I've been doing some thinking about how RPG companies use their websites, and looked at a number of them. The main purposes of the websites are:

1-A place to buy books.

2-Advertisements for forthcoming books:

3-Links to websites about their games.

4-A location to find other players of their games.

5-Download some game resources.

However, it seems to me that if the Internet can be used to transform traditional RPGs in other ways. We already have Pyramid from Steve Jackson games, and the Shadowforce Archer Storyline from Alderac Entertainment. I've come up with a few other ideas, and I'd like to here what you have to say as well.

A caveat. I have no idea about how to program any of this, especially no idea about the costs or logistics of this programming, or any idea of how much the extra server capacity would cost. There cost is not only money but time, as attention given to these ideas would necessarily take something away from the full gaming. But talk is, as they say, cheap, so let's talk a bit, and we'll probably say something interesting.



1: Reference list. The company webpage should contain links to relevant sites. If the game is based on a certain genre, and some major books of the genre are on line (as many are), have links to them. If it's based upon a real-world era (or vision of one), have links to sites on that. At the very least have sites where relevant books can be bought.

2: Trading forum. Have a section where those with copies of the game materials, who want to get rid of them, can post their wishes and those who want copies can buy them. Charge a smaller commission than E-bay, or allow trades. This will make the materials more "mobile", better latching onto new players.

3: Personalized campaign sites. Gamers can register their campaigns on a database and get memory space alloted where they can upload campaign material -- both events and creations -- for comments and the enjoyment of all. No longer will ideas languish with each group except for those on websites, they'll be out for everyone. Registry information and keeping data from players will have to be worked out.

4: Netbook section Have an official location for netbooks, so people don't have to search everywhere for them. Ditto for fan fiction. Note that this is already done for Delta Green, to name one site I know of.

Any other ideas?

As someone who does most of the non-art work behind a company web site, let me look at your suggestions.

You mention things that are being done and things that could be done.

1-A place to buy books. Yeah, we've got that. You can order from the company, and we also provide links to online retailers who have them. We also try to list brick and mortar retailers, but it's harder to discover these, as most buy them through distributors and we have very little contact with them (the distribs actually buy them directly from our printer, who pays us, so we don't even know who all the distribs are--a problem I've been trying to address for a while).

2-Advertisements for forthcoming books. We do that, too, but we're not putting out new books every month so we don't do it often.

3-Links to websites about their games. We've got links pages for that, and go beyond that to link to some other gaming sites that are not related to our games particularly.

4-A location to find other players of their games. That's a dream a lot of people have; player databases have been proposed again and again by online gaming sites, and always seem to fall through. No one wants to actually have that kind of information out there for strangers, I think. Anyway, there's a long trail of web sites who wanted to do that, including RPG Alliance, and none of them ever got enough to make it work. Narrowing it to "our games" would only make it tougher.

5-Download some game resources. Yeah, that we do--a free world, notably, which changes sometimes, and a demo game which has four other worlds in it, so there's stuff there.

You also suggest:

1: Reference list. The company webpage should contain links to relevant sites.

Interesting idea, but for Multiverser it wouldn't work--everything is relevant. We do, as mentioned, provide gamer links.

2: Trading forum.

Well, we don't have enough books published for this to be workable. With four titles in print, there isn't much to trade. Apart from that, people who want to sell their books will almost always go to E-bay first, because they reach a larger market and get a better price. Again, this is something several general gaming sites have tried, and always it falls flat because you can do better on E-bay. Narrowing it to "our games" would only make it tougher, once more.

3: Personalized campaign sites.

It's an interesting idea. We've got a long-term goal of creating a fan-run site where stuff like this might be possible, although it's more seen as a way to share it. Creating private space for individual campaigns is costly with low return on investment. Besides, people can do this through Yahoo!Groups rather efficiently, and many do. I'm not sure we could do more in that regard.

4: Netbook section.

This actually is problematic for us. E. R. Jones is really defensive about his rights to control Multiverser (he's afraid someone is going to steal it from him, like Gygax lost control of D&D, and then ruin it, like whoever it was did with AD&D2). Our license agreement specifies that he gets paid for every copy of anything Multiverser-related that we "commercially distribute", and that either he or I must approve such publications before they are distributed. Having a place on our site where people could post things to give away like that could become a legal issue.

On the other hand, if we manage to set up the fan site (which will have a distinct domain name), that could be a place for such things. We would maintain a hands-off policy, and let players decide what should go there.

Some other things we do:

Specials: we regularly post promotions that include discounts on products, such as a current deal by which gamers who want to buy a copy of the new novel plus any other book can save $5 on each additional book (besides the first copy of the novel) and skip shipping costs (in the US) if they buy from us. We've had other promotions in the past, including rebates for those who bought The Second Book of Worlds.

Product Reviews: we always get permission from reviewers to post copies of their reviews on our sites, linked to the original posting if it's online, so that visitors can read what others are saying.

General Game Advice: our tip of the week site, which has moved a couple times over the years, is actually older than Roleplaying Tips.com's newsletter. Each week a new tip is posted. The way the site is set up, anyone who runs a web site can have the tip appear on his site as well, by inserting the image call and a link back to the Tip of the Week site; previous tips are all archived, now numbering over two hundred.

Also, the Game Ideas Unlimited series that has been running for two years for Gaming Outpost subscribers has just made its debut at http://www.valdron.com/gameidea/index.html, beginning with the first column from two years ago. It will be published weekly, two years behind its original exclusive publication date, for those not subscribed to GO. It's not Pyramid Online, but it's valuable game advice expanded weekly.

We do have a forum, but (like many smaller game companies) it's on someone else's site. Ours is at Gaming Outpost, and we monitor it daily and respond to everything posted there. At the suggestion of one of our forum regulars some time back, we have been running a forum game there, open for anyone to look at how play unfolds and what happens within it. It includes behind the screens threads which show how the mechanics are being used, and questions about that are answered. In a sense, you get to sit and watch one of the designers run the game--it's hard to beat that.

I'm interested, though, in what others are doing.

--M. J. Young

I've always thought that the internet site could be the location of the setting information. I mean, assuming a really voluminous setting, it woulds make way more sense to have it online than to try to pack it all in a book. Of course people want to get paid for this sort of work, so access would probably be contingent on a fee, or purchase of the core rules, etc (though I think people should consider other options). At the very least a hyperlinked version online that reproduced the book would be valueable, IMO, as a reference.

The Tekumel site (www.tekumel.com) does this to an extent, but in a sorta "crippleware" sort of fashion to encourage buying the materials I'd guess.

Mike

I should say that I have had great results from having my character sheets on my website. I auto-allocate XP, then any time between sessions, the players can go to the Player Character Editor Form and update their character.

The web-based solution seems much better to me than standard character creation software, because (1) players don't have to install software in order to edit their characters, (2) there is a central canonical place for the character sheet -- instead of emailing versions back and forth. I've had some struggles with the Javascript, but in principle it is great.

I've made a guest character so that other people can try out the form, which you can check out at URL:
http://www.darkshire.org/~jhkim/rpg/vinland/chars/