Please can we get some sort of system for TYPE of RP?

[Le_Craig]

There are some big divisions in how people play. We have role-play requests for countless ideas but very few people state in those requests what ways they'd like to play them (or even realize they need to). I waste a lot of time approaching people only to find out that we play in different ways. These differences can be hard rules for many people.

The main divisions I see are:

• Use First Person / Third Person. (fp/tp). Some people only enjoy one of these.
• Real Time / Play by Post (rt/PbP)
• Medium (Discord/YIM/PM/Forum).

At least one of these are a hard line for most of us. A rt player will be utterly frustrated by a PbP player with the former typically wanting to set aside some time to enjoy a live play for gratification; whilst the latter is chucking out a post at some slow moment during the working day. A fp player might find it weirdly distancing to read a story about the events happening to someone else; a tp player might find it deeply uncomfortable for someone to be saying "I do whatever to you." Some people play almost exclusively on Discord and others don't even seem to know what it is.

It would be massively useful, I think, if either there were options to set which people use in their profile; or encouraged somehow to add them to the requests as standard just as they do "MxF" or "MxM". So you could see something like "Romance Plot [MxF, fp, rt, DISCORD/YIM]".

I don't know which is most practical. I imagine extra categories on a profile page might be easiest to do. But I believe either way this would be HUGELY useful to many of us. I'm sure there are those that don't care. But for many it's an endless round of "do you...?"

And if someone is flexible, just put both options as normal, e.g. "fp/tp".

Can this be done?

 

[Raina Reader]

Most people with exceptions like this tend to make full use of their Request thread, which is expected to be the bread and butter of your BMR arsenal. (Mmm snacks and swords) Think of the Request Thread as your dating profile if you will. you put all of the information in there that you expect people to take into consideration, just as anyone would view other request threads and judge them according to their own wants and needs. It is not uncommon for me to see people post their RP style, and preferred platform to play on. Not everyone does this ofcourse, but this wouldn't change if the option was given on profiles either. Some people fill out their profiles, some don't, just as some don't make request threads at all, sticking purely to PM's, and further dividing up the forum sounds like it'd be confusing.


I know when I create a request thread I try to be as thorough as possible with not only the kind of RP I am looking for, but where I like to RP, my writing style and the sort of partner I am looking for, and that has served me well.

 

[Le_Craig]

But people don't usually do this. Some people put it in their request thread but it's not uncommon for me to read through half a dozen and not see answers to these questions - which are often critical. This site can do things to make doing so standard practice. And it would help a lot.

I never suggested further sub-dividing the forum and that wouldn't be a good idea either as these categories are not always mutually exclusive. Some people don't care if a play is real time or not, others are happy playing in both fp and tp. Which is why I think either popularizing these in the thread title or adding to user profiles would be good.

 

[Karameida]

I understand what you're talking about but I don't believe its something that's necessary to do. No matter what you do, people will always leave things out that they don't view as important and that's just human nature, short of forcing people it won't be something they'd do. If you view it as important then it's a simple matter to message them and ask those questions to see if you'd work, it does get frustrating messaging people only to find you don't mesh but you will also find that happens just as much even if those questions are answered. If it's not about the posting style, medium, etc, it'll be about something else. Every RPer deals with that kind of thing on some level about something and it is frustrating but just part of the game of RPing.

There are threads that give a guideline of what you could put in your RT but they are only options as it's up to the RT creator what they want to add and I'm not keen on doing something that would start making them have to do things they wouldn't want to, it is their choice after all.

 

[Le_Craig]

I understand what you're talking about but I don't believe its something that's necessary to do. No matter what you do, people will always leave things out that they don't view as important and that's just human nature, short of forcing people it won't be something they'd do. If you view it as important then it's a simple matter to message them and ask those questions to see if you'd work, it does get frustrating messaging people only to find you don't mesh but you will also find that happens just as much even if those questions are answered. If it's not about the posting style, medium, etc, it'll be about something else. Every RPer deals with that kind of thing on some level about something and it is frustrating but just part of the game of RPing.

There are threads that give a guideline of what you could put in your RT but they are only options as it's up to the RT creator what they want to add and I'm not keen on doing something that would start making them have to do things they wouldn't want to, it is their choice after all.

Well having experienced over and over this situation, I think it would be very useful. People put MxF in their thread titles. It's equally a "simple matter" to message people and see what genders people want to play but it's still convenient and a big time saver to have that up front. Typing "fp, im" is minimal effort and could easily be encouraged.

If I message someone then I either send a quick two line "I like your ideas" or a longer, more engaging message. But I don't do the latter because three out of four times I'll get a message back (IF I get a message back) saying "I only play by PM" or "Third person only". Consequently I've changed to much sparser introductions because I don't enjoy wasting my time.

Getting people to start specifying how they play will be very useful to a lot of us. And no, obviously not everyone will do it. That's not a reason not to encourage it.

 

[Karameida]

Yes, people will put MxF, FxF, HxF etc because to them, thats an important note. Not everyone does it because it doesn't matter to everyone. Especially as some will play as all genders and pairings. It matters to some and not to others, same with medium, style and so on. I am not certain what more you would have us do. As I said, there are already places on site that give a list of things that are useful/helpful to place in a RT, whether members use it, is up to them and its already agreed that splitting the sections up farther wouldn't be helpful. Your wanting us to "encourage" members is already done with those threads I mentioned in my initial post here and in this one. So what more do you want done?

 

[Le_Craig]

Yes, people will put MxF, FxF, HxF etc because to them, thats an important note. Not everyone does it because it doesn't matter to everyone. Especially as some will play as all genders and pairings. It matters to some and not to others, same with medium, style and so on. I am not certain what more you would have us do. As I said, there are already places on site that give a list of things that are useful/helpful to place in a RT, whether members use it, is up to them and its already agreed that splitting the sections up farther wouldn't be helpful. Your wanting us to "encourage" members is already done with those threads I mentioned in my initial post here and in this one. So what more do you want done?

People also put MxA for anything. People put these things in request threads because it's important to them sometimes, but they also do it because everybody else does and they recognize that it helps out.

What I'd suggest, as the adding these things to profiles hasn't been taken up, is to put a glossary and suggested usage in the welcome threads. I had a look and it talks about putting them in the thread itself, but nothing about thread titles. I literally open the same thread six or so times because it's not possible to remember all the threads you've looked at. And for every six threads I open, I find four that aren't clear on all these things, two that are worth PMing and if I'm lucky, one of those plays the same way I do. I know I'm not the only person who has these problems.

I fundamentally disagree with you that people only put stuff up because it's useful to them. People are nicer than that.They're also more conformist. If they see that it's common to put play style in a title as well as MxF, then most people will do that - either to be helpful or just social inertia.

So specifically, what would be great is if you put these three common divisions in welcome threads and specifically gave an example request thread title. Standardisation will help everyone. For some of us, play by thread or play by IM is more important than whether we're playing against an M or an F. So it would be great to encourage expanding the format. You think people wont do things if they're not important, but I think people will put "fp/tp, rt" in a request thread. It will improve their experience.

 

[HeyThereLittleBear]

You can lead horses to water but you can't make them drink. No, people are not considerate to others as a whole and when in the role-play world, specifically in the sexual role-play world, are looking for as little hassle as possible. The point of the request thread is to put what you're looking for and if someone can't even put the effort forth into putting pertinent information into the thread, it is not the staff's responsibility to force him to put it.

At the end of the day, if there was a possibility of adding more things to the profile such as what you're asking for, I'm sure the staff would have said something about it by now to you.

Since they haven't, it's safe to assume it's something that they either cannot do, or have discussed and decided against for whatever reason.

This site -- or any site -- will never be perfect for everyone. There will always be issues or things that someone is unhappy with. It is up to you to make the best of it and take the suggestions you've been given to optimize your own experience.

 

[Le_Craig]

You can lead horses to water but you can't make them drink. No, people are not considerate to others as a whole and when in the role-play world, specifically in the sexual role-play world, are looking for as little hassle as possible. The point of the request thread is to put what you're looking for and if someone can't even put the effort forth into putting pertinent information into the thread, it is not the staff's responsibility to force him to put it.

At the end of the day, if there was a possibility of adding more things to the profile such as what you're asking for, I'm sure the staff would have said something about it by now to you.

Since they haven't, it's safe to assume it's something that they either cannot do, or have discussed and decided against for whatever reason.

This site -- or any site -- will never be perfect for everyone. There will always be issues or things that someone is unhappy with. It is up to you to make the best of it and take the suggestions you've been given to optimize your own experience.

Nowhere at any point did I say anything about forcing people to do anything. I said putting this in the welcome threads and promoting it, would encourage its use which it would. No, not all people are selfish and even in so much as they are - being clearer about what they want IS in their self-interest. It is very tiresome to PM six or seven people because you don't know if they play in first person or third and have to ask. This would make the site better for all users and is minimal effort to try. Instead, I see a series of replies saying don't try.

 

[HeyThereLittleBear]

Oh, like this document that is being given to every newbie when they start? This document already details out the best way to create a request thread and the document was formulated by the staff members who worked hard to make sure it had everything a newbie could need.

So what you're suggesting is already in place, so honestly there is nothing more that a staff member could do to make people do this.

I understand that you're frustrated by it, and I get the irritation, but frankly what is being said is not "don't try". What is being said by the staff, who work extremely hard to make sure this site runs smoothly, is that they have already done everything they can short of forcing people.

So you aren't outright saying it. But you are.

All you're doing now is being rude and combative against the reasonable suggestions that have been given to you.

 

[Le_Craig]

Oh, like this document that is being given to every newbie when they start? This document already details out the best way to create a request thread and the document was formulated by the staff members who worked hard to make sure it had everything a newbie could need.

So what you're suggesting is already in place, so honestly there is nothing more that a staff member could do to make people do this.

I understand that you're frustrated by it, and I get the irritation, but frankly what is being said is not "don't try". What is being said by the staff, who work extremely hard to make sure this site runs smoothly, is that they have already done everything they can short of forcing people.

So you aren't outright saying it. But you are.

All you're doing now is being rude and combative against the reasonable suggestions that have been given to you.

Yes. That is the document I am suggesting adding something to about thread titles.

 

[Prose]

BMR does not force any member to adhere to a certain template when creating their Request Threads. Some people write in 1st & 3rd, some write in only one or the other. Some people play Male, Female or Trans only, while others will play all of the above. It is nice to have an informative title and equally as nice to have an informative intro, but each RT belongs to the OP. They own it and are free to craft it however they see fit.

Some of the things that matter to you simply don't matter to other writers, so they don't list it. It isn't meant to be a slight to you in any way, but it just doesn't factor to them. We've placed threads out there to offer suggestions, but at the end of the day, your RT is yours. All I can suggest is if you are uncertain about a potential partner's writing style, either check their posting history to see if they have an RP thread viewable to the public -or- message them with a cookie cutter, "I'm potentially interested in writing with you. Do you write in 1st 2nd or 3rd person? Do you RP over thread or PM? Do you..." and list out the things that you want to know that they have left out before moving forward.

 

[Le_Craig]

BMR does not force any member to adhere to a certain template when creating their Request Threads. Some people write in 1st & 3rd, some write in only one or the other. Some people play Male, Female or Trans only, while others will play all of the above. It is nice to have an informative title and equally as nice to have an informative intro, but each RT belongs to the OP. They own it and are free to craft it however they see fit.

Some of the things that matter to you simply don't matter to other writers, so they don't list it. It isn't meant to be a slight to you in any way, but it just doesn't factor to them. We've placed threads out there to offer suggestions, but at the end of the day, your RT is yours. All I can suggest is if you are uncertain about a potential partner's writing style, either check their posting history to see if they have an RP thread viewable to the public -or- message them with a cookie cutter, "I'm potentially interested in writing with you. Do you write in 1st 2nd or 3rd person? Do you RP over thread or PM? Do you..." and list out the things that you want to know that they have left out before moving forward.

I do the things you suggest. In fact the greater proportion of my time on this site consists of going back through people's threads to see if they anywhere mention first / third person or real time vs. PbP. What I find is that in the huge majority of cases if they don't mention it in one place they don't mention it ever, though there are exceptions. I have, more recently, settled on the fact that my responses to people have now, due to no stating of preference, changed from being "I like your ideas, here's my ideas and would you be interested in varying it like this or enjoy that" to - as you suggest - "Do you do 1st? Do you IM" and not much else. It makes a poor fit for all those people who spell out in their threads "Don't just PM me saying I like you ideas or I wont reply!" Which is common.

I don't know why every person responds with some variation of "You can't force people" and "people only care about themselves". I've never said the first and I don't believe the second. I've suggested putting a few lines in the request thread and promoting a standard format for request titles that includes a few extra characters. E.g. "Looking for con scene [MxF, fp/tp, IM]"

This helps everyone - requesters and responders alike and is easy to encourage. I've identified three common divisions in style of RP that affect people's RP preferences, based on my experience.

There are 40+ threads at any one time on the first page of the request forum. At present, one of them has "IM" in the title. That is 39 PMs that someone who only plays by IM would have to send to find out if there's even any possibility of it being a match with any of those. Someone putting "IM" in their thread immediately gets more attention by someone seeking IM only than the other 40 threads on the page at any given time. But people don't know to do that. It's not a matter of "force". People see "MxF" and go "oh, that's how you make a request thread". People don't see "fp,RT" so they never add it. Suggesting and promoting it begins that process. Status Quos are self-perpetuating. They don't change without intervention. Once intervened, they then continue in the new format. Typically.

 

[Sigr]

I do care for the posting system and the style of writing as my thread states (among other things).

Does that mean that everyone should care? No.
Does that mean that everyone should format their RT same as I do? No.

What's important in a game for some of us is of no consequence for others. Yes, we do like having nice RTs, as nice RTs help finding nice partners and having nice games. But the shape or form of the request thread (besides being something intimately personal) it's just a manifestation of the main ingredient needed for a successful game:

Communication.

And even if some tags could help (I won't even slide down the slippery slope on how many tags my threads should have to be faithful to their content) in the end it's a (remember: personal) introduction so people can have a nice first impression. That's not little, but it's nowhere near the last step. You overestimate the usefulness of a cold and barely descriptive system (that leaves other things to the side, like past or present tense, for example) above putting just some care and effort in both reading and making request threads and having a healthy OOC communication. No amount of tags are going to replace or ease the need for that.

 

[Le_Craig]

I do care for the posting system and the style of writing as my thread states (among other things).

Does that mean that everyone should care? No.
Does that mean that everyone should format their RT same as I do? No.

What's important in a game for some of us is of no consequence for others. Yes, we do like having nice RTs, as nice RTs help finding nice partners and having nice games. But the shape or form of the request thread (besides being something intimately personal) it's just a manifestation of the main ingredient needed for a successful game:

Communication.

And even if some tags could help (I won't even slide down the slippery slope on how many tags my threads should have to be faithful to their content) in the end it's a (remember: personal) introduction so people can have a nice first impression. That's not little, but it's nowhere near the last step. You overestimate the usefulness of a cold and barely descriptive system (that leaves other things to the side, like past or present tense, for example) above putting just some care and effort in both reading and making request threads and having a healthy OOC communication. No amount of tags are going to replace or ease the need for that.

Nothing I've suggested makes a thread "cold". Nothing I've suggested means anyone would remove anything they're currently putting. As to leaving "other things to the side", I've focused on the three common and divisive play style issues. I've not noticed past / present coming up as a common issue. FP almost always correlates with present tense and TP less strongly but typically correlates with past tense. It's counter-productive to try and list everything. Hence, the three.

As to "overestimating" I don't think you're in a position to know that. Even a partial take-up of the standard would allow us to rapidly pick out threads that we are a match for and avoid PMing people we are no. You can talk about "care and effort in reading threads" but feel free to browse through the forty something on the first page right now. You will find that almost none of them are clear on all three categories and the only thing that might manage around 50% is rt / PbP which you can somewhat infer by people talking about posting frequency. So no, "care and effort in reading threads" cannot produce information which is not there.

A few lines in the welcome thread and a little promotion could solve this.

 

[Sigr]

That certain things are a hard no/yes straight out from the request thread title it's your take on it. Maybe certain tags would help you have to put less effort in separating what you are interested into, but wouldn't help others. I may play on 3rd person, past tense in threads, but if I see something interesting enough on a thread on other aspects I may go against one or several of those personal preferences of mine. I have done it in the past and will certainly do it in the future for sure, that's why I have (remember once more, despite wanting to intrude on it, completely personal) request threads that reflect my tastes and anyone can check, even when it's me the one that reaches them after seeing their request thread.

I insist, no matter how much do you pretend that certain characteristics you care about in games and that are absent from many people's request threads are universally and objectively important. Request threads are (for the umpteenth time) personal, so each one reflects their owner and can be reached for a first impression. If you want to expedite finding partners, perhaps you should put some work on a request thread of your own. That doesn't mean that you must, of course.

Since it's a personal choice.

 

[Le_Craig]

That certain things are a hard no/yes straight out from the request thread title it's your take on it. Maybe certain tags would help you have to put less effort in separating what you are interested into, but wouldn't help others. I may play on 3rd person, past tense in threads, but if I see something interesting enough on a thread on other aspects I may go against one or several of those personal preferences of mine. I have done it in the past and will certainly do it in the future for sure, that's why I have (remember once more, despite wanting to intrude on it, completely personal) request threads that reflect my tastes and anyone can check, even when it's me the one that reaches them after seeing their request thread.

I insist, no matter how much do you pretend that certain characteristics you care about in games and that are absent from many people's request threads are universally and objectively important. Request threads are (for the umpteenth time) personal, so each one reflects their owner and can be reached for a first impression. If you want to expedite finding partners, perhaps you should put some work on a request thread of your own. That doesn't mean that you must, of course.

They are certainly hard no/yes for some people. And it's overwhelmingly unlikely that I am the one person on these forums that has such preferences. I picked these out because they seem to be common dividers.

And again, this odd notion that putting them up there has to introduce force or prevent people making choices. If, as in your example, someone wants to say "I'm okay playing by post because I really like this idea," then they can do that. The only difference between having the three letters "PbP" in the thread title is that they can make that decision up front, rather than have to find out it's required after starting to work out the details. There's no restriction, only clearer communication of desires. Which is what a Request Thread should be about.

 

[Sigr]

There certainly seems to be some kind of miscommunication in here since the point doesn't seem to get across. Any information on a thread title can both bring attention to the thread but also send people away. For every piece of information about your game put there that brings someone to the thread, you also are as well scaring away people uninterested.

That's why every person has different priorities for Request Threads, be it the visual appeal, the information therein, etc. Forcing people to put in the title something they don't care about and could hinder their games is counter intuitive. If you pretend that such people won't lose possible partners because interested ones will read the thread despite the title, then your proposed intrusion in the titling policies makes even less sense.

And since each person cares for different things in different degrees, forcing such a policy for everyone would be negative. Also, you somehow seem to have a quite clear idea about what a Request Thread should have for being someone without one.

I hope that it's clear this time that RTs are PERSONAL and that a selfish measure such as yours wouldn't come without a cost for others.

 

[Prose]

At this point we are going around in circles. Let's end it here, thanks.

 

[Le_Craig]

There certainly seems to be some kind of miscommunication in here since the point doesn't seem to get across. Any information on a thread title can both bring attention to the thread but also send people away. For every piece of information about your game put there that brings someone to the thread, you also are as well scaring away people uninterested.

If they're uninterested, then they're not being "scared" away. They're making an informed choice. Something they can't do without the information. With the information they're still free to contact or not as they wish. You're arguing against a request thread having information about what people want at this point.

On a related note, can we also get Discord names added to the profile page? I suggested this earlier and it seems to have been ignored. There are sections for YIM and AIM but not Discord. YIM went to crap some time ago and AIM doesn't even exist anymore. AOL discontinued it last year.

 

[Le_Craig]

At this point we are going around in circles. Let's end it here, thanks.

I've only been replying to what people are quoting by me.

The Discord section of what I wrote still hasn't been addressed, so far as I can see.

 

[Charlotte Honeycutt]

At this point, as Prose mentioned that things were going in circles and that they continue to do so, I'm officially closing this thread.

If you want to raise a point about discord and an option being added to user's profiles, please make a separate thread concerning this issue as it's separate from the one you initially introduced.

Thank you.