ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED

Big dilemma in the RPT right now: not reading. When's the last time you've put aside time to peruse an in-character thread for a roleplay you're not directly contributing towards? Attempting the act of reading a random roleplay myself both recently and in the past has ended with many mediocre first impressions; there seems to be a prevailing lack of appreciation for a solid hook or some god-forbidden context. At the same time, it would be unfair to blame roleplayers entirely for making their posts almost impossible to read, especially if they've no audience to consider in the first place! For example, why bother regurgitating information delineated in your character's sign up sheet, such as distinct physical details or maybe even his or her first name, when the only people who may be bothered to skim the post containing said character?the people who signed up for the same roleplay as you?will and should already understand this information?

The inability to make posts accessible also ties into a sense of exclusivity within certain roleplays which some theatre-goers have been on eggshells about for months now. One of the best ways to start making this sub-forum feel like a legitimate community and not a sloppy bundle of fractured factions is to market roleplays to any curious potential passerby. Invite investment in your adventure rather than keep the door to the inevitable Discord chat tightly fastened; simply make posts understandable from the outside looking in and I'm sure roleplays will feel more gratifying, regardless if the post count ever climbs to an endpoint. As much as I feel I inundate Cornered At the Market with praise, it really was the quintessential roleplay experience, and it did openness well. The out-of-character thread may have looked like a shit-posting hole from afar, which was very true, but at the same time we were meming it up, we were having some goddamn fun, even with members like Ech who never actually joined. Of course, this was all done outside of the in-character thread, but even then I recall Jauntier doing a good job introducing the roleplay in a way that was not reliant on prior knowledge; you wouldn't have to read the OOC first before being able to piece together the meanings of proper nouns in the IC. Player posts would just simply build from there.

Anyway, I was mulling over shit earlier and wanted to bring this issue up in some public fashion. It's more persuasion for change on my behalf but I'm always appreciative of hearing the constructive thoughts of others on the matter, agree or disagree, and if anyone has any solutions of sorts, assuming they lie with the former, they'd also be opportune here.

No. I don't think you understand how many of us RP.

We aren't writing so it gets read. And, im gonna be honest. If you are writing so it gets read, you should probably head over to the writing section instead.
In that same boat, we don't care about RPs we aren't in. So we don't read them, unless we're interested in them to begin with. Which would mean we've probably joined them. Unless they closed, which rarely happens nowadays anyway. However in that case, I can personally confirm, they do get read... and hey, maybe even sending some messages and ideas to the GM will get you into it. (If my hints weren't subtle enough; this is exactly how I got into gunpowder.)

On that same note. I can understand people feeling left out if they don't join the Discord, i'm not going to lie. They REALLY are missing out. But that isn't OUR fault for using something that we opened up to everyone. Its open, and we're all extremely welcoming... and you aren't COMPLETELY left out of the loop if you aren't a part of the group. There is a required OOC thread for a reason. Some people just forget they're there. I don't know if its a default setting, but whenever I GM, I know I get pinged when theres a new post in the OOC, and I always go check it. And discussion CAN happen there. Most of us just prefer the warm and friendly and more importantly instant responses that come with discord. In comparison using a thread is very cold and mechanical.

And, glad to hear you liked Cornered, Personally it never interested me, but since you listed some stuff you liked about it, I might as well say what I like about Gunpowder which is probably my favourite RP from the site. Its a well developed story, and the GM is very helpful in explaining how things work and honestly really lenient in letting you break his shit. I mean, just look at what happened to the town of wrench. Not only that, if i've ever got a question about something I can always ask one of the other players. I'll always get feedback. Always.

So, to clarify, you see two problems. First, participants in RPs don't read each others posts and secondly, people don't RP with those outside the RP in mind?

Addressing that first point, I don't know where you're getting that from. Out of the five RPs I'm currently in, in all of them the RPers read each others posts almost as soon as they appear and make an effort to keep a continuity. There's constant discussion in each RPs Discord chat too. I doubt you've read Capes, but multiple storylines have developed just by RPers playing off of each others posts and we've kept to a fairly tight continuity. Every RP I'm in is doing much the same to varying degrees.

As for your second post, I do agree that it's important to write with an audience in mind even when RPing. That's more for the sake of the other people in the RP though, to keep it fun for the other participants that need to read your posts for context/worldbuilding. It's not the job of participants of the RP to make it seem exciting for others who are joining, that's the job of the game master who needs to sell the RP through their OP. Some people do go through and RPs as stories, Oddy for example read the entirety of Gunpowder long before he was able to join and Fen was following Capes before a spot opened up, but they are a minority. If people are looking to read a story, most are going to pick up a book or visit FF&W. I'm not going to ask people to stop RPing how they enjoy for the sake of pleasing the minority who want to read through RPs.

I think a large part of it is just the nature of RPs, at least in my experience. Things like reading an OOC and a character sheet are "duh" moments to me, it's the same information that the players and GMs themselves have to read to get a basic idea. Failing to include basic character information like hair color and first name are more poor writing, not indicative of a massive problem with the current roleplaying format in particular. Even then, aside from important info like name or general age, there's some leeway to be given to not immediately dumping a bunch of info in text of their character's physical traits. I know I roll my eyes when some author has an obligatory paragraph of "here's what my character looks like" or mentions the same trait over and over to make sure you get the point.

On another hand, you also mention wanting a community (seemingly in the OOC), yet also mention not wanting to have to read the OOC for information. I may be making the wrong connections here, but that paragraph just feels off to me. I agree with having a basic idea of plot and all that, so you don't need two threads open, but being nostalgic over OOC fun in the same paragraph really muddies up the message of not needing it.

As for a little jab at closed Discord sessions, I do have to admit I don't use OOCs for my communities with Discord communities around. I try and post relevant information in the OOCs, at least when I'm GMing, but when the majority of my time in discord is simply meming and occasionally discussing not super important character info, I don't really bother to transcribe it.

That's just my two cents on what immediately came to mind. I don't have an opinion on community or anything like that. I just think a lot of the difficulties that may arise from just diving in and reading come from A) Not reading what (I consider) due diligence in understanding, at least so you can start on the same page, and B) The innate difficulties of the style; it's a story written by a group of people and it's not exactly necessary to correlate the stories too heavily with one another (being multiple narratives that overlap, rather than a single unified narrative). It's an unfortunate side effect, but I don't want to force someone to make their posts fully integrated and understandable to an outsider with 0 knowledge of the RP when they are doing this for hobby and are not being paid.

Oh, thats a good point. I don't read other peoples SU's when i'm just a player. I've been criticized for it several times, but I say that anything I should need to know about a character should be IN their posts. So I do agree with you on that point at least.

If you'd like an example to look toward, I would recommend Into the Great Open Blue. It's the only roleplay on this forum that I would read even during the time I was not a member of it. It reads like a novel with chapters instead of like a segmented post by post.

(This is because of how each post is constructed, which is different from other RPs I've been in. A group document is used so that every member can contribute to an open joint-post in real time. Each person's text is highlighted a different colour so we can tell who wrote what.)

Something about the writing style and presentation in Great Open Blue makes it much more interesting and consumable from a reader perspective, not just from an insider perspective. Though I will admit the huge size of the posts may appear intimidating.

(OOC thread here)

While some RPs pride themselves on being literary works of art, that's not the way RPing originally (nor now imo) needs to work here in order to be enjoyable. Our section is basically about very glorified and advanced forum games, meant for players and game masters to enjoy, make friends through and explore characters and storylines and settings through. The very mechanics of it make most RPs hard to read - each RPer has a different style, sometimes even different tenses or perspectives - and don't even get me started on all the different "css-styles" used ic...

Imo it's a natural obligation for a player to read all the other SUs and the ic as much as they can; perhaps if it's gone on for long, things can be summarized instead (and characters might have evolved a bit so old SUs aren't as relevant anymore). But in general, I write with the only audience in mind being my fellow players and myself. Perhaps that seems sad, or like a waste of our skills, but it's given me great satisfaction through the years, much like playing a highly intricate, interactive and customizable game with friends.

For collaborate stories meant to be very coherent and well planned out, with actual demands for good language and grammar, there is always FF&W. However, there's nobody stopping anybody from running their RP in a way that purposefully makes it easier to read as a story later on, perhaps like Great Open Blue does (what you are describing, Afterglow, is how most joint posts are made these days! very nifty indeed) just as there's nothing stopping people from skipping JPs and interacting directly IC with 200 word posts.

Tbh, I don't really write with an audience other than the group in mind because I just expect like barely anyone else to read the rp. I'm probably not wrong, but if someone looks at the op of the ooc and they aren't into the story, or misread the story and get the wrong impression to end up not into it, or get "intimidated" (LOL) by the story, then don't expect them to read the ic, much less all of it. People only read other rps that far if they think that 1) the story is cool and they wish they could join it, 2) make fun of funny or embarrassing writing, or 3) wanna get a scope of the forum via impressions of members and writing standards.

That said, I have a higher standard of writing for myself (not for discussions but def in story lol) and I like to revisit my posts, so when I write, I try to introduce things in a more natural way than list every thread my char is wearing or constantly restating my char's name like Jon Smith: 'Oh hello new NPC,' said Jon, 'my name is John but you can call me Jon'. Like, I like an appeal to other senses in my stuff, and it's easier for me if I write it the way I'd wanna go back and read it, and generally the group appreciates it. The group has the ooc for char ref, but I'll sometimes update my app because then it becomes an actual working point of ref for some things. idk if people on this site do that last bit tho.

Also, lol @ Discord. Tbvf, the general dc isn't the place to make friends. It's a wet cluster, "controversial" discussions explode and you can barely keep up, and then it dies back down to like the same like six people who go back to the same out-there topics or post the same images. Newbies kinda get glazed and fade out from what I've seen. You go to the gen dc with your friends, LOL. Conquest, people. You make your connections on the actual forum by joining and engaging in rps and then those people talk in their ooc and apparently a private dc channel too. Everybody's gets their showoff cliques anyway, human nature, but it starts to be an issue when underhanded junk goes down in rps or newbies get a little offput and they faze out, or opinions are devalued from brown nosing. Otherwise, welcome back to high school babe, keep your head over the water.

I don't have an rp experience on this site. I could example when I was on other sites, but nobody would wanna care. I'm waiting for Who's Kiyo's Off The Menu rp because I enjoy the premise and the story that inspired this spiritual successor, and I love the effort and game he put into it to make the coming experience memorable. It only pulled in a small number of people. I know Kiyo had his little strategy with his acceptance announcements in the dc, rofl, and unprovoked there was this wave of "oh btw I can't join bc of [excuse]" lines there for some reason, like calm down and don't worry, lol? I can only handle being in 1 rp at a time with my work and school routine, so I'm hoping get to build a strong connection with this group, and maybe my time will be able to open up to where I can handle 2 rps at a time and fit into another group.

Your Daily Vitamins said:

and apparently a private dc channel too. Everybody's gets their showoff cliques anyway, human nature, but it starts to be an issue when underhanded junk goes down in rps or newbies get a little offput and they faze out, or opinions are devalued from brown nosing. Otherwise, welcome back to high school babe, keep your head over the water.

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Wait what? To the best of my knowledge, there's no private channel with the exception of the one that Rika, Fox and I use for quick discussion on mod stuff that doesn't need to go to the staff section. There should also be nothing underhanded going on and if there is I'd encourage you, or anyone else, to report it because we very much want both the forum and our discord server to be welcome to anyone who wants to join in.

I'm going to try and clarify on Malignant's point on coherency here, as I feel like it is being taken out of context somewhat. It's not really about an emphasis on grammatical refinement and making sure everyone write their posts to enforce consistency so the end product eventually becomes a "masterpiece" -- I mean, it's absurd to even think there should be any expectations when it comes to an applicant's level of writing, as that form of pressure can easily transition into a process of constructing the narrative into a tedious school project where everyone is graded harshly and some of us are already overtaxed by real life responsibilities to truly commit to that level of effort anyway. I feel like the matter Malignant is addressing here is the concern over a lack of neutral conveyance for convenience when it comes to presenting these projects as individual pieces, and it's a very plausible outcome for the ICs and even the OOCs to slowly mutate into something that essentially emulates a private chatroom filled with in-jokes among its own members, especially when an audience outside the participants isn't taken into account -- essentially, this completely destroys the whole point of even posting these works publicly on a forum and we might as well reserve them in a Discord server instead.

Whether or not those who claim RPT is open to newcomers isn't the issue -- and I want to clarify that I personally don't find RPT to be hostile at all -- but rather it's the rift which is inevitably created when not taking into consideration that RPs can potentially be read by anyone, as the purpose of the RP pretty much becomes exclusive for its own players. The endless bombardment of memes exclusively generated by the players or the lack of establishing a coherent lore which can only be obtained when directly asking GMs can give off a shaky first impression to even those who might want to join. Basically, it just feels like there's no payoff from ever joining and contributing to a project when the product is mostly just intended to please its own players and thus open discussions are rarely if ever promoted, and I feel like this is where most of Malignant's frustration is stemming from. She just wants to avoid cementing roleplaying as just a niche hobby reserved solely for a few cliques and gradually expand the medium into something bigger by emphasizing on the advantages that are exclusive to RPs -- that is, the emphasis on promoting open discussions without a fear of backlash and the appraisal of individual ideas that can be offered by anyone and anytime.

I seriously doubt anyone on this forum actively promotes exclusivity, and nobody I've met so far gives off the impression they're truly xenophobic and close-minded when it comes accepting outsiders. That said, I did realize there tends to be some terrible misconceptions based solely on first impressions. I will use a specific example with OTM as the OOC received some flak for being too -- and I quote -- "critical and memey", when in truth most of the thread's content were (for the most part) open discussions to help shape budding ideas for those who were attempting to apply. Well, that, and the GM simply has a weird fetish for reaction gifs (calling you out Kiyo). I'm perfectly fine with people having their preferences when it comes to story premise and under no circumstances should anybody be ostracized for it, but it is extremely disheartening how some people will just immediately come to the conclusion that they're simply not "welcomed", even if it's over something as trivial as an OOC having too many pages. And using this as an example, it does prove that people can be insecure and easily alienated by numerous factors, so the notion that ICs, and even the OOCs, are constructed in a way that panders strictly to its own player-base can only aggravate the rift I mentioned earlier.

I know somebody will inevitably make the argument that this problem lies exclusively with the non-participants and it's mostly on them for lacking the confidence to contribute and interact, especially as everyone here expressly stated they are completely willing to accept anyone. But again, first impressions are a thing that evidently play a significant factor, and I will speak out of personal experience here and announce that it can be absolutely terrifying when you join a group without any referrals or connections. While it's true that I contributed to discussions within the OOC for Cornered on The Market despite the fact that I was never part of the IC, I do want to state that I was an unusual case; during that time I was still new and thus I was trying to find a reason to remain on the site, so I regularly attended the thread and actively conversed with Cornered's GM and its players. But I did find Cornered's IC much more easier to read through consistently as context was integrated into the narrative thus there was no real requirement on having to go through the OOC -- GRANTED, this RP relied on a much simpler setting so there was more leeway. Still, I feel as though this was a rather important factor that prompted me to engage with the players, even if it was initially just to present tribute for their work as a humble fan. I shouldn't, and probably can't, advocate for all newcomers here and I may be just projecting myself onto them. Still, I do think Malignant's point on keeping things neutral and averting a heavy reliance on Discord chats is something to take into serious consideration, as that extra accessibility could always draw in new members who may have wonderful ideas but simply struggle fitting into our community as a whole due to shyness that I'm sure most of us can empathize with.

Ech said:

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I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at here. I was under the impression that when talking about having an open discussion without backlash, Disclosed was referring to criticism. To which I say this, if you don't like an RP don't join because RPs are already critiqued before they appear. It's problematic and unfair to expect GMs to alter things after they've been posted to suit you. When you talk about it though, you sound like you're just talking about regular discussion and I have no idea where that idea is coming from. I've never seen someone receive any backlash for talking about an RP, asking questions or planning anything and I've been here a long time now.

I really don't see how Discord is a problem either. Our server is openly and easily accessible to anyone who wants to RP, it's a free service that doesn't even require a download to access if you don't want to download the program and just expressing interest can usually get you into an RPs discussion channel. It's true I guess that it can seem hard to join the "community" of each RP when a lot of the discussion is happening where you can't see it but GMs here are always very clear about Discord being used for discussion if that's their preference - and I understand why it is because it's much more convenient.

Am I understanding what your saying right though, I'm honestly not too sure.

I don't think this is about newcomers as much as it is about readers, Ech.

Newcomers: people new to the community.

Readers: people who are not playing in X paricular RP but are reading the roleplay posts from the outside.

Right now, do we actually have any readers? Malignant's premise is that she thinks no one bothers to read threads they're not participating in as a roleplayer. And the question to be extrapolated is: why? Are they not interesting to read for people outside them? Is that because of the way the posts are written, the story is structured, the threads themselves are structured?

Some people here have made the point that this isn't fanfiction, there's a whole different section of the forum for people to read stories in. I'm not sure that I agree fully. I see the point being made, of course, but writing your roleplay post in such a way that makes it more difficult for the average reader to understand what is going on, is just not cool in my books. And roleplays can be just as interesting to read as stories are, it all depends on the content.

gimmepie said:

I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at here. I was under the impression that when talking about having an open discussion without backlash, Disclosed was referring to criticism.

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I just meant in general, as in an exchange of ideas and opinions, as RPs rely heavily on its players discussing their content with each other -- or at least, I suppose that's what I find unique about this medium. Unlike collaborative writing, the concepts in RPs can abruptly change overtime because players are essentially exploring their ideas through numerous variables and makes the outcome more unpredictable. It's like a game.

I should have specified there, and "backlash" was probably the wrong word to use here since that makes it seem like I'm antagonizing this forum -- it was more about a speculation that there's this invisible barrier people inadvertently make when ICs or OOCs aren't presented on neutral terms, as in everything is readily available. I noticed, and some have been admitted, most preliminary lore aren't established in the IC or even OOC, and they can only be acquired from directly asking the GM. I am mostly going off my own assumption that newcomers, or anyone outside an established group for that matter, are automatically uncomfortable when it comes to confrontation because it's easy to view their involvement as a form of intrusion. I'm basically saying discussions about the RP itself should be promoted more often in the actual OOC thread so outsiders can freely jump into the fray without having to join Discord.

But again, I might be just projecting my own experience and feelings onto others, and maybe newbies avoid involving themselves in our community for other reasons -- busy life is always a possibility. I can't exactly claim my point as being absolute, and I'm not saying it is either. It's more an observation and an attempt to straighten Malignant's point since it seems most are interpreting her point as an aggressive demand for professional writing.

gimmepie said:

I really don't see how Discord is a problem either.

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I actually want to expressly state that I don't think Discord is at all awful -- in fact, I've actually made some friends exclusively through it so I am kind of glad I used it. The concern I've had with Discord is how chaotic it can be, given that it is essentially instant messaging. Unlike threads where I, and I assume others, can spend a decent time to construct a post, there's no time to articulate ideas in chat sometimes. I also feel, at least for myself, my productivity to write for a RP decreases drastically because the chat sometimes encourages procrastination since I'm stuck having fun texting to people as opposed to really getting into exploring our ideas.

I'll vouch for YDV's point on how it is sometimes difficult to keep up with a rampage of posts (I admit that I too indulge in spam myself) and I've also noticed some newbies being warded away. It's not a controlled environment and it can be difficult to stand out in a crowd. I've always imagined it to be discouraging. And this is sorta what I meant by accessibility, I suppose. It just feels easier to join a conversation being made in an OOC thread as opposed to the alternative.

Discord definitely has its pros, however, and I'm not trying to completely omit Discord or Skype entirely -- again, I've made new friends this way. I'm trying to avoid making any assumptions here, but basically I'm suggesting that discussions shouldn't be entirely exclusive to Discord chats and OOC threads should capitalize on the fact that it's paced out so it can be easier to hold open group discussions there since it's a controlled environment.

Ech said:

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So, primarily your concern is that people aren't using OOC threads to their full capability. I can at the very least see where you're coming from in that regard. I think, at least for now, that's something that should be at the discretion of the GM though since it's ultimately up to them to decide how they prefer to interact with participants in the RP.

I will say though, that any existing lore does belong in the OOC so an accurate picture is painted for potential players. There's always going to be questions, but it's the job of the GM not just to sell their RP and manage it but also to provide participants with the information they need.

It's worth mentioning that, if I'm reading a roleplay from the outside looking in, Iiiii'm not likely to read the OOC thread. Aside from the character profiles. Just the IC thread.

gimmepie said:

Wait what? To the best of my knowledge, there's no private channel with the exception of the one that Rika, Fox and I use for quick discussion on mod stuff that doesn't need to go to the staff section. There should also be nothing underhanded going on and if there is I'd encourage you, or anyone else, to report it because we very much want both the forum and our discord server to be welcome to anyone who wants to join in.

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??? Ya'll permit private channels for rps, is what I mean? And then they ghost from my sight - idk if ya'll make them hidden on the server but they're there. Nothing else implied. The 'underhanded' remark was a general thing: I've found in other places anytime some off-site chat is used, information gets secretly passed between certain groups, like I've seen a couple times when a gm was like "Applicant A, we reviewed your char, but we already and completely talked 'in private' with Applicant B before you posted and fixed up their char, so they're accepted" type deal, which comes off unfair with circumstances. idk if this has been a thing here recently, this is just observations from elsewhere.

Your Daily Vitamins said:

??? Ya'll permit private channels for rps, is what I mean? And then they ghost from my sight - idk if ya'll make them hidden on the server but they're there. Nothing else implied. The 'underhanded' remark was a general thing: I've found in other places anytime some off-site chat is used, information gets secretly passed between certain groups, like I've seen a couple times when a gm was like "Applicant A, we reviewed your char, but we already and completely talked 'in private' with Applicant B before you posted and fixed up their char, so they're accepted" type deal, which comes off unfair with circumstances. idk if this has been a thing here recently, this is just observations from elsewhere.

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It has definitely not been a thing in any of my own RPs or those I'm involved in. I can't speak with 100% certainty for the RPs I don't have anything to do with, but I haven't seen anything to suggest anything like that is going on.

Your Daily Vitamins said:

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Yeah, I have not seen that in any discord channels. I'm not a mod (obviously), but I've always seen them as being hidden from most people because they clutter up the main view (you can mute them, but they're still going to make getting to the RPs you actually participate in a chore), and every time one is left often there is a bunch of people who inevitably post "what channel is this" and "I'm not part of this RP, why am I here?". Even then, there have been some RPs (now inactive and had their channels accordingly) who never went private. Just none of the active ones have done that, preferring not to clutter up the main page. Heck, hidden channels don't even have to be private to the players, I'm sure most GMs would happily let someone who was interested in just reading in. I have someone like that in my Glaciate channel, didn't have the time to be a player, but was interested in it still.

As for "private" consultations with character, I've never seen a "Sorry A, but I worked with B and he took your spot" type situation. I've worked with people in private, mostly out of preference for an OOC not dominated by a conversation between 2 people about minor details not being right (but then again, I also don't like to make massive criticisms about someone's character in public, feels too much like shaming to me). There are also cases where someone just may not want to work out a character in private like that. I don't.

PastelPhoenix said:

Heck, hidden channels don't even have to be private to the players

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"You make your connections on the actual forum by joining and engaging in rps and then those people talk in their ooc and apparently a private dc channel too."

^ This is what I'm thinking: hidden discord channel = private discord channel
^ This isn't what I'm saying: private discord channel = private rp.

I'm saying because a channel is hidden from the main server, there's a more intimate relief in that channel because it's just that rp group, from the standpoint of those only in the theater's gen-chat. That's also not the line in my own quote to draw any actual contention from, lol. I'm assuming you're going off of Gimmepie who connected the line to my 'underhanded' remark, which I cleared up when you said "I have not seen that in any discord channels" (since you didn't give me an actual quote so I don't know what you're reffing).

Other than that tho, yeah, I read your opinion and everything else you've said is cool. I've already made my comments on the topic and there's nothing else for me to expound on cause it's just anecdote v anecdote.

As far as I am aware, the Discord channels relating to specific RP's are for backstage discussion about said RPs (and cat photos as all chats eventually fall to). Personally, I don't want to see them if I'm not participating in them, but not only that, think of it from the perspective of somebody who actually wants people to read their posts. Wouldn't that just be a zone full of spoilers then? Why would they want that open to the public anyway. I think allowing the members of an RP a chat to discuss their stuff in private is good tbh.

I mean, granted they could just create their own server for it entirely, but thats 900x more effort on everyone's part.