[Question] How to make a good interest check

[Ganryu]

Hello all, Ganryu here. I've been Rping for a while, I feel old, yet one thing always gets to me. I'm fairly confident in myself at GMing when a game comes down to it, but what I always have trouble with is building an interesting interest check for it. I'm never sure how much to put? A very brief synopsis? The whole damn OOC?

So what's your experiences with making a good interesting check?

[Dervish]

Honestly, interest checks always were something of an afterthought for me, mostly because my games are usually fandoms that already have an established fanbase.

But a pretty effective formula, I found, was posting the synopsis you have written out for the OOC, and format it to make it look pretty, as well as a rundown of what you're planning for the game and what you're looking for/ expecting of players. Add some pictures, format it to look presentable, and generally make it look like you have confidence in your idea, and it should drum up enough attention to get the OOC off the ground.

[Ellri]

IntCks have no single "correct" formula. It depends a lot on setting, what level RP, whether its a new or old RP, what sort of players you seek, and of course luck. It doesn't matter how good an interest check is if the players looking at the time aren't the sort you seek.

What an interest check in general needs is something to catch the eye of the prospective players. A stylish image (again, a matter of opinion) can help here.

We also find hiders to be useful to keep it short-looking initially. Headers tend also to help. And sometimes, so too can colors.

Finally, don't give up on one. The one we're currently operating did not have blatant effects the first couple of days.

[ClocktowerEchos]

In all seriousness, just make it look pretty and put time and effort into it. I find it best not to half ass it and put a wall of text; break it up, use pictures, use BBCcode and hiders, it doesn't how great the RP idea may be, it people don't read your stuff then its all for naught no?

I find that interest checks tend to be representative of someone's personality for me personally: people who make good int checks (and OPs) have a lot better standing and draw my interest better than someone who just chucks words on a screen and prays for the best.

I know for a fact that when I do Int Checks, I usually put up the entire OP I wrote up for it with some slight modifications sometimes.

[NuttsnBolts]

Probably clarity and the who, what, where, when, why and how principle.

If you can make sure that people can see the info they want in a few seconds then it'll make it easier to understand what the RP is about. So when you write up your interest check, take a step back and think of how a first impression viewer can read it.

Like what the others above have said, stylise it a bit. Humans aren't programed to read solid amounts of text so break it up with headers, maybe some colour, and dot points.

[ButtsnBalls]

Concise and precise. Get rid of flashy pictures and novella sized plots.

Don't put any character sheets in the thread, unless the goal is rounding up sheets before launch. People tend to jump the gun when the see a sheet, therefore focusing too much on their own idea while neglecting the GM's directions.

[NuttsnBolts]

Concise and precise. Get rid of flashy pictures and novella sized plots.

Don't put any character sheets in the thread, unless the goal is rounding up sheets before launch. People tend to jump the gun when the see a sheet, therefore focusing too much on their own idea while neglecting the GM's directions.

@gcold

Never thought of that, but thinking about it now it does make sense. I do tend to notice that once someone hits the mark and people notice, others do rush and try ways to out do the other character sheet.

[Ganryu]

Concise and precise. Get rid of flashy pictures and novella sized plots.

Don't put any character sheets in the thread, unless the goal is rounding up sheets before launch. People tend to jump the gun when the see a sheet, therefore focusing too much on their own idea while neglecting the GM's directions.

@gcold

Actually gives me a pretty good idea. Nothing in the works now, but I have been curious. I generally put up the whole OOC like everyone else here appearantly, and I hardly get a bite. Reading this though reminds me that when messing with an idea, I hate wall of texts and lore (is advanced the wrong place for me? Why do I keep going back). It only makes sense everyone else does too. Its only when I'm invested I really care.

[Jig]

For formatting, this is a good start.

1) Something eye-grabbing or attention-catching: a snippet of plot or an interesting image. This is your hook.

2) What the game's about: bullet-points, as in the examples, are great for this. If you can't condense the concept of your game into bullet-points, I'd say it's not clear enough.

3) What you want from your players.

If you follow the above, you'll present your game in an interesting way, clearly indicating what it's about and who you're looking for. In my experience, if you can't explain in very simple terms what it's about or who you're looking for, you'll get people you aren't looking for who don't really know what it's about (you don't want this).

While I agree you don't want people to be firing into character sheets until the OoC, if you anticipate the OoC might be more than a couple of days, a rough idea of what the character sheet might look like will engage enthusiastic players before they lose interest.

In my experience, always always always make sure you have a set plot from which you are happy to deviate but to which you're ultimately working towards. This gives players the impression that they have wiggle-room in the game, but it stops them feeling that they have to walk the fine line between creatively contributing and overriding your ideas and pre-built plot. Give an idea of where you're aiming for, but leave it open-ended, so players feel like they have a contribution to make while not being overly pressured to drive the thing themselves.

In my book, a 'Rules' section of the Int.Chk/OoC is usually superfluous. People know they're not supposed to Godmod/Powerplay/Etc and you already have the forum's support, as GM, to run your game how you want. A rules section basically makes you look like a patronising dick, in my eyes, unless your game is unconventional enough that you want to insist that people do things a particular way: for example, in a murder-mystery (my bread and butter), you'd want to impress the need for secrecy.

If you're confident in your idea, but don't have enough people to run it - upgrade to OoC anyway. Some people don't check IntChks and would prefer to join a game that looks like it's already going to go somewhere (which is cowardly, but whatever), and you can always bump if you're confident that your current player-pool have confidence in you and will stick around.

Above All:

Look like a competent GM. This means tidy, neat formatting. This means good spelling and grammar in, certainly, the Advanced Section, but also Casual. This means presenting your game in such a way that people who look at your game might say 'hey, this seems like it's actually gonna go somewhere and I wanna stick around for it'. Without the last part, you'll put off people who want to find something to commit to while leaving your game open to people who want to use your project to spin their latest character.