Forum, Chat Box - Just What the Hell is Going on at The Tavern Anyway? (Plans - We Got Plans)

New Year. Same Tavern. New toys for The Tavern's Community.

Some basic plans / ideas for the new features are as follows:

- with the chat, I'd like to schedule a once a month trivia contest. I'm going to guess a Friday Night from 8pm to 10pm Eastern.  Initially I'd be using the AD&D 2e Trivia cards, but I'll probably work on questions for other editions. Person with the most points at the end of the night would win a RPGNow Gift Cert. When I lock down the day, I'll post it in the blog and the forum.

- also with the chat, I'd like to host a weekly chat session, about an hour once a week with a steady day and time. Again, when I nail this down I'll post it. Should be fun to interact with everyone. (as an aside, in 2016 I'll probably add a second weekly session in hours apart from the nightly one for those in the community on the other side of the globe. may have some such sessions in 2015 as scheduling allows.)

- the forums are a work in progress. I'll be adding new sub-forums in the coming days and I'm open to suggestions. Google is going to move away from OpenID sign in (at least that's what I've read.) The Tavern's community is not strictly G+ based, which is one of the reasons I haven't moved to G+ for comments. Having our own forums will be a work around if Goggle buggers up the commenting ability on this end.

- forums live and die based on their community, or lack there off. So, I'm offering a bribe ;) When we hit 50 members, I'm going to award one random member (who has posted at least once) a $5 RPGNow GC. At 100 members, I'll award a $10 RPGNow GC. At 250, a $25 RPGNow GC and at 500 a $50 RPGNow GC. Yes, take my money, please :)

- the forums DO NOT require a new account to log in for 98% of the readers of this blog (number pulled out of my ass). If you have one of any number of social media accounts or emails - Google, Yahoo and the like, you can log in and become a member.

- if you are a publisher of OSR or Old School games or gaming material, let me know if you want your own sub-forum. Ask and ye shall receive.

- it's been suggested that I host a G+ Hangout once a month. Working on nailing that down.

- i've got some further ideas but they aren't far enough along to mention yet. not sure if they will take fruit.

- remember, The Tavern belongs to the OSR community. Tell me what we can do to make it better serve your needs, desires, dreams...