Question!?

[Kail DeWraith]

As I sit here looking over FOG, the various RPs that have been created here, and the many that have died (including a few of my own) the thought comes to me, “Why do these Role Plays just wither into inactivity?”

There are obvious reasons. People have lives, shit happens, and interests change. Along with these reasons I think it could also be partly due to poorly organized and managed RP Threads (this is just my opinion though).

So, here I am asking those people who have run successful RPs (and know what the fuck they are doing) how do you create/organize/run a successful RP? As many of you know I'm really pretty new to role playing. I have some ideas for a few RPs that I would like to start but I just don't know what to do after I start them. I need help!

[Eternity]

The only roleplay I ever made that completed beginning to end was very fast-paced, story-based, and I ran it very very strictly. I only used a small group of about three other people, so I didn't have to rely on a ton of people to post and there wasn't a long waiting time. Also I chose writers I thought were very good at writing and had a record of staying around.

The other rps I've been with til the end were rather crappy, but they moved quickly and kept people interested.

I have a hard time finishing out a rp nowadays because life is a little hectic, so I've given up on the post everyday and get things rolling constantly on a ball aspect. Instead I just like to try and keep going and hope I've snagged enough interest that other people decide to go along with me.

[Bird of Hermes]

The only role-play that I have ever completed was one that had a highly active GM. While his activity was part of the reason it went so well, I attribute most of it to the fact that he had everything planned out. Plot, NPCs, et cetera.

The GM knew where he was going with the story and he didn't just run a story based on a half-thought out idea.

In essence, it was planning that keep the story alive. The GM had a set goal and solid ideas. His world was fully-fleshed out and the PCs were never worried that the story was going nowhere.

[Guest]

I've only been in one finished role-play, but I think if you've managed to get your RP past the beginning and then some it's still worthy to study.

I've noticed that quest RPs have a tendency to last longer than others, at least in my experience. Why? Because everyone knows the goal; there is a clear plan; plot points are already decided (usually); important npcs have already been thought through (at least a little).
So a clear goal and an organized RP seems to be the ones that last the longest (as in story-wise) or finishes.

There's two more things that I'd say attribute to a role-play continue far in it's story/plot or finishing:
1) The player characters have great chemistry, I'm not talking about love here. More dynamics, they play well or terrifically bad together. It's a fun dynamic that adds a lot to the RP and to the players.
2) The players know each other IRL or have role-played a lot together. If the players know each other IRL it's easy to check up with each other, and to discuss what to do next and so on. And having role-played a lot creates a rhythm, a pace that everyone knows. And so on.

These are just my thoughts. So yeah. ^^

[Guest]

In my experience you can have two kinds of Roleplays endure through to completion. The fast paced ones which hold the interest of many writers, and can possibly have a high turnover in characters, and slow paced dedicated posts which seem to be a crafted as if for a novel. The second are much more difficult to find, but seem to have higher quality writers.

If you are new at managing plot progression and maintain group unity, I would go with the fast paced goal oriented sets of threads as suggested above. It takes more maintenance and creativity on your part, but less reliant on the cooperation and team work of multiple writers. Another important item to note is that a fast paced progression should have a limited amount of dedicated writers to keep the thread progressing. The more people that are in the thread the more difficult it is for you to control. A last note is reserving the ability to unilaterally boot people from your thread if they are consistently terrible.

The slower paced long term threads require a huge amount of group cohesion and communal planning at some point. Also, experience with those people is a necessity because of two key points: predicative of others' writing styles and capabilities, and the ability to write their character acting in your post. The latter is more important and causes the most problems that I have seen.

To keep a thread going, become friends with the people writing in it. Have a second in command in mind as being able to be the titular head for a bit when you become inconvenienced by life. Sketch out what you expect from a thread. Also, you need to be able to kill your own creation. Nothing sucks your own life away like keeping a thread on life support that you no longer enjoy.

Tutor newbies and forgive them for their sins. Experienced RPers usually want some helpful critiques of their writing (if you have useful one) and your general thoughts and responses to their work, (or at least I do), but not all the time. Be polite. Compliments are nice, but mostly useless for improving work quality.

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