System/Mechanics Thoughts on Tupperbot in Discord RPs?

GreenBeret

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Afternoon. First thread, here goes.

I do most of my RPing on Discord servers. While some only allow one character per account/person, many allow multiple characters. And most of these require one to use Tupperbot. For those not familiar, Tupperbot is a Discord bot that allows you to create profiles of your characters and send messages as them. The bot deletes your message when you include the proper command and resends it as your character. You can even set a pfp for your chars.

While most folks seem to like, or at least be fine with, using Tuppers, I've run in to some who dislike it and even some who positively refuse to use it, instead simply marking every single post with which char it is for.

Anyone have thoughts on the pros/cons of Tupperbot usage, or a strong opinion either way? As someone who runs Discord RP servers, I'm pretty interested.
 
I use Tupper for Discord roleplaying. Only issues I've ever encountered are that sometimes there's a delay but that doesn't bother me.

I'd choose Tupper over no Tupper any day, but I can definitely live without it
 
I only use Tupper for non-serious roleplay because of one caveat:
You can't search for messages sent using Tupper.

You can in general, but you can't tag a specific user to browse the message from that person only. It's annoying.
 
The most successful RP I've ever had is a Tupper RP with a friend of mine.

Witht he proper setup on both sides, I haven't really experienced a more immersive form of RPing
 
Personally, I just see the tupperbot thing on Discord is just another gimmick. To me, Discord is an inferior platform for RP, and Tupperbot is just another poor attempt to use a gimmick to draw interest instead of working on the more fundamental drawbacks. For me, the biggest con to using Discord is the character limit per post. It gets annoying to have to constantly go back and try to guess where I need to break my entries. The other thing I don't like is the lack of formatting options (a little bbcode would do wonders for the presentation). And lastly, I absolutely dislike the style and pace that the Discord RP community fosters. To each their own, and all that jazz. But 90% of the time, all I seem to find on Discord servers are "low-lit" writers that expect multiple responses a day. I realize that Discord caters to a certain kind of RPer, especially with it having become available as a mobile app (which I don't/can't use). But that type of RPer isn't me. Still, I DO find myself browsing through Discord every now and again, searching for interesting and active RP groups. But tbh, I almost never find anything that I'm looking for.

But to reiterate my answer to the question at hand: I have tried tupperbot, and I find it cumbersome and ultimately pointless. I do not use it. I mean, honestly, if you can't figure out what character I'm posting as... either my post needs a re-write or the reader is completely oblivious to context. Do we really need our hands held this much through our reading experience?
 
Personally, I just see the tupperbot thing on Discord is just another gimmick. To me, Discord is an inferior platform for RP, and Tupperbot is just another poor attempt to use a gimmick to draw interest instead of working on the more fundamental drawbacks. For me, the biggest con to using Discord is the character limit per post. It gets annoying to have to constantly go back and try to guess where I need to break my entries. The other thing I don't like is the lack of formatting options (a little bbcode would do wonders for the presentation). And lastly, I absolutely dislike the style and pace that the Discord RP community fosters. To each their own, and all that jazz. But 90% of the time, all I seem to find on Discord servers are "low-lit" writers that expect multiple responses a day. I realize that Discord caters to a certain kind of RPer, especially with it having become available as a mobile app (which I don't/can't use). But that type of RPer isn't me. Still, I DO find myself browsing through Discord every now and again, searching for interesting and active RP groups. But tbh, I almost never find anything that I'm looking for.

But to reiterate my answer to the question at hand: I have tried tupperbot, and I find it cumbersome and ultimately pointless. I do not use it.
Interesting. I personally like and use Tupperbot (I require it for people in my server who have multiple characters) mainly because it makes things a bit clearer.

As to Discord as an RP platform itself, I sort of agree and disagree with you. While the character limit is a bit annoying, you can always just write in a Doc and transfer it (it does tell you how many characters you have left, by the way). And I've done some great lit+ RPs there (military/political ones for the most part). I know people who have done 5000 word (not character, word) posts on Discord RPs.

The thing I absolutely love about Discord though, is this -- A. Roles. i am obsessed with roles, so yeah... and B. The ability to have channels and categories which are a lot easier to switch between than categories in a forum. A forum might just have "Police Station," as a thread, whereas I can have 20 channels for a station... Captain's office, detective room, booking, parking lot, evidence room... it goes on and on.

I guess the TLDR would be a respect what you said, but in the end disagree with most of it. I encourage you to check out Discord a bit more. There are really great RP servers if you look for them.
 
Interesting. I personally like and use Tupperbot (I require it for people in my server who have multiple characters) mainly because it makes things a bit clearer.
I used Discord before they ever had Tupperbot, and there was never any confusion. j/s

As to Discord as an RP platform itself, I sort of agree and disagree with you. While the character limit is a bit annoying, you can always just write in a Doc and transfer it (it does tell you how many characters you have left, by the way). And I've done some great lit+ RPs there (military/political ones for the most part). I know people who have done 5000 word (not character, word) posts on Discord RPs.
Yeah, I already do this. I type out my stuff on Google Docs because it saves as you type. So there is zero danger of you losing any work. I have a lot of character sheets and worldbuilding docs and writing samples saved on Docs, and I usually just share the link for CS instead of writing it on Discord. Because, like I mentioned before, the formatting is trash-tier. Any kind of profile template that would need be typed up on the channel itself will look like boring slop compared to the layout I've made on Docs.

As far as the breaking up of posts.... the way I write has me having to break up into three, four, sometimes even FIVE entries to make my post contribution. And copy/pasting that and trying to find a good breaking point in my paragraphs is a hassle that I feel shouldn't need to exist.

On a side note: Military and political settings are both RP genres I tend to not go for at all.

The thing I absolutely love about Discord though, is this -- A. Roles. i am obsessed with roles, so yeah... and B.
See, I'm the other way around. I find the roles to be (mostly) pointless. I hate having to go through what seems to be a standardized procedure of telling everyone my sex, my age, and....ugh my "pronouns". I just find the whole thing tedious and silly. Like, who the fuck cares? The only info that should be pertinent in that regard is the post style and frequency that you are looking for, and maybe your time zone. The rest is just stupid personal fluff that I don't care about. A lot of the time, I don't even fill out all the roles because they don't apply, or there isn't really a relevant answer (or I just don't see the need to answer).

The ability to have channels and categories which are a lot easier to switch between than categories in a forum. A forum might just have "Police Station," as a thread, whereas I can have 20 channels for a station... Captain's office, detective room, booking, parking lot, evidence room... it goes on and on.
We used to address this issue back in the day by a simple header that indicated where the character was. And yes, I agree that it IS nice to be able to divvy up the locations in a settin gin this manner. But then I dont know how many I've seen these channel options on Discord utterly wasted (misused?) when like a castle has twenty locations under it, and then ALL the wilderness gets lumped into a single channel. I'm like... why? Replace castle with Manor, or Spaceship, etc. And I see it as a clique catering to favored players and their pet locations, while the rest of the server had to bumble and wait for one another while trying to cram into one generalized channel. In concept, multiple channel locations is great. In practice however, it just caters to the "in crowd" that gets to decide who gets their own personal spaces for RP.

I guess the TLDR would be a respect what you said, but in the end disagree with most of it. I encourage you to check out Discord a bit more. There are really great RP servers if you look for them.
Like I said, I've been on and off of Discord for a while. I was on it for maybe a year before they added Mobile accessibility. I've joined and left more groups than I can keep track of. I even find myself accidentally re-joining groups I had left in the past because my searches are not pulling up anythig new. Which brings me to my last issue: While everyone boasts about Discord being so great and full of variety, It still only caters to a certain crowd. I dare you to find an active and current RP group in any of these flavors. Because try as I might, I still can't.

  • Conan the Barbarian (not video game related)
  • Judge Dredd
  • Star Wars, Old Republic (not video game related)
  • Generic, open-ended space opera
^That last one in specific sounds super easy to find, right? Trust me, it isn't. At least, not good and active servers.​
 
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See, I'm the other way around. I find the roles to be pointless. I hate having to go through what seems to be a standardized procedure of telling everyone my sex, my age, and....ugh my "pronouns". I just find the whole thing tedious and silly. Like, who the fuck cares? The only info that should be pertinent in that regard is the post style and frequency that you are looking for, and maybe your time zone. The rest is just stupid personal fluff that I don't care about. A lot of the time, I don't even fill out all the roles because they don't apply, or there isn't really a relevant answer (or I just don't see the need to answer).
Oh, I don't have any roles like that. They're all RP roles. police ranks, units, locations, etc etc... 235 of them, in fact. Again, I'm obsessed with bureaucracy, I suppose.

There are a million Star Wars RPs on Discord. No idea if they're any good, though. Not my thing. It's true that genres tend to be hit or miss. Anime (I hate it) is ridiculously popular on Discord. I couldn't find a good police RP that was active, so I made my own.
 
Oh, I don't have any roles like that. They're all RP roles. police ranks, units, locations, etc etc... 235 of them, in fact. Again, I'm obsessed with bureaucracy, I suppose.

There are a million Star Wars RPs on Discord. No idea if they're any good, though. Not my thing. It's true that genres tend to be hit or miss. Anime (I hate it) is ridiculously popular on Discord. I couldn't find a good police RP that was active, so I made my own.
There ARE a million Star Wars RPs on Discord. But none of them are Old Republic. They are mostly new order or Clone Wars or something newer. You'd think that there would be some OR stuff. But there really isnt (not good ones at least). And seeking an Old Republic Server is me being general and lenient in my search. If I was being more specific in what I'm looking for, I'd want a setting in the Great Galactic War. And good luck finding that, right? lol

And High-fuckin'-five to another anime hater! lmao

I am absolutely averse to 99% of anime out there. So I hear ya there.

The closest thing I would do to a police RP would be a Judge Dredd RP. And even then, I wouldnt take the role of a Judge myself. I'd be a ganger or something. But I pretty much never seek out mundane, modern settings. Gotta have my sci-fi flavor in it, ya know? Medieval fantasy/S&S as a second. But I'm primarily a sci-fi gal.
 
There ARE a million Star Wars RPs on Discord. But none of them are Old Republic. They are mostly new order or Clone Wars or something newer. Ypu'd think that there would be some OR stuff. But there really isnt. And seeking an Old Republic Server si me being general .If I was being more specific in what I'm looking for, I'd want a setting in the Great Galactic War. And good luck finding that, right? lol

And High-fuckin'-five to another anime hater! lmao

I am absolutely averse to 99% of anime out there. So I hear you there.

The closest thing I would do to a police RP would be a Judge Dredd RP. And even then, I wouldnt take the role of a Judge myself. I'd be a ganger or something. But I pretty much never seek out mundane, modern settings. Gotta have my sci-fi flavor in it, ya know? Medieval fantasy/S&S as a second. But I'm primarily a sci-fi gal.
Anime sucks, 100%. It's one of many things that contributes to the rapid decline of civilization.

I know a guy who does really hardcore Star Wars Rping, I think maybe OR, not sure though. It was onforums though, not Discord.

OK, brace yourself... I've never done a sci-fi RP. Closest thing would be a post-apoc I played a little bit.
 
Anime sucks, 100%. It's one of many things that contributes to the rapid decline of civilization.

I know a guy who does really hardcore Star Wars Rping, I think maybe OR, not sure though. It was onforums though, not Discord.

OK, brace yourself... I've never done a sci-fi RP. Closest thing would be a post-apoc I played a little bit.
I consider post-apoc to be a sub-genre of sci-fi. Well, it CAN be. I guess it depends on the method of the apocalypse. Obvs if a magical race of dragons brought about the apocalypse, then the Post-apoc setting would be fantasy. lol. But if its like a virus or aliens, or nuclear war, i consider it to still be sci-fi. since fictional science brought around the cataclysm. Not all sci-fi need be over the top. A sub-genre of "Hard science fiction" does exist.

Like, Mad Max is a post-apoc movie, but is definitely a form of science fiction. Same with Fallout
 
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I consider post-apoc to be a sub-genre of sci-fi. Well, it CAN be. I guess it depends on the method of the apocalypse. Obvs if a magical race of dragons brought about the apocalypse, then the Post-apoc setting would be fantasy. lol. But if its like a virus or aliens, or nuclear war, i consider it to still be sci-fi. since fictional science brought around the cataclysm. Not all sci-fi need be over the top. A sub-genre of "Hard science fiction" does exist.

Like, Mad Max is a post-apoc movie, but is definitely a form of science fiction. Same with Fallout
It was a sort of zombie thing. Not ina weird way though. They had some good RPers, but the community wasn't my type of place.
 
I actively dislike Tubberbot and will leave any discord server if they attempt to implement it. It has done nothing but make things much more needlessly complicated than things need to be.
 
It was a sort of zombie thing. Not ina weird way though. They had some good RPers, but the community wasn't my type of place.
zombies are one of those topics that can be either fantasy or sci-fi. Like, 28 days later is sci-fi zombie. But then you have GoT zombies which are fantasy.

And yeah, I have a hard time meshing with online communities. My opinions and views tend to rub the online status quo the wrong way a lot of the time. So, I've learned to (mostly) keep a lot of my personal opinions to myself, especially socio-political ones. My interactions on Discord groups online communities tend to be "strictly business". Which ultimately leads to me not really getting anywhere with my RPs since I fail to get that personal connection to anyone in particular.

I actively dislike Tubberbot and will leave any discord server if they attempt to implement it. It has done nothing but make things much more needlessly complicated than things need to be.
I mean, as long as it isnt required, is fine. But I wont use it, myself. I've only ever joined one Discord group that made you HAVE to make a tupper for your character.
 
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zombies are one of those topics that can be either fantasy or sci-fi. Like, 28 days later is sci-fi zombie. But then you have GoT zombies which are fantasy.

And yeah, I have a hard time meshing with online communities. My opinions and views tend to rub the online status quo the wrong way a lot of the time. So, I've learned to (mostly) keep a lot of my personal opinions to myself, especially socio-political ones. My interactions on Discord groups online communities tend to be "strictly business". Which ultimately leads to me not really getting anywhere with my RPs since I fail to get that personal connection to anyone in particular.


I mean, as long as it isnt required, is fine. But I wont use it, myself. I've only ever joined one Discord group that made you HAVE to make a tupper for your character.
I lean Conservative, so everything I join is either Liberal and thinks I'm some kind of bigot or is wacko alt right and thinks I'm a progressive.

My server's rules say that Tupper's required, but I don't enforce it, really. I much prefer folks to use it though. Just makes things clearer in my opinion.

I wasn't crazy about the zombie part. I was more interested in just having some decent people to RP with. It's true most RPers on Discord aren't very good. There are some real gems around though.
 
I lean Conservative, so everything I join is either Liberal and thinks I'm some kind of bigot or is wacko alt right and thinks I'm a progressive.

My server's rules say that Tupper's required, but I don't enforce it, really. I much prefer folks to use it though. Just makes things clearer in my opinion.

I wasn't crazy about the zombie part. I was more interested in just having some decent people to RP with. It's true most RPers on Discord aren't very good. There are some real gems around though.
I lost count of how many times I've been called (or been implied to be) a bigot online. It's ironic, if they knew any details about me. Some of my views are conservative. But then others are on the opposite end of the spectrum. I dunno. I try not to put a tag on it

tbh, I usually only make and play one character at a time. So there is pretty much zero chance of my characters getting mixed up. Since I'm only ever doing one RP with one character.

I know what you mean about the zombie thing. Maybe 15 years ago, it was a less stale concept. But nowadays, a zombie RP doesnt have the same appeal as there are dozens of them going on at any given time. All with the same notions and tropes and gimmicks. And I'm hesitant to even read through zombie RP reqs anymore.
 
I actively dislike Tubberbot and will leave any discord server if they attempt to implement it. It has done nothing but make things much more needlessly complicated than things need to be.

Anything in particular that you consider to be "needlessly complicated"?
There are many parts of the bot that I find to be pretty pointless (like grouping characters together, or adding birthdays), but I've always found the basic setup and usage to be pretty straightforward.

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And I agree with points above that Discord is far more suitable for shorter styles of roleplaying. I don't roleplay much on Discord, and everything I do on there is very casual. Danganronpa RPs are pretty big on there and they benefit from Discords layout, allowing for different channels for locations (which helps prevent spam in one place when you have over a dozen people writing rapid fire responses, since Dangan rps are almost always on a large scale at first).

Often things move too fast over there though and even just writing one paragraph for a response can sometimes get you left behind in the conversation if you aren't a fast writer. I always have to remember that (or maybe I'm just joining the wrong rps. I find the term "literate" to be used far more loosely in the Danganronpa RP community)

The character limit itself would prevent a lot of the roleplay here from running smoothly if it were done on Discord instead. Brings back memories of an app I used when I was a young teen (2014-2015) called 'Storywriters' (I think?). Character/word limit and you weren't allowed to post twice in a row. Now that sucked.
 
Anything in particular that you consider to be "needlessly complicated"?
There are many parts of the bot that I find to be pretty pointless (like grouping characters together, or adding birthdays), but I've always found the basic setup and usage to be pretty straightforward.

---

And I agree with points above that Discord is far more suitable for shorter styles of roleplaying. I don't roleplay much on Discord, and everything I do on there is very casual. Danganronpa RPs are pretty big on there and they benefit from Discords layout, allowing for different channels for locations (which helps prevent spam in one place when you have over a dozen people writing rapid fire responses, since Dangan rps are almost always on a large scale at first).

Often things move too fast over there though and even just writing one paragraph for a response can sometimes get you left behind in the conversation if you aren't a fast writer. I always have to remember that (or maybe I'm just joining the wrong rps. I find the term "literate" to be used far more loosely in the Danganronpa RP community)

The character limit itself would prevent a lot of the roleplay here from running smoothly if it were done on Discord instead. Brings back memories of an app I used when I was a young teen (2014-2015) called 'Storywriters' (I think?). Character/word limit and you weren't allowed to post twice in a row. Now that sucked.
Discord is, I think, mainly used for action RP, which (while it certainly can be literate+) is usually shorter posts, depending on the actual stuff happening. For me, in police RPing, things move at an odd pace because the GM has to control at least one criminal, while the others are playingcops. As the GM is controlling the criminal, the cops can really only respond to the GM's actions. They can't just walk up, RP tackling the criminal, RP cuffing him, and RP taking him away all in the same post, because that'd be RPing for the GM's NPC (i.e., they have to give the GM a chance to RP the criminal resisting or whatever).

I have, though, played military/political RPs on Discord, as mentioned above, where folks write articles that are 6 or more messages long. Doesn't really bother anyone. And even in my police server there have been great, multi-message, posts in slower settings, like conversation or detective arcs. Not trying to argue, but I do think folks tend to under-rate Discord a bit when it comes to RPing.
 

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