I'm arguing that it does belong in general, more than it does in PbP, based on the actual content of those forums?

I thought half the argument was that it needs more people, and nobody who plays looks in that section. It's really annoying going to that forum for only one thread. Literally one thread.

Right. That's why it should stay in PbP. Else it would be annoying for me and Lord LunaEquie

Alright, kidding aside people, I mentioned we would come back to this later and I'd prefer if you guys would not attack each others points either anymore. The odds are pretty slim that you'll bring up an argument we haven't heard yet
Please wait warmly until we are ready to make the final call.

A)

* waves to Razor *

Long time, no see.

B)

Scarlet, please let me know what an appropriate description is for the play-by-post forum(s) and I'll update. It's as simple as that. That goes for any other mod, as well - if the description of any of your forums is wrong, tell me. It's one of the easiest things to fix around here - I might even be able to do it without being caffeinated... Maybe.

C)

Play nice. I'm not going to address that at any specific person yet; but if you think I'm talking to you (because you think maybe you haven't been playing nice) then just go ahead and assume I was indeed talking to you. Discussion is good, and there is no need at all to attempt to belittle somebody who holds an opinion opposite of yours.

D)

Related to C: this question/problem has no right or wrong answers. Please stop arguing as though it did. Share your opinions, of course; explain why you think Magic is different from other posting game, absolutely. But arguing - as opposed to discussion - isn't gonna get crap done.

E)

About an hour ago, I got home from spending 3 1/2 days at a Con consuming way too much beer and getting way too little sleep. So for now, I'm going to stay out of the actual discussion and instead just listen. I'll chime in with my thoughts tomorrow, after re-reading. In the meantime, don't make me abuse use my mod powers because somebody was being a meanie jerkface to somebody else. In the immortal words of Rodney King: Can't we all just get along?

(Seriously, though. Keep discussing. Please. Just stop edging toward the meanie jerkface line.)

who are you? I thought you were BH but I've been talking to BH before so now I don't know. ty?

anyway whoever you are, hi!

I'm neither of those people.

edit via preview: Dear, gods! That smirk smiley is downright awful!

well then I take back my hi

Don't be a meanie jerkface.

he or she started it

The logic behind both arguments seems pretty clear.

First of all, indisputably, 3CM is a posting game. Thus it belongs in the posting games section. YMTC breaks this rule, so there is some precedent, but it whether you agree that an exception should be made for 3CM or not, that's a fact. Putting games from different gaming disciplines in the posting games section theoretically encourages people to spread out into other areas of the forum. There are also plenty of past magic players who have no real interest in keeping up with the game but who might come here primarily for posting games and want to get into the 3CM action.

However, historically 3CM has been in magic general. Magic players expect a magic game to be somewhere in the magic area, but specifically this one. Not only might some users not go looking for it elsewhere, but no users coming to the posting games can reasonably compete in 3CM without encyclopedic knowledge of magic cards, making the stated purpose of putting it there in posting games (to get the communities to intermingle) somewhat moot. You aren't likely to see 3CM and get into magic for the first time. Heck, it might not even be possible, and even if you were so intrigued you had to check out magic, you'd find that most of the discussion in the ymtc, draft, dotp, and constructed sections completely inaccessible, making the conversation even more moot.

Whatever decision we come to, I think razor's point is very valid, that any extra effort you have to make to keep track of something means some nonzero number of people will simply choose not to make that effort, no matter how small. So the question we have to ask is not "how hard is it to keep track of/find something in another forum" but really "is there any valid reason for having 3CM in the posting games section besides the fact that it is technically a posting game?" And if not, after weighing all the cons, is that really worth it?

That's because it's supposed to be expressing something along the lines of "Riiiiiight, suuuuure", not "Heh heh heh" and whoever created the text shortcut for it misnamed it. For the smiley you want, use...Wait, I thought we had a smiley for "Heh heh heh". We don't?

Quick! To the smiley software!

(In the meantime, use . That works.)

I'm in favor of bringing down the hammer and moving the ymtc posting games as well.
Although I acknowledge that I'm in a substantial minority, and that such an action would likely be detrimental.

If you think it would likely be detrimental then why are you advocating it as a course of action?

As a man once told me: Figure it out yourself.

My preference is to keep games down in the play-by-post section. I do recognize that sometimes there are exceptions.

So, I think what we can do is create a "shadow" topic in Magic General that will point down to the actual thread in the play-by-post game. Every so often, we can "refresh" the shadow so it stays on the first or second page. Over time, though, I would like to see that shadow simply drop and stay down where it is. Ideally, there's a FAQ or guide or whatever in the Magic forum that points down to 3cm and suggest that anybody who was interested could start any other game down there.

As for the game in YMtC, I need more information. I'd like to hear from folks who regularly peruse and make use of the YMtC forum, including the mods of the area, to learn about the game a bit. Is there a strong reason to leave the game there? Is there going to be WW3 if we move it (and leave behind a shadow topic)? And so on. Basically, I'd like to get information and then discuss that information.

That's where my thinking on both matters is at the moment. But let's keep discussing it - civilly - and see what we end up with that works best for both the site and the majority of members who have an interest.

I understand the philosophical desire to keep things in their "proper" place, but what's the practical value of putting 3cm in posting if you're going to dump a thread about it in general too? cluttering both forums seems like the worst possible option.

1) games, plural. there's five right now.

2) basically, they're a series of threads where one person designs a card, then the next person designs a card to follow that based on some criteria layed out in the OP. (for instance, in the CMC game, you make a card that costs 1 more in the same color, or once it gets high enough you roll over to the next color. Let's Have Some YMtC Fun, on the other hand, has you make a card whose name contains a word from the previous card's name.) each one plays exactly like a game thread, but with card design.

3) the reason those games are in YMtC is two-fold. first, they've always been in YMtC. some of them have histories on that forum longer than I do. they're an important part of the community. and two, they're of no interest to people outside the community. while many of the general forum posting games are just social interactions, the YMtC games require specific knowledge of and interest in Magic and its design. I think moving them would be damaging to the YMtC community for no gain, since no one who doesn't YMtC wants to play them.



PS: actually, if you count A Contest Like No Other, there are six. and really that's probably the best example here, since it plays almost exactly like 3cm, with delineated rounds and competition, but it's clearly a YMtC thing so YMtC gets it.

Even calling those threads 'games' is a stretch of the word game. They're card design threads, just with some pre-agreed method for setting one anothers' card design criteria in series.

They absolutely don't belong anywhere else.


While we're talking about things that blur the line between what may or may not be construed as a 'forum game' ... the draft threads in the limited forum - which now basically is the majority of activity in the limited forum - is really very little different from most posting games. One person posts a list of cards, people reply with a one-line naming the card they'd pick, some methodology for establishing what constitutes a consensus pick is made, and the next list is posted. From most outside perspectives, this is the same basic format as most forum posting games. But just as card-design 'games' are really only of interest to card design forum users, community-draft 'games' are really only of interest to people interested in magic drafting.

You can't even come up with your own snark, I see.

Thanks for the info.



Well, like I said. That's just my preference. I'm willing to bend - as painful as it is for me at this old age - when it makes sense.

The shadow topic would serve as an "interlude" of sorts, and get people used to looking for the game. The interlude will be "temporary but indefinite" in that once it makes sense, we can stop but it can go on for any amount of time as necessary. The generation of a good FAQ for the forum would be one condition where I'd say the interlude would expire, but probably not the only one.

As for why: the goal, from day one, is growth. Early conversations around forum design had all sorts of forums that we don't see at the moment - and also didn't include some of the ones you do see (like the Spoiler Room). We decide to pare back to what would be "bare bones" and expand as demand warranted. (Even with that, we actually contracted the RPG section once.) In my perfect dream world, there would be enough Magic-themed play-by-post games to warrant the (re-) creation of Magic Puzzles and Games - whether it had that name or something new. If I can temporarily have one thread show in two places and use that to potentially drive growth, I'm in favor of the temporary clutter in exchange for the long term gain.

And, maybe we add the shadow and over the long term it really does come out that the same 10 people (+/- a few) play the game, and nothing new comes of it. And that's OK too. That says there is no market for magic-themed forum games here. And in that case, I'd say roll 3cm into Magic General.

if there's absolutely, positively no market for a Magic Puzzles and Games type of sub-forum, I'm not at all interested in forcing it into existance. That doesn't serve the community - either community, actually, since it would be detrimental (at least a little bit) to both Magic and PbP. But right now, all any of us can really do is speculate as to whether such interest would develop or not. So the shadow topic method seems to be a decent (not great) way to try and nudge into that direction, and is simple enough to discontinue at the drop of a hat.



Good to know!



Also good to know!

Given this information, I'd be inclined to leave them in YMtC, to be honest. While they certainly have game elements to them, they have more design elements involved. (As a creative type, I'd classify it more as a "guided brainstorm" than a game, really. I've participated in many similar threads, with a writing bent, with fellow freelance writers.)

This, to me, looks like exactly one of those gray areas where the right answer is to leave the game thread where it is. First, it's a better fit just by the nature of the forum. Second, the game really is just a means of guiding design and development of new cards - the purpose of the forum.



Can you give me a bit more info about this specific game?

that's reasonable. I honestly doubt you'll see much interest there, cockatrice and various drafting platforms are too easy to use now for people to want long-form play-by-post methods that can take weeks or months to finish. you might get some interest just in organizing tournaments, though. maybe we should try some of that. like the old Gatherer-Terrible tournament, that was fun. I'll think about that.

if one were to try to run a magic tournament, where would it go? the constructed forum (or limited if it's limited) makes the most sense to me, but that wouldn't really work toward a cohesive MPFG ideal so I don't know what your thoughts are.

I don't think anyone (except apparently Mown?) was seriously advocating moving them. I brought them up as an example of how sometimes things that look like posting games actually belong somewhere else.

basically, the host posts a criteria, people submit, everyone votes, person with the most votes gets to be the new host. replace criteria with format, votes with calculates results, and be the new host with "whatever the winner of a round of 3cm gets" and you've basically got 3cm. I haven't participated much myself, so beyond that it's probably best to just link you to the thread.