The 3-Month Players
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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?
@Faraday said in The 3-Month Players:
The church scene in Saving Private Ryan falls squarely in the Social RP category for me. You could take it out and the plot would be the same, but it’s important for character development.
Sure, but that character development is still within a story. If it were a couple of guys at the bar talking about friends they lost in the war, it wouldn’t be the same scene with the same character development.
If you’re saying that BarRP alone cannot sustain a MU - I wouldn’t necessarily disagree, but I’ve just never seen that happen. There’s always some kind of Social RP going on. And in fact, BarRP often leads to Social RP, since it’s the way characters first meet each other. It opens doors to further RP.
This is the crux of the issue, for me, because my personal experience tells me the exact opposite. I have literally never seen BarRP (by itself) lead to anything other than IC fizzling out, precisely because it doesn’t seem to have anywhere to go without something plottish happening.
You mentioned something else a while back, about how the more social-minded RPers are the ones left when you turn the lights out, and I don’t doubt that. The question I would have is: why are you turning the lights out?
If the answer is similar to: ‘most of the players left because things ran their course and the plot ended’, then I would argue that’s exactly what I’m talking about. The social RP, even if it is enduring to certain individuals, is not sustaining a population worth keeping the lights on for. And, lest I be misunderstood, as an abstract situation that’s fine, and maybe things really did run their course, and there’s no problem with that.
But in my attempts to revive activity on a game long dead, I’m aiming a little higher than that. Attempts have been made in the past, usually by “social RPers”, and it always fizzles, whereas whenever I come in with my plot-heavy staffing things pick up, a community builds, and it even takes a while for that momentum to fade after I leave. To me I can’t find any clearer indication that my approach works, and certainly works a whole lot better than the opposite approach.
Anyhow, I’ll bow out here I think. I get what people are saying about a balance, and that’s definitely something I strive to encourage. TBH there’s also a fair component of pride to the internal dealings of my game, hence me wanting to understand and bridge gaps where I can with the players I want to both court and ask for help, and I got some good feedback here.
Cheers for your time!
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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.
