RP Safari - Pacing Styles
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@KarmaBum said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:
I see a lot of comments about async scenes dragging on forever, and I wonder if that’s a content issue?
To me, it inevitably felt like even hard-focused, ‘we are here to do x’ scenes would suffer from pacing issues and stretch on in ways that were compounded with posing rounds taking 3-7 days each (i.e. player 1 posing, then player 2 taking 3 days, player 1 needing to take 2 days, whoops player 2 needs to grind out poses for another set of scenes so it’ll be 7 days before they get back to this one, etc.)
If it takes me 2 weeks to a month to finish what I can do in 2-3 hours, I’m just going to throw in the towel.
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@KarmaBum said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:
I just really don’t like random social fluff.
I know this is off topic but this is not the first time I’ve seen someone mention that they only do a specific kind of RP, and I’m curious about what makes something random social fluff. What’s your definition? Every scene must have a plot related throughline? And has it been effective?
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For async (and some live scenes), I try to aim for RP that ends after 4 posts. Granted, these posts can be 1,000 words long, but my goal is 4 posts, following the Acknowledge-Respond-Prompt method.
- Intro
- Conflict
- Solution
- Resolution
That is:
- Intro - The pose in, the situation, the stakes, what are we doing here and how are we doing it. Why is the rum gone?
- Conflict - The action, the gossip, the disagreement, the demand, the spectacle. Give me the rum.
- Solution - The unwinding, the disaster, the success, the kowtow, the agreement, the explosion. I got stabbed trying to steal the rum.
- Resolution - The tip of the hat, the running away crying, the reveling of having $20 from robbing the 7-11, the licking of the wounds, the smouldering heap. I resolve to never try to steal rum from a 7-11 again, because it turns out they don’t have any.
It doesn’t work for all scenes, but it’s great for social scenes and 7-11 robbery scenes.
Game-runner of Silent Heaven, a small-town horror MU.
https://silentheaven.org -
@Jumpscare if you’re doing that all in 4 poses, how are you reacting to the other person?
I can’t speak for KB as we are not the same people despite what some people may think, but I do have an easier time in async scenes where there is a purpose or a “bit”. If we’re robbing the 7-11 and chatting as we go about our relationship, I find it easier to engage in that vs us just … sitting in the living room, discussing our relationship.
Likewise, if I’m at an async dance party, I will have an easier time engaging in the async dance party if there’s an explosion happening. If we’re at an async dance party to stand around the refreshment table and talk about the Princess’s sparkly dress, Imma disengage fast.
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@Yam Genuinely surprised that this conversation happened 3 years ago.
https://brandmu.day/topic/346/social-bar-rp?_=1771967913235
So take that into consideration when viewing my tolerance for async. I am old; time flows differently now.
And pretty much I am looking for every scene to have some sort of contribution to the narrative, yes. This doesn’t have to be as action-oriented as robbing the 7-11. It can be staking out the 7-11 before the robbery, trying on ski masks, hotwiring a getaway car, etc. Ideally, these provide moments that give characters depth without breaking the momentum or repeating themselves.
As to how well it works for me… My tolerance for social RP used to be higher. I used to genuinely enjoy flirting and random goof-offery, so the amount I RP (in public) was a lot more frequent in general before I got crochety. I’ve had a few characters and a few games over the years that have been full-throttle, with every single scene leading into the next and each of those scenes bringing something clutch. But these are few and far between.
I just play (mostly async, to steer back to the topic) in private for now. Something will come along eventually. It always does.
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@bear_necessities said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:
@Jumpscare if you’re doing that all in 4 poses, how are you reacting to the other person?
Each pose follows the Acknowledge-Respond-Prompt method. I’m sorry if that wasn’t clear enough. I’ll add it to my previous post.
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@Yam said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:
I noticed the big novella style RPers on discord doing a lot of meta posing, crafting thoughts about other characters that those characters can’t respond to, and this is either very very popular or very not. I gather that style is more about the writing part than the collaborative part of collaborative writing.
I see this in Storium a lot too, and honestly it’s what’s kept me from enjoying that platform more. Players rarely interact with each other, they mostly interact alongside each other.
I guess there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but when I play these online games I do it to engage with other players. Not just to watch them do their thing while they watch me do mine.
There are exceptions, but ironically most of those take place off of Storium in Google-docs in the same way that pre-Ares async scenes took place in Google-docs. When the platform doesn’t support what the players need, they find ways around it.
What I don’t understand though…
The prevailing sentiment in this thread is that people prefer live/traditional RP, but I’ve seen complaints elsewhere that too many scenes are async now. If live is everyone’s preference, why aren’t there more live scenes? What’s stopping you? Ares, for example, lets you spin up a scene and mark the pacing expectation. Evennia/Rhost are still geared towards live RP overall. Where’s the obstacle? Is it just a scheduling thing?
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I prefer live scenes with pose rounds lasting 10-20 minutes, or at least what we call sessioned scenes, which is live for 1-2 hours one night, and then live for another 1-2 hours another night.
During the day, I’m okay with Distracted, where pose rounds last 15-60 minutes, but it can lead to me feeling bad if I take too long or my RP partner takes too long (I didn’t say it made sense).
A solid chunk of my RP is async, even though I don’t much like the style, simply because that’s what best fits into the available time. Most of my availability is after 8pm Pacific, when most non-Pacific folks (and many Pacific folks) are in bed or headed to bed. But if an async scene goes more than 24 hours between poses, or takes more than a week overall… I tend to lose the thread pretty hard.
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@Roadspike said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:
I prefer live scenes with pose rounds lasting 10-20 minutes, or at least what we call sessioned scenes, which is live for 1-2 hours one night, and then live for another 1-2 hours another night.
I’m actually not sure why split/sessioned stuff isn’t more of a Thing, I’d certainly prefer it when scheduling is an issue.
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@Faraday said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:
The prevailing sentiment in this thread is that people prefer live/traditional RP, but I’ve seen complaints elsewhere that too many scenes are async now. If live is everyone’s preference, why aren’t there more live scenes?
I mean, this is a sample size of about ten very opinionated people, lol. it’s just not going to be an accurate reflection of the entire population of the hobby.
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@Wizz said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:
I mean, this is a sample size of about ten very opinionated people, lol. it’s just not going to be an accurate reflection of the entire population of the hobby.
The paradox of the MUSH discussion forum, alas
