The Official RPG Ideas Thread

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I want to make a space-related villain.

Except that's been done to death already.

Make one that lasts. That'll break the mold.

Those words and what I do on this site do not mix.

Make one which makes an impact that lasts in canon then.

Even better

Pretty sure Nordok is doing good enough of a job. I'll step down.

Fck it. teams are dead.

Waits for Justice League movie to bring them back

Sad but true.

@shadowswordmaster: Teams were fun when they worked. I'll never figure out what stopped it from being fun, maybe not enough leaders willing to write contained stories.

@surkit: @shadowswordmaster: I honestly dont think they are dead. If someone had just made a Guardians rpg team rip (I'm talking a team account with its own thread) people would have joined immediately. Probably still would. To me the problem is in the execution. You cant really try to hype a team pre-formation (never really could). Same with rpgs actually but thats another issue. Like if you really wanted to launch a new JLA team, just make a cool looking team thread/location and I almost guarantee people would join. Then its simply a matter of getting it out there and in the mix. Just my opinion.

(and before you say it SS, yes, I know that Vamoose has started a GG type team, but its not really out in the known cause its all contained in one rpg thats kinda flying under the proverbial radar :P)

@alister_vonce: The one thing that sometimes bugged me is trying to get a team together is getting the team at first , getting people to join with a reason.The reason we have not made a location or a team yet becuase the team is not yet formed yet.Sure we have people are going to be on the team but who knows what might happen .

@shadowswordmaster: I mean forming the team organically is great and all, but sometimes the simplest route is also the most productive. If you look at the teams that had longevity the majority of them were formed without IC reason. That played out later. But whatever formula works for you is what ya gotta run with. My point is that I personally dont think teams are dead, they just need a different approach.

Even I was able to make a passably active team before I poofed. And I didn't really put any work into it either. I was just bored one evening, typed it up and posted it. That was it. It wasn't around very long and I've seen a several references to its canon in peoples posts. I think its possible to make a successful team right now, especially if you have a faction you can feud with right off the bat.

@alister_vonce: I guess it's different for everyone. You describe another to do a team but from personal experience from doing that way I didn't enjoy it.I can see how it might be fun.

Of course you did #MIDASTOUCH

:P

@alister_vonce: Midas? Pffft, I'm beyond that; everything I touch turns to solid epic. Epictonium.

But it was cool, because I have done pretty much everything but make a big team. Up until that point I was like zero for life on team stuff lol. So if I can do it, anybody can do it.

Gonna use that in a post someday

Guess it's time for me to walk away now.

I don't see how teams our dead...

shhhh...

What I'm talkin about if I think about it, it's not so much that teams are dead, but the appeal isn't what it used to be. Thet never lasted that long but they lasted longer than they do now. I'm not sayin it's hard to start a team it's keeping it movn thats hard now.

@surkit: They are still as appealing as anything else on the Vine to me.

I never did a character that fitted a huge team >_>

@vamoose: Small teams > huge teams IMO.

Are you still doing that GotG thing?

@big_and_bad: Probably.

I think teams can still have appeal. There are just certain factors that should be accounted for and some things that'd probably need to change in practical application.

@_drake: Well that's good!

I agree. The Wanderers for example was massively appealing. Mercy joined, Impero Joined, Eclipse Joined, nearly everybody joined and that was just from my OP. Same with Avalon, which, to me, I see as a team. Or a group, whatever, but some concepts just make people want to join in, teams have an appeal, but they gotta be more flavorsome and different than a simple band of assassins. That doesn't fly anymore. Nope, we need time travelling assassins etc. It's just harder to maintain a traditional team, that's the problem. Look how much the COP's struggle and they have a gigantic backing of older, dedicated members. IMO They struggle because they use the old team format -- Which I always vocalize in the team PM, but that team loves tradition.

@surkit: That is a fair point. Keeping the momentum going for a large number of people is probably going to be a daily challenge.

For once in my life I actually agree with Pyro lol. [Mark this day in the history books ;-P ]

Avalon is really a team. Its a small team with long term activity because each member has their own goals rather than waiting for the team to provide them a goal.

'Pyro-style' teams also work. Those are basically teams in which you are guaranteed a bunch of activity just because of who the team founder is. Pyro's COP was the most active COP I have seen in all my time here, the Wanderers had a nice run and his Stark team [whose name I have forgotten] did well too.

The old 'make a team RPG and post against NPCs' doesn't seem to inspire a lot of activity but that's nothing new. Those kinds of RPG's weren't drawing huge crowds when I was new. Even with a huge roster its tough to keep your momentum up when its based on those.

@strigidae_23: Psh, we've agreed on loads of things! xD I'm not Cassius :P

There you go. Well said

@strigidae_23: Also thanks for the Pyro-Style thing, that's a cool compliment :P My own style xD

@surkit: Thanks. I hated running the COP's to be honest, so many members wanted the old style of teams and I knew it was going to be an uphill struggle, so I just quit being the leader.

All this team talk is making me wanna try at a team. But that's a terrible idea.

@pyrogram: Its hard to walk into a job when everybody is used to a certain way and doesn't accept the change in management style.

tbh I think it comes down to the members of the teams too. Sometimes you'll just end up with people who would rather bounce off of the leaders post then to make a solo move. the wole point of a team in general is having people around who are both apart of the same agenda, and having another person have their back. Not walking single file into a situation and waiting to be told what to do, that shit is boring from a leader perspective.

After I finally flesh out Warsman's origins, I might make another WWW.

It only seems fitting.

@surkit: That's true too. When I think back on LOS, JLI, Harbringers and Avalon they were all filled with the members doing stuff with each other. The LOS people were going out and raiding other teams on their own initiative, making new characters, advancing their relationships/plots/characters inside the team thread, everything. Same with Harbringers and I remember the JLI thread had a good bit of RP in it too.

Other style of teams can work.. but part of what has always brought me down is feeling that pressure to supply everyone with something to do every single day saps my motivation. I just don't enjoy it.

@strigidae_23:

Exaaactly, it's not fun.

Whoa, whoa. When did teams go taboo on CV?

@mr__mercury: They didn't, I just have a horrible track record when it comes to trying to start teams.

@big_and_bad: Aren't you new?

I was preparing this big long write-up of my thoughts, but I bet people have already said everything I wanted to say, but in shorter and more understandable words.

@mr__mercury: Compared to you, I guess.

@big_and_bad: Depending on your main, yeah.

@mr__mercury: Most recent main was Avatar. But I think I'm making this my new one :S

I can see that actually.You seemed to put a lot of work into it.

@big_and_bad: Ok I know that one.

However, I'll still say this myself, though.

In addition to this brilliance here, it's also helpful if people stop doing the thing where they introduce a team concept and immediately afterwards, they say "I'll be gone for a week (or however long)." People like novelty. This is a fundamental axiom in human psychology and economics (diminishing marginal utility). Around here, people like to be blindsided by an idea. Avalon comes out of nowhere and draws more interest than I ever intended (and maintains because of what LL said). The evil Champions of Peace was a strong candidate too, before Imperator/Jack had to take a mini-break (still considered reasonably successful), and I think it would have fulfilled more of its potential, had he not had to do that, or had he waited to introduce it until he would have had time to actually work in it. Because if you introduce an idea or something and then poof before it has solid roots, you've got a dead tree. Because things don't sit still around here, and new novel things come about, people come, and vanish, things happen to take the attention away.

Also, larger teams tend to lead to more lethargy. Get a smaller, but more reliable, group would be my suggestion.

And I think also, at the very least, there should be a reasonably charismatic and able someone else who can act, just in case "leader" absolutely has to be gone or is otherwise occupied (one person getting loaded down with things is terrible and no one should have to suffer that fate). Impero is the reason Avalon continued in spite of Antonia vanishing (before and after I officially sent her on the voyage). Even when she wasn't there for people to try to make their power plays for, Santi kept holding his meetings, pushing narratives out of that office, keeping people's eyes on Avalon (and having a bigger draw as a writer than the founder anyway). Part of it is name recognition, and part of it is execution. Certain people will almost invariably draw certain others to their ideas. Part of the name thing. And if those are gone, those others who are there only because of them almost invariably follow, if they haven't got a significant personal investment in the idea, or what their character can do with his/her link with the idea, by that time (there was a recent thing with the COP involving this). [And also comparing pre- and post-Pyro COP.]

And also, I think it can't be stressed enough how much the "make a team RPG as soon as possible and post against NPCs" thing is ineffective. In some cases (such as my own), it's actually something of a turn-off. I can do that stuff, but it's not something I generally look forward to when I set out to do something (sometimes it'll blindside me and I'll enjoy certain posts, but I generally don't enjoy doing it just for the sake of it - especially over the course of an extended RP), and it'll almost definitely take longer to get a post (and/or at least to get continuous posts) out if I've got to keep up on my own. [I can only choreograph my own fight scenes a certain number of times before I get bored with them without the human element to play off of.] I doubt I'm the only one.

@arquitenens: Really really well said, agreed with everything there. Some nice knowledge on team dynamics.