Thoughts on discord RP?

[POOHEAD189]

I never could get into discord RPing. I feel it's a bit too easy to lose focus.

[Dark Cloud]

I'm generally in a different opinion now, since I have discord access. Generally I use it for my rps as a way to communicate with my players.

[DELETEDUSER007]

>Having tried it I can confidently say that it isn't for me. The character cap is too low, when I really get into the flow my writing can trend quite purple, and posts often go by way too fast even with a posting order. Especially if you've got multiple people interacting in one scene. Plus with the way Discord functions, finding old posts (to refresh your memory of what's going on for example) on things like the mobile app is just a pain.

[stone]

Discord RP is superb for 1x1s or really small groups. Like @TGM said, it's all about the people in the thing, but I find that it being a chat platform "allows" for more variance in post length, which I massively prefer. Not every post needs to be long, and when doing dialogue with a 1x1 partner, discord RP's use of message exchanges really makes things flow well.

Post length reqs or whatnot are a non-issue if you curate your group well.

Also, I never understood why people thing the character limit is an issue. Long posts can be split up into multiple messages, just use a new message like paragraph break (WHICH YOU SHOULD BE DOING ANYWAY IN A LONG POST)

[DELETEDUSER007]

Also, I never understood why people thing the character limit is an issue. Long posts can be split up into multiple messages, just use a new message like paragraph break (WHICH YOU SHOULD BE DOING ANYWAY IN A LONG POST)

@stone

>Some people like writing in a novel format rather than a chat based one. I've done this before though, breaking up messages, and it's still ass when compared to writing in a multi-paragraph format. Also, post lengths would be a non-issue here if people would stop setting arbitrary length requirements 24/7.

[BrokenPromise]

One reason why I don't like discord for long messages (let alone posts) is because it does not place a space between multiple messages by the same author. If I just slam enter every time I want a paragraph break, there actually isn't a break. It mashes everything together into a giant word wall. The most effective way I've found to "brute force" paragraph breaks is to do a paragraph break and then start to type the next paragraph. But then I have to guess when to end the message, and it can look weird if I guess wrong and there's too many/few words, and then I need to wonder how it looks on other screens-

I mean I'm probably nitpicking, but that's just it. There's really not that big a difference between the two mediums. What makes one more attractive than another comes down to what bells and whistles you want with your RP experience. For me, I just wanna write something up on my computer and post it with little to no fuss. I don't want to get distracted by an active chat room, DMs, or any of that other stuff that discord roleplayers want as part of their RP experience. When I'm writing, I just turn on some music and write. Of course I use discord, but those little red bubbles are pretty good at distracting me. I usually leave it off while I write.

I think my displeasure for discord RPing has mellowed in the four years since I last posted here, But it's just not how I like to write. But if you do like to RP on discord, I say go for it. If you think it's something you might enjoy you're probably already doing it. It's not like you have to pick one over the other either.

[Carlyle]

Imagine necroing a four year old thread.

Generally, Discord (or any messenger app, like when we all used Skype or Yahoo Messenger) is not for everyone. Being a messenger app, Discord does have more limitations than posting on RPG. The character limit, formatting, etc. If you're someone who likes being heavy on word count or aesthetic, then Discord is probably not for you. For instance, the only way to get colored text on Discord that isn't white is to abuse script coding, which might not even work out properly as you're essentially "cheating the system" by doing so.

As for group size, I do think large groups would probably have more of a challenge keeping up the flow, mainly because everything feels condensed on Discord. Given messenger limitations, Discord is better used for brief, perhaps quick posting. With big group sizes, posts of this nature can easily be lost in a flurry of text. Using Discord for 1x1s or small group, like a DnD tabletop party, is probably your best bet at getting mileage out of the platform, I believe.

>Having tried it I can confidently say that it isn't for me. The character cap is too low, when I really get into the flow my writing can trend quite purple, and posts often go by way too fast even with a posting order. Especially if you've got multiple people interacting in one scene. Plus with the way Discord functions, finding old posts (to refresh your memory of what's going on for example) on things like the mobile app is just a pain.

@Zyx

If you pay for Nitro, you should be able to post longer messages. Not saying you should, but rather just to note that it is a way to get around the character limit.

[DELETEDUSER007]

If you pay for Nitro, you should be able to post longer messages. Not saying you should, but rather just to note that it is a way to get around the character limit.

@Kuro

>True, though I lack a steady income presently, so I'm not keen on taking on any subscriptions or payment plans of any kind that aren't absolutely necessary (like college, which was mostly paid for by financial aid and family in any case).

>Still, it is there if one needs/wants it.

[Carnelian]

I have done Discord for a very long time. I have done Discord RP very actively in the past - but in my opinion, I believe Discord is best suited for 1x1 RPs. I still prefer forum RP and a more conventional website for RP, but Discord is nice for one on one RP that doesn't need much coordinating.

[BangoSkank]

Agree with Kuro.

Discord works for 1x1, but even there forums are better equipped for it.

There's plenty of room here for improvement, but with a little practice and a little bugging the shit out of other people or just shamelessly stealing their shit you can get things looking nice and aesthetic.

That's a big piece Discord is missing. You look at some of the posters here and their Character Sheets and posts have a lot going on. It can be too much at times but a lot of the time it hits just right.

[Imbion]

As someone who's done a lot of Discord RPing because I outgrew the scope of the forum I used to RP on, I honestly think forum RPing is still the superior format. Discord is a black hole for information, you don't have access to formatting, there's less text space, and overall it's way less of a pleasant experience.

Most discord RP servers are setting servers - there will be a specific setting contained inside of the server itself. So for example, one discord RP server may be the setting of an entire magical school, while another may be the setting of an entire multiverse. They don't really contain multiple different RPs, but rather different spaces in the setting itself to do multiple RPs in. This, notability, is marginally harder to do on forums, since you'd need a dedicated subforum for it. (See the persistent forum on here for reference)

What discord RPs lack in quality of life, they make up for ease of access. Not that replicating this is on a forum difficult per say, but it requires a lot more technical knowhow than just using the channel system Discord already has. Sure, you have to get together your own mod team, but most people just get the friends they already know to be on the team itself.

In addition, a lot of people just stumble upon the Discord RPing community (like I did), because they're using Discord already. Meanwhile, forums aren't used as often as they should - insert stumbling upon a forum and seeing a notice on top that "This forum is archived but you can join our Discord" here. This is part of the general internet trend of migrating to social media rather than the creation of different sites. Also, I have talked to Discord roleplayers, some of who have been RPing for years, who do not know that forum roleplaying a thing.

I honestly think that's the main dividing line - Discord RPs are (comparatively) easy to start and easy to get into. The experience is less good overall, but if discord RPs didn't exist, some people just wouldn't be roleplayers.

The biggest problem is that the community and the RP itself come together with a package. If the roleplay dies (like many roleplays naturally do), then the community dies with it. Once the RP server you're on stops having RP activity, you have to go to a different server to seek out more, and that means going to a different community. So you have people going through RP servers just to roleplay, who befriend the people there, only for said RP to die and then to lose most of their friends along with it as the remains scatter. And then you have your general issue of server hoppers - users who are so toxic that they end up getting kicked from most servers they join eventually, so they head elsewhere to cause problems, while the perfectly chill RPers don't change servers unless that RP dies.

Also, the Discord RP community skews younger, aka to teenagers. Even in the supposedly 18+ communities (because people lie on the internet all the time). The environment is, in general, mildly toxic at best, and makes the elephant foot look safe at worse. Should you choose to make your roleplay a relatively public one open to the general RP community, you will end up with a mix of immature teenagers and adults with the attitude of immature teenagers - and that's assuming the server wasn't made by said teenagers in the first place. Not to bash on anyone who is a teenager of course, but hanging out in primarily teen spaces is next to insanity once you go to college/university for at least a year. I also wouldn't have so many complaints over it, if I could find a primarily adult RP community that wasn't mature content focused - but such as discord is, finding that sort of community is hard.

Overall, the format sucks and the RPing community on Discord at large is an irradiated wasteland. The two discord RPs I've consistently stuck into (one of which is still active [and is the current target of my RP obsession tendencies]) are both detached from the Discord RP community, in that they don't use disboard or any other servers to advertise themselves. As a result they were successfully cushioned from the community at large, which is not very poggers.