@egg said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:
(By the way, I am also a working adult with an alleged life, just like everyone else in the hobby.)
A lot of us weren't, back when we started. That did make things easier.
@insomniac7809 Oh, I'm well aware 'cuz I was one of them, too.
@egg said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:
Is this just me getting old or cranky, or is there some legitimate pattern here I'm picking up on? Have RPers become less spontaneous and more specific about who or what they will RP?
To answer this original question, there is legitimately a pattern that has changed. The hobby is very (very) different now than it was 25+ years ago, and so are all of us that are still doing it.
@egg Of course there are no guarantees (which is why a lot of Mu players stick to folks who are known quantities). I’m not saying you’re wrong to be bummed about it, but I do disagree that it’s an unreasonable amount of work to find RP. Pitch a scene on channel and take your chances. If nobody’s biting on a repeated basis during “prime time” hours, that could be a sign of an unhealthy game, or perhaps something for you to work on with your play style or character to make it easier to hook in others.
I think Arx has a lot of old school "spontaneity" that a lot of other games do not as far as strangers being findable and rpable in public spaces. It is still hard work a lot of the time to work into deeper play. I am not sure it was ever "easier", I just had a lot of time and patience for bad behavior when I was a younger woman. 
If you decide to give arx a try feel free to ping me too! I would be happy to help!
I am always open to RP with new people (and have made some great friends the past few years because of it), but I am one of these people with a limited schedule (I wake up at 5:45am right now! that's gonna change next week, but right now it means I cannot be up late).
So, I can't be just dithering around sitting in rooms waiting to RP. I can't just meander the grid.
I absolutely toss out a hook and a plan on channel: 'Hey, I'm going to <X> location to <whatever I wanna do>.'
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I find as time passes, as people get to know me, it works more and more. And it's more successful on smaller games where people are better able to get to know each other. Are we all 'close knit'? Naw. But we have a 'feel' for one another so it's not a scary dive into something wholly unknown. It's why I personally lean towards smaller games, tbh. I find a small game with a crowd that has similar-ish RP times to me nets more RP than a big game full of unknown factors. At least for me / in my experience.
If MSB taught me anything its that I don't want to RP with anyone anymore because no matter what you do, its some peeve to someone... I joke, kinda.
There was some time maybe a year ago where I was going through what you are now @egg and I found its better to just be cool. Chill out, relax, reach out for RP and if nothing is going on kick open NetFlix or fire up the PS4 and burn some energy on something else.
Other players could be semi-afk where they want to believe they will have time to RP even though they probably won't. Then there is people like me where I know we'll play then I'll find myself asking why I'm doing this instead of the 5billion other things I should be doing and end up running off.
As people have explained most players now are older with more to do. But I'm sure you can find a game and a nitch if you just look. Discord may help too with all the servers that have the same players. Could help you build up a little ooc connection to figure out where to fit in on some game somewhere.
I think the atmosphere of MUSHing has changed in the sense that you need to be proactive in your search for RP. Like a few people said, putting on the RP request board that you're looking for RP doesn't really get as much of a response anymore as offering up some kind of scene idea, for example.
I also see people have way more success when they are sitting in a public space with an RP flag on (as long as they make it known that they have a public scene open). Ares makes that a little easier with you being able to tag a scene "open", and then you give a shout out on RP Request or whatever channel going "hey I started a scene at the diner, come on down if you want RP".
@egg I would think of it less as 'dangling something enticing on RP Requests channel' and more as 'doing the work to set up the idea of the scene when you're the one who wants to RP.'
While it can be a pain in the butt to come up with a scene idea when you have no guarantee that anyone will join it, there's very little more annoying than someone coming on RP Requests to say "Hey, anyone want to RP" and then when you say "Sure, what did you have in mind," they say "Oh, I don't know. You want to go to a bar?"
@Seraphim73 said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:
there's very little more annoying than someone coming on RP Requests to say "Hey, anyone want to RP" and then when you say "Sure, what did you have in mind," they say "Oh, I don't know. You want to go to a bar?"
Yes, I honestly hate this v much.
Person: 'Anyone wanna RP?'
Me: 'Sure! What did you have in mind!'
Person: 'I dunno. What do you wanna do?'
...Please don't put the onus on me, Person! You tossed out the idea to RP. Gimme a hook. An idea, a place, something. This is the entire reason why I'm hesitant, sometimes, to respond to such vague queries, because these days it's become more common than not that if I reply...... I'm suddenly the one who has to come up with everything. The location. The idea. The scene set. I feel like I'm their sole source of entertainment rather than a collaborator.
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
Time to spam! For me, the major factors to getting RP are:
I second @juke that I personally cannot RP now the way I used to years ago. I was able to indulge this hobby as a college student with far more flexibility in terms of schedule and availability. At least for me, gone are the days I could sit and write at my own leisure.
I certainly don't speak for everyone, but my adult life is pathologically scheduled. Some people don't need to do this, and I will never fault them for it, or think them 'less busy' than I am. It's just what I have to do to have sanity. All I ask in return is that baseline of respect for how I do things, and not told 'well, you could do it a lot better', or 'I have other hobbies and commitments too, but I can still make myself available for RP for two hours, why can't you?'
I don't want to do that. This admittedly makes me a shit candidate for 'do you want to scene tonight?' requests. I do feel guilty that I can't indulge requests like that, or, even worse, I have to say no because I'm already going off to complete a scene that I scheduled with someone two weeks ago. I get it looks bad, but it's the way it is. To compensate, I try to engage in lounges when I have free time, and try to remain accessible when it comes to offering/receiving scene requests. I've been stood up a lot of times when I've scheduled time with people, whether something comes up the evening of or they've simply forgotten. That is also the way it is. I try not to take it too personally.
I don't require someone to be my friend to RP with me. I appreciate when someone is easy-going and engaging (and not going 'RP?' and leaving me to figure out the logistics), but I'm always happy to share the workload when it comes to staging scenes. In scene, I'll do my best to hook someone into plots I may know about, and when I have a scene with a friendly person, I will work hard behind the scenes to recommend them OOCly to friends.
What does turn me off is when someone comes in with an entitlement to RP, and I can taste the resentment within the first few seconds of interaction. I can't help if I schedule. I can't help that I only have minimal time. Deal with it, or don't deal with it. I, or you, or anyone is not owed RP by virtue of putting work into apping on a game. That's the nature of the beast, and among games I've either had a wealth of opportunity, or a truly shit time where I'd log in to find the story has progressed ten chapters past what I hoped to do. It's no one's fault. If someone approaches me with the sort of accusatory tone like it's my fault we haven't RPed, or someone else's fault they're not getting RP, it's already super awkward, and the very last thing I want to do is scene with them.
Which segues into point #2. Game cultures vary. I've been on games where you have to schedule to get anything. I've been on games where I was looked at funny for not auto-joining public grid scenes or waiting in IC rooms to get RP, and asking in the lounge was considered odd. Playerbases can be so variable that I just can't assume much. I think this agrees with a lot of the replies on this thread, and people are helpfully offering specific games whose PBs prefer not to schedule everything as rigourously as I would.
I find, however, the people who get the most RP are the same people who are doing the most work to get it. People who know exactly what they want, and aren't afraid to chase, corner, and pin down people with invitations to do things -- and they do it skillfully (they make scenes about the other person, they run something as an official event, etc etc). I think we have to put in a disproportionate amount of work into this hobby to get what we want; it's the nature of a cooperative environment.
Lots of good stuff in this thread. A couple of things by way of response for me personally:
@egg said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:
@juke Not everyone has the luxury of a decades-long RP superfriends group.
That's true, but what I said still works. Like...I recently went off on an adventure of curiosity to a game without telling a single one of my usual crew, just because I wanted to try something different, on my own. It was @faraday's BSG: Unification game. I didn't know a single soul there (or at least, I didn't know that I did, even if it turns out that @Seraphim73 and his wife were there, hah). I still didn't have trouble getting into RP, though. It was toward the end of the game's life cycle, but I had a marvelous time and met a lot of lovely people, and produced a whole lot of logs in a very short amount of time. I find I rarely ever struggle to get RP unless there are extenuating factors on a grid contributing to people's availability, etc. (or my own inconsistent availability creates problems).
It's definitely not because my shit doesn't stink, or that I'm any more fun to RP with, or something. It's just that I've figured out a way to engage people that usually makes them interested in/willing to give me some of their time and energy, which are not small requests, these days, to make of people. And I try very hard to make sure that they come away from it feeling like that was worth it. Related to which:
@egg said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:
@krmbm Iif you are a more of a pantser than a plotter, as I am, you might not have an idea until specific characters are thrown together in a specific setting.
I think I'm a middle-ground person. I'm a pantser-plotter. I will have a very simple kernel of an idea that I think people involved will be into, and then we jump IC and see where it goes. My favorite players to play off of are people who do really interesting things with that, surprising me and taking it in unexpected directions, and we can riff story with one another all day long. It's a joy to see where a simple thing will go, with them. But, you still have to have a place to start.
And I'd talk about that, but I think a lot of people in the thread have already given a lot of solid suggestions about how to do that, anyway! Sometimes it's enough just to tell somebody you think they look fun to RP with and ask them what kinda scene they might enjoy so that you can come up with a reason to throw your characters in a room together.
Count my vote for "Yes, the nature of the hobby has changed, as the people involved have changed."
People generally have much less time to devote to RPing for several hours. I think the culture has shifted towards people scheduling in advance more often, or at least expecting a little bit more out of the RP that proposes to take up some of their scarce free time.
Maybe it's not universally true of every game, but it is true of most of the people I play with, and the games which I have played on.
I do feel bad about the optics that my need to schedule my scenes sometimes creates. It doesn't feel great to go ic away from a person asking for RP right that minute, because I had a prior appointment which was scheduled weeks ago. But it's just how I have to do things. I tend to need to be mentally prepared to do my scenes, anyway, so it's a rare time I can just pick up and go right when asked.
There is nothing personal about me telling you I can't RP until the end of the week, or into next week: what it means is no more than that I literally cannot. I can only give a promise to RP on the first day which I do come free.
I was pretty bummed to realize elsethread how many people hate scheduling. It’s an extremely rare case in which I can just do pickup rp. I don’t like it either, but it’s kind of schedule or nothing for me at this point.
@Snackness said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:
I was pretty bummed to realize elsethread how many people hate scheduling. It’s an extremely rare case in which I can just do pickup rp. I don’t like it either, but it’s kind of schedule or nothing for me at this point.
I am happy to schedule and in fact, I do sometimes put in my +finger notes (if games have them) that people can contact me to schedule. So if we ever run into each other on a game you can schedule with me.
~~I used to be very open to saying Yes Let's on channels but have had a such a long string of people who just one line back with no hooks that I've kind of given up. Aside from lazy players begging for rp, there are a lot of people out in mushdom who create antisocial characters who don't play well with strangers, and I just don't see how they get to complain after my character walks out of a scene where theirs is being an obnoxious jerk.~~
~~Like, I usually play regular types of people, if there's someone being a brooding stranger in the back of a cafe, they're not going to go interrupt them for no reason(I'm in the camp that the brooding loners have to create the hooks, sorry, don't put that responsibility on others), they're going to walk in, order their pie eat it and leave. If they're an obnoxious ranting lunatic, they'll order their pie to go.~~
~~I don't know if I've just worked customer service for too long, but I don't have the patience for 'quirky' characters who's players seem intent on making them as unlikable as possible, and then the players complain about no rp.~~~~
TL'DR: Many players are tired of high effort no reward scenes with people asking for random rp without putting any hooks in their requests.@Snackness said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:
I was pretty bummed to realize elsethread how many people hate scheduling. It’s an extremely rare case in which I can just do pickup rp. I don’t like it either, but it’s kind of schedule or nothing for me at this point.
I do not think it's a majority of people that don't like to schedule, but instead a very vocal minority, if that helps.
@Snackness said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:
I was pretty bummed to realize elsethread how many people hate scheduling. It’s an extremely rare case in which I can just do pickup rp. I don’t like it either, but it’s kind of schedule or nothing for me at this point.
I definitely find this hard to work with, though I figure if someone has this preference, it becomes on them to follow up on whatever scene they need so it actually happens. And if they don't, whelp, that's OK.
So, I've noticed things about 'getting RP'.
'Does anyone want to RP' sounds like 'someone please entertain me'.
There are better ways of doing things.
For instance, I rarely have a hard time finding RP, because my RP requests usually look more like 'I am gonna go do this thing, and am willing to ST for it. Anyone down?'
At that point, you are offering to entertain them, which makes it sound much less like a chore. And others will do the same, because that's how this tends to work.
Racism isn't Tinkerbell. It doesn't need you to believe in it for it to exist.
@egg I never have a problem finding RP
These are probably not the answers you're looking for, but there are very few Mushes that have settings that interest me personally.
