Where is the originality?

[NikoSmith]

I pretty much got that...I was just posting my reply.

[Herostratus]

Stuff.

If the slope is so slippery it would do more harm than good, which I doubt, there are still other methods. Spin-off roleplays could be tagged in such a way that viewers could toggle them on or off, so there's no need to dig through five pages looking for a setting that isn't copyrighted.

Edit to clarify for Dervish: I don't have a problem with them, and Niko doesn't seem to either. It's less about elitism and more about site functionality. I doubt many look beyond the first (maybe second) page, and if those are covered by fanfic threads, the originals get crowded out and are more likely to die from low visibility. Anything beyond that far is probably already inactive.

[Kagamine]

If the slope is so slippery it would do more harm than good, which I doubt, there are still other methods. Spin-off roleplays could be tagged in such a way that viewers could toggle them on or off, so there's no need to dig through five pages looking for a setting that isn't copyrighted.

Now this I'm pretty sure isn't even possible with vBulletin software. You'd have to ask an admin for a confirmed yes or no, but I highly doubt it.

Edit to clarify for Dervish: I don't have a problem with them, and Niko doesn't seem to either. It's less about elitism and more about site functionality. I doubt many look beyond the first (maybe second) page, and if those are covered by fanfic threads, the originals get crowded out and are more likely to die from low visibility. Anything beyond that far is probably already inactive.

As I've said before, fandom RP's are really only dominant in casual. Where, really, casual is the forum where any roleplay has the risk of dying from "low visibility" as it is the most crowded forum in general. That's really not a problem with fandoms, it's just that this is a big forum. In fact, if "original" roleplays are really so coveted, then wouldn't an "original" roleplay standing out against a swarm of fandom RP's wind up more popular than an "original" RP in, say, advanced, where the majority of RP's are "original" ones anyway?

Also, if you're searching so badly for an original RP, then I think you'd just skim past all the fandom RP's anyway, right? So where's the problem with fandom RP's pushing it to the next page if the people who prefer "original" RP's won't pay the fandoms any mind, anyway? Plus, you're right about the activity thing regarding intchk forums, but not on the actual OOC/IC boards, where RP's are still running and alive for plenty of pages in. And personally I think the OOC boards are better for finding roleplays to join, anyway. As intchks don't have great success rates in general. So if you don't have any luck in the intchks, go to the OOC. That's what I do.

[Herostratus]

fandom RP's are really only dominant in casual. Where, really, casual is the forum where any roleplay has the risk of dying from "low visibility" as it is the most crowded forum in general.

If spin-off RPs are only dominant in casual (seems that way since currently 21/30 on the front page are), and casual gets a boatload of traffic, isn't splitting them just the solution we're looking for?

>if "original" roleplays are really so coveted

I didn't say they were. Lots of people seem to love spin-offs. I might be willing to join one too if it's from a setting I found interesting and thought would lend itself well to an RP.

>So where's the problem with fandom RP's pushing it to the next page if the people who prefer "original" RP's won't pay the fandoms any mind, anyway?

It spends less time where it can easily be seen, so I expect it would get less traffic. To clarify, I've only been talking about interest checks here. I'll take your advice and scope out OOCs some more.

[Disciple Cain]

I love how Kestrel jumps on it like a beast, even though his speech was a bit unapologetic. Then again, I tend to be pretty unapologetic too.

Still, I can see where Niko is coming from.

It's not that fandoms are bad, it's just that I grew out of fandoms a long time ago and I want something that isn't a shonen anime because... honestly I don't like a lot of the anime tropes. Some of them are fun to watch, but I don't find the grand majority of them fun to roleplay with because it's a pattern that means you know exactly where an RP is going to go and it's just... ugh. It's true that a lot of people put a ton of effort into their fandoms, and I'll give credit where credit is due, but Niko is probably looking not just for a GM to do something like that but in an original setting but to actually have more GM's do this.

Of course if you want that then you should probably just go play D&D on TheTangledWeb. Really. Those guys love what they do and they need more players.

- - - Updated - - -

Or something like that

[Kagamine]

If spin-off RPs are only dominant in casual (seems that way since currently 21/30 on the front page are), and casual gets a boatload of traffic, isn't splitting them just the solution we're looking for?

Why only split casual? The logistics behind such a thing wouldn't make any sense. Plus, if you do it to casual, then free will want it, and then probably so will advanced. And then, look, we have nine subforums just for the "basic" types of roleplay. Doesn't that seem a bit excessive?

>So where's the problem with fandom RP's pushing it to the next page if the people who prefer "original" RP's won't pay the fandoms any mind, anyway?

It spends less time where it can easily be seen, so I expect it would get less traffic. To clarify, I've only been talking about interest checks here. I'll take your advice and scope out OOCs some more.

So basically, you're not asking for something because there's a large need for it, but just to be slightly more convenient to a select few people. When in the end, all this will do is over-complicate the forum system. There are plenty of issues with having too many subforums; from newcomers having a very hard time learning their way around the site, to all roleplays getting less visibility than they used to be able to with less people viewing each subforum. There are just more drawbacks than there are benefits. It's not worth it.

Good on you for checking out the OOC's to find a new roleplay, though. I often have better luck there than I do at the intchks.

[Herostratus]

Why only split casual? The logistics behind such a thing wouldn't make any sense. Plus, if you do it to casual, then free will want it, and then probably so will advanced. And then, look, we have nine subforums just for the "basic" types of roleplay. Doesn't that seem a bit excessive?

I don't just mean to split casual, but to split spin-offs from the rest (which would slow casual down quite a bit). 1x1 seems to function well enough by having the creators tag their threads with [Free], [Casual], or [Advanced].


>So basically, you're not asking for something because there's a large need for it, but just to be slightly more convenient to a select few people. When in the end, all this will do is over-complicate the forum system.

I'm just not convinced it would do more harm than good.

[Warden of War]

-Points to signature.-
Blood, good example.
110% original on my part (being the GM). It's influenced by fantasy games/genre in general, but everything about the world that I made up is original. Not to say some of the role-players haven't directly ripped off terms or such to use in their posts, but I've worked hard to bring this original fantasy world from my mind into words.
And, if I may brag a bit, we're in the casual section, going strong, and not a fandom.
So there are some originals out there. There are others aside from Blood, I've seen them. But as someone said on the first page,
Fandoms are popular because they're easy to grasp. I've had to explain numerous things to my role-player due to misunderstandings.

My point is, if you can't find any 'Originals', you aren't looking hard enough.

[Kagamine]

I don't just mean to split casual, but to split spin-offs from the rest (which would slow casual down quite a bit). 1x1 seems to function well enough by having the creators tag their threads with [Free], [Casual], or [Advanced].

There's no need for casual to be slowed down, though. Also, you still haven't touched on the fact that, with this idea, we'd be creating nine different subforums, plus 1x1 and the Arena, plus the OOC's for all of them. Think about that for a moment.

>So basically, you're not asking for something because there's a large need for it, but just to be slightly more convenient to a select few people. When in the end, all this will do is over-complicate the forum system.

I'm just not convinced it would do more harm than good.

Since my arguments don't seem to be enough, I took the liberty of going into the Problems/Suggestions forum to look for threads where this question has come up, as it does time and time again.

Though I warn you that the quotes I picked out are sort of all over the place, mainly because a lot of them came up in response to suggestions similar but not quite the same as a forum just for fandoms, but are still in the same ball park as segregating the fandom RP's. Keep that in mind.

Oh, and sorry I couldn't provide links to a lot of these quotes. Pretty much all the threads I found were locked due to the ugly debates that tend to come out of this topic.

Sorry Mirun but I'm going to have to agree with the others. I honestly don't see the point of isolating all the fanfic RPs from the original. Isn't the intchk suppose to gather interest to any and all RPs, not segregating certain RPs from others? We're already dividing RPs into levels we prefer to RP by. That's alright as some like to stick to a particular level of playing, but is it really necessary to further subdivide all that into fandoms and originals? It's gonna create a ton of extra subforums and would probably be way confusing to use. I look through the int check to take a look at ALL RPs and see if any interest me. That includes original and fandoms.This division might end up making certain RPers never look at any RPs outside their normal trend and keep them from ever joining. You're going to be moving a ton of RPs like this and end up with a very limited amount of RPs in the so-called "original" category and that term is used lightly as well. There are some fanfic Rps that are perfectly original in their own way, it all depends on the people who post to it. If you're going to do that we might as well end up with something like Roleplaygateway's division: Fantasy, Realistic, Futuristic, Fiction, Uncategorized. And they don't have anything for Basic, Casual, or Advanced. It's just genres.

I don't ever see an RP forum for a specific category, know why that is? It's because it's restricting and a very bad idea. Most forums like that would probably die off or have very little activity. An RP is an RP no matter what, does it really matter about the content? RP forums are for every genre. I thought the point of RP sites were for everyone to have fun.

People who wish to seperate others from large groups are a dogma in themselves. What would come after that? Seperate the Fantasy Christian orientated RPs from the Fantasy occult ones? Split the guild and seperate the boy RPers to the girl RPers? Make a completely different website for adult RPers to seperate them from the younger generation?

There is no point on seperating something just because it comes under a tag; isn't that coming close to hate? Isn't that actually rather close to Hitler's point of view on the world like mentioned above?

The way I see it, if someone is really interested in a thread they keep track of it. I've bookmarked plenty of threads in my day but overall not a bad suggestion, I just think that by splitting up the interest checks TOO much it also hurts the GMs as well. I was NEVER partial to Sci Fi settings in the past. I clicked on a thread title that didn't necessarily specify it was sci fi and when I saw it was sci fi, I immediately made a face but I kept reading and my mind was blown by how interesting it was. I've been a hard core sci fi rp fan since that thread.

Is it that hard to get original roleplays to have more participation than "fandoms"? I mean is it hard to put something in a title of a thread or as a header? Do we need a [fandom]Thread Name? If we need to mark them then what's next? Someone mentioned [romance/comedy]Thread Name and I think that's a bit overkill. If this is done and is optional for IntChks, there should really be a line set because I don't know about you guys...but I would get annoyed seeing long thread names, stretching a page when I look in Adv. Intchks and see:

[post apoc]Blah blah blah blah
[Vampire non fandom]Blah blah
[war]blah blah blah

So yes, you may think 'oh this takes so much time out of finding a roleplay!' if this is what someone or Mahz had in mind. (I hope not!) But are people starting to become that lazy that they can't read a thread and say it's original or fandom based? I don't see fandoms stealing the limelight from original roleplays at all. I don't think fandom roleplays are messing with standards in Casual. Free I won't really talk about because I don't go there but since when does Free have standards anyway?

So I guess my point is, is this for people who are complaining about too many fandoms or is this about people wanting to pick roleplays more easily? Say you click a title and read it and at the end see it's action and war based and it was something you never tried but would be willing to do now after reading the plot...if the title said [war]Title here, would someone have looked at it? I think adding the idea as suggested just has two sides to it and it would be interesting to see how it's used but just don't think it'll instantly solve problems that people think have risen.

Of course this is just what is on my mind. -shrugs-

And if it does happen sometime, I'm sure some will use it and some won't and that's how things go. It just seems like fandom roleplayers are being singled out and almost blamed for "original" roleplays not getting attention. So that's probably why I'm so persistent about falling in love with the idea so I kind of took it a tad personally. So hopefully no one reading took it personal or got all pissed off...cause that's not what I meant to do. I just wanted to bring up my concerned and confusion. ^^;

Segregating the community more and more and more and more only means more centralized complaints.

If the format went like it is on RolePlayGateway, I don't think I'd be able to continue because that'd be just stupidly complicated.

Or is it just me who has a terrible understanding how you RP there? I don't have a clue how to get about RPing on that website.

Would help if I knew people there to follow and learn...but, it's just so complicated.

In my opinion, shouldn't we really keep things simple?

Casual Interest Checks aren't busy enough to demand filtration. Free, Casual, and Advanced is the most relevant filtration mechanism I can think of (i.e. people most likely to be compatible with you are those that share the same sense of standards). And it's already done for you. Beyond that? I don't think genre filters are practical.

Even if you're two or three days behind in Casual Interest Checks, you only have at maximum three pages of Casual Int Checks to skim. Big deal. You can do it. You can tell a lot about a GM by their intro post, which is a better sort mechanism than some arbitrary genre value they attach to their thread.

There's nothing inherently avoidable about fandoms, fantasy, or sci-fi -- even if you naturally dislike most roleplays set in each genre. Fandoms get a bad rap because they tend to correlate with basic roleplaying, but that's a decision you need to make at the point of Interest Check, not a decision you should make on a thread's genre. I definitely don't want to encourage people to judge Interest Checks by any way other than their content and the manner in which the GM has expressed the idea.

Taking a look through Interest Checks, it's fairly common for people to make their title genre-descriptive anyways.

#3: The current system is fully functional. Just look in a thread, read the intro paragraph and if it's not what you're looking for, move on.

#5: More sub-forums is a hassle, not a blessing. It makes things more confusing for new people, it doesn't clarify jack shit.

[vangelis]

This again?

*searches for previous originality-bitching thread*

-snip-

Thread.