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

[Tinuviel]

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

@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.

There's also a difference in what people consider as 'scheduling'. "Oh when we're next on together we really have to talk about X" vs "Next Monday at eight pm we have to do a thing." The former is easier to work with, given that sometimes we don't really get to decide when we're available, the latter is saner but not as malleable as sometimes we need.

[Snackness]

@Tinuviel I, at least, was referring to the latter.

[Derp]

The other part of that is:

Concrete is better than general.

Don't just offer random social RP without a purpose. Offer social RP in a specific venue for a specific purpose. 'Anyone wanna meet at the coffee shop' is much weaker than 'Who would be down for karaoke night?'

Always have an actual plan when it comes to RP, and don't make others pick the venue/purpose. Offer concrete examples. Be flexible to negotiation. You'll find that this isn't nearly as hard as it seems.

[Thenomain]

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

When I feel like I am having a hard time finding RP, I find other venues in which to RP. My quest is often fairly short.

More details please, because what @krmbm said would be disallowed on many of the WoD games I used to play on.

[Tinuviel]

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

@Tinuviel I, at least, was referring to the latter.

Eh, most folk that object to making solid scheduled plans are folks that have variable or otherwise unpredictable schedules. We don't like making hard "at this specific time" plans because there's no way we can guarantee we'll be available/ready/willing/whatever at that time. Due to work, children, mood, alignment of planets, or whatever.

[faraday]

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

The former is easier to work with, given that sometimes we don't really get to decide when we're available, the latter is saner but not as malleable as sometimes we need.

I am always reluctant to be pinned down to a specific time, because I'm generally spacey about time and meetings (see the ADHD thread) and because my RL is kind of chaotically unpredictable. But I'm always happy to maintain a "dance card" of people I owe scenes to, and will ping them when we're both on next to see if they're up for it.

That's also partly why I made the Ares scene system work the way it did. Not everyone can multi-scene effectively, but for those who can it's nice to not have to make fake clone alts or whatever just to do it.

[Tinuviel]

@faraday Agreed. I have children, and work that demands my time outside of the classroom. Along with my own suite of mental fuckery. Those are my priorities, so I'm not going to make promises (which, really, are what concrete plans are) I can't be sure I can keep.

[faraday]

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

Always have an actual plan when it comes to RP, and don't make others pick the venue/purpose. Offer concrete examples. Be flexible to negotiation. You'll find that this isn't nearly as hard as it seems.

One thing I haven't seen much of, but wonder how it would fly, is something like... "Anybody want to RP? If you're interested I'll pitch something specific to our chars and we can figure something out." That at least shows that you're willing to meet them halfway on doing the pitch work, but allows you to do something more targeted than "random scene in random public place."

[Tinuviel]

The aforementioned reasons are, I think, really why the "finding RP" problem has shifted among us old fogies. We have less disposable time available, and we have less say in when we can use that disposable time. So we want to use it, when we have it, more wisely.

There's probably some psychologically interesting things going on, something like the older we get the more we appreciate accomplishment over 'play', but I don't know. All I do know is that we have X amount of time, the more vocal of us prefer having that time occupied by doing, rather than just floating.

[Ganymede]

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

'Does anyone want to RP' sounds like 'someone please entertain me'.

There are better ways of doing things.

I do fine with: "I'll be over <here>, if anyone wants to RP."

I make it a point to be ready with a set if anyone comes along, though.

If I don't have the ability to set, I will ask to join others.

That's how I've changed over the years.

[PuppyBreath]

I've largely given up on RP with the shift in culture. Scheduling doesn't work well for me because my anxiety means I probably won't show up to our appointment because I've been stressing out about it since we set it up. I'm not proactive, I don't enjoy constant plots, and I enjoy playing aloof antagonists who have no reason to just randomly be places. I set myself up for failure, and then I fail. It's stressful, rarely fun, and few of the people I want to RP with give a shit about RPing with me. So now I pretend I'll write a book one day to fill the void, if I can just come up with something worth writing. Which is exactly why I suck at being proactive about RP to begin with.

[egg]

@SG As a person who plays "brooding strangers" and 'quirky' characters almost exclusively, I 100% agree with you that the onus is on the broody/quirky person to create RP in a public scene. But, I don't necessarily agree with the notion that I should have some idea what I'm doing before I even attempt to engage with someone. I'm a big fan of "let's put these hamsters in a bag with a mouse and see what happens." Or some other variant on that very strange choice of metaphor.

TL;DR: Yes, anyone playing an introvert needs to attempt to interact with others in a scene, or you may as well disconnect and go work on your novel. But I want my RP to feel spontaneous.

[egg]

@Tinuviel Ah! You used the 'p' word -- but see, that's what I miss.That's exactly what's been bothering me. The lack of play. Everything is on the timetable now, just like the rest of our lives -- I guess I get sick of it.

I do get what everyone's saying here, and like I said before, I'm also a grownup with a job/life/etc., but having to work to play is exactly why I made this post...

[Altair]

To be honest, I cannot think of many hobbies that don't require some work to... well, make work. It's one thing if having to schedule things in a day planner makes things feel too much like a second job -- that's a way some people feel that is perfectly valid. But I can't picture any pursuit involving collaboration with other people that doesn't require at least some effort to get some return.

I tried a new game recently. I wound up too busy to put in the work to make inroads. I wasn't too surprised when no one played with me. I hadn't given them any reason to want to, or even know that I was there.

If ever there's a situation where we're enjoying something without having to do any work for it, it's usually because the burden of doing the work is being carried by someone else.

[Tinuviel]

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

I do get what everyone's saying here, and like I said before, I'm also a grownup with a job/life/etc., but having to work to play is exactly why I made this post...

Sure, and what we're saying is, essentially, "get used to it." That's the way it is now, and it's not really a bad thing. It's just a thing.

[faraday]

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

The lack of play.... having to work to play is exactly why I made this post

I think part of the disconnect is right here. Your definition of play is different than mine, and I'd venture to say a good number of MU players these days. As @Tinuviel said - that's not good or bad, it's just a thing.

I don't RP just for the sake of RPing. RP for me isn't just about putting words on the screen, it's about telling an interesting, meaningful story with my character. There are lots of ways to do this, but in my experience "hey, random person, let's meet up in random place and just see what happens" rarely gets you there. Those scenes aren't bad for building relationships (and I don't just mean romantic relationships), but they are a means to an end; not the real meat of the story.

It didn't used to be that way. When I was MUSHing in college and had all the time in the world, putzing around with hours and hours of Random Meetup RP was fun. Not any more. My free time is precious, and I want to "spend" it on something more than "Hi, how's the weather, let's share backstories or chat aimlessly about the latest IC event." Which is what 90% of Random Meetup RP ends up being.

[Tinuviel]

The older we get, and the more full our lives get, time becomes more of a commodity. We want to invest it wisely, getting the most bang for our buck, as it were. Some people really, really enjoy the wandering of a grid and random circumstance-based RP, and I'm sure that if a game is designed around that then it will prosper.

But a lot of us (again a reminder that we are a tiny corner of a tiny corner of the MU* population) feel like RP that doesn't accomplish a goal is wasteful in some way. And that's fine too.

[juke]

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

but having to work to play is exactly why I made this post...

Maybe as Fara said, this is the major difference. For me, figuring out what I wanna do with somebody -- not the whole scene, mind you, just the idea, the scenario -- isn't work, it's actually part of the fun. I get to come up with a situation, any situation, within the limits of my imagination (and the theme), and find out what happens if characters get thrown into it. If it's something we're both excited to explore, that excitement totally carries over into the RP.

For me, 'what if...our characters, two people with conflicting agendas who don't know each other at all, randomly met on a riverboat that had a poker tournament on it and tried to work those angles?' -- isn't work, that's like 'holy shit yes, let's go do that right now.' (Spoilers: the riverboat broke in half and sank, on fire. True story.)

We didn't plan what would happen, and I didn't know what their character's agenda was. They didn't know what mine was. We just knew they were the type to be Up To Something, and glorious mayhem unfolded.

On a game with supernatural elements, I was like, 'let's do a fucking ghost ship,' so we did. It wound up having time loops where nobody could die, while our characters tried to figure out how to put the ghost ship to rest. We didn't know that would happen, either. It totally happened IC. But, 'ghost ship' was my 'fuck yeah!' starting point. It doesn't have to be work! It can be fun. ^.^

[faraday]

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

For me, 'what if...our characters, two people with conflicting agendas who don't know each other at all, randomly met on a riverboat that had a poker tournament on it and tried to work those angles?' -- isn't work, that's like 'holy shit yes, let's go do that right now.' (Spoilers: the riverboat broke in half and sank, on fire. True story.)

This exactly. That scenario would be like: "Heck yeah!" Versus, "Anybody wanna RP on the riverboat?", which strikes me as something most likely to end up with a bunch of folks just sitting around posing poker hands or chilling at the bar doing nothing of consequence. The scene doesn't need to be (and shouldn't be) scripted, but it at least needs an interesting launching-off point.

If that's what floats your boat (pun intended) - more power to you! I'm not trying to call WrongFun here. It just doesn't do it for me any more.

[egg]

@Tinuviel I'm used to it. Doesn't mean I have to like it...