Forums » Smalltalk » RP has died?

Does it feel like to anyone else, that our generation is the last one that might carry the RP torch? That it's dying out to video games and online PvP stuff?

I looked to see your age. You are 10 yrs younger than me. But. I have to answer this with optimism, because, I've got to tell you, I RP with some 16 and 17 year olds...and one is 14 I think...that are AMAZING with plots and words. When I first realized their age range I asked them what country they live in because I thought it couldn't be the United States (lol...sorry that sounded pessimistic), because I work at a lot of inner city schools and see a lot of kids that don't read at a very high level...and also that do not like to read, do not like to write. So then I see these 16 year olds with college level vocabularies that weave plots better than I do, and I'm like "so...are you from Canada or are you from Europe?" And they're like, "I'm from the U.S." And I'm like "Woah...the future is secure." I had this conversation with 3 different people until finally I started realizing...ok...there are lots of smart kids here in the U.S., I just work in some really deprived areas. And if you don't get kids reading books when they're little, they never really learn it as well...and a lot of the parents these days are both working, or one is absent and the other is working two jobs, and sometimes kids are daycare kids, so not getting the stimulation of being talked to a lot by adults which fires up those language centers of the brain at a young age, and a lot of them don't have a bookshelf full of books at home, for whatever reason (everyone that has a kid should), and so that generation of kids in certain areas are just not very literate by the time they get to high school. Sorry this became a long rant, but, my point is, there are actually a lot of literate kids who love to read and write in the United States--to my great surprise and pleasure--and a certain number find their way into the art of role-play, and there are definitely some here on RpR...which is so refreshing. Now, as far as the generation coming up after that...the ones in elementary school and middle school right now...who knows? But I'd like to think that roleplaying has always been a niche thing, in every generation. There's nothing like writing a story with someone. And my feeling is that, in every generation, there will be that handful of special people that find their way to roleplaying. I'll be the optimistic voice. Maybe somebody else will offer a counterpoint.

Sorry this was so long. I'm kind of bored, because not a lot of those awesome teenagers I was talking about are on right now...school is back in session most places.

Rp will never die when I am still alive

Nope! 'Cuz I know, at least for me, I'll RP anywhere and everywhere. (At least everywhere it's appropriate - I would not recommend trying to RP at work or in class).

I've even used videogames - PvP or not - to RP with friends. Sometimes it's fun to take your squad in, adopt some weird mannerisms for the characters you're playing, and do absolutely ridiculous things in-game together. Example: when my siblings and I played co-op for Halo: Reach, we made up entire backstories and personalities for these non-speaking characters. Then we carried that over to Online play.

Back when I was into MMOs, my usual groups I'd play with would RP the heck out of it. Every enemy encounter or event was a chance to build on our characters and figure out what they thought of the world around them.

Technically, my siblings are all a generation separate from me. Youngest sister turns 21 this year and her youngest friends are just graduating high school this year. They are all RP nerds, and have fallen in with other RP nerds. One of them works at the library and gets to mentor kids half their age.

Y'know something cool about kids? Let 'em talk long enough and they tend to tell stories. Kids love telling stories and playing pretend, especially together. My uncle's kids sit and play minecraft together and online with their friends. What are they doing the whole time? Between giggling, fighting monsters, and making massive multi-room buildings (amazing, btw) they're roleplaying. "I'm Princess of the Pig-People! I've come to steal all your pigs!" and her brother goes "Nooo! I'm going to stop you. With all my dogs! I'm the king of this town, I'll protect the pigs!"

Point is - as long as people like making stories, they'll want to make stories together. And as long as people make stories together, there will exist RP. It just might take on a new form as time goes on.

In my opinion, I think various platforms die, but RP never truly does. It just moves to a new platform. Furcadia used to be a booming platform, but last I was on, it's kind of dead in most areas.
I think it makes sense culturally, actually. The next generation doesn't frequent the same websites as the previous generation, and so they take their desire for writing and RP to their new platform. Thus, as one generation gets older, life happens, can't be on much anymore, they don't find a new influx of players because the younger generation is on a new platform.

Interesting concept to consider.

In my own experiences I'd have to say video game/ingame RPing(not like playing actual RPG games but like rping in said games has or is dying) when I first started RPing I did so on the specialized custom maps made be modders for Star Wars Jedi Knight Jedi Academy when I left it seemed like the RP scene was still going strong but slowly dying as it stands now though I don't know what state ingame rping is doing. I've not touched MP Star Wars JKA in many many years and I'm so rusty at it I'd probably not be able to get back into it.

I used to do semi-RP on the FFXIV servers but even that seemed to be so small a part of the game that I feel that at least in game/video game/computer game rping is dying/dead as for forum and PM Rping I don't know.

Nah, it just evolves and appears on new platforms: tumblr and other various forums like this one are popular.

It'll get better and better.

Eh? I'm curious what makes you think that, considering all the teens I see RPing all the time in... basically any place that permits shared text input.

As long as there are people to write with, RP will never die. RPing in games and whatnot will always have a presence, but so does tabletop after all these years.

In fact, if the amount of roleplays I have is any evidence, text based RP is actually growing.

RP has always been a sort of niche thing. As far back as I can remember, it's always been this way. Roleplay is a hobby for writers, and basically not everyone is cut out for or interested in being a writer. It's not something that everyone can do, nor does it have the sort of wide appeal that say, video games do. And honestly, they're not really competing against each other for most people's attention. They're extremely different forms of entertainment, to the point that a lot of people RP to take a break from gaming, or game to take a break from RP. That's how different they are.

If you've ever seen the average League of Legends chat, you might know what I'm getting at when I say that that sort of popularity is not a positive thing though. If our roleplaying sites were popular in the way E-sports are, we would be surrounded by drama and toxicity pretty much 24/7. You'd probably be seeing manifestos on the forum, calling out the staff for "abuse" because nobody wants to follow any rules that force them to behave. It'd be a lot harder to find RP. You'd see a lot more cliques as people tried to protect themselves by creating and moderating their own mini communities. Honestly it'd be pretty terrible.

It's all about attracting the right people, not the most, when it comes to RP communities.

The SCA, larping communities, were established in a massive scale in 1966.
Dungeons and Dragons was published in 1974.

There are 13 year olds on this website and younger so on others. Our generation is beyond the idea of being last. There are 2 generations younger than ours, since you are 27 and so am I, that are still actively roleplaying.

Roleplaying is an established world and video game roleplaying also exists. There are massive guilds in online games. Furcadia is a massive example.
WoW.
Elder Scrolls Online
Final Fantasy 11 and 14
Destiny
MMORPG is named that for good reasons.

Discounting games would be wrong.

Roleplaying isnt going anywhere.

I've been hearing this for two decades from various generations, and it's not been true yet.

Sometimes it might feel this way, but if the demographic info on RPR players is any proof, the answer is definitely no. Younger generations still adore RP and are highly prolific with it.

On the subject of "moving platforms" as someone brought up, where are the new platforms? I'm curious and feel pretty out of the loop, especially since I pretty much never touch social media there's a lot that I don't know about yet. It'd be interesting to know how the new generations are evolving roleplay exactly.

I think you should be more concerned about RP dying out to vegans and flat earthers rather then video games.

The landscape has certainly changed over the years, but the number of people who are aware of and enjoy roleplaying can only grow from here. Roleplay satisfies the creative itch of storytellers from all walks of life and all styles of doing so. Some people have made roleplay their entire career (actors, authors, musicians, etc).

I also think that when we of the "rp community" talk of "rp", a lot of us have different specific ideas of what we mean by that. I refer to anything where a person "plays" a "role" as roleplay, others are specifically talking about play by post that is done on forums or in chat boxes, or video games, tabletops, etc. I don't believe play by post will die out; as someone already mentioned here, play by post has always been niche, but from what I've seen it's a lot bigger and more popular than it was when I first started over a decade ago.

Roleplay is indeed less common then it used to be. There's a number of reasons for this.

1: People get too focused on roleplay and lose sight of the people. Let's be honest. Being seen as only "roleplay meat" can be off putting. This can be resolved with going "We're people first even if we also enjoy IC only roleplay while posting to each other with our personas" or something along those lines.

2: Furcadia has all but died off. Which is a shame really. It had (still has) some good locations. People seem to have migrated to second life at this point.

3: In this day and age of "happy masks" and mental illness on the rise (likely in part due to said happy mask...ness. Whatever the term is) this means two things. First people have bigger problems. That means get to know someone if you want to enjoy doing things with them. Which a lot of people seem unwilling to do. A lot also are. Guess which ones enjoy roleplay/posting more. Second, "bad plot" makes for GOOD plot. Because, you know, bad IC events make for good story and background for characters. Even your very real person at times, depending. Some 3+ years ago people enjoyed this kind of things much more. These days? Not so much it seems.

Fortunately the number is somewhat moot provided you get to know someone and are their for each other so you can enjoy posting what you like along with enjoying the "bad IC happenings" (or persona). Just got to be aware and clear. Be clear as a person and you can be clear as a character. It's the "person" part a lot of people seem to struggle with. A minefield I've learned to navigate. But how many people make others care about them which makes makes people want to post with you?

I'd like to toss my two cents here. I don't see the community getting smaller, nor do I find it to be less common, and many of the points you listed I don't find to be convincing reasons that rp may be "dying off". As for furcadia, I'm not sure what that is and I've been doing play by post for over a decade. I'm sure most of the people who were on furcadia didn't simply quit doing rp altogether, they moved to new areas like you said. Sure the landscape has changed but people still enjoy playing the roles of characters as much as they always have.

I didn't quite follow the final point. This seems to be an extension of the "rp meat" phenomenon you described, so I'll wrap my response to that into this paragraph. I know that it can feel a bit off putting when a person has an asocial approach to RP, I'm a person who loves to chat and makes online friends. However, I've learned over time that people have had different online experiences, and not everyone has the emotional energy to support online friends, and most people *definitely* don't have the energy to become an online surrogate caretaker for someone with a severe mental illness, a person who should ideally be managing their symptoms with the help of a doctor; a person who trained for years to do that. People really shouldn't feel entitled to other people's emotional energy.

Also, a note about "mental health problems being on the rise", that isn't necessarily true. Removing statistics from context can make a situation seem different than it is. Anyway, in short, people have always had their preferences, I don't find that to be an indication that rp is dying off.

I'm gonna go ahead and turn this back around to the original topic.

As far as I'm concerned rp is alive and well in all its various incarnations. This forum version works well for me now but I've seen plenty of it on all sorts of MMORPG games as well. Pretty much every one I've played over the years (City of Heros, WoW, ToR, etc). Not to mention that D&D and all the other various pen and paper versions out there (Pathfinder, GURPS, insert your prefered system here) are actually gaining more and more traction and credibility with normal, everyday people. It's not just for nerds any more! Vin Diesel plays, people! Just about every Con you can go to, no matter the main subject matter (comics, anime, board and card games) you'll find people getting together to run something even if there aren't any scheduled games being run by actual moderators. Honestly, the only reason I even found this site is cause I wasn't able to continue playing with my group that has been together for yeeeeers now. And that's just what I've noticed first hand. There has to be tons more going on, both online and face to face that I can't even see happening!

Yea, things change, formats change, but the love of story telling and cooperative storytelling isn't dying. It's alive and well. Sometimes you just have to figure out what sort of shape it's taken on most recently.

*hugs all around to everybody*

Lol

I'd say it's not dying... because I just discovered it and so other people must be discovering it too.