Okay, well I am gearing up to open a new RPG with a close friend of mine who runs Dovinia. We are going out on a new, narrow and unsteady limb by creating a steampunk board. We are putting some time into this and hoping to make it interesting and easy to get involved in.

This new board is the result of us growing a little tired of doing the Harry Potter style boards. We like our board Dovinia only because we have taken it SO far from HP as to be barely recognizeable.

Steampunk seems like a whole new and fun genre that is so overlooked. It has so many appealing qualities. It can be fantasy and sci-fi and the past all rolled into one. It seems really open to many interpretations and we love the idea that magic and invention can collide. It is like a whole new playground.

We have some members from Dovinia already to come over and play at Oghma but I was chatting with one of the members about why more people are not joining and he said "people like to stick to what they know"

Honestly, I should have known that...I guess.
Personally, I love orginality and love to see unique sorts of boards. If the member I mentioned is right, then I guess our board is likely doomed to failure. But I guess I am wondering why everyone sticks so closely to the same sorts of RP's if they are the creative folk I imagine them to be.

I appreciate the HP stuff but after RPing in it for more than two years I am just sort of tired of it. I did advertise in the employment area here for the Steampunk board as well as for affiliation, I got no responses. That seemed like a bad sign as to where our board might be headed (down the toilet. hahah)

Anyway, just curious to know what others opinions and experiences are. Maybe I will gain some insights and find a way to make the new board work.

Lately all my forums have been really slow, including the non-RPGs, so I think maybe it's just the time of year where everyone is really busy.

I like trying new boards. Steampunk is a very interesting genre to do. I'll take a look at your board I'm always up for new things. Believe it or not I haven't even seen your HP board..and if you say it's far from HP I'd be willing to try that too! I like to see different varieties and not the same Highschool/HP/ fantasy boards all the time.

Have you tried advertising on the fantasy boards? perhaps fantasy fans are inclined to try out the steampunk genre :)

Agreed. College kids have exams in a month, seniors have AP exams in two weeks, and school is in "full steam ahead" mode, trying to cram as much in before the end of the year. People don't normally want to join a new RPG that they might not be very active on cuz of school.

Also, I think a big reason RPers stick to "safe" sights is because they're never sure if those out-there ones will do well. They don't want to put a lot of time and effort into something that might suck or completely crash and burn.

Of course, if the site is cool enough, and the plot is new and exiciting and sparks ideas in the members, it doesn't matter how unfamiliar it is, it will get members. Plot is the most important thing in attracting members if the site is unusual.

I popped into your site and read you plot, and honestly, it's a little overwhelming. You've got some really great and exciting ideas, but there's just so much! As a casual obsever, reading the plot I'm left with a feeling of (x.x) and also "Well, yeah, that's really cool and all, but where do I fit in?" You may want to take everything (wizards, technology, faeries, monsters, competition, magic, mayhem, etc.) and combine it in a way that it all seems to fit together into one complete world. It's a bit scattered right now.

Thanks for the feedback, Heavenne. We do plan to advertise on here once we officially open. We were shooting for May but pushed it to June 1st. Anyway, I think I might send you a PM so I don't ramble here.

Shadow of the Rain,

Thank you as well for the honest feedback. I can see how it could be a little confusing. We are still fine tuning it but our strange mission with our plot is to leave it open to members interpretations to a degree. It may be risky but we thrive on that. We have done a lot of that on the other boards, let them have a year run, closed them and started anew with one or two elements of the former boards brought over to the next one.

Admittedly, it could totally backfire on us. But we love to experiment and see how it goes.

We are trying to create a sort of barebones element to each thing (ie: the Sidhe, the House of Pretties, the Monsters, the Inventors) and then let the members begin to flesh those things out.

Like I said, might fail miserably. But Steampunk is such an inventive world. It's about creativity and genius and failure. It's about old ways and new ways clashing. It's about marvoulous inventions and totally useless ones. We really want to have the board reflect that in as many ways as possible.

Hopefully some other info we will be putting in will offer that clarity to a degree. We also usually add a board on how to get going in this new world and there is an area of possible roles you can take.

Thanks again, though. It's good to have fresh eyes look at it. I get saturated in my own thoughts at times.

I can't speak for others, cause well, I am only myself. But I know that the reason that I stick to the same basic types of boards cause that’s what I have fun playing in.
I have branched out a lot from where I first started. But every once in a while I have to go back to what I know just because it si comforting.
It also seems like every time I find a new cool site, I join, post a few threads and the admin shuts it down.
I looked at your site, and I have to agree with Shadow of the Rain it was still rather confusing. It could be because I got up at 330 this morning and it is now 515 in the afternoon, I will look at it again later. It seems cool, but complicated.

Thanks for the feedback, NTA.

I put the board offline so myself and the other admin can take another look at it and see if there is a better way to present the info.

I know people like to stick to things they know, I just get so incredibly bored with the same thing and almost knowing what will happen (like in canon-HP stuff). I think I am suprised that there are not more and more innovative and original boards since this RPG stuff seems to attract a creative crowd. HP is becoming a less creative outlet for me.

I think the typical HP boards and stuff like those fail with the same rate as the more original sorts. I just think more people should give unique boards a fair shake. Sometimes I wonder if it's that people re-use their applications from one board to the next (especially in HP) so it just becomes easier to stick with the same type of thing instead of having to come up with someone new in a new environment.

On a side note: I did get a PM from a person who actually liked the board and may join us. It made my day. *does little happy dance*

If I cold understand it I think I would join too. Just because I do like to try knew stuff.
Let us know when it is back up so that we can come and check it out.
May I sugest that if more people are confused for any reason you send them to this link: Steampunk it helped me a lot on the confusion.

Thanks for all the feedback! We did reorganize and add some info. I think you were all right, it needed to be better organized even if we are sticking with are original idea of keeping it a very loose plot that will develop alongside our members.

Naturally Talented,

I did use your resource as well as others to hopefully give people a better understanding of Steampunk. Thanks for that. It really is a broadly interpreted genre by all accounts. There are even loads of subgenres of it like [url=http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9094/STEAM28.html]Gas Lamp fantasy[url] which look like they could make some kickbutt RPG's as well.

There are so many great possibilities for really fun and interesting roleplays in all these genres that I really hope people begin to explore them as an alternative to the common stuff we see to find all the time.

I think myself and the other admin had more fun making this board than we did any of our HP style boards. Don't get me wrong, we still hold HP close to our hearts but we just were aching for new place and a new environment and, for us, Steampunk was it.

Myself and the other Admin know that it Oghma might not take off but we like taking risks on new ideas so we are going to ride this wave while we can. We open JUNE 1 and we have 8 members--which is better than nothing!

So who else has taken a chance on either playing in a genre they had never tried or in creating a board that was outside of what they had normally done? And how did it go?

I, like many others, stick with my two favoured genres, because it's what keeps me entertained. RPG is a hobby for me, and so I will stick within the genres that tickle my fancy because...well...that is what makes me want to roleplay.

However, the stigma that HP suffers, is because one has to wade through so much tripe to get to something that strikes a chord in them. It's like a monkies and typewriters thing, isn't it? I mean, HP is so...popular and so highly numbered in RPGs because it's got lots of information for people to use. However, it's all in how you use it. The genre itself I would not say is a bad one, but I would say that not enough games are really stretching out and using that information as much as they could. Therein lies the problem (for me).

I would not say your game is doomed. You are not the only one bored of the same old thing (but I would not advise that as a pitch line in your advertisement lol!) and as such you will find an audience. It may be small, it may be large. Members may long-term it, they may pass through it fleetingly, but it will get attention.

If we do not try, then we do not know.

My advice would be, tailor it to the player numbers you have. Don't throw up a big scale game idea that will require a LOT of members, because you may not get the numbers you desire. Tailor it to a small number of people, get them involved and get on with enjoying it.

I helped two blokes I know set up an RPG a couple of years ago that revolved around a Right Wing Government - action heavy, colourful characters, non-stop action.

But it ended up being just the four of us. Five briefly, but four. It was a hard sell, a very hard sell because that was a time when Original Concept RPGs were not the thing of the moment. The admin was not concise in his details, he didn't provide a lot of information and only those asking questions were the ones who ended up applying. So when introducing something 'overlooked', then make sure that you provide a thick wad of information for players to induldge in. Not just links but your own voice too - make sure they get exactly the picture you want them to get.

Push the idea hard. Keep pushing it hard for three months, four months. Make the advert attention-grabbing but not too wordy. Short and sweet. And none of this, 'are you tired of the same old thing?' or, 'sick of [insert pop-RPG-genre here]?' stuff, because in all likelihood, posting that on a fandom game, the answer will be a resounding, 'no'. ;) Hehehe.

If this is what you like doing, if you want to make people sit up and pay attention to something new, then hop to it! Make it, pimp it, preen it until it glitters, but have fun with it, because there's no point any of us roleplaying, if we're not enjoying it, eh?

*shrug*

I generally stick with genres I'm familiar with (and yes, HP is one of those).. and I know what you mean about HP becoming less and less creative. I hate the ones that follow the books to the letter, which is why I deliberately made mine as different as I could - while sticking to the basic concept of magical schooling.

And it's incredibly difficult to market an orignal board... because there's no specific "place" it belongs to, and there's no raging fanbase ready to be tapped.

All the best with it, cause it does sound intriguing. :D

Thanks, Panda. I was feeling a bit discouraged there for awhile. But you know what? Two more people joined today. I was nearly giddy. Haha. I am being cautiously giddy, though, cause I think you are right when you say they may only pass through. We don't open til June 1st so that will be the real test.


and you are right on this as well:

We are trying very hard to have a plot that is open and that is driven by who we have on the board. We are afaid it will simply go belly-up if we make some big and elaborate plot. We have basically just created a two cities that are competitive but we have not spelled out any big great evil plot. What we hope will happen is that players will influence what happens in the city and that we will basically build and guide the plot alongside them.

And Mousie,

I so hear you on this.

I think that this was are one hesitation as we ventured out on this very shakey and thin limb. It's just that we so wanted to give it a go. We had just grown so very tired of doing HP that we --almost desperately-- went ahead and created this Steampunk adventure.

It does seem that most who post here do say that they like to stick to what they know. I see that it makes sense. I visit a lot of boards and if I can't sort out what is happening, I just click off it. When you go to most HP sites, you can usually sort things out pretty quickly. So it means we have to be extra careful to make an original board very accessible.

Thanks again for everyone's feedback.

After years of fantasy RPing, I started a Star Wars RPing forum. I had great fun with it, but I found that after a while, I started to lose interest. I'm still not completely sure whether or not it was because I burnt myself out trying to start a rather complicated site, admin it, and be a major roleplayer on it, or if it was because I got bored of the genre...but I think it was a combination of both.

The risks of just joining a board that is of an entirely different genre than you normally play aren't as great as making one, but I know I still feel bad if I join a site worried that I'm going to disappear from it after a short while out of boredom...

Also, if there is a lot of lore to a place that I'm not already familiar with...forget it! Rarely have I found a world-concept interesting enough that I could sit down and read through pages upon pages of lore.

I think keeping things as open as possible when it comes to your lore is really a good idea. And I think it would only backfire if somehow the forums grew to a very large number of members, so things are hard to keep track of. For most forums, that doesn't ever happen, and in my opinion, a large number shouldn't be what people are going for.

I've found that it's very hard to strike a balance between the familiar and the unfamiliar. On the one hand, the familiar one, there is the frustration you expressed on having the same-old same-old that's been done so many times it's hard to inject any novelty into it.

On the other, there is the chaos of a completely new world. World creation is a blast to do, but when an administrator goes overboard with creative concept after creative concept, the task of setting it all straight in your mind (not to mention thinking up a character to fit into it) can be daunting. I've worked with natural worldbuilders before, and alot of times have found myself forced to reign them in and steer them away from ideas that would work perfectly well in a novel where they could lay it all out in the course of a plot, but which would be terribly difficult for a novice RPer to get straight.

From what I've seen, RPers who browse the directories are often looking for things they can drop into right away. I know it's usually my motivation for looking through the RPG collection and similar sites. Plots will be moving slowly on the other RPGs I belong to so I'll look for something new to fill the time. The idea of an original world appeals to me, but pages and pages of information about goverment, magic, half a dozen different species, gods and goddesses, and everything else can be discouraging.

So...advice-wise? As long as there is something familiar about your world, people will come. Oh, and pleasepleaseplease avoid needless name changes. They drive me nuts (though I'm guilty of them sometimes). Call a king and king, a slave a slave, a cat a cat. Making up new words is just annoying and confusing.

I loved your site...I actually found it from a friend who is on RPG-D....I am now Rorie Nicholson on your site!!!
WOOO for the Steampunk.
I think that it is a really cool site, and anyone even thinking of joining should.

Thanks Amber! We are happy to have you!I am glad there are some brave souls who will venture into uncharted waters!


Pen Amber,

I agree with you on this:

We keep working on both our boards to simplify and to make it easier to get involved. It is a huge challenge. I always have waaaaayyyyy too many "good" ideas and sometimes you just need to sacrifice them for the need for clarity. I think we will still be doing that as the board moves along.

I like to try new things. At first when I started Rping, I only Rped anime based on the shows that I’m familiar with. But then I grew out of that stage, and now I’ve been Rping from anime, cartoons, and now things based on movies.

My game called Evil Eyes, was based on the film The Mummy, and when it comes to other RPGs based on it, its very rare but got members very quickly on its first week. But advertising definitely helps when starting up a new RPG. You should also try to find people interested in your genre, ask friends, you name it, try it. Affiliation isn’t the only thing to get people.