Building the Campaign Website.

[Bront]

I'm looking to create the campaign website, but I want to include some good things to add to it. Currenlty, i'm thinking a copy of each character (PDF copy, though I could post the excel file), perhaps a basic writeup of each character (at least public info), my house rules used for the game, and some basic chronicaling of things they've done/know.

Any hints on what to put on it?

Also, I plan on the site being part of my personal D20 stash site, with links to all sorts of usefull tools, writeups of any personal houserules, classes, feats, ect, that I've done, and stuff like that. Any good links you can suggest and any suggestions for building one?

Also, anyone know a good forum setup I can use if players want to ask questions and such? I know there's some free forum sites out there.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Mark Hope]

Great idea - I have something similar for my Dark Sun games (http://logarium.tripod.com/). Feel free to look around and steal ideas (although you won't be able to download any of the files, as they are restricted to members of my gaming group).

The site features most of the things you have already mentioned (character profiles, game summaries, houserules etc). I also have short descriptions of NPCs and locations that have featured in the game. For a more magic-heavy game, I would also include descriptions of significant magic items that have appeared (not too many of those in DS, though, heh heh). I also post gameworld rumours, session-by-session xp awards and a breakdown of possible advancement notes for the characters.

As for downloads, I have posted gameworld specific rules, prestige classes, notes on converting established prestige classes to the game setting, equipment and armour specific to the setting, additional races, variant familiar, animal companion and summoning lists - that sort of thing. There is also a bit of artwork here and there.

The front page lists the three most recent updates and there is also a "Site News" page that tracks all updates made since the site started.

We also have our own (very small) bulletin board, hosted by http://www.phpbbforfree.com - this has a few ads here and there but is basically the same format as ENWorld and is very easy to administrate and navigate. I am sure there are other free sites using the same system out there, though.

My best bit of advice on running a campaign website would be to have frequent, yet small updates. Frequency is important to keep player interest, but you want to keep the pieces bite-sized or you will find your own input hard to maintain. Having large, cumbersome updates to do every week or so can rapidly become a chore (I am guilty of this myself in the area of game summaries - mine are pretty extensive and use lots of artwork and consequently I am running behind quite a bit in that department!)

Oh, and have fun!

 

[RangerWickett]

I got this far into creating my own campaign website before the campaign ended. If you notice, each country has its own link on the map. The game was going to involve a lot of travel, so I wanted the map to work as sort of a travel guide.

But basically, yeah, give the players a reason to go to the page. Maybe once a week you'll post a question to the group, and those who answer with feedback get a few bonus XP. One of my friends has a hard time remembering the names for NPCs he comes up with, so he has a payback program where if a player helps him remember the name of a recurring NPC, the player gets a bonus hero point.

If you have any artists in the group, put up a gallery of PC portraits. If you don't have an artist, but have some disposable income and want to really impress your players, visit J.L. Jones's portfolio site and commission her to do some illustrations. $100 for a party portrait? It'd be a great birthday gift, or Christmas in July. *grin*

 

[S'mon]

Here's my Barakus campaign website, you might find it useful:

http://www.geocities.com/s.t.newman/barakus.htm

 

[TerraDave]

For an example, take a look at my sig.

A few suggestions in addition to what you mention:

world info for the players: they may or may not read it, but it is there

world info for yourself: a website can be a good motivator to get things written down and somewhat organised, which you will appreciate later.

message boards/forum/discussion group: for downtime and game related discussion. There are a few places you can host it (including Enworld I think, but you have to pay a little) and then link to the page.

updating charecter sheets: you may have an easy way to do this, but in any case, with standard 3rd ed advancement, you will have to do this fairly often.

good luck!

 

[Mercule]

You can check out mine at http://albathador.org. I didn't get much put up before I switched to an ASP.NET host, but you can see the basic idea of what I was doing. The new site is on hold while I debate between using ASP.NET 1.1, which I know, and .NET 2.0, which would be a training exercise.

The old site uses PostNuke, with a couple of tweaks. The new site will be coded ground-up.

 

[Lalato]

There's a great way to keep character sheets up on your website. Use 3e Profiler over at... http://3ep.rpgprofiler.com.

You can download the source for 3eProfiler and install it on your own server. That's what I did for my group... and it works great. If you're handy with php, css and javascript you can also customize the character sheets to your heart's content.

It beats PDF sheets hands down because the sheets are editable. The players can actually go in and update the sheets as they gain new levels and equipment.

--sam

 

[derbacher]

Originally posted by Lalato
There's a great way to keep character sheets up on your website. Use 3e Profiler over at... http://3ep.rpgprofiler.com.

Link doesn't work. Try this one: http://pcp.rpgprofiler.net/

Be sure to go to the templates section to download the 3.5 updates, if that is what you play.

 

[barsoomcore]

Barsoom is here.

It's a pretty massive site, with tons of material, setting, rules and party antics recorded for posterity. Has been pretty helpful throughout the life of the campaign but part of why I built was just so I could teach myself HTML and CSS (and didn't do a very good job of, I admit). So I was ulteriorily motivated.

 

[MarauderX]

Just found a Wiki recently that is free and can handle any number of pages, pictures, whatever.

http://correl.wikispaces.org/

It allows me to keep track of the ever-growing number of NPCs, places, monsters, rules, everything. It's all interlinked so that if I forget I can simply click on the link and I'm reminded. And on top of it, it is stupid-simple. If you can post to ENWorld you can have a page there. Oh, and you can back up your changes in a zip file in case someone hacks and slashes everything.