Experiences Tricky RP ideas

[AndPeggy]

There are some settings and plot types that I personally LOVE, but due to their nature they never last very long.

When a new RP opens and fills up with players, it's pretty much inevitable that some people will drop off. It's just a fact of life when it comes to RP.

I love royal court type RPs, and one of my guilty pleasures is Arranged Marriage RPs. In these stories there are set and static roles such as a prince or a king or a duke, etc that depend on someone staying in that role.

However, due to the nature of RPing, people inevitably end up leaving those central roles. There's a scramble to replace them, and sometimes they can't be, and eventually the whole RP falls apart. I personally think that it's impossible to have a cast where nobody ever leaves.

I'd love to put together a fun arranged marriage RP but that's a problem that I don't know how to solve.

Are there any plot ideas that you guys absolutely love but that are just too tricky to pull off?

And if you've succeeded - how?

 

[Murdergurl]

I don't really have any advice as to how to fix them... but it seems to me that any RP that is reliant on pairs or couples to exist is basically asking to be stalled out. I've also seen where people try to be balanced as far as Male to Female ratio.... which is also a bit of a headache. A lot of the time, everyone is waiting so long for the roster to fill, that people get tired of waiting and ghost the RP. I can totally understand that, as I myself can only hold out for so long on an RP that isn't moving before I lose motivation to be in it.

I guess the only solution that might work is if you (or whomever the GM is) steps in with NPCs to fill the gaps. It seems like a lot of effort, and nothing I'd want to undertake, personally. But it IS a solution of sorts.

 

[nerdy tangents]

So I think you might be best serviced doing 1x1s. As that way you get to focus on a single relationship and you can more easily accommodate your partners schedule.

If you have more than one specific pairing you want to do just make more than one roleplay OR ask your partner to double up.

From what I have read of the genre that’s how the stories work anyway. It’s not twelve different people being married off it’s two people per story.

 

[Murdergurl]

nerdy tangents
lmao! you are the first Avi that I've seen wearing a covid facemask. congrats!

 

[ashwynne]

So I've never actually gotten to do one, but a proper Horror/Slasher rp would be so so SO tricky
Biggest hurdle? For it to work, characters have to die. YOUR character might die, and not a lot of people want to sign up to have their babies be mauled. It also requires a super diligent and dedicated player base that is in very clear and rigorous communication with each other. Also pretty complicated to GM since there are so many moving pieces that need to be accounted for, facilitated, and carefully manipulated without giving anything away.

Honestly, the thought of running one myself gives me an instant headache Totally love the concept though.

 

[TPBx]

There are some settings and plot types that I personally LOVE, but due to their nature they never last very long.

When a new RP opens and fills up with players, it's pretty much inevitable that some people will drop off. It's just a fact of life when it comes to RP.

I love royal court type RPs, and one of my guilty pleasures is Arranged Marriage RPs. In these stories there are set and static roles such as a prince or a king or a duke, etc that depend on someone staying in that role.

However, due to the nature of RPing, people inevitably end up leaving those central roles. There's a scramble to replace them, and sometimes they can't be, and eventually the whole RP falls apart. I personally think that it's impossible to have a cast where nobody ever leaves.

I'd love to put together a fun arranged marriage RP but that's a problem that I don't know how to solve.

Are there any plot ideas that you guys absolutely love but that are just too tricky to pull off?

And if you've succeeded - how?

In particular with the Royal Court idea. How me and my former Co-GM got around central players leaving and creating a power vacuum was having those spots be based on an in-universe meritocracy. Where the next highest ranked characters would be promoted into those positions. Or as of now there have been more cases where there was no way they could be reasonably be filled by the current player pool so we have gone on to create NPC characters to fill the roles until someone was reasonably high ranked enough to move into the royal court where they then could challenge the NPC to a duel or the NPC simply leaves for plot convenience.

Of course this was possible thanks the RP being in the Fantasy genre, and we have a whole magic and ranking system built in place to determine this information. In more realistic RPs, I'd imagine you would have to be more crafty as a GM to figure this one out. A lot more behind the scenes political intrigue.

 

[Onmyoji]

Murder mystery rp.
Not only the GM needs to craft a believable plot, direct players towards the clues, but the players might do things that will destroy the original idea and it will be hard to adapt on the go.

This sort of thing might be best suited for a quest rp, but with free-form writing rp it can be very tricky to do.

 

[Crayons]

I love royal court type RPs, and one of my guilty pleasures is Arranged Marriage RPs. In these stories there are set and static roles such as a prince or a king or a duke, etc that depend on someone staying in that role.

I've been thinking about royal court RPs recently and I actually have an idea on how to run one which I want to get feedback on ... I just need to write it up and put it here. Would be great to have your input (and that of others who like court rps!)

I would probably ... kill off any characters when the players disappear, and say they were assassinated. Maybe even have other players come up with ideas about how their character would have killed them and why. Then bring in new people to fill roles. If you look at some royal court settings (fiction and non fiction) this was pretty common, and I think it would be a great way for people to get to assassinate people without the problems involved in killing off active PCs.

Also I don't think set and static roles are necessarily a good idea for any RP unless you expect people to stick around. I've had problems with this before. I ran one RP with static roles and I had one spot filled 4 times with people who joined, claimed the spot, then left after one post/before posting. :/

Also want to back Onmyoji on murder mysteries or just mysteries generally. Very hard to do unless you have a very clever and very hands-on GM.

 

[Onmyoji]

I would probably ... kill off any characters when the players disappear, and say they were assassinated. Maybe even have other players come up with ideas about how their character would have killed them and why. Then bring in new people to fill roles. If you look at some royal court settings (fiction and non fiction) this was pretty common, and I think it would be a great way for people to get to assassinate people without the problems involved in killing off active PCs.

And if that player returns they could play a ghost or zombie XD
sorry I just had to lol

Yeah static roles are a bit of a pain. I was reading some group rp that I don't participate in, and over the time I've been reading it, some of the main static roles changed players at least five or six time each... There barely are any players from the original cast left. And with changing players the plot also had to adjust a bit to accommodate those who were not present when other people filled their roles, because they might have different writing styles and all.

 

[Crayons]

And if that player returns they could play a ghost or zombie XD
sorry I just had to lol

That's a pretty good idea! XD If it was me running it I'd allow ghosts because they are thematic, very Macbethian. Maybe mummies if it was set in Ancient Egypt or somewhere similar. Zombies are too modern of an invention for me... also wouldn't want them running amok biting people. XD

 

[Onmyoji]

Well, if zombies don't fit, there are multiple species of ghouls and undead, even the mermaids are essentially drowned girls in some legends. XD

 

[Trektek]

So I've never actually gotten to do one, but a proper Horror/Slasher rp would be so so SO tricky
Biggest hurdle? For it to work, characters have to die. YOUR character might die, and not a lot of people want to sign up to have their babies be mauled. It also requires a super diligent and dedicated player base that is in very clear and rigorous communication with each other. Also pretty complicated to GM since there are so many moving pieces that need to be accounted for, facilitated, and carefully manipulated without giving anything away.

Honestly, the thought of running one myself gives me an instant headache Totally love the concept though.

Yeah. I tried once on here running a Cube style horror game where no one had any memories of their past and only their abilities with them each gaining an object in gameplay that they were able to use. It ended up falling apart during the second room cause people started ghosting.

 

[Chordling]

I'd love to put together a fun arranged marriage RP but that's a problem that I don't know how to solve.

Don't allow people to play roles that are essential to the plot of the story.

 

[Beckoncall]

So I've never actually gotten to do one, but a proper Horror/Slasher rp would be so so SO tricky
Biggest hurdle? For it to work, characters have to die. YOUR character might die, and not a lot of people want to sign up to have their babies be mauled. It also requires a super diligent and dedicated player base that is in very clear and rigorous communication with each other. Also pretty complicated to GM since there are so many moving pieces that need to be accounted for, facilitated, and carefully manipulated without giving anything away.

Honestly, the thought of running one myself gives me an instant headache Totally love the concept though.

I have a lot on my plate right now, but I've run games with very expendable characters (usually because they can be replaced) before and this seems like such a FUN IDEA!

When One of my current RPs concludes or fizzles out I may TAKE A STAB (haw-haw) at a game with a Horror/Slasher Theme.

My present campaign i'm running has enough horror -- it's about transdimensional bodysnatchers in a fantasy setting. but if you are talking about slasher/horror I can see this being done in a couple of ways:

1) As said above, establish from the beginning that "prey" characters are expendable. I'd add a mechanic where if you died gloriously, accomplished much, or hurt the Killer you'd have access to better archetypes in your following lives, and the prey characters leveling up like this could establish a potential "fuse" for how long a psycho-killer could keep going. Ie: from college stereotypes with few skills, to armed civilians or people with areas of expertise, to doctors and survivalists and firemen to eventually a paramilitary squad sent to stop the killer.

2) Just have prey characters be NPCs, and keep the party to 1-4 psycho-killers. I don't like this idea as much as the first one though.

ashwynne we should get together sometime and develop this idea. I think it really has potential.

 

[Sero]

Usually in these sorts of situations, or in group roleplays, I find it easy just to say that the character is missing. You don't need to kill them off, unless the player requests, but you can instead naturally make rp out of their disappearance. A prince dissappears, the Kingdom is distraught, but they must move on and start looking for candidates to take their place, and end up holding a competition.

Thats just a very loose way you could fill the gap...or you couldn't. And just leave them missing. If the player comes back then they have more rp too, having to justify their disappearance and trying to reclaim their place.

I feel that such things don't have to kill a roleplay, if possible you should make it an opportunity. That makes the world feel more alive.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

I have a desire to narrate a surrealistic game, that would be low on dialogue, high on spirituality, and belief, and dreams, and metaphors. Unfortunately, it's hardly done, or even... unable to be done in erpg media form.

 

[Grey]

The trickiest RP idea I've ever had was a horror story based on a real incident of institutional child abuse in Irish history, where the player character were four boys in an industrial school struggling to survive the awful things to which they were subjected, with ambiguous Pan's Labyrinth-esque fantasy elements.

Picked up an award for it, but the research was as harrowing as it was necessary. I'd try running it on RPN, but even carefuly censored I think it would be A Bit Much and too challenging for all but a few users.

I have a desire to narrate a surrealistic game, that would be low on dialogue, high on spirituality, and belief, and dreams, and metaphors. Unfortunately, it's hardly done, or even... unable to be done in erpg media form.

I have a framework for this, and I think it can work, but getting players is damn near impossible.

 

[Candystar]

So I've never actually gotten to do one, but a proper Horror/Slasher rp would be so so SO tricky
Biggest hurdle? For it to work, characters have to die. YOUR character might die, and not a lot of people want to sign up to have their babies be mauled.

I'm in one like this... Not a slasher RP exactly but a horror one where everyone dies a lot. They warn you when you join that your chars are going to die, so don't put your beloved OC in it, put some rando in it. I haven't seen anyone really struggle with it or complain too much. They have a dedicated core of like 8 people who play and then new people join and leave like they do. But if someone leaves, they can just get eaten by monsters or something. Win/win!

 

[FoolsErin]

Murder mystery rp.
Not only the GM needs to craft a believable plot, direct players towards the clues, but the players might do things that will destroy the original idea and it will be hard to adapt on the go.

This sort of thing might be best suited for a quest rp, but with free-form writing rp it can be very tricky to do.

So like closer to a "traitor" game (i.e. Werewolf, Mafia, Town of Salem), or a "one person dies and we need to figure out who went all stabby wabby on them" type of thing? I've seen the former done before on multiple occasions, but not the latter.

 

[Onmyoji]

So like closer to a "traitor" game (i.e. Werewolf, Mafia, Town of Salem), or a "one person dies and we need to figure out who went all stabby wabby on them" type of thing? I've seen the former done before on multiple occasions, but not the latter.

The latter, yes. I can see the traitor game work, but a true murder mystery where players investigate what happened seems hard to pull off.

 

[Grey]

So I've never actually gotten to do one, but a proper Horror/Slasher rp would be so so SO tricky

Murder mystery rp.

These are actually old-hat for dice games - maybe the rolls make it feel fairer when someone dies. But I personally love doing horror mystery RPs specifically, just no one seems to sign up.
If you ever want to see my notes I often write them for conventions so GMs who've never seen them before can rum them with twenty minutes prep.

 

[FoolsErin]

The latter, yes. I can see the traitor game work, but a true murder mystery where players investigate what happened seems hard to pull off.

Honestly based on the one “traitor game“ roleplay I’ve properly been in and it’s shortcomings, I can imagine plenty of things that could go wrong with something full-on investigative like that. Like for example, it is very possible that a clue you meant to foreshadow the killer utilizing spiky tentacles is actually going to be interpreted as using claws by 80% of the cast. Hard balance to strike between being too obvious and being too vague. Seriously, we got none of the killers in that roleplay until the big reveal because none of us seriously looked at the clues, then seriously looked at the cast. Then the roleplay died. It was an interesting experience, honestly.

 

[Onmyoji]

Yes, that's exactly why I think this type of story is tricky if not impossible to pull of in a traditional text roleplay.

 

[M.J. Saulnier]

You need a really, really good GM, who can dictate the facts in a way that narrate FOR you, telling you straight up exactly what you wanted to know.

Player: *Examines the wounds*
GM: "The wounds were consistent with deep, thrusting punctures from sharp, spiky objects. The wounds are clean, precise. They could be mistaken for tool marks as she examines them with the utmost scrutiny."

You would not describe claw wounds the same way. Claws puncture and widen as they sink in, usually tearing as they exit. Much messier wound than lets say a spiky tentacle? Whatever that is, lol.

It's all on the GM, and who shows up to help them. You need mystery writers, not people who like a good mystery. Whoever your killer is, mustn't over or under sell it.

 

[FoolsErin]

Yes, that's exactly why I think this type of story is tricky if not impossible to pull of in a traditional text roleplay.

Yea, I could not imagine throwing the plot of your average Elementary episode into text-form with multiple detectives that have vastly different angles on everything. That just sounds like a mess and a half.