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As most of you I'm sure have noticed, the RP scene here on the Wintreath forums has declined almost to the point of nonexistence. We had no candidates for RP Thane in the last election, and the last IC post was made back in February. We're having talks in the Cabinet about the future of roleplay here, so I'd like to again see if anyone is interested in becoming the RP Thane for the rest of the term to help in these discussions.

If you are interested, please post below as well as what you think could be done to help breathe life back into the RP community.

It's not really a nomination since you didn't ask for nominations, but hell I'll take the opportunity to both signal this post to and point out @AJ’BLarg.
I think he's certainly passionate about RP, he's putting together the Discord server for his Pandemonium RP, and he's likely got more ideas for potential things to do here on the forums.

Huh. Revive the RP? I most certainly want to help. Anything you need.

I can't take an official position, but I can certainly help out where I can.

Huh. Revive the RP? I most certainly want to help. Anything you need.

Glad to hear it. Are you interested in becoming RP Thane?

What would be required?

I’d love to take the job, I’ve been building the RP that could become an official fantasy RP on Discord for a bit now, and I’m very active on the Discord, just not so much on the forums. If you wish to check out my current idea, check out Pandemonium in the roleplay forum.

I’d love to take the job, I’ve been building the RP that could become an official fantasy RP on Discord for a bit now, and I’m very active on the Discord, just not so much on the forums. If you wish to check out my current idea, check out Pandemonium in the roleplay forum.

That's great, it's good to know that there is interest in the position. I have a question: with your creation of a Discord RP, are you of the opinion that Discord is the future of roleplaying here or that it's another medium alongside forum RPs? There's no right answer, I'm just genuinely curious.

What would be required?

So first, the RP Thane will join in on discussing the future of roleplaying in Wintreath. We'll talk about the future of the RP Guild and the RP subforums, ideas to bring back activity, how to solve the stagnation problem that many RPs pick up pretty quickly, and other issues of that nature.

Then when we come to some conclusions, the Thane would go about implementing the solutions. I'd be right there with you to help, of course.

I should also mention that all members of the Cabinet are expected to help plan and take part in the Summersend Festival, which will take place during this term at the end of August.

Sure, I would be interested if you wish.

In my opinion Discord is an easier and less intimidating platform, and the ability to switch channels so easily between roleplay sections and out of character sections doesn’t work as seemlessly if at all on a forum. I believe the two can co-exist, the forum for slower, less huge role plays, like one on ones, or small groups, but I personally think Discord is a better platform, as I’m part of one and I’m making Pandemonium with a few others from a Wintreath at the moment. If you wish, I can mail you an invite so you can see before I publically release an invite on the forums.

In my opinion Discord is an easier and less intimidating platform, and the ability to switch channels so easily between roleplay sections and out of character sections doesn’t work as seemlessly if at all on a forum. I believe the two can co-exist, the forum for slower, less huge role plays, like one on ones, or small groups, but I personally think Discord is a better platform, as I’m part of one and I’m making Pandemonium with a few others from a Wintreath at the moment. If you wish, I can mail you an invite so you can see before I publically release an invite on the forums.

Hmm, that's interesting. I hadn't thought about it like that. And yeah, I'd love to see the RP if you send me an invite.

Sure, I would be interested if you wish.

Great!

So we have two candidates. If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you both a question:
What is your vision for Wintreath RP, and what will you do to work towards it? (AJ, you already sort of answered this, but if you could go into more detail.)

Well, honestly speaking, the current round or RP's may need to end. It is unfortunate but neccesary. From there, we could create a central RP council with a bit more power than the current iteration. I also think that one of the best ways to increase activity is to merge the Werewolf, Spyfall forum games into the RP guild. More centralization would make navigation easier and the activity that Werewolf and Spyfall bring may help revitalize the forum RP guild. Of course, I would need to work with Gerrick and Pengu to check the feasibility of such a proposal but I think that it could work.

As for Discord, I can see how that would work. However, a campaign to drum up activity, in the RMB of the Nationstates region and here in the forum would probably be needed. I did not even know we had a Discord until recently.

My vision is a dual model, I saw something similar once in a RP I was a part of, for the faster say hourly posts or within the hour posts, we had a chatroom style format. In the long term, we called them quests, we had the forum. Not to say that there were not long term RPs on the chatroom, but generally weren't as far, as chatroom RPs went less to a day to sometimes a week or more, while the ones on the forum could span months without stopping or intertwining other quests. Another thing is that the chatroom usually had lengths from one-liner to posts as long as para or rarely multi-para, whereas the forum had posts from the length of para to novella, and I'll tell you Novella is quite long indeed, almost like a book's chapter entry. Personally, being someone who usually goes para, I stuck with the chatroom, but in times or lull or curiosity, I browsed the forum and saw that they were insanely long, as in thousands of words, possibly a post, and were epic tales, whereas the chatroom were smaller, but easier to read RPs. There's merit in both, but for games like Spyfall or Werewolf where the posting size is smaller, it could be a better idea to possibly do it in a chatroom like Discord, or maybe an equivalent if preferred. In my personal opinion, it looks a lot worse for a post to be say a paragraph on a forum than on a messaging app, especially one where there are character limits on a single send (2000 characters, still a lot to work with). Discord is avaliable on both PC and Mobile, on both iOS and Android, and as I mentioned previously I'm developing Pandemonium there, there's also the Wintreath Discord to boot. In closing, both have their merits, but the forums may need an overhaul.

I appreciate the patience in answering my questions. You guys are making this a tough decision for me. And for whomever ends up not getting the position, your input in this discussion will still be useful for future plans, hence why I ask so many questions.

Spoiler

Well, honestly speaking, the current round or RP's may need to end. It is unfortunate but neccesary. From there, we could create a central RP council with a bit more power than the current iteration. I also think that one of the best ways to increase activity is to merge the Werewolf, Spyfall forum games into the RP guild. More centralization would make navigation easier and the activity that Werewolf and Spyfall bring may help revitalize the forum RP guild. Of course, I would need to work with Gerrick and Pengu to check the feasibility of such a proposal but I think that it could work.

As for Discord, I can see how that would work. However, a campaign to drum up activity, in the RMB of the Nationstates region and here in the forum would probably be needed. I did not even know we had a Discord until recently.

- What would you replace the current round of RPs with? Or are you saying we just wipe the slate clean and try to get new RPs in the same model started?
- What would this more powerful RP Council do? I think the problem with the current one is that there's not really much for a council to do, and it might instead be better for the RP Thane to just have the power to make decisions (though working with the Jarl of Culture).
- How would merging Werewolf and Spyfall into the RP Guild affect activity for RPs, though, since the games aren't really RPs? Or are you saying the games should be altered so that they are more RP-style and then could replace our current RP model?

Spoiler

My vision is a dual model, I saw something similar once in a RP I was a part of, for the faster say hourly posts or within the hour posts, we had a chatroom style format. In the long term, we called them quests, we had the forum. Not to say that there were not long term RPs on the chatroom, but generally weren't as far, as chatroom RPs went less to a day to sometimes a week or more, while the ones on the forum could span months without stopping or intertwining other quests. Another thing is that the chatroom usually had lengths from one-liner to posts as long as para or rarely multi-para, whereas the forum had posts from the length of para to novella, and I'll tell you Novella is quite long indeed, almost like a book's chapter entry. Personally, being someone who usually goes para, I stuck with the chatroom, but in times or lull or curiosity, I browsed the forum and saw that they were insanely long, as in thousands of words, possibly a post, and were epic tales, whereas the chatroom were smaller, but easier to read RPs. There's merit in both, but for games like Spyfall or Werewolf where the posting size is smaller, it could be a better idea to possibly do it in a chatroom like Discord, or maybe an equivalent if preferred. In my personal opinion, it looks a lot worse for a post to be say a paragraph on a forum than on a messaging app, especially one where there are character limits on a single send (2000 characters, still a lot to work with). Discord is avaliable on both PC and Mobile, on both iOS and Android, and as I mentioned previously I'm developing Pandemonium there, there's also the Wintreath Discord to boot. In closing, both have their merits, but the forums may need an overhaul.

- Are you saying the forum RPs would just be another medium for the RPs that also would take place on Discord? So for a single RP, the short-term posts would take place on Discord while the long-form posts would take place on a related forum thread? Is that viable, or could RPers end up just using one over the other? And would it be easy for new RPers to find every related thread/channel?
- Would each new RP require its own Discord server, or would you focus on just one primary RP that smaller storylines could be drawn from (it kind of sounds like that's what Pandemonium is being developed to do)? If there would be multiple distinct RPs, how would people go about creating new ones?

1. I’d say they are both mediums, and people should take their pick, I was just providing an example. For singular plots with a single story, forum works great. It gets convoluted when there’s two or three, and that’s when a multi channel system like discord becomes very appealing. I don’t say one or the other, people have put a lot of work into the forum, and i’d Hate to see it thrown away, for the RP sector.

2. For the different RPs, you could very easily make new servers for new RPs, or maybe we could make a central hub of sorts for bigger RPs to have their own server with smaller having the channels. There’s a lot of points that can just go either way truly, as it’s preferential based, as opinions always go.