How many people have visited your site and not know what it is?

[Morrigan 1,826]

I've noticed an uptrend in starter guides and information explaining what PBP means. While I find that adding such detail may seem smart it makes me feel like maybe this site isn't for me. Not only does it make you sound like you're the authority on the subject (instead of referring them to a community that focuses on the facets of RPing and not just being an RP) but it also makes experienced RPers like me feel like you're babying me.

 

I'm not talking about chatting with people asking the question of what Play by post means. I mean a guide that is like "Hey you're new here.... do you even know what this is?" it feels... very blah.

 

Opinions. Go.

[Somniac 207]

If I got a few guests or members who seemed completely lost but nonetheless interested, I might link a guide to them and pop it in the OOC section for future beginners. I'm generally assuming some familiarity and practice, though.

 

 

I'd just assume a place with that kind of guide has a high intake of newbies, which I see as neutral and mildly intriguing.

 

[Elena 546]

I wouldn't mind it either. Supporting the newbies to integrate is important. (I don't mind babying either. For me, it's a sign of love. I might do it in everyday life too, given that I couldn't have children and this is how I express my love. Maybe I have a few traits of one of my characters, about whom the others say that she thinks she is everyone's mother). 

 

I got on my site some people who hadn't roleplayed before (and who remained only on my site for years), but they had been writing alone or in love with the historical period before. I had also people who had roleplayed, but never on a forum (Nova, chat, e-mail, sim, etc.) before my site. Once explained and helped to integrate into the story, most of them were good writers and brought interesting story twists. Fresh blood into the site is important. Besides, I was once new too, and people, may God bless them, helped me understand the differences between roleplaying and writing alone.

 

Speaking about people who didn't know what it was... something stranger happened to me a few years ago: someone from the US who googled an aunt's name and found this way the bio of one of my NPCs (having as playby Miriam Makeba). Then she left an angry message in the c-box that I am trying to impersonate her dead aunt and she'll sue me 🙄.

 

My co-administrator got a little scared by the threat. I calmed her down: assuming she would (which I highly doubted the lawyer to take such a case), there can be plenty of people named Mary Jones (e.g.) in the world. Even my rare birth name, if I google it, I find 2-3 people having it... But that deceased aunt surely hadn't lived in 1700s, near Havana, Cuba... and hadn't been a manumitted slave...

Edited June 28, 2019 by Elena

[Rhindeer 217]

The thing is, the RP world is HUGE. The majority of my members come from google searches, and while 99% of the time they're experienced RPers, most of them have no clue what stuff like PBs, word counts, rapidfire, etc means...because the communities they came from never used those terms, or called them different names, or didn't have them at all. Which is fine, because none of those apply to my games, but I do mention them here and there so that people who expect those conventions know where my games stand on them.

 

I've noticed that people in this particular corner of the RP world kind of assume this way of RPing is the default, but it's not. Heck, my husband is a good example--he's an experienced RPer, but when I mention common trends in this corner of the RP world, he looks at me like I've sprouted three heads. xD PBs are a foreign concept, banners that display celebs but aren't celebrity RPs are bizarre to him, etc. And that's my majority player base in a snapshot.

 

And if you're getting lots of traffic off of google, you're gonna get a lot of people who are totally unfamiliar with this corner's RP lingo. If all your traffic comes from this side of the RP pond, then people are already gonna familiar, but if you start getting traffic from other RP communities then you're gonna get a lot of players who have no idea what any of that even means. Just kind of like if you go over to livejournal/dreamwidth/greatestjournal and they have a totally different sort of lingo that was totally foreign to me. xD It doesn't hurt to explain the terms, rather than assuming everyone is by default familiar.

 

I have an (outdated) guide on my own games, because I actually DO get a significant number of players who are RPing for the very first time. For some of my members, my games are their first (and sometimes only) RP. So it doesn't hurt. Experienced players don't have to click the link. The guides are also just suggestions and tips, but are by no means the one true authority on the subject. Just like any self-help guide, you can take the stuff that works for you and leave the rest, if you like. It's not gospel, just stuff that, hey, if it helps you out? Awesome! Now go find your own truth.

Edited June 28, 2019 by Viscount Rhi-Rhi

[Huskerdust 625]

I get newbs all the time. I used to get them even MORE when I was running fandom RPs. As mentioned, people would google the video game name or term from it that I'd named my RP after and find my site. Because of that, I would get fans of the games that had never RPed but were curious and wanted to try it. I personally like newbies. It's fun to watch them evolve over time, learning the ropes and all. Some people feel too stupid and don't want to learn, get frustrated and leave. But the nicest people I've ever met online are newbies who are so happy to learn the ropes. 

 

Now I still get newbs but for a different reason. Kpop. It's become this HUUUUUGE thing and people google certain playbys and come to our site and assume our site is a celeb RP. I have to explain it's not. I used to get SO ANNOYED with this until I realized these were people who only knew that kind of RP. I'm personally NOT a fan but I'm okay with them if they realize we're OCs only and we're not a Korean Entertainment RP, either. We just happen to be fans and have a lot of kpop playbys. 

 

Now I'm running a fandom RP (sorta) for the first time in a long time and we do get people who are used to how other Pokemon sites are run. And at the beginning, people thought we were anime/manga playbys, which we're not. So we had to add that to our site description and switch out our anime pokemon staff images for the more realistic ones from Detective Pikachu, which has helped immensely in that regard. 

 

Anyway, I don't find newbie guides bad or a sign of a juvenile RP. I don't HAVE newbie guides myself but I point them out on resource sites as needed. 

[Sage 289]

I used to get a lot of twitter or tumblr transplants. Which is kind of the same as forum rping in theory? But they still asked a lot of questions about how things worked, so we posted up a guide. 

 

There was another time I got a lot of D&D-ers for some weird reason on a really basic pbp style forum. So we posted up a guide on that one, too.

 

So I don't mind when other sites do it. Because I get it. Now, if they're being really strict or know-it-all-y in their rp guides, I won't join a site on principle, but that's just because I'm petty.

[Yona Carlin 44]

Most of my core writers have never used Nova before (they're all transplants from phpBB), and I advertise on places like this where most of the member base use jcink and the like, so I posted up a guide explaining how Nova works. 

[Jaxx 317]

I've had many, many members who show up not knowing anything about forum roleplaying. Some had never roleplayed before at all. It was a lot more common with my niche site, because we were the only one around for the fandom, but it's happened a fair amount with both other sites. I don't have a starter guide written up partially because I likely can't cover all the questions newbies would have, and partially because I'd prefer to talk with them about their questions individually to make sure we cover all the bases and they know what's up. And there's been plenty of people who ask a bunch of questions and then leave without joining, but that doesn't particularly bother me. 

[Spangles 35]

I came back to RP after a long, long break. I mean several years. And in that time everything had changed. Also, my last RP was on proboards, rather than JCink. So while I could still write, I was grateful for the starter's guide on the site I joined and for the staff who had to do a bit of hand-holding through my first app. 

 

Consequently, when I opened my site, I had people like the above me in mind. I was that lost person, so I'm (hopefully) helping out other lost people. And I have had a few since we opened. 

[Moon 12]

We get a lot of people come into the site from discord, where apparently things are run incredibly different from a forum.

 

Any guides we've have come because it was something asked more than a couple of times and as mods, we got exhausted trying to explain how to sign up for an account 15-20 times. 

[Gothic 307]

In the past we've had some people join AeRo and ask where the download link was. They thought it was something like Rome Total war, etc. 

[ArizonaRaspberry 35]

The only one I've ever had this experience with was a friend of mine in real life that we invited to play. He said he was familiar with roleplay, that he'd been a DM for many a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, and that it would be fine--but we consistently noticed misunderstandings of the rules and how play would work, super overused tropes, and he wanted to use a character from a novel he was working on. As much as I wouldn't mind reading his novel when it's finished, bringing the character on to a board where he wasn't the protagonist (or antihero) seemed like a tough transfer. He didn't end up wanting to play with us, which is totally fine.

 

Sometimes table top and PBP just don't gel very well.

Edited September 20, 2019 by slowsadmariachi