Open topics, and ways to RP

Hey all,

I'd like to start with a story, if you'll read it. If you look back in the pensieve to... 2 years ago, for example. 98% of all RP threads on this site were open and almost every single one of them was active to the point of... maybe ten replies a day, if it was a relatively unpopular topic.

Yes, given back then we were on one-liners, however a lot of this problem is stemming more from characters than players not being bothered to write, which is sad.

Anyway, yesterday I searched through the index, in all the forums Jess had IC access to (Basically not Hogwarts or the DE hideout)

I found about 3 topics, no joke.

What I find curious is that we once had personal plots, and yet we had people join our topics? You were wooing that best friend who you wanted to have more to do with you, and AJ dropped in to say hi, it was a slight nuisance, but you had a great time working around it and RPing with both of the people (Just an example)

It's getting annoying that people seem to just plan out their entire RP before it's even begun, not everything needs to be planned out before you write it, that's called a novel, not RP.

What I don't understand is why I see lots of people posting in the cbox saying things like:
Falls asleep in boredom
Slams head on desk in boredom
I'm bored
I'm about to fall asleep, someone RP with me

And yet no one just takes some initiative and joins a thread, or asks the other four people saying the same things if they'd all like to RP together.

Now, the way I see it, personal plots on this site are almost becoming like books. Character A must overcome its emotional problems to finally unite with character B, however if Character C decides to go shopping with Character B, or bump into Characters A & B while they're on a walk, so help me god, everything will go wrong. Experience RP in its fullest, RP with someone you might not normally RP with, and if you're bored, find a topic and join it.

Some of it, and I may be wrong here, but I'm just throwing the idea out to you all, may lie in the fact that posts have become small essays now, or in some cases, large essays. Looking at the stats, and thinking in my mind, around the point where the average post started taking 15 minutes to write, and so help you if you missed a day or two of replies, participation in group things did start to drop. Maybe just try making it short, keep to the action, keep the ball rolling, trust me, one reply a day RPing is some of the dullest RPing you can do... at least in my opinion. Now, I'm not saying let’s go to one liners, that would be bad. But sometimes it can be easier, and more fun to get in 5 replies in a day, each, posting just a paragraph or two, than one post a day, which uses about five different things to do in the topic.

I know for one that I've sometimes found that by the second page of replies I've used up all my ammunition for replies about 5000 words back into the topic, haha. But that's just me.

The other thing is that it's beginning to alienate newer members; I'm noticing that a lot more people have 80% of their topics involving the same two or so people. Yesterday someone said that they might leave the site, and another member chimed in that they would lose two thirds of their topics if that member left, this is a problem we're looking at.

The old group RP topics were brilliant for this. If I were to make a new house topic I'd easily have 6 or 7 different people in the topic, and I might only be talking with one or two of them, RPs should very rarely be character central, most of the time it should just be an experience for you and your characters, have some fun and meet new people. If Jess isn't replying, note IC that Jess wasn't doing anything, so you left to talk to Khaat, his loss.

The final note on group topics; some of this stems from people saying that it's too hard to keep up in group topics when 10 other people are replying, but we used to have topics where 10 pages would pass and people still managed, take that time that you're just sitting there being bored to read through the topic, or take time out of creating your 15th character to look through the group topic to find the thing you want to respond to, and remember, not every detail must be replied to.

Not everything has to happen on this site for a reason, nor does every little detail have to be accurate, so what if it's unrealistic that you make a new friend every time you leave home, that's the beauty of RP, it's not real life, and as such, things that don't happen in RL, most likely can be happening in your RPs

Jess

P.S. Comment and share your thoughts please

I agree with completely everything except the novel part.I didn't quite get why is that a problem

I agree with you, Jess. I love to write long posts as much as all the other folks who are members of the "Long Post Fan Club" And I love the challenge of writing them. That being said--there are some things I miss on PA that i would dearly love to see back again.

Here's my wishlist:

1. spontaneity--i really get unhappy with the loss of anything spontaneous. For some reason, a lot of players seem to get really insecure about what is going to happen and wanting to know each plot point and development before an idea even launches. That is really something that saddens me and frustrates me on a number of levels. First, the whole idea about real roleplaying, in the truest sense, is that one is thrust into an unknown situation and has to decide, IC, how to deal with what's come his way.

Think about it this way, we can all have a general plan about how we want our day to go. But honestly, none of us know what is going to happen from one minute to the next. Not really. We know what we would like to have happen, but we have no real control over that. It really saddens me that we have gotten to the point on PA where we need to dictate every move in a premeditated fashion.

And from an administrative point of view, that makes it almost impossible to write or develop any sort of plot that members will support that provides any sort of excitement and generates interest. When we get an idea that does promise excitement and surprise, then half the membership is upset that we havent' given them all the details in advance. Once the details are given out, then none of the members follow through because it isn't exciting anymore. The lack of spontaneity is just one issue that is making PA difficult for people to get excited about.

2. Follow through on Posts. Jess is absolutely right. Members start threads and then dont' continue with them. When someone can only find time to respond to one thread a day beause it has to be a bombastic, Pulitzer winning post, then, yes, it does take immense energy and effort to write those. And, as I said, I like writing those things too. However, when I do that, it deprives me of at least half a dozen other players who are waiting on me to reply as well. If people were to write shorter posts and do more of them, then PA overall, as a site, would be more supported, and more players would have people to interact and have fun with.

Consider making your posts shorter and making more of them. Save the Pulitzer winners for special occasions. The kind we used to give karma points for.

3. More participation in not only group topics but in factions and jobs. If you've joined a faction, gotten your character a job, for pitys sake, support it. Go to their meetings. Start a thread. For example, if you belong to the DE's, get active in Malfoy Manor. Support their activities.

4. If you need to interact w/ someone from an organization or a job, TAG THAT THREAD!!! For example, if you need a healer at St. Mungos, all you really need to do is to tag the thread in the second line of the title and say something like "Healer Needed" or "Cue Healer." We have a whole list of healers who would love to participate and interact with you, but they can't if they don't know they are needed. The same with aurors, who would love to catch a bad guy once in awhile. Just cue who you need. People will respond, I'm sure.

5. Open threads--Jess is absolutely right. It used to be that almost every thread was open, and the only time that a thread was marked as being specific to one or two players was for those more, shall we say, intimate moments. However, it seems that most of them are tagged as being private threads now and that makes PA a very hard place to join and then just jump onto the boards and start meeting people. We should all remember how it felt when we came here and how very much we wanted to make friends and meet people we could have fun with. Can't we get back to that?

PA is a wonderful site, and its a great place to have fun, but to do that, we need your help and support to get back to some of the basics that made this site successful for a long, long time. We need you to get involved, get onboard, post. Get active. Get back to doing what we all do best--having fun!!

K.

I don't have a thousand long reply to this really, I'm never good for long OoC posts unless I really have ideas. But perhaps we could hold some events at bars and places. People should start throwing parties and invite everyone. Perhaps a get together with a stranger or something. I know that after reading this and remember how PA WAS, I'm about to make a few open threads myself .

Oh sure, I'm a nuisance...(grumble grumble)

Hehe, it was just an example.

You did used to join just about every other RP thread though.

Well go figure, I was trying to get the activity back up. I think it would be better to actually join random topics and post than to not do anything at all. Besides, I think I would provide a very nice twist to the story line...such as mutated bears or dangerous dolphins...

...

(writes that down)

As long as you aren't using magic guns...xD

F*** off Matt xD

I haz two awezomez pairz of GAUNTLETSZSZ

No, I was talking about when activity was massive
When we didn't have flood control, and you could post, go to the portal, refresh, and find four new RP topics.
Anyone remember that one? When we did 104 pages in about 5 days?