Stayin' Alive

[Rina]

So I definitely came up with this week's discussion because I Stayin' Alive from Bee Gees stuck in my head all day today but anyways...

With NewGuild getting close to its one year mark I've noticed that there are a few roleplays reaching the nine, ten or even sometimes the eleven month mark which I have to applaude you guys who are doing that. Hopefully RPGN will be able to showcase you in the next few months as you all reach your one year mark. Running a roleplay of my own I've seen the effort it take to have a roleplay last that long not only from the GM but the roleplayers as well however doing so can create an awesome roleplay not only in the IC but sometimes with the dynamics between the different RPers. It would be nice seeing more roleplays move bast the infancy stages and last for the long haul so I thought it would be great to hear from you all on your thoughts on it.

So to get the ball rolling on a discussion here are a few questions to get started:

What have you seen work as a roleplayer or as a GM on keeping a roleplay alive? What are some common pitfalls that can cause the premature death of a roleplay and how can someone overcome them? What are some tips or hints for GM on how they can keep a roleplay alive? How can a roleplayer help in this aspect?

[Jerkchicken]

Number 1 killer is the rampant ADD with the second reason being just a big enough slowdown to kill any momentum built up. (not counting advanced which moves on scales only known to tectonic plate shifts)

I find players to tend to be on the passive side so there's like a cascade effect of no one doing anything until someone else does which stops things fast.

Conversely just by keeping them caring engaged and whipping them into action you can like reverse psychology them into getting them moving a bit and hopefully get stuff rolling again. However if you lost interest than it should be obvious that you need to look at what isn't fun about it and change it or just face it that it's not fun and let thing crash because well tough shit.

[Ellri]

We had an RP that actually survived the guildfall, but it died some months afterwards with two core players being mostly unavailable and certain blatant design flaws rearing their heads. We can't give good answers to exactly what'll keep an RP alive, but we can give some ideas to what can kill them.

The RP we had was Star Wars-themed, with captive Jedi during the Cold War between Vitiate's Sith Empire and the Galactic republic following the Sacking of Coruscant. The one design flaw that most certainly killed that RP, was that the Jedi had no real hope. Since the RP was based around players being on both sides of the conflict, that lack of hope truncated the options the Jedi faction had for doing anything. The prison ship was designed with a few too many of the Evil Overlord list points taken into account, so they had almost no chance to get to the ship's hangar, let alone get away from it. (when not in hyperspace, the ship was escorted by two Terminus-class destroyers. as well as being heavily armored and armed on its own). As such, even outside hyperspace, the ship was essentially unassailable.

On the ship, the prisoners essentially had the options of falling to the Dark Side or dying. They were often tortured, but you can get tired of writing imaginative torture after a while. Especially if the RP restricts you from using certain forms of torture.

You can probably see what we're hinting at here... If you're designing an RP with two playable factions opposing each other, you'd better make sure that both the factions have a full range of options. Don't let your personal preference for one faction dominate the RP. It only comes back to bite you later.

We've long had a plan to bring that RP back to life, so we've made some plans we think others could use too in order to make an RP work better in the long run... Not sure how good they are, but you never know. One plan we have for the second iteration of said RP, is to have multiple GMs, with different fields of "duty". One GM for each faction, one GM for the RP mechanics. We also plan to have fewer restrictions on what we permit the players to do in the RP. PCs should not be immortal.

However, another trait we've found useful for RPs, especially the complex ones like the one we've described here, is that we're strict on the Character Sheets. As it was in an existing universe, we have lore to stick to. Forcing people to follow certain rules when they create characters helps keep the chaff away from the wheat. Star Wars, for example, is a massive universe. You can't fairly cover more than a fraction of it in one RP. Thus players need to have restrictions when they create their characters. Our chosen prime restriction in the above RP was that players can only play Sith/Jedi. No regular soldiers, no bounty hunters, no Mandalorians and so forth. Sure, this removes some potential players, but it makes the whole manageable. When such roles are needed for whatever, we have our players use NPCs. Like the player characters, these are mortal and can die. Unlike the player characters, not quite so much is needed to kill an NPC.

Another important element that is easy to forget is the classic rule of "never split the party". If the PCs are too far apart, you can easily end up with the RP stagnating as various players are waiting for specific other players. The above RP had that flaw in having several cell blocks for the prison complex. While that makes sense containment-wise, it restricts interaction between the characters, which is a bad thing.

The final thing we think can help an RP survive long is permitting players to introduce their own plot lines. The GM(s) shouldn't have exclusive right to making the plot. Often players will have excellent ideas that improve the RP in the long run. Granted, the GM(s) should always have a certain control in place so that the RP isn't completely taken off the network of tracks, but He/she/they should not try to keep the RP on a single track. That would be railroading, and that is not a fun thing to go through.

[Keyguyperson]

Ellri said
The final thing we think can help an RP survive long is permitting players to introduce their own plot lines. The GM(s) shouldn't have exclusive right to making the plot.

Definitely agree here, it's kept my current RP going for 9 months (Three different threads, the latest two sequels).

[Dedonus]

Ellri said The final thing we think can help an RP survive long is permitting players to introduce their own plot lines. The GM(s) shouldn't have exclusive right to making the plot. Often players will have excellent ideas that improve the RP in the long run. Granted, the GM(s) should always have a certain control in place so that the RP isn't completely taken off the network of tracks, but He/she/they should not try to keep the RP on a single track. That would be railroading, and that is not a fun thing to go through.

I think this is one thing that has kept the "Create-A-Hero RPG" going ever since Guildfall. This roleplay kinda of survived Guildfall (we rebooted it. Many of the major characters have been carried over or represent alternate versions of characters from the previous roleplay). Combined with allowing players to have 3 characters (per player), this provides the players with enough tools to keep the thread rolling with both solo arcs and collaborative stories.