Has "Casual" become the new "Advanced"?

[Metronome]

It seems to me that the Casual section has been taken over by Advanced RPs. Plot descriptions 10 paragraphs long, drawn out, complex world building from the get go, and replies that are long winded and lengthy. It didn't use to be this way. What happened? Like...I just wanna write with some decent grammar and spelling, but not novel, man. I like world building, but my attention span isn't long enough to read through your dry description of the political and religious affairs of this country that I haven't even decided if I want to play in or not.

[Carlyle]

In my personal opinion (and probably many others), this specific topic is well by now simply beating a dead horse. There have been plenty threads and discussions on this, and yes, people generally agree that casual is essentially advanced at this current stage. People just roleplay there instead of the other sections because it happens to be the most popular on the site and in turn means more people will see their interest check, which leaves free and advanced slim pickings and scraps to work with.

[Metronome]

I don't come over to these threads often, so I don't typically see what gets posted here :P

You would think the site would provide a system to report and move these RPs to their proper categories. That alone would liven up the Advanced section again.

[POOHEAD189]

I have to ask...what roleplays are you in?

[Carlyle]

I don't come over to these threads often, so I don't typically see what gets posted here :P

You would think the site would provide a system to report and move these RPs to their proper categories. That alone would liven up the Advanced section again.

@Metronome

That's fine; I'm just pointing out that the whole "low casual/high casual", "casual writers are advanced level", etc. discussion has brought up repeatedly in the past and has been summarily beaten into the ground and to death at this point.

And yes; roleplays have been moved in the past to correct categories. Most recent was @Poohead189 moving Myriad Reality to Free, I believe? Personally, though, what decides if a roleplay is free/casual/advanced is entirely subjective. For instance, if we go by the current category descriptions, even advanced roleplays aren't fit for the advanced section. You'll be hard pressed to find an advanced roleplay that is "generally two paragraphs" per post, which is why I see ideas like this suggestion a better fit than what is currently in place on the guild to hopefully clear up things and stop the constant debate about this whole "high/low" writing level tier thing.

[POOHEAD189]

I did move a roleplay from casual to free because someone (I forgot who) pointed out their posts were 3 sentences tops. I checked and double checked and it was the case, so I switched it. If you find a casual roleplay that has more in posts than the advanced section, let us know because we should switch it.

[Metronome]

I did move a roleplay from casual to free because someone (I forgot who) pointed out their posts were 3 sentences tops. I checked and double checked and it was the case, so I switched it. If you find a casual roleplay that has more in posts than the advanced section, let us know because we should switch it.

@POOHEAD189

My gripe is less with the actual posts and more with the plot and set up of the RPs. Like, if I don't know whether I want to join this RP or not, I'd rather not commit half an hour of my life reading through the dull world building only to see a deal breaker at the end. People are just going way too in depth right out of the gate and it makes it hard to get interested in new RPs

[PaulHaynek]

Moving Casual RPs to Advanced won't increase the players that go there. The RP is basically issued a hard mode to attract players.

[Ammokkx]

Short answer: no.

Long answer: I've been on this site for several years now and the quality of casual hasn't actualy changed. The most you can say has changed is posting speed and frequency of collabs, and even then I'd argue the "old" days are no slouch.

Maybe before guildfall the casual section looked different, but I've never known it as anything other than a mix-and-mash of various different levels of writing skill. Even back when I was more bad than my current level of bad, people in RPs I was in varied from "posts 1 paragraph" to "writes a full novella" all in the same RP.

[Fabricant451]

Free, Casual, and Advanced are not good ways to divide the RP line anyway

[Roach]

Firstly, I hope you are not going to start moving threads without the GM's approval, @POOHEAD189.

Secondly, there are plenty of casual threads that would be Advanced by the metric of post length alone, but I would argue this ignores the culture of each section; a vibe that most users of the Guild are implicitly aware of.

If the section a RP belongs in were predicated on the volume of lore squirreled away in hiders, then you would only find fandom settings in Casual, and you would never get any original fantasy or sci-fi settings anywhere outside of Advanced. You can't send a RP to the gulag Advanced just because the world-building is "dull".

When a GM makes a RP, they make it with a certain type of player in mind: people who they have met in previous roleplays in the same section and in the same genre, people with the same expectations of railroading vs. sandbox, people who encourage a certain level of OOC chatter and hype, people who don't argue over granular details of lore for hours on end, etc.

Cynics would say they pick Casual because it's the most busy section, but that's a hard disagree from me. In my experience, it usually boils down to 'I like the userbase in Casual over Advanced and I want to see what they bring to the table'.

I would trust a GM knows best what audience they are targeting for their roleplay and it seldom comes down to word count.

[Ruby]

No.

[Yankee]

I pretty much agree with everyone above saying "no" but I also think there is something to be said about the RPs with massive world building. Now obviously I am not a site vet, only been here for ten months according to my profile. Even still I can easily see what Roach means when they mention a certain vibe to each section. Just by looking through the section what I took away from it is they mostly have very involved world building, whether they are advanced fandom RPs or original settings. It's really cool to look through someone's world building document! In the casual section, there are also a few RPs with world building so massive it's linked to a separate google doc. When I see that even though I enjoy reading and at time being a part of stories like that, I also think "wouldn't something this involved have a better home in the advanced section?"

I also disagree that the RPs with pages and pages of lore to read through would make casual a fandom-only section. There are fandom RPs in all the sections, and for original RPs there are a bunch in casual that don't have extremely in-depth info docs. If post length is the only factor, then the section split seems fine as it is... but if you take lore and required reading into account, I agree that there are many RPs in casual that would fit well into advanced! For RPs that have been running for months to years, and have multiple story arcs completed, that's obviously a different story though. If those started in casual it's probably better for them to remain there.

I don't have a problem with the way the sections are separated now. The suggestion that Kuro linked seems nice if there ever were to be changes to the sections. Post speed linked with dedication to the world building project. So yeah, overall I agree with the above but I do think some RPs with very in-depth world building could consider advertising in the advanced section should they want to.

[mickilennial]

Casual has and always has been the median average of RPG. The buffer between free/beginner and advanced. The sections actually aren't divided by "writing skill" but more of audience and genre appeals. So, really, the answer is no and it always will be no.

[DruSM157]

I feel called out by this topic D:

[mickilennial]

I feel called out by this topic D:

@DruSM157

why? you don't put effort into OOCs like the topic creator says and certainly don't make entire wikidots like i do

[DruSM157]

I feel called out by this topic D:

<Snipped quote by DruSM157>
why? you don't put effort into OOCs like the topic creator says and certainly don't make entire wikidots like i do

@Inkarnate

I don't know whether or not to be relieved or hurt by that statement buddy

[mickilennial]

I don't know whether or not to be relieved or hurt by that statement buddy

@DruSM157

[Chuuya]

Free, Casual, and Advanced are not good ways to divide the RP line anyway

@Fabricant451

I actually prefer that the Guild divides Roleplays by these categories. On some of the other sites that I was on, illiterate was used to describe one-liners while semi-literate was used to describe two or more paragraphs and literate was only ever used to describe novellas. Like what? We're all literate. Roleplaying is writing. The system in place here might not be perfect, but at least it's not that.

[mickilennial]

I actually prefer that the Guild divides Roleplays by these categories. On some of the other sites that I was on, illiterate was used to describe one-liners while semi-literate was used to describe two or more paragraphs and literate was only ever used to describe novellas. Like what? We're all literate. Roleplaying is writing. The system in place here might not be perfect, but at least it's not that.

@Hyde

I've run into some pretty illiterate role-players on here.

But yeah, Gaiaonline's system of Literate/Semi-Literate while having dumb names is pretty much the exact same system as it is here so I wouldn't call it all that different. Different names for the same thing. A different system would be separating by genre, audience, pace, or style.