Design Doc

This seems like the most suitable forum, so I'll post it here.

Now I know that I haven't been very active since I joined, sorry. I have been reading up on y'all's work, though, and so far I'm very excited. But if there's one thing I've learned from my various scattered projects, it's that a central design doc is totally necessary for two really great reasons:

A- Keeping yourself organized. The forum system is already really good at doing this, but a design document allows every team member to specifically see what's been done, what needs work, and what needs to be started on.

B- Making it easier for new members. Trawling through old threads is all good and fine if you want to spend a few hours reading, or more as time goes on. With a central design doc that has everything in it, you just hand it to the new guy, tell him to read it, and then he can jump right in to discussion.

So, I think that we really need a design doc. I propose that we either create a wiki, with a Design Doc page editable by admin or team member only - or we work through Google Docs, which can share ownership of files. Or, I guess, we could appoint a Design Doc Keeper who alone edits the design doc. That's a lot of responsibility, though, and it's hard for one guy to do it all.

To expedite the process of the design doc's creation, though, it would be great if the original poster of each thread in the Rules forum edited the first post (is that still possible?) and copy-pasted or listed everything that had been decided in that thread.

Ultimately, getting it started and up-to-date now is extremely important, because as this project grows in size, it's just going to get harder to catch up.

So, who's with me?

Sounds like a good idea to me.

Third'D Great idea!

Need more people here to dicuss it's creation though, exams might still be going on.

Sounds like a good idea. What I'd been planning on doing was stickying finished topics with all the info edited into the first post, but this idea sounds a lot more organized. I know nothing about Googledocs, so I'll look into it, and I don't think that appointing any one person to Doc Master would be a good idea, in case life butted in and he was out of commission for a few weeks or longer. I'm in favor of this idea, so unless you have some helpful tips I'll go do some independent research. Oh, and welcome to the forums!

Hmm. I suppose I should appoint a moderator or secondary admin, shouldn't I...

No helpful tips besides what I gave, really. I used to have an awesome design doc template, but I lost it. Sorry.

EDIT: HEY GUESS WHAT I FOUND THE TEMPLATE. Happy me. Do you want me to copy-paste it into here, attach it to an email or something, or what?

No point in e-mailing it directly to me, given that I'm not really in charge of anything. Might as well attach it here, although if you can't my e-mail is cblong@texas.net.

I was actually thinking about that myself, but I would have no idea how to format it. If one of you ambitious gents wants to make such a document, I'm sure it would be muchly appreciated. It might also be the kick in the creative ass this project needs, because we'll have a better perspective on how much we've done and how much we've got left. We might also want to take a look at a few core rulebooks for other roleplayan gaems for a sense of what kind of things are integral to a gaem and what kind of things are optional. I hope what I'm saying makes sense, 'cause I'm running on low sleep thanks to a stray lab report.

I have plenty of roleplaying core books. I have DnD 2e, the Star Wars one, the Serenity one, and World of Darkness. I have a few erratas too, for various things. Except for the 2e, we can't glean much specific stuff, but these should at least give us a good guide to stick to. Also, I can't figure out how to attach a file to a post here. Any help?

EDIT: By the way, the template I have is for a game in digital media, so it's not fully applicable. But like everything else, it's a great place to start. I also have a template for a pitch document, so we can also monitor how the game would look to any publisher or the public, etc.

I'm actually not sure we can. I do not see the option anywhere.

Can you put it up on Rapidshit or Mediafire or summing and we all just get it from there?

And I swear to God if you replace our rules with Ironclaw or something I will track you down and sodomize you with a crushed doctor pepper can.

Replace the rules with FATAL.

Roll for damage caused to the vaginal wall by a khajiit's barbed cock.

Dagoth Durr wrote:Replace the rules with FATAL.

Roll for damage caused to the vaginal wall by a khajiit's barbed cock.

There are no words for how much I hate you right now.

Never read the Daggerfall version of The Real Barenziah?

It's full of yiff.

Oh, I've read it. I just didn't think I would ever have to be reminded of it. Especially not in the context of FATAL. God dammit, I just know there's rules for vaginal damage in that fucking book somewhere.

I'm almost certain there is. Also rules for how much the vagina might be stretched based on the size of the object entering it.

I think the mere mention of FATAL killed the forum.

Honestly I'm a bit worried. People just stopped dead for like 3 weeks now. I'm not American so I don't know when "spring break" is or how long exams go on for though, so everybody might just be extremely busy.

Well, *I* am relatively busy, even though I apparently have enough spare time to drop here at random.

I might have a take at magic tomorrow or the day after, but, like the armor and combat rules, until we decide on how the bloody hit points are calculated any actual effort is rather pointless. We don't even have the bare-bones system laid down yet.

Sorry, I've been busying myself with other projects as of late, many of which involving health and relationships, and as well they've upped my hours at work. This project has always at least been on the back burner for me, though.

I think a design doc is exactly what we need. I propose it take the form of a Wiki. We're a reasonable enough group that we shouldn't even need the main bit locked, and I'm sure it will go faster if we all take to editing bits at a time.

Or we could set up a Google Wave? This is probably about the only thing that Wave is even good for, and it might work spectacularly well.

I have a new job that's eating up most of my energy, but I spend almost none of my free time doing anything productive so in the interests of keeping this project alive, I volunteer to trawl through every thread on this board and copy all relevant portions to a wiki or design doc once it's decided.

Sorry for being inactive. There's lots of maintenance to do around the house, etc.

I don't know much about Google Wave. What makes it suitable for this?

I've found I'm much more active when I am reminded that things are going on, so if a "hey someone replied to a thread" email pops up I tend to check much more frequently. So I'll just have to check out all the threads and post something on them so people can reply so I can reply.