Drupal, Social Networking, and Gaming: Is This Possible?

Events happening in the community are now at Drupal community events on www.drupal.org.
phasmaphobic's picture

I just posted this as well at the Drupal forums, but I figured you folks could give some good input too.

My buddy and I have started a project to launch a social networking site for tabletop roleplayers, and we're looking at Drupal to serve as the framework. I'm brand new to the software, but I'm familiar with Wikis, phpBB, and Wordpress, and I'm a fast learner of new ideas. He works with Drupal for a living, but entirely with themes and not so much the modules and such. Our goal is to provide a free service to gamers, allowing them to put all of their game information online, and give their gaming group a website to meet and discuss things without having to host their own gaming sites.

What I'm looking to create is a free community with five main units of focus: The User, the Character, the Campaign, the Gaming Group, and the discussion forums, all of which are fully interlocked. Users create characters and gaming groups, users join gaming groups, gaming groups create campaigns, characters are attached to campaigns, campaigns attached to users, and so on.

The User "screen" would allow users to access and change their profiles, create character profiles and update character journals, and read the latest feeds from their campaigns and groups.

The Character would consist of a main info page, maybe a picture or two, links to attached campaigns and gaming groups, links to the user, and a feed of journal entries written by the user (with that character's pic as the userpic for the feed entry).

The Gaming group would have a main details page, a list of members, a feed of related updates and character posts, a link to attached campaigns, and a private discussion forum for that gaming group.

The Campaign would have an info page, a feed of attached character journals, and a main feed of moderator-submitted information (rules changes, events, game reports, etc).

I'm imagining the forums would bring everything together, allow people to meet other people in their area of the world, and get together, roll some dice, take some names, and have some fun.

Some of the ideas at the Drupalrpg.org site look like they could be of great use in some future projects for the site (online combat mapping, dice rolling modules, etc), but for now, I want to focus on the above stuff.

Again, I'm new to the software, and not entirely fluid in the lingo and concepts. I get the impression that Drupal could most likely accomplish these ideas, but am at a loss at the moment for the best way to go about it. Thus, I turn to you. Any advice and guidance in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. I'm even more so hoping to meet one or more folks who would be interested in joining this endeavor, and helping put this site together.

Thanks!

Comments

I'm a tabletop roleplayer too

jcfiala's picture

Hi, I'm a tabletop roleplayer too, and I've been learning Drupal. I might be able to helpout with your plans here.

-john

-john

Hey John, thanks for the

phasmaphobic's picture

Hey John, thanks for the reply! I'm looking for folks who would be able to help with the ideas, or even admin/mod the place post-establishment. Send me an email: phasmaphobic at gmail, and we'll talk more.

Thanks!
- Nathanael

I'd be interested in this

morbus iff's picture

I'd be interested in this project - could use it over at my gamegrene.com.

Thanks for the reply! I've

phasmaphobic's picture

Thanks for the reply! I've commissioned some page headers and custom buttons from an artistic fellow in the local game/design scene, and one of my partners in this project is working on a new theme. I'm primarily interested in getting ideas and feedback on the concepts, and meeting some folks who know the software and are interested in getting the modules together.

Heck, I'm also looking for some admins. I doubt I'll be able to admin the site 24-7 =)

Let me know what you think. I could use some creative and technical input, and we've got a test server running while we get the layout hammered out.

  • Nathanael

Definitely possible

fool2's picture

This sounds like it's begging for drupal.

Everything would be a node; You might benefit from some Organic Groups functionality for campaigns and other things that can be interacted with by multiple users.

It's going to be interesting extending the user into character nodes and having the permissions cascade.

Games

Group organizers

Group notifications

This group offers an RSS feed. Or subscribe to these personalized, sitewide feeds: