[color=coral][u][h2]𝕸𝖞 𝕿𝖍𝖔𝖚𝖌𝖍𝖙𝖘 𝖔𝖓 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝕮𝖚𝖗𝖗𝖊𝖓𝖙 𝕯𝖎𝖘𝖈𝖚𝖘𝖘𝖎𝖔𝖓[/h2][/u][/color]
[color=#ff9872]I find myself thinking about this predicament of maintaining a playerbase quite a bit. I do agree with [@Morose]’s idea that the unique style of every GM contributes greatly to how well their roleplays seem to do in the long run and how many players are attracted to their ideas. If you look at your past Guild GMs you can usually identify the elements that made up their style. I did this myself and often noticed that some things that stick out are whether or not a GM uses Discord and how they run their discord, and how they interact with players even before conversations of the story arise. This means that even in the interest check stage, there’s a lot you can do to [i]ensure[/i] interest of possible players. I’ve taken to ensuring that my players’ questions are answered in a timely manner, that they know they can ask any further questions, and that they are free to provide constructive ideas to the areas where the story still needs to be developed where questions may emerge. Allowing contribution from the start of things allows players to become more invested in your ideas.[/color]

[quote=@Morose]
Once you have your player base, I find that there are three ideas to keep in mind: [i]challenge, encourage, and correct.[/i] I'll elaborate a little bit on each of these: 

	[u]Challenge [/u]- It's super easy as a GM to go 'well, I've got this awesome group, now I can just coast.' Hell, I'm a lazy person by nature so I totally get that urge. However, if you aren't challenging your roleplayers to grow as players and writers, then they aren't going to enjoy things. It's like if you let them easily overcome every obstacle - no one wants to read a story like that! So maybe for you, the answer is to come up with more complex problems as the storyline goes on and maybe allow your roleplayers to take a little more control. In my the Gifted RP, I actually am letting roleplayers portray the villains in the story and it's been amazing so far. It certainly has challenged them and I know it's challenging me as a GM.

	[u]Encourage[/u] - I do drop [i]likes[/i] on posts, especially if I know someone is having a rough patch in real life or on the guild, as I know seeing a notification that I got a [i]like[/i] or something puts a little spring in my step. I'll make comments in our discord chat saying things like "omg Max [the character] is a dumpster fire but damn it, he gives me life. Loved the post!!" I try my best to encourage other people to do things as well. If a post makes you feel, say something! It encourages everyone to keep on writing, as well as lets you know when you've done something well. 

	Now, I've also developed a system of well.... blatant bribery at times. Blue and I will give out rewards for noticing little easter eggs or posting quickly, such as reroll cards (if they ask for a dice roll and don't like the result, we'll reroll it for them) or extension cards (to give them more time to post). I've recently been making trading cards of [b]all of the active characters[/b] and I've been giving them out to people as roleplays reach milestones (i.e. 100, 200, 300, 400 posts and arc completions). I'm working on developing a game that can be played with the cards, but people love collecting the cards of their own characters and it definitely encourages them. 

	[u]Correct[/u] - This isn't the fun one. You have to apply the rules to your longstanding members just as harshly as you would for a newcomer. Everyone has to be treated equally and even if they've been playing with you for a while, people will make mistakes. It's your job as the GM to make sure that no one is above the rules - not even yourself - as otherwise, it's easy for a culture of favoritism to spawn. 
[/quote]
[color=#ff9872]
These are great ideas, and I think your three main points here offer a lot of insight into what GMs think about. Each of them has a place in creating the unique signature a GM offers to their players. People attach to your roleplays for a reason after all. If we can identify how we use mechanics that contribute to these three factors, then we can usually find out what people are looking for in our roleplays both on a personal level and on a more general level. 

Challenge is definitely a difficult thing to maintain throughout a roleplay as a lot goes into maintaining it. There’s a certain balance you have to create that creates difficulty and challenge for your players so that their goals grow ever more developed and greater as the roleplay ramps up, while also allowing for players to achieve goals regularly so as to avoid a roleplay that is stagnant with a plot that never moves along. This can be done in a number of ways, and goals can be vastly different on a case-by-case basis for roleplays. Sometimes, your players are looking to defeat the next villain in the overarching story, but sometimes they are just looking to develop a piece of their character to create a dynamic person of them. It then falls upon the GM to create the challenge in a unique way for every player. Each player doesn’t want to end up being in the same place doing the same thing at all times after all.

I think its also important to spotlight your players’ characters in their specific challenges as well. Because of the vast array of diversity in any roleplay’s cast, each player will find that there is a place their character is naturally drawn to in any given setting. I tried to put this to action in my recent roleplay Futility: the Great Game. Having a racer character amongst the cast that was specifically designed to be the team’s driver, he was a bit more out of place in gunfights and political intrigue. That made his character no less integral however. Identifying what the player was looking for in his own character’s development, I offered the opportunity for situations where his car and chase-scene-esque talents would come in handy. In short, we really just need to learn to cater to the players that are developing the roleplay right alongside us as GMs.

Encouragement takes many forms, and forum-based reactions certainly have a place among GMs. Alongside the self-validation that we all hide when we receive reactions that people are interested in our writing, it’s also a great way to keep players updated with the fact that their posts are getting read. As harmless as that may seem, I believe it is important for the roleplayers to know where I am at in keeping up with their posts. I also tend to try and comment on any new post that arises in a timely manner. This can help keep players thinking about what they’re going to do next and what they can expect from the GM’s end before they prepare their next post.

I’ve been a fan of the more subtle ways you can reward players for active and continued participation in the past. This mostly came in the form of more detailed lore and the possibility to go even deeper into scenes than would not have been otherwise possible if everyone else was ready to move along. In my newest roleplay, [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/178777-chaos-and-order/ooc]𝕮𝖔𝖎𝖓𝖘[/url], I’m actually planning something a lot more blatant and akin to [@Morose]’s own idea using a mechanic I’m calling SECRETS. This involves players being able to find or receive files from important characters or in important places that will contain advantageous bits of lore that will come into play in the story’s future. While it’s basically the same thing that I previously described, I believe the concrete and visible nature of the rewarded information will have a more powerful impact on keeping player interest. It is always fun to be more involved in a storyline, and the use of this unique element allows players to be better prepared for and more invested in where the storyline is heading. 

Enforcing rules certainly something I struggle with as I personally have found the laid-back style of long-term GMing to be more favorable. Every GM is going to have to draw lines somewhere. That sucks, but there are ways you can go about it to maintain interest and look upon the system of keeping a roleplay going as less of a rules-based system and more of an accommodation system. If a player forgets to post because they’ve lost interest in the roleplay, that’s a lot different than someone being unable to post because of some struggles in real life or a stint of absence. I try to solve this problem in my own roleplays by allowing players the option to have me treat their character as a momentary NPC if they find themselves unable to carry on for a period of time but still want to remain involved in the roleplay. 

Allowing players to take a more backseat role when they are unable to invest themselves as much as others shouldn’t always be a bad thing. I’m going to have to bring up my new roleplay 𝕮𝖔𝖎𝖓𝖘 again, because this was another aspect of running a roleplay I’d seen when previously GMing that I wanted to put into action in my newest attempt at GMing. The roleplay all takes place with a base setting— a safehouse for the group where they will be interacting outside of the greater ‘missions’ of the story. When players find themselves busier or less able to invest themselves in the roleplay, they will be able to keep their character at the safehouse and attend to manners of character development at a pace that won’t keep other players waiting. I’m excited to see how effective this mechanic may be.

I have rather limited experience with trying to recruit players into an already running roleplay, but I suppose what I’ve noticed is that supplying a transition into the cast is rather important. Since any additional players that might not have been around at the beginning of your roleplay weren’t right alongside everyone else (and I’ve come to believe that you shouldn’t try and force them to have been there in the past), they need to have their own unique goals for joining up with the rest of the cast and working alongside them. This can manifest as a scene unique to the new players that bestows on them the motivations and information necessary to find a place in the already established crew.

I think it’s important to mention that while new players should be able to influence the plot and interact with the greater world just as the main characters did, it may also help to create a unique role for the new players that allows them to be different from the main cast. Just as the old players have valuable information and experiences that they can bring into the plot, new players need to be given their own array of experiences that they can use to fulfill a new role in the story. This can be difficult as it can be tricky to create a new role that isn’t fulfilled by the present and can still be relevant to the story. That boils down to the job of the GM to make their roleplay morph and change to encompass all its players.[hr][hr]

I hope my discourse may help some of you. I’d love to hear what others might think of the ideas I’ve posed here. This is just my unique perspective, and I fulfill a certain niche on the Guild with my style just as all other GMs end up doing. Identifying your own style and tropes can really help you develop a story in a way that works for you and the people that you draw in, though. Also, thank you very much [@RPGN] for the shout-out to 𝕮𝖔𝖎𝖓𝖘. The OOC has just been put up and we'd love to have any and all interest parties involved![/color]

[color=coral][h3][indent][indent]—𝕺𝖕𝖕𝖔𝖘𝖎𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓[/indent][/indent][/h3][/color]