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If the member in question is an active contributor to the site and has not broken any rules, then the issue seems to lie with co-admin's immaturity: Unwillingness to talk it over with member (even thru a mediator) Anger issues (vibes that other members will eventually pick up on) Causing division (putting you in a ME or THEM situation and forcing you to take sides) Bottom line is, it's difficult enough when a member causes problems on a site, but do you really want an admin on your site that behaves this way? Eventually It'll cause you to be the only two people on the site.

It sounds like you're mortified, and rightfully so. That is not well-meaning behavior. That does not sound like a simple misunderstanding. That sounds like someone who knows they're in the wrong and wants to divert attention from their wrongdoing onto making any who question them seem like questioning them is the wrongdoing instead. Yikes. So. We forbid graphic depictions of rape on our board because 1. we've been on boards that don't, and the no-holds-barred approach can attract people like the person you're struggling with right now, and 2. in our collective opinions, life's too short for surprise! 'sexy' rape scenes. And regardless of real life experiences, rape is one of those sensitive subjects that people should be able to engage with on their own terms. It sounds like they are taking advantage of your fantasy that they are a reasonable person. It sounds like your players have seen that before you - and I hope that you soon can see that, too. I too have faltered on enforcing my boundaries. I too have wondered if I just hadn't communicated clearly enough, rather than deal with the more unsettling reality of someone deliberately misinterpreting what I've stated I'm comfortable with. In the fantasy where I merely failed to use the right combination of words to unlock their understanding, this person was innocent and I could avoid future 'misunderstandings' by getting it right. In this fantasy, I had the power to change the outcome with reasonable behavior. But that was all it was: a fantasy. Reasonable conclusions depend on both parties being reasonable, and this person has already proven they're not willing to be that in this situation by throwing a fit over a perfectly standard thing (IE "hey, could you maybe not with the non-consent?"). Maybe they are reasonable in other situations ... but personally, I've tried enough with people who weren't that I hope I'd err on the assumption that someone like this is not, indeed, going to suddenly be reasonable on other things. There's some subjects I wouldn't take this hard a line about, but sexual boundary violations tend to be one of the most blatant red flags for major entitlement issues down the line. From personal experience: yes, they're going to be mad if you don't keep giving them what they want at your expense. And no, appeasing them is not in fact worth it in the long run. If they were reasonable, I suspect they would be talking with you about this rather than around and at you.

For anyone that needs to hear this: That person stealing your site concepts, wording, features, and/or general layout concepts, but then changing things up just enough to where they can't be pegged for copyright infringement -- you're better than them. They can take your concepts and steal your shit all they want, but at the end of the day, shitty sites don't get stolen from. The fact that you're the one they chose means you were something they looked up to. Your ideas were good ideas, your structure was good structure, your site was a good site. It's a shitty way to say "hey, you guys are my role models," but hey. You're special to them. But you know what they can't steal? Good staff. They can take your stuff all they want, but if they don't know how to be good staff, it will fall apart right under their noses. And if they're taking your stuff to be vindictive or toxic, then their sites will 100% fall apart. They might have a good 6-month run, but if they're toxic and love to have and start drama, no one is going to stick around for that - I promise you. So, if this is something that's happening to you, be the bigger person and ignore it. Block them if you can, and keep being the best staff you can be, treat your members with respect, and don't let biters like them get you down. Have a great day!

Players that don’t play with others? Like it’s fine you want to write with me but please please try playing with other members too! It fuels my anxiety when I see people lurking online and waiting for me to post when I’m not in the mood to post. It’s a red flag because it feels like they don’t want to actually rp. Have you ever noticed that when an admin takes a much deserved break, the site goes quiet until they come back? Why, though? It reminds me of class when the teacher is late and nobody does anything until they show up. It’s perfectly okay to also take breaks but I don’t understand why player to player interaction isn’t a thing. 😔

I care more about what the post is giving me that I can respond to. If one word is enough, then one word is enough. No, it's not the norm. You know what is? Post splicing, a thing I hate. I try my utmost to avoid it even when the reply I'm given does it. I don't specify word counts in my guidebook, I mention it in our ad but that's it. I understand why one might want an idea of what the expectations are, but honestly if an admin says 'no word count' then gets mad at you for whatever length you've chosen, that's on them.

The short version: I see no issue with it provided they were celebs in the first place, and not just a random picture you found and liked. Most communities do have rules against the latter though, for obvious reasons. Food for thought: If your community does ban the use of deceased PBs, how do you handle it when a long-used face passes away?

Yeah, sounds like you do need to be blocking someone, just not this person. So, why are you giving these people a platform to bully someone like this and get away with it? This is some straight up ninth grade bs and we don't enable this crap. We don't punish someone for the actions of someone else. If I was on your site, and I saw and knew you did sthn like this, I would be straight up gone af. I have stalkers. I have ppl that don't like me. I can't control them, I can only control me, and if you're going to judge me on the behavior of someone else, you don't deserve me. If you do it to one person, you're likely going to do it to someone else and I'm not with that. Yes, your players and their safe space to rp are important. But guess what, the moment this person joined, they became one of your players. They deserve a safe space where they can enjoy a site too. If they do the same thing they're accused of doing, deal with it then. It's possible they don't know it's bad or why. But this? This is just... I also don't block people on other people's experiences. I may block someone across all the sites I run for five years, but it'll be bc of a serious infraction in my presence. P.S. bad pr is still pr. And I say this as an admin that's had to weather a site being attacked before.

I think people neglect to notice that all character interaction is a relationship. Good, bad, neutral or otherwise. Dating/romance is not the only type of relationship that a person can have. I have acquaintance relationships with my coworkers. I have friendships with my... friends. I have professional relationships with my bosses. I have a loving relationship with my kids. I have romantic and sexual relationship with my boyfriend. I also create superficial relationships with random people in shops for a few minutes. People can despise one another and have a rivalry relationship. When you interact with other humans you are forming a relationship with them. The problem is that people put too much weight on romance being the driving factor for their character. While humans in general are sexual beings (I mean we do think about sex a lot) it doesn't mean that sex is the only purpose to having a relationship. In fact this is why I pre-ship my characters with existing romantic relationships with players that I trust, even if they aren't on the site that I've joined, so when that the focus won't be on establishing a romantic relationship when I encounter other players characters. It gives a more story oriented reason to connect with people. So at the end of the day I think relationships might be MORE important but not necessarily the "romantic" sort that everyone thinks of by default.

I personally think that Discord (and other chat-based RPGs) are worse than forum-based RPGs. For me it comes down to the fact that I don't really like rapid-fire roleplaying which almost becomes a necessity in Discord-based RPGs, especially if there are multiple people involved (thus the risk of getting lost). I like to put thought into my responses, to put thought into building my characters, to write long-form posts that are paragraphs in length, and other such things that allow me to get lost in a story and also to have both open and closed threads. The things that I want out of an RPG are not compatible with the chat-based RPG format.

Personally, I'd say a word count isn't going to stop me from joining a site I really like, but it is going to affect how active I am on the site in general, and a site with a word count is one of the first ones I'll drop if life gets busy. It might make your site a bit of a harder sell to the general public, but if its what you/your members want, then I'd say go for it but be aware that it can open you up to new problems. I've also got some personal experience when it comes to adminning sites with word counts years ago, and found it more hassle than it was worth. Situations can and will come up where a member is 5 words short, you let it slide, but then down the road when someone is 50 words short, they're going to throw that back in your face. It can also lead to situations where specific members feel like they're being targeted if they're often just a little bit short on the requirement, and just general ugliness. It gets even worse when you try and dictate a line or sentence requirement over a hard word count. Between the fact that a responsive layout is going to change how many words you can fit on a line, and that a grammatically correct sentence can be a single word, requirements like that become nigh impossible to enforce without wanting to throw your computer out the window. There's also basically no way to make checking word counts easier/faster without setting up a mod that won't let members post if its below a set number of words, and that's just generally a bad idea. You'll hit situations where the system bugs out, someone counts the number of words wrong, or something else, and now its your fault that they lost their post. At least, in their mind it is. Simply put, there's no shortcut on this one, and its something you're going to have to keep on top of quite aggressively. Lastly, I also have to wonder why you're considering implementing a word count. If its to mitigate situations where there's nothing to respond to, this isn't going to fix it. Its not hard to crank out even a thousand words of fluff with nothing to actually respond to, but hey! It met your word count. Plus, some writers can pull something out of a one-liner to reply to whereas others need a little bit more. If its a case of your members having a preference for longer posts, this will come through naturally and there's not much of a reason to enforce it. I may be missing something here, but the only reason I can see for having a minimum word count is to go "look at how advanced we are!" which can be quite off-putting for a lot of people.

Helpful to what, exactly? I’ve never liked word counts and I steer clear of sites that have them in any form (ie; post matching or give what you get). In a single thread I can go from one line to a thousand words. It just depends on what’s happening. More action oriented threads have snappier posts. Conversations don’t need to be fleshed out with a thousand extra words to pad some arbitrary word count. also. I just find they suck the creativity straight out of me. I’m too busy counting words to get properly into the scenario. It’s too much like writing essays in school, which I don’t miss. At all. that said, that’s personal preference. Some people just can’t role play without the challenge or promise of posts of a certain length and that’s where word counts come in. Staff should be reaching out to people with similar mind sets about rp so they’re on the same page, rather than trying to cast the widest net to catch as many players as possible. That way, both staff and members are happy.

Tbh... I don't like lower rated sites anymore. I can tell which 333 sites are going to be over the top and I avoid those, but, I also mostly only play on Vesta now, and it has it so that mature content must be opted into, which I think is the best of both worlds. Anyway, I don't do well with censorship. I can FTB just fine but if you're gonna get on me because I used fuck twice in the same sentence, I can't with that. Sometimes, the right word is fuck, okay? Lol I also like the assurance I'm unlikely to be playing with kids. Again, I don't do well with censorship. A lot of my characters' backstories or plotlines involve some very kid-unfriendly things and I'm not toning it down. So I just avoid sites where I may run into one. I don't want to be the one corrupting the young folk. c:

Ban them. Whether or not you can turn your site around, I don't know, but it's a step in the right direction. This person is 90% of activity, sure, but they're also 90% of the toxicity on your site. Do you want an active and toxic site? Or a slow and healthy one? Yeah, it's hard to start from scratch, especially when your site is so established, but hell - anything is better than letting this jackwagon continue to spout their bullshit all over your board. Once you get rid of them, whether the site recovers or dies, you've at least done the right thing. And honestly, I'd guess that if you'd gotten rid of this person earlier, and cultivated a healthy atmosphere, the people who would be on your site (who have instead been driven away) would have made up for their absence. And as Somniac said, keep this in mind in your future staffing experiences and make sure you don't let it happen again. Members should be treated equally regardless of how active they are. Once you let someone get away with shit just because they're active? In my experience, it only goes downhill from there. I think it's likely that this person knows you're not comfortable with their behavior but is banking on their activity to keep them untouchable. And that eventually kills sites because the person who faces no consequences is the person really dictating things, regardless of whether or not they're staff.

This! I can understand the perspective sometimes from both sides—I can!—but also, yes. I have not always run an 18+ 3/3/3 forum and I have written with folks far younger than me for your exact reasons: there are some brilliant writers out there! Why miss out? ❤️My friends in the real world are not all my age; I have older friends and younger friends and all of these different perspectives are, in my opinion, enriching and important when building a community. It's no different in writing.

I originally had on my site something along the lines of "No word count. Write one word or hundreds of thousands. Post matching isn't expected." I took it out and think I should put it back in (site isn't active yet). I think a picture alone should work too if you'd like. I've found that while word counts have died in name, there can be one hidden with, "give someoen something to work with." A few words can move a thread while one of hundreds can just be discussing a table in detail. Word count doesn't mean much there. I automatically think they expect at least 100 words per post and came from site cultures that required word counts back in the day. I've found wishy-washy behavior to be a problem in the rp world. Some while they put in no word count, just have a site culture where members are just verbose and happened naturally. That's okay. It's a bit of a bummer on the one hand that you have to search a bunch of threads, but on the other I know even those who typically do write a lot can clam up with the mention of a word count. I typically tend to be on the shorter end and can struggle to get to 100 words. So to answer the last question, if I suspected I was expected to write long posts or that the community wrote 200+ words each post, I wouldn't join and likely wouldn't stay if I didn't notice. If staff and others told me that my short posts were fine, I'd just continue with my shorter posts and be the oddball, but if I got a message, I'm out. The site states no word count. I should expect no word count and even if the site culture is to write a lot each post to welcome me anyway. Part of being staff is to welcome people as they are.

Thank you to everyone who's been reading and replying to this thread. Hearing perspectives from others has certainly helped me to shrug it off a bit more than I was previously. I know that I really just need to stop looking at their site. I cut them out of my life for a reason. But, unfortunately, habits are hard to break. Especially unhealthy ones. @psychodrow (I love your SN) You're 100% right. This is something that I can take in stride and use as fuel to make myself a stronger individual. Letting the actions of others affect me only hurts me. Not anyone else. @Arduinna I certainly wouldn't feel upset if I saw the things that were obviously "inspired" by what we integrated if they were on other sites. I do, unfortunately, know for a fact that they have been skirting around their IP bans to check on us periodically (I use StatCounter to see where my traffic comes from to do the most efficient advertising). Which is why I think it has been such an issue for me. I just need to take a step back and think logically about it. If I wouldn't be upset to see it elsewhere, why am I upset to see it there? They're copying us because these features are useful. @Everglow UGH THAT IS THE WORST. I am so sorry that those people are so obviously jacking your ideas. But yes. I 100% agree with everything you said. DO YOUR OWN WORK. HAVE YOUR OWN THOUGHTS. STOP TRYING TO TAKE MINE. I don't have that many ok. xD (Also just gonna toss in here that I LOVE YOUR SKIN. YOU DID SUCH A GOOD JOB. SO FREAKIN GORGEOUS.)

I'm in the same boat as most people here - unless someone explicitly posts that they don't want to be used, I'll use them if they're the right face. That includes people who've passed away. Now, I do believe in not creating a new character with the face of someone who died in the last say two months but that's more because it can be distressful for some but I'm not about to make someone change their face if their PB dies or not use deceased faces. Saying it's disrespectful is like saying we can't rewatch a movie after an actor dies. It's stupid and there's no reason for it.

I use Discord all the time. I probably know more about it than the average user, spent some time building Discord bots, created Vesta's seamless Discord integration for those instant notifications of posts that everyone likes Discord for, I'm constantly on it talking to someone. If I'm awake, I'm on Discord. I talk all the time, even in large servers, which should be more difficult for me than it is. Do I wanna RP on it? Aha... no. I left chat-based RP a long time ago and there's many reasons why. I like easily accessible RP histories/archives, I like account-per-player, rapid-fire interaction can cause some issues that are hard to mitigate because of their rapid-fire nature, and I don't like limits. I'm not even talking like I can't keep my replies short; I probably can. I've been known to post 100-200 words at a time if that's all I need and if I don't get too descriptive, I can manage the Discord character limit. The point is it's there. I don't like them. You don't tell me how many characters I can type in a post. End of. It just doesn't jive with me. But I also feel like it's important for RP newbies. I've had a lot of people new to RP join Simprovise's Discord and seem to think we were a Discord RP, and then leave when we weren't, so I have the feeling that RP newbies may be more willing to give it a try with something as easy as Discord. And eventually, they may later transition to other platforms, as many of us that have RP'd for a while have done at some point. So it gives me the idea that Discord RP may be relatively integral to the revival of certain kinds of RP, by indirectly bringing new people to them, and I think it's beneficial to us all that Discord RP exists. Forum RP is becoming more lax over time, thankfully, and that's a good start too, but Discord doesn't require any of the hoops that forum RP does. And yeah there are a few hoops to it inherently. A new login to remember, images, apps, plot threads, things like that, they're kind of intimidating. Discord RP is still not and probably won't ever be truly for me, I can see myself doing 1x1s in a private server, but nothing beyond that, and I can still see its merit. Forum RP is just better suited to me and what I want out of an RP.

How do you get past that? If I were you: I'd sit back a couple days later once I know I'm as collected as I'm going to get, consider their complaints, consider what might have triggered their complaints ... and then decide from there how much was based on you, and how much was based on them. Unless they're a pathological liar or suffering through some sort of major distortion of reality (hopefully temporary and quickly sorted), chances are they're making some points, regardless of how ineffectively. I'd take inventory of their complaints and weigh it against my own (and possibly other involved peoples') impressions. If I did some of those things - well, that's embarrassing. At least I know where to start. How do you protect your community? If I were you, and had reason to believe a lot of people onsite had been effected by this (IE they said something)? I'd mention it, mention I'm working on any claims I can see their points on, and ask if the other points rang true to anyone to see if that needed further consideration. If everyone there already agrees it's weird drama? Brush off said weird drama and put your attention where it matters. How do you show prospective members that the review is invalid due to their rule breaking? That's two different issues. Does jaywalking invalidate everything a person might say about that street from that point onward. No, it doesn't. Is the reason they're going on this campaign to cover up their wrongdoing? That's different, and malicious. You will never beat a jackass at jackassery unless you become an even bigger jackass yourself - and is that a game you really want to win?

The above posts have covered everything I feel is important, so I'm going to keep it short. In general, I agree that a player's characters should not be killed off when they leave a site. There are plenty of alternatives to death, which still allow remnant players to progress their characters. There's really no scenario where death is the only way to move forward - whether the relation is familial, platonic, romantic etc. My one exception to this rule is when a player left in such a way that they are simply not welcome back to the site. Amy is a few miles passed the line, on that count. Regardless of what led up to their decision to leave, after departing they behaved in an entirely unacceptable way. They inflicted malicious damage to collaborative work, bullied remnant members, then went so far as to stalk and harass at least one member on another site. They've employed blatant methods of psychological and emotional abuse through all of this. There is no scenario where this person is ever going to be welcomed back to the site. So the ship has sailed. In this case, it's best to continue on with the current decision. Staff drew their line on character death, they have to hold it in this case; and they have to compensate for the negative fallout generated by that decision. As a team, staff should devise strategies to handle any further negative interactions with/from Amy on other sites (I would definitely suggest no longer patroning any site where staff allow a member like Amy to harass another over something that happened off their site. That whole using you as a go between should have been snuffed out immediately). However, in the future staff should advocate for the myriad of other explanations for a character leaving the immediate scene. Don't allow character death to be a default. A lot of this could have been avoided. For now, the best course is to stick to your guns, and move forward with lessons learned.

What has been said before is accurate, as it's really a series of separate challenges (I know some might say issue but challenge is a a word I prefer), the first one is the admin on the site, they had the challenge of an individual who clashed - for whatever reasons - and then ultimately made the decision to leave. So, far that seems to be handled fairly well, not perhaps an ideal as it would be wonderful to imagine we can all get along all of the time, sadly we do not live in that utopia... Now, this is where it breaks down, the memes and the posts. I don't know why this Amy did that, it feels childish and a little... unexpected, as I can't imagine it helped or made anyone else on that site feel like they were being respected and that is perhaps, along with whatever happened before regarding their own clash within the site culture, one of the reasons that those directly involved just wanted Amy's character to be killed off. Yes, it's the easy option but this might have just felt like the point of just being too exhausting to do anything else. Is it the right one to take? Probably not, as said there are a lot of other creative options that could be taken but it might just have been a cause of wanting that line drawn so everyone else could just move on. Amy's behaviour of rejoining and repeatedly making demands and/or other actions probably weren't helping anyone experience much sympathy regarding her on the site, especially as this appears to be when she also started to mention mental health issues and her own needs not being met. It is sad that no one was able to help her and it's sad that matters escalated in this way, however, Amy could have made it a lot easier for herself if she had made a plan for her own character's exit, graceful, messy or chaotic! Ultimately, she didn't do that and is not dealing with the results of everything that's gone before. It is simple to say, the admin shouldn't have allowed the character to be killed off and perhaps in the future that wouldn't happen, the circumstances change, we grow as people and this is likely to be a learning experience for everyone if nothing else. With respect to her treatment of you specifically, it sounds very like she has the expectation that you will be her ally and should be on her side, so anytime you offer help and/or suggestions that are either ignoring the narrative she wants to pursue or is about helping with her mental health, Amy becomes hostile; the whole throwing words and phrases back at you kinda of thing. All I would suggest is telling her you don't want to speak about these matters any more, and that if she isn't happy about that you will have to take the action to block her as you really don't need to have this additional stress in your own life - I presume? Basically, your not her therapist, or her go-between and she shouldn't feel like she can use you that way. Also, as you've clearly said that you don't want her behaviour before, it is her harassing you because you've said I don't want it and she is still continuing. I hope you get some peace again.

Similarities between characters are usually unintentional. Ideas pop up in our heads and we don't always know where they came from - it could be from a movie you watched five years ago, or a book you read three months ago...or even a character profile you don't actually remember reading. Sure, people occasionally make copies of our characters and change just enough about them to pass, but that's pretty rare, and they're more likely to be mortified to realise much later that they accidentally took inspiration from someone else's work. At the end of the day, I don't think it really matters. Someone could copy my character profile word for word (and some have over the years) and still not end up with the same character as me because they don't write the way I do. At worst, they'll end up with a stale, stunted version of the original they aren't able to connect with - at best, the character will evolve and change to become something of their own completely distinct from my character. Either way, I don't see the point in getting upset about it. Focus on being the best you you can be.

So I know this is labeled odd, but let me just explain. Since I am really unsure as to what to label it as. I am looking for advice in order to recover from my own fear and anxiety in this topic. I have been in the game for over 13 years. I have social anxiety which I manage quite well. So the problem I have is that I fear, like seriously fear large sites. So when I find a site that has a large member base, epic plot, active as hell. Like its great but then I end up freezing before I even attempt to join. Its like I physically can't click the register button until a month or so later after I somehow talk myself into it. My anxiety is routed from some pretty bad experiences when it comes to sites (and I get it, life isn't roses and cookies) but I have wanted to over come this for a long time. So I was wondering if anyone had any ideas? 😖

Don't strike them down this is the verbiage I'd use and if they flip their shit again then strike them down. Good luck.

Basically what everyone else here is saying. Strike that player down like the hand of God. If they have already flipped their lid, you don't need to play nice. I, too, think they know what they are doing. If you tried to talk to them, then they might convince you that they will 'change' or some shit and just keep on going about doing what they do regardless. They are clearly making your players uncomfortable with their shit, and you don't want to run the risk of potentially losing good members because of one creep.

Tell them that you don't like what they're doing and they need to stop if they're to remain on your site. Don't try to fluff it up or leave any room for ambiguity. "This stops or you leave." If you're comfortable reviewing what they've written, point out the areas where they crossed the line so they have a better frame of reference for where the line is and where they need to stop. If you're nice, anyway, because if I was in your shoes, I'd just tell them that they're creeping me out and are therefore banned from my site, don't let the door hit you where the good Lord split you. This person knows better than to be graphically describing non-con all over the place. I can't imagine that it could possibly be justified to have it present so often in their character's threads even if it was mentioned/implied. And just the fact that they flipped on this other player would have had me giving them a stern warning about what's expected from them if they want to stay on my site. I'd bet cash that they're well aware that they're disturbing people and are taking advantage of you not stopping them to just further freak people out. And that means they need to go. So in short, I would not tell them anything other than they're being booted. Maybe word it something like, "You are being removed from [site name] as staff finds your repeated graphic descriptions of sexual assault far outside the boundaries of the behavior we accept onsite." Ban them from the site via IP and email address, remove them from the Discord server, block them on Discord, and move on secure in the knowledge that you - and your players - are much more the better for it.

This is the topic for me to answer. If ever there was one...it is this. Ok so, quick backstory. Nothing drama happened with my site or any that I was a member on, I just flat out had a full plate. Medullary Thyroid Cancer can do that! Stress with work. Brain fog from the thyroid issue...you name it. How I got back into the hobby and habit? I fell back in love with it. I took the few things that I loved/hated with the whole ordeal and just sort of sorted that into different places. 1. Admin duties. I didn't hate doing them, but you do feel guilty and almost unwelcome. Especially for me when I didn't tell anyone what was going on at the time, mostly because everything happened so fast. I let that go. I let it alllll go. You have to let go of the guilt. Because 9 times out of 10 it is only you that is feeling it. Like no one is angry at you. No one should be angry at you. If they are? Well...they need a life yo. These things happen! 2. Fall back in love with your characters. Fall hard for them. For me, I found a PB that I have always wanted to use and I flat out used him to a point that I love love love to write him. Like when I think about him I get excited and want to write him further! 3. Fall back in love with life. Read a book. Watch a movie. Go on a long walk in the woods. For me? I took the whole fall/winter as a time to recover not only from the shock of having cancer, but from the fact I have had it so long my body was just getting used to it. Stress is a cancer. Work stress. Life stress. It is all cancer. Mental health is as bad as any cancer out there, and just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't hurting you. Make sure your heart is full and that your mind is right. 4. Last but not least. Lean in on your loved ones. Find those sweet happy little souls that make this hobby so much fun and know that your true friends will always welcome you back in. And if they don't? Find a new tribe.

I'm sitting here on the other end of the spectrum, been 18 for less than a year and what I've most encountered were people who refused to plot and thread with me because the mere thought of talking to me made them unconfortable. Nevermind I consider myself a rather talented writer (for somebody who has English as her second language, that is), and I am self-confident enough that besides getting sad there are people who refuse to plot with me, I'm more sad for them for losing the opportunity. Anyways, I just wanted to say I'm sorry you have gone through this. One of my favorite writers in the whole world, whom I've written with for a year (even before I was 18) must be 36-years-old now, and her age or my age had nothing to do with how well we hit it off/how well we thought of each other's writing. Age shouldn't have a play in how we decide things, RP-wise. Sure, there's the matter of 3/3/3 and minors, but as far as plotting goes when you're both adults? Then I'm just rolling my eyes at all the ageism. It feels so unnecessary.

@MuseYES YES YES on the ageism. I've seen it too, and actually had to bite my tongue on Reddit for that reason (player refused RPers that were female and men over 40). The fact you've experienced this makes me sooo angry.

When I look at a site, here's what turns me off from it: Applications Now, someone who has looked at a kiss of darkness is probably aware that we have an approval system for our characters, however this is not required to be filled out completely in order to play and use your character. We actually have it on approval solely for the purpose of skimming the application to make the character fit. Obviously, that's the whole purpose of applications, however strict applications are an entirely different demon to face. I absolutely loathe sites where I need to come up with a detailed history for a character before I even touch them. Sometimes, I've got a name, a home, and a look, and that's it for the first several days to months of playing the character. I prefer to fill in the biography as I figure it out, not to prep for being able to play a character whose history might warp and change. 3/3/3 Rated Sites, Strict Rules, and Censoring It's amazing how some sites have rules that are extremely restricting in all regards, even down to what you can and cannot write/mention. Now, this isn't in regard to thread markings like [TW], [CW], etc. I fully believe in properly labeling threads as a warning to potential readers that "Hey, you might see something in this!" What I don't like is when a site censors with this rating--and it happens. I think if you're going to use that rating, you need to be prepared for your writers to actually use it. There are several 3/3/3 sites that should honestly be rated 2/2/2, if you catch my drift. Atmosphere One of the largest barriers I've come across is the atmosphere perpetrated by players of a game. I typically hop in the discord for a bit while I look around (it takes me approximately a month read everything pertaining to character creation and decide whether or not I want to play). I will lurk in discords to get an idea of how the players of a certain site are. If they're friendly and encouraging and willing to plot with me, I'm usually do create a character to play. However, many times I find that when it comes to discussing creating a character, members of the site go quiet. There is a lack of interest in RPing with a new person and ultimately, I leave the discord and choose not to play on said site. This also applies to things such as loss of interest/lack of priority. I am a slow poster. I post 1-2 times a day, sometimes more. It really, truly depends on my mood (I am chronically ill). I've been in places where someone wanted to RP with me and ultimately were not interested so they pushed our rp to the back of their priorities, i.e., they are rapid-fire posting, but not responding to our rp. Unwelcoming The biggest barrier I've encountered when joining new sites is a lack of welcome. I put that in bold because it's extremely important for the growth of a new site. Whenever someone joins my site or discord, I try to acknowledge them asap. I ask them what they like to write, what sort of character they are thinking about, etc. I hit on this in the last bullet, but this is where the encouragement comes in.

Never again will I tolerate blatant disrespect from a member or staff member just because I don't want to appear "mean." If you're going to be an asshole, you're going to have to deal with the consequences of said behavior.

Do you present awards to members? What kind do you like to present? Do you think it helps energize your writers? I'm trying to think up some I can give out. I've got some basic ideas like "Newcomer Achievement" for especially impactful newcomers, "Collaborative Posting Merit" for a very noteworthy joint post between people or for someone who strives to create really strong collaborative posts. Milestone awards for length of time as a member. Maybe an award for people who really help expand on plot ideas or bring fresh options to the table.

I despise +/- rules because I find them exceptionally unrealistic. Just because someone is 30 doesn't mean they "look 30". What does 30 look like anyway? Put me and 3 of my closest friends together all of whom are 30ish, and none of us look the same in terms of age. The only time it really matters is with children who tend to grow/develop rather rapidly and sometimes teenagers. Once you're an adult, though, you really just need to view age in broad strokes. In my personal experience, most admins who have +/- rules are often very nit-picky or micro managers who worry more about aesthetics than they do about accurate character representation. Personally, as long as the character looks appropriate and they don't show markers of being too old/too young (e.g. significant wrinkles on a twenty year old) I don't care who is used. Be accurate on the generalisation, but don't try and dictate that just because Actor X is 30 that means they can only portray a 25-35 year old character. In terms of other rules regarding face claims, I don't think I've ever seen them (beyond the fact you can't use internet famous people or whatever - I hate this rule but I understand it). I don't think that admins should dictate the playbys that are used except to ensure that you're not just taking someone's images off facebook and using them; essentially, our rule is that they have to be considered "famous" be that internet, hollywood, whatever. Similarly, why does the colour of a person's skin matter except in the sense that it is a visual representation of that person and their ethnicity? If my character has an Indian background, I should use an Indian (or Indian-appearing) playby because that's what they would look like. If people don't like that then they're just shallow and stupid. Fat. Thin. In between. Black. White. Brown. Tall. Short. Tattooed. Pierced. IT.DOESN'T.MATTER. It's just what your character looks like and everyone should have the option to represent their character as a part of their real world.

I was in this exact headspace when I joined the Initiative back in 2017. I started out my roleplay career on this obscure site called Vampires! The Dark Alleyway. It was (maybe still is?) an ultra simple grid-based mid-90's created game where you made your vampire and navigated squares based on blood power or some shit. You could feast on mortals or try to attack other vampire players. The grid game itself never held much interest for me, but there was a chatroom attached to it - that was where I was first introduced to RP. My next step into the RP world was through Neopets, back when Adam and Donna still owned and ran the site - long before they sold it off to Nickelodeon. Back then there were two primary RP means. There were the actual RP forums where players would set up short term rapid fire RPs that would eventually burn out either through time or max number of postings. The second method was through Guilds. The forums were really where my love of RP blossomed. We would form friend groups and jump into the threads created. Between one another we'd post between 20-30 posts each, in groups up to 10, per night. For years. There was a 350 character count on every post so you could only reply with so much, and it made players focus on actionable content. In short, it was rapid fire style RP. No one was focused on word counts or unnecessary descriptions - we all had imaginations and would fill in the blanks. It was great. Things happened. Plots moved forward rapidly. Well, Nickelodeon bought them out (No blame, they're probably still retired comfortably off that money in their early 40's now) and started going PC/PG. That was when I moved into forum RP. Forum RP was a different animal. All the word count elitists. People convinced you can't have a good RP without word vomiting. The curtains can't just be blue - you have to write a whole paragraph about how blue they are and/or why they're blue. It was all a low key competition. Who could write better. Who thinks they can write well but really suck, how were we going to black list them. I've always loved to write and I've always received accolades for my skill. I let myself get sucked up into the elitist asshole side of it all for a long, long time - one of my biggest regrets in my RP career. Eventually the burnout became real. Dozens of sites joined. Hundreds of threads written. Yeah, they had nice long posts but...they all died without a finish. Nothing was ever resolved. I would find myself looking at threads that hadn't been replied to (or that I hadn't replied to) in 3-6 months to over a year. It was disheartening and depressing. Anyway, I say all this to encourage you to let yourself free of all those stressors that you mentioned in your original post. I think you may be best off not even trying to join a forum based site. Look for Discord based rapid fire roleplays - or forum based, though those are harder to find than Discord bsaed. You'll be able to create and present your characters, then actually use them consistently. Joining the Initiative re-sparked my love of RP because I found a partner who didn't give a fuck about word counts or flowery descriptions. She was - and to this very day still is - only concerned with the actionable content of posts. She rekindled the joy I felt back in the early days when it was simple. Prior to joining and meeting this person, I'd flat given up on RP for nearly 3 years because the social politics were such energy draining BS. Anyway, by simple I mean focus on writing only what is actionable. What good is a 500 word post if only 25-70 words within that post provide content to actually reply to? That's how you wear yourself out as a writer. Find a space that will let you post and actually progress. Forums aren't the end all be all of RP - give other mediums a shot.

The only valid reason I've ever heard not to use a deceased model/actor/etc as a PB is if that individual, while alive, expressed that they do not want their image used in that way. Otherwise, I agree with @Morriganthat your staff are being respectful in the wrong kind of way. Continuing to utilize an actor/model's images after their death memorializes that individual, and pays tribute to their legacy. To me, that seems far more respectful than to sweep them under the rug and limiting the ways in which they can be remembered. Using their image post mortem exposes them, and therefore their work, to younger generations and other individuals who may not have been familiar. It expands the reach of their legacy. The only semi decent argument I've ever heard against utilizing deceased as PB's is that 'they aren't alive to say they don't want to be used' - and LBH that's a stupid ass argument. Betty White has had 91 years to declare she doesn't want her image used for character likeness (I suppose 30 if you want to get semantical but lbh roleplay existed before the internet and writers used actors/models to represent their characters even back then). Does anyone really believe that outspoken, Queen Badass B of a woman wouldn't have already said something if she had an issue with it? Personally I find the very idea that she wouldn't have infantilizing and offensive.

To be clear, is to be kind. I would message them again, and ask directly what you want to know, say, if they are just busy rn, or if they've lost interest, muse, whatever. Maybe it's not clicking for them, and then need to be kind and be clear, too. Or maybe they are having a personal issue. This way no one is left wonder wtf is going on. If they once again give non-answers, which is harder to do with direct questions, you'll have decide what you want to do. Wait for them, some partners are definitely worth the waiting, or move on. Let them know you're going to reopen your want ad and move forward with your plots.

Both, actually. I don't feel like one of these automatically precludes the other or means that you can't think about the other to any sort of depth. Often, the two go hand-in-hand for me, too. It's much the same as with close friendships and family relationships; a lot of a character's personal story-line will depend heavily on, or be extremely influenced by, the people they spend their time around. In cases of certain characters it's turned out such that their relationship with someone was a driving force behind the way their story went, for one reason or another. I also find, a lot of the time, that my ships (be they romantic or otherwise) spawn my stories and the stories spawn the ships. So yeah, TLDR I guess, I don't think these are necessarily two different things and shouldn't necessarily be automatically treated as such. I get people that don't want to think too hard about one or the other, or those who have characters for whom one doesn't make any sense, but I think ultimately you're gonna have the best mileage combining the two in some way, rather than focusing too hard on one or the other.

For me it's less about gender and more about "are these characters well rounded and balanced." If admins' characters are OP or unrealistic or cookie-cutter, it makes me wary of joining the site because I wonder what other kinds of characters they let through for others and how that's going to shape the world. In general, though, I don't care what genders leadership writes or how many of each group they choose to have on their roster. If characters are fair and relatable, that's all I care to see before contemplating joining, myself.

First and foremost, if they are banned they have no right to say what happens to their characters...... HOWEVER, its a really dick move to kill off someones character without their permission. To me that's like killing off a canon character from a fandom because no one will play them like that player. Stupid and ridiculous. There are a dozen different ways to write off a character being gone and still allow for them to come back. Death is what I consider "an easy out" for those involved because then they don't have to think about that character after their "mourning period". Which is legit stupid because that's not how mourning works. However RPers seem to think that its as easy as taxes (taxes aren't easy mind you). To me the players need to be more creative in writing them out of their story and walk away. They are legit moronic if they think that the "only way" is death of a character and its worse that they think that something like that doesn't cause duress to a person that can't even voice their opinion on their work. As for the player.... I agree with @DivineRabbit you can't fix that mess and either block them or be completely direct with them and say "this isn't my mess. I'm happy to talk with you about other things and or possibly joining a site with you, however I can't continue going in circles with you about this site."

To me Cboxes and Discords and other such are irrelevant. Especially on a new/young site or one with very few members. OOC activity is equally valuable to me as IC activity but it doesn't have to happen in a box. In fact it's much more promiseing if it happens more on the public forums of the board as then it's at least clear that the community actually cares about being on the board and not just chatting in a messenger or cbox. And in the end, all I need to be willing to join a site that fits my interests and other needs is an active admin who is showing that they still have strong interest in running the site for a long term. An admin is the only one who can truly kill a site, by losing interest.

As I always say, build the site for the people you want to join, not for the people that you think you should expect. If you want a word count because it makes you/your staff more comfortable, implement one. You won't get people that don't like them. If you don't care about one liners etc then do no word count. I will state that A LOT of "no word count" people don't like "No word count BUT" rules. What I mean by that is "No word count but at least 1 paragraph/more than one line/match your partner" etc. Its a skeezy way circumvent the "no word count" rule and still provide a minimum.

I used to think that it was 'just the way rp is' when every single thread went on until it eventually fizzled out. That was how threads 'ended' they just died off! Until my current site and writing partner changed my expectations completely. I've wrapped up dozens if not hundreds of threads in my 2.5 years there. Actually had whole plot arches happen. It used to seem wild. I'd sit around waiting for the other shoe to drop. I even thought "how did I get such a good writing partner?! what happens when she flakes?" but that never happened. In fact our little circle grew. Now it's my normal exception of most threads and writers.

Referring to trans characters as "male" or "female." Like a trans man character referred to as "female" skeeves me tf out.

I can find only one active Old West rpg site and unfortunately it's not one where I could develop my characters the way I'd like to. And it seems there doesn't exist a roleplayer who'd be truly inspired to play on 1x1 site, judging by how they keep disappearing just when we've started. Is there any interest in a multi-player Old West rpg as follows? - It would be set in the late 1870s in a fictionalized version of Burns which at the time was a rural village in southwest Minnesota. - Only that village would be fictionalised. Overall the game would be based on real life history and aim at realism. As in you'd need to do research on the time period and other locations whilst creating your character and whilst writing game events. But I would not be anal about it, I try to avoid nitpicking, as in things wouldn't have to be perfectly accurate as long it's nothing major. I would provide some of the most essential info on the website so no one needs to research everything. - It would be for people who enjoy writing historical everyday life in a rural community. The vilage would be rather small but developed enough to have numerous different seevices and townhouses too so your character doesn't need to be a farmer and there'd be potential for colourful variety of game events. Game locations would also include New York City and you could set a game event anywhere you need. But the point is, it would not be a wild west rpg but an old west rpg focusing on a small community's everyday life. - Character driven, no site wide plot. - The time flow would be fluid. The timeline would be a few years in the late 1870s. - My characters would be a farmer family including the parents and a very young son (5+ years old) and the son would be my main character with the parents as side characters. I could write separate events with the parents if needed, they just don't have their own biographies yet. And I also have a Native American father and his 7+ years old son, both main characters. - Celebrity play-bys would be allowed but not mandatory to use. Also child PBs under the age of 13. I personally use PBs for all my characters. - The site would be rated 3-2-2. Minimum age for joining would be 15. - Self-hosted, using myBb. Anyone interested to join? Any questions or suggestions?

Not specifically for that reason, but I have created an account that I kept separate from my Admin identity and main characters for a while. Originally it was just to see if I could write with a completely different voice and style, but I did find that people treated me differently. I got to hear all the griping about silly things that nobody wants to say to the Admins face, so that was interesting, haha, but over all I was pleased to see that my members are lovely and welcoming.

I’d give it to them. They’re making a new part of the world so I don’t have to. Adds more variety, makes the experience richer for everyone, and lets people get invested. Delegate so they’re in charge of it. Not often that people get these opportunities to be so involved. I’d want them to have that opportunity.

Personally, I would allow it with the caveat that in order for the setting to ever expand into that character's home territory they would be personally responsible for leading the plots there. The site I run currently has several 'kingdoms' for lack of a better word. Our members enjoy making the leaders of these places. Which we encourage because variety is wonderful. However they have to build up the cultural lore for the area themselves, then run the plots to keep the area active. Admin are always ready to give in or give advice, but I think that it's fair to expect a bit more investment from someone that wants to play a world leader. It works very nicely for us.

Buckle in, because we're in for a story: The last ban we did happened to be a flat IP ban of one of my former dearest friends. I'd invited her from an MMORPG that we had met on years ago thinking that forum life would suit her as opposed to what we were used to. Now my husband and I were good friends with (let's call her Felicia) and had spent a week in her home on our last trip overseas. We were Real Life friends. She got super integrated into the community. Had several characters, a whole heap of threads. She was obnoxious and OTT with the energy but that was just her and there was nothing necessarily wrong with it. And then one morning I woke to a message that pretty much was your 'how could you do this to me' letter followed by an 'I am leaving'. Now, at this point she'd been with us for several months. There'd been several issues about her OTT attitude (we're a super laidback community so when you reach obnoxious levels of boisterous, it's noticeable when everyone is super chill), and for several reasons... she was stressing me the hell out to a point I didn't want to be on my own site for the sake of it. So her letter was a breath of fresh air and I politely replied with the speel of "I'm sorry you feel that way, I hope you find some place that makes you happy. Safe travels." and that was it. Now the 'how could you' was in relation to the fact that she had been invited to a discord server that was joined to the original game we met on, and because she's a paranoid little bitch she'd gone through the discord history looking for her name. She found me stating/explaining a few things about why I had left her staff team (in this game) and why I believed the group had failed. Opinions I had told her, that we had spoken of in a public setting before. I'm incredibly transparent and I will tell you how I feel even if it will hurt your feelings because at least you're never left wondering what's on my mind. So none of what she found was news to her, but she flipped and treated it as if I was going behind her back. But I let it go, let her have it - honestly, I didn't care because she was leaving of her own accord and I was secretly happy for it. And then I caught wind in the days after she left of all the things nobody had bothered to bring to the admins' attention. She had cornered some of our long-term members into plots that meant some people couldn't get involved. She cornered some people into wanteds and blatantly said to others not to pick up so-and-so's wanted. She'd made sure she had claim over several characters. She pushed for threads and posts until she'd burnt out a long-term member (who is an absolute sweetheart and wouldn't speak up for the sake of thinking it'd maintain the peace). She belittled and abused said member in DMs and basically acted the princess in general while tearing at everyone in DMs. While this was going on, it came to my attention through a mutual friend that she was saying some shady shit on the old game. Basically chewing on a bone that had no more meat on it because I hadn't fought to keep her on. I flat kicked her until she can no longer see the board and in one of my brimstone mood, I wrote a letter to her that was far more thorough concerning WHY she was banned and at the end of it, I told her that she needs to let it go and stop hassling my members - because that's what she was doing after she was banned. She was hassling, she was bitching, she was complaining, she was giving it her all in trying to remove as many people from the board. Which she failed entirely at being she was the new kid on a block of veterans. Well! She took the letter and spread it through my members - all of which promptly blocked her. God I love them all for that. So that wasn't good enough for her. She went to facebook. Yep, facebook. She made video diaries. In true 13 Reasons Why fashion and dedicated a video each to myself, my husband, and several others who had 'hurt' her in the RP world. Mate I got an hour long video all to myself. She even managed to cry - those theatre kids really know how to act. But, she mentioned us by our real names. We approached facebook to have them removed - reported them. Couldn't get them removed. I was rather flattered that she thought so highly of me and mine to go to the trouble of using up HOURS of her day to complete her little DIY project. Unfortunately for her, the RPG world is incredibly communicative and these things don't stay secure in one small community. She lost face in the old community where we met (because I'm a fucking sweetheart 92.7% of the time). She lost many friends over it, and a lot of people she had scorched came out of hiding to tell their stories that ranged in emotional abuse, threats, pressuring, gaslighting, etc. So, moral of the story: Don't invite RL friends to your sleepy peaceful site if you know their personality is always set at OTT because that shit don't jam.

Well, a past application I used for roleplay spoiled me completely on certain features. I am now hopelessly enraptured with certain ones that we use today. What are your favourite features on a site? Auto-Everything: Automatic thread trackers, automatic playby lists, automatic IC timelines. Anything that makes a list that is a convenience for my members and that I do not have to spend time updating. Built-in Affiliate Manager: Other sites can add their link and upload their 88x31 affiliate button without me having to do anything beyond check that they've added our button to their site and then approve theirs. Sweet! Single Account/multiple characters: This feature takes account switching a step further. Only one actual user account is required and we can add as many character profiles to it as the site allows. Each character has their own bio-sheet and can be used via a convenient dropdown in the posts. Sweet! Shared NPCs: This probably should be listed as shared supporting characters - the ability to share NPCs with specific members. Discord Integration: Easily get feeds from our sites to a specific Discord channel. Eliminates the need for email alerts since people can see tags arrive in our Discords. Joint-Posting: A convenient way to share posts with other members for such things as writing dialog. This keeps the site from having so many shorter posts as two or more characters converse. What feature do you miss that is currently broken/unavailable? Between the two forum platforms I use, I can honestly say that there is very little I miss. I guess I would say the ability to add extra fields on IC posts to generate post headers, the who/what/when/where or even the pre-defined post fields that loads the opening post in a thread with those fields. But it's a minor miss. Our sites have great tagging systems so we can utilize those. What makes the features helpful / likable for you? Convenience and Time-Saving: This goes hand-in-hand for me since I am a solo admin on my 3 sites. Ditto for any site I join. I want to concentrate on writing and story-telling not tracking stuff and updating lists. On the sites that I run, I want things to be smooth, easy, and convenient for my members for the same reason. They should be focusing on the story, creating great characters, and writing not having to maintain trackers and lists.

I'm a bit of a smartass--if someone doesn't seem to get something I tell them, I am not above posting the actual definition along with a snippet of the infraction that it directly relates to. A copy/paste does the trick. Since it's a topic that's already been broached before, I would honestly consider at this point chocking it up to what I like to call willful ignorance. Growing up, my Dad used to tell us that accidents and mistakes are only that the first time it happens. After that, you're responsible. Our second infraction was almost always our last. If we repeated the thing we did wrong a third time? That was it. At this point, if you haven't already, I would probably give them an official warning. If you've already done this too, you may have to consider a more stern approach, such as calling it exactly what it is. Sometimes, we simply cannot candy coat things. Even for the sake of damage control.