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- Running a Roleplay Forum
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| Running a Roleplay Forum; Philosophy | |
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| Topic Started: May 4 2008, 02:56 PM (316 Views) | |
| Hoffman | May 4 2008, 02:56 PM Post #1 |
Hero of Pancaek
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FOREWORD: This thread is more about the troubles, pitfalls and possibilities of running a roleplay-revolved forum. The actual theory of running one (like starting up PHPbb, or getting a forum host) is not discussed here. About 80% of this is common sense, and 20% is philosophical. Hey, all, Hoff here. Are you setting up or already running a roleplay-based forum? Do you have trouble dealing with some of the issues that players bring to the table? Is it hard to manage ideas or implement rules? Look no further, I'm here to help. This isn't a 24/7 help hotline, but I can address most of the issues that administrators and GMs face alike. Chances are, if you're experiencing it, you're not alone, and many others might have the same problem. I don't have enough time to write a lot of advice, but I'll give you a heads-up on one for now: AMBITION, THE FORUM KILLER --------- This isn't a problem that has to do with people on the forums or the forum itself - it's mostly a psychological thing having to do with the admin/GMs themselves. Have you ever found yourself sitting in awe at the discovery of an awesome idea that could be put into a roleplay? Sit and think about it for a moment. Is it possible or a pipe dream? Say, for example, is it some wicked interactive world map with locations, shops, interactive time displays? Or is it a battle system? A dice plug-in? How long will it take you to implement it? Will it affect your fan base? Will people even like it? There's a lot of questions, but for a good reason. I've seen sites and forum roleplays, time and time again, planned to implement cool ideas or suggestions that would make the site fancier - AND MAKE NEWS UPDATES ON IT. Not a good idea. It's one thing to plan to implement something new into a forum roleplay without any indication as to (how long it'll take/how hard it is/how useful it is), but it's another thing to talk about it to the community when it hasn't been planned enough. Problems like this grow exponentially - it's one new idea after another. It becomes unmanageable. It KILLS sites. Ambition is close to being #1 on the list of site-killing causes. What to do?
More to come soon. |
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| Duckroll | May 4 2008, 05:32 PM Post #2 |
AS IF
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You didn't spell philosophy right in the title. |
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| LilAvii | May 4 2008, 05:40 PM Post #3 |
Chaos Blast
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=3 Nice advice, yo. ^^ I'm planning a (rather complicated) roleplay forum, so reading this little bit was definately helpful. "Stop. Think. PLAN YOUR DANG ROLEPLAY!" |
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"Our Lives are Made... In These Small Hours... These Little Wonders... These Twists and Turns of Fate!" -Rob Thomas   That's RIGHT! They're Back Online! Come Check them out! (Clicky Banners) Current Projected Victims of the Robot Apocalypse: Master of Darkness, BlizShadow, Serenity (more to come, I promise) | |
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| Hoffman | May 4 2008, 06:51 PM Post #4 |
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Hero of Pancaek
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God dang, yer right. I'll fix that. Sometimes I type without thinking. EDIT: And I can't even fix that. That sucks. |
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| Hoffman | May 4 2008, 07:35 PM Post #5 |
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Hero of Pancaek
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AM I RIGHT OR AM I WRONG, ROLE PLAY ADMINNING --------- "Right or wrong? What does it matter if I'm right or wrong in the way I govern roleplays? I'm the admin! They have to listen to me." Roleplays are like bee hives: One cannot sustain itself without the "community" of bees functioning within the colony. Okay, that was a stupid analogy, but the principle of a hive is pretty much the same as a roleplay. If you're nice to your players, you'll keep your players and your roleplay thriving (like shares in a company!). On the other hand, if you treat your players like expendable people, they will ACT like expendable people - you WILL lose them, and your roleplay will fall apart. "Oh.. I see! But how do I keep my members?" Like I previously stated: You have to treat your players the way you would like to be treated. It's just like the law of attraction. You attract the energy you put out - If you're nice to people, you'll keep those nice people around you. "Why do I have to be nice? It's the internet." Yes. The internet. Let me emphasize the fact that you're on the internet, not in front of the people you're chatting with. Behind the veil of the computer screen, no one knows who you truly are, or what you're really like. BUT, on the other side of the token: Some people get a subconscious reaction that the people they talk to on the internet are automatons. Now, don't get me wrong, not everyone does. But the output of black text against a white screen (or whatever colors you kids use these days) is a different social experience. Just because you don't see the people you're talking to means you get to say whatever you want to them. People on the internet will, most of the time, respond back in a rude manner if you talk to them in a rude matter, much like real life. "Okay, so I should treat them with respect. How do I know if I'm right or wrong in the way that I govern roleplays, though?" To be honest? No one really ever knows. It's a variable that changes with the type of roleplay you're running. In any event, to lay down some basic groundwork, make rules on the forums, post them up and LIVE by them. Make sure the rules make sense. Then you'll have something to use as guidelines to draw the line between right and wrong. If you discover a rule that isn't up there and it's important, get it up as soon as possible. Make sure your players know. "How do I know if the rules I'm putting up aren't too restricting?" They're never too restricting unless they prevent the player from having enough creative control over their character. Say, for example, you don't want any Sonic or Shadow recolors on your character list, and provide decent reasons why. This is fine: It inspires the people to do something different. Now, let's say you bar all members from ever making test experiment characters. While justified in it's own right because too many people make those type of characters, it limits character gimmicks that people are able to use. This is semi-restrictive, and sometimes a bit rude to people who want to make characters like that. Use at your discretion. "What if the rules I've set don't sit well with the players?" If they don't sit well, try talking to your players about it. Bargain with them, negotiate. Don't negotiate for any more or less than they're willing, but if you know that their side of the table is ridiculous, don't offer anything. If your players/members don't possess the intelligence to negotiate rules in a mature manner, they don't belong on your site. Be flexible about this, though, perhaps it's not their fault, not everyone can be mature about everything. As stated previously, It's extremely important that you keep your players. The gist of it:
That ends another installment of Roleplay Forum advice. Hope that tidbit of advice helped! |
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| Hoffman | May 26 2008, 04:18 PM Post #6 |
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Hero of Pancaek
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And it's time for another piece of advice. This will mainly concern roleplays of the stat-based and restricted freeform variety (in broader terms, you have the choice of creating the character, but the powers and items your character has are limited to the admin and the roleplay itself, not you). PLAYING FAVORITES --------- "So I had this conversation with Colin. Said his character got a +4 long sword in a session. My guy never got any good stuff. He's still a low level character. I don't think our DM cares about me." - Jared Van Bryce, friend and colleague Let's face it: Whether you're on a forum roleplay, playing a tabletop roleplaying game (Dungeons and Dragons, one of my favorites) or just living your life, there is always some favoritism going around. There's always one friend in a group of contacts that stays as your primary while the others don't mean as much to you. In a sense, you favor that friend more than the others. You prioritize according to that. You might spend sixty bucks on your best friend for his/her birthday, but only fifteen to twenty on another. Even when you don't think you are, you're technically playing favorites. Playing favorites is not one of those roleplay-killers like having ambition or rudeness, but it certainly can make your players feel insignificant. It can make or break your image: Even if you're nice and tactful towards your players, they cannot respect you if you like one member more than another. It should be easy to spot favoritism: there's always a way to gauge how much you favor one person over another. In the case of a roleplay, it can be spotted by looking at the players' achievements and rewards (specifically granted and/or allowed by the admin him/herself) and comparing. If someone's gained too much and another's gained too little, you know who you're leaning towards. The worst thing you can do is assume that they don't have a problem with it: They're YOUR players, after all. They don't pop in and out of existence. If you let the problem go unfixed, it'll grow. So, how to fix it? You can't tell your favorites that they're going to lose everything just so that things are balanced once again. Maintaining the link of trust between you and your players is key: If your players aren't assured that what they're working for is going to stay, they probably won't bother and will probably just leave. Fixing it is simple: For every extra perk that the favored (rather, previously favored) person's character has, make it harder for that character to get by. In the mean time, make it easier for the weaker character to attain achievements (and get by) until such time where the two are equal in strength. Don't make it obvious! If your players are asking questions concerning difficulty rating in the roleplay, it's a clear indication that you're not subtle enough. The stronger character having to take on a tank the size of a two-story building and a weaker character taking on a group of midgets is pretty easy to see as it is. Let's sum it up.
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| BlizShadow | May 26 2008, 04:28 PM Post #7 |
 
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This is a very interesting guide, Hoffman. I've had many RP ideas in the background, but really no springboard or experience to see them come to life and be run well. However, this guide makes me feel like I can finally do something with them. Keep up the good work! X3 |
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Been gone on vacation? Got grounded from the computer? Then, you've probably missed a lot. Catch up on the latest Sonic-related news! Current headline: Sonic and the Black Knight Fan Art Contest! Clicky for all of my fan-related stuff! I promise you it's actually awesome! Spoiler: click to toggle  Unleash your rage... | |
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| Hoffman | May 26 2008, 04:34 PM Post #8 |
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Hero of Pancaek
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I'm glad to see it's helping a few people on the boards, BlizShadow. Thanks. =3 |
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| Dominican Stats | Jul 1 2008, 08:57 AM Post #9 |
Fate Of A Fencer
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Damn it, I was going to do this for this place because I think it's needed, but since you have done it I guess I can't do nothing about it, good job there. |
 Characters: Escudo Soto, and Esperanza Losing is always harder than wining when you fight because people don't know when is the time to make a character lose a battle, You win some, you lose some, it is how every fan character rolls, no matter how strong or fast you are, you will still have to have some loses, and wins. There is no need to get that in your mind anyway, what is important is the fun of the RP X3  
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| Hoffman | Jul 18 2008, 12:38 PM Post #10 |
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Hero of Pancaek
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And I'm back again. RUNNING A PLOT --------- One of the major aspects of running a roleplay forum (that's not only freeform but consistent and not a hundred different story lines), as you might think, is the story. Whether it's the diabolical Doctor Eggman or an evil legion of bat-wielding acrobats (that threatens to [insert action here] [insert target here] so that they can [insert desired result]), you primarily need a plot, not necessarily concerning bad guys like up above, but an actual record of history or a few paragraphs, telling players why things are the way they are now. (NOTE: I won't go into detail about the actual creation of the plot, and I may actually go over that later if people want me to, but what I will go over for now is the actual supervision and control of the plot you've (assuming that you have already) created.) First of all you need to know the general interest of the players that could be potentially participating or already have joined in the plot. What plots have they been in/what plots do they want/what they don't want/what they're looking forward to, so on and so forth. With this in mind, you won't be blind sighted (at least not player wise and I'll tell you why you're not completely safe later) for the most part. "Okay. I've done all my research. But how do I know if my plot's good?" The plot is only as good as the person who's running it. I've seen stupid concepts turn into wonderful stories that go beyond meaning from the paper or the computer screen. But even then, you should still put thought into it. Make sure your plot doesn't stray too far from the actual theme of the roleplay. If there intentionally is a change in theme as to darken the mood or lighten things up, make sure to take it easy as to ensure a safe transition to the new mood you're creating. "Sure. But, uh, what did you mean earlier about not being completely safe from being blindsighted?" Make sure to ask players questions about future plans or ideas they might have with their characters, but don't come off as intruding. Don't do it so frequent that it becomes a hindrance and an annoyance, but do it about.. once every week or however often your roleplay sessions come about (once every three days in a forum RP / once every week for an IRC RP / and once every month for you D&D nuts since people don't play D&D that often). "Why?" Because knowing what you're doing with the plot is half the effort. The other half is supervising your players and making sure they don't do irrational things that throw your focus off. If this happens (and you'd better hope it doesn't) your plot can backfire and the ricochet can screw many things up. You don't want your plot to go to waste after hard hours of writing. "My plot backfired! What do I do?!" Here's the tough part. Eventually administrators/GMs must ask themselves questions concerning plot movement and how to deal with hiccups. You basically have two options at this point: Stay strong and let the plot trickle down on it's own (it will, trust me), or do what most people do: Retcon* and proceed. Nothing's better than a retcon, because you can pretend it never happened. No fuss, no muss. And if you're particularly lucky, the first option will sometimes result in the plot coming to fruition again and things moving once more, depending on what made it backfire. "I was lucky! Things came back together. We're almost done my plot but my players are tired." You obviously spent too much time beating around the bush or your plot is simply too darn long. Sucks to say this, and believe me on this one, no one wants the same plot hanging around for longer than about [two-hundred or so posts on a forum topic, or a thread's worth / two or three months on an IRC RP / D&D is surprisingly about a day since campaigns are completed in a short timespan]. You don't have to rush but you need to set general guidelines for how long it's supposed to last. Make sure to take all of that into account before things fall to pieces. "A player dropped out." Come up with a legitimate reason for why the player's character isn't around any longer. For all intents and purposes, respect the player's decisions and don't let it come to character death. Seeing admins and GMs kill off characters without player permission creates insecurity and sometimes fright among players, knowing that their characters are also liable to be killed off in a similar event. There is nothing I can offer here on the subject of how to fade the character out, this is strictly up to you and your roleplaying methods. Just think logistically. "I did it, we're done. What now?" What now, indeed? Depending on the kind of freeform roleplay you run, you can retcon the plot and move onto a new one with new characters and a new canon, or if you're the consistent type of person, you wait for a while and have about a couple weeks of peace before you head right back into the action again. The worst thing you can do after a plot is have a plot immediately right after - the characters are tired, the players feel accomplished, don't make the players think that you're too much of an action guy and that whatever they accomplish in-character wise means nothing. Because this is a fairly complex chapter and many theories but few facts are stated, I have but one statement to summarize the content of this chapter: Know your players before you know your plot. That concludes this part. More to come when I feel like posting more. *retcon - rewrite |
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| Deleted User | Jul 19 2008, 08:10 PM Post #11 |
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Deleted User
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This is some top advice! This is gonna help me a lot! Thanks! |
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| Hoffman | Jul 31 2008, 05:29 AM Post #12 |
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Hero of Pancaek
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Time for another edition of 'Running a Roleplay Forum'. BAD PLAYERS --------- They **Bleep**, they moan, or they're just plain unsatisfied with whatever it is you're doing. You've made exceptions, amendments to rules, just to cater to that player who's been plaguing your roleplay since Axl Rose announced Chinese Democracy. Simply put fellas, there are only two ways to deal with these people: you tell them to put up and shut up, or you remove them from your roleplay. Now, why, perhaps, am I not mentioning anything along the lines of 'goodwill to others, give them a second chance, make them comfortable'? Because there is only one universal truth to roleplay: Whoever runs the roleplay is providing their services, for free (have you ever heard people who pay to roleplay? I have) and for others to enjoy, all at the expense of their own time. It doesn't matter if someone had some great character, or if they were the greatest roleplayer involved in the roleplay - someone is spending hours planning and thinking, and that's big daddy, AKA the admin who runs the show. Alas, I may have stated that rules can always be negotiated within reason, but if your players are terribly bad - yet sharp - they are already likely looking past your rules, either finding loopholes, or getting involved in plots so that they can godmod or ruin it. I think this is the shortest of all the chapters thus far, but I think I've made this fairly clear: Don't waste your time trying to deal with bad players. If they joined your roleplay, they should be willing to change their attitude for you and for the other players so that things can be enjoyable for everyone. If they're trying to change your attitude (I'm assuming that they think you're the bad guy because you won't let them do what they want), they are beyond help and should be removed as soon as possible. This concludes another chapter. Until next time. |
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