When your board's genre isn't a thing!?

[xexes 108]

Can anyone offer any advice for roleplaying boards whose topics/subjects aren't a recognized genre? I keep seeing these wonderful ideas out there but ultimately they flop.  I get that not all roleplay boards can survive but I have seen one such board TRY AND TRY, they fought teeth and nails and still lost.

 

Here are some examples:

 

 - minecraft

 - power rangers

 - the simpsons

 - futurama

 

But I have seen some new genres come on the scene: K-Pop and even Jacqueline Carrey's Kushiel's book series.

 

When you make, say, a new Harry Potter board, everyone from that pool comes over - you have an existing userbase to draw from who are willing and ready. Sometimes you just can't draw from existing bases, like how right now Anita Blake is barely a genre anymore and is superceded by the supernatural/praeternatural genre as a whole but AB just has too many very specific things.

 

Advice? THoughts? Bueller?

[Jones 177]

In my experience, when your site genre is super niche you need to market it to parent/adjacent genres. For instance you put that prime example of Anita Blake sites falling into the supernatural category. Don't just market to Anita Blake fans, market to people that like to write supernatural fiction. Draw them in, keep the premise simple so that the unfamiliar can get a sense of things and then just let your site do the talking. 

 

Years ago I stumbled on a Black Jewels Trilogy site by accident while looking at other fantasy listings. I knew zero about it, but the site was intriguing and I wanted to take on a particular want ad. I decided right then and there to read the books. Now it's one of my favorite genres- even though I didn't even enjoy the series's plot. 

 

Basically, focus on telling stories that entertain you and other people will be entertained enough to join in.

[Dragon 673]

4 hours ago, xexes said:

Can anyone offer any advice for roleplaying boards whose topics/subjects aren't a recognized genre? I keep seeing these wonderful ideas out there but ultimately they flop.  I get that not all roleplay boards can survive but I have seen one such board TRY AND TRY, they fought teeth and nails and still lost.

 

Here are some examples:

 

 - minecraft

 - power rangers

 - the simpsons

 - futurama

 

Well, straight of the bat... save for Power Rangers, nothing mentioned has a viable plot world. 

 

Power Rangers is role playable. Ask any kid who has watched. Most any of us had a favorite Ranger through any given season, and would scrap with our friends to get to play the role of that Ranger on the playground. From an adult standpoint, however, the formula just doesn't work so well. 

 

Minecraft is a world building game. There is no base to work from. You may as well find 2-3 friends and just make it all up as you go along. Minecraft in and of itself has nothing to offer for a plot world. 

 

The Simpsons and Futurama have a well established world/universe, respectively, but nothing to run with. Both shows were designed to end exactly how they started - hell, in season 1 of Futurama they have an entire episode based on this point. Season 1, Episode 12 "When Aliens Attack". The episode ends with Fry stating 'the secret to a successful television show is that everything ends up back to normal at the end of each episode'. 

 

Niche genres are possible. But attention has to be paid. It has to be a niche genre with genuine opportunity for expansion, though. Not all of them are. 

 

 

 

 

[PixieMegs 107]

I would have to agree with @Dragon. Having a viable plot world is important, but I also think you can create plots that work. However, at that point, it might be less of the thing you started with than you wanted.

 

For instance, (I'm going to give a go at creating a theoretical minecraft site right here) minecraft is tricky because of how much you just do whatever in that game. Wanna farm dirt? Go for it. In an rp setting, that's not super exciting. You could have it set up so a group of people are creating something, somewhere, have night time be extra spooky and people don't go out. If they do, they get a random event in their thread with a monster in it. If they dig too deep somewhere, lava! Or they find an underground river. But as you put a plot on it...what is your plot? Are they displaced people that are in a new land? Are you literally a game character?  How much of it is still minecraft themed? Is it just inspired at that point? I think it sort of just becomes civilization rp, where people are building their civilization. Which might be a way to market it and just borrow ideas you like from the game and say it is inspired by.

 

And I don't think it is necessarily niche genres that have this problem either. I've seen lots of HP sites flop, for instance, because the plot didn't hold or some other problem. I run a Riddle Era Harry Potter rp and since it isn't the typical marauders, trio, or next gen, we have a fairly small group of members. In comparison. And there were a lot of kinks to work out along the way. Thankfully, we did have a existing lore to use and past and futures to aim toward. We take our own route getting there, but essentially, we are secure in a fandom. That being said, I've been on AU HP sites that didn't last because they were too far removed from the established lore and things got too complicated or were too vague. At that point it needed to be presented as something else, because it was- basically, not HP anymore.

 

Welp. I've rattled on for too long. I also feel like I just breezed past the point. I'm sorry 😧

Edited December 10, 2019 by PixieMegs

[Mistress Of The Obvious 73]

One thing I noticed @xexes, is that your four examples is all are fairly light hearted and two are comedic.

 

To go into comedy again, I’ve never seen a Discworld site last more than a few months.

 

Comedy is hard to write. Comedy set in a universe where you are expected to follow that style is much harder. I suspect a large reason why comedic sites fail is because of that and it intimidates potential members.

 

The only comedic site I know of that has lasted a long time is Blue Dwarf, based on Red Dwarf. It used to be on Yahoo Groups and then moved to Ongoingworlds. Even it looks like it’s been rather slow going since 2016, but who knows if it would be around for long if it was created now.

 

Another thing I noticed is Power Rangers, The Simpsons, and Futurama are all episodic for the most part. Transforming an episodic series into long running character oriented stories is also difficult.

 

Minecraft I think has the difficulty of it being a blank canvas that can mean anything to anyone. I’ve seen successful Harvest Moon sites so the idea of a semi real world rural setting does work.

 

Anita Blake is an interesting one. Part of the reason is that any Anita Blake site is going to have to compete with looser general supernatural sites regarding lore. Add to the fact that a lot of fans have not been happy with much of the later books and do not want to be tied to some of that lore, anyone creating said site would have to figure out when and where they want to break off from it. The last part is that the community got so abusive that anyone I know who has ever partaken in Anita Blake sites have some horror story that either happened to them or another member. The name Anita Blake is now met with sighs and rolled eyes in the rpg community. I think a large chunk of those fans don’t want to fight it and just create a general supernatural site instead.

 

K-Pop is an interesting beast in of itself. I wonder if part of the problem has to do with all the issues of the industry. Just this year we’ve had at least two suicides and a massive sex scandal of pop stars using at least one club and chat groups to drug, rape women, and share the images and videos.

 

Then there is the average life of an up and coming K-Pop group. You are in a little apartment with other members on company property, where you spend your entire time singing, dancing, and training, sometimes until your feet bleed. Encouraged to go on dangerous extreme diets and undergo plastic surgery. Psychological and even physical violence (like slapping) isn’t uncommon. All the training, music production, and costs you’re expected to pay back on top of a sum to pay for management and the like, after that you have to split the rest with other members. Once that money goes, your expected to take out a loan to live, then when you get your money, of course you need to repay that loan.

 

Basically, the life of an up and coming K-Pop artist is long stretches of being busy, mixed with bits of boredom, and the vast majority of drama being negative from the management companies.

 

I suspect that is another big reason why people don’t join, they worry they need to know massive amounts of how the industry works. The another reason I suspect is being that the industry is relatively disposable. I have a friend who used to be heavily into it and most of her favorites have either disappeared or are sadly dead. If you aren’t happy with the direction of how the music is going, you have a problem because there is a lack of mainstream variety. It makes it harder to connect to and the disposability can disheartening.

 

The last and biggest problem with any K-Pop site is that they’re competing with just about any slice of life and even supernatural sites. I have a Japanese singer who is a supernatural and can easily fit into any large city. I have her under Japanese management, but US recording under a co-partnership. Why would I want to play a Korean character in a rather restrictive setting, when I can play one with powers based on Korean mythology, still be a musical artist under that restrictive management, and be a fish out of water in a completely different culture? I also would feel like I would need less of that encyclopedic knowledge of the industry.

 

I have a question for everyone regarding Harry Potter. How many sites that take place out of the UK actually use Fantastic Beasts lore?

 

To get on the main question of genre, there was a site I was briefly on that was another dimension run by gnomes based on 1950s and 60s Americana. They sucked humans into their world, they were given all sorts of things like a certain amount of money, a home, a vehicle, but also a weapon, and were expected to fight shadow monsters to protect the gnomes. It only lasted a few months, but I still love the concept. The owner and admin didn’t advertise for it much and the domain became yet another Harry Potter site.

 

I suspect sites can be a little too quirky, not know how to advertise or feel its too much work, others are too restrictive in premise or lore, members may feel they need to know a large amount of knowledge in the subject, setting, or lore, or there are dozens out there similar somehow.

[Sheena 4]

To kind of revive this thread, I understand the struggle here. My site is a lion based roleplay, though we allow hybrids as well as 3 other species of big cats. There is literally one other lion rp site that exists and actually survives - how i dunno - and i work hard, advertising my site. Ive managed to gain 3 other members who are active, but that is it thus far. There are no other 'feline' genre except warrior cats or whatever and ive even tried posting on their sites as well.

[Fallingfeather 2]

Yeah, I totally get having to advertise to 'parent' genres to make a site work. I'm currently working with a site that is very focused on adoptable creatures and 'monster collection', with stat systems and whatnot. It's a really unique setting and that doesn't even brush the surface, but as a result it's a bit of a hard sell for people. Still, I think my best bet in pitching it would be to people who play on Pokemon RPGs and whatnot. Even if the mood is different, the lore is juuuust similar enough that people might bite.

[Kieran 15]

A Harry Potter site isn't a guaranteed success either. Mine is apparently set in so extremely unpopular era that not even a very magical side plot involving the currently trending Fantastic Beasts movie characters has drawn players. And that side plot has been offered for almost three years now. And of course the fact that I adapted the books' lore a lot may affect it too because fans can't just read the rules and jump in based on official lore. But whatevs, I have one active and excited writing buddy there now so all my hard work hasn't been for nothing. 

 

Anyway, I just founded a Lion King rpg with the one other person who appears to want one as much asI do, so even if it ends up being just the two of us ever, I believe we'll be fine. I can't really think of what parent genre to advertise it in because it's based on a movie and not an original. As in one would have to have seen and like the movie to even care to join, and those people are far more likely to be drawn from The Lion King communities. The good thing is that at least right now we don't have any competition in the english language but seem to be literally the only english language Lion King rpg that isn't one-liner posts.

 

I've come to be happy even with just one other active player on my sites. Even if the amount of work and time of my life I've put into the founding, building, and advertising would need more players to have the site's potential even begin to be met, I'm forever grateful for even one active writing buddy as they have ensured my hard work and time used wasn't for nothing. Even if the amount of work vs. fruit it bears are horribly dispropotionate. In the end, I foundcmy sites initially for myself and thus all I really need is one other equally excited writing partner. And then just keep hoping that someday a few more would join so that the site's potential wouldn't be wasted. 

 

I don't know. I guess it's just the price we have to pay if we want to rp something that's not mainstream or has an unpopular setting. 

[xexes 108]

On 6/29/2020 at 3:58 PM, Kieran said:

Anyway, I just founded a Lion King rpg with the one other person who appears to want one as much asI do, so even if it ends up being just the two of us ever, I believe we'll be fine. I can't really think of what parent genre to advertise it in because it's based on a movie and not an original.

TLK roleplays tend to not last very long at all because their genre is very small. The Disney genre is much bigger but as TLK doesn't include humans it's very different.

 

On the other hand, lion roleplays are very much a thing and there are generally 2-3 that dominate the community at any given time with long-standing, very stable roleplays.  Like most roleplays that get very large they tend to forget to advertise and tend to get a little insular, relying on word of mouth to attract new members.

 

The other problem with TLK roleplays is that there isn't much that people want to play. My spouse once ran a mulit-species animal board and people don't really want to play giraffes, deer, birds, etc. There's been meerkat roleplays and even hyena roleplays but they die out quickly because there's so little interest in playing those species. Lions are the biggest roleplay attraction TLK roleplays generally have and it's easy to forget it.

Edited July 18, 2020 by xexes