I'm curious: as an admin, what methods do you use on your site to create and promote plots? And as a member and roleplayer, how do you like plotting?

In other words, are your roleplays more on a whim/for the heck of it, or are they more planned ahead, with certain goals in mind?

On my site we're very plot-based. We use a hybrid method that promotes members roleplaying together, which is necessary to sustain our complicated storylines. It would be impossible to weave everything together if we used stuff like plot pages. I like our Tangled Threads method (members-based plot + new character integration + giant plot thread 'o doom) because it results in a lot of really great RPs. Plus, we tend to roleplay more if we have lots of fun plottage to work with. :rice:

What do you like?

Said I voted for too many choices. -_-

Well, we put together board-wide plots that doesn't center on any character specifically, but on factions themselves. That way all active members can get involved.

As for my characters, I'm not a fan of plot pages and can do without them just fine. It's a combination of plotting through PMs/IMs, posting in ooc forums and just joining open threads and seeing where it takes me. Naturally, board-wide plots tend to affect my characters as well, starting new chapters in their personal plot and alike.

We have large boardwide plots every once in a while to stimulate activity. We recently moved the setting of the rpg a few hundred kilometres south, as all of the land burned down in a massive forestfire! Whoohahhh!

We also have tons of smaller plots involving various groups- two warring werewolf groups, or temporary characters. Temporary characters are a lot of fun, and are good for members who want to try out a second character for the first time. We had one plot where a group of werewolves set out to try and assassinate another 'evil' one. It was fun and lasted for about two weeks.

I've never seen the point of plot pages, and we don't use them. We have a plotting subforum where members can request private threads, ask people to reply to open threads, find partners for long, drama-llama plots, potential love interests, or just people to have a thread with. It works pretty well. ^^

I know one forum abhors private threads, but I've never seen why. For me, I find it easier to post in the plot forum, ask for partners, who would then be able to dedicate themselves to a full thread. Sometimes you discuss ideas for a thread, sometimes you wing it. :3

Free range. I'm not big on popularity contests.

Whenever I tend to plot stuff with other people we always talk it though out of character first (If it's a big plot anyway), but if not then there's no need to do it anyway.

I have no idea what I voted for b/c it was so long ago. x.x However, I imagine it was "OoC discussion" and "open threads." I like having a lot of freedom that the open threads allow. Having everything planned out ahead of time is a little . . . boring.

However, sometimes open threads do absolutely nothing and don't get up off the ground, so I like a little OoC discussion to spark some things and get our minds rolling.

I voted for the things in bold here;

Open threads (not planned ahead) - because they tend to work just fine, and allow Free range/Members do what they like - because some members just prefer to roleplay that way. Some want to have Closed threads (planned ahead), while others like open not planned threads, and to do what they please and not be part of A general main plot, which we also have on my board. In fact it's what runs the game and keeps it running, in my experience, a good Main plot + subplots works really good for me. There is the main plot and then the subplots both for those who wants to have a small part in the main plot, and for those who wish to create their own subplots :)

Often enough, I have a sketchy idea of what will happen in a plot, and then let things happen on the fly with the other players. It's easy enough to steer the plot in whichever direction is needed/wanted most of the time. ^_^

The first time I tried to answer, it told me I chose too many options. So yeah, I prefer games with diverse ways of developing plotting. The sites I've been on, have been pretty open about letting members make up their own plots, so anything that generates plotting is great, be it plot pages, premade subplots, whatever. That being said, I think a lot of my plottage comes from OOC discussions: I tend to snoop around the applications forum, then add the new players as AIM buddies, and then attack them with plottage. I usually don't have anything specific in mind, but we can normally cook up something.

We do almost all of those things. We have a couple of loose main plots; I let originals come on with their own plots; we have a lot of subplots, some of which arise spontaneously (often at 3 am; go figure :p ). A mishmash.

When I accept members, I trust them to plot well and write well. So I let them do as they like, within reason; if they want to do a plot that changes the whole course of the site or involves one of my characters, they get to me, obviously (oh, and the involving-my-characters caveat doesn't just apply to me--everyone, admin or not, who has a part in any plot has to be party to what's going on, or it's just a subtler kind of godmoding!).

Meh. Mostly free range, but if I or someone I'm roleplaying with (or just a member of the site I'm on or own) has an idea, I'm very open to that. I've been known to PM new members for an idea I had for our characters, and gave them choices of going with that, something similar, or just dismissing the idea altogether. The majority of the plots are generally discussed on MSN lol. And we have no sub-plots, although we do have several plot things going on with our characters. And we've recently added a forum specifically for gossip, which makes for interesting drama itself.

Open Threads, Free Range, Plot Pages, Canons and Originals, Originals- Yes

Main Plot, Main Plot and Subplots, Different Subplots- All three are fine by me.

Hybrid/Other- Nope
None/Plotless- I don't know
Closed Thread- I have in the past.
OOC Discussion- don't know