Roleplay Theory and Discussion, How can we keep players engaged? Options

[Ryuga]

So the status of the Roleplaying Subforum hasn't improved as much as I would have liked. We've injected our ideas into the community, and yet things are reverting to the old stagnant state.
So I thought we should discuss some common problems we've been seeing, and possibly re-evaluate how we design Roleplays.

Some of the issues that I've been thinking about recently are:

The Hand of God
The GM's seem to have trouble balancing just how much control they exert over the RP. Recently I've been seeing more cases of activity decline because the GM does an inadequate job of steering the plot in the right direction. This leaves players wandering what they should do and eventually activity drops off. The Crossover RP and Holy Shield seem guilty of this.

Then we have the reverse, where the GM puts far too much control of the plot, leaving players to act like lifelessa marinoettes. (Sorry guys over at the DRYH RP. I'm especially guilty of this.)

Then there is the issue of Player Initiative.
Sort of the reverse of the Hand of God Problem. In every RP there is always the fear of being the leader, as players don't want to screw up the plot, or enter God-mod territory. Unfortunately that leaves players just hanging around waiting for someone else to do something. (Yeah, not saying I'm not guilty of this either)
An example of this would be the Persona RP, the most recent one. That one died off when no one wanted to be the hero, and we all stood around waiting for the damn monster to die.

An RP that didn't fall into this trap was The Black Chivalry. Since Trickster fell off the face of the planet midway, we just improvised and made everything up as we went along. And it was glorius.

The Booms and Busts of Fight Scenes

Something I seem to observe is that RP's tend to die right after our mid-climax fight scenes. No one wants to write about character development or revelation following this, usually, peak in RP activity, and things just stop.
Persona 4: The second case, and the TWEWY RP are examples off the top of my head.

So what do you guys think of these pitfalls? Do you see any other repeating mistakes in the RP's you participate in? And do you have any ideas on how we would solve these problems.

Discuss.

[Sparrowsmith]

maybe it's really up to us, the RPers, to take charge and - when appropriate - thrust the opportunity to someone else. In an epic battle, it might do some good to indicate that your weapon is really damaging the thing we're fighting, and then dramatically throw the weapon to someone else when attacked.
Things like that.

A lot of the time people are, as you said, just waiting for someone to say "yes, you can kill it".
GMs also need to keep the plot more controlled. I'm guilty of breaking this rule but still, it's something we need to focus on. The GM controls every conceivable NPC in the RP, they can use those NPCs to steer the RP back on track.

A problem with character development is that most people like to make lone wolves. Not always, but a lot of the time. What we need a more characters that go out of their way to interact and ask other characters how they are feeling, much like in real life. This especially applies to any players in power positions, they have a duty to make sure everyone is ok.

I'd say another problem is vulnerability. No one wants to god mod, but not many are willing to be injured either. It happens to the best. During fights its up to a handful of players to determine how hard the battle is. Sometimes they will end the entire fight in a turn, which is like saying "They were just grunts, lets move the plot on guys this is ridiculous" and sometimes they'll run in and get the holy hell kicked out of them, which is like saying "Okay guys, let's get some team work going."

Instead we get battles where every character seems to hit the enemy, but no one wants to hurt it too much. The enemy then attacks them back, but it doesn't hurt them too much either. The end result is that nothing really happens, which is okay for a few posts, but after that we need someone to step up and either be injured or injure it.

[Nicsp]

I don't think I really have anything else to add, I agree with pretty much everything pointed out so far. Quite guilty of all of it too. ;;

Regarding what was mentioned about the players and etc, I actually had that in mind and was the reason why I had attempted the Mass Effect RP, if anyone remembers it, where everyone would have a chance to be the RP's GM for a moment. Sadly, it didn't get even half of the people expected and we also ended up with a lot of people getting bored of it because they ended up with nothing to do as they waited around in the ship. OTL

One thing that ended up not working, sadly, but I thought that had a lot of potential, was the collective RP, Follow me to Eden. Maybe if we tried something similar again, but possibly with a smaller setting...

[Ryuga]

A problem with character development is that most people like to make lone wolves. Not always, but a lot of the time. What we need a more characters that go out of their way to interact and ask other characters how they are feeling, much like in real life. This especially applies to any players in power positions, they have a duty to make sure everyone is ok.

That's a rather good point. Even characters that are mentioned to be active and social in the character profile, tend to do things on there own in the RP.

Also, since when and why did we start adopting the passive roleplay strategy anyway?

One thing that ended up not working, sadly, but I thought that had a lot of potential, was the collective RP, Follow me to Eden. Maybe if we tried something similar again, but possibly with a smaller setting...

The problem with Follow Me to Eden was that not everyone pulled there weight. Worldbuilding was key, and not enough people wanted to be a part of that. So instead of a Space theme, we just had a bunch of people going in guns blazing. And we all know the problem with that.


Though I wouldn't mind starting another collective project again. Another major weakness in RP's that I think may be correlated with the Hand of God, and Character initiative is the lack of Worldbuilding. I think that the more the players know about the world, and the more NPC's there are to interact with, than we can essentially minimize the problems with GM and player initiative. But, worldbuilding is a rather difficult thing to all by yourself.

[Nicsp]

One thing that ended up not working, sadly, but I thought that had a lot of potential, was the collective RP, Follow me to Eden. Maybe if we tried something similar again, but possibly with a smaller setting...

The problem with Follow Me to Eden was that not everyone pulled there weight. Worldbuilding was key, and not enough people wanted to be a part of that. So instead of a Space theme, we just had a bunch of people going in guns blazing. And we all know the problem with that.


Though I wouldn't mind starting another collective project again. Another major weakness in RP's that I think may be correlated with the Hand of God, and Character initiative is the lack of Worldbuilding. I think that the more the players know about the world, and the more NPC's there are to interact with, than we can essentially minimize the problems with GM and player initiative. But, worldbuilding is a rather difficult thing to all by yourself.

I think that's one of the reasons why World Of Alsta thrived so much, Darkblade basically gave everyone a basic idea to go with and most people went their own way with interpretating several of the things in the RP, most importantly, magic. The easiest way I can see with minimizing the problems you mentioned is making RPs based out of famous series of movies/books/shows, instead of original, as the trend seems to have turned to, recently. Up until a while ago, most roleplays in here were all based out of an existing series, we have had recently, however, a huge number of completely original roleplays, while that is by no means bad, I think it would be one of the main triggers of the effects you are reffering to.

[Sparrowsmith]

But, worldbuilding is a rather difficult thing to all by yourself.

This is actually my favorite part of any writing, equivalent with the characters and the most dramatic of scenes.
I'm always willing to lend a hand when worldbuilding if that's a problem, but I've never seen it be the case. I do think our greatest problem is an RP of self-serving players. They just don't interact as much as they should.
The Boat Trip RP at the moment is doing okay (not as active as it could be) and I think this is due to people quickly having conversations with other RPers and generally interacting where possible.
My only worry there is that I've made Eden too interactive. I haven't posted recently because I want to give someone else the chance to demand center stage. After a dramatic entrance, I think I've done enough, and I'm pretty sure Eden is in no shape for another fight straight away.

Which brings us on to a group RP.
I'm all for it, provided we could reel in a large enough number of roleplayers. I also think we should keep the story grounded, but open to new possibilities.

I think that's one of the reasons why World Of Alsta thrived so much, Darkblade basically gave everyone a basic idea to go with and most people went their own way with interpretating several of the things in the RP, most importantly, magic. The easiest way I can see with minimizing the problems you mentioned is making RPs based out of famous series of movies/books/shows, instead of original, as the trend seems to have turned to, recently. Up until a while ago, most roleplays in here were all based out of an existing series, we have had recently, however, a huge number of completely original roleplays, while that is by no means bad, I think it would be one of the main triggers of the effects you are reffering to.

This is true. In fact, I feel compelled to make a comparison with Sluggy Freelance (one of the longest and most successful webcomics around) where the world runs on a 'whatever principle' seriously, there are: Zombies, Vampires, Robots, Magic, Dimensions, Hells, Dimensions that resemble hell, ghosts, Demons, Laser Guns, Time travel... Everything else you can possibly think of.
I think we could take a page from that book. This is roleplaying, after all, why not make a completely boundless RP. I mean COMPLETELY boundless. A warlock, a zombie, a scientists, an assassin, a talking cow, anything else you can imagine, all joining together because why the hell not.

I mean seriously, we have nothing to lose, and it could at least be a laugh. We can start out fairly slapstick and see if a plot really develops (we'll have a rough guideline of course) but by keeping it unbounded there is nothing you can possibly do wrong. I mean it's not like you can accidentally break the conventions of the RP when there are no conventions. In fact, when your arm can drop off mid-conversation (zombie) then there's ALWAYS the possibility of creating a side plot (can we reattach the arm?) locating blood banks for a vampire.
Accidentally destroying the world with a robot?
I mean really, we've never had anything completely unbounded before. Like, kids TV show unbounded. Just something really really, really silly.
It might be fun.

[Nicsp]

This is true. In fact, I feel compelled to make a comparison with Sluggy Freelance (one of the longest and most successful webcomics around) where the world runs on a 'whatever principle' seriously, there are: Zombies, Vampires, Robots, Magic, Dimensions, Hells, Dimensions that resemble hell, ghosts, Demons, Laser Guns, Time travel... Everything else you can possibly think of.
I think we could take a page from that book. This is roleplaying, after all, why not make a completely boundless RP. I mean COMPLETELY boundless. A warlock, a zombie, a scientists, an assassin, a talking cow, anything else you can imagine, all joining together because why the hell not.

I mean seriously, we have nothing to lose, and it could at least be a laugh. We can start out fairly slapstick and see if a plot really develops (we'll have a rough guideline of course) but by keeping it unbounded there is nothing you can possibly do wrong. I mean it's not like you can accidentally break the conventions of the RP when there are no conventions. In fact, when your arm can drop off mid-conversation (zombie) then there's ALWAYS the possibility of creating a side plot (can we reattach the arm?) locating blood banks for a vampire.
Accidentally destroying the world with a robot?
I mean really, we've never had anything completely unbounded before. Like, kids TV show unbounded. Just something really really, really silly.
It might be fun.

As much as the idea gives me chills out of simply imagining where this might end up, if you want to do it, by all means let's. Reminded me a bit of an old RP of Omnial where all of our characters were evil monsters and etc. I think it was called Abomination or something.

[Ryuga]

I think that's one of the reasons why World Of Alsta thrived so much, Darkblade basically gave everyone a basic idea to go with and most people went their own way with interpretating several of the things in the RP, most importantly, magic. The easiest way I can see with minimizing the problems you mentioned is making RPs based out of famous series of movies/books/shows, instead of original, as the trend seems to have turned to, recently. Up until a while ago, most roleplays in here were all based out of an existing series, we have had recently, however, a huge number of completely original roleplays, while that is by no means bad, I think it would be one of the main triggers of the effects you are reffering to.

Well that's sort of a shame. The original RP's are the most intriguing ones if they're handeled properly.

Also, no one wants to explore the space that is Roleplays based on popular media. Any suggestions you want to throw out there? All my favorite forms of media have been done to death already.

This is actually my favorite part of any writing, equivalent with the characters and the most dramatic of scenes.
I'm always willing to lend a hand when worldbuilding if that's a problem, but I've never seen it be the case. I do think our greatest problem is an RP of self-serving players. They just don't interact as much as they should.

Maybe your right about that one. But, interaction becomes rather difficult when we've only got 3 or so people on a consistant basis.

Though I think worldbuilding should get some more attention, just so self-serving players don't run out of things to do as quickly.

The Boat Trip RP at the moment is doing okay (not as active as it could be) and I think this is due to people quickly having conversations with other RPers and generally interacting where possible.
My only worry there is that I've made Eden too interactive. I haven't posted recently because I want to give someone else the chance to demand center stage. After a dramatic entrance, I think I've done enough, and I'm pretty sure Eden is in no shape for another fight straight away.

The way things are going Sparrow, I think you have to keep the center stage. You can pass it on to someone else when they're jumping up and down waiting for there turn, but right now, the plot revolves around Eden. Besides, the way things are going, we can test how the battle system works in a 2v2.

Guess that's just another trick to roleplaying we're going to have learn. When to play leader, and when to pass the torch.

Which brings us on to a group RP.
I'm all for it, provided we could reel in a large enough number of roleplayers. I also think we should keep the story grounded, but open to new possibilities.

We should wait a little before trying it. See if we can get anymore members showing up. Three people doing all the work for a collective project would get kind of stale.

This is true. In fact, I feel compelled to make a comparison with Sluggy Freelance (one of the longest and most successful webcomics around) where the world runs on a 'whatever principle' seriously, there are: Zombies, Vampires, Robots, Magic, Dimensions, Hells, Dimensions that resemble hell, ghosts, Demons, Laser Guns, Time travel... Everything else you can possibly think of.
I think we could take a page from that book. This is roleplaying, after all, why not make a completely boundless RP. I mean COMPLETELY boundless. A warlock, a zombie, a scientists, an assassin, a talking cow, anything else you can imagine, all joining together because why the hell not.

I mean seriously, we have nothing to lose, and it could at least be a laugh. We can start out fairly slapstick and see if a plot really develops (we'll have a rough guideline of course) but by keeping it unbounded there is nothing you can possibly do wrong. I mean it's not like you can accidentally break the conventions of the RP when there are no conventions. In fact, when your arm can drop off mid-conversation (zombie) then there's ALWAYS the possibility of creating a side plot (can we reattach the arm?) locating blood banks for a vampire.
Accidentally destroying the world with a robot?
I mean really, we've never had anything completely unbounded before. Like, kids TV show unbounded. Just something really really, really silly.
It might be fun.

The thing about an unbounded RP is that we get a couple awesome senarios and some laughs here or there, But keeping things too open-ended isn't a good formula for an RP, from what I've seen anyway.

Though not quite what you were suggestion, the Abomination RP, and The Cliche quest of pwnage operated on the sillyness gimmick and they died rather quick because there was nothing much to do than to poke humor at the small things.

If you want to make such an RP, go for it. I'll give it a try. But I know I'd rather play an RP where there's drama and investment as opposed to "doing anything and everything for the heck of it" sort of deal.

[Sparrowsmith]

hmmm you may be right.

I guess we wait now, or toy around with some ideas?

[Ryuga]

Well we hold off opening such RP's until we can get a larger pool of players to test with. Data's not going to be very useful when its the same 3 people doing things. That doesn't mean we can't start brewing and throw some ideas around.

[Kisuke Urahara]

I'm happy to jump back into things, especially if another collaborative Rp is in the making.

As for keeping Rp threads moving, my time away taught me that RPer's will not interact unless they are 1. motivated 2. an advanced Rper or 3. they are forced into a situation where they have to interact with other players. I agree that character development is key for any good role play. But Development goes hand in hand with conversation. This is, in my opinion, where things become especially difficult. I have been unfortunate enough to get into quite a few one line posts. I cant see any way to solve this problem unless both players aren't trying to get one over on the other and still manage to display their emotions in a subtle way. Interaction is a real problem for me in Rps. Of course new Rpers are the worst for interaction and they should be encouraged and prodded into the story.

Original role plays are another problem, as people have no idea where the story is headed, it takes effort to push through lulls in the story. I find that if you are involved in the role play then you should follow the story with diligence. Reading a large number of posts that took place while you were away can cause annoyance. Whenever I have been GM i have found it also incredibly difficult to keep players entertained when they are in a different time zone. Some players will interact with players, which is what we want, only to be kept waiting for a reply when the other player is sleeping. (I am guilty of more then my fair share of this). I do have one idea where there is a set time for when players should try to be online to continue the role playing at a faster pace.

[Ryuga]

Long time no see Kisuke. It's great to see a famiular face pop back in these parts. Maybe we can get a group project going again... though 4 isn't much better than 3.

As for keeping Rp threads moving, my time away taught me that RPer's will not interact unless they are 1. motivated 2. an advanced Rper or 3. they are forced into a situation where they have to interact with other players. I agree that character development is key for any good role play. But Development goes hand in hand with conversation. This is, in my opinion, where things become especially difficult. I have been unfortunate enough to get into quite a few one line posts. I cant see any way to solve this problem unless both players aren't trying to get one over on the other and still manage to display their emotions in a subtle way. Interaction is a real problem for me in Rps. Of course new Rpers are the worst for interaction and they should be encouraged and prodded into the story.

You bring up a good point there. I don't see too much of a problem with one line posts if it's during character interaction. Conversations can be dificult to do since in real life, it's a swapping of one or two sentances each.

This really isn't a problem when the two people frequently interact in the RP. I miss the days of milk and honey where you were already working on your next post because everyone else has already posted something else while you were replying to the former.

And there really isn't any way to remove that. I know Niscp used to Rp over the chat with Angelic Fairy, and then post one big conversation. It gets past the problem of people having to wait for one another, but it's not like everyone opperates on the same schedule.

Original role plays are another problem, as people have no idea where the story is headed, it takes effort to push through lulls in the story. I find that if you are involved in the role play then you should follow the story with diligence. Reading a large number of posts that took place while you were away can cause annoyance. Whenever I have been GM i have found it also incredibly difficult to keep players entertained when they are in a different time zone. Some players will interact with players, which is what we want, only to be kept waiting for a reply when the other player is sleeping. (I am guilty of more then my fair share of this). I do have one idea where there is a set time for when players should try to be online to continue the role playing at a faster pace.

We all need sleep. Nothing you can do about that. Problems of differing time zones is usually fixed by quantity. Get enough people in an RP and you get people in simular time zones grouping together. Or at least that was what I saw before I moved to this site anyway.

And again we bring up Player initiative. At some point I feel there should be a school for forum roleplaying. Teaching people the art of storytelling without breaking boundaries. Most of us have been too confined lately.

[Kisuke Urahara]

I see what you mean about activity really slowing down.

Perhaps we should start a collaborative role play, with only four people. If we really try to keep initiative up we could have something.

[Ryuga]

Perhaps we should start a collaborative role play, with only four people. If we really try to keep initiative up we could have something.

Perhaps you are right. We are seeing some old faces again, just not as often. Maybe now's the time to try and get everyone together with a project.

But I'm going to put that to a vote.

Who else is willing to participate in another collab?

[Nicsp]

Count me in.

[Trickster]

It may seem like I appeared and then disappeared, but that's not the case. I just don't know how to incorporate Tom into what's happening right now in Boat Trip. Anyway, I'm definitely up for a collaboration roleplay.

[Ryuga]

It may seem like I appeared and then disappeared, but that's not the case. I just don't know how to incorporate Tom into what's happening right now in Boat Trip. Anyway, I'm definitely up for a collaboration roleplay.

Understandable. It's just you havn't returned for long enough for me to evaluate your activity. The only guys who've have been around and stuck through this depression of RP activity is essentially just Sparrow, Niscp and I.

Well looks like majority opinion is to just go for it. Let's see how this turns out.