Cute and hydrated

[socksuke_uchiha]

Rundown: rpanons is an anonymous community for fictional character role-play related topics. This place serves as a forum for game discussions, canon discussions, RP solicitations (ATP, game ads, open memes), and advice. The occasional off topic comment is inevitable, but please keep heated social and political topics to their respective communities. Posting them here will only get them frozen. Subsequent threads made to bypass a freeze will then be deleted.

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Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Sneaking this ramble-rant in near the end of a post lol. Anyway, I've just been thinking about DW again lately. I played in the past for years, then took a very long break, then came back and played for a bit and then took another long break. I'm back in that phase of "Hmm, but what if I try again...?"

To clarify ahead of time: I never left because of drama, and I'd be surprised if anyone here knew me.

Rather than that I find my problem is that I join games, start with big dreams of doing things with my characters and shotgun activity, then don't make any connections with my characters and my activity slowly drops off into barely making AC, until I either idle out or drop out to avoid squatting.

Basically, I find my characters not doing anything I can't handwave, because they're not interacting with people enough, and as a consequence it feels awkward trying to engage with people, and we hit the death spiral. This is not a 100% track record of failure, of course. Sometimes the game dies when I'm actually doing pretty well and once or twice I've played for years and just gotten bored. But I always worry about it being the case.

It's my fault, but I'm still frustrated by it.

When I was first introduced to this format I got the impression that CR was made completely organically - you throw a character into a big game, randomly encounter others, and see what stories get spun up from a combination of those random encounters and monthly events. Instead of that, CR is mostly dominated by OOC planning, and if I just throw my character in and rawdog it, not much is gonna happen. This not only causes issues with positive CR, but really causes problems when I want negative CR (both petty and more serious) or if I want my character to be confidently or tragically wrong and ruin experiences, relationships, and opportunities for themselves.

Anyway, I said it'd be a ramble, but I'm not trying to make it a diary. I'm not saying 'I'm so much better, if only everyone were like me'. Charting out CR OOC makes sense, and when I occasionally fell into that it worked out. But I can't seem to break the habit of trying, or of longing for that impression I initially had to be true, and then burning out when it doesn't work out.

So - in short - does anyone else have that similar experience? Are there people who wildly prefer just throwing characters naked into the wilderness and seeing what happens?

Also, are there perhaps good games or genres I should really be targeting for this kind of CR experience? I always assumed the randomness of a jamjar would fit this best, but maybe a story-based game would force interactions better.

Let me tell you, the 18+ smut games where you're supposed to bang someone every week or month are a hilariously poor fit for it. I always think it'll be good for forging random connections, and then my characters end up on life support and I just sweep 'who have you banged lately' under the rug.

I haven't decided if I should come back again, but the siren's call of group RP is there. I'm just in that stage of mulling over whether I think I'll end up with another bad experience, or if I am self aware enough to dodge it this time.

I say it anonymously because I think it would be rather silly to have a long ramble about how I may in fact suck at RP and then immediately turn around and say "hey, x big game, can I come in...?"

[(Anonymous)]

as someone who jumped in after six years of being gone from the platform, things have changed drastically. a lot of it does require a good chunk of ooc communication but it doesn’t if you actually *tag out*. that’s right, if you rawdog into a game and mostly tag out first and make your face known, people will come to you for threads eventually and tag in without needing to do a good chunk of ooc chatter. you won’t be able to escape ooc plotting posts in games but you can actually manage this if you put in the leg work.

so if you don’t think that’s something you want, stick to memes and psls. build a rapport in texting memes and then hit up people you see there on other memes when you do. hit up their open posts and go from there.

[(Anonymous)]

you won’t be able to escape ooc plotting posts in games

sure you can. i haven't touched one in years in any of the games i've been in and i've never hurt for cr, and i play 99% obscure characters. just tag out, get some cr rolling, and then people will come to you when you post.

[(Anonymous)]

I’m surprised you’re able to get any genuine plotting done then.

[(Anonymous)]

what's the point of posting something like this

[(Anonymous)]

Da, anon above you wanted to be mean.

[(Anonymous)]

the comment genuinely accomplishes nothing else

[(Anonymous)]

when I want negative CR (both petty and more serious) or if I want my character to be confidently or tragically wrong and ruin experiences, relationships, and opportunities for themselves.

ftr anon it is never going to be a good idea to "rawdog" this sort of cr, so you really do need to just learn how to communicate oocly with others before you do things like this. negative cr is tricky to handle at the best of times even when you're happy for your character to be wrong or to lose out on relationships. you don't suck at rp but you can't keep giving yourself excuses for not doing the necessary work when it comes to being a considerate rp partner.

the best thing to do is compromise. be aware that it's a social requirement not to spring negative cr on people while being open about how you prefer not to plan for positive or neutral experiences. i've met lots of players like this and they seem to do just fine.

+1

[(Anonymous)]

Negative CR is very tricky. Sometimes even when you do communicate oocly as clearly as you can, it can still backfire on you.

Not to say it will happen for sure, but some players do IC/OOC blur whenever IC conflict strikes with your character and theirs, so you have to be careful. It's the one thing that I've seen happen a lot in this hobby.

[(Anonymous)]

fwiw anon I'd start distinguishing between communicating ooc and planning out cr. Above anon is definitely right about tagging out being the best way of just making things happen, but I think you'll be able to find a balance if you focus on planning out starting prompts for interaction with other characters. OOC plotting doesn't have to be more extensive than "I see your character would be doing x for event y. Since my character will be doing x as well, we should start a thread and see what happens!" And then bringing your own character's active goals to the thread to keep things moving.

But also... yeah, if you're particularly focused on negative CR, communication will be key, because badly executed negative CR can ruin a character's playability, the game environment, and more. The point of ooc conversation in this situation is to prove that you're not going to be selfish about chasing your own fun at the cost of others', and that you're actually capable of keeping the game's tone and format in mind.

I'm a player who loves negative CR, but I've been burnt before by other players who think that negative CR is just their character pulling the same dramatic selfish shit over and over, without consideration for the fact that the IC response to that is eventually going to be dropping them as a social connection when they refuse to change. Or when it comes to things like murdering or attacking other characters, locking your character in a closet forever. Also, while one dramatic duel or surprise killing can be fun, repeating the same exact fight four times is just as boring and frustrating as all the other stuff you end up handwaving. So yes, my initiating negative cr now will always include an ooc discussion of how to deescalate the conflict if needed, and how to continue to make it viable in the long term.

[(Anonymous)]

OOC planning as a big role in RP for a reason. The major one is it does give people an idea of who you are as a RPer. That really does matter. If I'm playing with someone who never talks to me OOC or tries to plot OOC, I'm less likely to prioritize them because I like to think things out and go over ideas with other people. Socializing IS a part of this collaborative hobby.

There are exceptions and you could get by with less, but let's face it, popularity and engagement do in fact play a role in all of this and I'm more likely to play with people I know and trust and already have chemistry with over a stranger I've never talked to OOC.

But you REALLY REALLY need OOC communication if you're going to do anything like negative CR.