Advice/Help GMing a Slice of Life Group RP?

[Quincunx]

First, let me explain what I mean by "slice of life":

I'm using this phrase to mean an RP that focuses on the player characters' daily lives and interactions. It does not have a grand overarching goal like "save the world from the dark forces" or "go on a journey for the fabled treasure." Also, this definition doesn't mean any specific setting. (If it helps, I'm most interested in setting this hypothetical RP in an anime/fantasy type of world.)

So I'm wondering, how does GMing this sort of group RP differ from GMing a more conventional RP? How do you keep such an RP running for a long time? Are certain structures (such as event calendars) more useful than others?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Cassie Lang]

Ultimately, it depends on the concept/idea, but Slice of Life RPs (in my experience) are generally more focused towards sandbox rather than linear storytelling. That being said, it does help to have something to drive the roleplay as a plot device. For instance, in one of the SoL RPs I've joined, the GMs ran a winter ball around wintertime IRL. Another idea they had was a grand prix where some of the characters raced against each other.

 

[Idea]

I usually define "slice of life" by the lowered significance of the overarching plot. Be the plot merely a premise that doesn't really have any particular action or direction, or be it something that lies more in the background, a slice of life RP to me is what happens when the overall plot takes a backseat and the focus is instead put on characters, and momentary, periodic or mundane problems.

I believe that your definition fits within a subsect of how I define it, so it should be fine to apply the advice from one to the other. If I'm mistaken, do let me know, and I'll see to adjusting my advice.

The differences between GMing a certain type of RP to another lie in two distinct areas
1. How the genres differ from one another
2. How the players seeking those genres differ from one another.

Going off on the first point, a slice of life RP differs from non-slice of life RPs by the lack of prevalence of an overall plot, and this means dispersing the focus onto other things. You can't rely on the plot, so you shouldn't be trying to do things like a big mystery or end game event or twist- because those things work with an ending, and you don't really want to aim for an ending, not for the majority in this genre anyway. What you're going to focus on in a slice of life RP is characters and their relationships, specifically, your player's characters and their relationships. In a genuine slice of RP, most other things are either impractical to do or tend to be boring for players by my experience. The equivalent of RPG mini-games in RP becomes boring fast.

As such, you are going to want to give as much of your attention as a GM to the characters your player's make, and help them craft character arcs for the characters and their relationships. I am usually a big advocate for GMs envolving their players, making the character's backstories, personalities etc...interwoven into the story and its progression in a way that is unique to them, but in this case this is especially paramount. This has probably all been pretty vague so far, so let me try giving an example:
Say you make a slice of life RP about a highschool club (cause if you're doing an anime thing, of course it's a highschool club ) with art students that happen to be supernatural creatures. Good, now player A makes a very paranoid elf, and player B makes a tentacle monster who feels they aren't good for anything. The elf seems to worry that the tentacle monster will attack her because of the trope, so you as a GM can create a situation that will cause a rift between the characters, such as a fly landing on the elf's hip or something, and latter introduce a plot point where the club is lacking ink. This way you can give a little push to the relationship between the characters without forcing it, and potentially help one of the players make progress with their characer arc, all by knowing how the player's characters are and what dynamic they have.

Of course, the success for this will in part depend on the chemistry and cooperation of your players, but that's not something that can be helped.

Another thing you can do, but keep in mind this is more of a bonus, is worldbuild. Slice of life as a genre, due to not having much of a sense of urgency, means you can really take the time to explore the facets of a society, world, or even just individuals that live in particular circumstances, so you get a lot of room to worldbuild.

Players are necessarily great at keeping characters moving on their own. The slow moments where nothing is happening are the bane of many RPs, but slice of life RPs are especially full of them, so it becomes exponentially more important to understand how to pump energy into an RP.
------

Now we get to the second point, the players, and honestly the advice doesn't differ much. The biggest takeaway is again, that they are joining mostly due to their own characters, be it prebuilt, or just because they want to explore their own yet to be made character. Either way, what you want to do doesn't change, you still want to assist players as much as possible in developing characters, getting characters to have interactions and things to do etc... That said, I would also expect slice of life players to want a lot of freedom in how they design their characters. The non-competitive environment makes things whcih would normally be out of balance more endearing (if your character can throw punches that could obliterate a giant monster out of existence that still won't help them file that paperwork) and the bigger focus on character makes customization more valuable.


Now to answer your other questions.

How do you keep such an RP running for a long time?

The same way you keep any other roleplay running for a long time.
*Know your players and what conditions work best for them (for instance, very detailed roleplayers can usually afford to wait longer in between posts, and may actually prefer to have that room to breathe, whereas simple roleplays are often able to last very long by constantly recycling their players who due to a lack of story cohesion can just jump on and off the roleplay at the drop of a hat)
*Have a sustainable source of new content for the roleplay
*Be responsible with your own schedule, don't make a roleplay if you yourself are unable to keep up with your GM duties
*Have a sh*t ton of luck with getting not just the right melting pot of players, but also ensuring that the timing at which life strikes them is such that your RP doesn't go zombie at the wrong time.

Are certain structures (such as event calendars) more useful than others?

I honestly don't know broadly what would work structure-wise, it's probably heavily dependent on what players you get though. As such, I'll just speak more personally on what works for me.

For me personally, an RP without any sense of progression doesn't suit me. I often really enjoy episodic RPs, this is RPs which have mini-arcs labeled episodes, which have a beggining, end and a specific topic or thing they intentionally focus on. I also like to work with settings or situations where this occurs naturally, such as a volunteers club RP or an RP with case-by-case mysteries. There are other formats that work for me as well, but they generally require a big amount of player coordenation that I've basically never been able to find in groups.


Well, I hope this helps. Best of luck and happy RPing!

 

[rae2nerdy]

Your in luck this is basically 80% of what I did back in my group days so I have a lot of advice

1. Set up mini scenes / activities throughout the roleplay.
So you can start this off really simple by just coming up with simple activities. Ex. "Characters go to a festival." "Characters have bake off." "Characters all help find a lost child." Now the kinds of activities you'll come up with will obviously depend on the setting but a good one to start out with is something like a festival. It's a big community gathering that will give everyone a chance to meet up and chat. From there just come up with fun activities that fit your setting and theme. If you need help with specific ideas I'd be happy to help you bounce around some ideas.

2. Do not let people post whenever they want.
I would set up a rule that you can only reply to an activity after everyone in the roleplay has responded once OR 24 hours has passed (whichever happens first).

3. Have a ghost policy set up.
If someone doesn't reply within a set period of time (I usually said a week you can pick a time the is best for you) than they are removed from the roleplay. Their character will be turned into a NPC or killed off. If they wish to return later than they can revive their character (if that fits the roleplay setting) OR make a new character.

4. Let people suggest their own activities!
People love coming up with fun shenanigans and activities for roleplays. So I would start out with at least 8-10 activities before the roleplay starts and then let your players offer suggestions for additional activities in the OOC.

5. Make the OOC fun!
An active OOC means an active group. The more your players bond in the OOC the more likely they are to stick out the roleplay. So I find that having ice breaker games running in the OOC helps. A popular one on my old site where shipping wars. You would have people come up with crack ships between characters or players and vote on their favorite pairing.

6. Be a boss.
Keep an eye out for players that will try to hijack your roleplay or start drama in the OOC. When they pop up remember that your the boss and you can kick them out of the roleplay.

 

[Quincunx]

2. Do not let people post whenever they want.
I would set up a rule that you can only reply to an activity after everyone in the roleplay has responded once OR 24 hours has passed (whichever happens first).

Could you explain your reasoning behind this pointer? I think I understand the rest of your pointers, and I like them (especially the bit about icebreaker games!), but I'm not sure I fully get this one. Particularly, it seems like one would have to do some math to make sure it doesn't conflict with the ghost policy.

 

[rae2nerdy]

Could you explain your reasoning behind this pointer? I think I understand the rest of your pointers, and I like them (especially the bit about icebreaker games!), but I'm not sure I fully get this one. Particularly, it seems like one would have to do some math to make sure it doesn't conflict with the ghost policy.

So basically it's to make sure that some of your players don't get left behind by the people that have more free time. You don't want only two people to spend hours posting back and forth while the rest of the group is asleep or away from the keyboard. So instead having a rule set up so that you can't post until everyone has replied ensures that no one is left behind.

The 24 hour rule is more for roleplays where there is a rapid-fire response time. Like if you have people on average posting once an hour than waiting 24 hours to ensure that everyone has a chance to respond is totally fine. If however you have people responding once a day than you don't need that rule because it won't give everyone a chance to respond before moving forward.

 

[Quincunx]

So basically it's to make sure that some of your players don't get left behind by the people that have more free time. You don't want only two people to spend hours posting back and forth while the rest of the group is asleep or away from the keyboard. So instead having a rule set up so that you can't post until everyone has replied ensures that no one is left behind.

The 24 hour rule is more for roleplays where there is a rapid-fire response time. Like if you have people on average posting once an hour than waiting 24 hours to ensure that everyone has a chance to respond is totally fine. If however you have people responding once a day than you don't need that rule because it won't give everyone a chance to respond before moving forward.

Alright, that makes sense! Thank you.