Sagas RPG.com

There is on element of DPnP’s success that is somewhat out of my control. That element is community involvement. Ironwood has a community forum that receives some lurker traffic but not much discussion. That forum is really just a placeholder. While all of the forum is a valid community forum, there are large sections that will be or is dedicated to growth through DPnP. The idea is simple, you create content, then you share it with the community. This is an important feature as it makes a potentially limitless library of content available for free.The CRM has a menu item called “Campaign Elements”. This item allows you to create campaign packages or import other packages directly into your campaign. When creating you’re campaign you may decide to start from the beginning.  Doing so is the best way to create a completely unique campaign world. However, it is a HUGE task. You have to create each element from scratch. The best way is to start with elements from packages that have some of the same elements you want in your world. For instance, if your campaign is set in a fantasy world you may want to import elements from the Fantasy Sagas Player’s Guidebook. 

After you set your basic rules, description, etc for your game world you click on the Campaign Elements menu item. This brings up the option to Import Elements. Clicking on this opens the import wizard. This wizard lets you open any campaign elements package, such as Fantasy Sagas Skills. When you open the file a list of all the elements in that package are show, as well as detailed information on who created the package. Choose the elements you want to import. Then you decide if it should overwrite any similar elements. When you are done the elements you have chosen are now in your campaign. Repeat for each element package to include the elements you wish to use. 

You can get campaign elements in several ways. One is to purchase E-RPG content. When you purchase a book, such as Undead Creatures or Prophecy you get the elements of that book in a campaign elements package. For instance, with undead creatures you get the undead humanoid racial template, the 5 races, and 5 NPCs all contained in that book. With Prophecy you get the regions, new items, NPCs, skills, monsters, etc. found in that book. These official elements will be available on the same day DPnP is available.

The best way to fill up your library of content is to get free content created by other DPnP users. However, to have elements to download, community members have to share their own creations. That is where exporting campaign elements comes into play.

Exporting elements is done from the Campaign Elements menu. Select Export Campaign Elements to open the Export Elements Wizard. Once open you get a list of every campaign element in your campaign world. Just check the elements you want in your campaign elements package and name the package. For instance, want to create a library of weapons, select all the items that are weapons, name the package (i.e. “Bobs Great Bag o’ Weapons”) and save the file. If you want to create a forum post about the element click the Create Forum Post Content button. This will create the body of a forum post for you that you can save to the clipboard. Next go to the forums, create your post (paste the test body into the message window) and upload your file. Now the entire community can download and use your collection.

The final component to the sharing of content is file credits. When you first start the CRM you will be asked to fill out your Credits information. This is how you want your name to appear on any file element you create. For instance, when you create a unique spell you will see your name associated with that spell. If you modify someone else’s creation your name will be added as a contributor to that file.

What this does is two fold: first it gives you credit where credit is due. Whenever someone downloads a file with your content on it their campaign file will list you as a contributor. Second it lets people know the value of your content. This appears in the forum post body created by the CRM so that people can see your name in the created content. If you have a reputation for building good quality content and you will find your content used in other projects. You don’t have to worry about your work getting used and not credited properly because the CRM does that for you. 

When campaign books are compiled by GMs a credits page is created. Any content in the campaign that has your credits associated with them will mean that your name appears in the Contributers section of the book. When players get their rule books, or a GM shares the campaign the book will have your credits, just like if you had created a book with Ironwood.

When DPnP is released some community content will be made available for free from Ironwood, but it is up to you, the user, to make the content sharing a success. Consider the content you are creating and how much another user may be wanting the exact same content. Sharing content also gets your name on the lips of the creators of DPnP content and having a reputation for building new, origional, and well received content may lead to some other unforeseen opportunities (yes we will be culling the content creators for future contributors to our project development teams).

Until next time, Happy Gaming!

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 13th, 2009 at 8:53 am and is filed under Campaign Resource Manager, DPnP, Developer Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.