If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP

[surreality]

@egg It is a gorgeous area. I grew up around 30 minutes from there and am back where I started out now. I was on Gay St. (shut up, MSB) between Matlack and Walnut in the cutest courtyard ever. The apartment was a dream and a steal... but, uh, because not the tenant just before me, but the person before them, murdered someone there rather gruesomely.

Meanwhile, me: "Is that real wood paneling and ceiling beams? Stained glass? Two story? Full kitchen? Additional attic storage?! Builtin shelves?!?!?!"

Landlord: "Most people are more disturbed by the..."

Me: "I'm more disturbed that y'all are otherwise trying to rent one room attic apartments with a single closet you couldn't fit a towel in for $650 and a hotplate passing for a kitchen, with no air conditioning and a space heater."

Landlord: "Fair enough!"

[Ominous]

@surreality said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

Me: "I'm more disturbed that y'all are otherwise trying to rent one room attic apartments with a single closet you couldn't fit a towel in for $650 and a hotplate passing for a kitchen, with no air conditioning and a space heater."

Well...it is Westchester. I'm surprised it didn't cost a human kidney every month.

[surreality]

@Ominous The scary part is that this was 1993. (The place we got was $425, though. I MEAN... )

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@egg said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@L-B-Heuschkel People are struggling, but they were also not RPing with me in 2019, pre-pandemic, when I started this thread. So there's that!

It's interesting to me, because I am RPing more during this whole thing not less. I want a distraction and social interaction. In theory, MU*s are both, except when you have to endlessly hustle to RP, and then they're just unfun.

Not disagreeing in the slightest. I gave up on MU*s around 2010 because of this. I'm in Europe, and RP? RP meant having to be online from midnight to 6am to get any. Simply not an option.

Ares made it possible for me to get back into the hobby. Where I play (Gray Harbor) there are players in the US who are able to RP (if work slow) through the Ares interface during the mornings US time (which are my late afternoons and evenings), and players who are cool with slow scenes that don't happen in realtime.

I struggle with focus too when slow scenes take more than 12-24 hours for a pose round but it's a price I'm willing to pay. Most still resolve in a couple of days, not weeks. Live scenes are definitely more fun, but time zones means this is simply not an option for me most of the time. I understand that for some, slow scenes are difficult. It's just that for some of us, they're the difference as to whether the game is playable or not -- whether the reason is being on another continent, chronic illness, or other tardiness.

Finding RP from Central European Time has always been difficult. The one 'up' about it is that the people who are willing to make the effort usually are invested roleplayers -- the scenes I get are usually pretty full of content, not just random bar banter and people trying to score. Every cloud has its silver lining.

[peasoupling]

@bear_necessities said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@Alamias Yes, Gray Harbor is my game which I made specifically because of the lack of those kinds of games My point still stands, and the popularity that both Spirit Lake and my game have seen are a result of a lack of games in those categories.

I will say, and this is not meant as a dig at Gray Harbor, at all, which I had a lot of fun on, is that one reason I fizzled out and couldn't get back into it (besides being a horrible flake) was that things got a bit Dream-centered and heavy on the magical realism for me. I loved reading about it but I couldn't relate to playing on it, in a way, precisely because I was hoping for something more lowkey there. There's a lot of room for different ways of approaching a modern or modern-ish setting, so it's not like the niche is full at all.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@peasoupling said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@bear_necessities said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@Alamias Yes, Gray Harbor is my game which I made specifically because of the lack of those kinds of games My point still stands, and the popularity that both Spirit Lake and my game have seen are a result of a lack of games in those categories.

I will say, and this is not meant as a dig at Gray Harbor, at all, which I had a lot of fun on, is that one reason I fizzled out and couldn't get back into it (besides being a horrible flake) was that things got a bit Dream-centered and heavy on the magical realism for me. I loved reading about it but I couldn't relate to playing on it, in a way, precisely because I was hoping for something more lowkey there. There's a lot of room for different ways of approaching a modern or modern-ish setting, so it's not like the niche is full at all.

It's not at all full, and the more games are out there, the easier it'll be finding one that works for you. Personally I enjoy the people and community bits of Gray Harbor more than I do the metaplot and the dream magic, but if anything, that's the power of that setting: That you can make it as realistic or not realistic as you want. Some players want all the magic action and some players prefer a light sprinkle of supernatural but mostly everyday problems. I'm on the latter end of the scale there, but the buffet style approach of the setting seems to be working (at least for me).

[Ganymede]

West Chester? Cincinnati?

Now y’all talking about my neck of the woods.

Still want to play and staff a game centered around Dayton.

My last PC was raised there.

[Aria]

@Ganymede said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

West Chester? Cincinnati?

Now y’all talking about my neck of the woods.

Still want to play and staff a game centered around Dayton.

My last PC was raised there.

Pssst. She means West Chester, PA. Not West Chester, OH.

It's a suburb of Philadelphia, where one of our more popular state universities is located. (In fact, @insomniac7809 almost went to school there.) And it's a big part of why I'm super surprised I've never seen a WoD game set in the area. People seem to spend a lot of time making up super weird settings that work for sprawling Werewolf territories but also major populations for Vampire feeding grounds and monstrous skyscrapers for dudes who want to play "The Wolf of Wall Street" and and and.....

And I'm just over here like, "You know that city already exists, right? The Comcast Center is definitely where the Panopticon is headquartered and is also, like, maybe twenty miles from the cows I drive past on my way to work."

[Xetetic]

This post is deleted!

[thesuntsar]

@bear_necessities said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@thesuntsar Generic Lords & Ladies: The Mush! is going to be an AWESOME game dammit.

THE BEST

[bear_necessities]

@surreality said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@egg It is a gorgeous area. I grew up around 30 minutes from there and am back where I started out now. I was on Gay St. (shut up, MSB) between Matlack and Walnut in the cutest courtyard ever

Uhhhh did you grow up in Phoenixville? <.<

[Sunny]

@Xetetic

Yeah, I get it? But the point of bringing old friends in is to have a security blanket while you make new friends, not to have them occupy the entirety of your time. Intending to occupy your time with just old friends completely defeats the purpose of bringing them in in the first place. So maybe answer that question with 'Meet new people and expand our social circle so we all have more fun down the road'.

ETA: My suggestions are to be taken as training wheels for when you're coming in flat cold. They're a temporary measure, something to keep you connected to Somebody while you do the work (yes, it's work) of entrenching yourself / making new friends. If someone is helping you with this work (even just by being there to chat so you don't feel completely isolated), it's easier work to do. Once you've established yourself on any given game, you won't need any of these tricks -- you'll have people to play with, and will be able to get started.

[Alamias]

@bear_necessities said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@Alamias lol I can't stop watching and smiling at that gif

Yeah, sorry. That was a bit em-bear-assing.

[krmbm]

@peasoupling said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

There's a lot of room for different ways of approaching a modern or modern-ish setting, so it's not like the niche is full at all.

Amen, sista. Or brotha. Or whateva.

Even as the person that helped create and then drive a game that has admittedly gone way off the supernatural rails, I would very much like a modern-ish setting (80s or 90s, something pre-internet because that really makes "research" a pointless skill and also no cell phones, they're just too goddamn convenient and ruin plots).

A Calaveras-style sandbox set in the 80s or 90s... just with a little more staff oversight to keep players from steamrolling each others' stories... I would play that at least casually. Which is all I can play anything at all anymore.

[Ganymede]

@Sunny said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

But the point of bringing old friends in is to have a security blanket while you make new friends, not to have them occupy the entirety of your time. Intending to occupy your time with just old friends completely defeats the purpose of bringing them in in the first place. So maybe answer that question with 'Meet new people and expand our social circle so we all have more fun down the road'.

This is why I'm eyeing a return to form at Arx.

[Roz]

@Ganymede It'd be cool to actually RP with you for the first time.

[Lisse24]

@Ganymede I eye it now and again, but then I think it goes back to what @Sunny said earlier about coming in cold. I'd want to go where I know I'd find RP.

My last two Arx attempts fizzled because the amount of good, relationship-building RP I was getting on there wasn't worth the amount of grinding in that game.

That being said. If anyone wants to toss a character or a concept or come on to that game together, shoot me a DM.

[Auspice]

I am always happy to welcome people into Blackram and provide hooks.

I've failed at trying to make roster characters for the House, but I can absolutely help someone build a character and get them involved in plot from the get-go.

[surreality]

@bear_necessities Nah, I'm in Wilmington. So it was just right up 202 as a straight shot, more or less. (Or take the pretty back roads through -- people will swear I made this up but I didn't -- beaver valley -- to drool on the scenery and pretty houses.)

[egg]

Alright, I'll throw this out here too: I'm new on The Savage Skies and trying to make connections. If you wanna make connections too, please PM me.

I can't do Arx, so I guess this is the next best thing.