnering her PC, Goldmoon, some gold. In-game, the PCs have been in between quests so a week of game time passed of which Goldmoon spent raising gold through her craft – blacksmithing. The in-game downtime mechanics in the rulebook states that Goldmoon gains 10 gold but Steve unlocked ArmorForge to simulate Goldmoon’s extra efforts – since Lily played 10 hours, Goldmoon put in some long hours at the forge! Steve also sees that John gained some gold by playing 20 minutes of Heroes, a tower defense game that changes level and difficulty based on the experience level of Arax, John’s PC. Heroes simulates PCs that act as town guards. Steve gives the gold to Arax, and makes a note to himself to create a hook for a later quest using the fact that Arax was out slaying goblins during his downtime. Finally, Bob spent time playing Slasher, a cut-the-rope type game. Slasher is different from ArmorForge and Heroes, as it does not give gold to the PCs. Instead, Slasher is linked to a magic sword owned by Bob’s PC. By playing Slasher, Bob has recharged the magic item, giving the sword an extra 1d4 damage to its next two attacks. Knowing that the party is about to see some large battles, Steve goes ahead and unlocks to bonus for Bob’s PC.
With everything ready to go, the players open their character sheets and see everything updated by Steve. They play for a few hours, tracking changes to their stats and inventory using the Downtime Ecosystem app. Once finished, Steve closes the session and sees that he has now logged a total of 100 DMing hours. Having over 100 hours of leading roleplaying session unlocks a suit of new items for Steve to use to outfit his Castle. Steve also sees that one of his submitted items reached the Most Downloaded list – gaining him a new badge and more items for his Castle. Steve is too excited to go to bed, so he spends some time decorating his castle then updates his public profile to show everyone his new digs.
-----
Anyways -- I outlined some technical details too but this post is already too long. And I don't want to get too far off topic from D&D Next.
