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Thoughts on Discord RPs?


dylzoe
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I know many people now are shifting away from the email/forum RP style towards Discord. However, I kind of like the style and personality you can put into forum RPs. I have some mixed thoughts about it, but I have decided I like discord more for one liners or quicker RPs, but forums for longer and more plot-important RPs. Overall, I am more experienced in forum RP, so I wondered what others think about this issue.

 

How do you feel about Discord as a way to RP? Better? Worse? Somewhere in between?

Edited by dylzoe
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I'm a proud owner of a discord rp. I think it really works, everything's all close together and the real-time chat style makes rp and plotting pretty accessible for the jump in and play crowd. Discord can work for multi-paragraph rps just fine but the character limit doesn't cater well to constant novel-style posts.

If the discord is properly organized

I've seen some that are super casual, or have no channel descriptions, or are unintuitive to look through, offering little clarity as to what any of the channels are for. I've seen discord rps that redirect to forums or google docs for every bit of lore, and ones that are too ambitious, with too many channels for their member count. As someone who came from forum rp before going into discord rps, I know that I can create a system which works for me on either platform. I always put lore/rules/info on top so its the first thing anyone sees, followed by ooc, followed by rp. Most rules and quality expectations can cross over as well. Just like with forums there are discords that seem 'elitist' wanting a consistent quality of rp from their members. For those who put work into discord to develop a stable community, with a healthy atmosphere, rp can really thrive there.

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3 minutes ago, Kazetatsu said:

I'm a proud owner of a discord rp. I think it really works, everything's all close together and the real-time chat style makes rp and plotting pretty accessible for the jump in and play crowd. Discord can work for multi-paragraph rps just fine but the character limit doesn't cater well to constant novel-style posts.

 

I can absolutely see that. Its strongest quality seems to be that accessibility since it not only grabs a crowd that wouldn't be interested in forum/email RP, but also is a smooth and easy transition for those used to that old style. Thanks for your insights my dude 🙂

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I'll be 100% honest. I have next to zero idea of how a Discord-based RP would work. I get the "here's a channel, now RP in it" part, but it seems to me like you'd either have to make members wait until either the channel is freed up to RP or staff can make a copy of the channel for you, or you have to trust your members with edit channel permissions so they can make their own, and just pray someone doesn't get petty and nuke someone else's RP. Call me paranoid, but I really don't like that second idea lol

 

Setting that aside (there's probably a bot for it anyway), I think its an interesting idea for the right kind of person and plot. Having the option to RP while you're on the bus or waiting in line somewhere - without needing to go to a forum - would definitely be nice, provided its not chaos and constant beeps and boops from other people's RPs.

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28 minutes ago, ThriftStoreTeeth said:

I'll be 100% honest. I have next to zero idea of how a Discord-based RP would work. I get the "here's a channel, now RP in it" part, but it seems to me like you'd either have to make members wait until either the channel is freed up to RP or staff can make a copy of the channel for you, or you have to trust your members with edit channel permissions so they can make their own, and just pray someone doesn't get petty and nuke someone else's RP. Call me paranoid, but I really don't like that second idea lol

 

Setting that aside (there's probably a bot for it anyway), I think its an interesting idea for the right kind of person and plot. Having the option to RP while you're on the bus or waiting in line somewhere - without needing to go to a forum - would definitely be nice, provided its not chaos and constant beeps and boops from other people's RPs.

 

I agree with everything you said~. a lot of  RP nuking probably would happen, but that's easy enough to moderate if not still super annoying. 

 

I actually didn't think about the beeps and boops, lol. my Discord RPs have been either PM or with a small group. It would be rather annoying having to mute channels and forget about them or deal with all of the notifs. I am sure like you said there are bots to help manage all of these things more reasonably

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if you expect a lot of private/closed rps scenes, then this can get a little tricky. that's like running an discord rp as a channel per-thread, which I've never seen as viable except for maybe the occasional special event. the server grows huge too quickly and it becomes hard to find stuff.

I run my server on an open-rp location-based system. Almost anyone can jump into any channel at any time. So there's a channel for a cafe, another for a public park etc, and anything in that channel could effect anyone rping there. If there's confusion about what replies are aimed at who, pinging, and an honor system of not going too far ahead without people works well to make sure that replies are seen by who they are meant for, and that rpers respect one another's space. I've never had any problems with people fighting over channels unless one is held up by an especially large plot, where ocs could get hurt or be at risk.

as for notifications, discord is very customizable there. you can mute each channel individually, and for a set amount of time, have no notifications, but see where new replies are, set it to pings only, etc. there's a lot of bots available for various tasks, but I prefer not to use most of them. I do most of my adminning manually, either on my own or with a small team of others.

Edited by Kazetatsu
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I haven't seen any RP servers as such apart from one a friend made that was 1v1. He and I were doing a Dr Who RP and each had channels to flesh out our characters and do all the cosmetic stuff, what they looked like, clothes etc. It worked really well, and I think if you are running one major plot line you could have a bunch of players involved.

 

Your RP discord sounds pretty good @Kazetatsu I will have to drop by and have a look.

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Discord RP both reminds me of the first places I rp'd as a child, and sexting lol. But I've never done smut over discord rp which is why the sexting feeling is so strange. But I can't get past it, much as I can get into that rapid fire rping, so I don't do it. I'm down for a little chat play, but not real rping over discord.

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@Flahme you're welcome to drop in and take a look. The invite here should work, and if not, just send me a message and I'll send you a working invite. I don't even mind if you, or anyone else, join just to see what's possible with a discord based rp. Just like with forums, there's different approaches that suit different folks, so if you're interested in discord as a possible venue, explore around and learn what works well for your rp style.

https://discord.gg/R9yuhcp (Of Being Human: A small Town Supernatural RP)

Edited by Kazetatsu
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11 hours ago, dusk said:

Discord RP both reminds me of the first places I rp'd as a child, and sexting lol. But I've never done smut over discord rp which is why the sexting feeling is so strange. But I can't get past it, much as I can get into that rapid fire rping, so I don't do it. I'm down for a little chat play, but not real rping over discord.

That's sort of how I feel too. It can be fun to rapid fire replies and especially so when you're young. I remember how fun it was to just be able to drop in and go for like instant messaging and that sort of thing!

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  • 4 months later...

I recently started my very first rp on Discord and I love it, the convenience of getting an immediate notification of a new post and just generally the instant messaging in the ooc chat.

 

But that's only because it's a 1x1 rp and we both have only one character with the rest being NPCs, and we tend to rp it every day. I can't see Discord as a good platform for multiplayer RPs with a lot of players and characters. Because I prefer having character accounts instead of all characters on an ooc account, and in a multiplayer rp the notifications might get annoying and  having them constantly muted would beat the purpose. 

 

A major con I find in Discord is the 2000 characters per message limit which is the main reason I would not do Discord RPs other than one or two well selected 1x1s. It's annoying having to split your post in several parts and having to add stars in between because it will not give line changes for paragraphs but will merge messages. So, Discord is not yet good for those of us who write long posts. 

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From one who has done chat rp back in the day--- its not that different---however the reasons I went to Forum rp makes me disinclined to discord rp because the same issues chat rp had on several severs is going to eventually happen.

 

Another issue is I have no time for it. I love the rich writing and the ability to not have to reply or post swiftly in a forum. I just think I am a better writer than I was within chat rp genre. 

 

 

But people are all different and I think for some chat rp works for them, I personally prefer forum,

 

Might not be the insta gratification of chat rp but its a sacrifice when you have life and work and all that jazz.

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I haven’t done it but considering how much I dislike discord already, I can’t imagine I’d like it much. I have tried just about every form of rp, from starting in a MUCK and chat rooms to moving onto MySpace and instant messenger. But forums have been my favorite since being introduced to them. 
 

when I was younger I might have ventured into it but these days I just cannot sit down for hours in front of the computer. These days, I post sporadically when I get a chance... it’s just not conducive to chat based rp

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I agree with time wholeheartedly. There was a time when I had it to run a few rooms and such. But it was tedious drama ladden and in the end when I moved to forums I was much happier. I am not saying that there is not drama in forums- but with a good staff and common sense it can and will be handled.

 

Forum works with my life. I like to post when I get a chance and be involved in a forum where they support the fact we have lives and there is no rush.

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I want to roleplay, not chat. So much more of my time gets taken up in conversation and I can't put the most quality in my writing because I'm stuck in speed mode. I'm finding myself getting confused at what's happening in my story, what something means, what my character would do, or what comes next and I need some time away to figure it all out; rushing doesn't help any of those issues.

 

And I'm beginning to hate discord. I slip between the cracks of discord. I get lost in the chat trying to catch up every day. The person that I need to plot with isn't online, or worse, they're in do-not-disturb mode. So I try to wait until I can catch them not in Don'tDisturb and weeks pass ... Or someone sends me a message while I'm sleeping and I just get confused and frustrated and forget all about it later.

I feel like the only reason we're even using Discord on roleplays these days is for push notifications to your phone.

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