Other Why are there so many flaky rpers? Why do people vanish?

[Count Gensokyo]

I think the main reason can be boiled down simply to the fact that it's difficult to reject people. Whenever you lose interest in an RP, sometimes it really is just you, and sometimes it really is just the other person (or people). If it's the latter case, to actually tell them you're done with the RP because it isn't interesting to you is hard, because in a way, you're telling them that they just weren't good enough for you. Maybe that isn't always the case, and there are certainly times where you've just lost interest in the subject matter through no fault of the other. It's often easier to just ghost someone rather than telling them you don't want to RP with them anymore.

I'm of course guilty of having done this in the past, but now I think I do a fairly good job of avoiding it. The main reason being that you will rarely, ever see me take part in an RP that doesn't have one person acting as a dungeon master. The fact that some of the people reading this post are looking up "what is a dungeon master" is testament to the difficulty of actually finding someone willing to play that role. Because of that, I'm motivated to lock down whoever is willing to play that role for an RP. I'm currently in one RP where my replies slowed way down because I just wasn't too interested in how the story was going. Instead of just ghosting it, I took the time to talk with the DM so we could work out ideas on how we could make the RP better for the both of us. I think for most people who do the more common type of RPs, it's easier just to find a new RP instead of trying to work things out, but for me, finding a new RP can take weeks or months. In fact, the very first search thread I made on this account was only turned into an RP years later (thanks Count Gensokyo , love youuu). So, I'm always leaning towards the latter option.

At the risk of sounding pretentious and waxing philosophical while not knowing shit about anything, it's human nature to reject others. It's just that a lot of us don't like confrontation. But for me, I don't care too much about confronting people or telling them what I think needs to change. Probably because I'm an asshole. But, still, I think that's better than disappearing without a word. If you can't resolve things and end up dissolving the RP, that's okay, at least you didn't leave someone hanging.

Dangit man, you made my day, lol.

 

[Epiphany]

Having been in a few more roleplays since my last post, and see a few more seemingly go nowhere, I'm once more struck at how critical clear story and direction from the GM or host is.

I keep seeing these RPs where the host pitches an amazing concept or setting. People make characters. GM sets up an initial post. People kind of post with varying degrees of success. GM doesn't follow up with something for each player to react to. Player then seems to vanish, maybe because they just aren't sure what to do.

At least some of your players just don't have the vision or drive to make their own story in a GM's setting. They need NPcs, animation, an enviornment that reacts to them, they need results like "Your blaster drops the stormtrooper but more come through a door" and "Your long speech is overheard by two neighboring tables at the coffee shop and you get weird looks, and someone heads to the door, meeting a guy in a uniform who looks your way."

Without that, the RPs I see fail to thrive.

 

[rae2nerdy]

Having been in a few more roleplays since my last post, and see a few more seemingly go nowhere, I'm once more struck at how critical clear story and direction from the GM or host is.

I keep seeing these RPs where the host pitches an amazing concept or setting. People make characters. GM sets up an initial post. People kind of post with varying degrees of success. GM doesn't follow up with something for each player to react to. Player then seems to vanish, maybe because they just aren't sure what to do.

At least some of your players just don't have the vision or drive to make their own story in a GM's setting. They need NPcs, animation, an enviornment that reacts to them, they need results like "Your blaster drops the stormtrooper but more come through a door" and "Your long speech is overheard by two neighboring tables at the coffee shop and you get weird looks, and someone heads to the door, meeting a guy in a uniform who looks your way."

Without that, the RPs I see fail to thrive.

Yeah there are several threads that go over being a GM that address this. I think the problem is people think GM in a group setting equals - person who makes thread and setting/prompt. And they expect their players to do the work of fleshing out and moving along the plot.

Unfortunately that isn’t a group dynamic that’s a 1x1 dynamic. In that kind of small group relying on both people to flesh out and progress the story is vital.

In a larger group it is too unstructured. In this case the GM must be a leader. Someone who can keep organized, move the story along, keep players on track. It’s a lot of work and requires someone with good people and organizational skills.

I think too many people see the GM as no different than the players. They just made a thread and had an idea.

 

[hologram]

I think having an engaged OOC chat can help with group cohesion as well. If players are encouraged to talk about their character and plan out potential interactions and storylines as well as just relax and talk about whatever, I think some of that engagement feeds back into the IC portion of the RP. At least that's how it is for me when I try groups. If I feel alienated from the discussion that's going on, or if there isn't much discussion, it can feel a lot like yawning into a void that isn't going to yawn back.

The same principles apply to 1x1 RPs too. I stay engaged if I have things to talk about with my partner. I'm not much of a conversationalist so most of these things will be RP or fandom related but... I dunno, it just helps to drop into a PM and be like "check out this cool fanart I saw" or "hey this song reminds me of one of your characters!".

When I've flaked in the past, it's often been because I lack any sort of rapport or connection to my partner (or group), or something's happened that's made me feel alienated or otherwise isolated. It used to be so hard for me to just tell people I didn't want to RP anymore so I'd usually go ghost... but thankfully I'm a lot better at communicating when I want to end an RP nowadays.

 

[Kylesar1]

This really has no solution. It just comes with the territory. At least half of people who say they're interest in an RP will either drop or they won't post their CS or they will and not post, or they'll just post a time or two then disappear.

 

[.MakAttack.]

It tends to be a mix of things that makes people flake on an Rp. They can be as simple as life got a bit complicated or they just didn't like playing with you. It is best to take all lost partners with a shrug and move along.

 

[Kalgorn]

Like so many have already said in this thread(i couldn't read them all, there's a lot of long posts), it's the kind of thing you can't take personally. The RP is a seed planted in your mind and not everyone is going to see it in the same light as you.
Some people go crazy for sports, i find them boring. Its that whole 'eye of the beholder' thing.

That being said, I completely understand the frustration/disappointment. It's that very annoyance that brought me to this site. The last site I tried seemed to consist of nothing but flaky players with a convienant chat box for everyone to declare their boredom and how much they want to RP, yet are not posting any responses to the RPs they joined.

I don't know if it'll be any different here, but I definatly hope so.
It's been years since I've been able to indulge those fond memories or past RPs that is just full of active players, all engaged in their characters and progressing the story for over 100+ pages.
I don't kid myself into thinking that will happen again, but it would certainly be pleasant to be immersed in one story for longer than a couple posts which are broken up by several days inbetween.

 

[torenia]

i'm on both sides of this. i still talk to a lot of my rp buddies that i have known for years at this point (we're talking 5 years +). most of them i have still have a semi-active rp - but the rp might get replied to maybe once a year by them - the thing that makes me ok with this is that i literally still keep in touch with them enough and i just clicked big-time personality-wise with them. and some of them literally poofed for a year or two!!

besides, my core group of rp buddies who are mostly inactive, i have had your exact problem with new rp buddies. honestly, i'm a very passionate writer and rper so i think that my chattiness may turn people off - even though i'm not the type to spam someone with messages - i really don't know at this point - i'm very upfront that i love to world-build and really delve not only in character development and engagement but maybe people underestimate my intensity - again - i really don't know at this point. it's super frustrating to set all that time and get hyped for a rp and a rp buddy and nothing happen. what i do is keep trying. there are times i take really long breaks because i get super discouraged / tired of writing onexone ads and getting the same crop of people who seem awesome and then ghost.

but actually, three months ago i got someone amazing who i was super active with but now both of our activity levels have dropped considerably - ironically because our lives got super busy at the same time and now that my life is becoming way less busy, i still have that fear she may want to drop the rp because she can't easily chat with me because of her schedule. what's really ironic is that i'm the one who owes the post and can't get it out even though i have time but unfortunately, i really need conversations to get me back into my mojo when it's been awhile. so she may be the one wondering if i'm losing interest.

what i'm trying to say is that you really never know what's going on in people's lives. often, i do sincerely think that people ghost because they overestimated their ability to be a part of the rp and/or they were incompatible w/ their rp buddy BUT i legitimately did not understand what it was like to be so truly busy + mentally drained that it made rping near difficult to impossible until my own life circumstances changed a couple of years ago. now that i know, it makes it easier for me to be more ok with ghosting but i'm like you in that it still really hits a nerve easily.

 

[AuroraRogersSkywalker]

JadeGreen17 Yes! Good grief, people flaking out on me has been a pet peeve of mine for years. It seems to happen to me ALL THE DANG TIME. Like recently, I started a private roleplay with someone and it was really fun. We wrote a couple of pages and then the person disappeared. Thing is, I see that this person is still online and actively joining other PRPGs, and when I asked them if they still wanted to continue there was no response! Like, come on! The least you could do is tell me you don't want to anymore, instead of just disappearing off the face of the earth and not responding to my inquiries about why you stopped posting.

People get busy, and I'm very understanding if their posting activity gets delayed or slowed down... as long as I know they're going to come back eventually...

I also wish people would be honest and just admit that they're bored with the RP, because I can help with that- we can work together to freshen it up a bit. But instead they just disappear.

If people consistently flake out on RPs I make, is it a sign that I don't do a good enough job holding peoples' attention span, or do I just have really bad luck getting people who vanish from RPs after a short period of time?

 

[rae2nerdy]

JadeGreen17 Yes! Good grief, people flaking out on me has been a pet peeve of mine for years. It seems to happen to me ALL THE DANG TIME. Like recently, I started a private roleplay with someone and it was really fun. We wrote a couple of pages and then the person disappeared. Thing is, I see that this person is still online and actively joining other PRPGs, and when I asked them if they still wanted to continue there was no response! Like, come on! The least you could do is tell me you don't want to anymore, instead of just disappearing off the face of the earth and not responding to my inquiries about why you stopped posting.

People get busy, and I'm very understanding if their posting activity gets delayed or slowed down... as long as I know they're going to come back eventually...

I also wish people would be honest and just admit that they're bored with the RP, because I can help with that- we can work together to freshen it up a bit. But instead they just disappear.

If people consistently flake out on RPs I make, is it a sign that I don't do a good enough job holding peoples' attention span, or do I just have really bad luck getting people who vanish from RPs after a short period of time?

People don’t like conflict so that’s why they don’t respond. They don’t have the self confidence to say “ hey I don’t want to do X or I don’t think well suit “

It takes a lot of confidence to say those things when there is a possibility your partner could get nasty or think your a bad person.

I mean people like you and me don’t care.

But not everyone has that same level of confidence

 

[Lappi]

4 things make a good RP
1) players who give a rip
2) GM's who give a rip
3) story with texture
4) engaged OOC

 

[rae2nerdy]

4 things make a good RP
1) players who give a rip
2) GM's who give a rip
3) story with texture
4) engaged OOC

What do you mean by story texture ?

 

[Bored-Tigecko]

I tend to leave from time to time. Mostly because life. I have ended a few rps because of this.

 

[Lappi]

What do you mean by story texture ?

Something that holds up. If a story has no texture than it will fall apart with contact with the players.

 

[rae2nerdy]

Something that holds up. If a story has no texture than it will fall apart with contact with the players.

Do you mean a story that is well developed ?

A story is well developed when you have something that is strong enough to be sustained over an extended period of time. ( so a story that lasts once the players start to join in ) Versus a simple or under developed story that falls apart because the players don’t have a clear direction.