Hello and welcome to the RPG Design Quest! As a new site with a bunch of features, it can be a little confusing at first. But if you keep in mind this is organized toward discussions and interest groups, it will make a lot of more sense! For some, it helps to think of it like an old school portal site done with modern tools. Note: Everything is subject to change and update. This is a fresh beta test launch site. Some bugs are expected. There will be a bug report and feature request form soon.
This is just quick onboarding intro to get you started. It doesn’t cover all the options, but rather just enough to get you familiar with where to look for things and how to navigate around.
Sign Up
Starting off, signing up is like any other site. We have a selection of social sign in options reflecting our gamer circles. But you can also sign up directly as normal. Just click that signup button up top. If you haven’t yet, do that and then come back! Note: Open registration is temporary.
Quick Overview
The site has a feed, like Mastodon, Facebook, or Bluesky. It is a chronological feed of all activity on the site. In that spirit, any reaction, comment, or other active interaction will bump an item to the top of the feed. It is responsive to activity.
Groups are the central piece of the Quest. You can think of them like topic forums on a classic forum site, but with a bunch of additional features. Just as there is a main feed, and one for each member of the Design Quest, there is a feed in each group as well. You can freely join, leave, or even create groups. Note: Created groups may be subject to review, consolidation, or (in extreme cases) removal.
When you click on a group, it will show a header and a bunch of tab options. On the lower right of the banner, it will show you your group status, including an option to join if you are not a member. Below that are the different tabs:
- Feed: The activity feed for everything in the group.
- Discussions: Forums! Post and reply to discussion threads here.
- Photos: Just what it says on the label.
Docs: Collaborative docs.Deprecated until I have the capacity to fix some layout issues.- Albums: Photo albums.
- Documents: Uploaded files like text documents and PDFs.
- Members: List of group members.
- Send Invites: Send invites to join a group.
- Send Messages: Send direct messages to group members.
- Manage: This is where the group management options are for any group you’re the organizer or moderator.
That’s pretty much it! Everything really is what it says on the label, more or less. Groups are based around their activity feed and discussions, but they provide a full set of tools for interaction and collaboration.
Other Main Features
On top of the full feed and groups, the top menus also takes you to a list of all recent forum posts, the member directory, and member blogs. If you are signed in, you can connect with people from their profile or the member directory, as well as write your own blog posts! So you can connect with peers and friends here, as well as have a space to express your own thoughts. Related to the intention of a full-featured community website, there is also a live chat!
If you click the little bubble on the lower right, the chat window opens. Live chat works for both individuals and groups!
A bunch of options will show if you click on your profile icon/name in the upper right. It has links for your account settings, profile, timeline/feed, joined groups, and everything else like that you’d expect. It also has an option for email invites. You can invite people to join. This will become more important in the future when open registrations close.
Next to that (from right to left) is the notifications bell, direct messages inbox, and the search.
Your Profile
Your profile is so much more than just your profile! It’s a complete collection of your archives and tools.
Much like groups, when you go to your profile there are a bunch of tabs! Of course, the profile tab is the default open tab. We’ll go through editing profiles in a minute, but let’s go through those options first:
- Timeline: This is your main feed. Like there is a feed for the whole site and each group, there is a feed of your activity.
- Profile: This is your literal profile. It has all the information you entered and options to edit it.
- Post: This is your blogpost tab. It shows your posts and has a “create” option for you to write a blog.
- Connections: This tracks your connections with other people and connection requests they sent you.
- Groups: This shows your joined groups and any group invitations you received.
- Photos: This shows your photos and albums, with an option to add photos and create albums.
- Forums: Here you’ll find the topics you started, your replies, and your favorited forum posts.
- Docs: Shows all collaborative docs started or edited by you, with an option to create a new doc.
- Documents: Shows the files you uploaded with an option to organize into folders.
- Email Invites: Allows you to send email invites and see the invites you sent.
Editing Your Profile
Like many other modern sites, you can click on your banner or profile picture to update/replace them.
If you click on the “edit” button for any section in your profile tab, it will load this page:
You can also update your images here. But the key section is the main one. There are 5 tabs:
- Details: Basic profile details and a few old school questions.
- Socials: A place for all of your links.
- Credits: Work credits you want to list.
- Availability: Your availability for collaboration and/or hire.
- Thoughts: A place to share a few extra thoughts.
Any section or entry you choose not to enter will simply not show up on your profile. No pressure to fill in blanks! Whatever you choose to fill in will make up your profile. Add as little or as much as you’d like.
Anything Else
Got any further questions? Run into anything confusing? You can visit Rev’s profile and message him or you can pop over to the Open Lounge and post a topic about it.