On behalf of the OSR Pit staff and our awesome community, I welcome everyone to this new platform. Powered by Discourse, we’re exploring new territory in terms of the great conversations we’re having online about tabletop gaming and all things OSR. I hope this place becomes THE place for indepth discussion of OSR subjects, share cool creations and resources, and hang out with other cool peeps passionate about OSR gaming.
Welcome!
Getting Started:
1. PC vs Mobile Device
The first thing you should know is that currently, the Forum looks different depending on which platform you are using to view it. Try viewing it on your PC or on your mobile device, and see which platform works better for you. We’re working on narrowing some of the differences, but be aware that there will always be a few depending on the device you are using.
2. Finding Posts
The OSR Pit Forum is organized into categories. My first recommendation is to look at the category structure to get familiar with how discussions will be organized.
Click the Categories button along the top of the page to see the main categories. Every category has a description to help you identify where to look for specific content. You can also filter by tag .
Categories are a hierarchical organization structure set by forum staff, while tags are created by our members and allow for cross-category association between posts. Up to 3 tags can be added to each post.
3. Posting
To post a new topic (create a new Post), scroll to the top, and click on the +New Topic button in the upper right corner. When you hit +New Topic , several boxes will appear: a box allowing you to type a Title for your new post; a dropdown box, allowing you to choose your preferred Category for the post; a box for optional tags, and a text editor box, allowing you to create the body of your post.
The post editor autosaves your post for you! Feel free to move around the forum as you compose your post. You can even leave the forum entirely and come back later and your post will be saved and waiting for you.
Note: you can’t type in the text editor box until you have chosen a category. When you have created your post, hit the +CREATE TOPIC button at the bottom of the screen to post your topic to the wall. If you don’t like what you have created, simply hit the trash can icon at the bottom of the page to delete your attempt.
On desktop, you can adjust the height of the editor by clicking and dragging the top red border up and down. You can also hide the post preview by clicking “hide preview”.
4. Cards
All Posts are displayed on the wall as a “Card.” A Card is the square-shaped white space showing the Title of the post, the icons of the commentors on the post, and a small snippet of text from the post. In essence, a Card is a post on the wall.
Simply scroll up or down to view all of the Cards on the wall. When you find a post that interests you, simply click on the title to read the entirety of the post. As new posts come in, they will appear automatically. More active threads get bumped to the top.
Some cards are pinned to the top of the stack by the forum staff. You can unpin these cards by clicking the thumbtack icon next to the title after you have opened the card. The cards will then no longer appear at the top of the stack.
5. Replying
If you’d like to contribute to a Post, you’ll notice a Reply Button. Clicking the Reply button next to a post will open the text editor at the bottom of the screen. Simply type in your comment or contribution to the thread, and then hit the +REPLY button at the bottom of the text editor to post your reply comment to the Post. Your new comment will appear as a card (or post) in the thread of other comments. Simply scroll up or down to read all of the other replies.
6. Quotations
To quote someone in your reply, select the text you wish to quote, either by touching it on a touchscreen enabled device, or by dragging and highlighting on a PC. When you highlight text, a gray “ Quote ” box will appear. Tap on the “Quote” box to create a reply. The text editor will appear with your quote embedded. Type any additional comments you’d like, and hit the +REPLY button at the bottom of the screen to post your reply with the quote included.
You can also hit the +REPLY button immediately after selecting some text, and the post editor will open with that quote added to the editor box for you.
7. Exiting Out of Posts
To return to the main thread at any time, simply click on the OSR Pit logo in the upper left of the screen. You can also use your browser’s back button to return to your previous screen.
8. Leaving Some Love
To let someone know that you enjoyed their post, use the “Like” button and award them a heart. People feel great when they receive hearts from the community.
9. Flags
That being said, if you see a serious problem with a post, you can privately let the person or a staff member know by clicking on the Flag icon. The icon is located inside the post menu on each post. The post menu looks like 3 horizontal dots.
Sometimes, the system will flag posts of its own accord. If your post gets flagged, don’t panic. Someone will review the post and go from there.
10. When in doubt . . .
Just click around! A great way to learn is to explore the forum, click on buttons, and see what they do. Discourse worked really hard to make it easy to do the right thing (and hard to do the wrong thing).
- You can share a link to a post, or bookmark it for later reference.
- You can also search the entirety of the forum, a feature we didn’t have in Google+.
- You can use emojis straight from your mobile device; you can hit the colon “:” and then start typing; or you can use traditional smileys by typing a colon and a parenthesis. “:)”
11. Why Can’t I Do Certain Things?
New users are somewhat limited in terms of what they can do. Discourse came this way. As you participate here, you’ll gain a higher trust ranking, and those limitations will be removed. Getting to Trust Level 1 is pretty easy. Browsing the community is an easy way to start.
12. How to Create a Private Message
It’s super easy to send a private message to another user. There are three ways. One, hit +New Topic in the upper right corner. Then, when the boxes appear, click on the arrow in the upper left corner. Choose “New Message” from the dropdown box, and then type in the username of the other user in the “Add User” box.
Two, you can easily send a private message directly from a user’s post. Click the Reply icon in the lower right of the user’s post or reply. When the text editor box comes up, click the Reply icon in the upper right next to the user’s icon. In the menu which appears, choose “New Message” to send a private message to that user.
Three, if you click on a user’s icon, you can simply select the “MESSAGE” button to send a private message to that user. In order to see if you have any private message, click on your icon in the upper right of the screen, and then click on the envelope icon which appears just under your icon.
13. Searching
In the upper right corner of the Forum, you will see the spyglass icon. Simply click on this icon and enter your search terms to search all topics and posts. You can also conduct an Advanced Search with limiting parameters.
14. The “Hamburger”
Next to the spyglass icon in the upper right corner are three horizontal lines called “the hamburger.” Clicking on the hamburger icon gives you access to several features, including categories, a list of users, the badges you have earned, and access to the FAQ. Play around with the information available to you.
15. Your Icon
Next to the “hamburger” is your icon. If you click on your icon, you can see a list of activity associated with your account. Additionally, the “gear” will take you to your account information, and the “envelope” will take you to your private message inbox. The “bookmark” will take you to posts you have bookmarked.
16. DiscoBot
Did you know? Our Forum (powered by Discourse) has an automated assistant known as DiscoBot. DiscoBot can walk you through many of the user features outlined above. To access DiscoBot, simply create a new private message to DiscoBot, and then in the body type @discobot display help and send the message.
DiscoBot can do lots of things, like taking you through an interactive new user narrative, or even an advanced user narrative. DiscoBot can roll dice for you; he can give you a quote; or he can give you a fortune. To start things off, trying typing @discobot start new user or reply to the message that Discobot sent you when you first joined the forum.
17. Badges
You may have noticed by now, but there are some cool badges you can earn as a user of the forum. We have some plans to create a few more Achievements or other awards as well, so stay tuned. It’s my hope that the badges and Achievements will proudly reflect your commitment to OSR Pit and serve as a source of some bragging rights among the devoted.
19. Feedback
Tell us what you think. Seriously. We want to know what we can do better or different to make your experience here a better one. I definitely love praise, but I really want to know if we ever fall short of your expectations. We’ll try to make it better!
20. A few other things
Printing
You can print any thread easily, and the forum will format it nicely for you. Give it a try! This is super helpful considering we play table top role playing games, and so being able to easily print any forum thread, all the replies, and all the images… is a huge plus.
Keyboard Shortcuts
There are a lot of useful keyboard shortcuts available to you on Desktop. Check them out by clicking the Hamburger menu just to the left of your user icon and the link is at the bottom of the menu.
Unpinning
Some posts are pinned to the top of the front page stack by the forum staff. You can unpin these posts by clicking the thumbtack icon next to the title after you have opened the card. The post is unpinned when the thumbtack is pointing up! The posts will then no longer appear at the top of the stack on the front page.
Bugs? Problems?
If you notice anythings strange, find a bug, or have a problem with the site design, leave a comment here: [REPORT BUGS HERE ](insert link)
21. You’re Still Here?
That’s about all there is to cover for now, but we’ll be posting more news as the Forum progresses.
Again, welcome, and I look forward to having a meaningful discourse (see what I did there?) with you
-Sammyo
P.S, much thanks to https://forums.runehammer.online/, especially Alex, for their help.
