Out of the Rafters (Exclusive Feature)

Out of the Rafters is one of Night Hawks exclusive features and hopefully one of the most enteraining ones!

This feature requires audience participation, don’t all rush forward at once now!   C’mon,   we don’t bite….unless you’re into that sort of stuff.

Here is how it works:   (And as usual we’re only interested in dark-themed fantasy/horror/supernatural Role-Playing Games.)

Members and Administrators alike can participate!

Dig into the archives of your favorite forums and find an In-Game thread that you think is the epitome of what Role-Playing is all about!

The thread must be an archived and complete scene with at least 2 pages worth of replies.

We want to see what kind of awesome threads people have been involved with in the past.   Get us something exciting, thrilling, action-packed, maybe even romantic or heroic.

This is NOT a contest!   There will not be a “winner”  or ranking of the submitted links.   Night Hawk will merely post a link to the threads we deem most enjoyable for everyone to read and enjoy.   It’s also a great way to get your RPG advertised by showcasing some of the best material from your archived collection.

If you can scrounge up a good enough thread please send it to:  Septic0verdrive(a)gmail.com

The submissions will be open until we recieve enough links to fill the spot.   So start cleaning out the cob webs, dusting off those old tomes and shed some light on the forgotten tales of your world….

Who Ya Gonna Call?

Are you Afraid of Ghost?

Old school for the win here! Let’s face it, when most people want to create a canon RPG we end up with another Harry Potter, Charmed or more recently Twilight board. We don’t need any more of these boards clogging up the net! But somebody finally had the bright idea to create a more original RPG based on an old-school phenomenon; Ghost Busters!

And some people may have the impression that Night Hawk is just about horrifying dark themed boards with pseudo scary monsters and R-rated content. And yeah, it’s true we do dig that kind of stuff but we have a taste for other things as well especially classy old-school movies!

And when ~L~, the admin of a Ghostbusters’ RPG contacted us and asked if we would do an article on the site I personally couldn’t think of a reason not to! Not only do I love the Ghostbusters but this is an amazingly clever idea. In fact, I bet many of you as kids pretended you were a Ghostbuster fighting invisible people in your bedroom with Nerf guns…right?

A Ghostbuster’s RPG should sell itself. The line “Who ya gonna call?” is one of the most famous quotes of all time! I bet most of you could recognize it over such lines as “In space no one hears you scream” or “If this doesn’t scare you, you’re already dead!” which are also ranked as top memorable tag lines of all time. (And for those wondering, the first is from “Alien” and the second is from “Phantasm”)

And who hasn’t seen the movies? Classics. The Ghostbuster movies are the reason people say “they don’t make’em like they use to.” because its true! You don’t see movies as half as good as those these days. So when somebody creates an RPG based on a classic old-school movie I say “Rock on!”. (I’m still waiting on a Night of the Comet RPG myself)

It’s nice to see that someone wants to create a canon RPG that is not based on Twilight, Buffy, Harry Potter or whatever else is the current trend. I am not even a fan of movie-based RPGs but even I would suggest people check out this one.

But I hear you naysayers going “Ghostbusters is so 1980s!” Yeah? What’s your point? These guys still rock in the 21sth century and thanks to some brilliant minds they are coming back to the here and now! So grab your proton packs, throw on your gray suit and get ready to blow some protoplasmic ass to the next dimension!

The Story

It’s 2008 and the guys are settled down into their retirement, living a life of ease(cause we know they made a killing saving the city from certain destruction as many times as they did). But what do you know, there’s a psychokinetic disturbance at the local museum in downtown New York. So the guys suit up for one more battle against the supernatural. But this time it’s not as easy…

They encounter the demonic being, Loki, who hurls them into a parallel dimension! Suddenly the guys find themselves reverted back to their old young selves, when they were in the prime of fighting ghost! Now they prepare to find their way back home and put an end to this madness!

And one year later during a freak snowstorm in New York City, four guys in gray suits walk out of a blast of white light…

And they wasted no time setting up shop once again in the firehouse. Now they are putting out a call for new applicants to join them.

Are you afraid of Ghost?

What ~L~ had to Say

Night Hawk asked the Administrator, ~L~ what her views on the Ghostbusters and the RPG were. She told us that she had loved Ghostbusters ever since she was a kid and had always wanted to be one. She also said that after looking around she noticed there were no Ghostbuster sites! What a shame…

She felt it was up to her to change this and spent a couple months working on a plot for the RPG board. Honestly, I think she did a very nice job with that, the whole sending the guys to the alternate dimension where they reverted back to their old selves really allows for an authentic recreation of the original Ghostbusters. Who would want to play Ghostbusters if they had to walk on canes and take laxatives just to get their bowels moving? Instead of proton packs they’d have to carry oxygen and get iron injections just to keep from passing out while attempting to run from the scary ghost! No one wants to play geriatric Ghostbusters.

But ~L~ and the guys aren’t just reenacting the movies or telling the same ol’ story. They said they are open for anything and willing to explore new ideas. They don’t mind if you are a newbie or a pro with mad skills. These guys are just having a good time and they are opening their doors for anyone to join the Ghostbusting party!

There will be plenty of fun to go around too! I hear they will have Class 3 and above ghost with an endless supply of minions, compliments of Loki, god of Mischief. So you may want to keep your proton packs handy at all times! I can’t even imagine what sort of freaky things will happen in this game when there are a ton of players running around….madness!

Your humble admin will be playing the part of Egon Spengler. She tells me that he is an admirable character that she’s always looked up to; he’s smart, self-confident and doesn’t worry about the jokes at his expense. That does sound like a person to admire and I think ~L~ as Egon will lead the guys on a fantastic adventure through the Ghostbusters universe.

Oh, I almost forgot! I asked ~L~ a very serious question about the Ghostbusters. I asked her, if she was Ray from the original Ghostbuster movie, what she would have thought of instead of the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man.

~L~’s answer?

Mighty Mouse. OR The Michellin Man.

…Seriously, I think the Michellin Man would have scared the crap out of me!

And Remember everybody, don’t cross the streams!

Additional Information

~L~ also admins a House M.D. RPG with a darker theme. And can be found hanging out on RPG Directory too.

Who Ya Gonna Call?

Let There Be Life

Someone Said "Let There Be Life..."

Before we could take Night Hawk public our team had decided that we needed an ideal board as a premier feature.  I took on the duty of searching for that site and it was not easy.  I thought there were a lot of great boards out there to choose from and I’d be able to find the ideal site in no time.   Well,  a couple hours later after weeding through some sub-standard sites, some dead/offline sites and some inactive ones I was about to give up.   Then I happened across an advertisement that caught my attention.
The precise portion of that ad which lured me in stated this:  L.T.B.L. Was born out of a need for a change, to breathe a bit of originality into that tired old script of one supernatural species versus the other…

That was brilliant!  Just the fresh dose of realism we at Night Hawk were craving.   And so I immediately checked out the site and what I found was surprising.   A lot of us have gotten excited when we see an advertisement or synopsis of a board that sounds great but then we check the board and it looks uninspired.  But this was not the case with Let There Be Life.

This site truly embraces a dark atmosphere from the first glimpse at the shadowy dark skin and the simple yet amazingly eye-catching banner that tells you without hesitation where you are.   I was thinking as I looked through the site, “Here’s a place that’s taking a tried-and-true formula and giving it a true to life  visceral vision.”  Sites like this seem to be rare but they do exist and Life is a prime example of what happens when someone takes a stab into the vein of realism, dropping the romantic approach to what should be a horrifying nightmare.

I got the impression that this was a very literate site for mature writers who want to play a more life-like role in a supernatural environment.  I would go as far as saying it is an R-rated RPG designed for older players and concerns very detailed rules and plots. But I wasn’t content at just looking at the site and writing this article.  What I needed to do for our Night Hawk audience is get deeper into the mind behind this creation.

So I contacted the site owner, Lexxibeth.  I explained to her that this site was the ideal type of RPG that we here at Night Hawk are interested in featuring for our premier.   Our audience needs to know that there are still some people out there with original ideas who are not falling back on the same ol’, same ol’.

To get the real answers and not just my own take on the site I asked Lexxibeth some very important questions concerning the site.   And the answers I got in return were more concise than anything I could relate to you in my own words.

WHAT IS THE IDEA BEHIND “LIFE”?

LEXXIBETH:
It would be most accurate to say that “Life” is a story of stories.. It sort of mirrors my own ideology of the world. Stories within stories and stories that beget other stories. There are countless plots and tales that all interweave. The Photographer who meets his real life Muse. The orphaned son wanting to do his parents proud. A scooter shop owner that doesn’t know he’s looking for Mrs. Right. Sibling betrayals. Break-ups, make ups and fake-ups.

There’s all the old power struggles in there, “my side versus your side and mind you don’t step on that flesh-bag”, but when has that ever been the full story?

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO CREATE “LIFE”?

LEXXIBETH:
For LTBL, I think the main driving force was a love for mythologies. Character creation {biographies in particular} whilst it’s a labor of love at times it is probably my favorite part of the process. With LIFE there were whole clans and factions to get into the history of and I got to indulge in something I had always longed for but had never seen. {See: Wornswords, the resident Pagan Shifter/Earth Sentinel clan.}

WHAT WILL THIS SITE OFFER THAT OTHER SIMILAR SITES DO NOT?

LEXXIBETH:
The main problem, as I’ve always seen it, is that the blood suckers are the bad guys, the hairy ones are the guardians and the airy fairies and humans play the ones in the middle or just playing oblivious. We’ve tried to get rid of those fences with LTBL so everyone’s pretty much just running amok and needn’t ever even glance at the “Site Wide”. You can be the Seer that abuses his mind control. You can be the Shifter that doesn’t shift or the Siren that can’t draw blood without a knife. Be beautiful, defective, arrogant, insane, there’s a story you can be playing. Your own story.. whilst now and then stumbling into somebody else’s.

THIS SITE IS OBVIOUSLY OF A MATURE NATURE AND HAS ELEMENTS OF HORROR, CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME EXACTLY WHAT THAT MEANS?

LEXXIBETH:
It means that you ought not to walk along the beach front on your own — any time of the day — and our Hunters won’t always let you die right away. Shifting shape, whether you’re Shifter or Siren, isn’t a beautiful metamorphosis with an easy result. LTBL has sharp, rusty corners that hurt.

We love the school of thought that says everyone has the capacity to take a life. Hell, it’s our mission to prove it.

WHAT KINDS OF THINGS AND PLOTS HAVE YOUR PLAYERS ALREADY DONE?

LEXXIBETH:
We’re practically newborns, in forum terms. We opened last October but we’ve got all sorts going on and loads more waiting in the wings. When we’re talking Canon plots, there’s a murder ‘mystery’ going on right now that involves almost all of the major factions along with a bunch of rogues. There’s a Siren contaminating the blood banks and sitting back to watch the chaos. A bunch of “for the love of science!” Hunters running riot. Our resident Big Evil is one Mr. Lynch who hasn’t killed anyone, that we know of, but has designs on ripping down most of Bournemouth. Clubs are opening, debts are racking up, humans are being ensnared.

Our players themselves run from the lethargic drug dealer on the run from love and finding out that moving things with her mind isn’t so unique. To the slightly less tame dj with cannibalistic tendencies.

IF “LET THERE BE LIFE” HAD A SOUNDTRACK WHAT WOULD BE THE INTRO SONG?

LEXXIBETH:
Remy Zero’s “Gramarye” was always first choice. It has that haunted feel that builds to a powerful crescendo. It’s beautiful, magical, but even if you can’t quite make out the words you still get that feeling that it’s not about anything pleasant.

((I took a listen to this song and it is pretty much as Lexibeth describes it, everyone should look it up and give it a listen)

When I asked Lexxibeth to give me some blurbs about the site she gave me one that had me smiling and somewhat disturbed,  both are good things!

GIVE ME A BLURB FOR “LET THERE BE LIFE”?

“Let There Be Life is like a box of chocolates.. with mutilated fingers and bits of jigsaw puzzles.”

And so there you have it people.   I don’t think I could possibly say anything else about this site other than it looks like it’s going to be a wild and disturbing ride!

So go visit Lexxibeth in Bournemouth, and leave all your prior notions about the supernatural on the sidewalk.

Recent News: Night Hawk takes flight!

Hi everyone!   The Night Hawk Team really appreciates you all stopping by to take a look around the site.   We do this for you guys!  Each one of us has ran our own boards in the past and we know the fun and pain it brings.  We are hoping this site will be entertaining and informative for all.

We are just launching the site and making it public so there may still be some problems.  One issue I am currently having is the banner.  It was perfect but I changed the site skin and it deleted the banner :–(   and the original “perfect” banner is on my other PC which is currently unaccessible.   So for the moment try not and let the awkward banner distract you!

Also we will be adding much more to the site over the next week.   After that we hope to keep a steady update a few times a week or more.

To find published articles easier, make use of the Tags and/or Categories on the right-hand sidebar.   All published articles will be associated with a specific category and tagged for it to be easy to find.

The Bitter Truth Behind RPG Sites

THE BITTER TRUTH BEHIND RPGS AND ADMINISTRATING

There is a bitter truth behind running a RPG site that a lot of people do not realize especially if it is their first time administrating.  In simple words,  it’s not easy;  it will be hard grueling work from day one and onward.   So be prepared to devote at least a couple hours a day just to keep the site running smoothly and efficiently.  What I hope to define in this article is not a concise blueprint on what a board needs and requires but simply a kernel of universal wisdom in a nutshell. From conception to the final days,  these are the things any administrator should know.

First of all you have to come up with an enthralling story,  something that is both highly defined but loose enough for creative liberties to be taken by the players.   The concept behind the board should be something that allows for role-playing.   Some people have come up with great stories and themes but the ideas are very limited when actually trying to get a cast of people to join and interact with the world.  Typically the formula of having opposing groups each fighting for some cause always offers players a varied choice plus giving the potential for in-game conflict.   Opposing groups could be anything from two warring nations,  two social/political groups,  rival sports teams,  territorial street gangs and so on.    Offering players a variety of races to play and giving each race a unique culture also helps make the characters diverse to liven up the setting.

But the difficulty and hard work behind running a RPG site doesn’t just end or begin with coming up with an exciting story or amazing world.   In today’s on-line RPG culture standards have been set.   There are certain things that people associate with high quality role-play communities.   One of these quality insurance checks  is the site’s design, it’s color scheme and overall layout.   The colors have to be appropriate while at the same time being easily viewable.    Boards that have strange color schemes that make it hard for viewers to read the text will immediately exit the site, never returning ever again.  No one wants to strain their eyes trying to read the rules.   But colors also have to make sense.   If you’re running a board that takes place in a metropolitan city,  using rural themed graphics and color schemes just won’t cut it.   Role-players even on a text-based RPG enjoy eye-catching visuals.   It is  my belief that the first thing people see when they visit your site is the banner or other visual elements.   So if you can’t grab their attention with the graphics  they probably will not stick around long enough to enjoy the rest.   Many  RPG-related resource sites offer help for graphical designing of boards and websites,  so even if you are not the artistic type you can always look there for help.

Now even after you have thought up the most incredible storyline,  designed the most awesome graphics,  chosen a breathtaking color scheme and laid all the forums out, included the rules and all other supplemental information you might think you are done, all the hard work is over,  right?

Dead wrong!

The real hard work has literally just begun.   Unless you have a group of friends standing by to jump onto the board and start posting you basically only have a board with you as a member.   You probably didn’t create this board to role-play with yourself so you have to lure others to it.   And thus we come to the dreaded process of advertising.   Advertising to a lot of people means making up an advertising post then surfing from board to board posting in each board’s advertising forum, a highly repetitive and boring process.   And some think that doing this for a few days after the board has been complete is all that is required.   Again,  WRONG!   It is a helluva lot harder than that.   Advertising is a constant process from day one to the end of times.  The moment you stop advertising you may as well consider the site dead.   Did you think it was that easy and being an administrator of a RPG site was all fun and games?

There are two primary advertising methods among the RPG communities.   One is the typical posting of an advertisement in other boards’  advertising forum.   The other is the Affiliates method in which a handful of sites associate with one another usually within the same genre.   Affiliates can yield better results in my opinion,  the reason being is each site has only a dozen or so Affiliates on average and  the less choices presented to a person the higher the chances they will click on your Affiliate button.   People also tend to hold Affiliate sites in high regard compared to sites just randomly slathered all over every board in current existence.   So one of your best options is to quickly acquire some Affiliates.   For people who steadily watch for new Affiliates on sites will immediately notice when your site starts to become Affiliated with the sites they pay most attention to.

But as mentioned earlier,  Advertising is something that starts at day one and becomes an on-going process thereafter.   There are always new boards popping up left and right, up and down, cross-ways,  pretty much everywhere and it is your obligation as the site owner to insure that you have advertised on all those new boards.   As the site administrator one of your duties is to be an aggressive marketing manager.   Always be on the look out for new avenues to advertise on,  new Affiliations and so forth.  But you don’t always need to do this alone.   It is sometimes more efficient if you have a couple dedicated members to share the duty with.   Create an advertising schedule where the other members advertise on different days and then you advertise on a few of the days that they do not.   But always pay attention to make sure you don’t post an ad on a site where one of your other members has already advertised on.

Now here is the real bitter truth behind running an RPG board:  Even if you adhere to all of the things mentioned above it is not guaranteed you will succeed.    Having the most enthralling storyline,  most captivating graphics and colors and advertising like a madman will not automatically insure your board a wealth of members or high activity of any degree.   And even if your board does succeed it will not happen overnight,  it might not even happen in the first week or month.   Some site owners have had to run their board for months and months before the board even showed a peak of interest!   This can be the downfall of many boards because the administrators lose that excitement and become filled with discouragement when they don’t see the immediate fruitful blooms of their labor.   Patience truly is a virtue that every site owner has to possess.   Never lose hope no matter how inactive your board becomes it is always possible to revamp and rehabilitate,  pump a second breath into it and get back on the horse! You may notice that each time you end up revamping the site you always start off the next run with more loyal members than the last time.  That’s because some people will become devoted to the site as much as you are and they feel such a part of the site they will stick around even through multiple revamps.

Never stop advertising or seeking any form of promotional benefits.    From first hand experience, I once ran a board that started off with only a handful of members and no more active members joined for months.   By our second year though we were getting a new applicant on a near daily basis.   And even after that board was laid to rest,  I personally received a handful of letters from new visitors wanting to know if the board would open up again,  that isn’t counting the other messages my co-administrators received from similar visitors.    But it took over a year and half before our board ever saw that moment of peaked interest.  With long-term dedication though  your site can achieve the same popularity as long as you keep abreast of the current standards and interest among the RPG community.

The attitude of the administrator and other staff is also very key in the success of a board.  Administrators who take the time to help and assist players while also being friendly are a lot more lovable than the ones who are only concerned about the characters and players they favor the most.   Nearly every administrator has a pet peeve or two about characters and people in general.  It is very important that we do not let these pet peeves cloud our judgment in giving every player and character a chance.   The fact that our sites are on-line means we attract people from all over the world, from different ages, genders and backgrounds.  Sometimes it is necessary to show more patience and understanding to players who seem to test our patience because they can’t fill out an application properly or because they act oddly in-game.   Take this plausible scenario for example:  A new player joins your board and submits an application but the application is riddled with typos, misspellings and  doesn’t have all the fields completed as the rules describe.   A lot of admins might immediately criticize  the applicant for even submitting such a flawed application.   But what if you didn’t know that this applicant was a nine year old girl who just wanted to join in on your fun site?  You would probably approach the situation a little differently.   Even if you know the person’s age and where they are from you might not entirely understand why they  couldn’t fill out the application as you expect it to be filled out.   This can sometimes happen when a person who has never joined a RPG before choses your site as their starting point.  Getting accepted on most RPG boards is not an easy task and for a newbie it could be one of the most difficult processes to learn.  So as an administrator you should be open-minded and be prepared to deal with people from various backgrounds.   The more likable the site’s staff the more enjoyable the site becomes.  When you have a staff composed of friendly, understanding and helpful people your board will flourish with a reputation that people find appealing.   The administrators should come off as just another friendly member and reserve their administrative mode for more critical moments.

Anyone can create a board but a truly skilled Administrator can make that board soar!

If you have any administrative advice you would like to contribute to this article please post your comments below!    Or you may even want to post an extension to this article, feel free to do so because I know I couldn’t possibly cover every detail.

Still of the Night

in the city where everyone has gone bad...

Well folks, I have created and ran a few sites in my time but there was always something missing from the mix.  I always felt a bit restrained or that some of my characters might have been a bit too much.

And then I came up with a brilliant idea!  At first I couldn’t figure out what to call this idea but after listening to an old rock station the name finally came to me!

Still of the Night is a balls-to-the-walls approach to the popular Night World, supernatural creatures genre.   Where most people would draw the line our team says “What line?”   I personally got tired of the “good guys”  and the “bad guys”  and decided, what the hell is this childish crap?   In our day, no body has a squeaky clean alibi.   So we said “To hell with all that goody-goody”  bullshit.

In Still of the Night everyone’s on the naughty list.   Even the so-called “good-guys”  who want to protect the humans have ties to the Mafia and are making a fortune off of brothels!   And the “bad-guys”,  hell they got drug cartels on speed-dial and from the way these corrupt humans are working,  it might be better off letting them run the show after all!    You’d think there would be one decent group in this city, right?  So we had to come up with The Burning Witch”,  they are a bunch of ex-military human folks who decided to create their own little militia to start an urban war with all the night creatures.   Unfortunately for our  would-be saviors, they end up killing just as many innocent humans in their fiery displays of violence.    And don’t expect any help or compassion from the local authorities ’cause they got bloodstains on their hands too!

Still of the Night is a ripping chainsaw through the bloody flesh of those other boards,  it’s the sex-psycho-maniac juiced up on meth and XCT ready to tear down the kiddy’s playground.   So be prepared to put your self into the gutter and get a little soaked in blood, liquor and perhaps some other unidetifiable substances!

Still of the Night will be going public within 10-14 days so all you sick bastards get ready!

We’re gonna scream in the Still of the Night!

Sickest of the Sick

If Night Hawk wanted to kick things off on a really good (or bad) note then this would definitely be the way to do it!

Aya over at Still in the Dark has just posted a contest which promises to bring out the darkest minds!   Check Mad World for the official contest details.   She is asking new and old members to come up with the most disturbing and sickest characters you can imagine.   I won’t tell you who is judging the winners of the contest but I do know that he is one sick creep himself!   And I can promise anyone that is considering joining this contest that you will have some real nasty competition because I happen to know a few of the potential contestants.

This contest isn’t for the squeemish or the easily offended type.   If the mere mention of grotesque images turns you green in the face then you better just move along!

Night Hawk will announce the winner after the contest and if we’re lucky we’ll even interview the winner just to find out who the sicko is!