From the /tg/ Archives

So, I'm well aware that 4chan has a bad reputation and even though I think of it as a wonderful creative resource, I still wince a bit when I have to explain to friends and other net-folk that I do some of my best work on /tg/. What I urge people to really understand is that 4chan is so much more than just /b/. There are other boards and other communities where wonderful, entertaining, fascinating things are happening all the time. Look at their /diy/ board and see what I mean.

With that said, though, my most creative and best times are spent on /tg/ - traditional games. Luckily, some of my best threads were archived and saved, and in a few cases they've been turned into lengthy pages on 1d4chan.

I've already introduced and glossed over a couple of my projects in the past few postings, but if you want to see where they started and how they were discussed or even just to see the current state they may be in, here is a giant pile of links of archived threads from /tg/ for you to check out.

The Endless Wilds

I had some trouble digging up the threads for this one because they were all under different titles and tags. With this project things went straight into collecting ideas into one large document. Most of the discussion took place within a Google document with several of the threads slipped under the radar. Some never made it into the archive, as far as I know.

The Wiki Page - A compiled list of important details, observations, places, organizations, and creatures within the world of The Endless Wilds

First - Started with a simple premise. Take a fantasy world, and plop modern conveniences in. Wat do?
Second - Still no title at this point. More discussion and a little bit of arguing.
Third - Somewhere between the second and third threads, we had decided on a title, and people were already establishing cities and iconic monsters and shit. This is about the point that things started getting out of hand..

I believe there were other threads at some point, but things had gotten out of hand. Focus and interest was waning and there were more ideas being thrown in and added than we could keep track of, even as a group.

Everyone was doing their own thing with the idea and it made for a rather huge clusterfuck. There are things on the 1d4chan page that I don't remember ever discussing. Not that it's a bad thing, but to have a unified, coherent idea, such things can't keep happening. It leads to clashing continuity and conflicting ideas. I learned some important shit about project management  while toying with this idea.

InfiniCon

As I explained before, I had a few ideas for InfiniCon, including the name, long before I ever made a thread about it. What these several threads pushed me to do was think about many of the different areas and subjects I hadn't addressed when I originally created the concept.

Currently, InfiniCon has some surprising popularity, having taken on a life of its own. At one point, it was revived without me, and at one point, while I was out in Boston for PAX east, there were apparently several threads started by people who wanted to talk more about the idea. At the moment, the long running Mahou Shounen Quest on /tg/ has started a storyline that takes place at InfiniCon and that's pretty awesome. Also, the popular TG MetaQuest has expressed interest in using the setting as well.

The Wiki Page - The compiled lore and fluff of the setting.
First - The initial spit-balling for the idea.
Second - Actually started by someone else who was so eager to continue working on it, that they just made another thread since the first one was about to 404.
Third - Couple months later and I am surprised to find that the idea has been revived.
Fourth - Hosted on an alternate archive because suptg doesn't want to display the images for this one.
Fifth - Just more discussion.
Sixth - The most recent thread. Discussion sort of slowed to a halt at this point. Too many days in a row trying to develop the same idea seems to do that.

Card Mage

More of a mechanic than a system or setting, the whole Card Mage thing slapped me in the face while on a long train-ride home. Built off an Aspect system I had previously come up with for an Avatar system that was never finished, it became one of my more complete ideas in a long time.

Second - Unfortunately, the first thread 404'd without being archived.. This thread more or less picked up after I had already refined and figured out most of the idea.
The Quest Thread - After figuring out the mechanics and typing up a few walls of text, I lept into things and ran the first Card Mage Quest. It went fairly well, despite its slow pace. Unfortunately, that slow pace killed the second thread before it could ever start. I have some material for another thread, but I don't know if I'm up to running another quest thread for a couple days straight.

Together as One

As far as projects on /tg/ go, this one was done the most independently. Unlike other things I've worked on, this idea was initially pitched by someone else and I just sort of ran with it. It was one of those things where someone threw out an idea, in this case a tabletop beyblade rpg, and my mind just started overflowing.

The Thread - Not started by me, but much of the mechanic brainstorming and shit was. Like I said, I just sort of ran with it.
The Wiki Page - Something I started cobbling together. I haven't touched this page in a while, but I did do some decent work on the system as a whole. It's a lot more refined than what it is on that page. Perhaps my next big post will be about this system, since it's the closest thing to finished that I've got.