there's the Tabletop RPGs section. that Play By Post isn't a part of.

I have already made my position known, and it hasn't really changed since then. I agree with mjack in that some of those game threads in other forums should be moved; he's already done a pretty good job of outlining why certain ones are/aren't games or otherwise should/shouldn't be moved.

Aye, agreed. Games in the games forum, for all the reasons that were discussed last time this thread was going, and if new games have sprouted up outside the games forum then they might need to be moved depending on the type of game and where it's at.


I fully welcome a Magic Puzzles, Fun, & Games forum or subforum once there are enough Magic games and activity to warrant one, I just havent seen the need for one yet.

they haven't "sprouted up", most of the links I provided were there last time we were discussing this. I even pointed a lot of them out, so there's no way the mods didn't know they exist, and they chose to leave them where they were. which means that the mods disagree with you that games strictly go in the games forum. which means that that's not a valid argument as to why 3cm should stay either.

Considering that absolutely nothing happened the last time this conversation was going, in either direction, I find it much more likely that its just a matter of inaction rather than disagreeing.

In fact mods and admin herself backed moving things like The Card Chain Game out of Magic General it just never happened. When I have a chance I'll look through the list posted earlier and flag the ones that should be moved / could be moved so we can make sure that it's on the radar.

oh, by the way, since others have tried to use forum descriptions as an argument:

the description for Magic General is as follows: "A general "catch all" forum for Magic: the Gathering discussion. Any topic not specifically designated in the other forums of this section goes here." (emphasis mine.) 3cm is clearly a Magic-related topic. we can all agree on that, right? and here's the description of every other forum in that section:

• Welcome to deck building central! Come here to discuss decks for feedback. (clearly doesn't apply, we're not discussing decks for feedback.)
• Designated for discussions of Draft and Sealed Limited Formats (obviously not this, 3cm is not a limited format.)
• Post here to discuss and participate in Magic card-making projects, contests, and games, and to share your home-made cards, mechanics, sets or blocks. (doesn't involve cardmaking or home-made cards.)
• From art and flavor text to comics to novels, the many worlds of the Magic: the Gathering multiverse are an expansive and exciting place. If you want to discuss the art, setting, stories, or flavor of Magic, this is the place for you. (not related to art, flavor, or stories.)
• The Magic: Expanded Multiverse is a highly organized, structured ongoing fan-run project, creating an unofficial, unlicensed Expanded Universe for Magic: The Gathering. (not an M:EM project.)
• Discussion space for all Duels of the Planeswalkers installments (not a DotP-related topic either.)

so 3cm, a thread full of Magic: The Gathering discussion, is not specifically designated as a topic in any other forum in that section. so the forum descriptions themselves seem to agree that 3cm belongs in General.

Aye, but is it a Magic related topic, or a Magic related forum game

setting aside that the game itself isn't actually played on the forum, it's both. but considering the volume of posts there that are discussion of formats, cards, and strategies, it's clearly a discussion topic, and it's clearly Magic-related, which means it meets the criteria for Magic General.

by the way, I acknowledge that forum-description arguments are terrible. it's an idiotic thing to base a principle on when they can just be changed to better reflect their actual purposes. but since you guys kept doing it I figured I'd demonstrate how even your bad arguments prove you wrong.

The discussion of formats, cards, strategies relating to a posting game very much belong along side that posting game in the posting game section. Much like the Out of Character chat for an RPG played via a posting game would accompany it in the posting games area. Or the strategies, movements, and army formats of the Coalition WarGame while not actually a game themselves belong there, etc.

Regarding forum descriptions, the only time I've talked about them is to say that they should be updated if they're doing a poor job of making it clear what goes where. Some of the PBP ones were especially vague due to the fact that initially there wasn't Magic games down there but now those descriptions have been updated. If you've got a better description for the play-by-post area to help draw the attention of Magic games being down there you should consider throwing the idea out there in forum feature requests or sending it to staff directly.

Aside from the games you mentioned HERE were there any more Magic games that should be flagged for review to see if they need to be moved?

none of your examples are discussions about Magic. 3cm is a magic format. it's one with an odd set of rules and deck-building constraints, but so's EDH and we don't force EDH out of the magic area. so discussion of 3cm is discussion of magic, and thus belongs in the forums for discussion of Magic. CWG is potentially about magic and could probably be justified in AF&S, but if they'd like to remain in posting games I don't see a problem with that either.

then that point wasn't for you. you're not the only one here.

no, because none of those need to be moved. holy ****, how is discussing this moving things in the even worse direction?

I'm just going to leave a thesis here and then not bother arguing anymore because apparently arguing leads to people taking progressively less intelligent stances:

a forum does well when it has high activity. open-entry serialized activities encourage repeated interaction, and are thus good for overall forum health. therefore, it is logical that maintaining and supporting open-entry serialized activities should be a high priority. it is demonstrably true that people who come to these forums looking for Magic will not look in Posting Games (Rush_Clasic is a prime example.) because Posting Games is not under the big header that says "MAGIC: THE GATHERING". this means that Magic games in Posting Games will suffer, because the people who would be most interested in them are the ones least likely to find them. this means that we are smothering open-entry serialized activities by putting them in Posting Games. moving them to somewhere where they will be seen by newcomers who would be interested in them is not only good for 3cm's health, it's good for the forum's health, because it gives us another tool by which to hook newcomers. furthermore, the claim JaC likes to repeat that 3cm's placement has nothing to do with its dying out, as 3cm-like games always start strong, then peter out as the thread progresses, is provably false thanks to the abysmal participation in the launch of Rush's 4cm Modern.

furthermore, setting up a relay thread from General to Posting is not a sufficient solution. first, the relay thread will have significantly less activity and will thus be much less noticeable. second, since the only stand against 3cm in general is a principled one ("games belong in Games") letting 3cm have a thread there anyway renders that principle hollow. if we can have a thread in General, why can't we play in that thread? it's pedantry at the expense of function.

Correct, they were not examples about Magic, they were examples of other games that have discussion, strategy, format, and other non-game components or threads but still belong in Posting Games because those threads are there to facilitate the posting game thread. I dont see what about Magic games would make them an exception.

Now if it was a discussion about "What are the best 3 card magic decks you can think of?" or "Would you ban this card from 3CM to make it fair" etc ...bam, totally a discussion topic and fits right at home in Magic General. Depending on the topic they might even fit into some of the deckbuilding areas. But if its actually a game where the decks are submitted, games are played, rules of the round are posted as well as who won the last round etc...thats a Posting Game.

It being a direct response to my post and being vague language basically makes it come across as 'you guys' = 'everyone who disagrees with me'. *shrug*

My stance is exactly the same as when the discussion started : Forum games in the forum games area, discussions in the topic discussions area.

Newcomers who were looking to join RPG posting games have showed up and been able to locate the giant area on the main page labeled Posting Games and not been wondering around RPG General. New players who've joined to hop in games like Mafia have joined up and been able to gather that if they wanted to play a game that the Posting Games area would be the place to go for it. What about Magic would make someone who wants to play Magic via a posting game not check the posting games area to see if there are any magic games? Or to start their own games in the posting games area?

Agreed, a shadow topic or a second thread that continuously gets posted in up in Magic General that basically does the exact same thing as what the game thread itself would do is a poor solution. The best route would be a nice easy to read FAQ at the top of Magic General that explained to new people what the various parts of the forum are, especially the Magic parts. Not only would that send traffic to the posting games for Magic but it would also break the ice on some of the 'harder to draw new people to' areas of the Magic boards like ME:M.

A second option would be a smooth and simple sticky saying "Hey, wanna play Magic posting games? Check theses out" and then it could link to not only the posting games area but a quick ping to a mod and the first post of the thread could be keep a nice up to date Table of Contents of on-going games and contests.

I haven't read the whole thread, but I'm of the opinion that the players of the game should decide where they would like to play the game. This whole "integration for the sake of integration" thing is bad, IMO, because you're forcing people down avenues that they don't want to go down. If you want to grow your board, you have to make sure people are happy coming here. As far as integration, the only thing you can do is provide awareness of all the things your board offers to its users and hope they branch out.

Shoehorning people into places they'd rather not go "for the sake of integration" doesn't make people integrate it just makes them leave.

@hakeem,

So if they wanted to play 3cm over in DOTP, would you still be fine with it? Because I personally would consider that to be blatantly off topic and out of place in the DOTP subforum. There's a reason this isn't just one big forum page without any subforums.......

Did I explicitly have to say "within reason"? I thought we could be intelligent enough to know that playing a Magic game in the D&D area wasn't the type of thing I was advocating for. Razor has laid out a reasoned argument based on precedence for why 3cm should be in general, he's not just saying "because I want it to be".

Sigh.

I think the most important criteria for thread placement is putting them somewhere that people who would be interested in them go. For example, most people in the PbP section are roleplayers who wouldn't be interested in 3cm, whereas most people in magic general are magic players, who would. Maybe it technically fits in the PbP category, but what's the point of all the categorization if it can't help people find threads they're interested in?

Completely agree, my stance on having posting games in the posting game area has nothing to do with wanting MtG players to meet RPGers and OTRers or any of that sort of stuff. The way that a board should have its members exploring other areas and meeting other posters is through things like announcements, contests, events, and similar cross-forum activities. UNCON would be a perfect example of this; having contests or events that would draw people into areas they normally wouldn't go and have a global announcement linking to all the various activities.

Right, and people who are interested in playing Posting Games should be able to notice the super huge Posting Games area right on the front page. Once again, if MTG had the traffic and number of games to warrant a 'Magic Puzzles Fun & Games' or whatever area within the Magic boards I'm fully for petitioning to have that set up.

Most of the people in PBP aren't roleplayers actually, theres only a few names I can think of that exclusively post on RPG related forums and don't go to the Magic ones. Most of the threads in PBP are RPG related, but you'll find that most of the members posting spend more time in the Magic Boards than the RPG boards. Thats sorta just schemantics besides the point though.

The large number of RPG threads though has to deal with the fact that when the forum launched a bunch of RPGers were chomping at the bit to get posting games going. ((most of them had just had games ruined over on WotC due to the new boards)) So several games sprung up off the bat and it's helped drive people in those games to go on to hosting their own and such. Whereas aside from the Card Chain Game it was much much longer before any Magic posting games started spring up. In fact obvious games like 'What Card Am I Thinking Of?' weren't started until around June...almost 9 months after the site was started.

But none of that still answers the question:
RPGers who want to play games via a posting game format can find their way to the large Posting Games forums area.
'Other Games' players who want to play things via posting game format like Mafia, Werewolf, Resistance etc can find their wa to the large Posting Games area.
What about Magic the Gathering would make it where if someone thinks "I'd like to play Magic Posting Games, that they wouldnt check the Posting Games area?

Can someone without knowledge of MtG itself participate in and enjoy a game of 3cm?

Can someone without knowledge of d20 Modern join a d20 Modern game?

Can someone without knowledge of Mafia join an advanced Bastardized Mafia game?

Can someone without knowledge of the Resistance board game join a Resistance posting game?

- - - - - - - -

Contrary to what you were shooting for though, yes players actually could. Or at least I would hope that the people playing 3CM would be accepting and helping to new players in the same way that GMs and other players are accepting and help mentor players who are new to RPGs, or Mafia, or any other game.

But would they have to teach them Magic before teaching them 3cm? These are genuine queries, I honestly didn't read the whole thread.

A player who are barebones brand new to Magic would not want to jump into a more advanced game with custom rules like 3cm. In exactly the same way that a player brand new to D&D wouldnt jump into a game starting at lvl 10 and using a slew of homebrew rules, or that a player brand new to mafia wouldnt jump into an advanced game or advanced 'bastard game' full of complex roles and changes to the default rules of the game.

Making a '3cm for Newbies' would also be just as easy as making a 'Starter Set D&D campaign for newbies' or a 'Mini Mafia game for newbies'



I dont honestly see how needing basic knowledge of the game to play in it would require the posting game to be in the general forum for that particular game. I can think of a handful of RPG players who are jumping into RPG posting games even though they have zero experience with the system, yet they dont need that campaign to be hosted in RPG General. Likewise, as mentioned above, those who are experienced in RPGs have been able to assume that if they wanted to play via a posting game that the PBP area is the place to find them.

Players both new and veteran to other game and rulesets have been able to find and join the games they've wanted, why would MtG be different?