Advice/Help Post Orders?

[Archie]

Something I've ben thinking about for a while.

At a party or in a bar you really only talk to 1-2 people at a time even if there's a group. You weave in and out of the crowd, talking to different people. If you do talk to 2 people, you really focus more on one at a time while the other one just listens.

In RPs, everyone goes around in a circle and waits their turn to talk. Sometimes this leads to very unnatural interactions, like everyone commenting in succession about something minor like a tree. Everyone is obliged to talk about everything, no one has the option of staying quiet or changing the topic.

On the other hand, post orders keep people from getting left behind. But, if people have writer's block or their characters wouldn't want to contribute to the conversation since it doesn't interest them, wouldn't it be best for them to talk to someone else or do their own thing for a while then pop back in when it would make sense for the character to do that?

But then, the problem with reintegrating people is they have to catch up on all the posts they missed, unless people could somehow be comfortable with not reading everyone else's posts and just focusing on what their character knows.

What do you all think?

Post order or no post order?

Have you ever had a successful RP without a post order, and how did you deal with reintegrating people who fell behind?

This is all immediately relevant to the RP I just kicked off (where I did a post order out of tradition, but the more I think about it the more I doubt it) so all advice is appreciated!

 

[Chordling]

-giggles- Post order makes me think of combat order. Everyone else who wants to participate in this discussion, ROLL FOR SOCIAL INTERACTION INITIAVE.

I will say that post order works great for one on one roleplays, but don't quote me on that.

All of the group roleplays that I have participated in/ created never used posting order. I'm not sure what we are using as a measurement for level of success, so you can be the judge of that. As a GM, I prefer not to have one unless it is something that is requested by the group of players I am working with. Chances are that if you're giving your players the opportunity to create social connections with each of the characters, and your players are not taking that initiative to heart, then something else needs to be fixed.

and how did you deal with reintegrating people who fell behind?

Synthesize the important information for them. It should be enough for the player to at least start interacting with everyone else. Give them the resources for where the information is available so that player can reference it on their own time.

You already realized the pros and caveats for each method, but to tell you the truth, there's no wrong or right answer here. Either one can work. Sometimes roleplay planning can be about how to avoid certain problems and mistakes, but there's the other half of being a good GM, which is knowing how to manage those mistakes when they happen. Because they will.

 

[Archie]

I love that, especially "if you're giving your players the opportunity to create social connections with each of the characters, and your players are not taking that initiative to heart, then something else needs to be fixed".

 

[Onmyoji]

I didn't have a single fun roleplay without post order as I was constantly left behind due to time zones difference. When people are online at the same time they just keep writing and then you wake up to entirely different plot arc while your character is completely forgotten in the previous scene. And sometimes it's hard to catch up.

With post order - as you said, sometimes it leads to unnatural interactions and people having to wait for someone. But honestly, I'd rather have that than having my character discarded entirely just because I'm not online for a day.

The only times when I enjoyed group rp were when they had post order that was determined by dice in every major scene so it wasn't always the same order. If someone couldn't post on their 'turn' they skipped it and let others do so before but still retained their turn before it went full circle. It requires some discipline from the players though.

Summaries definitely would help to integrate players that missed on something but there is a huge drawback - someone has to make those summaries for them. Usually no one does.

For me personally, lack of order is one of the main reasons I avoid group rp like plague lol But it can work wonders for other people. I think you should just gauge your players and see what works for them better in general.

 

[Archie]

Well, guess it's time to make a summary section for my RP haha

 

[nerdy tangents]

I think the best way I ever saw this work in groups is to let people break up into groups (or assign them groups based on schedules and availability). So basically everyone is following a central plot but there are lots of little groups of interaction along the way.

 

[Thanny]

I have seen posting order in action several times and can say that I am not too pleased with much of them for the same reason each time: it hangs up the possibility for natural development of characters. Five posts each of shorter nature between two people can build relations far better than one each due to posting order. A few roleplays I have seen people get penalised and scolded for doing what felt natural as a half-post, a reaction and continuation of a topic and little more. There is also the issue of decayed interest from slow-moving plots and ghosting/non-responsive individuals that can drain the life of a roleplay, but that is a different tangent.

Combat I can understand. You do not gang up on a boss due to the host being away. Pacing is necessary, but again I am unsure of turn order and more lean towards "try to post between my posts once at the least in social and once for combat."

My personal preference in short is no posting order but a set progressive pacing of a day, three days, a week, or other periods of time in real-life

 

[Crayons]

I find it incredibly odd that post order isn't the default on this site, as it has been on literally every other RP I've ever done. XD

OK so there's a simple way to have a post order and still let conversations continue organically. OOC discussion. Let players split into groups for social interaction that have their own post order. Let people state when they want to skip their post or let others go first. You can solve almost all the issues of this type by communicating and being flexible. But have some kind of standard to flex from rather than it being a crazy free for all affair.

You could also make use of collab posts for those who want to carry out 2 or 3 person conversations in the midst of a bigger scene. You can write these on the etherpad, in PMs, or on Google docs before posting them up as a collab.

If you have a particularly large group with multiple scenes happening simultaneously, I would suggest additional threads.

 

[Thanny]

I will admit that I have seen pretty good conversations happen as collaborative posts written via PM, mostly as conversations during transitions of scenes, and participated in some of them. That is true as well about good communication resolving a lot of woes.

I think I will give having a posting order another go as a GM if people prefer it and see if that works a little more smoothly using some of these techniques. Thanks for the idea, all!

 

[Malphaestus]

In truth, most roleplays, whether they hold a post order or not, do not hold a post order. Whilst I am rather averse to anarchy most of times, when it comes to who should post when in a roleplay, I believe the superior choice is for there to be no order, but for a roleplay to keep the initiative through activity and ensuring their players are engaged. Typically through OOC.

 

[ChasmOfOrganicMatter]

*Me, grinning as my brain expands to the size of the universe and-*

I personally think collaborative posts can solve this issue. Rather than a bunch of people rerunning similar ideas, everyone talks about it as basically a united-yet-technically-separate whole, each fleshing out their own part of the post. This usually makes dialogue infinitely smoother and streamlined - you get to squish it into one post rather than spreading it out over a bunch.

 

[GojiBean]

I'd like to chime in here as well, if I may.

I believe a post-order is, as Chordling said, best used when asked for and agreed upon by the entire group. And this usually only happens when everyone shares a common inability to post once-per-day and are instead asking if once or twice a week is an okay pace (which it is, btw).

However, there's more to the decision than just that. This is merely what I agree is the best and most logical reason for using one.

As the GM, you are the driver of the boat (for lack of a more elegant phrase off the top of my head). You are in 100% control of the pace until you lose it, or unless you give it away (which you should never do). Before the RP starts, it's good GM etiquette to ask all of your players what days and time windows they are most available for posting so you can get the best idea for how to proceed.

For example: If you have two people in the US, one in Asia, and one in the UK then there's very little overlap that you all share. And if you do, it's at really odd hours between the four of you and it's not likely to be very convenient to ask everyone (or make yourself) available at these odd hours. Doing so will take a mental and emotional toll on everyone. Trust me, I know. And that's not something you should ever want for yourself or for them just because everyone's active and excited about posting. In major time zone differences, that excitement comes with a price if you let it run away with you.

As a secondary note, the mental and emotional health and safety of your participants always comes first to whether or not a post is made. If anyone ever gets up in your grill about "Hey, I think the RP's moving too slow," but you know that there's a time zone difference that would be detrimental to force to move faster then it's on you to (politely, unless otherwise necessary) shut them down right then and there and remind them that not everyone can move at the pace they want. If they're not happy with that, you can (again, politely) remind them where the door is.

People who prioritize and get uppity about post frequency are, in my experience at least, generally unpleasant, entitled, and bratty people who only give me a headache and whom I don't want to associate with. Every time I find out someone's like that I usually give them one warning to be mindful of everyone else due to the potential health and safety risks forcing the group to post at weird hours can have. If they don't respect or appreciate it and try to argue me down that post frequency is either more important or that it "shouldn't suffer time zones and we should just let everyone else catch up later" (yes, this is a real quote from someone who argued with me in the past about it) I kick 'em and block 'em. No questions asked.

If you're not going to be mindful of the mental and emotional health and safety of your fellow role-players, I don't want you anywhere near me (online or otherwise).

Anyway, let me get off that tangent. Lol.

I would almost always advocate that when there is an uneven distribution in the availability of your role-players, like three people out of five are online and posting once or more per day and the other two can only post three times a week, rather than a post order it's best to give a post quota (or post limit). This will prevent the most active players from running away with the RP, but it will still give them an opportunity to get a post in at a generally good pace.

But at the end of the day it's on you as the GM to actively keep in touch with all of your participants. Circumstances can change at the drop of a hat. And you need to know when something happens. So if one person goes quiet for more than a day and they're usually more active, reach out and touch base. If you find out something's happened, either put a halt on the RP until they're okay to proceed with you or make a promise to help them catch up if they still have motivation to continue when they get back.

GM's need to be flexible and understanding of all of their participants' circumstances as they change over time. Because they will.

Cheers!

 

[Onmyoji]

Finally someone acknowledged time zones is an issue and not something I made up
It is really not fun to be the only person in an odd time zone and constantly being left behind because you can't rp at your 4am.

I like that solution with post quota. Never been in a rp that utilized it though.

 

[Superfly47]

Post order is terrible for ghosting. Without post order, people who are interacting with the ghoster are stuck waiting, others can continue on. With post order, everyone waits. The roleplay literally stops.

 

[nerdy tangents]

I think ghosting is a separate problem to post orders. As the only way to really handle it is to have a policy in place.

So for instance I usually just had peoples characters written out of the action after a week or so. So that way the posting can continue regardless of whether you have a post order or not.

 

[Jannah]

I kind of see both sides of the argument. For one, post orders can be good since many group RP's have at least a couple people who are super active and just want to post all the time. I have actually ditched group RP's because of this due to being left behind. On the flipside, though, having post orders can stall RP's for an unusually long time if members become less active due to real life obligations or whatever. If RP's stall too long I tend to lose interest myself.