@Ominous I think the very nature of large, multi paragraph posts (presumably with actions beyond fluff within them) doesn’t quite lend itself to the kind of flowing granular exchange most RP interaction needs.

In my experience with novella, at least in the recent years, what happens is people don’t want to wait another week for their turn, so they pack as much as they possibly can into a post, interacting with other characters and then presuming vague responses, so you get a kind of backed up out-of-order situation. If people play on the safer side, they opt to do a bunch of thought-posing, which I think is actually something that at least part of the crowd appreciates or is pleased with, in style of “Yay someone is thinking about my character”.

I’m unsure how it was decades ago, but at least presently, there is no controlling a portion of the scene. JUST your character. I got pretty severe responses when I indicated another character may be able to see some headlights or something entirely innocent like that, something to just move the scene along.

I’m actually unaware of any RP setting in which you are basically writing a book together and you aren’t controlling your character. This is the first I’ve heard of it. @Faraday is Storium something like that?

@RightMeow said in Does Anyone Even Care?:

Leaving just tends to be that I respect they can run the game how they see fit and I respect myself to know when it won’t work out for me.

An understated fundamental skill. Anyone that knows how to do this is the real MVP.

Ash and I were just talking about this! He’s RIDE OR DIE and I’m… not sure. I try to stick as long as I can, but what generally happens is the staff burns out. I have finished all of the private games I’ve personally run, but been staff on games that wrapped due to general disinterest or weariness.

Someone mentioned their Discord RP involving people all posing in with their novella intros and then moving on to the next story which totally aligns with how we see a 3 month introduction bubble on new games in the MUSH world. I think people chase that high for a bit and can coast on it even if the core concept doesn’t really resonate with them. But eventually the new car smell wears off and your friends dip and you have to contend with a question: Would you have joined this game if your pals didn’t? Does anything here really pique you enough for you to keep putting in effort?

If I’m a player I don’t really make a personal vow of commitment. I’m just feeling it out, see if anything interests me. If I start building relationships, sure, I’d like to see where they end up, but as I was telling Ash, I’m so bad with goodbyes, and I struggle deeply with sorrow, and if I’m activated, the idea of all this fun shit ENDING is very troubling to me, so I don’t even think about it. Let the waves of eventual disinterest wash over me. I guess that’s sad in its own way.

Ah the annual rediscovery of the change location button

@Trashcan said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

‘Create a Scene’ and fill out the fields, which you will need to do anyway to share it and it’s clunky to do them all from the client.

The power of web UI cannot be overstated. If you want to start a game and you want it to have a forum, working mail, working pages, play screen, events, scene system, modular profile fields, a wiki, literally all of the QoL features that apparently all of these other platforms fail to package into the core code… you go to Ares. It is a game in a box and there is a one click install mode.

I realize there are still tinymux islands out there, traditional moos, etc, but I gather most of this forum is or has been on at least one Ares game. Who would win, a stack of text syntax you have to dig up from the help file to fill out a bunch of fields, or one webpage input field boy.

I’ve run 3 ares games. I set up a grid, people go through the grid to get a feel for it, then permanently retreat to web scene system. I cannot remember the last time I started a scene on the grid. What would happen on Shattered is that I’d log into the client to do a combat scene from the grid because it was easier than working with the combat UI (I think? I never looked into the combat UI too hard), but then I’d also have the web scene open too just in case I missed a pose. And then I’d also have the combat UI open anyway! Three interfaces!

@KarmaBum said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

I just really don’t like random social fluff.

I know this is off topic but this is not the first time I’ve seen someone mention that they only do a specific kind of RP, and I’m curious about what makes something random social fluff. What’s your definition? Every scene must have a plot related throughline? And has it been effective?

I gotta say, I’m so surprised that it’s async=action but live=social, I would’ve thought the opposite. Most of the async scenes I’ve seen appear to be like… ongoing social. I know that there are async events at times and THAT one puzzles me, because when I’m running events, I have to be “on” mentally, like, ready and prepared to work with what the players are dishing out or attempting, and if I have to be that level of attentive over the span of a week, I think my brain would melt.

@lucidmaus said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

I need the slight pressure of time - and the tight focus on a single scenario - to wrap a scene, rather than let it shamble on into inconclusive perpetuity.

Saaame. Absolutely need that pressure, else it just becomes me trying to fill paragraphs with fluff. I noticed the big novella style RPers on discord doing a lot of meta posing, crafting thoughts about other characters that those characters can’t respond to, and this is either very very popular or very not. I gather that style is more about the writing part than the collaborative part of collaborative writing.

@Faraday Makes sense. I didn’t include distracted because to me that’s just like “hey I want to angle for live/standard but I’m at work, you okay with delays longer than maybe 15 mins” but it ultimately finishes within a day. USUALLY. I was trying to keep it platform agnostic, although I realize we’re all a bunch of mushers and ares facilitates a new pace within this niche environment, even if this pace has existed in forums since forever.

Curious how many people resolve their workslow/distracted scenes within a day.

I see more async scenes than distracted, spanning weeks.

THIS IS A NO JUDGMENT ZONE

@Roz said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

I actually remember a big argument on MSB about it at one point years ago, with someone saying that they felt insulted to get the second alt for a scene.

I love this because it implies some kind of sloppy seconds with RP partners.

@bear_necessities Totally a factor. Easier pathways/avenues to split up your attention while within the same setting. It’s VERY convenient when I need to RP with 3 different people on the same night. Less convenient when I… have decided to RP with 3 people in one night. I am the architect of my own destruction.

Admittedly me double-booking everything even with a SINGLE player bit still led to me cracking open a gdoc or asking the partner if they want to play on Discord. I could see that being discouraging for some folk, though.

I’m sure this convo exists already but IDC, I don’t want to do work right now.

MUSHes originated supporting live RP, as in responses expected within maybe 7-10 minutes. We had a few oldbies on Otherspace that would RP purely in one-liners, because that’s just how RP happened early on, especially in MUDs. Eventually the prose stuff came along, so “live” became less instant. This is what appears to be most common currently, in most live MUSHes. You’d expect to get through at least 1 scene in 1 evening, if everything goes smoothly.

But there are many different platforms/formats/styles out there!

I’m a big fan of collaborative writing in general, and I’ve been all over the net, through all sorts of mediums, probably like the rest of you! Our hobby has evolved and seems to be settling into Discord, although I see forums have persisted.

In my journeying, I have RPed on IRC, AIM, old Homestead chatrooms, Neopets forums, social-graphical RP applications like Furcadia, web-based graphic chatrooms like Wolfhome, 3D avatar social spaces like Feral Hearts and Second Life, dedicated Discord servers, Google Docs, guys I sent in an application to join the giant LOTR Minecraft RP server, MINECRAFT. Although I lost interest quickly I think. RPI MUDs, the usual MUSHes/MUXes/MOOs, MMOs, specifically the various dedicated Warcraft private servers, through deviantart messaging, avidgamer forums, journal platforms like livejournal, and in the earliest of days, RPing via writing with pen and paper and passing notebooks to friends.

If it involved media or theme I was interested in, and it had some way of communicating through text, and people were generally on-board with the idea of RPing with me, I was going to RP.

All of these have different pacing. My personal perceptions:

• Instant - From SECONDS to minutes. 3 minutes would be pushing it (MMOs/Warcraft/FFXIV, 3D social spaces like Second Life, VRChat, Feral Hearts, MUDs if they’re RPI)
• Standard/Live - 7-10 minutes, but can stretch up to like, 15-20 in some cases. (most traditional MUSHes/MUXes/MOOs, I think perhaps some IRC places used to expect this pace)
• Async - Ye olde play by post, where response time is loosely defined. I gather some async players generally go for a lighter pace at around 3 or 4 poses a day, or 1 a day. (Forums, Google Docs, Discord, web-based/ares mushes centered around a more casual pace)
• Novella - I’ve seen 1 pose a day for the novella posts, up to one WEEK. And I’ve participated in them! And finished scenes, somehow! (Specific Discords billed as “Literate only”, usually, some async settings, some forum settings) Honestly this is just async on crack.

I prefer standard/live, because there’s nothing like being in the moment but still having enough description to FEEL the moment, and still be permitted to exchange quips like you would in MMO RP, where it’s seconds between responses. You can dip back and forth, from conversation to descriptive moments, and that’s the sweet spot for me. I say this as a slowass poser!

What about you? What pace do you like and why? Try not to get too caught up on what you think is superior. ALL GOOD (maybe) VIBES.

@MisterBoring said in MU Peeves Thread:

A lot of people don’t realize they’ve become a chore until well after the fact. We’re not often conscious of annoying social behaviors because we’re used to acting a specific way, even in an online text form.

There’s also the whole concept of reputation in our very tiny community. If you have a reputation of being someone difficult to deal with, that may manifest in ways you don’t anticipate. Something you gotta’ just roll with and improve upon. People forget as folk cycle in and out, but I wonder how many people will forget Polk trying to torch 2 game servers in like… 1 year.

@Gashlycrumb Idk how to ask this… does this happen to you frequently? Are you a bit of a chore? I mean I’ve absolutely been a bit of a chore.

I joined Otherspace long after everyone else did and I recall vaguely some attempt to monetize it in some way. The director was compiling everyone’s scenes into a book and selling it… I THINK?

I understand that there are paid MUDs out there but as a theoretical exercise, what would happen if MUSHing ever became monetized in some way? Would you personally PAY for a STed experience? They do apparently do this with DnD!

Would this concrete exchange make things easier for you, or would it be antithetical to the concept of collaborative writing?

I’m vaguely reminded of some L&L that drew ire for taking a break for Christmas. I do kinda’ think it’s just… the nature of a free medium. People are ultimately, eventually, going to do whatever they want, even if it might result in bad things later. It’s like being mad at the rain for personally raining on your picnic. I see solutions here like “just fix it just do the thing :)” and if it were that easy we probably wouldn’t be having this convo. Ask any staffer who was DEDICATED to prompt, “fast”, consistent responses how long they stuck around. How long the game existed.

I try to tell this to folk all the time, you will be a far happier person if you do not put all your eggs in one basket. Do not put all your happiness in one game, because then you will internalize everything as a personal slight. It may mean that you pull back on your engagement, but I’m sure we’ve all seen a particular player that goes SUPER hard into something, creates a TON of activity, and eventually either peters out or crashes out.

My MU peeve is that I write a big post then remember it’s the peeve thread where you’re allowed to have unproductive, non-constructive complaints about the system that innately discourage all would-be game creators who may now believe that someone is always going to be watching them on the +where to decide whether or not they are stretched thin enough.

@somasatori I get what you’re saying, but it always makes me a bit nervous relying on the court of public opinion/free market of the playerbase to handle an… arguably unthematic app.

The playerbase might’ve known they’d be encountering all kinds of people, but they probably don’t love the weight of social enforcement. Turning people away sucks no matter how steely you are, and if players are openly avoidant, unwilling to use public channels to search for RP, this is a problem. Watch how your very active, very social dynamo player handles a character like this. Watch the energy get drained from their bones as they try and fail to work with this character that probably shouldn’t have seen the light of day.

This tends to happen ANYWAY in situations where the staff is unaware of how someone is RPing their powergamey werewolf, or a little more hands-off in general. I’d strive to work against it, not encourage it, since in my experience someone really dedicated to their twinky character will stubbornly linger on a game far longer than short order. IDEALLY they get bored and leave on their own. It happens! Not always.

Although we might be getting off topic here.