RP Safari - Pacing Styles

Yam

@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?

Jumpscare

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.

bear_necessities

@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.

KarmaBum

@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.

Jumpscare

@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.

Faraday

@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?

Roadspike

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.

Third Eye

@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.

Wizz

@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.

somasatori

@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

Faraday

@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 MUSH community is not THAT big, so it’s not like we’re talking 10 players out of a million here. And this sentiment has been reflected across numerous other threads here. The question still remains though - are these folks just having trouble finding each other? Are they truly in a minority? Is there something else standing in their way?

Pavel

@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 think there are probably plenty of live scenes. Async scenes are just more visible because they’re around longer. If you log into a game during a less active period and you see five or ten scenes on the active scenes list, and they’re all async… you’re going to assume that that’s the majority, or the only kind. But you’re only seeing them because they’re the ones still currently active. You missed seeing the twenty live scenes happening earlier in the week.

That and people complain loudly but praise quietly. “This thing isn’t what I want” is more visible than “I am satisfied with what is going on.” So you’ll likely hear people complaining about too much async and too little async, and the truth about availability is somewhere in the middle.

L. B. Heuschkel

My preferred pace is live. It almost never happens.

I’m in Europe, which places me in an awkward timezone for a lot of people. I suffer various health issues, chronic fatigue among them.

Because of that, most of my scenes are async. I prefer agreeing with others at the start what that actually means. Are we doing this scene over a day or two, expecting at least a few pose rounds a day? A pose round a day? Or are we going glacial, where people post whenever they’re able and a scene can take several weeks?

I am capable of them all. I just want to know in advance.

bear_necessities

@Faraday said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

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?

If I had to guess, it’s happening on private games. There are very few public games on Ares, and none of them appear to have a “live scene” culture.

Trashcan

@bear_necessities said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

There are very few public games on Ares, and none of them appear to have a “live scene” culture.

Empty Night and Aegis Company both have a heavy majority of ‘traditional’ pacing scenes listed in their 10+ active scenes. There are probably others.

bear_necessities

@Trashcan said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

Empty Night and Aegis Company both have a heavy majority of ‘traditional’ pacing scenes listed in their 10+ active scenes. There are probably others.

If I had to guess, that’s a result of the play screen defaulting to traditional pacing rather than actual intention. Just looking at Empty Night, of the active scenes listed as “traditional” pacing, only one of them was started today. Many of them were started several days (if not a week+ ago). Aegis Company seems to be largely the same as far as scene date and last activity go.

To me, the active scene list on either of those games does not seem to promote a “live” scene culture.

Pavel

@bear_necessities said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

To me, the active scene list on either of those games does not seem to promote a “live” scene culture.

If I go to my office right now, it does not seem to promote an active workplace culture. Because it’s three in the morning.

Looking at one snapshot of one metric is a poor way of judging something.

Wizz

@Pavel said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

That and people complain loudly but praise quietly. “This thing isn’t what I want” is more visible than “I am satisfied with what is going on.” So you’ll likely hear people complaining about too much async and too little async, and the truth about availability is somewhere in the middle.

^ this. I have a firm suspicion that if you were to do a broader anonymous survey that somehow managed to bring in enough people to be relevant, you probably would see some mild preference either way but not the extremes people like to express here because…we are always driven to express extremes, it’s just what this board is.

Pavel

@Wizz You’ll more likely get people bitching about your survey.

bear_necessities

@Pavel OK well since I’m obviously wrong, please tell me how these games promote a live scene culture.

If a majority of scenes on the “active scenes” list began several days ago and are still ongoing, and nearly every single scene on the “recent scene list” are also several days old (versus, say, from yesterday or even two days ago), how does that say “live” to you?

The argument is that people prefer scenes that: a) are not async, b) are taking 7-10 minutes between poses, and c) end within the day.

Nothing in the active scenes or recent scenes list of either of these games suggest that’s what is happening.