Awropla.com is designed to serve as a one-stop resource for all of your campaign planning needs. The intention of the site is to offer a free resource for any and all role-playing gamers out there to collect and share information on your games, groups, campaigns, characters and more. Roleplayers of all types are welcome here, be you a tabletopper, a LARPer, a PBP-er, or more. If you're into roleplaying, you are welcome to come here and connect.
The concept for the site was born out of two different projects of mine. The first project has been something of a long-term endeavor of the last three years, centered around my continuing effort to host all of my gaming group's information online. I've established a wiki, a set of forums, a blog, and an image gallery for my group, and we've used them quite extensively to collect our thoughts, talk about our games' downtimes, and discuss character ideas, among other things. All the while I was setting each of these up, I constantly found myself thinking how much I wished this whole process could be simplified for folks who don't have the patience to teach themselves a handful of fairly complex coding languages, just to set up a simple online repository of their gaming info. Also, establishing each of those sites took a lot of time and effort, time that could have better been spent planning my actual gaming sessions! Don't even get me started on the royal pains involved in trying to integrate the databases and cross-reference the various bits of information.
The second project was an idea I came up with after yet another wave of frustration born from dealing with jerks, pundits, and trolls on a handful of the current "major" RPG discussion forums. I've participated in may great discussions on these sites, but I've seen many more potentially wonderful conversations get hijacked and swarmed by rude people with too much time on their hands (and a dearth of social skills) - you know, gamers like you and me who get a little too personally involved in their online debates. What is it about online anonymity and fandom that raises such ire? Why is it so contagious? During those bouts of irritation, I would often think of how great it could be if there were a well-moderated discussion forum that encouraged open-minded and friendly discussion of the roleplaying hobby. If only someone would take the initiative to start such a site, and promote awesome attitudes and awesome games and all kinds of awesome discussions. Light on the flames and pretension, and heavy on the all-around awesome. I figured I might as well give it a shot, and thus began the first steps of this project. This first idea has greatly morphed into something different, but that's actually how the Awesomeroleplayers.com name started, and I liked it so much I kept it.
Working towards setting up the initial forums led me to Drupal, and from there, it was all a fun downhill ride. The result is Awropla.com, a website centered around the concept of "Campaign Networking." Players can log in, start pages for their gaming groups, start sections for their campaigns present and future, add characters, update character journals, upload portraits and photos and sheets, log their sessions, distribute house rules, organize events, and more, all from within a purposefully simple-yet-powerful interface. Additionally, almost all of the information is cross-linked, allowing searches for similar characters, players, groups, campaigns, ideas and more.
As the site grows, my goal is to add a nice array of additional features to make hosting your gaming information all the more awesome. I've got plans for location-based searches for users, groups, and campaigns, among other features. I'd love for this site to facilitate gamers meeting other gamers, especially should those gamers be awesome.
- Nathanael Phillip Cole