Our Founders Guide is our best advice from other RPG Founders. These questions and answers where part of an open discussion on our message board.

If you have a problem or question you would like discussed just post a message on our message board and hear from other founders. The answers to that question will be added to this page.

How can you improve your club? (26 answers)
How do you get more members? (13 answers)
How do you encourage members to be active? (9 answers)
How do you handle the inevitable conflicts that arise among the members? (4 answers)
How do you prevent your club from getting hacked? (the only answer)

How can you improve your club? back to top

1. A defined storyline since currently we only have a load of minor punch ups ~ Lord_bates
2. By encouraging cooperation among the members. In every club there are those of varying talents. Encourage sharing ideas, planning story lines and working together to promote growth for everyone. ~ElfwynGunnarsdottir
3. Be available ~Nomad Scry
4. Make a web site ~Nomad Scry
5. Develop storylines ~Nomad Scry
6. Invent interesting NPCs for everyone to use and make it damn clear that they are for everyone to use. ~Nomad Scry
7. Have events ~Nomad Scry
8. Define at least parts of the realm/world your club is set within. ~Nomad Scry
   
9. Praise well worded posts, imaginative posts, frequent chatters, hell praise everything...... But don't forget to be gently critical at times as well, otherwise the power of praise becomes diminished ~Nomad Scry
   
10. Customize your club photo to include your clubs name. ~Nomad Scry
11. Make "mottoes" for the club. ~Nomad Scry
    
12. Meet and greet all newbies via email and Yahoo! messenger. ~Nomad Scry
13. Be excited about your club, it is contagious. ~Nomad Scry
    Keep up with Club Masterz newest tricks. It makes your club stand out from the mediocrity that most clubs display only too well. ~Nomad Scry
    
14. Change the colors for the season or theme going on in the club...(does not apply if you have a background ) ~Damsel
    
15. Change the founders message often, include story lines and/or members names...they like that ~Damsel
    
16. Change your club picture…use members character photos too ~Damsel
17. Change the sub-title of your club if you have a special event going on ~Damsel
    
18. Start a newsletter ~Damsel
    
19. Encourage members to create websites, then create a webring for your club ~Damsel
    
20. Join your main club's website to as many web rings as you can….more members will come ~Damsel
    
21. Create a Club Council….these are members who are most active in your club and know the ins and outs, they can help with newbies, or specific areas in the club. Members can go to them for help if you have a large club, so the founders are not over loaded. ~Damsel
22. Create a voting booth and give out awards for story lines and/or members ~Damsel
    
23. Have an OOC Club just for those posts, which keeps your RPG club cleaner and easier to read ~Damsel
    
24. Use the NEWS section of your club, the bookmarks are a great place for extra room for more links ~Damsel
    
25. Post your member's birthdays in the club calendar and REMEMBER to wish them a Happy birthday in your OOC club of course ~Damsel
    
26. I am of the opinion that one of the best improvements to a Yahoo club game is a well run web site that accompanies it. I have witnessed this in other games and have started on my own I hope to have it up by the beginning of the year. It gives the prospective players more of the tapestry of your world for them to imagine with and help you create the visuals of your story together. ~ nug_0410

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How do you get more members? back to top

1. Usually they are people who I meet online/in RL ~Lord_bates
2. We advertise in Tronicia Times! hehe. Actually, my club does not aspire to large numbers, rather to quality and dedication in writing. So, we look in other clubs for authors who might have an interest in a more intimate setting. ~ Elf
3. Go into Yahoo!s generic RPG chat and make new friends. Be friendly, take your time. If you run into the twice, then introduce them to your club. Ask them what they think of it.
   ~Nomad Scry
4. Be available on Y!M as much as you can possibly be. (available in this case means visible.) ~Nomad Scry
5. Email and IM all visitors and new members. Make sure they come back and keep coming back. ~Nomad Scry
6. Advertise. Offer something other clubs don't (Free coffee and donuts will get me in anyone's club :). ~ paul8069
7. Remain active . ~ paul8069
8. Invite invite invite! Use the Advanced Search for the topic of your club (example: dragonlance) invite all the results (or as many as you want) to your club. ~Damsel
9. Use yahoo messenger to create your own chat room in the RPG area, name the chat room the name of your club. Put your URL of the club as your welcome message. Have some of your members join you and start Rping. Others will come in, when they enter they will be greeted by the welcome message with your url directing them to your club. As long as someone is in that chat, it will stay open with the name of your club…even after you leave. ~Damsel
10. Join other founders clubs, enter your club in the featured club of the week, people will see it when it is featured and hopefully join. ~Damsel
11. Read what other founders do to find members, check out ALL the founders clubs, even if you dont join. ~Damsel
12. Put your club on challenge boards on different websites. ~a_alphaman
13. I used to only accept players for my face to face stuff by word of mouth from the players I respected. I have found this to be a mistake. Once I started giving everyone a chance my games improved quite a bit and I enjoyed them far more. I was too closed minded before and my stories suffered. I think that the DDK has done a lot in this endeavor, creating common ground for people to come together and have fun. The webring I think is a great idea too. The more "flags" that can be put out on the internet for random searches and what not to find us the better. ~ nug_0410

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How do you encourage members to be active? back to top

1. The best thing I can say to this is lead by example. Unless you're club has grown to the point that people forget there ever was a founder. For the most part though, you as the founder need to remain active and members will follow (most the time). No one wants to be in a club where even the founder seems to have lost interest. ~ paul8069
2. Get the game moving. Their interest will get them active (hopefully). ~a_alphaman
3. Role-players come to the story with the desire to role-play. The reason for this could be almost anything . . escape, whatever. The desire is there regardless. All you have to do is let them see the bare spot on the stage with the spotlight on it that you made just for them and watch them leap for it. I do this by making sure that my story has a main protagonist level element that they are the big cheese. As long as they know that they are just as important to the story as everyone else, they keep bringing it on. This has worked in my face to face stuff and although my play by post is new, it's starting to work there too. I've almost got everyone established and having a good time. ~ nug_0410
4. Encourage their storylines ~ Lord_bates
5. Respect their characters/posts, its the easiest way to get someone to leave ~ Lord_bates
6. Interact with them as much as possible. ~ Lord_bates
7. Those that become inactive I tend to politely message a few times then give up on. ~ Lord_bates
8. Allow them to help, and share ideas, then use their ideas! Members feel good about themselves when their ideas are used for the whole club, they stay active and soon others want to help. ~Damsel
9. Talk to them on IMs, not just about the club, but about life. Making friends with your members is better than having a club full of people you don't know. ~Damsel

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How do you handle the inevitable conflicts that arise among the members? back to top

1. Have the council deal with the members and go take a bubble bath :) sometimes it is better to remove yourself from the middle. An outside perceptive is sometimes the best answer ~Damsel
2. Peacefully mediate and remind members that the club is full of different people with different opinions and that everyone should be treated with respect. Again, lead by example and don't become one of the first to start flaming just because someone believes differently than you. ~ paul8069
3. Once there is a conflict, stop, come out of character and confront the conflict for what it really is. Usually it some petty reaction and should be pointed out that way so we all can be reminded that it's all just a game and we are here to have fun and unique experiences. If somebody says something that offends you, take the chance to really think about it and delve in to the why of it. Any monkey can just react and fly off the handle. However, there is a line to be drawn. Sometimes people just take things too far and are truly out of line. Out of character attacks of someone have no place here in my opinion. If people want to flame each other then they should respect the others of the group and do it somewhere else. If after pointing this out in plain English, with a clear policy of a three strike rule or something like that, they still persist, show them the door. It would be unfortunate, but mutual respect is vital in my opinion. ~ nug_0410
4. My club has 3 founders, we will discuss the argument then reach a make a decision. When they join all members accept the rules on the website, one of these is our word is final. Normally they can accept the judgement since we try to be as reasonable as possible ~ Lord_bates

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How do you prevent your club from getting hacked? back to top

1. Most people think their club gets hacked, but in fact its the founders Yahoo ID which gets hacked. it is not as hard as you think! All a hacker needs to know is where someone lives and their birthday! The only way to prevent this is to out smart them. Create another Yahoo account, use your clubs name or another spelling of your current ID, when signing up DO NOT use any of your real information! When it asks for your birthday, use your grandmothers for example, or your fathers, or your best friends, your pets birthday, or someone's anniversary, pick a random zip code from anywhere, but do not use yours or any town you ever lived in. Choose a password question then answer it with an answer that has NOTHING to do with the question. Example: "What is your pets name, answer: Have a nice day." Choose a password with letters and numbers, never use the same password for any other account. Make sure you keep a phone book or notepad with all the answers you used for the Ids, you'll need it, if you ever need to email Yahoo! (A phone book works best) If you have several clubs (like I do) do not use the same founders name for all the clubs, if someone does get into your account, they can delete all your clubs! If you have a different founder name for all the clubs, then they will only be able to get into a few clubs. So now you all know why I have so many Damsel Ids. Knock on wood I have never been hacked! ~Damsel

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