Welcome to Gaia! ::

Has anyone besides me noticed that the main reason an RP will die is something as simple as dedication. If you don't have members who will post often, and get involved, it dies. It seems to be the curse of this RP generation that many have 'grown out' of Role playing, and the newbies aren't improving fast enough to fill the void. As a result, there are less good examples for them to see, and to strive to meet.

I role play almost exclusively on Avidgamers, specifically a very mature and well developed Teen Titan's site. We've had many problems keeping active characters, especially the cannons!

While some sites will be very selective in who they let in, others accept anyone in the hopes of keeping active. I hate to sacrifice quality for activity, but I see the reasoning. Selective screening can be good or bad. If someone truly likes your idea, they will work very hard to get in, improving until they are accepted. But if they have a casual interest and not good enough skills, they may only try once and then give up.

I guess I'm just rambling now, but I've seen lack of dedicated players kill so many rps, its sad.

Definitely, I'd say lack of dedication is one reason why a great deal of the roleplays I've been in fail >_< Sometimes it's the actual rp owner, other times just people who join, post a couple of times and vanish, or never post at all.

When you get a dedicated roleplay group, it's a great buzz though. I think it's partly a case of gelling with them, same as any group. Then you can interact out of character enough to inspire the roleplay in character, discuss ideas etc.

In contrast to the points stated:

While dedication as you've described can be a real problem, it's not necessarilly dedication so much as it is simply vanishing. Someone can be an avid and deeply passionate person about their roleplaying, yet still simply not post for days/weeks at a time due to other factors.

For instance, perhaps their internet connection was severed.
Perhaps their computer exploded.
Perhaps they have had a busy work schedule.
Perhaps they have a report due.
Perhaps they went on vacation.
Or perhaps they simply were waiting for a post for a few days and forgot to check back.

That last one has happened to me often enough... I have 2 pages of RPing guilds and a dozen active RP threads on my subscriptions, and while I'm not always participating in them at any given time, when I do have multiple things going at once, it's sometimes hard to remember to check on every thread and roleplay to see if you need to make a post... and sometimes disenchanting when you have to read 30 pages of unrelated nonsense in each just to catch up with where you were. xp

I, just now, clicked a link to a guild that's been hiding on the second page of my guilds list. Apparently there was a brief RP there which I hadn't posted in in about 9 months. Dayam. @_@

I agree fully, I keep 12-14 RPs going, and every few days i realize i haven't heard from two or three of them in a week. I never bother them, in case the aforementioned disasters have struck and the will return, but generally I figured they're gone.

Yeah, Jello, I'm kinda surprised you still remember to check here! rofl Balancing time is definately a big thing. That is part of the "dedication" though, wouldn't you think? Priorities and all that. I usually do a good chunk of homework before even signing on to Gaia. I try to post every day but end up missing at least one day a week because of illness+school. I think that I am playing only 6 characters in the RPs that I am in, but that's gonna have to be the limit! I want to play more (or more often) but school and sleep (and work, I guess) have to come first. So I guess that I'm more "dedicated" to school than RPing, yet I still have time for it.

Sometimes I forget to check too...once even a thread in this guild! gonk I think that part of the dedication to any particular RP is your willingness to PM the other person(s) to inform them that you have returned, or to ask them where they have been (in a friendly way of course). Sometimes when people have been gone awhile, something bad has happened... I like to make sure that people I've known/RPed with a long time, who suddenly disappear, have been doing ok. Then if they feel some residual guilt for not posting in my RP and start RPing again...so be it. xd

It can't get aggrivating, when people just leave. Though I agree that maybe sometimes they can't get on the computer. For instance: i've got some wacky time controls that cut off at 10, on the weekends I'm usually working all day and I might not be able to get on, so I'll be gone for a few days. All the same though, people should take it upon themselves to let their fellow rp'ers know "Hey, I work on the weekends at the fair so I might disappear for a few days." You know?

And there are always public computers at the library and such.

However, the most aggrivating things is when the creator of the thread leaves. At least for me it is.

I don't. mrgreen

I'm usually too busy keeping track of the threads I run and the RPs I'm in to give much thought to the things I'm not actively participating in right now. As much as this guild > so many others, I'm not adminning anything in here, and because of that I have to give the other places priority on my check list.




There has been a big drop in quality Rpers lately; as appropriately mentioned in this thread. The problem is that the old group is moving out and getting lives which keep them away from here, while the new group is coming in without anyone to teach them because the old people just sit on their duffs and complain about how it isn't as good as it used to be. xp stressed

Initiative! Take it! And I'm not talking about rolling a d20.

I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE POST BUT DONT RE~POST!!!!!!! DRIVES ME CRAZY!!!! BECAUSE I LOVE TO RP!!!!!