Advice/Help How often do your RPs actually get off the ground?

[Anamnesis]

How often do the role-plays that you discuss with other writers actually get off the ground? Do you see them die more in the planning stage, a few posts in, or later on?
Very curious. This concept of 'ghosting' and plot dropping is a bit new to me coming from a different RP medium.

 

[Jello]

Usually mine have stopped in the planning stage. I feel like a lot of this is because you get a feel for your partner while planning things out. Sometimes it can be a good indicator of wether or not you'll be compatible. Perhaps they want to go in an entirely different direction than you with the roleplay, and you just know it's not going to work out.

 

[Anamnesis]

Usually mine have stopped in the planning stage. I feel like a lot of this is because you get a feel for your partner while planning things out. Sometimes it can be a good indicator of wether or not you'll be compatible. Perhaps they want to go in an entirely different direction than you with the roleplay, and you just know it's not going to work out.

Do people usually communicate that they are not feeling it, or do they just vanish most of the time?

 

[Jello]

To be honest, they usually vanish. I'm not proud of it, but I have done it as well. In my case, it's because I don't have the heart to tell them I'm just not feeling it anymore. I don't want to hurt anyones feelings.

 

[GhostDash]

That's a good question, actually. My thoughts might be a bit skewed since I've had consistent partners for a long time now and am only just branching out for new blood, but for me it seems to be mostly they just stop posting in the middle of things. But back in the day, it was more typical for them to leave one or two posts in.

 

[rae2nerdy]

So I am first going to start this with reasons for which most of my roleplays fall apart. Then I'll get into sort of how many / at what point they fall apart in a second section.

WHY MY RPS FAIL

1. Time Commitment
2. Partner Compatibility
3. Longevity of the Story

1. Time Commitment
By this I mean that a lot of times real life is unpredictable. The amount of people on this site who have consistent daily schedules is actually pretty small. Plus you also have people who are in school, work full time, have families, or other real life obligations that will call them away. Lastly there are people who are on totally different time zones that simply might not be able to post at the same time / same speed as yourself.

A LOT of roleplays die out due to this very simple roadblock. And it rarely gets mentioned in these kinds of threads as everyone sort of focuses on number 2. But honestly if my partner is like six hours ahead of me in terms of time zone and can only post one or two posts a day at like 6am my time than we probably aren't going to have a long term roleplay.

1B. Real Life
Also remember real life is very unpredictable. As I said a lot of people on this site are in school. So you might have periods of time where their schoolwork comes ahead of roleplays. Or you have people who have their own family and might have family issues pop up. I once had a partner who had : a death in their family , work deadline, and personal illness pop up back to back. They were out for like two months with only temporary updates. So yeah if your partner disappears without a trace CHECK THEIR ONLINE STATUS. If they have been completely absent from the site than they just have real life issues.


2. Partner Compatibility
So sometimes you just don't mesh well with another person. I do ONLY 1x1 roleplays so I am speaking from that perspective just so you know.
But in 1x1s partner compatibility is crucial, there are only two of your making a story so if you can't get along than the roleplay doesn't go anywhere.

It's the same with things like writing styles, plot preferences, world building, etc. If I see early one that me and my partner are not compromising or they are asking for things that would impede my enjoyment of the roleplay than usually I bow out.

I will usually say something to the effect of : I'm sorry but our styles are compatible for this roleplay. I wish you luck in your search but I am going to have to bow out.

Now I have only rarely seen someone say the same to me but I have been informed that I come across as very intimidating so that could just be a me thing.

3. Longevity of the Story
So this is another one that doesn't get talked about a lot but is pretty important. That is just someone actually getting around to plot out the progression of the story. It's easy to come up with an over-arching plot. It's easy (for me) to come up with a detailed world. What is hard is coming up with a way to keep your partner engaged in the story over a long period of time. Sometimes this ties into time commitment, they can't post as often so they start to get overwhelmed. Sometimes it's just they get bored with the direction of the story and don't know how to spice it up.

So yeah it's important to understand that sometimes if you don't keep the roleplay itself engaging people will stop replying to it. This doesn't necessarily mean they'll stop talking to you however. I have several friends on this site that I rarely roleplay with. We just never seem to make a story that keeps both parties engaged. But we do chat from time to time and are pretty good friends regardless.


When Do My Rps Fail?
Honestly most of them fail in the planning stage. I mentioned this on a different thread but out of say every six replies I get to my request for roleplays usually only three of them actually get passed the initial getting to know you stage. Where in you expand the plot, introduce yourself, and talk about your roleplay styles.

Of those three roleplays usually one will drop off within the first few posts.

So I average about one or two roleplays that are actually active at any given time. With one slot that is usually open for partners that just post slowly (like a reply a month or so).


But you ask, Geeky how do you tell who will stay?

There isn't really a tried and true method, every individual is different and their are exceptions to every rule. I do find in general if the person is super engaged in the plotting section, where they offer up their own suggestion or ask a lot of questions. Those are the ones that stick around. If people just respond with simple : Yes / No / Okay responses. Or if they don't seem that enthused by the plot, than they are the ones that leave.

 

[Shuusuke]

The ones I've been in all started, but died some posts in. They never made it long enough for every character to interact with all the others.

Part of the reason for that has to do with my habits though. I don't join many RPs. When I consider joining, I think it over quite a lot. I check the profiles of the other players in the RP to get a feel of their personality and writing style, I need to be confident I can write with the quality I want, I need to be interested significantly in the fandom, my mental state can't be too bad, I need to have as much certainty as possible that my schedule will allow for a decent posting frequency, and I also need to have a good hunch about the RP. I don't know how to explain that last one in detail, but sometimes I look at an RP and I can just see it won't go far, so I don't join even if all other conditions are met, though I might still try to help them out in this case.

So, for better or worse, that's prevented me from being in an RP that died on the planning stages. One of them was apparently going well, but then there was a sudden lack of posts, and despite some attempts to revive it, those didn't work. On the others, the posting frequency was gradually slowing down and eventually people had to leave the RP due to real life issues.

There was one case where I showed interest, the interest check was kind of going well, but I stepped out due to at least one of the conditions, and then it stopped on the planning stages. If you count the ones I didn't join, but was either just reading them or helping out, then some of them did stop in the planning stages too. Always unfortunate to see that kind of thing happen, and from what I understand that happens very often.

 

[Beckoncall]

My RPs tend to get off the ground if they survive the interest check phase. I have two RPs going on currently on this site, one a fantasy nation builder that's been going on literally for years (with breaks) and currently a lighter pathfinder dice RP that I can't decide is getting off the ground or is slowly slowly dying... but it's been going for weeks now.

If you have a good interest check and screen for good candidates, your RP will get off the ground. Can all RPs sustain themselves? definitely not, but I find the more people involved the more energy there is to feed off of and there is always enough players if one or two drop off to replace... that's how I've managed to have one RP running in such perpetuity... but some ideas just peter out, it happens to the best of us.

 

[Draco]

I feel like good communication with the player helps get the story off the ground. I find if I am not talking to the player OOC, the RP tend to fail

 

[Sara Sidereal]

I have never seen a thread go more than a couple of pages, rarely do I even get to see the first major conflict. The most common situation is each person posts once, one person disappears, and that makes everyone else lose interest, which leads to posts slowing down, which makes people lose interest further, and leads to a feedback loop which ensures the death of the game.

If I were to run a game, I would leave it open to drop in joins at all times, and enforce a strict 48 hour limit each posting round. Failure to post means you get skipped, three skips and you're deleted. It's the only way I can think of to mitigate the death spiral; no amount of vetting will stop people from simply vanishing if they want to. And why would it? There are no consequences for dropping out, and I can't in good conscience advocate for a site-wide blacklist like some PbP sites use.

 

[Lorsh]

group RPs: 0% success rate

1x1s (DMed): 30%-40% success rate

i have only ever "completed" roleplays when the players in the RPs i DM get themselves killed

 

[rae2nerdy]

group RPs: 0% success rate

1x1s (DMed): 30%-40% success rate

i have only ever "completed" roleplays when the players in the RPs i DM get themselves killed

Wait do you mean the people your roleplaying with actually die? Or they ghost?

Or where you talking about them writing their characters out through a death scene?

 

[Lorsh]

Wait do you mean the people your roleplaying with actually die? Or they ghost?

Or where you talking about them writing their characters out through a death scene?

it's when i kill their character as a DM for making bad decisions

 

[rae2nerdy]

it's when i kill their character as a DM for making bad decisions

Ah I see you meant GM (as in you run the roleplay). I thought you meant DM (as in direct message/pm). So I was very confused.

 

[Lorsh]

yeah GM is a better word since it's not actual DnD