Jump-in. Free. NRPs.

Three words that cause my heart to cringe and scream internally.
That combination doesn't work and yet I still see jackasses trying to pull off a either a Free/Jump-In NRP or all three.
*Incoherent rage noises*

my nation is a nation of anime guys that have cat ears and tails and they can turn into angels

they re the best at war!!!

*vanishes a day later after powergaming and destroying 2 other nations in 1 post each*

@ClocktowerEchos But really, does jump-in ever end well? Like, ever?

Yes. On another site, @Tergonaut hosted what is essentially a jump-in RP. There were no character sheets, just going off one another’s posts and crafting a collaborative story. He started it off by introducing the scene with one sentence, and it became one of the marque RPs of the site in a few months.

Ultimately, it depends on your playerbase and motivations. Just like any other RP.

@Inkarnate A free RP on another forum probably isn't the strongest argument for jump-in RPs. Just sayin'.

I have done the no RP sheet thing in a higher level RP. But you need to know the people you're getting involved with otherwise it can get messy.

@Inkarnate A free RP on another forum probably isn't the strongest argument for jump-in RPs. Just sayin'.

I have done the no RP sheet thing in a higher level RP. But you need to know the people you're getting involved with otherwise it can get messy.

You aren’t wrong.

I swear I posted here once, the 'Find My Posts' option is broken as hell

The search system is under construction. This is an early/ugly/buggy prototype. — Mahz

it's been that way for more than a friggin year

I am horrible at being a GM. Either try, succeed, RP dies out in a literally a week. Or school decided to stick its dick down my throat and I have to cancel what I planned, or it just dies out simple as that.

Someone help me.

>"I'm going to be really busy, so I have to drop out."

>Same member proceeds to join three more RPs and be an active member of the community.

Uh-huh.

@Mr Allen J this is me when i hate a group for an rp

@Mr Allen J Well... They ARE really busy, just in every corner of the forum but yours!

I am horrible at being a GM. Either try, succeed, RP dies out in a literally a week. Or school decided to stick its dick down my throat and I have to cancel what I planned, or it just dies out simple as that.

Someone help me.

Feel free to send me a PM, I'll try to help you get squared away and get your ideas off the ground if you'd like.

@Chaotic Chao
A co-gm may be an option.

When you choose one though you have to have them on board so that they think and understand your vision. Many times I've seen people a point a co-gm as a moderator or someone to bounce ideas off, but when the GM is busy for a few weeks the uninformed co-gms typically say, "I dunno what we are doing".

@Chaotic Chao
A co-gm may be an option.

When you choose one though you have to have them on board so that they think and understand your vision. Many times I've seen people a point a co-gm as a moderator or someone to bounce ideas off, but when the GM is busy for a few weeks the uninformed co-gms typically say, "I dunno what we are doing".

Adding a bit more to this, co-GMs are worth their weight in gold, but make sure it's someone who keeps in constant communication with you and gets into the itty gritty of running the game. It helps if they have prior GM experience and are willing and capable of running the game when you aren't.

Just a little peeved when people join a casual roleplay and expect it to be two to three paragraph posts for the majority of it. So thry bail because typing out a little more detail is too hard.

Just a little peeved when people join a casual roleplay and expect it to be two to three paragraph posts for the majority of it. So thry bail because typing out a little more detail is too hard.

The problem Casual has is it's sandwiched between Free and Advanced and there's a lot of players that should be in either of those subforums based on writing skill, comfort level, and expectations. There's a lot of people who don't think they're good enough writers for Advanced (and most definitely are), and a lot of people feel like Free has this stigma that they don't want to be associsted with so they go up to Casual and hit this big learning curve because they aren't used to the structure and expectations.

Because of this, Casual is this giant melting pot both because of it's middle man position and because it by far has the most players; you're bound to get vastly different kinds of players apply for the same game just because they share a subforum.

This kind of becomes an issue when GMs don't firmly set down and enforce their standards because then you end up with players with conflicting writing styles and expectations. You'll have people who write 3-4 paragraphs and expect something similar in turn, only to have someone to reply with half a paragraph, or someone who expects a post once every few days suddenly being thrown into the mix with people who speed post and go back and forth constantly in a day.

So really, the GMs need to write their rules and expectations clearly from the get go and be sure to take more time reviewing character sheets. If you take anyone who applies, you will run into conflicts.

Back when I was GMing in Casual (I was one of those guys who was writing from Advanced standards from the outset but doubted my own writing ability), I ran into waaay more half-assed applications with some ridiculous game breaking stuff than I do in Advanced.

Again, one subforum isn't better than the others, it's what people feel comfortable with. That said, this is where standards pay off to make sure the players are all of a similar level before getting into it.

@Dervish
I dont mind 2 or 3 paragraphs at most. I do notice those who dont have well thought out characters usually are the ones to bail. Inspiration hits people differently however. So I dont restrict long posts or demand too much.

Even still many bail. I suppose they hate reading?

@Rai I always assume that around a quarter of players will drop out of a game in the first month or two, no matter what the game is. I worry more about keeping the people who are dedicated happy than the people you have to prod to participate. But yeah, generally someone who put in a decent amount of effort into a character sheet will be a good player and the half-assed character sheets usually produce crappy players and characters.

This has occurred off site more than anything, but I hate it when I'm trying to interact with other characters and they're completely ignoring me. I'll try to make my character begin an interaction, and then they put no effort towards trying to respond in kind. I can describe my character's actions, but I can only do so for so long if I can't find anyone for my character to talk to or do things with.