Advice/Help How to maintain long-term interest and momentum in group RPs? (Input sought from both player and GM perspective)

[Ayama]

Fellow group RPers, we've all been there, haven't we? An RP starts that we, our GM, and our fellow players are super excited about! We get all hyped up about building our characters- plotting and chatting in OOC. The story starts, and for a few pages the pacing is frenetic with the shared energy and enthusiasm we all have for this story and where it might take us.

Then at some point, things slow down. We start waiting on people's posts, and there seems to be a contagious, domino-like effect in a lack of continued interest that, nine times out of ten, will result in killing the RP.

Now I know life happens. Things get busy. Interest and motivation can naturally fluctuate. And player loss can also occur. What I'm asking is, even with/through all of that, what keeps you going? Keeps you coming back?

Players, what will help you to maintain interest in and enthusiasm for the RP long-term? How can the GM structure things to help retain your interest and enthusiasm and prevent that loss of momentum?

GMs, if you have experience running long-term RPs, what do you find works to build something that's going to last, structure-wise, and how do you help make it last? Why do your players stick around? How do you make sure they don't lose interest, lose motivation, or simply get bored? How do you help keep the RP exciting for those involved?

Any and all ideas and input are appreciated- thanks to all in advance! ^^

 

[SkyGinge]

I'm coming back to RPN (and RPing) now after a hiatus of around nine years (not including a couple of short-lived return attempts), and I'm sure the landscape of RPing has changed in that time. Discord for OOC seems to have transformed things, for one.

Back in the day, the only group RP I ran which lasted beyond the opening couple of scenes was one of the first ones I did. The reason it worked so well was honestly down to the group themselves. We had a couple of writers who had a strong vision for their characters and who brought a lot of energy to the RP, along with a couple of others who ended up also being pretty reliable posters. Whilst we lost a fair few people within the first couple of weeks (as seems inevitable), the passion of these writers, aided by a couple of great character relationships which sprung up, kept us motivated to keep posting. Things did inevitably slow down and fade off after a few months, but I remember those months very fondly.

Another great positive memory is of a Pokemon RP I was in when I was much younger on another, non-writing focussed forum. It was mainly young teens doing one-liners until somebody a little older joined and brought with them detail, enthusiasm and a ton of lore. That writer's presence galvanised and inspired the rest of us and made the plot really exciting as we were all contributing a lot of new ideas, characters and scenarios. Unfortunately it died pretty quickly when the original GM, whose original vision had gone wildly off track by this point, decided to pull a couple of legendaries out of their ass to put the plot back on track, inadvertently killing the sense of personal freedom which had made it so exciting.

As I've grew as a writer, I found myself increasingly gravitating towards detail-orientated RPs. My general experience has been the more detail-focussed an RP is, the more likely it is to die a rapid death unless you already have a strong relationship with the people you're writing with. The domino effect you mentioned is from my experience made substantially worse by attempts at a strict post order, as everybody pushing the boat ever so slightly beyond the post frequency the GM initially asked for (but is lenient about because literally everybody does it), and the fact you have to wait so long and usually read so much in between each post makes it hard to maintain enthusiasm.

As a final musing, I wonder sometimes whether the need for RPs to distinguish themselves with complex BBCodes often distracts from the main focus of writing. When I first started here, BBCode was basically non-existent - even in the early days, it was more of an exciting tool than an essential. In many of the short-lived RPs I've been a part of since, it's often felt like people spent so much time working on code that writing up a reply becomes far more of an investment than before. Might just be me being a grouchy boomer here though as I know it helps with inspiration for some people.

Tldr; great thread, afraid I don't have any gold dust for you beyond finding the right group of writers, but I'm commenting so that I'll be notified if somebody who has broken the code shares their wisdom.

 

[nerdy tangents]

I think making friends OOC is the real key to a long term roleplay (1x1 or group). The few times I joined long running groups back in my early roleplay career the thing that kept the roleplay alive was the fact that the players were all friends. They would chat with one another during slow times, they would pitch each other different ideas for story direction or the like, and they had the patience to wait for one another when real life showed up.

And truthfully with one exception most of those long running groups were fairly simple in terms of lore. They had a paragraph requirement for post (about three paragraphs on average for most replies). So they weren't what I would consider particularly detailed.

It was really down to the OOC though. I feel like when people feel like they're friends with their fellow writers their more willing to stick it out even if they don't get that instant gratification of a post.

Now unfortunately there is no magic formula to force people to become friends. You really do kinda got to luck into that through a combination of compatible personalities and frankly people willing to make the effort to get to know their fellow players.

 

[GraySkyl]

I'm not sure, if this is a valuable perspective at all, but as a GM for TTRPGs for about 15 years now, I've learned, that just setting a fixed recurring day to play, that the players can work their rl schedules around, can do wonders.

Now, I'm sure that RPs are a totally different breast in so many aspects, namely not HAVING to be there at the same time, considering the asynchronous nature, but if I had to extrapolate, maybe I'd set a specific day and time, once per week, that all players should post their replies at the latest? I'd also make a rule, that if a player ever can't keep the deadline, they should let the rest of the group know AS SOON AS POSSIBLE; if they don't, they get 1-3 "strikes" (how many exactly I'd discuss with the group before starting the rp) and then, after missing the deadline one time too often, they're written out of the story by the GM (or by the group together), so the story doesn't fall apart at the hands of one player. A set deadline, once per week, could not only ensure, that the rp doesn't "fizzle out" by giving the GM something "objective" to hold the players to, but also ensures, that the GM gets posts at least once a week and just has to wait for the deadline to have one reply from every player.

This might sound pretty harsh and "draconian" (to some extent), but, in TTRPGs, I've actually experienced the players appreciating some sort of hard deadline. In my experience it helps the players regulate and check themselves, asking if all players are available the next time we play.

As I said at the beginning, this might not be helpful at all, and maybe my extrapolation from how I handle GMing TTRPGs to this kind of rp, I've never played nor GMed, is obviously flawed to experienced people, so I'm happy for you to diregard everything I said here haha

 

[KAOS]

For me, general interest is improved if I have someone who is just actively excited about everyone's characters.

I get pretty lost when a moderator starts playing favorites. I mean, I don't think it happens intentionally. Although, it just feels I'm intruding in some way. I try to keep that in mind when I'm creating a role play. I try my best to remain neutral and not play favorites. It can be hard but I think social awkwardness is where things often crumble first. Either people being too insistent or invasive or too distant and spacy.

I think as a moderator I would maintain enthusiasm with my own posting. Scene changes. Plot twist. Random events.

 

[Ayama]

Thanks for the input! ^^