Masking the Issues: A RP Critique

[Moonlost]

Okay, so there's been a fair amount of drama and angst festering in the Petopia RP forum for, well, a good few months now. It has escalated a number of times into something nobody should be proud of, but has simmered down recently. The problem is that resentment and hate is still bubbling under the surface. And goodness knows I'm getting tired of tiptoeing around for fear of upsetting someone inadvertently, a lot of other people are too. But I'm also tired of hiding behind a wall of silence when drama does spring up. I'm not going to be pointing fingers or shuffling blame. I have seen a lot of people acting both admirably and horribly.
No, my intent here is to try and point out the flaws in some of the failed ideas here and to try and give honest critique, with the intent of improving future roleplays that may crop up and to nip any potential problems in the bud. I will try to take a neutral tone here, but I have my own biases and opinions that may peek through, please forgive me for them.
So. *Places on Riot Armour* Let's do this.

This first thing that needs to be addressed is that we need to admit to, and correctly identify, the underlying cause of the failures that seem to crop up in the Pokemon roleplay whenever it surfaces. These flaws are, ultimately, what has kept any recent attempts from succeeding. Despite arguments to the contrary, the main issue here is not that “The World of Warcraft Roleplay exists”. Fury of the Twilight Clan merely avoids most of the pitfalls that have snagged on the hem of the latest incarnations of the Pokemon roleplays. Placing unwarranted blame on the success of that thread, although understandable from an emotional standpoint, is not only infuriating but ultimately pointless. It is doing nothing to help fix the real issues.
So, what *are* the real issues? Well, let me list the ones I took notice of, in no real order:

1- Difficulties keeping track of what is happening.
This is, for me personally, the most frustrating of all the issues and ultimately was the single biggest factor in why I left Plague of Deoxys, along with many of my absences from other roleplays in the past. It was no fun trying to puzzle out where everyone was, who they were with and what was happening, especially if one had missed eight pages of the roleplay for whatever reason. Reading through a backlog of text for a dozen characters, each doing their own thing in many different locations quickly became a jumbled mess. I have also had this issue brought up by my brother when he tried to join in on the fun. Unless you are following the action along as it happens, it quickly becomes very, very confusing to try and keep up to date with everyone else.
How to fix this: This is one of the things I feel that the WoW Roleplays have done really well to avoid. Notice how players in that are required to head each post with the names of the characters they are writing about, along with a general location. This keeps things neat and tidy, letting a reader know immediately what characters are involved in that post and where they are. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that this can only be used with a WoW setting just because WoW has already defined areas. With a little imagination, this can work for any roleplay. For Example: “Seventeen – Dusk Camp”, “Jorasus – Road to Athens”, “Jed Springdale – Middle of the Desert”. “Sparkleflight and Grapejuice – Pony City”
Also, the more effort you take to keeping characters separate when they're not in the same scene, the more it helps. I use a simple tilde to denote when I'm moving onto a different scene, for example, for just that purpose.
If someone is willing to put in the hard work, keeping a summary of the major plot events is also a huge help, but that's not always a realistic option. People have lives outside of the roleplay forums, after all. A confused reader should also not feel afraid to ask what is happening. But if they have to rely on these summaries in order to play, you're doing something wrong.

2- Plot is either too complex and different or too simple and familiar.
This is in no way a slam against Magna and his latest attempt. I greatly admire him for trying. It's hard coming up with a good, serviceable plot that's fun for the majority of people. I should know, my attempt tanked worse than his. Both of us fell into the opposite sides of the same problem.
For Vengeance of the Soultakers; I spent way way too much time thinking of the backstory of the antagonists, so much so that only I really knew what was going to be happening. This pretty much alienated everyone else who wasn't in the loophole, making it not fun for anyone involved.
For Plague of Deoxys; nothing about the plot felt clearly defined, and what was clearly defined felt like plots that had happened in roleplays past, just mashed up together. Same plot, different name. It felt boring and repetitive. In addition, it felt far to undetailed and directionless. Nothing was clearly defined for the players, again, leaving them feeling alienated.
How to fix this: First of all, make up a brainstorm thread with a clear intent of creating a new plot. The quicker you can get everyone involved and excited about the plot, the more invested they will become. Also, by allowing them to help shape the plot, they will feel more of a connection to it and may be more willing to stick by it. Multiple points of view will also make it easier to pick out the structural weaknesses that you may have missed.
When it comes to the plot itself, you need to walk a very fine line between detail and absence of detail. Too much detail and you stifle the creativity of the other players. Some of the most awesome moments and ideas come from random thoughts other people have in the middle of the roleplay. On the other hand, too little detail and they feel lost as to what should be happening. You need some sort of general direction for your players to strive towards.
Ultimately what you need to detail is at least two sides of conflict. Each side needs to have a clearly defined goals. Those goals may be a magical macguffin, the desire to wipe out the other side, or really anything, so long as it brings about conflict between the two sides. This is very important. Without conflict, there is nothing to drive the different sides onwards and against each other, thus making the roleplay boring and lifeless.

3- Self-sustainability.
It's not fun waiting for one person to post to get the plot flowing along again. Sometimes life gets in the way and the person orchestrating the plot needs to stop posting. When that happens, and it will, the other players need to be able to make their own fun while they wait, or risk loosing interest again. This is another one of those really big factors my Vengeance of the Soultakers suffered from. So many people were waiting for one single plot event to resolve that, when I had to slow down for life, many people simply lost interest and left. Once I was able to get back, it felt more like a chore than fun, like we had to get past this dumb plot point before anything could really happen. The same thing happened with The Blood Games, where people were reliant on other people to orchestrate their fun.
How to fix this: This is something everyone involved needs to help with. Firstly, the plot needs to allow for spontaneity. Make sure that there is at least one side of the conflict that is free to do as they please. Secondly, make sure you're not the only person in charge of the plot. Delegate leadership to other people, or make sure that other players always have some way of making it go forward. If there's a magic macguffin that needs to be found, make sure you clearly define where it is, how you can get to it and what it does.
Other players, you will need to sometimes take charge if the plot has crawled to a halt. It doesn't need to be anything meaningful, just something to do and have fun with. Perhaps the main group gets randomly attacked, or one of your characters orchestrates a bit of fun. An great example of this can be seen happening right now in the WoW roleplay. We could have easily fallen into inactivity as we waited for Lupis to feel better and finish her schoolwork, but we managed to create our own fun with some random happings with the Booty Bay group.
One last thing, if you need to step away for a few days, make sure to let people know this so they aren't waiting on your characters. Also make sure to let people know if you're leaving the roleplay for the exact same reason.

[Moonlost]

4- People feeling unwanted.
Perhaps the single worst problem here if it happens. Feeling lost with the plot sucks, but nothing is worse than feeling like you don't belong, that the people in the roleplay hate you or that you're being deliberately ignored. Maybe people dislike your ideas. If left unchecked, this will lead a lot of resentment, causing the person in question to either lash out in frustration or just give up entirely. I don't think I need to point out any examples here. Disclaimer, I'm not addressing anyone specifically here, merely the many issues that I've seen crop up.
How to fix this: First thing's first, if you're getting upset over something in a roleplay, step back and away from the computer. Whatever is happening, it's not worth getting pissed off over. It's just some text on a forum, it should not be ruling your life. Find something else to do for a while. Trust me on this.
Right, with that out of the way, you have to be willing to compromise. Everyone has a different opinion on what makes a roleplay fun, unfortunately those ideas often clash. What you need to be able to do is try and find some middle ground on the issue. Try to consider where other people are coming from. Don't get angry at them for expressing themselves as strongly as you are. Ranting and yelling at one another only serves to antagonise the issue further, it also gives anyone reading along a headache. Instead, try to be calm and reasonable. If you don't think you can do that, again, step back and away from the computer and do something else until you are calm.
If you feel like you're being ignored, chances are it's simply that other people are busy with their own little sub-plots or you just haven't been outgoing with your character enough. Unfortunately, it's really hard to respond to the shy character in the corner who doesn't talk to anyone. Push your character into the group, make them interact with everyone else. So long as you're not ruining someone else's fun, or disrupting the flow of the plot too much, then you're more than free to do so.
Don't suffer in silence. Tell us if you feel neglected or unwelcome. Don't whine about it, simply state your opinion calmly. I promise that, so long as you sound reasonable, we will be reasonable in return. As an example; “Hey, I feel like I'm being ignored. Whenever I try to get my character involved, the others either don't respond to them or only give them a passing glance. Could you guys help me out here a little?”
For other roleplayers, it looks like someone isn't getting involved, do something to make them involved. Have a character go up and talk to them or drag them into the fun. Likewise, if there's a big exciting event happening, and a few people had to log off before it happened, try to slow down and leave something for them to do. I know it's hard to just stop your fun, but it sucks feeling constantly left out of the fun stuff. This is an issue we all need to work to make things right.

Please, feel free to bring up any arguments and points of your own to this. But keep it civil guys. This was made to help, not to fling more shit about.

[Saturo]

Well written! Completely agree on everything.

[TygerDarkstorm]

I definitely agree with point 4. The other thing to take into consideration with that point is the characters being played. Not everyone is playing outgoing, friendly, upbeat characters that are going to talk to everyone they meet and it's something to keep in mind when you're attempting to join and get involved. If you're over hanging out with characters that are normally shy, brooding, or anti-social, there's a good chance you won't be interacted with. That doesn't mean that the RPer hates you, it's just the way their character is.

The same applies to characters being mean or snappy to your character in the RP. For example, Saturo and I are actually on really good terms outside of the RP, but if you look at her death knight and my druid together it almost looks as if we hate each other. And on the other hand, her death knight and my death knight are like sisters. It's all about getting a feel for the characters' personalities and going along with it.

And also: Personal pet peeve of mine, I strongly dislike the use of the word 'hate' being thrown about these forums. Hate is an incredibly strong word and I'm pretty sure that no one here hates anyone else and I'm sick of seeing that being tossed about like candy. There might be some general disliking of the overall behavior, but not hatred. So please please please stop using the word 'hate' so lightly. If we genuinely all hated one person like they think, we wouldn't try to help them, wouldn't talk to them, wouldn't even acknowledge them.

I think I'll leave it at that for now.

[Lisaara]

Definitely agreed with all this. I've been rping since AOL 4.0 and those are common issues still today that were there back then. Well written Moonlost(even though I dont rp here).

[Ket Shi]

Another tip, even though I don't play here. Not sure if anger is a problem here, but this can help:

If you get angry or distressed about something that goes on, wait! Give yourself a minute to cool down before you post. The fresher the incident that made you angry or upset, the more likely you'll overreact. I've seen people throw tantrums, sic their friends on the offending parties, etc., on situations that could have been solved with a polite PM.

If you're still distressed or angry after you distance yourself and give a little time, it's probably then time to negotiate the issue politely with the offending party(ies). Remember that firing back or getting defensive tends to only make things worse.

[Worba]

Another tip, even though I don't play here. Not sure if anger is a problem here, but this can help:

If you get angry or distressed about something that goes on, wait! Give yourself a minute to cool down before you post. The fresher the incident that made you angry or upset, the more likely you'll overreact. I've seen people throw tantrums, sic their friends on the offending parties, etc., on situations that could have been solved with a polite PM.

If you're still distressed or angry after you distance yourself and give a little time, it's probably then time to negotiate the issue politely with the offending party(ies). Remember that firing back or getting defensive tends to only make things worse.

Yes, PM's definitely > general post for issues that are clearly between just 2 people. When it continues out in the open, people tend to do a lot of posing and speaking for the crowd, and generally getting much more dramatic than they would in a 1:1 environment.

[Azunara]

Thanks a bunch for this, Moon. You're amazing at clearly wording what most of us are thinking. xD

A few points brought up several times by a few people for general tips in the RP forum in general.

IC =/= OOC
Tyger brought this up a bit, but I'd like to point it out further. I have had a feeling since way early on that the lines between RP and RPer were blurred, which later caused resentment. Before you jump at me, don't get too upset, I'm not innocent either. There are several times where my characters fought with another and I got a bit careful around the person controlling them, forgetting it was all in good fun.

So yeah. It is -extremely- important to keep in mind while a character may absolutely loathe yours in the RP, the RPer doesn't. While your characters have a romantic interest, don't mean the RP feels that way about you OOCly. Communication is key, it's always good to pop in the OOC and remind the other person, "Oh hey, no. I don't think X is being too X, but my character does. That's just them. You're cool." Also, stepping back is another great option here.

The Voice of One is Not the Voice of All
We're a community. While we're linked to Petopia, we've sort of got our own little group here. We have tons of inside jokes, references to RP, and fond memories spent amongst each other. In the great country of Petopia, we're like a little colony on a distant shore.

So it's easy to forget that what one person thinks is not the general consensus. Not everyone is going to click and be BESTEST. FRIENDS. EVAR. with each other. That's just not how it works. There are people I am more friendly than others with here, and that's just because some attributes don't work well with mine. That's human nature for you. But when it gets to the point where one person is upset and you assume everyone is, that's just not fair, to yourself and to everyone else. You're putting words and emotions in their mouth, and you're being too harsh and down on yourself. Take a step back, politely PM the person, and resolve it as best as you can, keeping it in mind that it's just -one- person.

[TygerDarkstorm]

Oh yeah, thanks for bringing that second point up Azu; I knew I was forgetting something. XD

And that point is incredibly frustrating for me because it's often what I say that gets taken for the whole group just because they don't say anything and I do. That just happens to be who I am. I'm a bit of an outspoken person and I hold firm ideals and I stick to them as best I can. I'm sure some of my managers at work are sick of me trying to push them into not letting the lazy baggers continue to be lazy and get them to work so that they're not hurting any of the closers like they usually do. So it's not just here that I have a tendency to speak my mind.

My other big issue: Try to put yourself in the other party's shoes.
I know it's not the easiest thing to do when we feel passionate about something, but I keep seeing a lot of selfishness happen and it's embarrassing to see from people I consider to be mature. The world (of RP or otherwise) does not revolve around any one person and the world will not come crashing down from opposing ideals, personal issues, etc. When you keep coming in going "me me me me me" and ignore anytime someone tries to counter-point, help, calm you down, etc, it creates resentment and frustration. Think about how the rest of us feel when things like "I want such and such RP to go burn in a fire and die" are said. That hurts just as much as you thinking your friends are leaving/hate you. I think that, perhaps, instead of complaining about the situation at hand, one should make efforts to fix it. Figure out what happened, why things didn't work out, see if you can't get another ball rolling.

And perhaps, if you really are that upset and you need to vent, then it's probably better to take it to a PM and not announce it all over the Petopia boards. No offense to anyone, but it is my personal opinion that the problems we're having in our little community don't need to take over other parts of the forums. If it's one person you have a problem with, PM them, or PM Azu since she's the community leader, but don't keep dragging out stuff publicly, it's just asking for a third party to come in and give their two cents whether you like it or not.

I hope none of that comes off offensive because I don't want it to be. I mean that all as objectively as possible.

[Moonlost]

Heh, I'm pretty much the opposite of you Tyger. I have a hard time giving my honest opinion on a subject and often kind of just let people have their own way, unless I feel particularly strongly about something. It's a mix between being very empathetic as well as being a little afraid of insulting people. Makes me appreciate people, such as yourself and Sat, who have no issues giving an honest opinion.

And I guess that kind of segues into another point.
Language is important.
I've said it before, but text is very flat and emotionless. For a species that communicates with with a lot of inflection and body posture, this can mean that sometimes you may seem much more harsh than you intend, or quite the opposite. Being selective of your words can make a world of difference.
While this is true of all text based communication, I find it it be especially true within the context of roleplay. It can be hard to decypher what a player's intentions for a character are if they're not too picky about how the type things out. In addition, it can be hard to read something at all if the player isn't particuarly careful with spelling and grammar. There is no shame in going back, re-reading a post and editing it for clarity. You don't need perfect spelling and grammar, goodness knows I don't, but a little care goes a long way.
A very neat little trick you can exploit with text is making good use of little modifiers you can use. Such as italicising a word to put emphasis on it or changing the colour of your text to indicate something wrong or different with your character's way of thinking.

[rubybeam]

Why do I have a strange feeling most fingers are pointed towards me >.>;

anyways, I know people have voices,but dont be TOO HARSH WITH THEM. Some of my emo freakouts were people offering advice that sounded more like flaming, please guys im only saying this, not to defend me but other people to. im just asking, it doesn't earn anymore respect of someone to throw out swears and insults while saying 'no im giving you advice'.
It really isn't nice at all, and I know I probably sound like some whiny baby and I know we cant all be friends but theres a fine line in flaming and advice.

go ahead disagree with me but I have personal experience with this from last freakout, it only hurts more.
if your suggesting something I suggest getting rid of all insults, point out what their doing wrong in a friendly manner and suggest something better instead of 'well your attitude is like a bitch, go away from the forums for awhile and come back once you loose your additude problem'
yeah. thats called flaming.

Go ahead complain at me if you wish but I truly see this as an improvement

[TygerDarkstorm]

Go ahead complain at me if you wish but I truly see this as an improvement

Saying stuff like that is like asking people to critique you harshly because you're bringing it on yourself when you say stuff like that.

And for the record, people tried being nice. But nice only goes so far when the receiving party sticks their fingers in their ears and goes "LA LA LA LA LA" and not wanting to listen or accept the advice/criticism they're being given. Some people get tired of being nice when their help just keeps getting shoved back into their faces.

This goes straight back to what I already said of thinking past yourself.

[Saturo]

Now, see, Ruby, I'll be brutally honest with you. We are nice to you. Really, really nice.

We all like you. But when you call being nice and trying to help you flaming, you're insulting us. Think about it. We don't have anything against you, but, please, do consider what you're doing. We're all nice to you, yet you resort to calling us on it, in a quite negative manner. Please, Ruby. When someone is helping you, try to not do that. We don't want you to be sad any more than you do, but honestly, you're annoying when you do that, and I'll admit it's caused me to get angry at you more than once.

[Litlemouse]

Ah, but who needs to force their way into the RP when there's a rabid mage after you with seaweed on his head?
Seriously though, even though I'm completely new to this RP, I totally agree on everything you've said Moon.

[rubybeam]

It wasn't your guys advice, but much rather the PMs I was getting

[Moonlost]

Hold on, stop.
We don't want this turning into another batch of bickering.
I can't speak for everyone else Ruby, but I have been referring to a number of people in my posts. Some of whom have posted in here already. Really, I kind of think the point of this got away from people. The intent here isn't to criticise people and their actions so much as it is to calmly resolve some of the problems that have cropped up here. Can we try to keep this a little neutral for the moment?

[Litlemouse]

Hold on, stop.
We don't want this turning into another batch of bickering.
I can't speak for everyone else Ruby, but I have been referring to a number of people in my posts. Some of whom have posted in here already. Really, I kind of think the point of this got away from people. The intent here isn't to criticise people and their actions so much as it is to calmly resolve some of the problems that have cropped up here. Can we try to keep this a little neutral for the moment?

Yea, like one of (I'm not saying it's just me, OK?) the people who "didn't feel involved"/"difficulties keeping track of what is happening" was probably me, and that's fine with me

[Azunara]

*had this nice big post, looked at Moon's statement...

...

deletes it all...*

It was such a good big post too. D:

In all seriousness though, Ruby, I just want to end with what's being said is not finger pointing you, it applies to everyone on this forum. We may not want to admit it, but I'll bet in some way, we've all had issues related to these points.

[lilatha]

FU ITS ALL POINTED AT ME QAQ
lawl jk
*goes back into hiding and finishes reading some good old forum RP!*
Big props to Moon for doing this! *sends extra love moons way* and even writing ideas how to fix it hopefully more will read this so I can go back to reading all your stories!

[TygerDarkstorm]

Think you mean props not probs.