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I do think it would actually be a good idea for the RP Guild Council to do some RP summaries, which would be good.  Then again, most of the RPs are in hibernation right now basically because people are studying for finals, etc probably, and we should pickup things in mid-December and then roll with things through February at least.  RPs can just be tricky because the amount and quality of discretionary time that people have throughout the year varies wildly, and the problem with that is that RP is something that requires a lot of quality, extra time.  At least good RP, in my experience.

Who will write the summaries? How do we get this from paper to reality?

I keep hearing that RPs take a lot of time that people don't have right now, but what can we do to make it faster or easier? I've had several people tell me now that they prefer to RP on Discord over the forums because it's easier or faster to do so there...why is that and is there anything we can do to bring some of the benefits of Discord RPing over to the forums? Some people prefer to RP on the RMB, again, why is that and is there some way we can bring the benefits of that over to the forums? Then when we make these changes, how can we promote them to people to let them know our forum RPs aren't like the RPs they're thinking of?

I don't know what the answers to those are because I'm not a RPer, but they're questions that are worth asking and thinking over. Defaulting to "this is the way things have always been and are and shall always be" leads to complacency and stagnation.

I'd need to investigate what type of RP is available on the RMB and Discord. If it's a more free-form one, then that already sets it apart. The RPs I've historically engaged in here have been more controlled and ambitious, which also required a lot of investment. If the person running it falls inactive, then the entire thing falls apart, since anyone who tries to take over doesn't quite have the vision of the original "author", for lack of a better word. Perhaps the guild should try to come up with a few strategies to limit this from happening, like requiring that 3 or 4 others be ready to step in and take charge of the RP when it falls inactive for more than a week. Or perhaps we could probe whether the person who starts the RP expects to be active for the foreseeable future.

And of course, perhaps we should take Doc's suggestions to heart and hold special events every other week, where we invite a lot of people to do free-form RPs here on the forum, and analyse which ones end up being the most popular.

Really, we need more data, and we're not going to get it by blindly accepting the status quo.

I think, for Discord vs. forums, it's probably more of different strokes for different people. Discord allows for more real-time interaction, making dialogue exchanges and such much easier, while still allowing some of the archiving offered in forums. But at the same time, some people like to move at a much slower pace, with longer in-depth posts and more meticulous planning, and forums are far better for that.

(I'm neither of those I hate doing things in real time AND my writing skills are terrible lol)

I've split this topic out, since we're definitely talking about a new topic now.

Is it just that it's faster to RP on Discord, or is there the impression that forum RPs must involve long, detailed posts? Or is there something else about it? Maybe it would be useful to talk with the people who have expressed a preference for using Discord, so I will attempt to summon them.

@Chanku @Cinciri @Grand Land of BLarg

where we invite a lot of people to do free-form RPs here on the forum

Are those like the chat/chill location topics that used to be on the NS roleplay forums?

I don't think there's anything preventing RPs here from moving fast. If you'll all remember, Wintreath Space Expeditions (TOS) moved insanely fast at one point, but people began RPing over each other, and we had to take a bit more control so that fundamental RP rules and etiquettes could stop being broken. I think that may be the thing that's easier to manage on DC. Added to that was the predominant culture of the first people to come back to RP again in this region: House Valeria made a strong push in this arena, and in New Hyperion, we were used to one, very intricate and detailed RP called Penguins vs Cookies. That just automatically came over as we made the largest push in the guild.

I think the main problem with RPs generally is the problem of pacing. Most of us, myself included, will end up writing the RP into a position where we want every character to pitch in rather than just the active ones. That creates a problem, however, as these inactive people don't post, the RP grinds to a halt, and with the loss of momentum people stop posting outright. I think a potential solution is to grant a kind of "waiver" to players wherein if they find themselves to be inactive they can grant the leader of the RP the power to post for their character. Say I was heading a new RP and one of the other players had some big family trip coming up, they could grant permission to me to write what their character would do during that time in the confidence that I would meanwhile do my best to ensure they don't act out of character or make some major decision while that player is gone. It's not a perfect solution by any means but it could be a band-aid at least.

I hath beeneth summoned. My humble opinion is that certain RP's demand certain formats. I have quite enjoyed the RP's here on the forum, but they do have tendencies to slow down. On the topic of a nation RP, Discord allows many channels to feature each portion of a nation based roleplay, where you can add more interesting figures into it. It also allows new players to get involved a lot easier, and can help smooth out the process.

I think one of the questions we should be asking is if we want all RPs to move faster in the first place. Different RPs move at different paces, and not all of them need to go fast.

I think one of the questions we should be asking is if we want all RPs to move faster in the first place. Different RPs move at different paces, and not all of them need to go fast.

Too many of the RP's have been untouched for over a month though....

*slides into the room on ice skates*

A few things I would like to add, since I basically am the Avatar of RP (disappearance, authority with unclear backing, magical powers and all):

-RPs take time and some small amount of effort by their very nature. An RP that is "quick and easy" is no RP at all, and would look more like one of your forum games (which there's nothing wrong with, but they're not one in the same).
-I have yet to try Discord in particular, but I have done minor semi-RP writing on chat services, and the best thing I can compare it to is replacing a Rolls Royce with, I don't know, a Ford or something. Yeah, the Ford will get you there for sure and it might even be a faster ride, but you lose a lot when you replace the Rolls Royce with it. I'm a fan of making longer, more detailed posts in RP, but I've never criticized people for posting single sentence or paragraph responses. That said, I just made a discord for gamer purposes, so there's that. In any case, I would like to keep things to the forums for character RPs and to the RMB for Nations RPs.

-What killed the RP on the RMB was not inactivity or a loss of interest, but the constant back and forth between a coalition of newer RPers who either didn't know better than to pollute the board or simply got too worked up to care. It became much less an issue of activity than it did of disgust and annoyance, at least in my case. I think more effective policing and a motion to keep major instances of argument, deliberations, and perhaps even the war play-by-plays we deal with on Discord or on the Forums would work much, much better than moving the RP wholesale. After all, an interesting and engaging story plastered on the front page of our region is far more exciting to a newcomer than a million links all saying "Join us on [insert online service here]!" When I return to full activity in a few days, I intend on defibrillating the RP to kick it back into standard working order, perhaps even with a retooling of the IC universe.

-In my opinion, the biggest two issues by far with RP are structure and activity.
Structure needs to be managed on a case-by-case basis: what works for Super may not be necessary for Castaways and may simply not work for Expeditions, etc. etc. etc.. However, this issue is largely resolvable, as problems that pop up during RP can be managed by minor reboots and forum adjustments. People need to be encouraged to make these adjustments, and forum admins/mods need to be more ready to make them.
A much more difficult nut to crack is inactivity, something I have been struggling with in leading RP roles since the Ainurian days, which were notorious for their inactivity near the end. I like Justinian's idea of players being able to appoint a "champion" to carry on their RP interests while the player does RL stuff, but I worry about potential negative consequences when players return to find their stories all jacked up by a well-meaning appointee who simply was clueless about what the original player intended. RPs NEED a solid active base, otherwise it just becomes one guy laying out a story, which is what we call "writing", not RP. But, as Justinian said, it works as a band-aid for when people like me disappear without a trace and put a their stories on indefinite hold.

I think we should start by recognizing, formally or informally, Justinian's "waiver" idea as a procedure for future use. In the meantime, I'm formulating an assault to kickstart the RPs which I control that have fallen too far behind, including:
1. Multiple new story threads for Super, including an alien invasion, a zombie outbreak, and the long-awaited TINFOIL subplot,
2. New events for Castaways, and a moving forward of the main plot,
3. The proposal of a new high-fantasy "clans" RP with a chilly Wintrean theme, called Fimbulwinter.

This will come hopefully by the weekend, when I have passed the academic point of no return.

I know this was asked like a month ago, but figured I should still give my input.

Basically the issue for me with Forum RPs is the fact that:

• I don't really use the forum that much
• I tend to be forgetful and lose interest
• They tend to require a bit more attention in the long run.

So because of this it just leads to me not wanting to do forum RPs.

I use discord more often, however if it was text-based I still probably wouldn't want to RP there as well. The main reason is that the game is always going, meaning that I have to pay more attention and use more energy. Any post in Wintreath's discord could be an RP thing, and I would have to (on desktop at least) check the entire server to see.

The main reason why I enjoy PnP RPGs done through voice chat is that it doesn't lose as much through text, but also that it only really occurs during the sessions. This means that it ultimately takes less energy to follow and less time as well.

While Sessions can run for a few hours, when it ends, you can easily focus on other things (for the most part) until the next session. Further if you lose interest, you can easily drop and the DM can figure out a way around it without it necessarily grinding to a halt.