Okay, so hear me out... I've joined/hosted plenty of RP's in the past and present. Everybody really excited to start and when it starts things are posted in an instant. Yay. But... after a couple of days, people just vanish. And not the 'still on the forum but just ignoring you'. No, they actually disappear from the forums. 'Last seen 3...4...5..7...10 days.'

I've never hosted/played in a group roleplay that lasted more then... a week or two. Just because people kept disappearing. I'm scared... :(

The only thing that does work are 1x1 RP's. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

Not to be like a bitch, but probably don't do casual or free-level RPs?

Like, this has been going on for several years across three forums and none of us have really disappeared from the forum, unless this moves then that's when we leave.

Recently? Could be school starting.

@Dinh AaronMk I don't really think that's the case... This for an example. (not from me btw) Casual and has been going for at least a year.

@VilageidiotxMaybe? Could be. Point is, it happens throughout the entire year.

Someone gave some pretty good advice on this in chat the other day. Make them wait awhile before you start it. Most people who aren't willing to stick around will drop out before it even starts if you make them wait awhile. I hope that makes sense and helps. :)

I thought I was the only one. I only play in Advanced and this is pretty much what happens every time. Everyone makes their CS and then doesn't log back on...ever...again.

I'm just going to be persistent until the right person...a real person...stumbles across and doesn't vanish.

Hey, if this happens to the cast majority of us on this thread, then why don't we all ban together as a team of dedicated Rpers and come up with something?

I was actually thinking of the same thing...

Hey, if this happens to the cast majority of us on this thread, then why don't we all ban together as a team of dedicated Rpers and come up with something?

This happens every once in a while. It never ends like you hope it will.

<Snipped quote by HaleyTheRandom>

This happens every once in a while. It never ends like you hope it will.

Oh well, it was a thought at least.

Unless you are really lucky, you will always have a few dropouts, be it during IntCk phase, OoC only phase or IC phase. When we run RPs, we consistently aim for getting a certain amount of players above our target player/character count, simply because we pretty much know some won't stick around.

Some tips:
Don't rush-launch RPs. Take your time.
Be strict during CS process - Saves you work later and removes players who don't fit well.
Make sure your players are engaged with each other. Force them to connect their characters so that they'll work as a group, rather than individuals. That makes them more likely to stay.

@EllriI think the point of this was that the people who drop the RP they claim to show interest in just never sign back on and never give any kind of notice (which isn't unusual in itself). Not only do they just never get back to the RP, they never sign back on. It's like they're bots to play with our emotions. xP

But you're right, nevertheless. I wish all GMs were like this in that they encourage and even require intercharacter relations to some degree. It would definitely help in creativity and muse and would definitely keep the more loyal players around. It just seems like no one is loyal to anything now-a-days.

There are so many threads complaining about the lack of follow-through with any RP and from both sides. Why is this? Why is it so hard to put an RP on hiatus and get back to it at a later date? Does it make it easier to walk away due to the internet being so anonymous? It's entirely disheartening for all when the majority of RPers on this site never commit to anything to its end, nevermind the fact there's no sense of respect in telling a GM that you're walking away or that you won't be able to post for a while. Now it's just grown to people not signing onto the forum ever again. It makes me just want to write on my own, which I don't prefer to do to begin with. But when the community lacks discipline and respect, I care little to interact with it and, 99% of the time, waste my time.

At this point, it's a game to attract anyone who will stay with the RP for 2 posts. I think it's been a year now since I've joined or created an RP that's lasted longer than that.

Well, I can attest to being on both sides of this, watching people disappear, and being the one who disappears.

I can't say why other people drop out, but personally, what happens with me is that if I'm interested in a lot of stuff going on all at once, I'll sign up for something, or express interest, and then later forget that I did.

I've been getting better at this, but it still happens at times. I'm really pleased with the whole 'subscription' method, since it means that I'm alerted whenever something happens in those threads, reminding me to check them. But it also means that if I forget to subscribe, it's likely I won't think about them when I'm doing the rounds when checking my subscriptions.

Speaking as someone who disappears waaay to frequently to have an excuse, I'm so sorry.

Work and school are usually contributing factors to sudden vanishing, and both at once is like taking a haymaker right to the role-playing face.

But that's only valid sometimes. More often than not, people just lose interest or grow impatient, especially when the beginning of a plot is conversation heavy. In one RP I was in, I kicked a guy out of a tree on the very first post. I like to believe that if the whole reason I lasted for the whole duration.

Sadly it's for this reason that I won't be a GM of RPs anymore. The amount of effort I put into making some RPs only to have it fall apart after a short time just isn't worth it.

I think part of it is also what I will call action and reaction posters. There are some people out there that will respond to an event that someone else has created, thus making it so that they won't post until something has happened. So if you happen to have too many people that are waiting for something to happen... well, nothing ends up happening. :P

I think it might be easier with lightweight, sandbox roleplays that concern popular genres such as zombies, cyberpunk, etc. I'm going to get into that after my current efforts inevitably crash and burn because of the reasons discussed in this thread.

It's 'nice' to see I'm not the only GM having problems with people suddenly disappearing. I thank those who gave some nice little tips that I will definitely use.
Starting a new RP soon (casual, sorry). We'll see if someone manages to break the record for leaving without trace.

In my history of RPs and hindsight, I often vanish from RPs that often end up taking more time commitment than I initially thought. This is often reliant on the other players, perhaps they're posting too much or too fast and I just can't keep up. I hate to call people out of that and it eventually gets to a point where I slide myself into the background and never post again. I've been upping my effort to not leave quietly anymore though.

Especially on this site it seems casual can be anything from 1 paragraph per post once a day to multiple pages worth 2-3 times a day. Then you've also got issues with speedposters and coming back to 60 new posts every day sometimes. There is a significant time commitment differences and it usually can't be even estimated until 2-3 posts into the roleplay.

I've been considering GMing an experimental roleplay with more strict upper and lower limits on post size and frequency to see if it retains players better.