>>318157
>) Another question betraying my inexperience with this boards, how would I go about creating/maintaining a tripcode in order to make sure the Quest cannot get hijacked by Fake Ops?
>ID: bbcf5c
I don't see a problem unless you have a dynamic IP address.

>>318157
1) >'weak' male character
See Mudy Quest, wherein the hero's best asset is diplomacy.

2) Art on here goes from one end of the spectrum to the other. Find a decent balance.

3,4) I can't really comment much on these

5) A few quests already have combat mechanics or at least killable protagonists, so I don't see what would be wrong with it.

If you have an strong main character you can always make the opposition even stronger.

1) Having a female protagonist is not necessary. If you go for male you can make him weak or maybe obese, as long as you don't make him über-masculine and buff. Even if the environment could still chew him up, the players will assume the rudy mann approach is feasible if he looks too muscly.
2) Not being a great artist is not a problem, although rudimentary drawing skills are a bonus. I'd suggest a nonhuman protagonist and a simple, clear art style. Using pixelated edges works with those very well.
3) A rule of thumb is that the server is most active when it's evening in the US. 22-06 GMT I guess. Also, you generally don't have to worry about an abundance of trolls as they're very rare here.
4) name#secretcodeword as the name. Also I did quests for ages without a tripcode and never had a single hijack attempt, even when I was posting from two different computers.
5) Having a scoring system would just be trollbait. Even if we have less trolls than you'd expect, we're not a troll-free zone. A better way would be to do the "Bad End, Load Autosave" trick.


Hope this helps.
(In general, having nonhuman protagonist is a big plus in /quest/, because you can avoid the uncanny valley, reach inhuman level of cuteness and appeal to the furry crowd (of which we have plenty))

-Nahkh

>>318157
It should be noted that you are not the first one to make a quest that is a homage to Ruby Quest. In fact, it's rather overdone by now. But if it's well done you should be fine.

1. People do tend to treat female main characters differently from male ones, but exactly how they are treated changes from time to time. It's more the way the character reacts during the first few posts that sets up poster-character interactions, and it is only reinforced from there.

I would point out that a male character doesn't have to be weak to incur a feeling of helplessness in the audience... in fact that's a rather stupid idea. You can have all the big muscles and powerful guns in the world, but if the thing hunting you can't be seen, strikes with impunity, and cannot be killed, all that physical prowess doesn't count for anything. As the author it's your duty to scale the danger facing the characters up in order to create an appropriately helplessness-inducing atmosphere. This could mean something that can't be defeated by physical strength, or negative consequences for trying to overcome adversity with brute force.

2. Well, take a look at The Game, recently started by Larro. It's mostly black and white and rather simplistic, but it works.

3. I 'unno, you'll have to hang around to see.

4. Trip codes are made by putting # after your name followed by whatever code you want to use. I don't know about the IRC stuff.

5. That might not only encourage trolling, it will also discourage honest players, who are afraid of losing points for everyone and then getting others angry at them.

1)You need a believable protagonist. That said, /quest/ doesn't necessarily often acknowledge the possibility of weak males even existing.

2) Doesn't matter, it's all good.

3) There's the least posters between midnight and morning on US time. That's like, -8ish GMT. There is never a troll flood.

4) Don't bother with either of these. /quest/ has IDs. Everybody uses #Rubyquest to talk in.

5) Neither the positive nor negative concern you have seem likely to matter, but it is a good way to combat apparent invulnerability. I would, however, encourage ignoring suggestions which are not serious or which you do not take. "Eat blender" for example, would be hazardous to a character's health, but the poster almost certainly didn't really want you to do that.

1) Character vulnerabilities may come not only from weak physique. Before you start pulling on clichés already in use (girl protagonist, bookworm, nerd), think of how can you make the character truly helpless. Maybe despite the main character's intelligence/might something he has to face is beyond his reach? (Call of Cthulu anyone?) Or maybe it's a case of "wrong person in a wrong place"? He/She has a lot of interesting skills that seem useless in the environment - picture the character kicking something in frustration going "if I only knew how to...". Or maybe just the environment is so alien to the protagonist, he/she is feeling pretty much spaced out by the surroundings.

2. Minimalist palette is a great way of saving time. Minimalist art... depends. You really need to have "A style" to capture the eye of most questers. It's hard to come up with it. Best to do field testing on one of the IRC channels beforehand.

3. It's very hard to determine when quest posters are most active. People have their lives and it's mostly a gamble. Your best bet is "When US is awake."

4. ID system works fine. Your own IRC channel isn't really necessary.

5. There are already few quests where the character can die or where statistics are used. Go with what you want, but warn the people beforehand.

Your responses bring knowledge to my mind and joy to my heart. I shall make sure to note all of the opinions and suggestions within and modify my plans accordingly. I'm not impatient, and it may be months yet before I reach the point where I can start, as there are documents/ideas/art I can prepare in advance, and there's always the unpleasant possibility that my enthusiasm will wane as time passes. I do hope, of course, that eventually i will be able to host a quest in which you will all participate and enjoy.

I have a question that deals with the perception of railroading. I suppose to one degree I should not really concern myself with such accusations, but do you think it would be advisable to make an announcement to the effect of "(at least) One of the first five suggestions/commands for the PC WILL be taken."? On the one hand it obviously reduces the validity of railroading claims, as it shows I'm not waiting for a response that *I* want, but on the other hand it punishes those who take too long to think of and write a detailed and thoughtful suggestion, but on the OTHER hand (in this scenario, we have three hands), the perceived necessity to think/write/post quickly could be seen as something adding to the survival/vulnerability aspect of the Quest.

An additional question of minimal importance: How does one modify the font type that is used within one's post?

>>318195

Don't forget that people can't always be on when you're hosting or right when you post and they might have a brilliant suggestion that will just be ignored because they weren't one of the first five. Also this will continue to discourage people from posting for fear of wasting the first five posts. Personally, I think it's a bad idea.

These are the tags that work. Last post on the FAQ thread in /txt/. Make sure to close the tag by repeating the opening tag with a / before the letter/word. Like [/b] for bold.

[b] bold
[i] italic
[s] strikeout
[u] underline
[code] preserves spacing and changes to courier
[spoiler] hides text until mouse over

>>318157
>female protagonist, 'weak' male protagonist
Hold on a moment, suppressing my feminist rage.

No, there're plenty of quests with male protagonists who don't space-marine the fuck out of everything. It also sort of depends on your definition of 'weak', though. Do you mean physically weak, or do you mean repeatedly ineffectual? The latter is likely to annoy players regardless of the character's gender.

Also, I have to admit, I do not like the survival point system, if only because systems like that feel very condescending. I remember being real happy when Durandal dropped the whole Empathy Point system from Swords of Virtue for similar reasons.

If you want to make threats 'real' you could very well use dice. There are a handful of games that pride themselves on being purist here in the sense that they use dice and hit point systems. Personally, I'm more a fan of common-sense narration, but that's neither here nor there.

>>318205
Oh... huh. Empathy points weren't supposed to be like survival points, just a quantitative measure of the character's corruption or morality, as it were. Going completely negative doesn't equal losing or anything, whereas losing survival points seems like it would lead to a game over.

But I get what you mean about being condescending. In retrospect, you're right, the way I implemented it was condescending. But the empathy points play an important role in determining some of the mechanics involved, like how the character reacts to suggestions of varying degrees of morality. Think of it like a buffer against change in character, sort of a way to even out over the long run the character's personality. That way going evil isn't out of the question, but it can't be accomplished by one troll's spontaneous suggestions. It has to be an agreed upon policy that remains consistent over time.

Would it be acceptable to continue tracking them without displaying them? Or is it really that big of a problem?

And sorry AH for derailing this a bit but perhaps the answers would be helpful for you as well.

>>318209
Haha. I suppose I view quests as being more like interactive narratives, and not needing numerical values to represent things that can be better represented just by good storytelling.

That said, whatever sort of notes and abstractions the DM wants to write behind their screen, that's their own business. I obviously can't tell the difference between 'hidden empathy points' and 'no empathy points', so... :)

As for the original SP idea though ... no, kind of a bad idea, on account of trollability and differences in poster styles. The 'stick your head in a blender' thing is obviously meant to be a joke, and penalizing the posters for something like that is... petty. Especially for something that does not affect the character in any tangible way (when they refuse to do it).

If you need a survival measurement, just use something like hit points or damage levels, and make them hard to recover. It'll make people think twice about sticking their hand in a blender if they're not going to get healed for two chapters.

>>318195
Concerning railroading:
Sometimes it's necessary to just let the quest roll on tracks for a little bit. However, you need to make a very clear distinction between a cutscene and railroading. If you give people a choice and then ignore the choice they made, they get annoyed.
An example: Suppose that you have this house you want to have your quest in. A closed room adventure in a creepy mansion, say. To establish the scene, you have the first update taking place outside the house, with a raging storm going on. You could either let the players know that this is a cutscene and then have Dude X enter the house. Or you could have Dude X stand outside like a moron and wait for the suggesters to say "go inside". Suppose nobody says that. Instead everyone wants to peek in windows or go around and look for another entrance. Suddenly you're left with only bad choices; you could railroad with >go inside, or risk immediately derailing the quest*. This is the sort of thing that you need to be aware of. The people posting the suggestions are the decision-makers. You need to make sure they always have a decision to make.

Sorry for rambling, figured someone contemplating on starting a quest could find this helpful. Cthulhu knows I could've used this particular piece when I started doing these.

XOXO
-Nahkh




* Not that totally open-ended quests can't work, but this was a closed-room adventure, remember?

...I love you all so much.

I think this will be useful to you, so I will post it for you, as well as answering your questions later:

Ways this board is not like /tg/

1. Population
This board is far smaller than even the smallest of 4chan's boards, as such, your quest, no matter how good, will not update like Rubyquest. It is extremely unlikely, especially as a new quest with OK art that seems to be a Ruby-like adventure, for you to get enough suggestions to update with any reasonable speed.

Expect maybe 3-5 suggestions per post, and sometimes only 1. Expect to have to wait for someone to bother suggesting. Don't give up. You might be discouraged at first because of the lack of suggestions, but if you keep updating and your quest is legitimately good, people will begin to read it and suggestions will pick up.

2. This board is for Quests
This affects how people play, and how much attention your quest will get, and ties into some of the reasons that you won't get very many suggestions, maybe ever. Because the board is full of quests, and many of those quests will be updating at the same time, it is extremely unlikely that people will be sitting in your thread f5ing. Use the irc: RubyQuest and TgChan to inform the population of your updates. You don't need an IRC channel. Your discussion thread here, if it is used, will serve the same purpose.

That being said, it also affects how you should run your quest. Take time with your art. Really, 15 or 20 minutes between updates is expected and encouraged. When I first started updating, I tried a style that allowed me to post with maximum speed (static poses, predrawn backgrounds). Not only did the "lazy" art turn people off, I got complaints that I updated way too quickly. People expect to casually browse while still participating in the quests that interest them - you don't need the speed and you wont get the quantity of suggestions that RubyQuest got.

That being said, great art is not required. A minimal palette and simple characters work fine here, and some of our not-greatest artists run/have run some of our most awesome quests (The End and Kara Quest). The only complaint about bad art is when the suggesters can't really tell what something is supposed to be. As long as your art is clear, you will be fine.

3. Moderation/Trolls
Trip is either NAME#PASSWORD or NAME##PASSWORD, but you really only need it if you don't have a static IP or you frequently post from multiple computers, and even then it is hardly required. No one, on the history of the boards ever, has ever tried to impersonate an author or hijack a quest. We just don't roll that way.

Also, the board is heavily moderated, and the mods are easy to get in touch with (go to the tgchan IRC channel). They will stop that shit right away if, for some unknown reason, it does occur.

Nobody really accuses anybody else of railroading, and if they do, it is because of some reason greater than "They're running a quest" like happened with Ruby, plus there really isn't a strong interest in trolling here at all. That being said, a lot of us are from 4chan, so some good natured ribbing and retarded suggestions are to be expected.

Every author on these boards is expected to separate the obviously joke suggestions from the serious ones. Having a character suffer because someone suggested something obviously completely stone-cold retarded (stick hand in blender) will bring down the ire of the board on the author's head. No one will accuse you of railroading for ignoring stuff like that. Having a system that punishes the character for those suggestions will not get everyone to make careful, well-thought-out suggestions, it will only encourage casual trolling by people who don't really read the quest while punishing the people who are actually interested in it and serious about it. Trust me.

4. Miscellanea

Choice of protagonist: These boards are way less SPESSMARINES than /tg/. If you present the character as not that physically capable, people will suggest appropriately generally no matter what the gender.

Here are the differences in protagonists as far as these boards tend to go:

Guy: Players will try to get in the pants of every female character. Expect lots of trust towards females unless the signs are obvious. Expect they to attempt at least some form of romance at some point. Players will also attempt bromance on any sort of male companion as well.

Female: Players will try to get the character in compromising positions. Expect suggestions to get the character to remove clothes, touch herself, etc. Players will still try to have relations with the female characters. They *might* try romance with a male character, but it's less common, honestly.

If these aren't the sort of thing you want from time to time, just have the protagonist be more than an empty vessel for the suggesters to fill. Filter the suggestions through the protagonist's personality. Even Ruby wasn't "That kind of girl." Once people understand what kind of thing you're running, they will go along with it pretty readily. Oh, I didn't mention this earlier, but generally you're going to get a whole lot of joke suggestions right at first. Use this time to explain (through what happens in the quest) what kind of quest you are running/how serious/deadly it is.

I personally think that exposed game mechanics take away from every quest they are used in.

I use a direct points system for Soul in BiteQuest, but I never called it that and the players were never aware of it. I also use health levels, injury locations, skill numbers, damage numbers, stats, inventory, weight, fatigue, and magic, but none of my characters have stat cards made or any numbers whatsoever listed. I keep all that stuff on my side of the screen, and I think this lets the quest itself be more immersive. No one will really accuse you of railroading, and people don't mind things done for dramatic effect here. I would say keep the system, just make it transparent. You could say stuff like "___ goes east, tripping a wire, but jumps back just before the trap goes off. That was a close call! Maybe next time ___ won't be so lucky." Later on it can be "___ goes to drink the liquid, but at the last second realizes it is deadly acid! There is no way ___'s luck can continue to hold. ___ can feel the inevitable tide of fate just waiting to drag ___ down into the cold embrace of death."

This is far too long already, but in closing I would like to say that I love these boards - both the other authors and the suggesters, and I think we are a fantastic community. I personally read almost every quest on the boards, or at least give them a try, and I know a lot of other people do too. I look forward to reading and participating in yours in the future.

>>318218
>No one, on the history of the boards ever, has ever tried to impersonate an author or hijack a quest.
NORTHERN SERGAL!

>>318218
>No one, on the history of the boards ever, has ever tried to impersonate an author or hijack a quest.

Actually, I did it to Leaver during Meta Quest, but that was kind of the point. Shit was so meta.


>>318211
Right. Very good point about it being evident through the story telling. And realistically, it was just an arbitrary number I used to inform the players that their actions did, in fact, have consequences, unseen or otherwise. Bringing it to the forefront is easy with a numerical representation... but it is rather lame. ;)

>>318218
>Guy character
You forgot the crossdressing suggestions.

But yes, the first few responses go a long way in setting the tone for the suggestions. If you make the character flustered at sexual suggestions, expect an avalanche of same. If you ignore or blatantly flip off those suggestions, you'll get less.


>No one, on the history of the boards ever, has ever tried to impersonate an author or hijack a quest.
>Everybody DANCE
Yeeaah no one.

That said, whenever that actually happens it's meant as a joke and it's immediately apparent to all viewers. You don't have to worry about people actually trying to hijack your quest.

Yeah, I guess I meant that no "impersonations" were ever anything more than obvious jokes.

>>318221
I'm not saying that you need to get rid of it or anything. To me, such things should be a hidden mechanic, but I would always make it apparent through the text.

That being said, I think it was useful because it made people really aware that it was something they should be aware of and focus on. I didn't think it was particularly obtrusive in your quest, but I generally think that those sorts of numbers should be in the background.

People I think liked the visible tally at the end of the threads. I don't necessarily think it's lame, especially since one of the themes of the quests is the potential to lose touch with humanity when you become more than human.

I will say that I think making visible numbers gets people to try to game the system at the expense of being reasonable (sticking my hand in the spikehole will only do 5 damage, so I can just do that instead of solving the puzzle) or gets them to maximize the number so they don't miss anything (we have to be awesomely nice to everybody so we get max Nice points). I think having a visible meter of Spikesby's Soul Points would have taken away from my quest, for instance, and made suggestions that either didn't add or took away seem like I was punishing those sorts of suggestions, when really, it didn't matter to me when, if ever, Spikesby did indeed get a soul, and what texture the soul had when he got it.

>1
Something to consider is that in RubyQuest, and in many other quests, the main character has some sort of amnesia or has been transplanted to a place that is alien to them. Thus, although they may be strong, competent individuals, they still "feel" vulnerable because they have no idea what's going on or what they're supposed to do - a feeling that the audience sympathizes with, as something that many people suffer from (though usually in the context of social situations).

>2
In any sort of game with horror, black and white works well. But, an idea you might work with is the "emphatic palette" - a story that's mostly black and white but occasionally adds colour for emphasis or effect. RubyQuest, for example, had some things that were red, and "red" became synonymous for "scary thing"; but it wasn't everywhere.

>3
You can just post in bursts when you feel like it. No one will really mind so long as they have opportunity to make suggestions at least once in a while.

>4
Already answered.

>5
If you can pull it off, the best thing to do is to make it seem like there's a system like that in place, so the players feel a danger, but don't actually put it in. This would involve coming up with good reasons for the save (such as the protagonist themselves having some brains) and punishing in other ways, such as with crippling injuries or choices that can't be taken back. You may also hint that X side-character could take over if the main died, or similar clues that the main hero is replaceable.

>>318248
> Yeah, I guess I meant that no "impersonations" were ever anything more than obvious jokes.

If there were, how would you tell that they were impersonations? ;)

>>318800
Because of ID.

>>318802

Only the obvious ones had a different ID

>>318803
Unless you managed to use the exact same IP address as the quest author, you wouldn't be able to duplicate their ID. ALL of the impersonations were obvious ones.

>>318803
You seem to not know what an ID is.

>>318810

see

>>318804

> ALL of the impersonations were obvious ones.

>>318893
I can't tell if you're being retarded on purpose, or what you think directing my attention to that post will prove.

Maybe you're trying to cover your ass or something? I can't really tell, nor do I care at this point.