A DnD Approach to Vintage Story: A Concept

[CookieSquirrel]

Hello! A brief introduction. My name is Cookie, I've been playing roleplaying games like DnD and MUDs ( that's multi-user dungeons, or text-based adventure games ) for well over a decade now. I've participated in many a campaign, roleplay event, overseen my own events. I've only just recently come to be a Vintarian myself, but have fallen in love with the game and its core systems. I see it as a canvas that, with a bit of organization and effort on all our part's, we can paint marvelous tapestries on. Stories to be remembered. Your stories.

As I've been playing through multiple multiplayer servers, both whitelisted and public, I've found myself wanting to create a small group of dedicated players to play together on a fixed schedule. Note that together is bolded. Far too often have I loaded in to wilderness with others so far away I cannot even see them on the map, and rallying other players to work together, while rewarding, can be difficult to do in spontaneity. Vintage Story is a game best played together, and I would like to propose this concept to the public at large.

• Key Notes
  • Fixed schedules to play prevent players from being "left behind" as the remainder of the server progresses. A single person remaining on the server and sleeping forward each night can ruin another player's chances of survival. By playing on a schedule together, all players will be brought forward, and if a session is missed, there will not be a dramatic skip of time, preventing supply spoilage and freezing to death.
  • Playing together. The whole point of this is to work together! The community will put ideas together as a general goal for everyone to work together. We can create other goals for people to work on, and of course folks are free to do their own thing. Running off on your own to settle far away from everyone else would be counterintuitive to playing on a server like this.
  • Roleplay: Vintage Story offers us a unique story that anybody can step into. For those unfamiliar with the larger story, we are people who have "returned" to the world after it ended. Whether you died, were taken by the rot or the mechanical monstrosities, fell into a temporal rift and were spat out in what felt like seconds, we are all returned again through the wounds in time. Think a bit on it -- who were you? Despite your class, what profession did you hold? A cook? A housewife? Priest, of cloth or of science? Were you from early in the apocalypse, or a late-stage survivor? What did you have to do to survive? How did you die? Allowing people to organize and make stories together can help bring people together to make new tales, together. It doesn't need to be anything complicated, either: amnesia is also a real-life thing that exists!

I understand this is a lot to digest, but I would like to hear your thoughts. I know similar servers likely have existed before, but rather than set something up without proper preparations, I would like to hear from any angle I might not be considering. Thank you if you have made it down this far, and I look forward to hearing what it is you have to say on the matter.

Sincerely,

CookieSquirrel

[mrsueme2]

Posted some of my thoughts in the previous thread, but will post the rest here as I love this idea!

I did want to ask though, what sort of balance of events versus regular VS are you thinking you want for this? As in, time in game spent playing regularly, time playing regularly while pursuing some long-term material or roleplay goal, or time completely spent in RP events or adventures? Though I imagine it may be hard to tell accurately at this point

 

Edited March 1, 2025 by mrsueme2

[CookieSquirrel]

Very likely for the first month or so of in-game time would give people time to settle and get comfortable, at the very least. Afterwards, I could look at doing specific events, although what those might be I'm not entirely certain of yet. It could very well be something player-led, like a Festival on a specific holiday much akin to something like how the town celebrates in Stardew Valley. Another idea could be actually celebrating the holidays. Bringing traditions in from your own personal RP, or maybe from your real life, to make the event flourish in a unique way only you could add. An arena could be built, and warriors could practice their mettle and hold tournaments, games of capture the flag, king-of-the-hill. Social and drinking games, art competitions for sculpting and painting. There's a long slew of rough ideas alone, not nearly a comprehensive list.

[cosmobeau]

I love the idea of making people play together on a scheduled time, however I'm not sure how likely people will want to adhere to such a strict schedule on a game server that people usually expect any-time play, and coming online to new things, buildings, players, changes. 

Currently on my server people have naturally decided to all build relatively closeby on the same continent. Possibly, less strict rules could apply:
- Instead of only opening the server at fixed schedules, perhaps plan events where people should all focus on something as a team, or trading, or roleplay

- You can tinker with world gen settings to make seasons longer, or less harsh, add mods for better or more diverse preservation & foodmaking/hunting

- You as an admin can set up lore-buildings before opening the server, encouraging people to visit them. These places could hold fur coats, rations, reed baskets, and stone tools for example, so even if someone spawns in during the winter, it won't be a problem.
- Plan as a group to scout out the area and make multiple bases on the same continent. Everyone can have their own base or they could be shared as apart of a roleplayed survival party making their foothold in the land. They could be far off, but then players can trade unique resources. I often find myself traveling back towards spawn to trade with others, but I'm on the same continent so it's not a hassle.

- Build your world's rules so people know ow to roleplay Seraphs. In your lore, are Seraphs born from Jonas' creations?  Are they the aftermath of a rift caused by Prima Mata, and have sprung into this world from another dimension? There are a few fan theories as the story is vague. The more you post lore in your server's forum, discord, whatever the more they'll interact. 

- Add the Proximity RP Voice Chat Mod! People can speak to each other in proximity in-game. This will make it even more fun to play in the same area. https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/7177#showchangelog

As you're describing now it would probably be as strict as your usual DnD session which would be AMAZING, but... I can hardly get a group of adults to have time to meet up reliably on a set schedule.

Edited March 1, 2025 by cosmobeau

[mrsueme2]

That's sort of the conundrum between 24/7 and session-based servers. 24/7 is great for, like you said, drop-in anytime play that is really good for people. But I, at least as a player, have always found it difficult to keep up with that. Sometimes I just can't play one week, and people have put dozens of hours in to something that I was planning to do. With session-based, even if you'd missed one session people have only progressed like 7 hours or so, and not risk someone who happened to have a week off do things you were planning to do.

It makes it so you don't 'fall behind' as much or risk missing anything since you happened to not be around as much, it's a much more universal experience in my opinion. As long as you can make the one session per week or at least most of them, you will largely have the same experience as everyone else.

Both systems are good at certain things, neither is really the 'best', just better for certain things. And, at least in my personal opinion, session-based is a lot better for roleplay, while 24/7 is really good for casual or build servers.

Edited March 1, 2025 by mrsueme2

[CookieSquirrel]

As a feature, BisectHosting, the server hosting service I currently use, has instance managers that allow instances of different worlds to be saved and loaded up to play.

Very likely when I am more familiar with the system, those who are whitelisted to play in the scheduled sessions would be allowed to play a private server while the RP server is down. It's something that I have been thinking about a while, as I don't want people to feel very constrained to "this is the only time I get to play!". It's certainly a unique problem that I'm not entirely sure how to address, but having a casual server available for the people who dedicate themselves to the RP server seems like a fair concession to keep folks interested.

[Cole Petroccione]

I want to compare this idea to something like the Minecraft Life Series. Things that work well for those series in my opinion:

Specific goals, 3ish hour sessions, social dynamics that get amplified by team or vs goals, maybe some preplanned lore sprinkled in.

It does sound like the type of VS content I would love to participate in or watch various perspectives of.

[Thundergod]

This sounds really great, As a player who is often afraid of being left behind in progress it seems like a good idea having set schedules and the roleplay aspect is also a really fun idea. I would be intrested in joining this if it ever becomes a reality!

[MetallicFlames]

Super interested in this! Just would depend on scheduling mostly.

Just a question, are you looking to do modded or vanilla?

[Sivarous]

I love this idea, just needs to be implemented right. In my experience ideas last for maybe week or so before everything falls apart. Someone done with their couple week binge of a game? IRL issues? Power player who wants to progress faster and have everything done ASAP? Things to consider

A lot of games are classified as SMP, (survival multiplayer) and for the reason you described above I think of them more as MSP (Multi single player) because people always run off.

I hope this idea works and I would be interested in it. Could even do some fun mods to add classes and gear to help flesh out roles. Though there might be the thing of someone's role falling by the wayside or not enjoying it as much.

[Jenthura]

I had a very similar idea! Next week I'm opening my server that's only open from Friday evening to Sunday midnight. It's also only max 6 players, but we're just 3 for now. Let me know if you'd like to join!

[Dysphorid]

On 3/17/2025 at 5:17 PM, Jenthura said:

I had a very similar idea! Next week I'm opening my server that's only open from Friday evening to Sunday midnight. It's also only max 6 players, but we're just 3 for now. Let me know if you'd like to join!

If you have space, I'd like to know more about this. You are free message me with details.

[Alendon Valdor]

I just posted an ad for my server group where we are doing something very, very similar, primarily as dwarven biological golems.

[MetallicFlames]

Man, the people here have absolutely no shame. Make your own post if you're going to server recruit. Don't go under someone else's player request to do it, that's just rude

[Storme]

I'm interested in something like this, sounds like a lot of fun!

[Amos_Shepherd]

I like this concept. The set "sessions" help mitigate the Unemployed vs overtime worker problem in survival game servers. I would think this would be better if it were a friend group playing compared to online strangers. More importantly, this concept was pitched toward the beginning of the month. Have you attempted to try it yet or was it idle thought?