Dead, dead, dead.

Dusty

Dusty

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    Maybe its just me, but it seems like 90% of roleplays die within the first month of being posted, whether due to player inactivity, lack of interest, or the GM going inactive. I think this is kind of a problem that we have here, where most roleplays simply don't last very long. Some players post once, maybe twice, then never again after that. Other times you are sat at your computer waiting for some players to post so that you or the GM can advance the story.

    So what should you do as a player to keep the roleplay alive?

    What should you do as a GM?
     
    Yea this is the hardest thing with RPing here.

    In the past (like, yeeeeeears ago, 2010 and earlier) many RPs were much faster. People made 20+ posts a day because each one was one line long or a few at most. Novel-like chapter posts were more rare. Then it was usually a fast and easy process to join a RP and get into playing. It was very easy for somebody to miss out on events and story if they went to bed or school though >.< so eventually that style was pretty much banished from this site, in favor for more literary like works. But yeah, if you look at the Hall of Fame in the Roleplay Stage, you can see that roleplays used to finish in only a few months back then. Because they were faster and people were invested for a few months and could keep interest up, I guess.

    To join a RP that probably will last several years if it is "successful" is just... daunting tbh. I would really love if we could discuss ways to shorten RPs (or speed them up to keep interest up at least) so thank you for making this thread!


    As a GM, the most important thing is of course to not disappear. Unfortunately, this happens more often than we'd like ): players feel incredibly discouraged if their GM suddenly isn't present anymore. I have been both a player and a GM in those situations );

    As a player, you should make sure to not make your joint posts too outdrawn and time consuming! This is actually the most crucial point, from what I have seen. Perhaps we should even push for people to post directly IC more often than now? JPing seems to be very default for any kind of interaction, but it isn't always all necessary.


    Or maybe somebody could create a good guide on how to do joint posting effectively!
     
    gimmepie said:
    As a player: Talk with people often to keep the hype up. Post as often as you can. Pester inactive people.

    As a GM: Pester inactive people incessantly. Threaten the slowest with death. If necessary thin the herd.
    Click to expand...
    You are a cold, cruel man. <3
    I guess that's pretty much what people should do yeah haha. But they don't. Beacuse RPs clearly die ._. so how do we make it better
     
    A sad inevitability It is not exclusive to these forums. Everywhere I go in search of roleplay, this will happen.

    Apparently though, there is a problem here with making your posts too lengthy. Yes, I have noticed that. For this reason, I prefer more faster paced roleplays with shorter posts, and more encouragement on interaction between players rather than more novel-like affairs. Doesn't have to be a one-liner. I hate that. But like, a paragraph a post is a pretty decent amount. Encourage people to post at least once a day. At least once. I think that's a good pace. More than that would be pretty awesome too, but not too quickly because some cannot keep up.

    As a GM, you must be a leader. I realized that in all the mistakes I made in the past GMing. I wasn't enough of a leader. Giving your players too much freedom will cause them to become confused and lose interest. But you also must not make events exclusive to your posting. Because that's a surefire way for a RP to die. Waiting for GMs to post is annoying, and isn't something I've had many problems with until I came here. I do think they have too much control over the events, and prefer them to act more like a player character with a more active role in the story.

    If things become stuck or reach a boring point, then it's up to you as GM to get them unstuck to keep the thing alive though. That's the part about giving people a lot of freedom that can get out of control. You reach these points where it's difficult to think of anything to do. A GM must step in and provide something when the RP slows down. Also, don't be a GM if you don't have a lot of free time and find yourself being the person who says "I have work/school, can't post" for a week. A week is all it takes for a RP to die. Only do it if you're sure you can. Don't waste everyone's time.

    As for being a player, I have only one recommendation. POST DAMMIT. Stop talking about posting, and just do it. Don't chat, don't make overly complicated plans about everything. Go to the thread, read what has been said, and make it happen. It is a simple task that is often over complicated by peoples' procrastinating minds. I guarantee you that RPs will go faster with more people doing that. This isn't a matter of discussion. It's a matter of getting your ass up and doing something. People need to motivate themselves as much as their GM needs to keep things flowing smoothly.

    And if you mess up? Well, who cares? You can fix that later. There's never no going back in an RP. I've edited posts and redone events in RPs several times when I don't like the way it turned up. The important thing above all is getting things done. You can mess around with the small details later.
     
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    Roleplays die because of a lack of motivation or leadership. If a game master "ghosts", abandons their roleplay and leaves the players directionless, their game is dead. If the players are "bored" or "daunted" and don't post, the roleplay dies. Roleplays do not die based on length, based on post quality, based on pacing. If you, GM or otherwise, are not willing to put some form of dedication into the roleplays that you join, you're more or less contributing to its death, no matter how "short" or "long" it is.
     
    I think RPs probably have their roots in tabletop gaming, where you would have one to five hour sessions a week to progress things. As instant messaging and forums came about, it became easier to do them online, and so I'd assume the short method would have been the primary way to do it. (Similar to how mafia games on forums go). As time went on, RPs probably started to be more about the game and more about the story, especially on forums where long posts could exist. This forum seems to have primarily people who come from a background of writing, and not so much tabletop games (I could be totally wrong) in addition to video games and anime. As such, I think people (including me) tend to treat their RPs more as kind of a collaborative novel or fan fiction.

    I think the long posting is totally fine (probably biased, because I tend to write about 3-7 pages a post), especially for some of the less plot oriented and more sandbox oriented RPs where players spend a good amount of time solo. For small group RPs, or plot based ones, the long posting and novel approach is probably more detrimental than not.

    My proposed solution for small group/plot RPs is honestly to try and get more RPs that use more creative and game-like mechanics. I mean, pokemon related RPs that I've seen on here don't use Pokemon Showdown, which seems to be almost a perfect tool for PvP and maybe even GM controlled PvE. Non-Pokemon related RPs can take elements of tabletop games in order to function (maybe using roll20?). There are a lot of creative minds on the forum, so why are we all trying to use the same mold?
     
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