The 3-Month Players
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It really depends on how you’re defining “plot.”
WWIII with Aliens and Zombies is plot, sure, but so is Gilmore Girls, and the latter would generally be considered social RP.
Any RP that has follow up, consequences, ramifications, further developments, etc, could count as “plot.”
Sometimes we need to sit in a coffee shop and chill (Bar RP), sometimes we have to say “I love you,” (social RP), other times we have to say the wrong name at our wedding (plot).
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@Pavel said in The 3-Month Players:
WWIII with Aliens and Zombies is plot, sure, but so is Gilmore Girls, and the latter would generally be considered social RP.
There are gray areas, sure, but in most dramas (like GG) some storylines are given more prominence and feel more like Plot than others. It doesn’t have to be action-packed, just impactful.
As an example - in the pilot episode from ER, some of the major plotlines are a building collapse, a new medical student’s first day, and a doctor deciding whether to leave the ER for a quieter specialty. Those I would call Plot. In-between are various scenes that don’t affect the overall story but promote character development, like one doctor turning up drunk and sleeping it off in an exam room. Those feel more like Social RP.
TV shows and novels don’t tend to have much (if any) BarRP, because they don’t have time to waste on random meetings between strangers or small talk that serves no other narrative purpose. But MUs generally aren’t as heavily plotted as those other mediums. People don’t meet because the plot demands it, they meet because they happen to be on at the same time and decide to have a scene.
ETA: I’m not claiming that these definitions are an infallible or universal classification scheme or anything. They’re just useful for me in terms of evaluating what kinds of RP I enjoy, and what’s going on in a game.
@Tapewyrm said in The 3-Month Players:
The question I would have is: why are you turning the lights out?
Games end for all kinds of reason. Burnout, goals being met, RL disruptions, running out of story ideas, and yes - to your point - losing enough critical mass of RP to the point where people stop showing up.
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@Faraday said in The 3-Month Players:
TV shows and novels don’t tend to have much (if any) BarRP
… what about Cheers?
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@Pavel said in The 3-Month Players:
@Faraday said in The 3-Month Players:
TV shows and novels don’t tend to have much (if any) BarRP
… what about Cheers?
How can I play my mysterious, be-trenched, katana-wielding cyber drifter if everyone knows my fucking name??
they/them
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@Tapewyrm said in The 3-Month Players:
Okay, then we’re talking about BarRP, by those terms, and the question then is: can BarRP alone sustain activity? Not in my personal experience or observation.
But even using such terms, what actually sets Social RP apart from BarRP, aside from the existence of a plot?
Meaning.
If the RP means something to one of the characters or the plot, then it is Social RP rather than just BarRP. And what is BarRP to you might be Social RP for another player, or even Plot RP and you might not even know it.
But you don’t always know the difference because 1) you aren’t in control of all the players so you don’t know what has meaning/value and what doesn’t and 2) you don’t always know what will come next for any of the characters. All you know (usually) is what it means to you and the enjoyment you get from it.
Just shooting the shit with someone in a bar because you’re filling time and waiting for plot or more meaningful RP can sometimes turn into something that creates meaning for your character or between the characters. This ‘nothing’ scene could actually be the very important meeting of two characters that end up saving the world! Now more often than not, this doesn’t happen, but sometimes it does turn out to be more important than it seemed at first, especially with follow up - which usually requires intent and interest on both sides to do so, which is why most times that doesn’t happen AND why BarRP doesn’t sustain a MU*. If the RP happening on a game doesn’t spur interest and/or intent, its doomed to fail.
Which, IMHO, is why Social RP can sustain a game, but BarRP can’t, even though they can seem very similar a lot.
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I don’t remember the original argument now about BarRP, SocialRP and whatever-else, but if all your game offers in terms of gameplay is for people to sit around and talk about their personal lives, it’s probably not going to last very long. With regards to the L&L genre specifically, it’s why most “popular” games have always offered something else, whether that’s magic or exploration element or something.
I think a lot of people say they want an L&L politics game but the vast majority of players aren’t actually politically savvy, nor would it be very fun in the long run. I can honestly only thing of one person in all of MUSHdom who would absolutely lean into it and be an absolute joy to write stories for, frankly. It’s why all popular L&L games in recent memory have offered something else beyond your standard L&L shit, whether that’s magic or some sort of mystery to investigate or what have you.
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@Warma-Sheen said in The 3-Month Players:
If the RP means something to one of the characters or the plot, then it is Social RP rather than just BarRP. And what is BarRP to you might be Social RP for another player, or even Plot RP and you might not even know it.
This exactly. Through the years, I can’t count how many of my RP connections started with BarRP. These people went on to be the besties, significant others, rivals, and in one case adopted child of my various PCs. Those connections wouldn’t have happened without BarRP, and led to a lot of great Social RP and even Plots. Personally if ALL I had to do was BarRP I’d quit, but it still serves a useful purpose.
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The bar RP is lubricant. It needs to be there for the RP to work. And it’s fine, as long as you’re building towards the next plot thing.
Because if all you have is lubricant you don’t have an engine, just a bathtub full of grease.
I don’t know where I was going with this.
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@Juniper said in The 3-Month Players:
Because if all you have is lubricant you don’t have an engine, just a bathtub full of grease.
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@RedRocket said in The 3-Month Players:
The same thing is true of people who hang out in bars just to hook up for TS. Why are you on a roleplay game with a complicated combat and stat system when you could just go to one of many games where you can literally be anything and bang anything you can imagine.
Some people like plot with their porn or porn with their plot. Romance novels sell better than Hustlers. DeepThroat, the highest grossing pornographic film, made $22.6 million inflation adjusted at the box office; Fifty Shades of Gray grossed $569 million. Sure, you could log onto Shang, find a willing partner, and hammer out your best IKEA instructions for Peg A going into Slot B with gusto, but where’s the flirting, the foreplay, the slow simmer, the romance?
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@Ominous said in The 3-Month Players:
@RedRocket said in The 3-Month Players:
The same thing is true of people who hang out in bars just to hook up for TS. Why are you on a roleplay game with a complicated combat and stat system when you could just go to one of many games where you can literally be anything and bang anything you can imagine.
Some people like plot with their porn or porn with their plot. Romance novels sell better than Hustlers. DeepThroat, the highest grossing pornographic film, made $22.6 million inflation adjusted at the box office; Fifty Shades of Gray grossed $569 million. Sure, you could log onto Shang, find a willing partner, and hammer out your best IKEA instructions for Peg A going into Slot B with gusto, but where’s the flirting, the foreplay, the slow simmer, the romance?
This, but also because I like to jokingly roll to see how well folks perform. It’s all steamy and great until you botch and now it’s even better because botches lead to the silly in-jokes about how you accidentally headbutt each other or somebody farted at the wrong time.
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@somasatori said in The 3-Month Players:
@Pavel said in The 3-Month Players:
@Faraday said in The 3-Month Players:
TV shows and novels don’t tend to have much (if any) BarRP
… what about Cheers?
How can I play my mysterious, be-trenched, katana-wielding cyber drifter if everyone knows my fucking name??
