How do we make this website work better for Chaosium

[NickMiddleton]

9 hours ago, deleriad said:

Why not just stick with BRP Central? My understanding is that this isn't Chaosium's forum. Trif offered space on this forum for Chaosium to use. He's built a strong and vibrant community here which is about more than just Chaosium. Conversely, if the forum looks like it belongs to Chaosium then visitors may end up wondering if the various publishers here (Newt, Cakebread and Walton etc) are publishing Chaosium products.

Chaosium are rightly protective of their IP and anything which makes it looks like this is the "official Chaosium forum" runs the risk of confusing matters.

That's my 2p worth.

But equally, it hosts the "official" Chaosium HeroQuest forum... and presumably Chaosium's future boardgames will be covered? The advantage of "Chaos Central" is that it does not DIRECTLY mention a specific Chaosium (or D101, Cakebread & Walton, Alephtar, Design Mechanism or Mongoose) trademark, but will suggest the connection to Chaosium and Chaosium related games. It also doesn't  mentioned a specific system / family / branch of the family - which might make it less confusing for players of games like Legend and Renaissance (who may not immediately get the connection between their games and Chaosium's BRP) or games like HeroQuest.

And "BRP" in this context is a trademark Chaosium OWN - whether they want to or not, that fact notionally places a certain onus on them to be aware of exactly how it is being used and what it is being associated with.

*shrug* like many of these things, I'm not personally that bothered either way, beyond a vague feeling that something marginally less system / company specific and more embracing of the newly widened scope of the site (such as "Chaos Central") might be a better idea.

Cheers,

Nick

[K Peterson]

1 hour ago, Baragei said:

... and places like RPG.net and theRPGsite.com still retain their names, even if RPGs are discussed primarily by accident.

Hah! I very nearly spit up some green tea after reading this.

[K Peterson]

Here's a couple of thoughts:

You need to finish up the visual design of the site. The new Chaosium banner looks great, but I think you need to decide whether you want to use that banner across all forums and features, or use it only for portions like the main forum view, downloads, gallery, blogs, etc. Right now that Chaosium banner shows up on each forum besides Renaissance, OpenQuest, and AEON. (And possibly more. That's what I found from a quick search). Either go uniform; or use the branded banners in conjunction with the Chaosium banner; or use only branded for 3rd parties. Whatever you decide, have some consistency.

Personally, I like the branded banners for each forums. They're just aesthetically appealing to me, serve as a subtle visual reminder of where I'm viewing the thread from, and just reinforce the beauty of the art from a number of these game lines. It pretties up the place. :)

I do think that the branded banners could use some cleaning up. Those that I found include the barroom image just to the right of "BRP Central", and the game line image to the right of that. I'd say nix that so that the game lines' image abuts "BRP Central" and save the barroom image as what's used for Alastor's Skull Inn.

I wouldn't be much of a fan of changing the name of the forum, but a vote does seem in order. One thought is that the site's domain name reflects BRP. Would that add any confusion if you're browsing to that URL but you're getting a forum named Chaos Central or Worlds of Wonder?

[deleriad]

5 hours ago, NickMiddleton said:

And "BRP" in this context is a trademark Chaosium OWN - whether they want to or not, that fact notionally places a certain onus on them to be aware of exactly how it is being used and what it is being associated with.

Actually that's a key point and one that I had overlooked. 

I don't have any strongly held views about this. I think if there's a certain amount of goodwill and the forum is able to develop organically then I reckon it will continue to thrive regardless of agonising over a name.

[Trifletraxor]

17 hours ago, K Peterson said:

Here's a couple of thoughts:

You need to finish up the visual design of the site. The new Chaosium banner looks great, but I think you need to decide whether you want to use that banner across all forums and features, or use it only for portions like the main forum view, downloads, gallery, blogs, etc. Right now that Chaosium banner shows up on each forum besides Renaissance, OpenQuest, and AEON. (And possibly more. That's what I found from a quick search). Either go uniform; or use the branded banners in conjunction with the Chaosium banner; or use only branded for 3rd parties. Whatever you decide, have some consistency.

Personally, I like the branded banners for each forums. They're just aesthetically appealing to me, serve as a subtle visual reminder of where I'm viewing the thread from, and just reinforce the beauty of the art from a number of these game lines. It pretties up the place. :)

I do think that the branded banners could use some cleaning up. Those that I found include the barroom image just to the right of "BRP Central", and the game line image to the right of that. I'd say nix that so that the game lines' image abuts "BRP Central" and save the barroom image as what's used for Alastor's Skull Inn.

I wouldn't be much of a fan of changing the name of the forum, but a vote does seem in order. One thought is that the site's domain name reflects BRP. Would that add any confusion if you're browsing to that URL but you're getting a forum named Chaos Central or Worlds of Wonder?

After a talk with the guys from Chaosium we've decided to stick with the unified banner for now for the Chaosium family of games forums, though this may change later.

I've let the thirds party publishers have their own banners. I agree about the bar room picture part, it fit better with the old banner we had.

I've put up a poll for the vote. I'm for keeping the BRP Central name, but we'll see what the community wants.

 

[Baulderstone]

22 hours ago, NickMiddleton said:

And "BRP" in this context is a trademark Chaosium OWN - whether they want to or not, that fact notionally places a certain onus on them to be aware of exactly how it is being used and what it is being associated with.

I've only casually studied trademark law, but looking in my BGB, I see that Chaosium owns the trademark "Basic Roleplaying" but not "BRP". Magic World and Advanced Sorcery don't even cite Basic Roleplaying as a TM. 

Pulling down a random D&D book from my shelf, I see trademarks for both "D&D" and "Dungeons & Dragons".

Would Chaosium actually hold a trademark on the initials of its trademark?

[Fallingtower]

I am trying to get back into gaming after a real life shake up. 

The long delays for Call of Cthulhu 7e also was a small contributor to my lapse.

Anyway....BRP is hands down my favorite system and I really dig the changes that 7e is bringing. I've run a few 7e games and the new Keeper 'tools' have made running the game more entertaining from that side of the table.

The question on how to get this site to work better for Chaosium....

Well for me, the obvious way is bring the Keeper's CULT OF CHAOS here as well.

[NickMiddleton]

6 hours ago, Baulderstone said:

I've only casually studied trademark law, but looking in my BGB, I see that Chaosium owns the trademark "Basic Roleplaying" but not "BRP". Magic World and Advanced Sorcery don't even cite Basic Roleplaying as a TM. 

Pulling down a random D&D book from my shelf, I see trademarks for both "D&D" and "Dungeons & Dragons".

Would Chaosium actually hold a trademark on the initials of its trademark?

Logo to the right of the barcode on the back cover of Magic World, which appears on a bunch of Chaosium BRP books over the last few years not just Magic World and Advanced Sorcery - I had assumed they'd registered that graphic along with "Basic Role Playing" itself.

cheers,

Nick

Edited November 7, 2015 by NickMiddleton

[Trifletraxor]

So, we've had a few fixes added:

Custom streams will now show unread content if that option is shown. Also, you can set an activity stream as your "default" which will create a shortcut button to that stream - open the stream and click to the right of the title of the stream to set it as default. I've done this with the unread content stream, but you can also do it with a custom stream.

And a little setback:

We were planning to quickly move all the content from the Glorantha.com forums to the forums here, but the migration tool for the software we're using has not been updated to the latest version. It's being worked on, but we're not sure when it will be ready. So it will be moved, but the move have been postponed.

[tooley1chris]

3 hours ago, Trifletraxor said:

So, we've had a few fixes added:

Custom streams will now show unread content if that option is shown. Also, you can set an activity stream as your "default" which will create a shortcut button to that stream - 

 

THATS what I'm talkin about! Good change!

[auyl]

I've always enjoyed this forums neutrality and now it seems it will be a Chaosium forum. Doesn't seem like other related lines will get as much attention. Some will deny this but seems to be heading that way.

[Mankcam]

I had similar fears initially and I'm not denying that the potential for that is there, although I have not noticed much evidence to support these concerns at this stage. 

Taking a look at the forum sections, there are six titles listed under 'The Chaosium Family'

Magic World is one of those headings, which is a product line which is going to be a low priority for Chaosium compared to RuneQuest, Call of Cthulhu, and HeroQuest. Another heading in this section is called 'More From Chaosium', which has a sub-heading called 'Stormbringer', which is a product line that has not been published by Chaosium for many moons.

So its nice to see that both Magic World and Stormbringer can be represented here, as they certainly still have an active fanbase on these forums.

There are two other major sections, 'The Extended Family' and 'Other Stuff', which have five non-Chaosium headings between them. There certainly appears enough space for discussions concerning the non-Chaosium product lines here.

So the forum structure certainly looks attractive from a fan point-of-view, rather than a purely commercial point-of-view, which would have ignored the previous product lines and the rival product lines from the licencees.

Looks more or less reasonable I think. Only time will tell I guess, but it doesn't feel like lack of system neutrality is a big issue.

I guess its up to forum members to keep posting stuff if they want to keep 'The Extended Family' and 'Other Stuff' sections alive. 

Edited November 15, 2015 by Mankcam

[Baron]

On 10/21/2015, 9:04:40, Rick Meints said:

 Thank you for the feedback

Chaosium is a small company with limited time and resources. Trifletraxor (the site owner) made us a very generous offer to use BRP Central as Chaosium's "official" posting place and to work with us on adding topics and such. We don't own these forums. We support these forums, and we want want to do a lot of posting here. We thought we could modify (mainly by adding) a few things here rather than creating "yet another forum" somewhere else. To us, "Basic Roleplaying" involves a whole extended family of games, game worlds, and game companies. If some games or game worlds are "first cousins" or "second cousins" or whatever other analogy you want to use to explain it, we're not fussed. We want to post stuff, have fun discussions, share ideas, provide updates, and answer some questions along the way. If you preferred us to say, "BRP Central is where Chaosium says lots of cool stuff more often than in other forums", instead of "BRP Central (basicroleplaying.org) is the new official online forum for Chaosium" that wouldn't be an issue. The word "Official" wasn't used to mean we intend to enforce rules, limit discussions, or drive away "evil competition"^TM. We don't fear other gaming efforts or other game companies. We have no hidden agenda. We see these forums as a hub for having more Chaosium related discussions.

The thing that gets me is that I liked this forum, that was very unofficial and covered a lot of things I like, that Chaosium was no longer a part of. Once we went from " We're getting the band back together " to "We've given the company to someone else," things went crazy, here and elsewhere. This site lost a lot of its open friendliness, and saw some rather unpleasant posts by "fanbois." You'll forgive me (or not) if I am less than pleased by recent developments. There's no reason for anyone to care, but I expect I'm not the only one who spends a great deal less time here.

If you want a suggestion, then make ONE forum called "Official Central Chaosium Forum" here, with whatever subforums you like. But from the point where I saw Loz ordering posters to refrain from posting about versions of Runequest that were not his own in the Runequest forum, I have little love for publishers on BRP Central.

[soltakss]

7 hours ago, Baron said:

The thing that gets me is that I liked this forum, that was very unofficial and covered a lot of things I like, that Chaosium was no longer a part of. Once we went from " We're getting the band back together " to "We've given the company to someone else," things went crazy, here and elsewhere. This site lost a lot of its open friendliness, and saw some rather unpleasant posts by "fanbois." 

 

Really, I haven't noticed any unpleasant posts and still think this is one of the friendliest and most helpful forums out there.

 

7 hours ago, Baron said:

But from the point where I saw Loz ordering posters to refrain from posting about versions of Runequest that were not his own in the Runequest forum, I have little love for publishers on BRP Central.

 

 

 

7 hours ago, Baron said:

The thing that gets me is that I liked this forum, that was very unofficial and covered a lot of things I like, that Chaosium was no longer a part of. Once we went from " We're getting the band back together " to "We've given the company to someone else," things went crazy, here and elsewhere. This site lost a lot of its open friendliness, and saw some rather unpleasant posts by "fanbois." You'll forgive me (or not) if I am less than pleased by recent developments. There's no reason for anyone to care, but I expect I'm not the only one who spends a great deal less time here.

If you want a suggestion, then make ONE forum called "Official Central Chaosium Forum" here, with whatever subforums you like. But from the point where I saw Loz ordering posters to refrain from posting about versions of Runequest that were not his own in the Runequest forum, I have little love for publishers on BRP Central.

[soltakss]

Hmmm, the editor is playing up and won't let me edit my post. It also missed out some of what I have typed in the original post. Damned upgrades!

Loz is protective of the RQ6 brand and that's what he should be doing.

I would have thought that the RuneQuest forum should be for all versions of RuneQuest, not just the current version, though.

Other people publish material and  have had a good presence on BRP Central. so a blanket dislike for publishers seems a little unfair.

[Jeff]

The RuneQuest forum is for all versions of RuneQuest.

[Sean_RDP]

The one thing that brought me here was how friendly and polite the forum seems (and still seems). I like that as I don't have to weed through much nonsense to get to good content, both Chaosium and non Chaosium. I hope things stay that way, as a person who enjoys role playing, d100 games, and as prospective self-publisher. For me so far so good, but I admit that I have not been a member long and not active as long as others. However, I have been a member of the human race during its earliest forays into the Internet and I can say this place is a breath of fresh air. 

My only suggestion would be to create a forum where all d100 publishers and players can discuss issues that involve all of us and for Chaosium, perhaps a Suggestion box forum where people can drop ideas to them and once a week (or a month or whenever they want) they can drop in, check out the ideas and contact the idea giver directly. Sort of an informal submissions forum, VERY INFORMAL lol. Otherwise it seems great.

Oh my something specific for artists? I dunno, just ideas. 

[Rick Meints]

21 hours ago, Baron said:

The thing that gets me is that I liked this forum, that was very unofficial and covered a lot of things I like, that Chaosium was no longer a part of. Once we went from " We're getting the band back together " to "We've given the company to someone else," things went crazy, here and elsewhere. This site lost a lot of its open friendliness, and saw some rather unpleasant posts by "fanbois." You'll forgive me (or not) if I am less than pleased by recent developments. There's no reason for anyone to care, but I expect I'm not the only one who spends a great deal less time here.

If you want a suggestion, then make ONE forum called "Official Central Chaosium Forum" here, with whatever subforums you like. But from the point where I saw Loz ordering posters to refrain from posting about versions of Runequest that were not his own in the Runequest forum, I have little love for publishers on BRP Central.

I've looked around and haven't seen a lot of unfriendliness, certainly compared to most other rpg forums I go to. For what it's worth, I saw unpleasant posts here before Chaosium started regularly posting here, and haven't noticed any increase (or decrease) over time. I'm also not sure what you mean by "things went crazy, here and elsewhere". Do you mean an increase in traffic? increases in speculation? increases in communication? increase in general insanity?

I don't like to see anyone stop posting, but I've mainly noticed an overall increase in posts on a wide variety of subjects. I'm not denying that any newcomer to these forums may not instantly pick up on "the vibe of how things are here", but that's not unique to this forum, and seems pretty typical to most forums.

I firmly believe that all things change. It is within our power to help make sure that change is for likely to be for the better, and that's how I am approaching this forum.

[MOB]

22 hours ago, Baron said:

The thing that gets me is that I liked this forum, that was very unofficial and covered a lot of things I like, that Chaosium was no longer a part of.

But surely you can still talk about all the same non-Chaosium game lines as before? Nothing has changed on that front at all. As Rick said, we don't fear other gaming efforts or other game companies, nor do we want to drive away "evil competition"^TM.

22 hours ago, Baron said:

Once we went from " We're getting the band back together " to "We've given the company to someone else," things went crazy, here and elsewhere.

Saying Greg and Sandy "gave the company to someone else" isn't a very fair or accurate way of describing what happened earlier this year at Chaosium. For a start, Moon Design Publications bought shares to join Chaosium - the company wasn't given away. And Greg and Sandy are still actively involved, as co-owners, creative consultants and board members. Greg - the founder of the company - is also Chairman of the Board. You could hardly call the new day-to-day management team (Rick, Jeff, Neil and myself) interlopers - we've all had longstanding personal and professional associations and collaborations with Greg, Sandy and others at Chaosium; my own go back to the 1980s. And as Rick has also said elsewhere, we're providing the money out of our personal pockets to sort out Chaosium's Kickstarter problems (as well as numerous other debts) in order to save the company we love and grew up with. We admire that Chaosium has always set a high benchmark for artistry and imagination, and this is something Rick, Neil, Jeff and I want to help continue and grow. We're honored to join Greg and Sandy in the band. 

[nDervish]

9 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

I'm also not sure what you mean by "things went crazy, here and elsewhere". Do you mean an increase in traffic? increases in speculation? increases in communication? increase in general insanity?

I suspect "went crazy" is referring to the sudden deluge of rampant speculation and concern for the fate of <insert favorite BRP-related title here> that was triggered by the news coming out of GenCon last summer (and occasionally flares back up as additional information has trickled out since then).

[MOB]

BTW, Chaosium now has a company page on Linked In. Another way to catch up on the latest developments: 

http://www.linkedin.com/company/chaosium

Edited November 21, 2015 by MOB

[smiorgan]

On 15/11/2015, 04:42:02, Baron said:

 Once we went from " We're getting the band back together " to "We've given the company to someone else," things went crazy, here and elsewhere. This site lost a lot of its open friendliness, and saw some rather unpleasant posts by "fanbois." You'll forgive me (or not) if I am less than pleased by recent developments. There's no reason for anyone to care, but I expect I'm not the only one who spends a great deal less time here.

Baron,

I don't think that the forums have become unfriendly.

I was reading a lot these forums and posting quite a bit in the most heated moment when Chaosium were announcing their plans for BRP around Kraken and speculation was (understandably) rampant about certain points that were not immediately clear. I did see a few posts here (and cross-forum comments in other forums) that rubbed me the wrong way. I think I understand what you mean by "fanboys". But that was really minor. And largely understandable if put in context.

As for the new management team at Chaosium, I have nothing but praise for the way Rick is communicating with us on these boards. That level of communication was simply unthinkable with the previous management. They also seem to have a clear vision of what they want to do.

Cheers,

Smiorgan

  

[g33k]

Just came across this:

On 10/21/2015 at 9:04 AM, Rick Meints said:

 Thank you for the feedback

... We have no hidden agenda...

waitWHAT!?  How can you claim to produce quality CoC product with no hidden agenda???!?

[Mankcam]

On 03/09/2016 at 6:20 AM, g33k said:

waitWHAT!?  How can you claim to produce quality CoC product with no hidden agenda???!?

Next we'll see Julian Assange release evidence on Wikileaks regarding the 'true agenda' of Chaosium, heh heh

Edited November 10, 2016 by Mankcam

[Tindalos]

Could I suggest the addition of a Play by Post forum?

This could function both as a place where games may be held, and also for advertising and locating games held elsewhere.