Does anyone have experience running a West Marches style campaign?

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Currently in one with the role playing club.
We've got 5 DMs, and each player got a "rumor" that may or may not be important. Some were simple, like a treasure lying at the bottom of a lake. Some were more complex, like the location of a relic of their character's interest.
Each week, a DM who comes up with a fun idea for a session posts a Wanted ad on the bulletin board. Players are encouraged to make their own groups, and to create their own missions. We have a lot of fun exploring each other's characters in a lobby chat style, and discussing the world.
It's fun, but please please please don't start your players at 1. Lots of character concepts don't make sense that low.

>>53090542
> each player got a "rumor" that may or may not be important.
I'm doing something quite similar to that.

How did you handle the way the players initially exchanged rumors with each other? Was it enough to just put them all on the same bulletin board?

> please don't start your players at 1
I'm using some crazy homebrew system. Though even within that, it feels a lot like second level characters. And I'm under the assumption that all the characters have went on an adventure once before off-camera.

>>53090588
It's completely up to the player if they want to share. Most did, since it's useful information, but not everyone is going to care and not everyone is going to be able to do something about theirs. I wouldn't worry about your players systematically finding the optimal path for these rumors. Everyone I'm playing with is pursuing a STEM degree, and we fuck things up all the time.

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>>53090492
DELETE

What the fuck is a West Marches style campaign?

>>53092541
Copy pasted from a thread from yesterday:

Long version: http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/

tl;dr:
>Get a fuck ton of players (like, 2 normal groups worth, minimum)
>Don't have a dedicated game night
>Instead, tell them that a game will happen whenever a group of a certain size (IE the amount of players you need for a normal game, not the full group) gets off their ass and organizes it
>This includes not only real life logistics, but also a goal for the session that everyone is on board with
>Run an exploration focused sandbox with plenty of leads everywhere and encourage players to talk about those leads so that the folks that are excited about those leads can follow them and the folks that aren't can sit that session out and organize an expedition they want to do more later

>>53092541
What the other person said, but also you're very likely to set up a mailing list or private forum for the players to organize groups and report back the results.

>>53092500
Okay, what's with the bit about orcs in here? I can't figure this shit out.

>>53098541
I posted it and was surprised to see that bit too actually

Does anybody have any interesting stories from their West Marches style campaign? I'm really looking to run one but I can't find enough players.

>>53101636
If it's an online game I wouldn't mind joining

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>>53103790
it might be, do you have discord?

>>53103836
Yeah
Detros#0506

Bump for interest, contemplating starting up a West March campaign myself

>>53106555
OP here - I talked to a third of my players and everyone is super enthusiastic so far, but I still have a lot more legwork to go through before I have so much as an anecdote.

I am pretty enthusiastic about a couple of my plot hooks though. Recycled from earlier campaigns:
- The Winter King is a spirit that controls the seasons in a wide area. It's May and it's still winter over there. What happened?
- The Elder Dragon Pelemoth hasn't been seen in like twelve years. He's probably dead. Steal his horde?

But now that I'm importing them into West Marches:
- Getting The Winter King back on track means a powerful spirit owes you favors. But he'll be dead before this time next year and insane before then.
- Pelemoth's hoard is mostly missing and he's a zombie. But why did someone leave a zombie dragon to guard that cave complex?

The format just naturally made things I've already done than they would've been in a wandering adventurers setup.

>>53106855
> The format just naturally made things I've already done
> more interesting
> than they would've been in a wandering adventurers setup.
FTFM.