Leaderboard

A good ol' "fuck it" suites me. Then I lean into it full tilt, most times I am absolutely sure I am being ridiculous in the event that I put myself out there. I try to forget about it after doing it, stepping away and disconnecting. If I don't give myself that breather moment of, 'okay you did it, now relax', it will spiral into the sort of conversation you think about five years from now. Like that one time I pulled into the Starbucks drive-through and the conversation went something like this: "Welcome to Starbucks! I am Becky, what's your name?" "I'm good how are you?" ... She had to ask for my name twice and we both pretended it didn't happen. I've come to realize, acknowledging the awkwardness helps let a lot of things go.

I'm probably going to mirror what a lot of people have already said but I would also suggest trying to approach members differently depending on what cues they give off. Such as members who seem like they are hyped and reply positively to plotting requests but don't actually respond well to discussing plots. In those cases try to switch to a tactic of simply throwing the two characters in a thread together. Instead of focusing on detailing plot ideas, since this doesn't work for some members and does for others, ask if they'd like to throw the two characters together and you can whip up a starter. Most of the time you'll find those types of members are a lot more receptive to a less plotting, more rping approach. While others will be more receptive to plot discussions and with those members you probably want to take the approach of plotting something feasible and then getting the thread started. I concur with a lot of peoples suggestions with throwing up a site event, usually an event that involves sign-ups and staff pairing members together to RP the site event. This also helps to encourage members to RP together when they might not have interacted prior. Keep up the effort of RPing with your members via various means and I do think as time goes on and your site becomes more stable you will see your member base "mirroring" your styles. More people will start plotting and mimicking the tactics they see from the staff. At least, those are my experiences.