Morganatri

I'm so up for working on plot :D Do you have any themes/important character arcs/events in mind? If you've got a few things already, it's probably easy to tie them together and flesh them out into a Big Plot. Even picking out cool locations in Kinyo and saying "what can happen here? How will it affect the rest of the region? What's the reason for it? Who benefits?" is a fun place to spin from. The big question, of course, is "what are the characters here for?" As in, how are they going to be the heroes of this story?

Railroading isn't great, that's for sure, but I think forum/text-based roleplayers are far more likely to take hints, sniff out clues, and run with the intended plot than tabletop players. Tabletop players seem to like to throw off the GM, whereas text-based players want to know what you have waiting for them. Avoiding railroading is all about GM flexibility, really. It's easy to shift plot points around- instead of "they have to go to [location] and speak to [person]" to advance the plot, have them able to find the key info or items in a few different places. They could talk to this NPC, but they could also read about it in a newspaper. They could stealth mission into a hideout to steal an important item... or they could make friends with someone who can let them in. Essentially, you tell the players "you know this information. What do you want to do with it?" And on the back end, you are like "I want them to get [information or item]. Here are a few ways they can do so." If they take an option you don't expect, well, now it's improv. You can usually modify your plans pretty easily if you already know what you want them to get out of a situation.

The cast is likely to end up in groups along the way, too, which is very useful. That means you don't have to shove everyone through the same plot point. Or they can call each other up- these folks are acquainted with each other at the very least, and should have each other's contact information. A group chat, even. They're some of the last of their kind in a way; they should rely on and look out for each other. I think that might be a good thing to state explicitly, actually- so many journeys end up with characters hardly interacting. Let's not do that! Lots of the fun of RP is interaction.

What uhh... category of limits are you thinking about here? In terms of game mechanics or like, restrictions on the characters?

I totally get that, the disappointment about our RP section. It's... pervasive lol. Sometimes I think we've made our rules and aspirations too grand and we can't follow through on 'em. Actually, I frequently think that. But also like, what else are we going to do? More casual RPs will inevitably be hosted on discord or somewhere else rather than such a formal place, I think. I dunno haha.

Oh man you just gotta. Crack down on your cast if you wanna get anywhere. Especially at the beginning tbh! Once things get rolling and people get invested, loosening up should be alright. As for reviving vs starting anew, I think reviving this one in particular could be worth it. You have a world built out and some people already signed up properly. It hasn't been very long since signups in the grand scheme of things, and PC's RP section is slow. People who were interested then are either still interested or busy with life (rather than other RP).

But with that, I think a bit of plot has to be built up. I feel like so many journey RPs die because they don't motivate the players to explore. There has to be leads/hooks/reasons. And maybe it's not even an overarching plot, that's actually fine! A conspiracy in a city, a weird feud between towns, a sketchy gym leader, any "sidequest" kind of plot is still something that fleshes out the world and makes people want to do stuff. (But like, an overarching plot? Always amazing if you can make one.) And none of this really has to be super serious, either. There's wacky junk that goes on in every aspect of the franchise- why not do it here too? I've got really fond memories of what we did to gimmepie's Journey Optional. It's a fun read imo if you wanna check it all out, but some key points are: a PC threw an NPC in a river. Two other PCs found the NPC dead and fought over reporting rights. A player ran the heck away with a gym leader's characterization and made him a druggie operating a massive ring. We put another gym leader in jail for domestic terrorism. A PC went on a two-month binge and got their organs harvested. It was SO WILD. And... the only thing gimmepie wanted us to do was battle eight gym leaders. There was nothing else to it. And we pulled so much muk.

....Anyway, I think good solutions are a) strict posting times b) some plot c) encourage going absolutely HAM. :P

It's a bit of a struggle to keep RPs going tbh and especially over the start of the school year. I've had to do this kinda thing before!

My usual strategy is to ping everyone to check in and gague interest/ability to participate. I let them know too that anyone who doesn't respond within a week is automatically dropped. My philosophy is that speed keeps interest- one IC post a week is ideal, though more is better. If someone can't do a post that week, they need to check in. If they miss the deadline without checking in twice, talks need to be had. It might seem a bit strict, but that's how we get things done! Waiting and extending times to try and keep the players just lets people slack off and lose interest. I've been on both sides of it haha!

I love to see RPs succeed and I know this one can, you just gotta find the people who are going to let it. Snipping people now before it really gets going is easiest, but there are always ways to integrate more people even as the story progresses.

Hey there, I've been reading the OOC for your Kinyo RP and I was first wondering if I could play, but then I saw that you might need a co-GM? And like, no big promises, but I'm pretty good at worldbuilding and helping plot things out. I also make a point to check in on PC and discord at least once a day. So, if you wanna chat and see if we'd work well together let me know! Here is fine, or I'm on discord anna#8500 :)

Nice! Did you also see the questions I had about your SU?

It would be really nice if you accepted my friend request on Discord. The rest of us are on a server where we have a dedicated channel for the RP :)

One Mega evo is definitely fine ^^

How's the SU coming along? :D do you have Discord?

Hey! (: Sorry to disturb you, but I had a question for the rp: is it okay if i change my starter? It'll be the last and only change. Wanting to switch my chimchar to a charmander if that's okay.

I'm just kidding I want to keep my Chimchar. She's more of a quick, close combat fighter. But I do hope your days are going well! (:

Good afternoon! (Or at least from my end)