Application process for joining a club

[Moonbeam]

My site wants to offer a process for club owners to use to select the members for their clubs. It's a play-by-post roleplaying game site, and for us, clubs are actually games.

So we're creating a template process by which the game owner advertises their prospective game with relevant information and solicits applications to join. We'd like to offer a standard application form that the prospective player can fill out and submit to the game owner, who can then decide which applicants to accept.

Currently, it appears that the only way to prevent people from joining at will is to have a closed club - not idea for our overall purposes, as we'd like game owners to have the option for their game to be readable by people not actually playing. We also want to offer the ability to put some applicants on a waiting list for a short period of time, in case a player leaves the game early on. The game owner could then select a replacement from that list and tender an invitation.

If you've made it this far, thanks for the tenacity! Here are the things I (thing I am) asking:

1. Is there a way to impose a joining approval process on a club that is "open?
2. If not, can we customize the approval process for joining a closed club to include a customized application?
3. Is there an easy way to create an application form to join a club? Or will we need to buy a plugin to make that happen?
4. Can we build some kind of waitlist functionality? We want inclusion to be at the game owner's discretion, so opt-in from applicants with approval rights for the game owner.

Thanks for taking the time to read all this.

[Dads 101]

We're using https://invisioncommunity.com/files/file/8394-staff-application-forms-contact-us-etc-10-off/ for club applications.

 

[Joel R]

1 hour ago, Moonbeam said:

Is there a way to impose a joining approval process on a club that is "open?

No

Open clubs allow all registered members to immediately join.  

1 hour ago, Moonbeam said:

• If not, can we customize the approval process for joining a closed club to include a customized application?
• Is there an easy way to create an application form to join a club? Or will we need to buy a plugin to make that happen?

This can probably be done as a private customization.  

You can post here: https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/forum/506-customization-requests/

1 hour ago, Moonbeam said:

Can we build some kind of waitlist functionality? We want inclusion to be at the game owner's discretion, so opt-in from applicants with approval rights for the game owner.

You would need to go private customization.  

 

Some other thoughts:

1.  You should talk to @Morrigan who runs an RPG site.  She might have some good ideas for you.  

2.  You can check out third-party developers here: https://invisioncommunity.com/third-party/providers/

[Morrigan]

26 minutes ago, Joel R said:

You should talk to @Morrigan who runs an RPG site.  She might have some good ideas for you.  

To be clear I run some RP sites but my main site is a discussion forum on RPs not a roleplay directly.

With the Character Manager you can attach characters to clubs. So, like I advised before, you can have club owners approve characters created by the member attaching them to the club. There isn't currently a way to do that without actually joining the club itself (aka you have to be in the club to attach the character to the club/make it appear in the characters tab).

You can do this one of a few ways similar to how you're already doing this on your site:

A singular forum where game owners can post a topic and people can post links to their characters in the thread and apply to the club/game. When they do that the club owner will be notified, they can check out the character and approve/deny the person by allowing them into the club or not so then they could attach their character to the club.

Allow for anyone to join clubs but only users with characters attached actually play in them. With this method you'd have to give game owners/club owners a moderator group to be able to approve characters. You'd have to trust them to approve characters only for their club.

 

At this time there is no character attachment approval process because its not a widely used thing for the way the character manager was made. It was made more in the mind of a single RP site where clubs are more used as a character management item (so in my case I use clubs for individuals to organize their characters, plots, ideas etc).

Suggestions for the character manager can be posted here:

https://rpginitiative.com/forum/488-ips-character-manager-suggestions/

Our next big update will probably be within the next 3-6 months.

[Moonbeam]

@Morrigan The problem we're running into is that there are kind of two different "approvals" involved. The first is approving a player as being a good fit for the game being offered. We want to have an application where the prospective player can answer some questions and describe, in general and very brief terms, the character concept they're considering. The GM would then select from the applicants the ones that they feel would make the best group for the game. 

Then, the accepted players would work together in character creation, and that's when the Character Manager would be utilized. Players would then submit their finished character for GM's approval for the character to be added to the game.

[Morrigan]

I, personally, would use Pages for this but that's me beyond this I think a custom app may be up your alley.

 

For pages I can imagine a few ways to do this but my brain immediately goes to 2 databases. You could also do a single database where people reply with a form described in the original bit.

You have the "Games" database where the GM/DM/Whatever submits the game. What there setting is, what their rules are, etc.

Then you have an associated Database that uses a DB relationship that the player would submit their profile would be the other.

So what is the process for your games specifically? My understanding is:

1. GM/DM/Whatever creates game and posts it.
2. Interested parties apply.
3. Interested parties are accepted based on application.
4. Accepted parties create characters.
5. Game starts and goes through.

 

If I were to run something like this I would cut out the middle man. I would add custom profile fields to the user profile that would answer the GM/DM/Whatever questions (play-style, personality etc) because for me as an end user I would hate to have to do this multiple times if I wanted to join a few different games but that could just be me. This would then allow a GM/DM/Whatever to view the end users profile when they request to join an RP. This would in essence complete Step 2 and 3 without the end user or GM/DM/Whatever or your sites staff interjecting in the middle. The GM/DM/Whatever would just accept the profiles they feel fit the group.

THEN, once they are accepted they have a forum in the club that they post links to their completed character profiles. Once an ok is posted by GM/DM/Whatever then the person associates said character account to the club. This would support step 4 though at this current time the Character Manager doesn't support being only able to post in clubs with characters associated with clubs.

 

I guess I'm trying to figure out where the breakdown points are for you in the current transition so that we can better understand and assist in providing you solutions @Moonbeam

Edited January 30, 2021 by Morrigan

[Moonbeam]

1 hour ago, Morrigan said:

I guess I'm trying to figure out where the breakdown points are for you in the current transition so that we can better understand and assist in providing you solutions

I appreciate your help!

Here's how we envision the process:

1. GM posts a recruitment post on a forum for that purpose that everyone on the site can access. The post will include details about game system, setting, story premise tone, whether it's narrative- or combat-focused, commitment level (post frequency expectations, etc.) - any relevant information that will convey what this GM expects of players and what players can expect from the experience. 
2. Prospective players submit an application to indicate interest, demonstrate an understanding of the expectations, and submit a very high-level character concept.
3. GM evaluates applications and selects those who best meet their needs. GM creates the game (club) and invites accepted players to it, and the group begins discussions about the game and the character group they'd like to create.
4. Based on the group's discussion, players create characters and submit them to the game.
5. GM approves (adds) the characters to the game.

Some relevant facts to explain why we've designed the process this way:

• GMs might decide to create their game (club) before recruiting players, but many will not. A lot of them will wait to see if there is sufficient response to the recruitment thread before going to that trouble. So the application process needs to be separate from the game (club) system.
  • With that in mind, it's possible that we could just forego a formal or custom solution to the application process and just have interested members PM their apps to the GM. The only problem with that is that if the GM has more than one recruitment thread going, keeping the responses collated to the correct game might be a hassle for them. Also, it wouldn't guarantee that the applicants are answering the questions the GM wants answered.
• We'd like the default status of games (clubs) to be "open," to allow members to see how specific GMs run games and get a feel for players they might like to play with or invite to game they run. We're open to the idea of letting everyone "join" an open game as a means of following it, but we want to restrict game play and possibly other levels of activity to just the GM and players. Currently, it seems impossible to give a GM that level of control over their game without giving them the godlike power of an administrator.

[Morrigan]

So with that in mind I would go with a Pages database if I'm being honest, it gives a little bit of customization options to you guys and your end users (including your subscribers which I know you have as I joined the site to peep at it) and it makes it to where it takes it out of the traditional forum and you can require specific fields for the GM to enter.

Then you can allow comments (which GM/DM/Whatever) people can reply to in a traditional fashion.

On my site you can see some custom options here:

https://rpginitiative.com/directory/

Specifically look at the header images. My normal members can choose from a few select options while my patrons/subscribers get to have custom header images like this one:

https://rpginitiative.com/directory/metro-beyond-r1406/

With this, you can setup an "Active", "Inactive" and "Filled" select box so there is a visual representation of whether the GM is still looking to do the game. It would give your staff the ability to move/archive whatever you want.

Once they have "Filled" then they create their club and the accepted members join and start their collab.

That's at least my recommended way to do it.