For me I usually don't join a role-play because I am shy everyone will dislike me. ^^; I haven't had the best experience in small groups of role-plays so I try to stick in the one on ones though I have seen a lot of group ones that seem really fun but I never join them since if the role-play has too many pages already then I automatically think they don't need another character and I tend to get really lost if there are too many people. My characters are often ignored and no one ever replies to them when I add character interaction with another person so being blown off more then twice just got really irritating so I stopped joining group role-plays and stuck to one on ones.
O.O How have I not stumbled across this. So here's a uch delayed thank you. XD
But anyway, I agree. There are just certain faces I like. However, I do grow sick of seeing the style and person over and over, so I do try to limit them. Wifey, if you're reading this, you are excluded. I could easily be in 25784237694827 29 roleplays with you and never grow tired from your writing.
I'm reading over this and I realize that I have made many of these mistakes. Poor story line, too many perfect characters and a badly written out overview. I couldn't help but laugh at myself when I saw that I've been that GM who was so controlling or not controlling enough, or let too many things slide.
After reading this, I hope to become a better GM and create games that people will be interested in. ^w^
I usually don't join a game because of literacy levels and way drawn out background stories. If its too long, I get easily distracted and just click the back button. I understand that people have a good idea of how they want their setting to be, but I have a hard time reading a lot of text on a page that is so far away from my face. I need to be able to put a marker over it so I can read it without jumping to the next line...
If a game has three sentence posts with a poor writing style, I leave. I am influenced by the role players around me so if someone writes a page worth of a post, I write a page in response. If someone replies with a paragraph post, I do the same. The quality of my writing depends on others. ._.
Last edited by Omlyt; 03-09-2012 at 09:46 PM.
My most recent complaint would be GMs who don't work with you. I had a friend who wanted to join a roleplay I was in not too long ago and she was faced with a million obstacles she needed to jump over. It was ridiculous. I think, if someone really wants to be in your story, you should be willing to work with them. So what if they aren't exactly what you were looking for? If they took the time to read everything and learn all they needed to know, that should merit some sort of credit and approval, right? But maybe I'm just too nice....
So yeah, GMs that aren't willing to work with highly interested people. I get that you can't please everyone, but you don't need to be a dick about it. Just tell them what's up - nicely - and see if you can either fix it or let them down gently.
I'm posting in a "dead" thread. I don't care. I also don't care that I'm responding to a common made almost a year ago.
1. I don't think a GM is under any obligation to accept all interested players. It doesn't make sense that a GM has to let anyone who can read, join their game. I don't care how much time the player puts into reading and comprehending a game's information, if they aren't up to snuff, the GM shouldn't let them join. The whole idea of "I spent X time reading through your shit means I deserve a role!" is a really shitty and entitled attitude.
Plus, the long-term ramifications of letting some under-qualified person join a game would be devastating to the role-play.
2. GMs aren't responsible for babying people. While it's nice to be courteous to players (even when rejecting them), some players are just going to take shit the wrong way. As with life, some people are just balls at handling rejection (or any kind of negativity). Even if a GM is careful in how they address rejection, some people are just going to blow shit out of proportions. Hell, some people even have the audacity to underhandedly slam the GM for being bad at what they do.
I've always role-played in "competitive" games (games that require all interested players to make profiles with no guarantee of acceptance) and I've seen people act out. Fuck, I've been on the bad end of people being absolute dicks when they get rejected. And, in all honesty, I have never once casually dismissed a player. Every rejection letter is carefully worded. They may not be the most comforting of letters (I'm not going to go out of my way to make up lies because it benefits no one), but it's technical and it's professional. I politely say no, thank you and hopefully there's no bad feelings.
But, who am I kidding? Some people have the ego of a fucking ripe tomato. :/
I realize that this post is entirely irrelevant to the original question being asked. So...
1. I don't join games that are running in twenty different directions at the same time. Complex plots are good. Overly complicated plots are a fucking nightmare. I don't want to join a role-play and then later learn that it was actually ten role-plays at once.
Plus, these kinds of role-plays usually fall apart early.
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye.
TUMBLR.
MUST HAVES (Went through WTF with these, because I couldn’t think off the top of my head)1.1: I must have enough time to dedicate to it.
1.2: It has to be open to new players, of course.
1.3: I want to see recent activity from story and host, even if it is just the host making sample intros and plots or just RPing with itself. If there is a complete lack of possible RPs to choose from, including those in my head, then I would check for something older than the most recent year and then try to woo the host into playing again. It would make it easier, if the dates were written Day-Month-Year.
1.4: My mood and stance, so important for internet and role-playing, because it an undertone and thought pattern when reading affects an atmosphere. If I am irritable, then I might think that another is irritable in its post and that’s not fair. If I am thinking about modern culture, then that might not assist in an ancient foreign land. All in all, it’s not unlikely for me to reread RPs to see if I might be interested again and it’s never the host’s fault. Also, I do not do fandoms or certain sexually-oriented Adult RPs. Sheep-shagging is not something I want to dream about—dirty deeds! Even if I wouldn’t be playing those characters, I would have to read and that’s personally what I choose to avoid. If it is non-Adult or I wouldn’t have to worry about reading about those particular exploits, I wouldn’t mind as much.
1.5: If the character I am inspired to play, even if the host agrees to it, would piss people off and end up making OOC drama, then I would avoid that RP and not make a name out of disgruntling gamers. I can understand why kicking someone to keep the rest happy would be a solution. I don’t desire to be the reason why an RP fails, even more so when it is not my RP to kill.
POSSIBLE PREFERENCES PERSUADED BY PRESENT DISPOSITION (Not necessarily in this order)…
Peter Piper Picked a Patch of Pickled Peppers
2.1: The attitude, writing and character(s) of that host, inside and outside that RP. I certainly want to understand what’s going on, what s/he wants and what that RP’s in-story struggles are.
2.2: Intentions to have OOC conversations, whether through WTF or other media, at least for the start of the RP and at first to new RPers, so that things can be established and thought out before interests fade.
2.3: An understanding of what is allowed or at least that I will be corrected politely, if too far.
2.4: If Adult, a relationship with more focus on the plot than on the Adult aspects of it, since that would be just a part of the story, but carry on conversations about it as it is perfectly natural. I do not want to feel like I’m stroking someone’s ego (or other head-euphemized things) in writing, but I do want to know what brings out those emotions, because affecting those is a sign of a good writer to me. If it’s an intellectual discussion, then stir a connection of agreement or of surprised revelation. If it’s a sex-based RP, then I want to make you blush and lust for more. This does not mean that I want to read fifty pages of intercourse and five pages of plot. The suspense and back-story make it real and preciously rare.
2.5: Lastly, the attitudes, writing and characters of the other RPers overall, including abnormal disproportionate amount of females or feminized characters in RPs which clearly should not be dominated. If it is an all-girl school, understandably set. Office, eh, whatever, I guess. Normal towns, where did all my bros go? This can go for villains and/or conflictions between characters.
o.O You don’t like wha…?
GENRES/CREATURES: I understand that some things are overused or romanticized, making them probably unfavorable to play after so many fails, but would original or unusual versions of these make them more appealing? For instance, mixing perceived genres or viewing genres under different outlines. Maybe instead of the usual, elves are actually aliens or vampirism is a condition of a society, not a prerequisite to assume sexuality, power, mystique and vore? Maybe lycanthropes are scientifically hybridized killing machines with only that interest, or gods, devas, angels, demons, fay, fairies, pixies and sprites are all just different terms for psychics manipulating themselves into their own fantasized versions of superiority. Sorry for the length of this; I just hate things being disregarded because of a few bad examples and hope to never contribute to that.
ESTABLISHED: Darn it, I thought that the amount of activity in an RP might influence others to join, not scare them away. I don’t like slots or using orphaned character or anything, but is there any way to assure to new players that they are more than welcome to join and bring in some of their own flare?
PERSONAL: Don’t leave the RP, because of others, pleeeeease! The host can’t possibly prepare for that.
DESCRIPTION: I am a rambling man; first step to recovery, but I like it, too. It’s fun to challenge one’s self to write more, including history, sensory aspects and beneficial plot information or impressions of many other things. If one sentence or even one word would create that perfect umph to a post, then I’d still try to more while keeping that same feeling. Better something than nothing. (I erased half of this.)
MARY-GARIES: I’d sooner qualify them as all-good, some type of God-mode. Anyway, because they do exist, I think they shouldn’t be automatically rejected. Consider the author; maybe there is more to them than you think. Perhaps it’s meant to be exposed as imperfect or rejected from their crush.
"Ew. Did you check to see what date this raw milk expires?"
"Yeah, what happened?"
"I found a curd."
"Did you shake it?"
"No."
"It's the cream. The fat floats to the top."
"Oh, I just thought it was Bridgid's backwash the first couple of times."
"Wait, why didn't you say 'ew' when you thought that?"
I feel like this thread needs bumping as there are a TON of roleplays on here and a TON of users who have yet to join a single roleplay (and are active). So why is it that you haven't joined a story? Is it that you don't have time? Or is there something more?
Please share your rationale! It helps in the creation process and also helps GMs gauge whether or not their story is interesting enough for people to join.
A big part of it is games aren't actively recruiting and that's an awful tactic to make because you exclude yourself from players you don't already know.
Who am I? Oh, don't worry. I'm just the Entity of Greed. No, no, I don't want anything from you. I just want to help, in any and every way I can. No strings attached. Of course, you will owe me a favor. A big one, by the looks of this mess, but hey! What are friends for?
At the same time I've seen games recruit, both in threads and via VM's, and still die out.
Recruiting doesn't always guarantee any different results.
Though I do think members should recruit, specially if they have an active game with open slots. I mean why not get someone outside your circle to join, helps create friendships and connections.
Yeah. . . I should do that. . . So, anyone want to join my RP The New Fujisaki? >.<
Since some people are lazy (me), you should link the roleplay you want people to join. Another great way to gather interest is to have the link in your signature. The more you post around the site, the more exposure your roleplay gets -- or at least that's the theory I'm running with. XD
Here's the link to The New Fujisaki. I would, but I'm such a newb that I don't know how to create the signature. . . D:
Thank you! You are Master!
1. My free time.
2. The people who have already joined (it's sad to say, but some people are just bad at RPing, too much so to give them a second or (in some cases) third chance)
3. The overall content vs graphic of the RP (if an RP looks great but has little content, I won't bother. A pretty first page means nothing if there's no idea behind it)
4. The setting's potential. I like sandboxes and directed stories, things that fall in the middle just don't work super well for me.
5. Characters/items allowed, sometimes you just don't want to be a bloody sparkling vampire, sometimes you don't want to join a sword fighting RP for the Xmillionth time.
I freak out about 15 minutes into reading anything about the earth's core
when I realize it's right under me.