GM Workshop just hit 14 day inactivity. Is this 'game' pretty much unusable?

I have been thinking about how to bring about some activity. One idea that came to mind was a series of topical discussions (perhaps on a monthly basis) about aspects of GMing (PbP focused, but others might be useful too).

Also, the MW Writer's Guild periodically advertises in Game Advertisements to recruit members and publicize its work. Perhaps we should adopt a similar strategy here.

I would not be against either of those.
Not to get ahead of myself, are there any topics that should be brought to the forefront? The game fizzle frequency/how to keep games alive seem to be 'living' quite well in the General Discussion section. Should we bring them over here?

I think that's a good idea. It's a great way to have a "save my game!" discussion if someone feels that their game is in a freefall.

Additionally, I'd like to make a suggestion. How about a Monthly challenge like the writer's guild does it? Except something like this:

August Challenge: Trapped room!
Party: 4 man D&D3.5 party. Standard setup: Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard.

Objective: Create a room that is a challenge for the party. The trapped room must be completable by the party.
Room Dimensions: 25ft by 25ft
Creatures: up to 2


Then we can all submit a "Trap room" that's 25ft by 25ft, up to 2 creatures, and someone can probably use that to spin off into their own campaign. Obviously it's not limited to game systems or whatever, but you'll get the gist.

Next month we can do something like

September: Hook this plot fish!
Challenge: Create a short outline for X setting. Must include 1 major goal and at least 2 minor goals. Outline three participants as well as their motivations. Minor goal must include an "RP only" solution.

That'd be great! Save us all some time if we use them in our campaigns and such. Only downside: if one player is in all our campaigns, they may catch on...

Sounds like a good idea, IronChef.

What about an Introductions-type thread? I hate to have it be just a "guest book", but it'd be nice to see who's interested and involved and what their background is.

Also, I've spun this into a new thread since it seems to be diverging from the original intention of "What is this" to "How does this work".

Thanks for it's own thread, glad to see people here still.

It'd be cool to have a guest book style thread, maybe it'd give people a bit of a reference on who is here and promote a bit more of the community communications aspect of the boards! I'd at least like to see this tried and then see what comes out of it.

Ok then, let's start the August challenge? Suggestions? The trap room sound good?

Since August is only going to be a half-month, that might make sense. For full-month challenges, we probably want something a little more complex. Here's some edits to the challenge idea:

August Challenge: Trapped Room!
System: D&D 3.5e/4e
Party: 4 Level 4 characters, including Melee, Rogue, Arcane, and Divine
Objective: Create a trapped room that the party must cross to continue their adventure. The winner will be the room that best challenges all of the party members.
Specifications: The room may be of any size up to 25 5'x5' squares, and may contain (or summon) no more than 2 creatures.

Anyone got the urge to write up a good advertisement? Besides the challenge, we should probably include a little bit about the workshop in general so as to draw the best crowd.

I'll see if I can get the guest book thread up today, too. At the very least, it should be up before we go advertising the challenge.

Morade, would it be too much of a bother to put the monthly challenges in a new thread? I can probably work up a draft for an advertisement later today.