The 3-Month Players
-
@MisterBoring Last Call of Cthulhu
-
@KarmaBum That’s kind of the entirety of what lords & ladies involves. If you watch Bridgerton, that’s what they do and not much more. The moment the lords and ladies start going out on missions to slay dragons, exorcise bad spirits from villages, quest for magic swords, etc, you’re doing the fantasy adventure genre instead of L&L, and the adventurers just happen to be nobility. About the only thing you can add to L&L that’s crunchy would be heavier political intrigue, army logistics, economic systems, etc, but that would require a game longer than the short time frame being aimed for. I guess one could do L&L in the midst of a very short war that has already started, but I am not sure how to do that as recurring seasons. It’s going to get odd that the wars these nobles have only seem to only last 3 to 6 months.
Or maybe that’s how they do things in that setting. Short wars to settle disputes. I guess that could work.
-
@Ominous said in The 3-Month Players:
Short wars to settle disputes. I guess that could work.
What if wars weren’t fought with armies but with duels? The Lords and Ladies involved appoint a champion and they fight a quick single combat. The monarch that doles out the feudal nations witnesses the duel and the winner gets the spoils.
-
@MisterBoring Duels were called out as being BarP, and we are trying to answer the question of what people will RP that isn’t BarP.
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam
-
@Ominous Duels were the one thing on the list that didn’t strike me as “Bar RP” (social fluff).
attend balls
gossip amongst themselves
participate in duels
attend events to showcase their brilliance to the royal family
and plot against one anotherJust strikes me as more of a case in point as to how difficult it can be to actually come up with what will people DO.
I think we’re talking about different things at this point. What counts as Bar RP in an L&L setting is not the discussion I was trying to have.
-
I know I might be in the minority, but I genuinely enjoy games that focus primarily on social interactions and “bar RP.” In fact, I’ve participated in private games where that was the main activity, and found them incredibly fulfilling.
Don’t misunderstand—I appreciate well-crafted plots and would certainly join global events. However, my personal focus tends toward developing character relationships and running private storylines with my RP partners. For me, having the tools and space to tell these intimate stories matters more than participating in numerous public scenes or global plot arcs.
I find the most enjoyment in those smaller moments between characters: the conversations that reveal backstories, the gradual building of trust, and the organic development of relationships (whether friendly, romantic, or antagonistic). These interactions often create the most memorable RP experiences for me.
-
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.
-
@Ominous What if they were duels to the death and always included PCs? Are they BarP then?
-
@MisterBoring I have no idea. I don’t consider duels to be BarP.
-
@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.
-
@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.
-
@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
-
@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.
-
@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.
-
@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.
-
@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.
-
@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.
-
@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.
-
@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?
