Why did this RP never get of the ground?

[A Man Is No One]

Greetings,

I remember before Guildfall and slightly after the reopening of the website role playing threads popped up almos hourly and filled up about just as quickly. However, that was a few years ago and apparently something has changed. I'm wondering where I went wrong with the role playing thread you'll find linked at the bottom of this post? Is the story not compelling? Is the concept boring or overplayed? Perhaps my lack of popularity just leaves people to ignore the post? Take a look, give me some feed back. I'd rather not make my exit because this place is good to keep my arthritis in check, as well as working out my creative muscles so any information could be helpful.

Thank you,

A Nation in Peril, the Queen's War

[Lady Absinthia]

Since I do not know you I cannot speak on whether your popularity or lack thereof influenced it but I will give my two copper pieces. From first glance it looks well put together but this is what I would imagine would turn either myself or others away from it.

• Held in Casual, but looks more like a Nation or Advanced RP to start. Now while there are plenty of Rp's in Casual that could be hosted in the aforementioned, they are usually in Casual for a specific reason - such as teaching. Perhaps it was just the location of said Rp.
• Set up - At the top of the RP it is a pure information dump. You have to dig to find the concept of the RP and the players roles. Anytime you leave people digging, they tend to turn away
• Rules - they are both a little long winded and yet don't give enough of the pure expectations such as posting habits, break down of what is acceptable as far as language and gore goes, etc.
• The character sheet is lacking. Now for most this might not be an issue but for me, I see a short character sheet it leaves too much that can be metagamed and leaves too many loophole areas for people to wiggle with.
• Was there an interest check posted? Chances are, once it hits the Casual section, it gets glossed over by anyone that hasn't already shown an interest. That is until it gets off the ground and those who might have thought about it get to see some posts and want to join then. No Interest Check, rarely interest is able to be gained.

Now, those are just a few things that may have kept it from getting off the ground. Sometimes it is just bad timing. Sometimes with an Rp set up such as yours, you just need a group that you are already comfortable with to form a base, then others will step in. Then again, you might just not have given it enough time. Yes, some Rp's fill up quickly but those that do usually fall under two categories: A) The GM already has a steady group. (This is usually where I fall. I have a base of around a dozen RPers I can count on when I start a new Rp to at least take a look, three I know that if I start an RP they will join.) or B) A lot of people that are quick to fizzle out and two to three remain.

Don't let it deter you though. Some Rp's just never get off the ground. I attempted several when I first came to the forum that even with interest never got that first IC post. They are back logged to retry later and I moved on. Glad I did, now I have 6 that are running smoothly without issue that span from going 9 months to 2 years.

Just keep trying, eventually you will get the three things you need to have a successful RP, the RP Trifecta if you will: Right Time, Right Place, Right People. Just takes patience.

[ArenaSnow]

Above mentioned quite a few things, so what I mostly will say is a summary.

> A bit wordy. Hider dump with a good amount of text to each one with nothing pointing out which ones are critical and which pieces are more fluff.
> Slightly convoluted and a few too many big words to express simple statements.

First and foremost, any rule previously enacted by the administration and moderation of the Roleplayer’s Guild is applicable to this thread.

"Standard guild rules apply in this thread." As mentioned above, lots of words, yet certain questions remain unanswered.
> Presented as an advanced sort of roleplay in a casual forum. If you want to do something casual, it is best to present your RP in such a way that it is easily approached. Lore dumps are a little out there for the casual forum.
> Some people may be turned off by how you're reacting, and go "oh dear, do I really want a GM who gives up that easily?" Just saying.
> If you didn't make an interest check beforehand (I didn't check) then you've pretty much murdered your RP on the spot. Interest checks are pretty critical to drumming up a few people, even if most likely not everyone from the check will not show up to the RP itself.

In general, though:
> Whim is a key factor. Sometimes, just not enough people are interested to branch out.
> The guild is not as busy as it once was.
> The most popular startups seem to be the ones that cater to releases of movies/games/whatnot that are somewhat relevant to the theme. Also, the ones that cater to the "meta" of roleplay recruitment, so to speak.

I can't speak for a reputation either. From what I see of you, there's nothing that would particularly bias me for or against joining one of your roleplays save for my interest in the concept itself, which is pretty hard to acquire these days anyways.

[pugbutter]

I, personally, didn't know the thread existed. You didn't advertise it very well (no interest-check, only three bumps), so I only would have found it if I dug back a few pages in the Casual RP section.

But even if I had found the thread, it doesn't offer the player much of a call-to-action. What do I mean by this?

• A significant bulk of your thread is devoted to describing the setting. Very little describes plot, or what roles the players are meant to fill in this world.
• When you finally explain what characters you want the players to play, I've already read well over halfway through the entire thread. I read this, of course, as a courtesy to you, so I could help you to answer the question you pose in this thread; if I was reading with the intention of joining it, I probably would have gotten bored and given up before ever reaching that point. This is because...
• You give the players no emotional onus. You never give them a reason to care about all these events; are they defending their homes from an invading threat? Pursuing a shot at wealth, fame, and glory? There's no tone to the RP; reading it is a sterile experience.
• Your worldbuilding offers nothing which other Fantasy RPs/worlds/stories don't. The "Emerald Coast" could belong to any medieval setting at all. Villages raided by bandits, too, are old hat.
• On the other hand, you severely limit the creativity of the players by setting guidelines like this:
  
  

  They will join the group as conscripts. This means they may have little to no formal combative training, even if mercenaries or thugs their prowess is most likely experience only.

  @ELGainsborough

  
  
  What if the players wanted to be battle-scarred veterans, or more mercenary, roguish characters? Your thread seems to forbid both of these. We're not interested in stories where we're not free to do what we want, and where our actions won't change the fate of the story.

If I think of more during a second skim, I'll edit them in.

[NuttsnBolts]

Pretty much everything said above sums up the experiences that most readers will have. It was in the wrong section, it's a massive info dump, there's no real clarity on what's expected of the player, and you did give up/bump it way too eagerly.

My biggest concern really is the info dump. Ask yourself an honest question and that is, "Would people all read this?". Putting the text into WordCounter.net and it's telling me that it would take 15 minutes to read, and that's treating it like a story not the setup for a roleplay. In reality that would be much longer. The idea of any OOC/Interest Check is to engage the player in a short amount of time and get them excited for the story, which is usually less than a minute.

In reality, and I hate to be the one to say it, but it really feels like an essay more than a thought providing concept for a new and upcoming roleplay.

[mickilennial]

Disagree with Nutts on the information overload critique, a lot of advanced section collaborations are about on the same scale and I've seen some in casual. Information is not the problem. However, I do think it has poor presentation. This is not as important to some as it is others, but presentation is a central point to attracting individuals for your role-play – especially if you used no interest check, didn’t bother to network to market the RP, and lack word of mouth. Given the speed of Casual OOC’s it is no surprise that this project got buried and effectively ignored. Unless you have a reputation or network preceding the RP you will need promotion.

So your principal issues, to me, is that you buried your information in hiders and had little-to-no promotion of the RP to find players.

[ArenaSnow]

I might as well add my personal reasons for not joining the RP. I did, in fact, see it a short time after it was posted. The presentation was what first hit me; the infodump that was presented in such a way that I ended up having my curiosity whittled down. It's a bunch of stuff, that didn't strike me as quite clear enough. Too many missing elements, again, as mentioned above, in regards to specific items. Word bloat, generally not a problem, but in this case didn't help the reading. Then the concept itself simply made me disinterested - I didn't feel like making a novice conscript for a world I barely had a good handle on from the above hiders. Even if novice is no longer one of the particulars, the idea of just being a conscript simply does not catch and hold my interest.

[SilverRain]

A lot of good points has been mentioned here already, though there is one thing which slightly puzzles me a bit. I'm going to pretend to be a curious person coming across your thread for the first time. I'm puzzled by the Medieval and yet Sci-Fi tags. With Medieval I think swords and shields. With Sci-Fi, I think Jedi, spaceships, aliens and robots. Medieval fans might be turned off by the Sci-Fi tag and vice versa. What's the Sci-Fi element in your RP? Could it be categorised as something else? When I browse an RP, the tags are my auto-filter.

That said, I'm going to give my 2 cents on what you did right because knowing that is good as well.

* I liked the scroll at the top of your post. It sets you apart from the Casual threads which are Low Casual or actually Free. IT shows to me there is effort in this thread instead of "Hey, let's be vampires!". It makes me want to read the rest of your post. First impressions last.

* I like visuals. Maybe it's just who I am. Maybe this is more towards the Advanced level, but a picture speaks a thousand words. The map makes me feel like I'm already part of the world. It's no longer "You lot are... here. And those guys are...uh, there. New guy, you're somewhere named...Random Town". Similarly, The org chart allows me to know who's who. So many times I've seen characters becoming confused with each other because it was hard to identify people and their alliances. "Wait... you're not my King. Who am I replying to?"

[pugbutter]

@SilverRain Mind you that scroll image wasn't there in the original thread. In fact it appears he's editing the old one instead of composing a new one entirely.

Still, good steps forward so far. 👍

[A Man Is No One]

@pugbutter I will be composing a new one entirely, in the advanced section in the future. Life just got very hectic. That scroll was featured in the interest check that got buried. I've taken everyone's advice to mind and will try too maddie the best of it in my second attempt.

[Master]

@ELGainsborough

I had no problem with the info dumps, it's just that I only look for RP's in the advanced section. I most likely would've joined this, as this feels to me like an advanced RP - as some have previously pointed out.

But by the time I had seen your "writer's block" thread, and had dug to find your RP, I had already joined two advanced RP's and started my own that I have to do work/research on. Along with having to work in a factory 12 hours a day, 5 days a week. -_-

Who knows, I might still join it. I just gotta get a better feel of how I can handle the RP's I'm in now.