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Forums » RP Discussion » Designing RP Wide events that don't stall and die?

QnQ

Hello!

I'm an old RPer but new-ish mod! In the rough decade I've RPd, I've found one of the biggest obstacles to activity is large, RP wide plot events that sound cool but mostly fizzle out, or worse, drive people away.
But now I'm a mod, and I need to plan some for the first time! I am hoping to see if anyone has experience here with designing them, and how to keep activity & interest from dying off?

The kind events I experienced this activity die-off inlude:
  • Multiple 1 on 1 fights as part of a larger battle
  • Mod event RP for players to react to
  • Event with something supernatural that effects characters, letting them react to during the timeframe without a planned plot trajectory
  • Mystery solving

We are going to be trying the 1 on 1 fights as part of a larger battle.
I don't know how to make players care about the outcome enough to finish their rps (obviously we cant get everyone, but in my experience MOST of these wont finish). Also, how do you make players care about other's fights???

I am considering making real-world prizes for activity, and maybe setting a real-world time limit for how long the event is?

This kind of activity die-off has plagued me in every RP I've played in.
If anyone has strategies that have resulted in great RP Wide plot events, I would love to hear about them!!

- QQ
The struggle is real QnQ! I think it's just the nature of the beast to get excited over new ideas and leave the partially finished projects to languish.

The events we've had the most success with are limited time social events with a party-like atmosphere with a few scene setting prompts (ie. dance floor, food table, punch bowl, horse-shoe toss). The timeframe probably depends on your group's style, but two weeks of real life time seems to be the sweet spot for ours.

For plots that involve action sequences, I stick to smaller sub-groups. This isn't fool-proof, but we set a time limit of 24 hours to post before someone's turn may be skipped. (There's some flexibility here of course. If someone chimes in OOC that they'll get in a post in a few hours, we wait for them.) If I'm the one acting as organizer, I am not shy about pinging folks when it's their turn to make it explicitly clear who is up next. And then, if 24 hours go by without even an OOC note, I'll ping the next person to move the action along. Inevitably, it's still going to stall at some point. That's when I wrap it up as narrator to bring that scene to a conclusion - often asking for input from the group if there are some loose ends to tie up.

It's a difficult balance to strike as GM/admin/moderator, I think ... between feeling like a task master vs letting a scene just peter out.

I'm subscribing to this though! I'm always on the lookout for good ideas too! XD
QnQ Topic Starter

Thank you!! I am super interested in a 2 week limit, it sounds scary but def give ppl fomo instead of ... bleh, i hope!!

I really appreciate your thoughts on this! Thank you!!
Juls wrote:
The struggle is real QnQ! I think it's just the nature of the beast to get excited over new ideas and leave the partially finished projects to languish.

The events we've had the most success with are limited time social events with a party-like atmosphere with a few scene setting prompts (ie. dance floor, food table, punch bowl, horse-shoe toss). The timeframe probably depends on your group's style, but two weeks of real life time seems to be the sweet spot for ours.

For plots that involve action sequences, I stick to smaller sub-groups. This isn't fool-proof, but we set a time limit of 24 hours to post before someone's turn may be skipped. (There's some flexibility here of course. If someone chimes in OOC that they'll get in a post in a few hours, we wait for them.) If I'm the one acting as organizer, I am not shy about pinging folks when it's their turn to make it explicitly clear who is up next. And then, if 24 hours go by without even an OOC note, I'll ping the next person to move the action along. Inevitably, it's still going to stall at some point. That's when I wrap it up as narrator to bring that scene to a conclusion - often asking for input from the group if there are some loose ends to tie up.

It's a difficult balance to strike as GM/admin/moderator, I think ... between feeling like a task master vs letting a scene just peter out.

I'm subscribing to this though! I'm always on the lookout for good ideas too! XD

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