Experiences What are your most successful RP projects?

[Gowi]

Kind of goes with the title, innit?

I'll start. I have a 12 player (plus myself) role-play on another site, I started it last month and we're still going strong. We've just hit 85 IC posts and I've lost none of the players since. This is pretty much unheard of in large group anime rps in my experience so I'm pretty stoked going forward.

 

[Onmyoji]

A 500 pages rp and a rp that was rewritten into fanfic.
Also a rp that became a running joke between me and my friends and we were even appreciating birthday presents related to that rp lol So I guess I consider it having a lasting impression a success.
All of the above were 1x1.

There was one very long group rp that lasted for over a year and survived deletion of the site it was held on by moving to another site. Although it still died shortly after, but I consider it good that it survived that long.

 

[Crayons]

Congrats! A positive discussion thread!

OK so I guess my first really successful RP was a one on one with a friend that went through a whole super-long hero's (or in this case heroes') journey arc and actually came to what I consider to be the end of their story. It was ... at least 300 000 words long and we wrote it over about 8 years.

Next one that I think was successful, but that sort of petered out into a huge frustration for me (and made me swear off GMing) was a Full Metal Alchemist RP I ran for three years. It started on a chat room but quickly moved to forum. It was the most complexly plotted RP I have ever been in. Everything had convolutions, secrets, disguises, plots, schemes all stacked within each other like Matryoshka dolls. Reading back bits of it I was like "wow we really overcomplicated this, but it's sort of amazing."

I've just gone back after about a two-three year hiatus to a really long-running Bleach one on one RP. It started out on a forum where supposedly other stuff was going on in-universe, but my buddy and I played our two characters together and had them rise through the ranks from know-nothing idealistic Academy students to one powerful captain and his way-too-powerful-to-be-a-VC VC. Intellectual and complex it isn't but hella fun it is. Also, it's the most enjoyment I've had reading through past RP because it's just so funny. The trash-talking, the self-mockery, the ridiculous bad guys, the ducks.

For about two and a half years I ran a faux Feudal Japan nation on a medieval fantasy sandbox forum (ably assisted by my Bleach buddy.) This one had loads of characters, including a small group who were pretty focused on it and a bunch of random people coming in and out for small plots, quests, sightseeing, etc. I got to the point where I was in about 8 story threads at one time, and the best thing about the way this was set up was that I didn't have to actively GM or moderate things that much, just do the fun bits like plotting and world-building and providing NPCS for people to bounce off. It was a bit of a struggle at first as I inherited somewhat of an omnishambles from the person who previously owned the nation and hostility from the site admins, but it grew into something really great and I made some really good friends. Plus there was so much character development and everyone loves that.

Those are what I count as my most successful RPs SO FAR, but here's to many more in the future.

 

[Grey]

My most successful RP ran for two years, up until I got really depressed and it fizzled out as some players went their separate ways.

You can still find the megathread of the whole story up to a certain here, somewhere. Reads like a comic book script, according to a friend.

I attribute the success to a strong OOC bond being formed between most of the players, and everyone getting really into the setting, making dynamic characters who argued, made up, and learned from each other all while narrowly escaping various terrible fates.

 

[Malphaestus]

This. Not objectively the most successful, but I consider it the best I have done yet.

Futuristic - DROP DEAD GORGEOUS - OOC

Thanks to @Enmyira for the wonderful roleplay image Drop Dead Gorgeous, a Science-Fiction military roleplay following the 715th Armored Recon in their ventures into the first interstellar war in human history. Affiliated with the federal Interstellar Union of Nations, humanity takes to the...

www.rpnation.com

Another one, made after, with an equal amount of traction but an equal amount of uneventful happenings, would be this. Most activity was had off-platform ( Lekiel produced a wonderful character for it too, which I vehemently recommend reading Fantasy - [CS] Exalos - The Last Kingdom).

Fantasy - [OOC] Exalos - The Last Kingdom

EXALOS The Last Kingdom Exalos - The Last Kingdom is an action roleplay set in a darker universe inspired by works like Dark Souls and the Divina Comedia (amongst others), and this is its OOC section. A world with its end closely at hand struggles with its dying breaths remain alive; the...

www.rpnation.com

I have another one, which was far more successful, on this site (actual IC progression. Madness, surely). But it's quite bad, and not up to my present standards. I don't feel like showcasing it.

The reason why they didn't have any IC content is because I was then, deludedly, of the mind that I should wait before the characters are in to put out the IC. But that did not seem to work. My next project will hopefully handle that better.

Iterative improvement to my GMing, I suppose.

 

[Redfork2000]

I've had many RPs on my time here in RPNation, and while I've had many roleplay partners with different roleplaying styles, I would've never guessed my most successful RP would be with one roleplay partner who writes one-liners.

Now don't get me wrong, I love good long posts with several paragraphs. In fact when I message people I tell them my preferred length is normally 2-5 paragraphs. I really don't know how it happened, but somehow this roleplay partner of mine managed to get me so invested in an RP despite only writing one-liners most of the time.

The idea of the RP was mine, but unlike most of my RPs that haven't reached even 20 pages before my RP partner either leaves or simply ghosts, this one has reached over 70 pages, and is still ongoing. We love it so much we've started a second RP along with this one. That one is already about 30 pages long, and we're planning that once the two RPs have concluded their own plots, we'll make a crossover with both of them to make an epic finale.

How we got this far, I have no idea, but to this day I'm still invested in the RP a lot. We seem to get along together so well, we love to plot together and laugh together as we talk about our characters and plans. I love RPs with longer posts, sure, but I never expected that this one person who only writes one-liners would get me so invested in an RP, enough for both of us to still love it after so much writing together. I have the feeling this RP isn't going to end anytime soon, and one day we'll be talking of hundreds of pages of content.

- - -

But I also have a series I write on another site with an online friend. We technically call them stories or episodes of a series, but we technically roleplay the episodes, so it counts. Our series is on it's fifth season already, and it's still going strong. In fact I have plans for up to ten seasons, and we're still both greatly invested in expanding the lore of our world, developing our characters and advancing our story arcs.

 

[BackSet]

I have a really good 4 player (including myself) Pokemon rp going on right now. It's really slow but we're all still around and it's been running for almost a year now. Sure it started off rough and most of the players ghosted early and there are some things (like how the characters got together) that I think were kind of poorly written but I think we're doing pretty well. It's certainly the longest lasting rp I've run/been in. It is currently at 9 pages with 205 posts.

 

[welian]

I have a superhero setting that refuses to die, and I love it. I've met so many of my best friends over the last decade, just from this one story that gets rebooted over and over.

 

[Lekiel]

This. Not objectively the most successful, but I consider it the best I have done yet.

Futuristic - DROP DEAD GORGEOUS - OOC

Thanks to @Enmyira for the wonderful roleplay image Drop Dead Gorgeous, a Science-Fiction military roleplay following the 715th Armored Recon in their ventures into the first interstellar war in human history. Affiliated with the federal Interstellar Union of Nations, humanity takes to the...

www.rpnation.com

Another one, made after, with an equal amount of traction but an equal amount of uneventful happenings, would be this. Most activity was had off-platform ( Lekiel produced a wonderful character for it too, which I vehemently recommend reading Fantasy - [CS] Exalos - The Last Kingdom).

Fantasy - [OOC] Exalos - The Last Kingdom

EXALOS The Last Kingdom Exalos - The Last Kingdom is an action roleplay set in a darker universe inspired by works like Dark Souls and the Divina Comedia (amongst others), and this is its OOC section. A world with its end closely at hand struggles with its dying breaths remain alive; the...

www.rpnation.com

I have another one, which was far more successful, on this site (actual IC progression. Madness, surely). But it's quite bad, and not up to my present standards. I don't feel like showcasing it.

The reason why they didn't have any IC content is because I was then, deludedly, of the mind that I should wait before the characters are in to put out the IC. But that did not seem to work. My next project will hopefully handle that better.

Iterative improvement to my GMing, I suppose.

Wow! I'm really happy a creation of mine was received so positively by another human bean I really miss Nuelehtil too Or what she could have been.

And since I'm replying to this thread, I suppose I should contribute to the topic! Suffice to say, I've been a pretty donkey when it comes to GM-ing RPs. I don't have any that I would call successful.. Too many unfinished ones, with equal parts my own fault as well as other issues. But hey, I'm still trying to improve every time.

Anyhow, here's wishing I'll have my very own success in the making for my latest Roleplay! It's a hybrid between a steampunk x magic setting. With a much heavier emphasis on magic.
link's here if anyone is interested in reading more: Fantasy - M E M E N T O ◘ The Taken Seed

Trying out different roleplay styles and mechanics to keep people interested, which does take more effort of course. So hopefully, my attention span can be held on this and my other 1x1 for the sake of my sanity and breaking this cycle of unfinished stories.

 

[Kimby]

Probably my most successful one was the first one I ever ran because it actually reached a conclusion (and got fanart afterward). This was back about 2014-2015 and I did this on a private game server forum and the premise was a mix between LOST and the actual game itself (Talesrunner). This was the time I got into Roleplay and decided to host one myself. Surprisingly a good handful of the players liked the idea and we had kept it running for a few months. It got to the point where life was going to become busy for everyone at that time so we pulled together to make one big conclusion post since we reached a good spot in the RP to end.

Though it was bittersweet, it felt great to have an actual conclusion to something I ran + one of the players did some fan art for it. Unfortunately, the forum has shut down since then so I'm unable to go back and re-read the posts but it's still an RP that sticks with me today.

 

[Puhon]

That would be a 1000+ pages group rp I started way back in 2016 on another site.
There was so much character development, story development, bonds formed and shattered and a million stories to be told.
Sadly, it ended when the entire crew at some point was fed up of the overly controlling mods on that site, who basically tried to force their own opinions and interests on everyone else and didn't accept anything that went beyond their little box.
But we had such a great time writing this rp, oh man. It actually birthed some of my favorite characters to this day and parts and bits of it still are parts of some of my characters' histories, mostly of those who are descendant of those characters from the rp or characters that moved on past it.
It's definitely a memory I'll still look back at in many years and be fond of :'3

 

[AtomBombBaby]

I took "successful" to mean "favorite," my bad XD Personally, a one-on-one RP I did a few years ago with a writing buddy I've been friends with for seven years. It was relatively short-lived, but it sticks with me emotionally more than any other RP I've ever done. It was a WWII setting between a German officer and a Jewish girl -- there was nothing apologetic about it. It was raw, painful, emotional, and horrifying, addressing all those feelings one associates with Nazism and genocide. I did some of my best and favorite writing there, so I'd say it was my most successful RP ^-^

 

[Farr Cyrone]

The most successful one I've ever done was actually my first roleplay and it went on for a good two years but now it's on a really long undisclosed hiatus bc it got a bit too personal. It was a warriors cats AU and me and my friend had well over 120 characters and an epic plot to say the least. RIP Clouded heart though he was my favorite character to rp as until his death bc he was becoming a mary sue. sorry ;-; But it was by far my longest and most successful to this date so there

 

[AnimeGenork]

I'ma quick call D DisneyGirl out for a sec because this is pretty amazing.

"The Lost Kids" was a four person small group that I somehow got into - it's basically a teen drama but with AU versions of Peter Pan characters. I played Belle (Tinkerbell) and Cody (one of the twins), the former of which is in love with Pete/Peter, who's a jackwipe, and the latter of which is dating Natalie/Nana in secret. Now, we lost two players pretty early on, but DID THAT STOP US? No. It did not. This ABSOLUTE ANGEL (DisneyGirl) took on Caleb (the other twin) in order to fulfill the true OTP that is Belle and Caleb while also playing out the romance of Natalie (who she was already playing) and Cody.

It's been a little over three years, and considering I've been on this site for nearly four? That's pretty amazing. And we don't even post that often. But DAMN has shit gone down. xD How much angst shall there be? ALL OF IT. I even got asked about it by one of the former group members, who thought it was pretty cool that we still had it going. Nothing beats the satisfaction of knowing you kept something going even when you thought it wouldn't continue.

Another honorable mention (*cough* This Is Me *cough COUGH*) is a werewolf RP that started off with me making a completely dumbass comment in which I used the phrase "wolf-ing-ness" (the name of our OOC PM, actually XD ) and ended with the lovely little slice of FLUFF that is Cana Lowell and Weston Ayers. It's been two and a half years, and I am so much in love with it. It's been a ride, it is a ride, and it shall continue being a ride.

Both of these 1x1s aren't even all that fast-paced, but a constant interest in the characters, reignited when one of us posts and then we chatter a bit OOC keeps it alive. Sure, being really active helps some, but even the slowest of roleplays can last for a while.

 

[JokerFan766]

My likely most successful Rp is sadly mostly gone
Because of devainart eclipse grrr

It involved my character falling victim to a very powerful hypnosis
Which turned her mentally into a dog.

It actually has a sequel that's still on going.

 

[Folly-Derrezzed]

Axelhaven. Turns out it was a shitty slice of life rp that i will prolly never get around to fixing and reusing. There was 50 people way back when on discord. Then it got messy when two dolts joined and criticized everything, made a fool out of it all. Spose ive never really been good at RPing as i made the "lore" way back when. Looking back, it was dumb lol

what was i thinking? space faring scietists travelling the cosmos, landing on a planet, and making a massive contraption that would terraform the land as they created super adaptable humans that evolved into the elves and dwarves and whatnot.

Sigh...i still remember being a pain in the ass to the queen and smashing through skyrailing. Hm..i think i should wor on it again. Give it a steampunky, bioshock feel that i always imagined.

 

[WiccaMistress13]

A roleplay with a close friend of mine, we created our own world, game mechanics and the like.
It's gone on for over a year strong, completed "Book one" story wise and are getting the next "Book" of the roleplay while we roleplay other things to not exhaust our love and motivation for our created world.