I'm not saying that using WotC created characters is required, or even recommended, but I think that something that explores the same theories as the Magic world of Dominia is important. Something where there is Mana, different forces (the colors), summoned beasts, etc. I heard a mention of space, and though that would be cool, it seems better in a different place. And WotC has no hang-ups when creating new lands and ages. Why couldn't we? Mercadia and Rishad (what is it exactly?) are different from Rath and the settings of Antiquities, which is different from The Dark. Create your own world, but have the general theories that Magic players have come to accept be part of it. Lightning Bolts CAN be cast down from the sky at will, and mighty artifacts (like Tomes) can bring more power to a mage's hands. Let there be fierce monsters like Orgg's or create your own, but I think that a Mana-based, no stat system (similar to MTG) should be in place rather than AD&D style stuff.
And YEAH DiTERLIZZI! Wahoo! I've only seen the pictures, but I still know what you are talking about. The City of Doors, or such a similar place might be an interesting thought. After all, Magic is based on the stories of Planeswalkers, et al.
I think that somebody or a select few (I nominate Shadow, Cividel, and Elrohir, along with anybody they suggest) to create a final version. But try to find a medium. My plea here is towards the random kid who wanders in here looking for a Magic site, and finds a wonderful world of role-playing. I WANT that to happen. Stats are bad. Magic:TG THEORIES are good. Stories ARE good. Limits are bad. Also, I replied to the Guilds thing. Guilds are good, but still not THAT easy to slip into. Who wants to go through all the trouble if they arnet' even sure they want to participate? Some may love it, but some who might wont even try. SUPPORT THE NEWBIE! I used to role-play, but I am just as new as anybody else!
-Eric
By Elrohir (Elrohir) on Sunday, June 24, 2001 - 09:52 am: I'd like to take the opportunity now to address as many of you as I can about your ideas. I keep seeing a lot of things that exactly describe what the RPM is now or will make the new mill become the RPM anyway. I'm amazed at some of the ideas being presented that, through being already in action, precisely are why the RPM is for all intents and purposes dead, and are why we need to change things.
Starting with Rakso: Statless is good, and the RPM already operates under that structure. Problem is, lots of people like to "fight" with each other and want to know who is really more powerful. Being a better story teller doesn't mean someone will win a battle, but a person with an imposing will is more likely to have their way, even if their writingis weak. Invariably, people will fight here, and they will want to win. Nobody wants to be a loser. As for taking another world, we should keep near Magic-type stories. Even WotC has imbued their game with technology with all their Phyrexian monsters. Amidst all the low-techiness in the RPM now, we have some incredibly advanced technology that only a few know about, and even fewer can actually use. So, it can be implemented.
Shadow: I would think, as interesting as a pan-dimensional diner would be, it's perhaps worse in some ways than having a given setting where everyone had their adventures. After all, if there is an infinite supply of places to go, and everyone went to their own world for their own adventure - interactivity would be completely lost. Yet we're looking for a community. JoeBob on Phyrexia is going to have a hell of a hard time communing with SallyMay in Mercadia and PhreddyPharkas in Rabiah. And so on and so forth. At least on one world, people can get together and do things in a communal fashion. If we get a lot of people to come here (and I mean a hellalot), then there would be more than one person per world and some interaction would take place. And yes, I realize that not everyone's going to go off to their own silly world - it's my worst case scenario, but one that's very likely to happen.
Serra: Basically the same as the answer to Shadow. Sorry Jeff. 
Max: We've tried the "one person starting a story and having other people add to it." Its most recent iteration was called the Red Bastion Storyline, and lasted for more than a year and a half because the person who started it was unable to keep it moving, and those participating didn't have an idea what they needed to do to help meet the maker's goals. Without they key person running the story, it went nowhere for months at a time. A person starting such a story *needs* to be able to devote his time, cutting into sleep (the most important thing in life!) if need be to get around his or her work schedule. The RPM has been dead for this reason for over a year: All the active "player-writers" were tied into this one story that wasn't moving and didn't have much freedom to extricate their characters.
Every once in a while, there has been a major event, and usually I was behind it or otherwise deeply involved in its generation. It takes a lot of work to keep track of everyone (when there are a lot of people) and find ways to divert them from whatever story they're involved in and affect them in some way without using contrived plot devices to drive them together ("In your dreams, DarthBob speaks to you, and you feel an overwhelming urge to go *here*"). I hate storytelling like that, because I like to write (or attempt to write) believable fiction. I will often start a side story that seems unrelated, but work them towards character meetings and imparting useful information (and sometimes dragging the other person's character along) to get them where I need them to be. What I've seen in the whole dream thing can be accomplished with some extra effort, and the passage of a great deal of time. Yet to avoid this hokiness requires a lot more work than people enjoy putting into something, so I'm just weird.
As for rules and guidelines: A list of them is on the RPM homepage (http://www.elrohirs-elaborations.com/rpmhp/guide.html) and it's not anywhere near as long as it was. It was specifically tailored through experience to help us avoid a lot of undesirable things that were better off avoided. As for mapping things out and keeping track of history: A map was constructed so that we could see where things/concepts/places were in relation to each other that otherwise were floating in the void. This falls back on the concept of if we have infinite places to go, how do we keep a large number of people in the same place? We took a lot of the places people had invented (or blatantly stolen) and stuck them relative to each other, so that they could still be far away yet logically would be able to interact. History developed because the places and people had been around and together for such a long time it seemed a shame to lose it all. I put a lot of work reconstructing things I had forgotten years ago that others had done. I just have a personal interest in the current Role Playing Mill probably above anybody else, due to the amount of time I've invested over the years.
Now I'm seeing I have a billion other people to respond to, so I'll just steal bits here and there and run with them.
Guilds/clans. My God, how history repeats itself. When Innate Mak announced the intention to create a "War Mill," instantly (or so it seemed - within a week at any rate) the concept of guilds jumped into Beyond Dominia. Here we are again, announcing a "War Mill" and here again come the guilds. One of the things I hated about guilds was people's need to fight with each other for the most petty reasons. Two guilds since the beginning went out of their way to avoid conflict: Oor-Tael and Kaat'n. This is not to say they weren't involved in their share of conflict, but they survived years after guilds had been beaten down and destroyed as an idea. Even then, these two guilds were maintained by two people, myself for Oor-Tael, and Kaat'n by Shadow, existing more as remnants of story than fulfilling the purpose of having real people with a common purpose (since we had no one to be members!) If guilds could work towards more constructive things than destructive, I wouldn't object to them so much. Human nature tends to conflict.
ETP mentions standalone stories. For all intents and purposes, the RPM has been bidirectional for the past two years. My own stories in that time were pretty much written for my own amusement and had no intention of involving others. Other stories such as the Black Monolith War and the Red Bastion Storyline had interaction (really only two people for the BMW, and as many as twenty overall for the RBS). People need to remain interested in moving things forward. Without that nothing gets accomplished. I have no problem excluding people from my stories, but I admit it gets quite boring a lot of the time.
As for people impinging on other's stories: I don't know about other people, but when I start to interweave my stories into those of other people, I go out of my way to secure permission to screw with what their doing, and find out as much of their plans so that I can accomplish what *I* want, and yet still let them do what they can with respect to my intrusion. I've even gone so far as to submit rough drafts to the person whose character I'm using so they can approve or disapprove what I'm attempting, and allow them to have their imput before I post something, because once I post something, I consider it "official." Again, that's a lot more work than others are willing to put out, but it avoids stepping on toes. Shadow on the other hand will often have a general idea of what he wants to do with a character and just throw them randomly around for chaotic effects. I'm used to it, so I can just as easily actually role play and learn his motives or allow him to drag me around, as long as I can lead back to what I was doing. The randomness adds an element of spontaniety, and I know my stories have tended more often of late to be way to predictable, hackneyed and just...blah. I'm not pleased with my current writing, though I have a lot of things going on in my life that also demand my attention. Ah well.
Spin13: I somewhat take offense at the statement that "Phaema had nothing to do with the game I play (magic)." We use the concept of planes and planeswalkers, and mana. Phyrexia has and still does play a vital role in some stories. Hell, the world was spawned by the Atog Wars (though Atogs are now extinct except for one named Strak). Kobolds rampantly populate areas, and come from Hammerheim in Northshir. Oor-Tael was a guild in the first Magic novel, Arena. We maintain the distinctions between the five colors of mana, and have a variety of landscapes devoted to them. Those are the cyrstallizing structures around which the world was constructed, and thus has quite a few concepts taken from the game. It's the hidden interface, but perhaps it was a bit too hidden, which is why I want to make it more of a focus somehow, without everyone degenerating into bickering planeswalkers each with the power to blow up everything as has been done too often in the past.
Ironically, it's Maxx who wants some small connection to the game but not to have it be overwhelmingly noxious. We have that vagueness, but as I said, it's too vague. People coming to a Magic site will want to find something relating to the game. Those of us who no longer play actively (or much) yet persist in coming are in the minority. I'm sure even Shadow, who runs the site, does not play as often or with the enthusiasm as he did when he first came here, if at all.
Anyhoo, the rest of the people I didn't respond to had ideas similar to others or were just repeating their assent to ideas already addressed by this reply. My intent was to address what I believe didn't work in the old mill, or to at least illustrate that a lot of these ideas have been tried (or are in action) already. The one thing I'm sensing is that maintaining history is bad because of developing a backstory no one save the fiendish (re: me) will have an interest in. I cannot imagine writing a conglomeration of stories that don't build on the past, because I'm a stickler for continuity. I don't like when people tell me "What you just did...didn't happen!" Well, for 5 years, the War Mill and Role Playing Mills DID happen for me, and their history and a quarter of my life are as one. I doubt people would willingly give up that much of themselves. And now I'm rambling, so I'll end it.
By spin13 on Sunday, June 24, 2001 - 03:25 pm: I apologize if I offended. I will admit that I only went through the Phaema website once, but I guess what I am trying to say was summed up in the paragraph directly related to me. You want SOME connection. I suppose I just did not read the website well enough (I actually didn't read much at all) to discover that is revolved around theories similar to the material planes of Dominia. I was wrong in my judgement there, but I still stand firm that there must be some tie to bring in the newer and uninitiated Magic player to the world of Role-playing. I happened to go the other way around, but it is not the case for everybody. I just hope those who create this world will remember that.
-Eric
By Burn, the Keeper of the Flame (Fereno) on Sunday, June 24, 2001 - 09:24 pm: ok, i had a big long reply posted and AOL kicked me off.....dammit
but i realized something and am just gonna say this:
on a warcraft3 fan site i go to they have a fan fiction forum, and anything goes. no stories are related except for the fact that they deal with a blizzard game. they have everything from poems to epics on there. and interaction is common, but it doesnt have to happen if you dont want it to. and its very popular. also, all stories have one and only 1 thread. plus theres a page (recently created, like days ago) that showcases some of the better stories. theres 2 sections and 3 subsections. the 2 sections are currently grand archives which is newer stuff nad fn fiction which is older stuff.(i beleive) but eac one has asection for poems shorts, and epics.
im not saying we have to do anything like this, but consider it food for thought.
By Shadow (Shadow) on Sunday, June 24, 2001 - 11:42 pm: There are one or two things discussed here I may address in new threads, because I think they warrant or will likely lead to slightly more extended discussion.
Standalone stories: I think what ETP was suggesting was a writer's workshop. I love the idea of online writer's workshops; I think Elfwood has had some success as a facility of that sort. I don't think that the new RP-Mill should be exclusively a writer's workshop. However, as it will likely be populated by several people who enjoy writing, we could make a note that in addition to the rping people may post stories or bits of writing for perusal/comments/suggestions/etc. There shouldn't be any problems as long as the writer notes that they are writing a non-interactive thing. Non-interactive writing could use elements from the rp-world(s) but would not impact on their history, etc. Hmmm, that might be kind of awkward. They'd be like the Star Trek novels, side stories of a sort. Maybe. Could always leave it open as an option and see if it takes. No harm done as long as it doesn't interfere with anything else.
The rest of this is mostly response to Elro.
Perhaps my phrasing was a little misleading. Though this meeting area could be a gateway to many dimensions, I was thinking of it simply in terms of a meeting area. I meant "extradimensional" as in outside of the normal world. That is, a place that everybody (or more viably, every guild) can reach easily. I think it would be helpful as a launching pad for stories, sort of like the ever-present "Adventurer's Tavern" in D&D adventures where people come to find stuff to do, except this one's easily accessible to most of the people on the mill, though they may be living on different parts of the world (or worlds if we wanted to go that route).
I understand the problems with single-person-led stories, but what's the alternative? Also, I'm not sure that a little chaos and war and guild competition wouldn't be a bad thing, but there are ways we can keep guilds in line: laws. One thing we never established in the War Mill or RPM were In Character laws. These might eliminate the need for a lot of OOC participation rules. If there are laws that are readily enforced (probably going to start a new thread about this idea) then the guilds could be kept from unleashing total chaos on eachother.
By Dark Lance on Monday, June 25, 2001 - 02:07 am: Well, what if the stories and RP happened all over Dominia, many years after the Phyrexian War since we know nothing of that period. Then people can write almost any story they want within the bounds of Magic. If you really want to go off in other directions, you can have your stories take place on a different plane in the multiverse. This would also allow newcomers to have an idea of what is going on and what can happen, since they know the cards and the general setting but can still tweak some things.
Any comments?
By ETP on Monday, June 25, 2001 - 03:45 am: Here's an idea to throw into the think-tank:
Someone begins a post outlining a possible scenario, including the goal, threats, and some plot twists etc. (for instance a tiny version of this summary could look like this: there is an abandoned mine south of which had caved in killing all the workers, spirits of the dead miners have begun haunting the area. People are asked to help out to find the reason for the spirits. The cave has been enhabitted by a necromancer and has been built into an underground fortress. You invade, meeting the necromancer in an attempt to save the souls of the miners"
Posts in reply will be from people who would like to contribute characters.. they write a description, along with powers, and personality traits that are important. ie "Gan is a stocky warrior (5'7" 200lbs) who wears leather armor and carries a short sword. He is a skilled brawler and prone to dirty infighting. He is inexperienced dealing with the supernatural, but is unafraid. Has a tendency to charge first ask questions later"
Then once a few characters are set the man who began the post writes the story based on all the information. He developes a story in which the necromancers controlled spirits are able to cripple the young warrior through mystic methods which he is inequipped to handle, yet the warrior tricks the necromancer into coming close enough for a cheap dagger attack, breaking his concentration enough for a bare and unsatisfying win, having killed the man before he finds any way to put the spirits to rest. etc...
This is just an example.. and a pretty bad one at that, but is an alternate format which some people could try. Its similar to being a DM in ad&d except you control even the characters actions, as you see them, based on the descriptions given.
Each persons character will have gone through many adventures by various writers, adn you could always make your own stories with the characters, or include them in your own 'DM'ing sessions. This way they can gain a history and people will get a greater chance to interact with and learn about other peoples characters.
Well, tell me what you think of that hair-brained scheme.
By Elrohir (Elrohir) on Monday, June 25, 2001 - 10:09 am: I don't know, but I for one would kill any man (or woman) who tried to use my characters as their own without my express permission. I'm very protective of what I consider my "intellectual property," so I would not go in for people telling the tale of my characters for me.
Of course, if I understand right, it's more of a "Whose Line Is It Anyway" sktech where you poll the audience for ideas, and then have one person take those ideas and write something. Even better, let everybody take those ideas and write their own version, and see what each person does differently with the same vague information.
Shadow: I think I get what you were talking about. I'm still wary about having multiple worlds, but having one world with an "extra-planar" (fits the setting a bit better than extra dimensional) meeting place does sound intriguing. But then, I'd say we've already done that, in not quite the same form, when the chat was bustling, because that's where all the WM/RPM regulars *always* hungout and exchanged ideas, and knew each other better. Here I think we're referring to an IC meeting place where adventurers go for a little downtime.
By Shadow (Shadow) on Monday, June 25, 2001 - 11:26 am: ETP, Intersting idea. I'm tempted to say I don't like that, but that's just because of what I'm used to and enjoy doing personally. Very original though, others might find it more appealing.