RP Safari - Pacing Styles

Faraday

oftentimes it really just literally is “my brain cannot keep engaged in this format.”

Yeah that’s me. I’m not judgmental about async. I just don’t enjoy it as much. It’s just hard for me to stay engaged and keep track of things.

MisterBoring

@Faraday said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

I just don’t enjoy it as much. It’s just hard for me to stay engaged and keep track of things.

Me too. I have too much going on in my life (family, work, gaming, etc) to be able to pay enough attention for async. I honestly believe that the only way I could enjoy it would be if I stopped doing lots of other things that heavily ate my focus, but then if I’m just dedicated to playing one game and focusing on one async scene to the detriment of everything else, why am I playing async to begin with?

Third Eye

@Roz said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

oftentimes it really just literally is “my brain cannot keep engaged in this format.”

You also totally lose the improv element which is part of what a lot of us like about this.

I’ll admit, my dislike of async has been aggravated by people who I fundamentally do not think have had any respect for my time or any interest/engagement in what we were playing. I’m perfectly willing to do time-shifted scenes due to timezone or availability conflicts and always have been. That isn’t usually what this is about anymore.

Prototart

I don’t know why but I feel it’s worth mentioning that while it’s a new(ish) thing in MU-space it’s not new new. It’s a big component of F-List, and it’s before my time but I know there were people doing play-by-post on forums and even over email and fucking Usenet in the 90s.

MisterBoring

@Prototart said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

and it’s before my time but I know there were people doing play-by-post on forums and even over email and fucking Usenet in the 90s.

I remember that stuff when I was in college, and totally remember ignoring invites to join that stuff because I was running a different tabletop group almost every night (or playing video and computer games).

Pavel

@MisterBoring said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

@Prototart said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

and it’s before my time but I know there were people doing play-by-post on forums and even over email and fucking Usenet in the 90s.

I remember that stuff when I was in college, and totally remember ignoring invites to join that stuff because I was running a different tabletop group almost every night (or playing video and computer games).

Hey, get a load of Mr. “I had friends growing up” over here.

Wuff

@Prototart said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

I don’t know why but I feel it’s worth mentioning that while it’s a new(ish) thing in MU-space it’s not new new. It’s a big component of F-List, and it’s before my time but I know there were people doing play-by-post on forums and even over email and fucking Usenet in the 90s.

I still remember when continuing a scene meant someone had to manually save a log to a txt file, then post the last couple poses on the continue so people remembered where they at.

And ‘Timestops’. Nope, no more RP for that character till the scene was done. Whenever RL let everyone get free to finish.

Prototart

@Wuff said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

I still remember when continuing a scene meant someone had to manually save a log to a txt file, then post the last couple poses on the continue so people remembered where they at.

God, when I was a kid my mom found a folder where I had like a dozen in-progress scenes from WoD games.

bear_necessities

@Third-Eye said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

I’m perfectly willing to do time-shifted scenes due to timezone or availability conflicts and always have been. That isn’t usually what this is about anymore.

I’m confused. What is it usually about now?

hellfrog

@bear_necessities the answer seems to be in the sentence right before the one you quoted, I think.

bear_necessities

@hellfrog It seemed like a broader issue, like there’s something fundamental about async scenes as a whole vs a few people who don’t respect their time, though? Like I read that as saying “async scenes usually aren’t about people who need it due to timezone or availability conflicts anymore” and it seems really odd to say “async scenes usually are about people who don’t respect my time or have any interest/engagement in what I’m playing”.

But I’ll admit my reading comprehension could use some work.

Faraday

@bear_necessities I think it’s more just a clash of expectations.

Some people see async as merely a “last resort” when you can’t sync up to play live, but still expect a degree of responsiveness to get the scene done. For example, even back when folks were doing async with LiveJournal or Google Docs, it could be considered rude to let a pose go three days without a response. At that point, it’s not really about syncing up timezones and can start to feel more like the other player just doesn’t care enough to reply, isn’t engaged in the scene, etc. (Or they, aka me, just have ADHD and forgot the scene exists. )

Other people (including those who are influenced by other, slower RP modalities like forum RP, storium, etc.) might not even think twice about going days between poses.