Which of these do you think roleplayers lack the most?

[Usurper]

I think this can be solved by simply closing the distance between GM and RPer. Essentially, be one of the bros.

[Strude]

I think possibly part of the perceived lack of leadership is becaues the leaders themselves don't really always make it clear the amount of wriggle room there is. Personally, I think GM's should always leave the door open to RP members to screw around with the plot and add in their own ideas. A lot of the good RP's I was in in the past (not on this site) worked and were good because we were all thinking of ways to make the story overall aim higher and offer more rather than what a single person or just a few were offering as the main story. I imagine this works best if everyone is either friends or simply "gets" one another well.

At the same time, it's best to think of a plot beforehand. Not necessarily an entire novel but a healthy share of ideas that you know you'll find opportunities to put to use or to let other people tinker with. Usually, this involes a bit of private sharing of ideas and planning a lot of surprises, but even if you've planned the whole thing, when it happens, it still feels quite surprising and it's always interesting to see how everyone else reacts and if they'll completely turn everything on its head.

I have to disagree while at the same time agree.

My biggest issue is the lack of initiative players have, not so much the area of leadership but rather players taking the cues from the leader (which is me in my case) and rolling with it. I find to many people rely and look to their GM to lead them by the hand, they seem to think it's the GMs job to tell everyone what and what not to do. This is true to degree but also not true because the GM isn't there to tell you what to do but rather keep everything under control: change a scene/time skips, manage notes and details, maintain characters. But we are not there to create the story for you.

So I agree in the sense some GMs lack the skill set needed to lead without smothering their players.

I disagree because sometimes it is the players who expect to much coddling and fail to preform when they do not receive it.

As for the planning I agree, though as a GM I tend to make fairly structured RPs that are open to development and changes; able to evolve if you will. I often setup a back-story for everyone to work from and leave everything in the present open to whatever the players can throw at me and the world. Essentially helping me to create and develop a world from just a few paragraphs of back story and notes.

Often my groups and I do a lot of planning OOC as we RP, toss ideas around or (my favorite) tease everyone with the possibility of something crazy happening, not telling them all the details and then throwing them for a loop; or being thrown for a loop. I know a few of my players have totally boggled my brain their ideas and interpretations of a scene.

---------- Post added at 08:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:50 PM ----------

Yes -- and that's still a leadership problem. The person everyone's afraid most of stepping on is the GM, cuz the GM can throw their ass out. It's natural, if you're a GM and you've come up with a masterful plot, to want some control over how things happen. But that control -- even something as simple as posting order -- can really mess with the natural development of the story sometimes. It's situational of course but.... meh. Whatever. The point is that people can get in their own way, and often do.

Eh, post order is something that is far to natural for me to give up. I can't GM properly without it, but that is more because I grew up with TB posting. I find I can't keep track of what is going on if there is no structured post order that allows me to make sure one set of players doesn't power to far ahead of the others.

But like you said it's situational! ^____^' I find TB posting works best 98% of the time, with the rare occasion where I realize there shouldn't be a post order because of how my characters and scenes are going on! XD

[xbriannova]

Way I see it, dedication's what lacking in RPers. I've seen too many good RPs dies because the RPs and even GMs wouldn't want to continue with it anymore. I know sometimes there's no choice for some people, but there are many who would drop out of an RP for no good reasons, I've seen roleplayers drop out because he got bored (And quickly too.), and I've seen roleplayers drop out because of real-life personal problems between them and other roleplayers in the same RP. I've seen roleplayers who would drop out because there's 'too much talk, no fight'.

The moment they join an RP, you're like signing a pact with the other participants, to hold up the fun event until it ends, because if you go back on your promise, it could only mean that you'd ruin other people's fun. The moment you enter an RP, you're supposed to know what you're getting into. I guess not everyone could think ahead and plan.

[Alexander Tau]

Dedication. Leadership among Players is always a problem but nothing beats people just not showing up.

It is just too easy to bail on an online Game.


A.T
(-)

[mdk]

The problem probably varies between free/cas/adv, for the record.

[Dudel]

Dedication. Leadership among Players is always a problem but nothing beats people just not showing up.

It is just too easy to bail on an online Game.


A.T
(-)

What I think is funny is that those people "not showing up" left because the RP didn't have enough creativity, lacked leadership and/or grew disorganized and showed a lack in presentation.

So while people leaving is why the RPs die, it is never the thing that RPs are actually lacking. I mean, dedication to something that is making you rip your hair out at how badly it's gotten is, in my eyes, blind and stupid.

You can divorce your wife/husband and no one really cares... but leave an RP and shit hits the fan.

[Noel]

This is mostly going off of other places since she has just started roleplaying here, but have mostly seen that roleplayers tend to lack dedication and leadership. Many times have seen RP's die out from a player or two just up and vanishing which can happen for any number of reasons.

With leadership people seem really leery of really taking the plot anywhere. Admittedly shes the same way in most cases. It can lead to things stagnating pretty easily since no one is really doing much except following the person in front of them which would lead to people leaving the roleplay. Thinking about it its a pretty vicious cycle so its rare to ever actually finish one.

Thats her two cents. Interesting read in here though.

[Kestrel]

On the whole leadership discussion, I often think of myself as too meddlesome or too pushy in a roleplay that is not my own. Thankfully not many people seem to mind,some even encourage it, however when they do mind, I get complaints like "hogging main character status" and "You're not the GM!" for moving the story forward.

The thing is, taking more initiative (more accurate term for what we're calling leadership here) makes you... Well as is, stand out. The player will notice this and most likely start feeling a bit self-conscious; like that one kid in class who answers all the questions while nobody else makes an effort.

At the same time, because the GM's role overlaps with the one of this player, there automatically is created some conflict between ideas. Now a good GM, confident in their ability will not only be able to work with it, but also learn from it. If this happens, more laid-back players will be motivated to show some initiative also. A less stable GM, but a player with great initiative, is usually asking for trouble.

Player initiative needs to come hand-in-hand with a stable GM-ship.

As for the big problems... Advanced has a huge, HUGE problem with presentation. Creativity is there, dedication is... Decent. Most fights I get into are outside of the roleplaying areas, so friendliness can't be that bad. Leadership... Well I blame RP deaths more on GM's than their players most of the time ;p Presentation is the one thing that really bothers me in advanced.

Casual on the other hand, has a bigger 'dedication' issue. Which wouldn't be as bad if we didn't have the chain-quit effect and the GM's were immune to it, but... Suffices to say from what I've experienced in Casual; people post once or twice and then never again. Fortunately I've avoided a lot of this with my own RP, though. This also lines in with leadership partly, but whimsical RP'rs need to be met with whimsical RP's. So I'm guessing I should say marketing's a bitch here. Friendliness is fine, leadership often less needed because casual RP'rs tend to take more initiative than advanced ones, presentation is fine because people don't post more than they need to most of the time, and creativity... Well, it's alright. Clichés often work better anyway.

Free I've never posted in, so can't really comment.

[Dorian Gregory]

So with the problem identified is there a potential general formula to solve the underlying issue on a wide scale spectrum?

[Fateless]

Nope. People will always be people.

I just try to have fun with something while it lasts. When it gets old and decrepit and dies a natural death, it's time to move on. There's no sense lingering graveside and lamenting what could have been. Wishing people would act right and do what they're supposed to in any medium is an exercise in futility.

You can try to be a "perfect" GM or pick "perfect" players, but there's no magic fun button that makes it interesting and engaging for everyone. Plus, anything that involves human begins is going to be flawed and have problems.

If over a decade of roleplaying has taught me anything about it, it's that RP is transient. There's no formula to fix it. I've been in a few that stretched for years, but in the end, I and someone else couldn't sit at a computer and play fictional people with one another forever. Story-lines run dry, real life intervenes, you get bored and find new interests. Etc., etc.

Maintaining a role-play is almost like maintaining a real-life relationship. It takes commitment and regular (timely) interaction and progression, among other things. People just don't have the time or the inclination to devote themselves to something that much unless it's just totally blowing them away constantly -- and the blowing away aspect of a role-play eventually dies down to a regularity that most people start to find boring.

Anyway, to sum this up, online roleplay has always been like this, and I imagine it always will be.