The 3-Month Players
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I also like “the bubble.” It was one of the reasons I became really engaged in Concordia, for example. Coming up with Alistair’s cat was a happy bonus to that. That cat was a built-in bubble for me, because I could just make up vignettes/short stories about him. >.>
As to the “burst bubble” status, so to speak? I don’t think I could even opine upon this, to be honest, and I’d be preaching to the choir and/or broken-recording what’s already been said in this thread. The people that will stay, will stay, and for their own reasons: plot involvement, friends they enjoy IC and OOC interactions with, bar rp, and so on.
Personally, I don’t think a game should “entice” people into playing via anything other than the theme and any game-specific features/rules its runner(s) want to have.
In other words, the game should speak for itself.
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@Ominous What if they were duels to the death and always included PCs? Are they BarP then?
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@MisterBoring I have no idea. I don’t consider duels to be BarP.
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@Ominous said in The 3-Month Players:
@MisterBoring I have no idea. I don’t consider duels to be BarP.
I don’t think anyone does? Folks are reacting to @KarmaBum who literally said: “Just that 4/5 of these sound like the L&L equivalent of Bar RP”. The 1/5 that didn’t was the duels.
That aside, I think it’s important to consider a distinction between social RP, RP that happens to take place in a bar, and BarRP. They are not really the same.
Social RP can include deep, meaningful relationships (not just romantic) between characters; backstabbing plots; high drama; fallout from other plot/action scenes, etc.
RP in bars can be exciting. A bar fight, confrontation, breakup, backstabbing plots, etc.
“BarRP” is usually used for time-filling “fluff” RP that’s just filling space because the players have nothing better to do. It’s the MU equivalent of small-talk. There’s nothing wrong with it, but if that’s all you ever do it can feel unfulfilling.
L&L games aren’t really my thing, but on the surface it seems like most of the balls/plots/drama would fall more on the social end than the BarRP end. YMMV of course.
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@Faraday Agreed 100% – what defines BarRP for me is that it’s just two or more characters sitting in a bar making small talk without any purpose behind it, usually because one player asked on a public channel “Hey, does anyone want to RP?” and then another said, “Sure! Meet you at That Bar” without having any further idea of what they wanted to do.
I think that characters going to a bar to try and show off their fan-language skills and send increasingly-elaborate messages with them could be fascinating, as could meeting in a salon to have piano-forte duels, as could being presented at court (although there would have to be some chance for interactivity to that one, or it could get seriously boring).
Add in to this meeting in salons to make and break alliances between the prospected prince(sse)s, having scuffles between commoner supporters, duels of honor and dishonor, accusations of pre-marital hanky-panky, trips to the seamstress that are more like putting on a suit of armor for battle, and carriage races or chases… there’s definitely a whole lot that could be done with a Bridgerton-ish setting (especially if there was also the opportunity to make a match with a lesser noble if you fail hard at wooing the Heir).
@Ominous As for the description “in my style,” I think you could do that even more directly:
The Heir of Kingdomname needs a match! Each Season will be filled with grasping members of the high and low nobility, all struggling to stand out among the crowd and nab themselves a crown through demonstration of their clear social quality.
Pretty Princess Simulator is a humorous game of dynastic intrigue and politicking in a fantasy renaissance setting. Players will portray eligible nobles trying to win a future crown, family members of those nobles trying to advance family fortunes, or servants looking to engage in some skullduggery to get ahead.
Staff will provide opportunities for the prospective spouses to meet with the Heir and their intimate circle to learn more about their likes and dislikes, and will guide players through a Season of matchmaking, providing a backdrop on which the characters can create and break alliances as they chase the crown. Once the Heir makes their choices and the Season has completed, there will be a time skip with a new generation of would-be Consorts and a new Heir. The game is intended to poke light-hearted fun at the Lords & Ladies theme, especially shows such as Bridgerton, while still being a high-quality example of such entertainment.
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@Faraday said in The 3-Month Players:
“BarRP” is usually used for time-filling “fluff” RP that’s just filling space because the players have nothing better to do
While that’s how you and I might mean it, I have quite legitimately seen the term used in discussion to tar all social “non plot moving” RP with the negative brush. As if the best bits of DS9 were the explosions and not the conversations between Garak and Bashir. I don’t think that’s the majority view, but it’s certainly one that is pervasive enough that the distinction isn’t always obvious.
He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
BE AN ADULT -
This has all been a fun tangent to the topic of the thread, but steering things back, is there any reason to believe that a server with “seasons” will in any way draw back the 3 month players at the start of every season? I would think that more substantial changes would be needed between each season, rather than just changing who the characters are and time skipping, to attract back people who left after the first season’s bubble.
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam
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@Ominous Have there been any games previously that ran on a seasonal format? If not, it might be something to take a chance on. If nothing else, it gives the people who are going to stay around more things to be interested in as time goes on.
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@MisterBoring said in The 3-Month Players:
@Ominous Have there been any games previously that ran on a seasonal format? If not, it might be something to take a chance on. If nothing else, it gives the people who are going to stay around more things to be interested in as time goes on.
The Network and HorrorMU had seasons, I believe.
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@Pavel said in The 3-Month Players:
While that’s how you and I might mean it, I have quite legitimately seen the term used in discussion to tar all social “non plot moving” RP with the negative brush. As if the best bits of DS9 were the explosions and not the conversations between Garak and Bashir.
Sure, no definition is ever going to be universal. Also I’m certainly not going to WrongFun anyone who doesn’t like social RP. I just think it’s useful to highlight that distinction. Social scenes can absolutely move a plot forward if that plot is “will the Duke of Nowhere undermine his rivals” or “will Mary reconcile with her estranged brother”. If all you want to do is RP flying a fighter jet and shooting Cylons (no shade, btw) then anything in-between can feel like fluff.
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@STD Ah, then I’m curious as to what their numbers looked like through the various seasons. Might help to answer some questions about the 3 month thing.
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@Ominous said in The 3-Month Players:
This has all been a fun tangent to the topic of the thread, but steering things back, is there any reason to believe that a server with “seasons” will in any way draw back the 3 month players at the start of every season?
More pertinently, would you want to? These are people who already don’t want to play your game anymore, for whatever reason. Why are you trying to appeal to them? Your efforts would be better served serving the people who actually want to play there. Appeal to new people as they arrive, certainly, but don’t try and coax back the “tried it, didn’t stick with it” crowd.
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@Pavel Well, it was kind of the point of the idea. Run a seasonal server so those who aren’t feeling the current season can get a new experience a few months later and maybe have it be more their vibe. I would much rather run and/or play a L&L server that is long running with deep politics, intrigue, economics, etc. They only other reason that I can think of off of the top of my head to go “seasonal/anthology” is if you’re doing a generational theme and want to timeskip rather than wait a few years for the next generation to age up.
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@Ominous said in The 3-Month Players:
Well, it was kind of the point of the idea.
Sure, and I’m asking why is appealing to the 3-Month players something you’d want to do? If you make each “season” different enough in order to appeal to the people who gave it a go and weren’t interested, you’re essentially making a new game every six months. Which is fine, if that’s what you want to do, but why is appealing to the influx of new people a thing you’d want to entertain?
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@Pavel No clue. I am floating ideas relevant to the thread. Though, it could be good because the churn of players may keep the game fresh and keep the population from dwindling.
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The Network did essentially recreate ‘the Bubble’ every new season. This was part of why it wasn’t my thing, but it maintained a decent playerbase and closed on its own terms.
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@MisterBoring As @Third-Eye mentioned, there was a mini-bubble at the start of each new Season on the Network, and at the beginning of each Hiatus between Seasons. Some people preferred the Hiatus time in the Dome, some people preferred the Seasons, some people came back whenever a particular Season interested them.
Since most Seasons were 4-8 months, there was definitely a tail-off partway through most Seasons, but it did capture the burst at the beginning.
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I’m going to go on a little rant here but stick with me, I promise it is on topic.
DarkMetal was the most well designed WoD MUSH to ever exist. Wanna fight about it? Here we go!
The reason your players are burning out after 3 months is that there are no stakes in your game.
I hate to sound like one of /those/ people but… game devs today are too soft on their players.
It practically takes an act of God to kill off someone’s character so they get stuck with the same character for long periods of time, or they make alts and that results in burn out just as quick because they can never find in-depth character development with their focus divided between multiple alts.Dark Metal got a few things right that no one else did.
- Anyone could die at any time.
- There were safe zones for each sphere if you wanted to just do soft RP. You never needed to be in danger as long as you stayed in your zone.
- Making a new character was fast and easy! If you died it wasn’t a big deal.
- Staff didn’t give a s*** what you played, as long as you played, so approval was automated.
On Dark Metal you had to fight tooth and nail to survive long enough to get to a point you could walk in the mixed spaces without being in danger of being made into someone’s midnight snack and you were never fully safe.
You had to struggle to become enough of a bad-ass not to have to live in fear all the time. I can not emphasize enough how important that feeling of progression is to the health of a game.
People want their actions and choices to matter.
When they don’t, people get bored and they wander off.
It’s the same reason people add stakes and drama to TV shows. If nothing changes, there is no point.If you want your game to survive, learn to crush your players hopes and dreams. Learn to let players kill each other off.
Character churn will save your game from player churn.
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@RedRocket Man, I’m a little sad I missed this game. Sounds like something I’d have tried.
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@RedRocket said in The 3-Month Players:
You had to struggle to become enough of a bad-ass not to have to live in fear all the time. I can not emphasize enough how important that feeling of progression is to the health of a game.
Many players enjoyed DarkMetal.
Many other players wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole because that style of gameplay holds no appeal to them.
TGG was a game with permadeath, trivially easy chargen, XP-based progression, stakes, drama, rotating “seasons” to keep things fresh, and the some of the most impressive immersive code systems I’ve ever seen. It still had a lot of player turnover. (and about 10 very passionate core players)
People want their actions and choices to matter. … It’s the same reason people add stakes and drama to TV shows. If nothing changes, there is no point.
This I agree with, but routinely killing your PCs off is not the only way to accomplish this. There are plenty of successful TV shows that avoid the Game of Thrones style of knocking off main characters left and right.
There is no one-size-fits-all game.
