Advice/Help What am I doing wrong? And looking for advice

[Becker]

Title says it all; i've made a couple of alternate modern worlds (1940's & 2020's respectively) and there had been little to no interest at all. My first being set in a second world war between fictional factions in 'Europa' where our characters were in the 'Saxland Airforce'; fighting in the skies alongside their 'Messer Republic' allies against the 'Gaul Federation'. I personally thought it would've been awesome for people to join in without any worries about having to dive into world war 1/2 history and do loads of fact-finding etc.. Turns out not a single person was interested although the thread got over 100 views within a day or so.

My second 'failure' was the more recent world set in a alternate Alaska where the country had remained part of the Russian Empire (and later Soviet Union) until the 90's when it broke away during the dissolution of the Soviet Union and formed the Republic of Russo-Alaska. Later on in 2020, WW3 kicked off, the world turned all post apocalyptic and our characters survived in the old soviet metros that litter the Alaskan cities. Again like my first, it had nearly 100 views but only a couple of vague interests..

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Whilst i'm still looking to make something that I not only enjoy writing about but something that others will enjoy taking part in too. I can't help but feel a little demoralized by the interest or lack off rather..

Prehaps my worlds are a little too unusual for people to get really involved with? Am I just not being patient enough and giving up the chase too early? My first thought was that since this website houses mostly Americans, they may tend to enjoy more 'Americanized' themes such as Vietnam, D-Day or things like that? However I tend to prefer non-macho situations; I like to build situations and characters using stealth and cunning than good old fire-power and brute strength. Prehaps its not that and its just me being too 'alternate' with how I approach my world/RP building?

Any advice and constructive criticism would be massively appreciated as I hope to make another story based on the Valkyria Chronicle game but I want to have some good directions to go this time.

Thanks in advance,

Hen

 

[Randomfella]

It may just be that realistic war roleplays are quite niche, at least here. I might be wrong but I rarely see a massive interest in them when compared to the usual fantasy or super powered tropes of 'war'. Personally I have no interest in any roleplay which is so realistic in setting, but that's not to say those that are don't exist here.

Maybe look at other similar successful roleplays and talk with some of the people involved, might be a good way to find a few people interested in that trope.

 

[Becker]

Randomfella , Yeah i'm inclinded to agree with you on that; I prefer realism and stuff that makes logical sense over 'magic works for the sake of magic'. I have tried to dabble more into fantasy but I just get a little frustrated over just how many finer points tend to get skipped because 'fantasy'. I guess I choose more realistic settings because they're something I can relate to and things make more sense to me there than in something that is completely alien to me. I have Aspergers Syndrome so I can definitely credit alot of my hesitance to dive into the unknown on that. I know it might sound a little silly to some but it's just what I am at the end of the day

Oh and thank you for the advice, i'll certainly do some more observation and asking around on more successful roleplays!

 

[Randomfella]

Randomfella , Yeah i'm inclinded to agree with you on that; I prefer realism and stuff that makes logical sense over 'magic works for the sake of magic'. I have tried to dabble more into fantasy but I just get a little frustrated over just how many finer points tend to get skipped because 'fantasy'. I guess I choose more realistic settings because they're something I can relate to and things make more sense to me there than in something that is completely alien to me. I have Aspergers Syndrome so I can definitely credit alot of my hesitance to dive into the unknown on that. I know it might sound a little silly to some but it's just what I am at the end of the day

Oh and thank you for the advice, i'll certainly do some more observation and asking around on more successful roleplays!

Not silly at all, everyone has different tastes after all. Some gm's go to great lengths to make things like super powered humans in a semi realistic setting though such as bionically enhanced or pseudo science ect. Been in a few like that. But yeah a lot of anime or basic superpower rp's can get several pages of interest with only a few lines of explanation. I'd always say stick to what you enjoy though as there's always others who are interested in similar tropes.

 

[Idea]

Now before I start, I fear I might become a little ranty as I try to explain my thoughts. I just went over your interest checks to see what I can say about them, and there is quite a bit to say. So, if you can, do understand that I am not trying to put you down, but just trying to convey what I think and why.

1.Your interests are a bit niche (but that's ok)
This has already been brought up, but you are looking at a very narrow audience for the kinds of roleplays you were trying to pitch. Somewhat focused on world-war-esque ideas, a supposed focus on aircraft, realistic... All things that are pretty niche. If you stock on top of that the fact that you are competing for attention with dozens maybe hundreds of other interest checks and have to luck out in people even finding your interest check, then factor that even if they like the interest check after finding it, they may just not be interested in the plot or already have their plates full... It's a lot of lost audience.

Still, by no means is this necessarily a reason to be discouraged. It's ok to enjoy what you enjoy and when the chips are down, you just gotta keep looking. There are thousands of players, you are bound to find some who share your interests at some point. And if you're not willing to wait, then you can always try looking for something else instead.

2.Your Interest Check Fails to Appeal to Any Group
One concept that is brought up in basic management is "target groups". Whenever someone wants to sell a product, their marketing ought to focus on those who might want to buy that product, those most likely to bring you a profit.

I bring this up, because while a roleplay is obviously not a business an interest check also has a similar concept. Your goal is to reach out to the players that are interested in your ideas and match the kind of players you want in your RP. Then you want to convince those players to commit to your Rp. The problem, is that the way your interest check is structured it sucks the appeal for any particular group that I can see.

Firstly, lets consider those hardcore historical roleplayers, or even just those mild historical roleplayers. One of the big appeals for them is their passion for given time periods, accuracy in general or history in general. Now, while you base this on history somewhat, you are willing to alter (or seem to be willing to alter) quite a dose of those details. I'm not a historical RPer myself, but I imagine that could be a big dealbreaker for me if I was, as the whole point for them seems to at least be tied to those details, the accuracy creates the atmosphere or the nostalgia that they want to experience or explore. Some are more in it for the general vibe, but again, you don't make it clear just what the boundary is between what you are or not willing to change.

Next, let's consider someone who is not a historical RPer, maybe they enjoy war and all that, but they are generally not really in it for a specific time period or abundance of accuracy, you know, more like an average Rper. This person opens your interest check and sees a wall of text. Not just any wall of text though: It actually reads like my sixth grade history textbook. If your interest check, your pitch for your roleplay looks like something I barely read even when I was forced to, that does not spell success.

Furthermore, you flooded the first interest check with images burying parts of the text between them, which aesthetically and in terms of readibility is very disheartening.

In other words, your interest check is not, seemingly, built to appeal to anyone outside of a very small niche, but even those people may have trouble really bothering to get through this interest check. There are dozens of interest checks, so that people will bother to read it through if you don't make it interesting to read through is not a given.

3.Character on the Interest Check
If someone were to make a video detailing the worst types of GMs, you can be pretty certain that the GM that makes the RP all about themselves would be among those. Those GMs share a few things in common, such as completely changing the plot for their own benefit, abusing GM power namely via godmodding, having little care for what characters other players use and pretty relevant to my point, they tend to make extra special characters, usually special snowflakes or at the very least characters at the whole center of the plot.

To put it simply, the weird focus they put on their own character is one of the most distinct and annoying features of that kind of GM.

Now, you don't do this, your character at least from what I garnered does not seem to be a special snowflake or anyone around whom this whole war would be or anything. BUT you still put a character in the interest check. I don't know about other people, but that to me sets off all the alarms. Now I'm the first to admit I have my biases, but to me when I look at an interest check one of the things that can make or break it are the GM's priorities. Putting your character in the interest check seems to say a lot about those.

4.The Actually Important Info is Missing
In both of your interest checks, the most info regarding the meta aspect of the roleplay you give is what sort of characters players will be playing. You don't provide a real direction for the plot or overall goal, you don't have any info regarding the rules of the roleplay or the expected requirements in participation, nothing. In fact your second interest check you seem even less certain about those things than before. Truth be told, a lack of rules is quite appealing to some, but to others it undermines our capacity to trust a GM and some of us want to roleplay in say, a specifically detailed roleplay with large posts so if that is not a gauranteed we might not show interest in a roleplay over it.


5.How to Fix This
Now, I'm not gonna pretend like I have some magical solution to your problems. Heck, my own interest checks don't get that big an audience, and I definitely know a lot less about your "target group" than you do. That said, here are a few tips that I think might help you making your interest check a tad more appealing, at least when it comes to the problems I mentioned earlier:
*Keep the details of the lore OUTSIDE the interest check. The players can go and check those out later. Keep only what is strictly relevant to the plot and characters.
*Carefully position pictures to keep them spaced out from the text
*For the love of God, don't make your font bigger. The normal text font is perfectly fine. Making the font bigger only makes your interest seem like even more of a text wall than it already is.
*Talk about the info that the players may want to know more: What you expect out of posts, what kind of characters they can play, the overall goal of the plot and characters, what parts will be accurate to history or the source material and what won't...
*Keep in mind who you want to appeal to. Be technical only in the things you expect the people reading to be technical on. For instance, mentioning a type of airplane instead of saying somehting along the lines of "a technological superior aircraft" is offputting to someone who doesn't know about airplane models.

Those are just a few tips. You are free to take what i said however you want, and to do with it what you find best. I hope this was helpful though. Good luck, and happy Rping!


PS: I noticed now that I've been talking about your interest checks in singular instead of plural, but you can take what I said and apply it in general (if you take what I said at all)

 

[Becker]

Idea , Many thanks for your opinion on the matter and I do really appreciate you going into such detail. I agree with most of your viewpoints and i'll certainly take them into account for next time.

The How to fix this part has already given me plenty of new directions to go in this time so thanks again!

 

[BiggieCheese]

Heyo! I don't know if you remember me, but I had to leave the site a long time ago due to...issues. But I'm back, and I like the looks of your realistic/modern ideas, I was hoping we could come up with something together?