As an idea based on drews maybe plarrs need to have so much of a solo arc done before they can team up, and collab it all out and post in segments (like we did for the Thor/Ms.America/Hulk scene in season one) so that when it is done it can all be posted and if players go awol nothing wilk have been posted in the IC so you can continue as normal.
While I do think that something should be done about people stalling arcs by disappearing, I don't know if this the solution. Waiting to post an arc until you have finished the entire collab means you probably are not posting regularly. I think that having regular posts in the IC motivates others to post (and the inverse is true for the opposite). I think the better option would be to make a rough plan on hwo you want the arc to go between the posters involved and, if someone disappears for a week or so without prior communication, the other players can just puppet their character.
But yeah, I also think if we do restart this a suggestion should be not taking the same characters as before. I say suggestion because I would love to give Fantastic Four another go, but I wouldn't mind giving up Iron Man and Thor to someone else. Of course I would also like Spider-Man because YOU CAN'T HOG HIM FOREVER DEDONUS!
So, the truth comes out. ;)
However I think for the RP to keep building up and moving forward after intro arcs there needs to be a common subplot to tie everything together sooner than later. Don't build towards the formation of an Avengers team for two seasons and then never actually do anything as Avengers because a two hour scene takes three months to finish in-game between 3-5 players. The obvious choice would be something like Skrulls, with X-characters it could be anything involving an anti-mutant organization, etc. Something's gotta tie everything together though.
I believe there were plans for the Avengers. They just were plagued by that prolonged/delayed story arc in Season 1 along with players (such as Angel Vicky) disappearing. Again, I think having a plan about the story arc should help prevent these issues, along with giving players options of control AWL characters so that you guys could continue on. And if something like the Captain America arc this season happens again, I think it would be totally fine if Drew could just opt out of the arc and continue onto a new story arc.
Another issue that we need to solve is getting some new blood into this (or the reboot, if we go down that road). If we cannot secure some new players in an interest check for the reboot, then we are probably better of just sticking it out here and allowing players 'stuck' in collabs to move on. Unless we acquire some more players, I don't think a reboot will solve anything because we will eventually get back to the same point where we are today (minus the few modifications to the rules that will help prevent collaboration purgatory). So, here are three things that I thought of that might help get more blood into the game.
1)
Rebrand: Over the last year or so, I have been throwing recruitment interest threads that have been meager at best in gathering new players. I think the only one that was really sucessful was the one that I recruited most of you from. So, would trying to "rebrand" (i.e. name-change) the game help out with recruitment?
2)
Switch over to High-Casual: Do you all think it would be worthwhile to start the reboot (again, if that is the road we choose) to place the thread in the casual forum in order to maximize potential players?
3) I think this third option is the least effective out of the three, but I wanted to ask it anyways. These types of games (Create-A-Hero RPG, All-Star Marvel, Ultimate DC, One Universe/Maximum Comics) were all born on the SuperHeroHype forums. Today, that section is all but dead beyond the occasional attempt to try to recreate one of the above threads. When there are two games (especially when they are roughly the same) are being run on both RPG and SuperHeroHype, it kind of splits the potential players in half. While I know that many of the players that dwell in that subforum are also members here, do you all think it is worthwhile to make a mention over there just so that we can make sure the audience is not split over two games on two forums?
Lastly, we better make a decision about rebooting or not because the Create-A-Hero RPG is about ready to begin Season 2.
