West Marches Style: Bringing Us Together

Yeah... I just watched the Matthew Colville video linked earlier...and I'm 100% in.

From a logistics point of view, I'd like to recommend a shared OneNote notebook as a means of documentation/coordination. We can have overall setting info open to all, gm only sections, etc... and it has wiki functionality to link info together.

I'm wary of the apocalyptic setting for three reasons:
First, it feels like it's not terribly realistic. The idea that this one little town is all that's left of civilization and that it somehow isn't plagued by all the sort of social chaos that reigns in shows like The Walking Dead is just too much for my extended belief to cover.
Second, it adds an inevitable overarching plot, something we almost definitely don't want. If we don't specify an event, the players are going to be looking for what happened. That's just how its going to go. And Ben Robbins specifically said that there was no overarching plot in his game, because that isn't the point of a West Marches game. If we want to add a plot later we can, but I feel that to begin with we need to avoid one.
Third, post-apocalypse just doesn't seem to be the feel of a West Marches game. As Azira expressed better than I've been able to so far, a West Marches game is about exploration, and I feel that a settling party will be much more likely to do that than the survivors of an apocalyptic

Oh that is a good tool. I'd not considered that and I honestly don't think I know the full extent of OneNote's capabilities, but if we could get something like that going it could make an information thread unnecessary since a OneNote notebook will be much cleaner than a thread.

A mad wizard's experiment went horribly wrong and the city and everything in a 30-mile radius (1 standard, 60-mile hex) was teleported to an entirely different plane of existence, one that is remarkably similar but entirely unfamiliar. The city is safe, its walls intact, its food stores equipped. What lies beyond, however is a mystery waiting to be revealed by those brave enough to sally forth.

I like this idea a lot.

It's definitely interesting, but it felt out of place with the rugged, simple, low-magic setting of West Marches, at least in my opinion.

Hey guys. I'm super interested in this. Threw my application in!

It's a way to get an intact city into an unfamiliar environment without having to resort to a bunch of complicated, logic-twisting exposition. If you want the setting to be low-magic, then all you need is a simple addendum: "teleported to an entirely different plane of existence where magic doesn't seem as prevalent.

Hey Bad_Neighbor! I see your application, but for some reason I personally can't accept you even though I have GM status. I think the GM stuff is fritzing a bit, but hopefully we'll get you in soon!

Hey Bad_Neighbor! I see your application, but for some reason I personally can't accept you even though I have GM status. I think the GM stuff is fritzing a bit, but hopefully we'll get you in soon!

Tried it to but I get "Don't peak behind the DM screen! You might want to try looking somewhere else." in a very, VERY, small window pop up...
It seems I can't approve characters either.

I'm very interested, where do I sign up?