Staffing Members who only RP with one person

[Anonymous 234]

How do you feel about members who only RP with one person? They might have one or two threads with other people, but they're rarely finished and never really lead to plots but are just one off threads? 

 

And a followup question: how would you feel about a member like this taking up limited spots in terms of special characters or rare power type things?

Anonymous poster hash: feabe...487

[Shades 676]

I was gonna say I don't mind if they're not hindering plots. Despite its social nature, roleplay is a hobby, and some people are shy/don't mesh well easily with other people, and need time to branch out. So, I would say that, as long as it doesn't hinder anyone else's progress on the site, it's not really a problem, and, as a staff member, I'd try to gently offer them plots, but not really try to push them into anything.

 

Now, if they are messing up other people's plots, they should be talked to, in order to see what can be done - and, if they are picking up important characters/slots and not really playing them, they should lose those within whatever set time the site has for people with important/special positions to lose 'em if they're not being used. After all, for  a personal plot, I would assume they don't really need those, but someone who's planning on being involved with the site-wide plot could put them to good use.

[webs 14]

That's how cliques form. I dislike it, as somebody who struggles to reach out to people I feel are regarded as being the most sought out on sites. I try to write with as many people as possible, to my detriment too (given that I'm currently struggling to write many replies because I owe so many since I couldn't say no to picking up more with people). However, I think it also depends on the situation.

 

In a group of 10 people, writing with one person exclusively could suggest comfort or self-confidence. In a group of 11+ people, it appears to be cliqueness. Also, is it always their turn when threads are unfinished? Do they actively reach out to others for plots, or do others approach them first about plotting?

 

Taking up limited spots depends on the system of that RP. If it's fair, it's fair - that's what ratios and site shops help with, after all. You can't really stop somebody from following the rules, though you could talk to them (if you're CERTAIN that they are putting no effort into writing with others) about opening up and approaching more people, as a staff member or a friend. 

[Anonymous 234]

It's not to the at they're hindering other people's plots, it's more that their characters are in positions where itnwould make sense for them to interact with other characters but all their characters are only involved with one other person's characters. 

 

And that's my thing: that I don't see the point in them having these special things we offer on the site when they aren't really using them. And technically they met the activity requirement for getting them in the first place, though lately not so much. 

 

The other thing is that the only person this member is active with is with an admin and I've worried about how it looks in regards to favoritism more than once. 

Anonymous poster hash: feabe...487

[Shades 676]

Maybe this admin could try and encourage them gently/plot out a thread involving this person and another member to make them slowly more comfortable?

 

I have had members on sites where I staffed who did start out writing with staff members because they felt we wouldn't drop off the face of the Earth and leave them hanging, maybe this can be the case?

As for the plots they may be left hanging, this should definitely be addressed, as well as their general activity if they're not meeting the requirements to keep the 'special' things they have.

[Morrigan 1,826]

"It's a kind of give and take thing. I'll look like I'm leaning on specific people because of a number of reasons:

1. The pacing of the threads is one that I like.
2. I'm getting more responses from those people on the regular.
3. The plots/stories in those threads aren't actually progressing or actually doing anything for my character (it doesn't have to directly impact it for that thread but I'll be real I hate 'going through the motions' or 'meet up' threads and that is what ninety percent of roleplay is in the beginning).
4. Bad experiences with other members that leaves a bad taste in your mouth about roleplaying with them (for example constant misreading or inappropriate use of godmoding/powerplaying etc) - > This is a major one for me. I don't like having to ask RP partners to go back and re-do their posts because my character would never do or allow for something like that to happen to them. I'm pretty open but I demand a level of believable-ness.

 

Otherwise I wouldn't know any reason to lean specifically on a person however if you're concerned I recommend talking to your co-admin and mutually talk to the member together especially if the positions aren't really being utilized by the member. And what I mean by that is that they have the positions but even in the threads that they are in with the one person the position means nothing. Basically just have that position to have the position when they can likely be changed to a non-positioned character and accomplish the same things.

[VirusZero 176]

Like Shades mentioned if it's not adversely affecting other people then I don't care that much. Having them take one of a limited character type might not feel ideal, but if they're still posting with that character I'd not care that much. In many cases I feel I could fudge the number of these restricted/limited character types to "make" more for other people.

Like for this Borderlands game I was considering Sirens are limited to 6 in the entire universe and at least 4 are known. So as part of the plot more vaults opened and in the process caused more of those with capacity to be sirens to manifest. Boom, instant capacity for more Sirens even though official lore says 6 and only ever 6.

Alternatively, if the race is just rare then I just say that they are rare but that location has a higher than average count of them. (Which might make sense. A vampire might not want to be in the woods due to lack of prey so they might be more clustered in cities.) Plus just because the number of rare species is say even 100, that doesn't mean that there aren't thousands of NPC characters that populate the world that we don't see. 

 

But that kind of doesn't seem to be the case here. It seems like they either have a canon role or one where they need to interact with others, like a leader of a rebel team or something akin to that...

So yeah, maybe time to have a chat with them to see what's going on. Maybe they are shy and have troubles branching out. Maybe they tried already but no one responded. Maybe they're not sure what plots to offer. Regardless of why, at least message them and find out what they have to say. I wouldn't want to yank the role/character away from them without having a little sit down first. 

 

Though if they don't really have an answer, promise to do better but don't actually change or they ignore you... then they can say goodbye to special privileges. 

Like I've said prior, roleplay is a team thing. If you join in then you are part a group and are expected to do your part just like everyone else. Don't hold up that end of the bargain and you lose privileges or characters. And it's no one's fault but your own.

[Death Kitten 200]

I think it really depends on the site as to if it's okay.

 

If this is a large game with a lot of members, and they're not holding anyone else up by doing their thing, there's no real harm in just letting them do their thing. As VirusZero suggests, if they're holding a limit position but not interacting with others where it makes sense for someone of that position to do so, you could look and see if there's a reasonable way within lore to make more of that type/position available. If there isn't a reasonable way to make more of that position available to let other people step in too, then yeah, you might need to look at taking that special position away from the player just for the function of the site.

 

If you're on a smaller game with a limited setting, then you might need to be a little more unforgiving. For example, my Star Trek game? We're on a *small* ship, with only 32 crew, and most functions within the crew usually only have one person assigned to them, so if we get someone on the crew who isn't willing to write with some or most of the crew? It'll cause a blockage no matter what we do.

 

I am absolutely sympathetic to most of the reasons why someone might not want to write with certain people, or might favor particular writing partners within a game. FSM knows I've had my share of people who made my life miserable in past games I've played in. So if I can accommodate someone's preferences on who they want to write with, I will make the effort to do so... but if the person is so limited they only want to write with one particular person, or refuse to interact with most of the other players in the game, then I am going to start questioning if maybe they aren't a good fit for the game, and if they're hindering the game, suggest they move on. I've certainly done that with the past games where I found myself unwilling and/or unable to write with most of the people involved.

[SoulsRPG 15]

3 hours ago, Anonymous said:

And technically they met the activity requirement for getting them in the first place, though lately not so much. 

 

If you want people to be more active than you're requiring for special abilities or something, then raise that requirement.  If you want them to continue to be active after getting them, then make it a requirement that they have to do that.  It's not really fair to be upset at someone when they're doing everything you asked; if you want to ask more, then ask more, but they have no way of knowing that what they're doing isn't enough if you don't tell them.

[Sadrienne 242]

I don't mind. Some people just connect really well as RP partners, and it can be one of the absolute joys of RP: having those intense plots with a person you know is gonna drive the story and and keep things interesting. 

 

If the character's position is one that would ideally require them interacting with more different characters, that's something to note on the position listing. That way, you've established the requirement that a character with that position should be threading with a wider group. If you don't establish those expectations, there's no reason for the player to assume that what they normally do is a problem.

 

Talk with your co-admin about ways to approach it, as they obviously know this person best. Perhaps your co-admin can help the player branch out, or come to some other arrangement that suits what the board needs out of that character slot, and keeps everyone happy and enjoying the game.

[Gothic 307]

In my experience, it tends to be shyness or a passion for a particular plot. However, if say, they are playing a King who would realistically RP with more than one character they need to be gently reminded of this. 

[Elena 546]

If the role their character has on the site requests writing with more people, talk both with the person and with the writing partner. Maybe the writing partner is willing to involve 1-2 more people to get into a group thread and have the character meet his role in the story.

 

In general, I say that being part of a RPG is a collective hobby, which requires branching out and writing with all the characters that character makes sense to interact with. If you want only one writing partner, write in googledocs or on a private site, don't join a site with more people and take a character who has a role to meet!

[Icewolf 258]

I actually dwindled my writing partners down to a few people because of problems with people like Morrigan said. It became incredibly hard to trust new writers and that small group of 'safe' rpers became smaller still when a lot of them became inactive and this dwindled down to just one person at one point.

 

If it's social anxiety, shyness, time restraints, storyline preference and whether you just click with that person more than others then it's not a problem as long as they aren't playing a character where other people need to interact with them. (They might even be better off on a different kind of site to a forum - perhaps something like these sites would be better for them - Roleplay Haven or RP Repository as they are geared more for 1 x 1 rp.) However, I have known some writers to be practically unapproachable to people who aren't their preferred writer and I don't know why they'd want to be on a forum which is a practically a group setting - you'd expect them to want to talk to others by joining it.

[Dragon 673]

21 hours ago, Anonymous said:

It's not to the at they're hindering other people's plots, it's more that their characters are in positions where itnwould make sense for them to interact with other characters but all their characters are only involved with one other person's characters. 

 

There's only so much realism you can demand from your players, really. Making sense for them to interact with other characters doesn't necessitate it. If I someone plays a cop on a site, it makes sense that they'd interact with a lot of the character populace - that doesn't mean they're going to, and them not doing so isn't really hindering anything. Now if it's a character in a leadership position, then it is going to cause immense issue and something like that demands being dealt with if possible. 

 

Years ago I rain a site where I had a member join at the request of another member. This individual was pretty up front in making it clear that they were really only interested in threading with player number two in this scenario. I'll admit that I found it mildly annoying, but they were always friendly and fun on our chat forum; and they didn't cause problems, so I didn't screw with them. In their case it ultimately turned out to be a matter of time constraints. They only had so much time to invest in role play, they loved the premise that I and my team had created for the site, but they also wanted to be able to enjoy themselves there with the limited time they had.

 

There's nothing wrong with it, really. It is still activity reflected in your stats, and they still help the site look active. 

 

You've said that they're not actually hindering anything on the site, so my advice would be to consider whether or not approaching them or your co-admin is worth it at all. Doing so could create an unintended backlash. 

[Huskerdust 625]

I’m more uncomfortable that people take offense to it. I often bring an rp friend to a board with me because I’m nervous going alone. But having been told to branch out... makes me leave so fast. We’re not all trying to be cliquey. If you give us time, we will branch out on our own. Being called out on it is just going to drive us away.