This is probably a discussion that needs to happen. Some boards call them CYOAs, some call them quests. For purposes of being on the same page, I'm going to define "quest thread" or, simply "quests" as threads that have the OP act as the author of a collaborative story where the next action of the protagonist is decided by crowd participation.-Threads can be stand-alone, or continuous. A quest can begin and end in one evening, or take place over weeks or months, with a new thread picking up where the last thread left off.-They should include creation of original content: text-only narrative, and/or the creation of new images as the story advances.-The next action can be decided in various ways at the whims of the Quest Master (QM), but usually involves at least one of: voting from pre-selected choices (A, B, C...); write-in choices ("what say?"); discussion and consensus between participants; or rolling dice: either to determine which option is selected or, more commonly, to determine how effective actions are.Quests are structured very much like tabletop roleplaying games: they have a person (OP, QM) running the thread, with participants deciding on what their character should do. It's a little bit different from most tabletop games in that the player character is played by many people at once, instead of each player playing his or her own character. There's a tabletop game called "Everyone is John" that uses this principle. Naturally, quest threads would fit most topically on /tg/.Most QMs use a tripcode, but only for the purposes of running the quest, just like God intended. Only /tg/ has the dice-rolling function, but fast-moving boards (/v/ and /b/) use the last two digits of a post to decide the roll result. Many quests are text-only, but some do have artists drawing for each update. There are other sites (Anonkun, Questionablequesting, etc) that use different discussion software to facilitate quests.Continued...
Forums like Questionablequesting just use your run-of-the-mill forum software a la phpBB maybe with a dice rolling function. Anonkun was developed exclusively to facilitate quest threads, pic related. They have tags, live chat, built-in polling, etc. I can't claim to spend much or any time there, but it seems very extensive.Meanwhile, running quests on 4chan is a little bit of a hassle. There's no way to eliminate ballot-stuffing ("samefagging"), no ability to continue threads (see also: /vg/ thread #1937 about the same topic), and no polling function. Discussion seems to be the only way to go, but that's impossible with large groups (as 4chan is not a chatroom; see any thread with many concurrent participants).Quest threads as defined above would likely include Risk threads: they are competitive, however, and do not tell a story. The only original content these threads produce is maps filled in differently with a paint-bucket tool. I am content to include these in the definition, but perhaps they are worth discussing separately.There are currently quests on /tg/, /u/ ("CYOA"), and, recently, /d/. There have also been quests on /a/, /co/, and /v/. I use the past tense, because quests have been driven off these boards with either a combination of users spamming the threads, or janitors/moderators deleting threads as they are happening, see OP pic.There doesn't seem to be a consistent understanding about where quests go. I've heard it said before that they are OK on /co/, but users don't seem to agree, remembering the purging of Teen Titans quest.TL;DR: Where are quests OK, and where are they not OK? The current situation is confusing.
Additionally, I am NOT including in this discussion what /tg/ calls CYOAs. Pic related is what I mean, I shouldn't have to explain these because they are simple. 1. Image presents options2. You can't choose all of them, but you have to choose some of them according to guidelines3. WAT DO?/tg/ usually has an omnibus thread for these types of images, containing it to one thread. They mind their own business, and I have left it at that.
I don't see a problem with them, generally speaking. Of course, I really only have a perspective on them from /u/.On /u/, the CYOAs we have are, in all honesty, poorly written, worn out, full of newfags, and annoying. However, they are on-topic and a fair amount of people continue to like them, so I have no intention of purging them from the board. I think it's unfortunate that we have several at once that sometimes crowd the front page of a very slow board, but right now I think (I don't pay close attention) only one is very active. They aren't overrunning the board; if they were, well, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I've always loved the diversity of threads on /u/, I've not yet had to decide "X thread must go," and I never want to.The one thing that annoys me the most about these threads is that the quests/CYOAs seem to be run in parallel on Anonkun. The OPs allow people to "vote" on either 4chan or the Anonkun site, and as this thread has already elaborated, Anonkun is a site much better equipped for this sort of format than 4chan. This smacks of cross-site advertising and it bothers me. If all /u/'s CYOAs fucked off to Anonkun tomorrow, I'd be pleasantly surprised, because they really belong there and probably should move there permanently. But as it stands, I'm fine with them, the board is tolerating or enjoying with them, and there's really no reason to change anything.I doubt this will be helpful to anyone else trying to figure out what to do with quests on their respective boards, because /u/ is unique in many ways, but you mentioned it, so yeah.
>TL;DR: Where are quests OK, and where are they not OK?I don't think quest threads should be redirected to one board, just as I don't think all imagedumps, questionnaire threads, or any other type of thread by itself should necessarily be designated to one board. The first and foremost relevant matter should be "does it match the topic of the board" and there I'd add in a little autistic spice in the form of "is it primary or secondary," and then following that "does it break any rules?"Relevancy can be a tricky topic though, especially on /v/. If a guy makes a thread about his custom-made obese blue-skinned Sim character named Sanic and a guy making a thread where he draws Sanic, and both ask "What ye do?" is there a relevant distinction between them when it comes to rule enforcement? If not, should both be allowed to stay, or should both be removed?Ultimately I think the easiest and most effective answer is it comes down to the substance and quality of the thread. If the thread acts like a generic roll thread, as in "6 decides XX" then that's a strike against it. If the posts he goes with are "rape the maids" and he draws scandalous images then that resolves itself.
>>3416To demonstrate that point let's consider an example where we have parties A and B. Party A likes to hold a high-quality mario quest thread every sunday before he heads to work at a soup kitchen, party B holds a bowser ERP thread twice every week and he ban evades like a motherfucker. A blanket no-quest thread effects both A and B, but since B already ban evades we're only really harming party A and forcing people who want A back in /v/ to side with B. The result is an overall unhappy userbase that by all accounts gives an undesirable party a clear advantage. If instead party A is allowed to continue while party B is persecuted strictly for being ERP it keeps these groups divided and minimizes the number of people annoyed at the moderation, which I think should be an important goal of moderating /v/.TL;DR We should divide and conquer. People who make good quest threads appropriately related to the board topic should be left alone, and people who go out of their way to create any type of thread that is not appropriate for the board should have their kebab removed from the premises.
Not sure if it should be a new thread, but this seems to be as relevant a thread as any./qu/est board when?
>>4246Should such a thing be attempted, what would be required for its success?All of the fancy gizmos of Anonkun built into the board like /tg/ has dice?Would it serve a purpose other than ridding /tg/'s first 3 pages of quests?Would it be able to develop on its own, attracting new posters or will it require crossboard advertising on /tg/ constantly?Will the topics from /u/, /jp/, /mlp/, and /tg/ be able to intermingle without infighting?Will it be popular enough, or too much, perhaps splitting /tg/ with either board withering from posters having to choose between two masters?If it can do all these things I'd be for it, but it might just turn out to be a very slow board spiraling into a Personality circlejerk with roleplay.As a separate matter, I do feel polls could be addressed. Something to improve the occurrence of Strawpolls being shot around haphazardly, forced upon posters as though they contain the singular truth of it all.
>>4247Good questions. Here's what I envision:>All of the fancy gizmos of Anonkun built into the board like /tg/ has dice?-Dice-IDs-Forced Anonymous-4chan Archiving>Would it serve a purpose other than ridding /tg/'s first 3 pages of quests?it would help create and encourage a community of people who want to participate in these kinds of threads, with no detriment from other discussion happening alongside. Quests are already tangentially related: if there's a group of users who show up to /tg/ to only participate in quests, then a separate board is worth considering. Running or participating in quests is significantly different from talking about tabletop games.>Would it be able to develop on its own, attracting new posters or will it require crossboard advertising on /tg/ constantly?/tg/ should get a new rule saying that quests and other collective games should go to /quest/. Users will follow the Quest Masters (QMs), and any new quests would be able to draw in more people as users interested in quests would have a place dedicated entirely to the browsing thereof.>Will the topics from /u/, /jp/, /mlp/, and /tg/ be able to intermingle without infighting?/mlp/ would probably be banned as per global 15. As long as no NWS images are posted, I don't see a reason to limit content.cont.
>>4255cont>Will it be popular enough, or too much, perhaps splitting /tg/ with either board withering from posters having to choose between two masters?/tg/ has sped up a lot, and removing quests will bring it down, but /tg/ will be perfectly fine as there's a lot of other content. The biggest argument against a dedicated /quest/ board is "lack of users" but that hasn't really stopped /biz/, /out/, or /asp/ from being things.>If it can do all these things I'd be for it, but it might just turn out to be a very slow board spiraling into a Personality circlejerk with roleplay.Forced Anonymous and IDs will make it difficult to circlejerk over trips/names, and QMs would still be able verify their threads like they usually do: over Twitter (ex: https://twitter.com/AIQuest1 )>As a separate matter, I do feel polls could be addressed. Something to improve the occurrence of Strawpolls being shot around haphazardly, forced upon posters as though they contain the singular truth of it all.IDs should be able to help out with this.
>>4255I would like to note that forced anon would not be entirely ideal for questing; you need a tripcode for the OP (the quest master). They need to be identifiable across multiple threads.The insular nature of quest threads (you have to be aware of all quest threads that came before in order to fully understand the quest, so they tend to get few new viewers after the first few threads) also leads to lots of namefagging (kind of in the same way generals do). I dunno if that's good or bad but it's worth considering when discussing forced archiving.>>4256>The biggest argument against a dedicated /quest/ board is "lack of users" but that hasn't really stopped /biz/, /out/, or /asp/ from being things.This would be my first objection, but you make a good point.Being able to give them IDs etc would be a plus in helping to prevent ballot stuffing. I think it might also aid QMs in determining if their viewers are actually upset about something or if it's just a couple autists samefagging up a storm (Quest Thread General has been known to do this). I do know that there are people who would be upset by being moved to another board on the principle of the thing. /tg/ is muh board and all that. I think they have a bit of a point in so far as it probably drives recruitment of new viewers down. Not sure if giving them a new board will increase visibility of quests or the opposite.Another issue I could potentially see with the board: what about discussion of quests? Even Ruby Quests had accompanying discussion threads. They were annoying then, and their modern form (QTG) is pretty shit. But people will always want a place to be able to talk about their quests, and there's some legitimate functions of such discussion, despite the shitposting.
>>4258Oh, and one more thing - we would need to consider whether or not forum games like Risk threads go with them. They don't have much in common, if you think about it, other than being games people play on an imageboard.
>>4258>you need a tripcode for the OP (the quest master). They need to be identifiable across multiple threads.There was an ID setting briefly used on /b/ around the time IDs were reintroduced there that made IDs within a thread unique, but OP IDs the same between threads. So that's certainly possible.
>>4261I suppose that could workI think they'd prefer being able to actually choose a name, especially in the case that discussion threads are allowed. That said I'm not sure it's relevant, and they already have a number of third party sites they can use to verify identities if they choose to do so (hugbox, twitter, etc).
>>4261Board-wide persistent IDs would probably not be a good idea. It only led to bad things on /q/.Consistent OP IDs might be neat.Pretty much all QMs who run quests for longer than 1 thread have a Twitter account to verify identities anyway.>>4258>what about discussion of quests?>>4262>in the case that discussion threads are allowedOnly as long as it doesn't turn into a namefag circlejerk. QTG is on-and-off about that. Discussions about character writing and how to herd cats while being a QM might be OK. If thread turnover rate is slow, discussions about what's going on in a particular quest could stay in that quest thread after the session has completed.>>4259>whether or not forum games like Risk threads go with themI think including these would be ideal. Not sure how many of them there are and if they would dilute quests, but these threads also don't really have a good place to land. Users seem to enjoy them, though.>>4258>I do know that there are people who would be upset by being moved to another board on the principle of the thing. /tg/ is muh board and all that.On the flip side, there are people who come to /tg/ to participate in quest threads exclusively. A transition period of a week or two where users are encouraged-but-not-forced to move might help quell their rage.
There's also crap like this to http://archive.moe/tg/thread/35174423/Threads were people are are straight playing roleplaying games. I really don't think these should be on /tg/. It's a board for discussion, not playing your games. But I find it very difficult to justify saying these are straight unallowable when quest threads and Risk threads are everywhere.These are relatively rare at the moment, but still.
>>4268This is a rarer occurrence, as far as I've seen, but one that should be stopped. 4chan is not a place for hosting your local meetups. This is different in scope than quests with interactivity of browsers. There are other places this should be held. If a quest/gaming board is created, this issued could be potentially allowed there, but as /tg/ is currently, it isn't right.
Now that /trash/ can take up any really terrible smut quests a /gam/ games board would have an audience. We can already see how hungry games have an audience willing to wade through /trash/ to play. quests, hungry games, civilization threads, make your own character, CYOA could all find use in a new board.It could be outfitted with new bells and whistles too, dice rolling, and a polling option would be great. Forced ID's a necessity.
Well if we're digging up this dead horse to beat it again, I might as well mention that everything I've said before ITT is more or less still valid from where I'm standing, except quests that focus exclusively on sexual content should go to /trash/ so that they can do their thing in peace. Not that sexual content should be banned completely, but the ones that are just perpetually about fucking should be in /trash/.
>>5372>>5373I really would not mind a forum game and RP board. Most of the larger internet forums have these.Not to say that games shouldn't be allowed on /tg/, but it should work in an already defined system rather than being essentially a freeform writing/drawing session.
>>5374I would like to see encouragement for new games and innovation. The more creative the userbase can get, the better. New game styles mean more people having more fun.
>>5375If you can figure out a way to reliably encourage innovation and creativity, I've got a venture capitalist or a consulting firm you can talk to.It should be called /qm/, btw. For "Queer Men."
>>5376>not /qg/ for "quests & games"
>>5376it should be /gm/ for Games & Quests. A GM is a questrunner and not having it have the potential bad stigma a "quests" only board has. If you want innovation then you don't want to pigeonhole the board.>>5377/qg/ isn't pronouncable
>>5378this. gotta keep it simple
Well we'll just have to see how /qst/ will turn out.
>>5383
What's the rationale behind the 72 hour rule?
So why is it that so many quests have just elected to remain on /tg/?Seems silly.
>>5425Because 1) QMs on /tg/ think that /qst/ was made to pander to the anti-questfags (as a containment board) 2) they never asked for /qst/
>>5424>>5426I personally like /qst/ for having shorter quests and one-off quests instead of having giant long-running ones with a War and Peace worth of archived quests.
>>5426But..they're right.Still doesn't mean they shouldn't move.
>>5428The day that's enforced will be remembered as the great purge, probably on-par with the tales of Nazimod.Gonna need two history books for this shit.
>>5429Except, unlike then, there's a great alternative. And at least in my experience, the majority of teeg would probably praise that.
>>5437Not quite sure where you're seeing anybody on /tg/ praise /qst/.
>>5439Meant in the sense that the non-quest faction of /tg/ most likely would be happy to have the quests away. Unlike Nazimod's era there isn't a ready alternative to /tg/ so the questfags could easily migrate there and if they cried foul, it wouldn't really matter because of that inviting alternative. I enjoy the CYOA/Civ threads, but they aren't really """traditional games""" It seems pretty selfish that they wouldn't move to a nice home that was tailor made for them.
>>5440>the non-quest faction of /tg/ most likely would be happy to have the quests awayPutting it that way, the anti-quest faction don't care if quests exist elsewhere or not. They are happy to gloat, even though quests are still on /tg/, that they have finally "won" and liberated /tg/ from the questfags' oppression. They are literally gloating now, saying that /tg/ has become better now that quests have been removed off /tg/, which, of course, is absolutely false. Quests being removed that is, the quality of the board is difficult to obviously quantify.The people who actually participate in quests don't care too much what board they are on, but they never asked for /qst/. The QMs didn't ask for /qst/ either and have almost unanimously made it clear that they will not be moving.And then the vast majority doesn't give a fuck, can't forget these guys too.If you're going to say what is and is not """traditional games""" then this is a conversation that's been had hundreds of times and ultimately it comes down to two things: quest/cyoa/civ threads are /tg/ related because they involve fundamental mechanics that are found in tabletop games. They are also inherently """traditional games""" because **they have been allowed to live on /tg/ for seven years**. Quests have been on /tg/ longer than D&D 4e was a thing, their inherent /tg/-related nature is taken for granted. Quests are /tg/-related because they are on /tg/ and they have never been removed. Not once has a quest or a CYOA or a Civ thread ever been removed off /tg/ for being what it is. You ever hear of a quest thread getting deleted from /tg/ because it was a quest thread? Of course not, because it never happened. Unlike, say, /a/ or /v/, where quests HAVE been deleted for being quests. I don't even need to dig for examples since I gave an example as OP of this thread. Both de jure and de facto quest/cyoa/civ threads are /tg/ related.cont. because text limit
>>5446There is no argument to be had about whether or not those things are /tg/ related. They are. The ONLY way for that to change is for the moderation team to step in and say so. No amount of whining on either side or new boards will change that. Of course, we know from the past that if you whine enough, you can get a new global rule and a new board that removes the thing you hate to see to their own ghetto.Because that's how /qst/ is seen by the people who actually run and play in quests. It's a sparse ghetto with shiny toys for undesirables. Yes, the purge is coming. Everyone feels it. Nobody on the moderation team will admit it, but the day will come when /tg/ will finally have a new rule regarding quests, and it fall to the moderation team and the janitors to conduct the lawful purge of undesirables.But never for a moment think that the userbase won't resent it. There is no way to frame an exile mandate as anything but a removal of undesirables. This fact is not lost on anyone. When you say "please post this somewhere else" you are leaving unsaid "because you are not welcome here." You might as well say "fuck off."If you want users to move to another board willingly, you're going to need to address their idea that they belong where they have been for years. Just throwing up a sticky for a few hours and then creating the board despite overwhelming negative opinion (it was an obviously foregone conclusion before the board went up) is not going to win anyone over, it's just going to cement the idea that a part of the userbase are now branded as undesirables. Nobody wants to be an outcast, yet their place of exile has already been prepared.
>>5424The rate of creation of new threads is so slow that there needs to be a timer so that someone won't go around necrobumping old inactive threads. Most quests don't run for consecutive days, they typically run once a week (except when they don't because someone goes on a huge binge of doing nothing but running their quest).
>>5446>>5447>overwhelming negative opinionFrom who though? The quest people?The sticky has been up for several weeks at this point right? I remember there being a pretty robust cooperative effort for designing the rules of /qst/ as well.>The QMs didn't ask for /qst/ either and have almost unanimously made it clear that they will not be moving.That's just stubborn. It's not as if /qst/ is in anyway worse than /tg/, and in my opinion (just an opinion) it's better, but yeah that doesn't matter.Thanks for sharing all your perspective though.
I haven't been a /tg/ regular in a couple of years now, but I've been following this /qst/ drama a bit.From what I understand, besides disliking /qst/ because they feel like they're being kicked out of their home board, pro-quest faction also doesn't want to use /qst/ because they're afraid it's going to be an isolated board that isn't going to attract a lot of new blood so the quests will eventually all die out due to lack of interest, right?It might help alleviate their fears if they were allowed to have one meta thread up on /tg/ regarding quests, where they could discuss currently running games, organize and discuss plans for new games, and advertise their /qst/ threads?
What if there were an option to have /qst/ threads show up in the /tg/ catalog? Like a checkbox or something.
>>5452that still requires users to go into that advertising thread on /tg/ and read to discover a thread.It's not really any different than a single meta thread on /qst/ where GMs can advertise their quest. It's just those looking for a quest that will go out of their way to see it. They can go on /qst/ if they are interested in seeing what quests there are.I personally think /qst/ needs a broader audience to bring in more people. Games of any kind being officially allowed in. Any game that you can play via 4chan posting, allowed. Encouragement for new styles of gameplay to be experimented with and attempted.
These are the kind of people who asked for /qst/, by the way.
>>5449>>overwhelming negative opinion>From who though? The quest people?Yes.>I remember there being a pretty robust cooperative effort for designing the rules of /qst/ as well./tg/ didn't really have any kind of input on /qst/ rules, especially not once they found out that it was going to happen no matter what they said. The only things that came out of that were letting non-OPs post images (the restriction to OP was outrageous) and the 72-hour bump limit (maybe, might be forgetting).>It might help alleviate their fears if they were allowed to have one meta thread up on /tg/ regarding quests, where they could discuss currently running games, organize and discuss plans for new games, and advertise their /qst/ threads?There's Quest Thread General on /qst/ which is where this kind of meta thread needs to be.Quests are insular by nature. If you play in a quest that doesn't mean you care about any other quest, and, in fact, other quests you might find right stupid. The intent of quest participants in /tg/ has never been "let me see if there are any good quests going on now" and instead has been "let's see what's on /tg/... oh look, an interesting quest thread, let's see what's going on here." /qst/ is kind of like /vg/ in that regard. You don't go to /vg/ to find new threads to post in, you go to /vg/ because you know what you're looking for already.
>>5489As expected, it happened! Commence the tear-drinking: https://twitter.com/cegremo_hq/status/774658216533819393
What to do about role-play threads like Galactic Federation and Mage's Guild? I see they've been being moved from /tg/ to /qst/. Is this the preferred action going forward?
