Role Play Discussion.

[BLZBUB]

Regarding the next Fleet Role Play.

 Should we go ahead with another mission? After the problems with the Phoenix' last mission ... Player Character's disappearing ... I thought we should discuss the (probable) reasons for that.

 One theory I had was ... boredom. If the past RP stories are any indication, the most active one's were action orientated. Pew Pew and all that jazz. Although not the core value of Star Fleet, I have noticed that the most activity, post-wise, is when there is hot and heavy action going on. Ships in battle ... ground action with phaser's and disruptor's blazing ... melee combat and boarding action's.

 Well, you get my point. It seem's that the player character's desire more action and less thought. Sure, there's always room for science and tech. But it mainly center's around solving a battle problem, doesn't it? Seem's that way to me.

 Anyway, continue this with idea's and thought's as to the drop in participation in some of our RP player's ... and thoughts toward having a solution for the next RP sessions.

[Niomo]

This has always been a hot topic of discussion. I personally don't think it has anything to do with action vs drama vs conversation scenes. I always respond more often when there is activity in the thread.

If only one person is posting once a day, I will respond once a day. But if two, three or four people are putting in their responses to events, I will put more effort in. It also works the opposite way. If only one response (besides mine) has been entered in the past week, I will abandon watching the thread, as there is nothing going in. It is why I stopped RPing in the middle of the Azimuth Horizon fleet action. Some people can RP with themselves, I cannot.

[Redding]

Yes, my motivation drops quickly if I'm the only one posting. This is an age old problem with time based RPG, It's slow.
I remember playing RPGs by Mail while I was overseas, basically one move every 2 weeks.

I'd be glad for someone to come up with a solution but these things come and go, some times they sprint along to fast and other times they grind to a halt.
All I can suggest is that we wrap this mission up (Hawks and Doves) and start a new one in the hopes it will draw attention.

The key I think is action, always try to have something for every one to do (not always possible) and to reward innovation when ever possible.

[Jeff T]

The bottom line is that all RPers involved need to demonstrate an ongoing level of individual initiative regardless of what others are doing. Believe me... this is not always easy or preferable... but it keeps from having everyone waiting for someone else to make a move... hence those lulls or stalemates that occur in any story: whether it is action-packed or not. Also, OOC discussions throughout the story are very helpful/valuable in this capacity as well... provided communication is maintained in a timely manner.

In addition, the participation cannot generally be once a week. That is just not enough involvement from any PC to allow a story to evolve and flow. Instead, that departments involvement within the story suffers as does the other departments and PCs that have to work to compensate for these voids.

Personally, I don't believe that drama or action is limited to resorting to mostly battles and/or physical confrontations, but can be embedded within any given mission... if it is well thought-out. But again, this is contingent on all of the PCs involved being creative, pro-active and engaging consistently throughout a given scene and story.

Also, it is helpful if RPers utilize NPCs whenever the PCs aren't involved... for whatever reason. Plus, they can use them to interact with their main PC to add greater depth to what is occurring in any given scene.

The upcoming challenge we are facing is that we currently have partial crews from two different ships: the Phoenix and the Horizon. We may need to consider a plausible way to possibly combine the crews, for at least one mission, to have all of the long-term truly active crew members together on one ship. This would be quite different from a fleet action where we have multiple ships going simultaneously during a mission.

How we logistically do this I am uncertain... or perhaps this is an unworkable proposition, but I am just putting this out there for consideration as part of this discussion. 

[Sorripto]

Two points I would like to make.  First I do not think that people got bored with the RP story because it was not action oriented I think that action oriented stories just tend to require more direct involvement.  If I order someone to run a scan they go run the scan and report back, but if we are in a firefight then we are shooting, dodging and reacting to eachother's moves.  This is not to say that such things are more fun, but it just requires more posts even if you are posting for yourself more than once.

Second in relation to the crews one of the best RP stories we ever did was the borg story line and it was multiple ships and crews working on a base as well as their ships.  Something like that where we have multiple crews on a planet, or a base as well as say shuttles to contain the smaller cast and it could both work but be a lot of fun.

[Kheren]

I've been reading you guys so far and I  must say I do agree with many points discussed here. It is a fact that we should take a second look at our RP structure and see if we can better participation and activity. We may have done well so far but there is always room for improvement.

That being said, I have been toying with an idea following your comments, especially those of Jeff and Sorripto and the concerns of Redding and BLZBUB. My idea could be simplified like this:

Instead of having the Captain GM come up with a story and hoping it will catch the interest of all the other players, as we did so far, why not do it the other way around: having all the players make up the story?

Basically, it could work like this: every player PMs the Captain/GM with a plot they would like their character to be involved in. Once every player provides his/her own storyline, then the GM sorts of "connects the dots" and try to bring this all into a common story as cohesive as possible, ideally as interactive as possible between the given subplots, especially during play. It could be done either with a GM given framework/plotline or one derived from the synthesis of all of what the others gave... or even out of how the players will develop theirs and others subplots they get involved in... and led to both common and individual conclusions by the GM.

The GM's job would be to come up with this situation that would use all of these ideas as seeds, connects all the dots to have all those little interests and subplots going and coordinates their efforts to help the players play them through in one big overall story.

THE PLAYERS JOB however would be to bring those subplots alive and make it so that other players can get involved in theirs and tie them with what is going on everywhere else... and be ready to get involved in the plots of the others. This is somewhat akin to the way are written soap operas in Hollywood; a team of writers each responsible for the story of one or two-related characters and developping it while the producer ties-in all those little stories into one converging tapestry.

That's more or less what was done during the Borg Invasion Fleet Action. Caltern and Brandon Jori had a storyline (basically ending the Borg in our RP with a telepathic virus) and everyone else grafted their own plotline to the simple event of "all the Collective is coming to destroy us all and we must stop them."

I beleive this could be done either with 2 ships or just one with both crews involved without it being necessarily a 9 months Fleet Action. I can easily come up with one already that could have any and all player subplots/storylines grafted to and provide the essential meat to what would simply be "the return of Captain Kheren" (after all, I do want to have my character back in our RP! That would be MY subplot...)

So... thoughts?

[Niomo]

I wouldn't mind being able to run a small 'side-quest' within an RP story. I would hope it would solve the activity issue, as I would assume, players would stay active to have their story continue.

That being said, I think I'd rather see a merger of the two ideas. In the show, there is always the over-arcing plot. Escort the Ambassdor. But within the plot, there are mini-plots. Data preparing for his first violin recital, Troi and Riker going on a date, Picard being a complete badass without trying. All these things happen within the over-arcing plot.

So, what I'd suggest is something of a happy medium. I'd like for the GM/Captain to still have a storyline that needs to be followed (Investigate the Angolis Array/Fend of Romulans there), but also take suggestions as to what other things might be going on (Solius gets framed for espionage by a deep cover tal shiar agent onboard). Obviously, the over-story will eventually have to pause, or override what is going on, in say ten forward, but that is the great part about RP. The story can always pick up whenever and is not bound to a 1 hour tv format.

[Kheren]

We can certainly try that.

[Storm Windfall]

I would hate to see RP die out in the Fleet. Just not kosher, from my point of view.

I am in a stage in my life where I can't guarantee daily attendance but I would really like to continue doing my little bit when I am able.

This may sound stupid and silly; but I always thought the characters are allowed doing their bit to 'liven up' a story even when that bit doesn't totally follow the story line. The few times I participated, I took great joy in writing something totally different that still had a connection with the story.

A few months ago a few online friends and I decided to do something different to keep us occupied by creating a set of characters, a time line and a plot. We knew how the story will end, but not how we all are going to get there. We are allowed to write scenes not directly connected to the plot but still can be seen as part of the story. Lol, I hope there is someone out there that understands what we are trying to do.

Anyways, no matter how or what, I would like to see new stories. We have a lot of talented writers and it will be a shame not to continue this Lotus tradition. 

[Redding]

I've always tried to encourage character development with-in a story arc.
Scenes such as Data painting a picture or feeding his pet cat Spot or LaForge taking the time to personalize his shaving razor.
These things grant incite to a persons character and make them more relatable.

I did this with Redding from time to time such as showing him getting half drunk in the lounge and doing a little complaining to the bartender.

Unless the plots going in full swing anyone can do that while the game is going.