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Getting and Staying Connected on New Games
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Lots of players blip in and blip out on games without asking for RP or seeming to establish connections. Other new players hop right on in there, asking and offering scenes, integrating quickly.
I’m sure the theme just doesn’t grab people sometimes, or RL got busy. But besides that, I’ve been thinking about why people stay or don’t, and what their expectations are or aren’t.
It’s a two way street with player engagement and game engagement. I am curious:
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How do you engage yourself on new games to make sure you get involved?
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What do you like to see from a game after you join it?
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@imstillhere said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
It’s a two way street with player engagement and game engagement. I am curious:
- How do you engage yourself on new games to make sure you get involved?
It starts as soon as I start looking at the game, before I even make a character. I look at character wiki pages, I look at any public posts about themes/ongoing plots. I try to figure out what sort of scenes appear to be the norm and if a) those are scenes I want to participate in and b) if I have character ideas that will fit well into those types of scenes or with the other other characters that I see being active.
Then? I make my character as hooky as possible. I give them a DRIVE that is as closely related to the theme of the game/ongoing plots as I can make it, something that gives them reason to want to make useful associates or interact with other characters even if they may not ICly like those characters. I give them QUESTIONS that they want to have answered that they can’t answer themselves - about the world, about factions, about plots, or even about themselves. I give them a CONFLICT that they are going to need help to solve. It doesn’t have to be a big one or even difficult to resolve; the point is to give them a reason to seek other characters out in a way that’s meant to make those characters feel needed and that their specialties are useful (and that someone read what those specialties are and wants to play things involving that).
Finally, despite finding it pretty exhausting, I try to be high energy when my character is approved. I chat on channels, I ask for scenes, I suggest scenes, I’m willing to run NPCs in scenes, I do my best to connect the dots with others about why my character and their character could have Fun Times.
I should stress that in no way does this mean that I don’t play the characters I want to play - a game has to pass that first check for me (are the scenes that are going on scenes I want to play in, and do I have a character idea that would be fun to play in that environment) before I even put in the work. Once I do, tbh, a lot of games end up not living up to my first optimistic promise, and I just fade out.
- What do you like to see from a game after you join it?
After? Friendly people on OOC channels. I like a chatty game, especially if it’s low drama and low horndog. I like to see good OOC/IC separation and evidence of people who try and entertain others as well as themselves. Small but open scenes on a regular basis. Active plotting from staff - this doesn’t necessarily have to be physically run scenes, but things like lore posts, IC news, prompts, anything that tells me that staff is a) actually there and b) paying attention to what characters are doing. Getting responses when I ask for scenes, even if it’s a ‘I can’t right now, but good luck’. Anything but silence–especially if there’s an ‘RP Request’ channel or something that people keep pushing you into if you’re looking for play. Characters who are involved in things outside of relationship RP, and eager to involve others.
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I engage with public channels. I ask questions, l read what others are saying, I try to get excited about what’s going on. And that means understanding it.
I want to be able to ease my way in. If you put huge barriers to entry, then I’m probably not going to bother, unless it’s a kind of game I’m already deeply engaged with.
From there, more than anything else, I want flexibility. I want the ability to continue to explore and to learn. Work with me and I’ll try to make it work.
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Friendly channels is a win for me too. Like if I am met with silence when I join a game, I am unlikely to say if there is no interaction on channels. I use the channels to get a feel for the player atmosphere. I’ve been working on keeping Atharia active and chatty on channels but we are, currently, heavy on European timezones. I keep a pretty casual atmosphere. I don’t want players feeling like they have to be on, have to always be around (some people do it at a cost to their RL). I work very hard at cultivating the thought that they can approach me with the expectation I’ll hear them out, at the very least, for their ideas. I always tell my players ‘I may not use your idea or exactly how you want, but I will listen.’ I also tell them that I don’t mind being approached for personal growth scenes. Like someone could be playing an orphan and wants to discover his parents are alive or are living it up and living their best life without him. I’ll run it for the scene for them to help them develop their character, maybe even give them a hook into the ‘main plot’ as a result of this scene (if it makes sense too). I explain all that because that is what I would like to see. That does not necessarily work on big games because you can’t cater to a single person unless you have enough staff too do it. Most games don’t.
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@icanbeyourmuse said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
Friendly channels is a win for me too. Like if I am met with silence when I join a game, I am unlikely to say if there is no interaction on channels. I use the channels to get a feel for the player atmosphere. I’ve been working on keeping Atharia active and chatty on channels but we are, currently, heavy on European timezones. I keep a pretty casual atmosphere. I don’t want players feeling like they have to be on, have to always be around (some people do it at a cost to their RL). I work very hard at cultivating the thought that they can approach me with the expectation I’ll hear them out, at the very least, for their ideas. I always tell my players ‘I may not use your idea or exactly how you want, but I will listen.’ I also tell them that I don’t mind being approached for personal growth scenes. Like someone could be playing an orphan and wants to discover his parents are alive or are living it up and living their best life without him. I’ll run it for the scene for them to help them develop their character, maybe even give them a hook into the ‘main plot’ as a result of this scene (if it makes sense too). I explain all that because that is what I would like to see. That does not necessarily work on big games because you can’t cater to a single person unless you have enough staff too do it. Most games don’t.
Gosh, yes. Some personal growth scenes where the runner really sits down and talks with the player about what they’re hoping to get out of it would be so incredibly nice.
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@Pyrephox I try to do along those lines if you ever want to check out Atharia. I’m the only GM, atm, so stuff is slow at getting done.
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@icanbeyourmuse said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
@Pyrephox I try to do along those lines if you ever want to check out Atharia. I’m the only GM, atm, so stuff is slow at getting done.
Thank you! It’s not really my thing, but I appreciate the offer!
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@imstillhere
1A. The game has to be selling what I want to sell. This is a dealbreaker type of thing. I’m not interested in trying to shove RP into a game that doesn’t belong there. Once I’ve decided that me and this game are fixing to push the same content, I go about creating my Lil Dude. Lil Dude should be the RP equivalent of industrial Velcro; any sort of content or relationship dynamic can stick to them. I want to be the opposite of pigeon-holed. I want to say yes to anyone and everyone on as many things as possible (RP is basically improv, and I want my best yes-and foot forward).1B. Once I’m actually on the game, it’s all about MEETING PEOPLE. This is IC and OOC; even if I know someone OOC, I don’t know them IC yet, and I need to. I jump on RP requests. I try to get into open scenes. I set up open scenes. If there’s a board about connections, I ask for them. I start paging people asking for RP. I ask on channels. I offer up hooks to anyone who asks for one. It doesn’t matter what it is, it doesn’t matter who they are, it doesn’t matter if I know them or like them yet, YES. Yes to everything. I’ll sort out what I want to say more yes to later, at the start I’m just looking for volume. I have no shame, I ambush anyone I can. People like being asked for RP.
- What I’m looking for to stay engaged is basically “does 1B produce results?” If I’m putting that down and genuinely not getting much back (or what I’m getting is weird/unfun) then that’s a red flag that maybe this isn’t the game for me. In my experience if you go full court press on a game, though, you’ll get engaged. What usually detracts from that for me is just my own ability to engage/maintain the full court press, but the good thing is it literally never stops working if the game is still alive enough to respond to it. You can do it whenever you have the bandwidth.
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I think I generally find that when I’m interested in a game I do a lot of the things listed above, and I’m proactive about a lot of the way I approach the game, but there’s usually some spark that pulls in my interest and makes doing all of that work feel worth it, or at least not like a mountain of effort. A lot of the time it’s because I see the game and find myself writing stories for it in my head even before I’ve been accepted. There will be parts of the theme that I just find myself wanting to engage with. Similarly, I’ll start reading logs and getting invested in other people’s characters and IC relationships, in addition to wondering how the character I’m developing might integrate with the already existing group(s). I like the feeling of being able to join into a cast of characters that’s got some interesting things going on. And if I’m already getting casual tidbits about other characters I can approach asking about RP as “hey our characters are both interested in x, it looks like. Do you want to run into each other at [place for x?]” And get more rewarding scenes to start off, rather than puzzling it out IC by hanging around the plaza or w/e.
In that sense, a developed wiki and a stock of logs that I can go back and read help a lot with letting me develop that interest and actually make the effort of joining in. Once I’m in the game, being able to find RP and engage socially will keep me there, but having access to logs and character profiles gives me so much more excitement to join in than a simple ad would.
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Speaking only for myself on this one and it is NOT a reflection of anyone else or the games, etc.
Getting on a game? Usually how interactive the channels are and I also like to see how the ‘jokes’ go. If I log on and everyone is glomping each other or making private jokes all the time on channel or seem overly touchy in text etc. I tend to pull back. That does NOT make it bad, it’s just not my happy place as I tend not to be that sort of player. I’m not likely to get on a game if I ask a question and get silence or get ignored as a ‘guest’.
Staying connected? Really and honestly, it’s my RL mental health. Games I am on and have been for years I’m almost an obligation when I’m not feeling it. New games? I don’t have that same obligation not to just disappear. I’m usually down to join things and seek most of it out, but other times I just don’t have the energy after RL to ‘start over’. It’s like wanting to switch a career. It is super exciting to think about but also kind of tiring to think about. It’s lately been hard enough for me to stay active on places I’m established let alone new ones after the serotonin stops for the ‘new thing’.
Also, as stated on forums, I’ve had some bad run-ins with bad actors that I did not see coming. So I’m a bit gunshy on new games when people come at me too soon, too friendly, too X because I have a silly fear that X bad actor has just figured out my tell already or something. I’m more likely to stay if people I trust to listen if I’m having a ‘need to check if they are sane people’ vibe or that I trust to speak for a game, etc.
Again, this is just ME. It might not be true for most.
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I’ll second everything everyone else has said and add that I am attracted to high writing quality. I guess I like when there’s an air of artistry or sophistication about the game? Also unique concepts with compelling execution. I fuck with original themes a lot more than when games are based on other media, which is not to denounce those that are, just my personal taste. I felt Arx had the right balance of concept and execution back in its day, as an example.
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If I decide to join a game, then I’ve already decided that it has themes and features that are likely to be compatible with my tastes, so I won’t offer details on that. The question is what will make me stay, and on that front, it’s 99% down to community.
Incentives:
- Either I know/trust the staff, or they have a trustworthy reputation among people I know.
- I’m at least semi-familiar with the existing community, or they give me positive, welcoming vibes despite that.
- People respect my desire for anonymity/privacy if I express it.
- Other people take initiative to pull me into scenes — or, if I’ve taken initiative myself, they express enthusiasm about continuing from there.
Deterrents:
- People I know are making a very big fuss about me being there. Even when it’s positive, I find this unpleasant. There’s a big difference between being welcoming, and preestablishing expectations. Let me quietly exist, don’t crowd me.
- People I know are all up in my DMs trying to figure out who/where I’m playing.
- People I’ve previously TS’d are acting like me joining this game means we’ll pick up where we left off last time.
- People I don’t know are cliquey, closed-off, give off a judgy vibe.
- When joining a scene (with permission/invitation), I feel unwelcome, or like there’s an established pecking order and I have something to prove.
- If I make some minor mistake (misunderstood the lore/culture or something), and people default to uncharitable assumptions instead of offering a gentle correction/explanation, anxiety/shame-spiral means I will leave and never return.
- Staff act like a personality cult; care more about establishing an image of dominance, or lofty apathy, than communicating empathetically.
- Characters fall into very heteronormative gender roles; lots of tiny dainty subby pixie girls, and big strapping angry macho muscle men.
- Interactions between characters seem predominantly sex-driven. Note that this is not a criticism of romantic storylines; there’s a big difference to me between those kinds of long-term arcs, that usually take place within a social context, and just feeling like anywhere I show up is basically Tinder, with people hungry to pair off.
- Excess OOC chatter about RL. I know some people like it, I don’t judge you, it’s just not for me. I wanna escape, and keep our private lives private. Interact with my character; you don’t need to ask about my day.
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@Kestrel said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
like there’s an established pecking order and I have something to prove.
Can you elaborate on that some? I’m not sure I track what this means.
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@Kestrel said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
Interactions between characters seem predominantly sex-driven. Note that this is not a criticism of romantic storylines; there’s a big difference to me between those kinds of long-term arcs, that usually take place within a social context, and just feeling like anywhere I show up is basically Tinder, with people hungry to pair off.
related: a game culture where people are comfortable paging strangers with explicit TS propositions out of the blue.
if it is not an erotic game, like…just…fucking don’t?
and if you’re staff, come down on that shit. don’t just tell players to block the pages (lookin’ at you, Arx, too many times 🫤), nip that right in the bud.
it is DEEPLY uncomfortable behavior and the fastest way to get me to look for the door these days.
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@imstillhere said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
@Kestrel said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
like there’s an established pecking order and I have something to prove.
Can you elaborate on that some? I’m not sure I track what this means.
This is a difficult one to elaborate on beyond saying it’s a “vibe” and you’ll know it when you feel it, but I’ll try.
Games tend to fall into these natural social hierarchies, which and of itself, I don’t have a criticism of. It’s normal to have friends and favourites, and I honestly don’t expect people to pretend they don’t. But typically it’s staff at the very top, “staff clique” one rung below, staff clique’s clique & TS partners slightly lower, and at the very bottom people who’ve already started stepping on toes and are one shady page away from being shown the door.
If the game has a skewed gender ratio, then playing characters whose gender’s in higher demand confers a slight social advantage as well. This is especially true if you write well, but honestly, I’ve seen pretty abysmal personalities given a social pass to be abysmal on account of gender ratios despite that.
Where it becomes a problem for me is when, as a newer player or unknown personality, you start to feel like you’re constantly being tested, other people are waiting for you to fuck up, and are more interested in protecting their pecking order than being inclusive. There’s a constant vibe of mild hostility & jealousy where some established players will act like they’re being charitable for taking you under their wing and because they’ve been here longer, your gratitude should be propping them up and mostly staying out of their way. This isn’t everyone everywhere, but … it’s a thing.
A memorable instance for me involved being invited to join a private yet meaningful scene with people who were fairly well-known/established on a game. It had the potential to be a lot of fun, and I was in fact flattered they’d asked at all. But in all honesty I didn’t think that the person running it was super clear on the details of what exactly we were supposed to be doing, and I made a few missteps in interpreting instructions and/or following the expected conventions of how to roll or use my skills. They could’ve simply clarified and said “no worries” when I apologised, but instead the OOC vibe turned hostile, temperamental and shamey. They were pretty upfront about expressing open frustration with me. I fucked up, but I still think this was unreasonable when it was an honest mistake that I was immediately apologising for and could’ve been easily corrected. It just felt like being put in my place by a scolding teacher who still wanted me in their classroom, but with my head bent.
After the scene, I apologised again, then ghosted.
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@Kestrel said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
- Excess OOC chatter about RL. I know some people like it, I don’t judge you, it’s just not for me. I wanna escape, and keep our private lives private. Interact with my character; you don’t need to ask about my day.
Does this include what I call “coworker chatter”? Like, I agree that I, for the most part, don’t want to hear a lot of people spilling every detail of their personal lives. Or like that one person over at other site who tries to garner sympathy by posting/talking about how very sad and terrible their life is. But, I like mild OOC chatter. Hearing someone share a cool trip they went on or they got a new pet or something.
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@catzilla said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
@Kestrel said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
- Excess OOC chatter about RL. I know some people like it, I don’t judge you, it’s just not for me. I wanna escape, and keep our private lives private. Interact with my character; you don’t need to ask about my day.
Does this include what I call “coworker chatter”? Like, I agree that I, for the most part, don’t want to hear a lot of people spilling every detail of their personal lives. Or like that one person over at other site who tries to garner sympathy by posting/talking about how very sad and terrible their life is. But, I like mild OOC chatter. Hearing someone share a cool trip they went on or they got a new pet or something.
I am sick right now so this may not make total sense, and this isn’t an attack at either of you, I did see the word ‘excess’ in ‘Excess OOC Chatter’ but it’s something that’s been gnawing at me for a while, so–
Nothing makes a game feel more dead than constant and consistently quiet OOC channels.
I can understand people not wanting to hear about one or two people’s private lives (either too intimately or too consistently) but there’s definitely a line where if people aren’t willing to converse about things other than the game in OOC channels, the surface-level rapport that players need to feel comfortable with each other playing the situations and content of the RP (regardless of what that is) is not going to be created.
The reality is that this is a hobby, and hobbies are meant as social spaces within which we interact with each other. As much as I understand people getting annoyed at those who overshare or constantly do deep dives of their own lives on channel chatter, we should also keep in mind that we seek communal, collective hobbies as a way of socializing, and expecting places where we don’t share out personal lives --despite there being people perfectly willing and able not to-- is counterproductive to keeping the hobby alive.
You can even see it in this forum, which is ostensibly focused on MUs and RP, but which has not a small bulk of its traffic having to do with commiseration and sympathy regarding mental health, our collective love of pets, what celebrities died…
It’s a hobby, and socialization can’t be categorized neatly; it must be allowed to bleed into different topics and tones, or else it turns stale.
In Occam I trust.
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@Coin said in Getting and Staying Connected on New Games:
Nothing makes a game feel more dead than constant and consistently quiet OOC channels.
This is the case for me as well, but that is admittedly personal preference rather than a value judgment.
I don’t see this as something that has to be either/or for a game, though. You can create separate OOC channels that people can opt into or not as they desire. Though that does require staff to nudge convos to the right channels (so someone doesn’t feel obliged to stay tuned to the OOC chatter channel for fear of missing Important Stuff).
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@Coin Going to pretty much agree there.
I do like to see OOC channels being active – the equivalent of the game’s watercooler. People stop by, chat a bit but nothing too heavy at all, and then go about their business.
More serious and heavy conversations belong in DMs.
No objection to somebody venting a bit, either, but yes – if it becomes a constant pity fest or spam wall of things that affects no one else on the game, then it’s the wrong place to vent.
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This thread has personally been a huge help. I feel right now I could easily become one of those blipping-through players because I’m so out of practice.
I took my own hiatus from mushing a year or two just because I found myself never having time and would feel super guilty whenever I had to cancel (lots of rl like moving houses, new position responsibilities), and now that I find myself with enough breathing room to feel the itch, I don’t even know where to start!
