Advice/Help What makes you serious about an RP?

[Bacon is fluffy]

I never said they were the same thing. My issue is not having enough interest in the Interest Check, in fact it was quite a lot. But when the roleplay started taking form in its entirety, although it hasn't really started yet, but people left rather early in developement and I do not understand why as my roleplay participants have praised my work so far, but some left without any apparent reason. There is also a matter of activity, but that is another point I suppose. I implore you to check out the link I provided above if you have any wish of helping me in a deeper variety. I even go out of my way to tell people if I'm doing something wrong, or if they'd like to see or know something that I might not have highlighted, but there was rarely any response. This made it even more unreasonable for me, at least, when a few people started leaving. And there's quite a few also who have just disappeared.

You can't take it personally or even really know what the problem is. I had one person who was one of the first people to express interest in my rp, actually end up going silent for the past 4-5 days. I'm always willing to let em join if it was a case of bad internet or genuinely being busy, but sometimes you just lose people. Expect to lose 2-3 players for every batch of interested lookey loos.

 

[HotshotXXV]

New on the site, but an experienced roleplayer. When I can identify with my character, and when I can both build worlds and characterization, that is when I feel most connected to my role plays.

 

[QuirkyAngel]

I feel most connected to a roleplay when my character is invested in it. When they have been given a chance to grow, age, make friends/family in the rp. Basically time skips. Things grow stale when they last too long. Just feels like a lot of nothing.

I think my favorite gms are the ones that make things happen in the rp. Not just in the setting. To players. Don't just leave the plot for players to find. Bring the plot to them would be my suggestion. Then again, every player is different. I can't say for certain what the best hook is and I'm pretty whimsical when it comes to interests myself. A player's seriousness towards an rp is largely on them so sometimes there's just really nothing you can do.

 

[Idea]

Malphaestus so as promised (and sorry that I'm a bit late, a lot happened in the past couple days) I will now take a look at your thread.

Interest CheckOverall some nice generic coding, in the sense that it should be pretty accessible to anyone using either type of device and either theme. Your second person info dump though, that was a real shot in the foot I think. You used a code a lot of people dislike (the scrolling one), you used second person (which I've known people have quit roleplays over in the past) and you added not one but several unecessary lore dumps right in the interest check.

Your naming sense for the RP, given theme also seems...odd? That's just personal opinion. Like I get you were going for the pun there, but I don't see see how "gorgeous" connects to anything, which can be confusing.

Still we already talked about the interest check, but since I'm giving you this broader review, I might as well start from here.

OOC
There's no way I'm going through five pages of OOC for this, so I'll stick to the first OOC post. For the OOC a lot of it seems repeated form the interest check. What you do add is an "about me" and an "about" section of the OOC.

On the "about" section of the OOC, I don't think you need to explain what an OOC is. If you've used RPN for anything longer than a couple days, you pretty much have to know. You also include the rules there, and a form of contacting you, both of which are misplaced. The rules should go on a clearly stated section fo their own so that people can tell at a glance where the rules are. Also, I recommend making the rules in a simpler format, like bullet points,so as to make the specific rules clear and prevent the misunderstanding of run-on text. As for the ways to contact you that belongs in the "about me section".

That said, the actual "about me section" is something which I can see turning people away. If there is anything you feel the need to warn people about, I generally recommend you do so in the interest check. This will, don't get me wrong, reduce the number of players interested, but it wil up the rate at which they stay, as those players that do stay will already have a better awareness of the potential faults, rather than stating interest and then getting surprise warnings afterwards. It will also make you seem more trustworthy.

Lastly, your interest check makes no mention of a discord server. Again, this is something you SHOULD be mentioning in your interest check. I took a quick look at the discord, it looks fine, but not everyone has a discord. Experience tells me that when you make a discord and an OOC in thread separately one or the toher ends up getting prioritized and the other ends up feeling left out, causing the players to quit. Even if this didn't happen, I wouldn't be surprised to hear players expected it to happen and quit right away over it.

Main
There isn't much to say here, it's just copy-pasted content and I'm assuming the first post wasn't even done yet. I will say though, if you're going to take stuff from the interest check, either repeat it on OOC OR on Main, on both it's just clogging.


Characters
A little long, but people seem to have gone along with it. Well, some at least. Your explanations were quite nice and thorough, but this is from the perspective of a guy that values rules and has a large demanding post size requirement under his belt.

People don't like long character sheets. They don't generally like working a long time on CSs, but more than that they find them intimidating. Add to that how I guess rigid everything felt in regards to the military element, and at that point I can really see why people would feel very intimidated by this CS.

Lore
You clearly put a LOT of work into your setting. I like that, and wish I had the time to actually go through it all, but unfortunately I don't... that said, much like the CSs this looks pretty intimidating, even to me. The biggest problem of it is that your lore has too much information without parsing what is required, common sense or just plain useful and what is extra info. The distinction isn't properly made which can lead players to feel like that is just way too much information to keep in mind.


Overall, I have two primary criticisms that pertain to why players wouldn't want to stay (excluding at the moments personall factors like being too busy IRL or something else happening IRL):

1. Your interest check was stuffed too much with stuff that didn't matter and lacked a considerable amount of pertinent information. Things like those problems you have as a GM, like the fact there is a discord involved.

2. I don't think you properly conveyed how demanding you wanted to make the actual roleplay. That or you do not yourself have awareness of how demanding and intimidating it looks for the average roleplayer (as most roleplayers fall into the casual spectrum, not the detailed one).

If I were to give this one piece of advice, it would be this: Be more realistic. Military is already a pretty niche genre, if you're going to make a roleplay like this you should be prepared to have a pretty small group and work with a pretty small group. Be more flexible in that squadron formation because you will not be able to assure that many players, realistically speaking, but if you make it too small and still rigid you will end up with too many players for the new group formation.

 

[PhoenixMire]

I dunno what gets me interested, tbh. Sometimes I’ll get really interested in an RP and then I’ll stop caring for reasons I’m unsure of. It’s odd. I think, when I feel like my characters are meshing really well with my partner’s characters, that’s one thing that helps keep me invested. The plot line itself has to be interesting too.

If I feel like the characters don’t have much chemistry and their interactions are boring, or if the plot line itself gets dull, then I just get really bored.

 

[Onmyoji]

Since I only do 1x1, for me to get serious about the rp it's something like rp partner+ general rp idea > characters > actual rp plot. In that order.

1. There has to be some 'chemistry' between me and rp partner for me to get invested. I don't mean relationship, we don't even need to talk about anything other than rp. I mean being on the same page about rp ideas. That's probably the most important factor for me to get invested into rp. I can get around a dull plot if I have rp partner on the same wavelength and if I see my rp partner also commits to the rp.

2. I need to like the general rp idea. It's hard to explain this one because it really depends on my mood. Sometimes I feel like fantasy so I'll be more invested in fantasy, sometimes I feel like sci-fi, so I'll be more interested in that if everything else is the same. Anyway, I need to want to rp that idea at that given time the rp is starting. If initial planning goes well, I will be invested in the rp and even if I get one reply in two months, I'll still wait for it.

3. Then, the characters. I usually bounce my character off the general rp idea and what my rp partner wants. I never use premade characters (unless it's a fandom rp, in that case I usually play canon characters). This one is simple, I need to like my own character. but if the first two points work out, then it's almost guaranteed I'll like the characters.

4. Now, the actual rp plot. This is a bit similar to general idea, but it's less about planning and more about execution. Sometimes rp can get stale and this is when it is easy to lose interest. But if all previous points are perfect then it doesn't matter if it gets stale, we'll still find a way to bring it back to life if we're commited to the rp together with rp partner.


tldr; getting serious about an rp involves a lot of factors that I could bring down to four major ones that are important for me with varied grades of importance.

 

[AndPeggy]

A good, active GM who keeps things fun will attract people who want to stay. With that being said, there will always be people who leave. As the RP goes on they might find that their schedule is incompatible with the pace, or they don't feel that they're a good fit.

 

[peritwinkle]

Aside from the very obvious preference syncronization, a great aspect of it would be my partner’s creativity and drive. I am one who loves communication and brainstorming, and I absolutely despise carrying a story on my shoulders the whole time. If we are both actively coming up with ideas together like fireworks, then that’s when the magic really happens for me.