Startroleplaying.com?

[Jontheman]

[Onix]

CA you're right about people being attracted to the story and not necessarily the rules. But I also agree with Jontheman that rules have to be simple. Star Frontiers was my first game and it was not rules heavy but we didn't get half of it. It took several years and quite a few "ooh we were doing that wrong" moments before we were playing the game as intended. Yes players can handle complex rules in videogames because if they don't, they fall off a cliff of get shot and they get the idea "okay don't do that". In an RPG if you don't handle a rule right everyone just stares at the GM until he re-reads that section of the book and says "oh okay I got it now". What all new players like to handle is a ton of equipment. The equipment can be a hundred pages long and no one will be scared off.

No one seems to have liked my comic book idea, I really think it would be the way to go. It means telling the story with less reading, more art and a fairly flexible platform for subject matter. If I hand a jock what looks like a comic book he might read it. Several pages in the story stops and says "okay you take over".

I like the basic, intermediate, advanced idea. Advanced is where I'd throw them a list of games to go find.

[Rob Lang]

Some simply wonderful ideas bubbling in this thread. So that we can keep focus, I'm going to narrow what I'm going to try and achieve at first. By being focused, I'm much more likely to bring this to fruition! If you feel there are other projects that deserve effort then I'd love to see them, perhaps best served by a new thread?

I'm mashing loads of ideas from this thread together. Hopefully I can capture the core of what startroleplaying.com needs to achieve.

The aim
Introduce young people (8-12?) to what roleplaying is and what you do. Provide resources to learn more.

How
Create a cartoon that introduces characters and story first and then players and system second. Create a facebook page. Create a page with some links on it. Lots of pictures as they fire the imagination.

Cartoon Example
(Thinking out loud here, this is really rough - just to give an idea)

Scene one:
Fantasy, in a dungeon. Three PCs fighting goblins (bit of healing from the mage) and then find a chest. All from in-game point of view.

Secene two
Cut to players around table: "Wooo! loot! oooh, look, a map...". Shows the GM explaining what's in the chest and provides some options.

Scene three:
Jump forward in time and show the table and in-game world together. Perhaps negotiating with bandits that turns bad.

It should be relatively short and not too corny (no idea how to achieve that). It should represent an existing free system that they can just download and play (something like Dungeonslayers or WR&M). They are simple enough to be easily played at the same time offer enough mechanic to be a game (and I'm pretty sure the author of WR&M will let us use it if we ask nicely ).

In the future
I like Jon "theman" Hick's idea of intermediate/advanced pages. Let's see how difficult it is to do a basic cartoon first.

How does all that sound?

@Onix - I love the comic book idea but I have no idea how to get started on that! I do know that I can animate a cartoon in flash, get that uploaded to youtube, build a nice looking website and provide links to free resources to get started (if my ego doesn't get in the way). I am not sure I can pitch it to the right age group without assistance and it might take a few tries to get right.

[Onix]

[Jontheman]

[Rob Lang]

I was thinking of animating something to look a bit like (but not too much like) Rich Burlew's . If it is all animated, we can have it redubbed into different languages.

[Onix]

[Rob Lang]

[Onix]

Hmm. . . I understand your concern, I just think that the explanation you're looking to do could damage the reader's mental image of themselves playing the game. If I draw a group of kids sitting around a table, how old should they be? What race or nationality? Ideally I guess young teens from a swath of cultures. What if that makes a reader not identify with the group? The character (PC) may appeal to one person, but the portrayal of their player may make them not identify.

I'm not against showing the table, the dice, the hands rolling the dice etcetera, but psychologically if I see a player then I have to be him to also be his character. Even if that sounds ridiculous it's how our brains work.

Maybe I missed explaining one of my intentions, I'm not thinking of having a story and then saying "go have your own". I'm saying "come and finish this story". In a sense the game would be a one off with the flexibility of continuing the story. That way a new GM knows exactly what is happening they don't have to make up the story or try to fit in the characters. The idea is not only to make it as simple as possible for the players but also for a new GM.

Edit: Oh and I'd add that once the initial comic book segways into the game, then is when I'd show hands rolling dice, people at a table interspersed with the characters showing how a rule is handled. For example: a picture of a superhero lifting a truck saying "My Strength attribute is so high that lifting this is no problem!" and then another character showing Agility or somesuch.

Another Edit: Something that could work is to show the characters as the players sitting at the table. As in the superhero is sitting at the table playing the game that is directing the action. This circumvents the dual identification issue and injects a little humor.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]