RPG Soapbox

I don't know that I'm going to be THAT picky about it. There's a fine line between being an absolute stickler for realism and having fun.

Case in point - in a game where you're riding cross-continent, nobody wants to sit there and make horse fatigue rolls for eight hours.

And we're riding... (Roll fatigue). And we ride some more (Roll fatigue again). And again. (Roll Fatigue). You stop to drink some water and eat some food and rest. Then you go riding.

Boring. Nobody cares. I play Dark Ages to have fun, not to have to make dysentery rolls. I'm fine with people coming in and making characters that are sick and maimed and dying as a reflection of the time but I don't know that I'll be doing an automatic enforcement of such things for every person that walks through the door.

But it does make for great storyline fodder among those types that are affected by it.

ETA on opening?

By which I mean "the game opening for sanctioned play" and not "the game opening for Beta PCs that'll be deleted in a month"?

at this point, no. I should have a better answer by Monday for both. I'm in a frenzy of packing and getting ready for an international flight. I will try and lock down answers before I go but I don't want to make promises.

Safely landed. Admins are still "Working on it" - revising timetables as I adjust to life on a new continent. Poll up on our forums.

lik omg hurri up!!!!!!!111111oneoneoneone

And also, how many STs do you have for your games so far?

3 so far. We're always looking for more people.

After about a month with no going forward here (the same three or four posts on the forum bogged down severely by countless spam bots), I pushed Leigh to get the train moving. Now, given that the admin has to set up the database and chat and she cannot, there's only so much that can be done. Still, that leaves the Forums and the Setting Design. That's definitely something that she can do while waiting. And after a couple of months, there should be more than one or two "getting started" posts.

Anyhow, at my continued insistence Leigh managed to put up... three new posts under a new subforum. Copy/Pasted from another ST's files and then barked a "now quit harassing me!" type deal. Well, my delicate feelings were crushed by that, but at least she was doing it and getting the game ready for start-up.

That was a week and a half ago. Nothing since then but spambots. Nothing before then for weeks but spambots. As much as I WANT a Dark Ages chat, I'm reluctantly going to resign this one to the sea of other Dark Ages chats that get promised and then boredom or disinterest kills them before opening.

C'est la vie, Ill Omen.

Postscript: Wish I could say I didn't call this when Leigh took a ST position at another chat. A HST betting against their finishing their chat like that never bodes well for the creation of it. Then again, maybe I'm mistaken about her neglecting the chat she intends to open to pursue her Mage ST career on IV? She's certainly not over there trumping her availability and willingness to...

Oh. Alright then.

[Update]: Eight hours later, the spam is gone. No new posts though. Begs the question "Why maintain what you don't mean to improve?".

The spam's regularly cleaned, but still nothing new.

Still abandoned and dead.

Another five day report. Still no updates with the chat HDM pretty strongly devoted to STing a different chat and ignoring this one. I would heavily recommend everyone avoid their forums, or at least until someone gets rid of the several pages of kiddy-porn that's been spammed all over it.

Tragic.

Those boards need to be purged out or taken down altogether if they're not going to use them

Having been around the hobby for a while, it seems to me that the phrase 'Dark Ages Chat' is cancer to any site.

Even LG, which sucked the least, still sucked and died.

Maybe people who want a DA game should just rent space from an established Chat to host their own, or go Unmods.

The time and effort needed to successfully run a DA game seems to exceed the time allowances of most Admins and STs. If you're not independantly wealthy and willing to put 40+ hours a week into it, there just isn't enough draw to make it live on its own.

Messengers, Unmods, and rented space are the way to go with DA anything, it seems.

Sad Panda is Sad.