[Kaled]

Might I suggest that those people who plan to contribute to this article (or articles) get together and discuss a common approach rather than all working in isolation - the idea is to write a cohesive article so it might be worth passing drafts back and forwards between you so everyone gets sight of what the others are doing. It might also help to keep the momentum going if you can see each other's progress.

[MarcoSkoll]

Well, to do that, we'll need a contributors list, and some idea of who's the project lead.

~~~~~

I was actually wondering about the article/articles issue. Would we release:

- one article per character
This could work, but has the obvious flaw that it's harder to talk about developing characters concurrently.

- one article per player
Perhaps the best option, as it means a player can organise stuff in the right order for them, although the article might get a bit long.

- one article per player per stage
i.e. Inspiration/Writing/Modelling/Painting, in whichever order the player prefers, although hopefully at least some of the inspiration first and the modelling before the painting.
Although, this might still put things out of order, as different stages on characters aren't necessarily done simultaneously.

- one article per stage
This is probably bad. As everyone works in different orders, then some people are just going to be horribly out of order - for example, my Character first approach wouldn't make much sense if it were released in a Model first order.

- Or one massive mega article with everyone in one.
This could run to most of the length of the original DM issues, particularly if players elected to include scenario writing and battle reports from the IGT in their write-up. Whether that's a bad thing is up to you.

~~~~~

Anyway, at the moment, I'm just keeping notes and pictures of everything I'm doing for the IGT - be it main characters, scenario writing, NPCs or props.

So depending on what we actually want written, I should be able to contribute to anything to some extent.

[Stormgrad]

personally one article per player with our culmative thoughts on the igt possibly and maybe someone else as an outsider commenting on our results with what you feel we have achieved with the models and our success's at the IGT

[Kaled]

Well, to do that, we'll need a contributors list, and some idea of who's the project lead

Sounds to me like you're volunteering!

[Heroka Vendile]

and maybe someone else as an outsider commenting on our results with what you feel we have achieved with the models and our success's at the IGT

That's more the sort of thing I could see working if there was a veteran/mentor bing in four new people to the game for the first time - this our context though it doesn't really work as well.

I would think that, seeing as nothing will go online until after the GT anyway, it'd be as well to either be one big article, or an article per player, rather than breaking it up any smaller - which would make it harder to keep track of/find that specific article you're after if you've got 12 pdfs to look through instead of just 1 or just 4. It would have worked well the break it up in some way with old DM, but not with the new article-by-article release style.

[MarcoSkoll]

Sounds to me like you're volunteering!

Worryingly, I think I might be. But whether people would be happy with me as the project lead - that I don't know.

in this context though it doesn't really work as well.

I think I agree.

As for the most part we are taking fairly experienced players, a review of successes could come across as either sycophantic or condescending, depending on the reviewer's agreement/disagreement with the player.
Also, as this is an article where the whole point is to show different approaches to developing characters and models rather than a mythical "the way to do it", every approach is correct and a critique would be counter productive to the article.

But, in the case that a less experienced player wants to get involved but would rather they had some help with their characters, modelling or scenario writing, they are welcome to talk to me about it.

[Holiad]

Myself, I'd struggle to categorise things by 'stage', since my own characters are rarely created in such a linear fashion-there tends to be feedback, espescially between modelling and writing. I'd prefer a format introducing each character in turn, with perhaps a small summary of the overall warband that results.

[Heroka Vendile]

Spliting each participants article into headings such as Concept, Creation and Finished Product would allow people to talk about how their idea of the character(s) evolved through the process - whether they started with an intricately worked out backstory from the start or just a vague idea and some parts in mind for the model.
I would in fact suggest people go take a quick look back over Robeys "I'm Not a Monster" series in the DM issues to see what I mean with how he changed his mind and made alterations as he went.

[Stormgrad]

ok so maybe reviewing success on if the player has achieved what he wanted should be down to the player but i do think a uniformed structure to each players article if were going one player one article would tie the whole thing in as one big peice

[Kaled]

As for the most part we are taking fairly experienced players, a review of successes could come across as either sycophantic or condescending, depending on the reviewer's agreement/disagreement with the player.

Why not review each other's success? Each article could have boxes where you comment on things that you think are interesting or successful etc in the approach that someone else has taken - and if you are at the IGT and encounter one of the other players you can comment on how their warband was to play against.

[MarcoSkoll]

Why not review each other's success?

I was wondering about that, actually. I think there's a certain amount to be said for little comments on interesting or successful parts of a player's work, but it should definitely avoid feeling like a critique or "I would have done it this way" - the final interpretation of the player's success should be left to them alone, if only because not everyone would be happy to have their work critiqued so publicly.

But I do think a uniform structure to each player's article if we're going one player one article would tie the whole thing in as one big piece

That suffers from the same reasons I talk about a "one article per stage" approach being tricky.
People's techniques for creating character and model vary so wildly (model first or character first, each character/model in turn or all simultaneously) that I can't see a way to have a uniform structure.

[Stormgrad]

Well im going to start model first as i have an idea for the models and that's helped to give me an idea in regards to who else would be in the warband and there personalities

[Heroka Vendile]

That's why I suggested the "Concept, Creation and Finished Product" breakdown for the articles, if you think about it building an interesting model will be some peoples concept stage, then their creation stage would be writing the background and then in finished product they'd present the character profile.
Whereas someone else would work the opposite way round, knowing what skills and tools they want the character to have, then writing a background to support that and finishing will building an model inspired by the background they've written.