Ares Asynch Scenes

[Cupcake]

One of the things I love about Ares is the asynch format. Being able to post whenever you need to via the portal makes it easier for folks who are in different timezones or have busy schedules to participate in scenes.

However, it can be awkward when you start an asynch scene and for (sometimes perfectly valid, sometimes not) reasons, 3+ days, 7+ days, 10+ days go by, with no notification from other participants.

To circumvent this, is it reasonable to set a condition for desired response time, with requests for update if it's going to take longer? It can come through another player if necessary.

Is this micro-managing, or reasonable? I am seriously considering doing future asynch scenes with this caveat, but I feel a weather check is in order as to whether this is a reasonable expectation/request.

[Pacha]

@cupcake

I feel like this is totally reasonable.

[Pyrephox]

I think that's perfectly reasonable, yeah. And probably should be done more often, since some people think of async as 'once every couple of hours' or 'I have to go to sleep, but we can pick up tomorrow' and others see it as 'one pose every day or two'.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@cupcake Here is the spiel I usually set -- and I am the master of asyncs, largely because stupid European timezone.

OOC notes
This is an asynchronous scene, meaning that it does not happen in real-time. You'll have time to write, and it's okay to write a novel if you want to, but you don't have to -- short and sweet gets the job done too. I reserve the right to move scenes on after 24 hours of no activity, even if it means skipping someone.
Start time is when the first GM emit drops; being present at this time is not a requirement.

Because no, it is not at all unreasonable to clarify what your tolerance for downtime is. I have scenes I have negotiated privately that move maybe weekly because of the health or work situation of the other player, and that's fine. Because again, this was agreed on in advance -- that glacial would not be a problem.

It's not fair to keep someone waiting for weeks if you have not agreed that it's going to be like that.

I put that disclaimer in the event description, and I put it in an OOC line at the top of the scene when it begins, so that I am certain everyone has seen it.

[Derp]

Yeah, this is all reasonable. I mean, I have a scene that has been sitting idle for literally over a week now because of RL drama I have been attending and I feel bad even giving daily updates.

[Roz]

Absolutely reasonable, because people have incredibly divergent ideas regarding timing. (This is even the case for the "Distracted" label in Ares; some people think of distracted as 15-30 minutes, so people think it's a couple hours, etc.) If you're opening a new scene, I'd put it in the actual scene notes (the way you would if you wanted to limit the number of people at once for an open scene). Or if you're just putting together a private scene with someone, I'd just get a quick temperature check regarding expectations on both sides.

[faraday]

It's absolutely reasonable to clarify expectations, and that sort of thing is the intended purpose of the scene notes field.

I've played Storium a bit, which is entirely async, and i've noticed that the most successful games are ones where they post and enforce expectations of regular activity. (By enforce I mean moving the scene on without them if someone doesn't make a move.)

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@faraday That's what I do. If a scene is idle for 24 hours and I have heard nothing from the idle player (or someone else bringing word from them), I will move the scene on. Maybe not on the 24 hour mark but definitely soon. It's not fair to the rest to leave everyone waiting.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

I really try to manage expectations in async scenes in terms of pacing, because people can have vastly different ideas on what even 'slow' means. I think it's good RP etiquette.

[SquirrelTalk]

While we're on the subject of Ares scenes, is there any way to make it so the logs put divisions between poses, and say which character/writer made the pose? Given the way RP plays out - kind of going back in time a bit to respond to an earlier thing in someone else's pose, and then following up on the most recent reaction; that sorta thing - it makes it tricky to parse a scene log without seeing the breaks. As a 'story' it just seems to sorta jump around awkwardly.

[faraday]

@squirreltalk That is a game-configurable option. Some folks like the pose breaks; others prefer the unbroken flow and find the breaks distracting.

Most games, I've found, leave it off. I don't know if that's a conscious mirror of the old wiki style, a widespread preference, or simply an unawareness that the feature even exists.

[Otrere]

As an Ares game-runner, I can say: I'm aware that feature exists and I consciously chose to remove the breaks based on my personal preference.

If a player on my game spoke up about that, or any other preference on things, I'd pay attention. I might look for others agreeing, even run a quick poll, and if there was support for a change, I'd be very open to that. You might want to bring this up on your game, to get a sense of why the decision was made, and whether others would also like to see it changed.

[Nessa]

@cupcake I would argue this is easily something that is reasonable as long as expectations are set, like people have mentioned. I used to play a lot of Play By Post or Play By Email games and there was often an expectation of response by a certain day of the week, 3 days, etc. And if you couldn't commit to that then you were expected to not join those scenes or be okay if they move on without you.

[Tinuviel]

@faraday Without any knowledge of the code behind things, is it possible to transmogrify that into a player-side option?

[faraday]

@tinuviel No, sorry.