Lack of player independance, and why this is a massive issue for the forum

[Shamitako]

@Tomas, you're blowing it out of proportion. We're still discussing reason as to why initiative in RPs is an issue. Pinpointing the cause of the problem is necessary to fixing it, right?

My evidence lies in the terms Extroverted and Introverted. They're core aspects of ones personally that dictate how concerned you are with those around you and yourself. Naturally if you're more concerned with yourself you aren't going to be approaching people as much as an extroverted person who is naturally, and I stress this word because it's important, outgoing. It's sheer common sense. Go look at any number of studies into these terms, you'll find a general consensus in this.

As for quantifying initiative, a study could be done throughout a variety of RPs. Select an assortment of RPs within different genres, have the involved RPers test for Intro/Extroversion and then perform a content analysis of the RPs, tallying the amount of times a PC independently started a conversation, approached an area without explicit or implicit direction from the host or attempted to interact with an object, again without hints. Then slap the results onto a bar graph, comparing initiative taken by introverts and extroverts respectively.

And I'd be willing to put money on the fact that 7/10 times it's the same people taking the initiative in these RPs, with various others trailing along after them.

I second the first sentence of this

Here's a fun one: There's plenty of studies into the fact that introverts on the internet have a tendency to be far more outgoing than in reality. The internet is not the same as reality, and roleplays are even further from that. A person's personality effects their roleplaying very differently from how it effects their life

Your theory isn't one that can be entirely discounted on the premise of being outright wrong, but based on my experience with roleplaying and the internet in general, it doesn't hold up very well. And I don't really have anything more to give you outside anecdotal arguments and sheer internet common sense

TBH it seems neither of us have hard facts (mostly because there aren't any) So we need to either agree to accept personal worldview and observations ("common sense" and anecdotal evidence) or one of us needs to miraculously produce legitimate evidence. If neither of those conditions can be met then this discussion is basically null and we should both stop wasting our time

Also, note to self: Go check out some of your old RP haunts and try to do this study

Other note to self: Remember what old RP haunts you even have

TBH I don't have the time to do this, if I get a research project in school this year I'll use it tho, I'll be sure to share the results if I do ^^

[Tomas Elliot]

I think it has to do with the levels of engagement, Rose.

Well but this is the crux of the issue here, I think. How do we make sure that everyone, so called "noobs" and so called "veterans", are equally involved into a project, as much as we are into this very discussion right now?

I am fully aware of the fact that you can lead a horse to the water, but you cannot force it to drink, but... Let's start by leading it to the water, something that, as the very existance of this problem demonstrates, we are not doing right now. Or as my grandfather would put it: you need to do the building before you can complain about the lack of paying (he was a mason).

That is why I am so hell-bent in bringing the possibility of personal roleplays, with just two people interacting with one another, to this forum. Regardless of the change in layout, regardless of which solutions are actually adopted, I do believe that having "veterans" engaging in one-on-one interactions with "noobs" would greatly help matters. If I am a decent roleplayer, I owe it mainly to the fact that, when I first started roleplaying (which means that I was a "noob" back then: remember, we have all been "noobs" at some point), it was on communities that offered such options, and "veterans" of the time helped me improve by going through my own roleplays with me, pointing out the flaws and providing suggestions and insight. Of course, I am fully aware that, if we were to tutor 10 people this way, maybe 3 would turn out to actually learn something, while 7 would stick to their old ways out of laziness... But this is no excue to do nothing at all and lose those 3.

It's the same problem I have IRL with people who say "what can you change on your own?" : if everyone say that nobody will act, and then of course nothing will change. But try and actually do something, and if everyone do something, eventually things WILL change: of course, they won't become exactly what you wanted, and there are good chances that the change will be minor, compared to the effort you put in it... But that is no excuse for putting no effort at all.

In short: as long as we keep on saying "No point in leading the horse to the water, because you cannot force to drink anyway" things will NOT improve. But if we start by leading, say, 10 horses to the water, then who knows? Maybe 3 or 4 might actually drink. It beats doing nothing IMO.

[Chevaleresse]

I'm currently cooking a project that might work well with that idea, Tomas.

[Tomas Elliot]

Glad to hear that.

The reason why I am insisting so much in saying that, somehow, we need to make it possible for people to interact one-on-one in topics separated from the main IC topics is that, when I launched the YGO roleplay, I tried to do specifically this: I tried to get experienced people to lead by example, I asked some of the veterans, who had relevant roles in the roleplay (Commander might remember this) to interact with less experienced users in order to help them improve, and I even tried to do so myself... But it didn't work out.

It didn't work out because we are all busy people: when you come home after a long day of stress, and you decide to just roleplay for a bit in order to relax, you don't like having to dig through the posts of 15 other people in order to find the one post made by the one person you promised you'd help. If you and the person you promised you'd help are the only two in the topic, that makes things considerably easier, I think.

[Commander]

That's half the reason we developed the tag system so we can keep track of our posts and interactions. That's not why your RP failed though. I'll admit I made me leave when I knew this wasn't the RP for me (that and the whole learning Yu-Gi-Oh on a manual system is kind of frustrating). I'll admit that the choice based system definitely kept things moving along as when Dobby chucked that system...I think things slowly fell apart. I kind of asked a couple things about why my RP failed and made some notes to try and fix (the biggest issue was the boring battle system which pretty much was slow, tedious, and turned everyone off by that point).

It's going to be hell in and of itself to get any layout changes for the RP forum which is why I originally suggested separating the OOCs/Sing-ups/Interest Checks with the other topics on here. It would allow for a much greater amount of diversity and things like you suggested Thomas, without being too much of a hassle to design. Dobby's idea and your layout won't happen anytime soon. I can justify my idea as this sub-forum does tend to get very messy with all the RPs in play at the same place making it sometimes hard to find new RPs or keep track of slower one I'm following. That's half the reason we're limited to so many topics per RP.

I feel like the elephant in the room we've all simply been skipping over is lack of interest. If someone is not too interested in a RP, they likely aren't going to be as motivated to post...causing an issue in no engagement. I'll admit it. Part of the reason I don't post or struggle to post is because I dipped my foot into something I didn't realize I wouldn't like. Sometimes, people don't say anything in order not to hurt someone's feelings. I think we all need to just reevaluate our RPs (I know I did) and why they failed or stopped before jumping to any conclusions.

[Tomas Elliot]

Well the lack of interest is something that cannot be fixed tho. I mean either people are interested in a roleplay, or they aren't. We cannot sit here and engineer for people to suddenly become insterested if they aren't. It is up to the skills of the host to make sure his roleplay stays interesting throughout its entire natural life (something I did fail at long before Dobby took over, I'll be the first to admit it), but it is also up to the maturity of the roleplayer to evaluate carefully a given RP, as to avoid joining it only to then be like "oh sorry, changed my mind". It's an effort we should all make together.

[Shamitako]

Well the lack of interest is something that cannot be fixed tho. I mean either people are interested in a roleplay, or they aren't. We cannot sit here and engineer for people to suddenly become insterested if they aren't. It is up to the skills of the host to make sure his roleplay stays interesting throughout its entire natural life (something I did fail at long before Dobby took over, I'll be the first to admit it), but it is also up to the maturity of the roleplayer to evaluate carefully a given RP, as to avoid joining it only to then be like "oh sorry, changed my mind". It's an effort we should all make together.

This^^^

Also, motivation to post and taking initiative in a scenario, while related, are two different beasts. I am very on and off in posting, even in my own RPs, but I've never had a struggle with initiative. The reverse is a lot more common, where lack of interest brings about lack of initiative, but there are plenty of people like me who still manage to perform well in more open RPs, even when they're beginning to find themselves bored

One of the more frustrating things for a host is when players start losing interest because they can't think of anything to post in an open scenario. The host can leave things open for players to do as they please, and they will do nothing and get bored because there's "nothing for them to do"

TL;DR Taking initiative can help remedy a lack of interest, but a good (...good is a mean word, but I can't think of a nicer one that conveys my meaning) roleplayer can still manage to take initiative even when not currently interested in an RP

[Flux]

Well, I found this thread super late, but I have to agree with the original post, as well as what Strat said a while back in the thread. To use my RP as an example: Any time I opened up The Awakened for interaction among players, only a few would actually act on it and do something, and I would generally be told by players that they "have nothing to post" and the like. And I understand that dilemna. It's a big step out of many player's comfort zones to wander away from a main plot and into player to player or even player to NPC interaction. Eventually, I just stopped leaving those openings, which ended up created more work for me that had to be done sooner for player demand, and in the end I had to make up scenarios that were never planned just so the players could do something. Those scenarios were quite apparently of a lower quality than what I had planned earlier, which ends up detracting from the players' experience, leading into a vicious cycle. It quickly became a hassle and just wasn't fun to host anymore because I constantly felt like I had to give the players more and more to do. Not to mention that with school coming up I couldn't possibly put that amount of time into the RP anymore, hence it's hiatus. (Probably more like death now, as much as it pains me to say so.)

Anyway, I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining, because a good part of the RP's death was my own fault as well. But I do agree that this is an issue that should be addressed. It sounds like you've all been working on something in this thread, though I haven't had time to read through it all yet. Hopefully things will work out.

[Tomas Elliot]

So, is anything concrete coming out of this in the end?

[Sutoratosu]

The brutally honest answer as far as I see it:

No

Probably not, seeing as how the conversation kinda went full circle after it's first initial phases. Talking is one thing, Doing is another matter entirely. I completely stand by everything I said in the beginning of this discussion and my follow up statement abit after it:

As for the actual cause and solution: I feel it is most likely something akin to what Ark has suggested- people may come in with the misconception that thinking abit outside the box or trying things that are not considered normal- ie taking their own initiative, might result in consequences that they feel are so utterly severe, such as a public rebuke or mod action, that they feel it is not worth the perceived risk of initiative... Basically, a combination of a lack of confidence, and a fear of the consequences that misstepping carries.

However, I also think that in these situations, there is a bit of issue on the side of the hosts as well- for enabling this type of misconception to continue throughout the interaction (And yes, I myself will raise my hand up high and admit that in hindsight, I'm just as guilty of enabling this as anyone else). In a way, by bending to the statement "I literally have nothing I can do" and changing things to give that player something explicitly designed for them, instead of just leaving the situation open ended like it was, and instead of altering it, trying to help the player figure out that they can infact do something, they simply didn't consider it themselves, we as host, in a way, only help to reinforce this apparent stigma against taking the first initiative.

And then there is the issue of overall communication. In many RPs, the rules as to what one is explicitly allowed to do in the story- I mean the freaking case law by which you can even operate, not just standard, typical rules like "No Godmodding, No Sues, Etc.". In alot of cases, the rules are not clear in telling how creative one can get, and what is generally allowed in terms of a response.

My case in point for this- My own Swansong: Sins of Avalon.

Going into that RP, I thought I had made it clear what I expected on people being creative, however, I was wrong and the guidelines I had set forth for the types of tactics and degree of creative thinking that would be tolerated and encouraged were never explicitly expressed beforehand. Now, this is more the result of an honest mistake than an actual oversight- when I was scrambling to salvage whatever I could after Auroral Starfall was destroyed via Computer Glitch, I failed to remember to take the details about the creativity and tactics and impart them into the interest check and OOC of it's replacement, Sins of Avalon.

Now... what did this result in? Someone at some point told me they had nothing to do. Now, that whole situation with me having to explain all the various tactics I myself could come up with off the top of my own head that was entirely possible and acceptable with the current moveset and species of pokemon they were using, could've been avoided entirely if I had just remembered that I never told anyone just what was the limit of things. I simply went in partially assuming they already knew, and that is where my personal sin lies, and where the sin of other hosts often lies aswell- Complacency, and Assumption.

Of course, I immediately rectified this issue when it arose by making sure that people knew what the limit was, but still... the fact that this basic miscommunication between a host and his players was allowed to transpire in the first place is entirely unacceptable in my eyes, regardless of what the cause of it happened to be.

That's all I have to say on the matter for now. quite honestly, I've spoken my piece and then-some.

TLDR; There are no fingers that can be pointed here; Everyone, hosts and players alike, are to blame at the end of the day. Therefore, the only way this will be resolved is if EVERYONE, HOSTS AND PLAYERS ALIKE, makes the effort to change the status quote that has been allowed to take form here.

And as always, commander has a point as well... I've seen it more than enough times, with a few rare exceptions here and there, whenever any overall action happens around here, it's always the same people doing it- the more experienced, more versed members... I have seen very little attempted by any newbies... and this is from an observation in quite a few different RPs.

Hell, the same can said for this thread. Look at it. The same more experienced, more versed members who are doing all the discussing. With two or three exceptions, I don't see too many who can be considered "New" to the forum or who isn't as involved trying to speak up... But Tom has a point that there's only so much of an excuse this can offer.

Being new and inexperienced at something isn't an issue that can be solved be merely staying in the corner and acting meek as a mouse. By the very definition of the concept, the only way to stop being new, and stop being inexperienced, is to JUST DO IT. The only solution is to try, because if you try, that opens the doorway for progress, and progress opens the door for grow.

So while yes, people being new and feeling abit unsure and intimidated is a factor here, one has to take into account that there is only so much a senior or more experienced member can do to help them and try to bring them out of the corner and learn. We can spend all night and day trying to help them, but if they don't want to take the first step in helping, there's not much we can do for them. We may post all the guides, discussion topics, hyperlink to all the resources we wish, but... if people don't use them, or don't come for further help if they need it, what else are we to do? how else are we to try?

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't force it to drink. The excuse only extends so far before one has to ask the question tom Posed; have they at least tried not being a "noob"? tried to get better? Cause if not, well... at the end of the day, people can go blue in the face trying to help you out, but if you don't want to take that first step and lend them a hand, take that first bit of responsibility for yourself and your own improvement, then not much is gonna come out of the endeavor.

Nothing around here is going to change unless people actively make an effort to try to change themselves, and from enough of those concentrated efforts, the community itself will also change as a direct result. The situation is very much akin to the Principle that If you want to fix society, you have to start at improving and fixing the smallest unit and working your way up, not simply cast a wide, overarching plan and expect the system to correct itself overnight without any active input or contribution towards the change from those who make up it's very components.

Going the Latter of the two paths is like just putting a new coat of paint over a wall that is suffering from a bad case of mildew- yeah, it may technically be like a quick fix cause you can't see the issue anymore, but even if it's hidden from sight, the root of the overall problem will still be present. It is the same exact reason why medical researchers and practitioners put so much effort into understanding the causes of disease and trying to develop cures for them, rather than simply stopping at the stage of being able to treat the patient's symptoms.

[Tomas Elliot]

Nothing around here is going to change unless people actively make an effort to try to change themselves, and from enough of those concentrated efforts, the community itself will also change as a direct result. The situation is very much akin to the Principle that If you want to fix society, you have to start at improving and fixing the smallest unit and working your way up, not simply cast a wide, overarching plan and expect the system to correct itself overnight without any active input or contribution towards the change from those who make up it's very components.

I absolutely and completely agree with this. I might in fact have made a similar comparison in an earlier post of mine. So I shall repeat my question: your post perfectly detailed the theory of what needs to be done, but what about the practice? When I asked if something concrete was coming out of this discussion, I didn't mean to ask "are mods actually going to add sub-sections?" because I kinda see that it would be a solution that would fail to address the main issue at hand. What I meant to ask is: what is it that we, as roleplayers of this community, need to do, here and now, to address the issue that you so throughly eviscerated? Hell what is it that we CAN do? If each of us started from what can be done and moved up from there, it would already be big progress.

[Felicity]

There's no real outline. Push your character to interact with something, anything. If you're hosting, make sure there's plenty for the PCs to notice and interact with. Turn our RPs into Chekovs armouries.

[Rosesong]

Also, if you've lost interest or no longer wish to keep up with the RP, both as host or players, let the others know. It's not fair to the players if they keep waiting longer and longer for the posts, nor is it fair to the hosts to keep waiting for a player's response and not knowing it's not going to come

[Commander]

There's no real outline. Push your character to interact with something, anything. If you're hosting, make sure there's plenty for the PCs to notice and interact with. Turn our RPs into Chekovs armouries.

Generally, I kind of disagree with this. (You people and your TV tropes had to make me google for a minute). What may seem like an obvious action to you may not be for somebody else. Though I do suppose it is a good way to give people a little bit of advice without telling them what to do. I do think some of them might need that extra little shove to kind of get them on the right track such as a situation if they run in with a blaze of glory, they'll probably get killed.

[Sutoratosu]

*Sigh* gotta both address the causes and do the work of laying out the steps and possible ways to pave the road to fixing it myself

@ Players

-Try to think more openly about things. If you get into a situation where you don't see something that's immediately obvious for you to do, just take a second to step back and think. Re-evaluate what's going on, look for details that you can use to build your response off of. Don't just immediately give up and don't just immediately assume that you're completely blocked by a wall and there's no way through it- cause that's honestly what life is like; Sometimes we are faced with obstacles and situations where we think we have no power and absolutely nothing we can do in them, but if we take a mere second to think outside the box, analyze things, then often times a great number of ways pop up that we can get past the wall. Perhaps not by going through some neat and nice door that's been pre-crafted for us, but maybe under it instead, or possibly above it, or hell, even around it, the metaphor can go on and on. Point is, in the initial frustration of thinking that there's no way to progress, people often times fail to see things they would've if they had just calmed down and taken a closer look.

If you get in a free style situation and you don't know what to do and don't feel like you know your own direction, then again, think abstractly, outside the box. Hell, even if you still can't come up with something, maybe wait for a few other people to post to give you an idea or see how things develop a bit. Or you could put yourself directly in your character's shoes- consider what to do according to how they would act and their own interests at the moment. I mean, Christ, there's so much shit that's possible whenever a host gives a free period in the storyline- you could use the time to elaborate abit more on your pcs backstory, spend it interacting with and forming relations to other Players and their characters, haggle a few NPCs unfortunate enough to be present just for the hell of it. The only thing that holds you back are the rules of the world as set out by the host, and your own mind's capabilities of thinking up ways to play within those rules creatively.

Now... to my bigger target.

@Hosts

- Try to be more communicative in the future about what are the limits of what Players can do and try in the RP. Don't just settle for handwaving your policies as the standard "No metaing, no powerplaying, etc" Be specific. Those are friggin' cookie cutter rules that apply virtually anywhere around here and are nothing more but the standard.

So, for example, let's say you say players aren't allowed to Metagame...pretty standard thing right? It all ends there on the matter right? No, wrong, at least as far as I see it.

Wrong because of one issue; what the hell exactly counts as metagaming within your setting and your specific policy for that specific RP? What situations are acceptable for players to glean a bit of extra information from the details given by being clever and in the right place at the right time, and what situations count as actual breaks in the rules. Can people listen in on conversations that are held out in the open with no thought of privacy given by the occupants? are they free to see something discreet and shady happening out of the nearby window if they're in a reasonable area. You need to decide when to draw the line between actual metagaming, and non-issues. Now, some of you may go

"Well it's based on common sense so there's no real need." Yeah, well, guess what... that leads to my next point.

-Try to stop assuming things when you make your rules on limitations. Don't be lazy, and don't hand wave things and leave them as the simple cookie cutter rulesets everyone is accustomed to. Take the time to sit down and think in-depth on what players will be allowed to do and how far they can go, because rules like powerplaying and metaing get a bit harder to enforce when there's no clear cut examples of what exactly you mean, and needless headaches, I can assure you, will eventually abound as a result of the confusion. And in general, try to give a bit of explanation of the parameters of each rule. If you want an example, here- Ripped from the old OOC of Surge Story:

The Rules on this RP:

1. As this is going to be a military oriented RP, somewhat graphic and violent post will be tolerated; however do not go overboard, Give Enemies a quick and clean death. no torturing charcters to death (Unless authorized by the RP host(me), which will never happen unless in an interrogation scene, in which case, the death won't even be intentional and will serve some vital purpose in the story's development)

2. Keep your mind and your post out of the gutter. I will not tolerate any overly sexual Post (the site rules won't either). A FEW Innuendos thrown in cleverly here and there will be tolerated, but if it gets to be an issue, then they'll become part of this rule as well.

3.No legendary Pokemon will be acquirable until late in the story.

4. don't abuse your team's strength by power playing against a fellow RPer. this will be acceptable in some situations such as a military battle against enemy agents, but If you have a high leveled tyranitar and decide to send it out against a player who just started out and only has a spearrow, than I'll be sure to take away said tyranitar very tragically from you during the story.

5.The RP host (me) will decide the outcome of Major NPC battles, the time, date and weather, as well as promote or demote military rank in the story, as well as serve as a general narrator for major events.

6.No overly profane language, please.

7. Pokemon can die in this RP, just as humans can.

8. Pokemon are not limited to only using sets of four moves in this RP; IE. they are able to have a move pool that is limited only by the amount of moves it makes sense for them to have learned at their level of development. the same guidelines as outlined on Moves by the Host earlier still apply. everyone will be responsible for making sure they do not abuse this rule. if they do not do this, and do abuse this rule, as either the Host or the Majority of participants in this RP may dictate when such is the case, they will lose this privilege and be forced to restrain their Partners move pools back to four moves only, and will receive further consequences if the issue continues to arise. There are however, still restrictions on certain moves, which are as follows:

• No Egg Moves that must be Chain Bred onto a pokemon and cannot be justified without this factor are allowed.
• If a Pokemon knows a certain move, it can not, under any circumstances what so ever, teach that move to another pokemon. this counts as Move Tutoring, which is banned.
• STAB currently is not a known effect, ergo, no pokemon will receive Same Type Attack Bonus in battle. (this will eventually change however.)

9. If a Player of this RP is inactive for more than 45 days (A month and a half) without giving any notice of their absence to the host prior, then the Host reserves the right to assume that said player is not going to be returning, and take permanent control of their character if necessary. the waiting period before the host can do this can grow longer or shorter from case to case as necessary, but 45 days is the standard. If a player who was Assumed permanently gone by the host returns, then control of the character will be relinquished back to them only if explicitly requested via PM.

Now, given that the thing is what... over a year old and is no longer functioning and is the first thing I ever made on here- it kinda lacks just a little bit in the detail I'm trying to get at, as most of them outline the punishments of commiting the offenses rather than what the offense would constitute; but it still does a decent enough job of illustrating my overall point. I didn't leave the rules as simple bullet points with-

• Don't Meta
• Don't Powerplay
• No Sues
• 4 moves only

No. I went indepth on that shit. I didn't want any type of misunderstanding that could've been easily avoided, and I didn't want trouble to start right out of the damn gate. So I took the time and wrote it all out.

Finally, as I alreayd stated- if people complain that their stuck, don't just bend. Make them think, make them work out the possibilities they haven't consider yet- don't just baby em and edit that scene so they have something that's obvious and prescribed to do, because you're only hurting them in the end by doing that. As commander said, give them advice, list examples of various paths that would be acceptable, but don't tell them exactly which one of said paths to take. let them evaluate and decide themselves.

Now then- in closing, I'm not singling anyone out here or any RP out here- I am merely stating the raw and general facts of the argument. If you're a host whose already done all this and put the thought into being more specfic with things, then great for you, patt yourself on the back. But if you have a feeling you might need to do more... maybe your subconscious is telling you something then. Because again, I'm not doing this to shame people or call someone individually out. I'm listing what I feel needs to be said in order to help this community better itself.

And that's all I got.

[Commander]

I suppose I can reveal this since it's almost ready to be launched, but one of the biggest issues that we've been ignoring is combat. Pretty much any system we have is very judgemental and bias meaning if a problem arises, it'll lead up to a stall. Beforehand, I was very against numbers as I felt it made things a little too fixed, but now I realized that it really just makes everything confusing about them and how things work. That's why I came up with an intensity system (you people are free to use something similar) to kind of help rid of this problem. It hasn't been tried, but it does kind of help guide how to be a better player (or should) along with being far more clear on the issue. I'll just show you the difference and you might understand:

Old Method (Fire Emblem: Dimenian Knights)

How battles will take place:

Battles will be determined by your equipment and armor/class and with a higher class than another means it is more likely you will be successful on your attacks. But be warned careless actions will be punished. Using strategy is key to success. And how this is calculated is based upon me as I make the final decisions.

(I know this isn't the exact thing, but that pretty much is what it is. The host is deciding everything based on his judgement alone. Even if you give thorough insight on it, the player can never be too sure they know what will happen and bias could occur).

Here's the new Method:

The Draw System:

Before taking an action, a player will use a random number generator of 1-10 to determine the intensity of the attack/the likely hood of success. The higher the number the better success you have, but the host's actions (aka me) will use the same system but from 0-10 to determine the enemy's attack intensity/success of the action. The one with the higher number usually is the one to win IF both sides are on the exact same level. There are many calculations that go into what will happen:

Intensity Levels:

Intensity is divided up into 3 tiers. 1-3 are weak attacks that don't leave so much of a blow, 4-6 are mid power attacks that can leave quite a punch, but are generally considered an average attack power. 7-9 are powerful blows and can be quite deadly, usually killing someone who has a low number such as 2. If someone draws a 10, aka bloody 10, it is a powerful attack that is almost always guaranteed to kill the opponent despite what number they have. Only a high intensity number such as 8 could even live against this attack. If the host draws a 0 though, that pretty much means whoever is attacking gets a free kill despite any factors that go into this.

The Weapon Triangle:

In FE main games, there is a system where one type of weapon is stronger than another in a rock-paper-scissors type style. Axes beat lances, Lances beat swords, swords beat axes. If one of these situations appears, the tiering is altered a slight bit. Let's say the player hold a sword while the opponent has an Axe. Both draw a 6. In this situation, the sword wielder would win. Now let's say the sword wielder draws a 1 and the axe wielder draws an 8, the axe wielder would win. Having an advantage like that is considered a tier shift (adding 3 to the sword wielder would show what the real intensity or number is) giving the sword wilder an advantage, but that does not mean they will always win.

Weapon Material:

Weapon material is similar to the triangle where higher grade weapons have an advantage over a lower grade. Silver is stronger than Steel which is stronger than Bronze. A Silver against a bronze weapon would cause a two tier shift (or +6 to the Silver weapon wielder) meaning the bronze weapon wielder has very little chance of winning. The better weapon also means it's sturdier causing it less likely to break. Bronze weapon are frail meaning they can break easily if careless.

Classes:

Classes come in 3 tiers and with class difference comes tier shifts like the examples above. An Archsage would have a 2-tier advantage over a Mage meaning the other one has little chance of winning the fight.

Weapon Breaking:

If two draws are the same, there is a chance for a weapon to break. If the player and opponent draw a 10 both though, both weapons will break due to the sheer intensity of the two attacks. The likelyhood of a weapon breaking is determined by intensity with higher levels being more likely, how close the draws are together, the type of class (Hitting an armored unit gives a higher risk of weapon breaking), and the amount of times the weapon has been used already. Usually, I will determine when a weapon breaks as it is all due to chance.

(I have to go to work, but will finish later. Trust me, this is actually more simple and lineant than it looks. It's just to show the difference between the two ideas and how one answers the question better than the other...tough it might be a little confusing being not finished yet).

[Felicity]

Generally, I kind of disagree with this. (You people and your TV tropes had to make me google for a minute). What may seem like an obvious action to you may not be for somebody else. Though I do suppose it is a good way to give people a little bit of advice without telling them what to do. I do think some of them might need that extra little shove to kind of get them on the right track such as a situation if they run in with a blaze of glory, they'll probably get killed.

Which is why I said "Armoury" and not "Gun". Sure, people can miss things even if they're paying attention. But everything? A lot less likely, you know?

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

Which is why I said "Armoury" and not "Gun". Sure, people can miss things even if they're paying attention. But everything? A lot less likely, you know?

To be fair... Chekhov's refers specifically to item or people in some cases that are shown before their use. It's...not really something that applies to a dialog based clue. That's not really the same idea. Also, Chekhos' armoury is typically when too much shit is just thrown out there to the put it's overwhelming to keep track of it becasue they are so many outgoing "guns" that point to different use cases that it's impossible to remember what all of them where and when they'll come back up again. It... doesn't really truly apply in most sense in the way it's being used here.

Remember though, Chekov's Guns DON'T need to be super well hidden or concealed of their true purpose. Most things are technically actually those. After all, it's anything that is used later on, it's revealing something necessarily before it's used whether it be an object...a skill... or a person. It is Foreshadowing attached to an object or a concept that encompasses one. Sorry if misconstruing what you've said Dobbs... that's just the impression I've gotten so far lol.

Anyway that's besides the point.

In regards to the things that Stratos has brought up, My personal rule is try first, ask questions later. I don't mind my Players trying to push something and doing something nuts. In all actuality, If something isn't going to work... I'll either work it into my post and reverse their desired outcome or show them some of the limits in play.

Take for example somethings that have happened in Clash. For example when Exlink's character was fighting Snow my Divine Knight. You'll notice that when Snow attacks early on by hurling a blade of ice at Zagi that the frist and second time it happens... the ice shatters countering the attack. However, later on Snow uses the same attack and yet it overcomes the Fireball.

In my mind as a host, the first two times I allowed Exlink in his post to destroy these fireballs.... and yet later... why did it not work? The answer is simple things have changed. In the first two scenarios I as a Host knew that Snow was underestimating or didn't know the extent of Zagi's((Exlink's character, will be easier to use his name at this point.)) ability. Therefore it's easy to see that under this situation the player's desired outcome would be the effective outcome. Snow is at an information disadvantage ((it can be argued that Zagi was as well however, Ice tends to be weaker to Fire at least in Graterras.)). However, once she knows a rough estimate of his fire's power she changes her strategy. Due to how much more powerful she is and her access to multiple elements, Snow takes this advantage into account and uses her ability to create wind and thunder to wrap the blade of ice in this access element. The bubble of "hard" air or thunder weakens the fireball enough that the Ice dashes right through it this time rather than being destroyed.

As a host, one can react in their post to say, "This is the real outcome" rather than just let the player's outcome be the truth. ((which is where they say oh this doesn't work this way edit that post. DON'T do that. Leave the old post, BUT make sure to explain why it didn't work or why it failed enough that it doesn't seem like an ass pull lol.))

Now, this only works in a host vs Player situation. What about Players against other Players? Well, it gets harder for a host to exactly mediate that however it's still possible. I have a lot less experience here since a lot of the RPs I tend to run are more linear focused and tend to involve me in interactions more often. With the Pokemon based RP we see this. We know those rules to some extent because we have a frame of reference for how things should work ((the anime, games, etc...)) and thus have a canon to pull fromt hat allow us to more easily evaluate without the Host always coming in. We as players can rationalize it out between each other because we know that more easily how to deal with something when it arises. This more or less needs to be what happens in other RPs with this interaction and yet we seem to be dependent entirely on the host at times. ((of course they should ahve last word on any rulings, buuuuuut if we as players can outline things and talk them out and reach a place where it seems reasonable that less work the Host has to figure out on their own etc...))

This is part of the reason for Heartless Souls I'm going to be creating a Spell/Martial Arts index and allow the PLAYERS ((yes you heard that gosh darn correct I said players.)), not only help to create them but to also figure out where they go etc... This way we have our own spells and things and we know Exactly what the do and how they do it. Part of what is needed is the ability for players to feel like they understand the bounds of the world. In a world were those aren't given things go poorly. I noticed this in Graterras original. The Spellcasters had a lot of trouble and didn't care for their characters as much because they didn't know what they could do and how they could do somethings liek progress and get more powerful. THis was a failing on my part as a host because I didn't give them the tools or the understanding to use those tools effectively. This caused a few problems and it showed in a lot of situations. Spellcasting characters I made I knew the rules of the Magic... and they ended up being much more effective and powerful then the PC Spellcasters as a result.

However, I believe that making players be part of the rules system and figuring out the Boundaries along with you as the host makes it more interesting. They are willing to try things more because you give them the free reign to do so. If the Host and Players are comfortable with it one can just canonize that and make it part of how things work, and otherwise you can drop it. Getting the players involved in creating the World with you helps take things along. The Host is another Player after all, they want to have fun too. So, it's okay if the Players help create the world too. After all we're all creating something here. Let's do it together rather than hoarding certain parts lol. Besides it gives many perspectives and thought when it comes to seeing things from multiple angles. The Host's main job would be to make the final judgement call and commit it to the game etc... but everyone could be a part of the others aspects. At least, I think so at the very least. It's why I am making a lot more systems where PLAYERS get to create things rather than giving them pre-fab stuff to choose from and figure out later. If they are already thinking of how they can create abilities and how to balance themselves, it only helps further down the line as they start to try and understand the world and everyone works to a more cohesive picture of that world and how it works.

[Felicity]

Note: I was using the chekov examples for their general application rather than literal meanings. They're mentioned, they can be noticed by the reader and if the readers smart, the reader can figure out what they're meant for.

[Kurotsune]

My personal opinion is as simple as: Y'all are creating a lot of rules and taking the "game" aspect out of it. Let people play how they want to play, lest this stops being a game and becomes a chore.

If this forum can't maintain itself while staying true to the idea of having fun above all, then let it perish. It happens.

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

My personal opinion is as simple as: Y'all are creating a lot of rules and taking the "game" aspect out of it. Let people play how they want to play, lest this stops being a game and becomes a chore.

If this forum can't maintain itself while staying true to the idea of having fun above all, then let it perish. It happens.

That's the only thing I've ever upvoted. ((mostly cause I don't really care about systems as such. But eh... sometimes you just need to XD))

Rules... while we need some shouldn't be the focus. There's no rule that can ever cover everything, every situation. Things should be in the name of fun and keeping that in mind. There's a reason Rules Lawyers are annoying to people in Dungeons and Dragons and the like... because that's not the point. ((they are useful if you know what you are doing but I'd rather not get into talking about DnD too much lol.))

We're writing a story together in an RP, Players and hosts. We all need to remember that we each have our parts to play, and those parts will vary in importance and how much and what they do from RP to RP, however... We are working together. Each one of us so go the lengths to push what we can do and what we can think of and not be too afraid of rules and things holding us back. After all... people that have played Tabletop with me... know that if a Player does something exceptional... I'll bend a rule. ((never to get them out of something like dying... they still would, but perhaps I'd give them a moment of awesome, or allow them to roll where they normally could not so they had a chance to succeed even if it was slim.)) Saying No is boring. Saying "Yes, but" "Yes, and", "No, But," is way more interesting. Rules won't solve the issue, it's not the problem. The problem is players thinking the have to 100% follow them at all times and that the rules work against them. The rules should work WITH THEM. That's how you know a system is working... because you are not fighting to have fun... that it comes naturally. This is true within Tabletops... and within Forum RP. At least I believe as such lol. Rules should focus and help, not pigeon-hole or restrict. They should naturally lead the content to where it should be and guide them along rather than push them down the path that is wanted.

If this is well-known... I believe players will be able to move forth and you know try things. Not be afraid of a rule saying that they can't. They should be encouraged to try and not 100% beholden to doing certain things. Sometimes, the preset outcome... is way less interesting than something a Player randomly comes up with lol. We should allow this creativity to grow an flourish... since we as players will have more fun, and we hosts will also have more fun. Don't worry about doing wrong etc... just worry about playing your character the best that you can etc... Sometimes we might have to look at something, and figure it out see if it's okay... but that doesn't mean that it's entirely an error. One can never know something won't work until it doesn't work. If one doesn't push that... you'll never know. So, rather than worry... put it out there. I think one might be surprised at how accepting of things some hosts are. While we won't take everything... remember we're trying to have fun too jsut like you guys. So if it's awesome for the story... you best beleive we'll be like "Hell yea that's freaking awesome!!!"

Now keep in mind, I'm not saying break all the rules and give no shits. What i'm saying is to not worry aobut trying things. Some rules are necesary as they say what not to do and keeps everyone enjoying the game. Bunnying sucks since it takes the control away from the character's creator, metagaming sucks because they are in attempt to subvert what's going on and to ruin the story. ((and this is where it should be known that Metagaming is the intent to do that for your character's benefit and only their benefit. It doesn't serve to do anything interesting with the plot but maybe even subtract from it.)). If one's not sure if they would be or not... Ask people. See what the group thinks or the host. I remember that in Aftermath the first RP I palyed in here... before a battle with another player I talked to them in PM to dicuss what we'd end up with the outcome being. We wouldn't play out the fight entirely but we'd get an idea of where we wanted to go. These things can be helpful to avoid Meta'ing and the like. Talk to your other palyers. They want as good a story as you, if you're stuck on an idea since you're not sure if it's against the rules... BE VOCAL. Talk about it, ask if it's okay, ask if people think it's a good idea. SOme of them will say say... maybe no. Some will even help you improve it, or make it so that it is soemthing good. This is a process with more than one person. The people RP'ing with you... are an important resource. Remember this.

[Kurotsune]

That's the only thing I've ever upvoted. ((mostly cause I don't really care about systems as such. But eh... sometimes you just need to XD))

You melt my frozen heart.

As always, I am alongside Hukuna in his words, and I add to them this:

The burden falls on the host.

If the writer is bad, I won't create or follow rules to enjoy the book.

If the game is bad, I won't create or follow rules to play the game.

If the movie is bad, I won't create or follow rules to watch the movie.

In all these cases, I'll simply walk away.

This is always going to come back to the host and their writing. Creating games around player interaction won't fix that. Creating rules won't fix that.

If anything, those will kill the forum faster.

Find out why people aren't playing, talk to them one-on-one, approach them in private, offer to teach and review what they write - A good number of people in this forum know I've done this constantly to try and improve some of the quality in some member's posts.

But ultimately, adapt and evolve. Don't try to change the audience to fit your views, change your views to fit your audience.

[Commander]

My personal opinion is as simple as: Y'all are creating a lot of rules and taking the "game" aspect out of it. Let people play how they want to play, lest this stops being a game and becomes a chore.

If this forum can't maintain itself while staying true to the idea of having fun above all, then let it perish. It happens.

Truthfully, I can't really say anything against this because of how true it is. Not much else to really say as it's really true. I think we all kind of got wrapped up in the whole what we need to do when we should've been asking more why instead. From my experiences, it feels like the community is pointing out more of the wrongs then the rights. If somebody is powerplaying or metaing, they get called out on it. Sometimes we get a little bit too negative that people are afraid of stuff and will go all out to try and avoid it.

Actually, I have a good example from Ymora with that trial with Exlink. One very interesting conversation in the PM was about why he was dodging so much with his Arcanine. It turned out he was afraid that it would be KO'd if it landed in the water. It sounds strange, but you can't really blame someone who is trying to be careful. I simply told him that it wouldn't be good on his Arcanine, but it didn't mean the match was over and he lost. I think I also gave notes on what he was doing right as well and a couple things that surprised me.

Now I did write stuff for fun before joining this RP section (mostly novels) and I can tell you a lot of why half these changes and ideas won't work. Writing is a form of expression and freedom and quite frankly, that's half the reason I enjoy it. I wouldn't want a guy going over my shoulder saying, "Hey, you got a lot of potential being a great sci-fi writer, but here's the stuff you got to make sure to include and how you need to do it." Heck no, I'll do it the way I want to do it. It's quite boring when there's standards and rules you have to follow. It's more fun to learn from your mistakes and fix the issues later on. Sometimes a player can give advice, but the host won't always listen (and shouldn't imo).

Yes, I did say that you shouldn't listen to advice and criticism and I do stand to that unless it contains the good, the bad, and the stuff that kind of just seems to work. This is pretty much how I take criticism too is that if it's missing any of those parts, I ignore. If somebody gives me a list of everything I did wrong and possibilities to fix it, that's worthless to me. How can I fix those things when I don't know what I'm doing right? A comment of praise of skills is the same. How can I improve if I don't know what I'm doing wrong? There's also things that seem to work, but having someone mention it will make me aware and to see if it's possible I can improve of it in the future. This applies so much to new RPers. I could tell you the things I've done wrong since joining, but I'm still uncertain of the things I'm doing right or even if I'm an interesting RPer. Kind of hard to enjoy something if you don't know whether or not you're doing a good job.

tl;dr People will join something if they are interested. People will be more active or try to stay if they enjoy it. People will leave if they lose interest. People will be less active when they aren't having fun or are unsure of themselves. Nothing else matters. No rules, no style, no genre, no layout changes.

[Chevaleresse]

This is quite the old thread, but I'm bringing it back up because not only has this issue not gotten better, it seems to have actually gotten worse over time. I won't name any names for the sake of confidentiality, but we have hosts that are now flat out giving up on certain ideas or rebooting certain older RPs because people simply don't do anything. It's really hard to run an open-world or character-driven RP because no one takes initiative as has been discussed earlier.

[Jory]

In Pokemon: LD I've tried to account for this through the Side Quest system and desiring player input; however, we haven't gotten out of the intro yet. I hope to be out of the intro and into more player choice by mid-April, but that's pretty aggressive considering what the timeline has looked like so far.

The way I figure, it will provide an opportunity for people to give their character and their background a bit of spotlight while still allowing others to do their own thing. I've also made an effort to encourage this by indicating that Side Quests are the only way to acquire a "Rare" Pokemon.

It remains to be seen how effective this system will be, but I hope that between the Side Quests I've been designing and the occasional player-designed one we'll be able to see more user-created content throughout the RP.