For some time now I've seen that the onboard RPG's aren't a big success on the forum. Members do periodically submit profiles, but almost no one starts to really RP. Of course I'm not blaming anyone, it simply didn't work out the way I had it in mind.

I decided to put both onboard RPG's offline for the time being. Although I have come up for a better idea to make an onboard RPG more interesting. I think (and feel free to reply), that the onboards are a bit too small to be really interesting, only one forum and subforums inside. It's just too compact to have an interesting RPG going on.

I'm going to put some more thought into a new onboard RPG and for that would like to have your help too. What kind of onboard RPG would you like to see? What would you truely be interested in? Should it have a plot, or be as free as possible? What time should it play in, past, present or future? What kind of genre?

I'll be making around some more topics on this subject to get an objective view of your interest and what would make a successive RPG.

Feel free to reply here with your views and opinions!

~ShinLi


p.s: If you need a profile that was posted in the onboard RP's, please contact an admin or community mod. They will send you the profile!

I think almost any popular idea would work, it just needs to be more dynamic. I think that a Fantasy one may do well, with a more simple plot that the members could form more than one or two people. Does that make sense? -rolls around in confusion-

Pardon my ignorance, but what's an onboard RPG? Is that the RPGs on here?

Yes, that were the two RPG's we had on RPG-D. I called them onboard RPG's as that made sense XD. We had Auravita a fantasy RP and a Harry Potter RP.

And Forever Obsessed, we didn't had any plot really with both onboard RPG's. But do you mean that the members should form a plot of some sort? And in what way should the onboard RPG be more dynamic?

I was all gung-ho about the Fantasy one, but nobody would come along and reply to my post. :(

As for something to generate more interest, maybe a silly/"crack"/multiverse RP? In other words, an excuse to have everyone's original characters or favourite characters all flung together. The plot doesn't have to make altogether much sense, it could just be sheer character interaction.

I think re-starting the roleplay area with the (already proposed) character profile critique would work nicely too. In that case I think something almost Neopets or Gaia-like might work - anything goes, just keep it in one thread, if that makes sense.

Edit for further clarification:

Sorry, exams, not making much sense today. :p For the multiverse RP... the idea there is that everybody gets a chance to play their favourite character, mashed up against everybody else's favourite character. It's just plain silly and that's what makes it fun. The storyline can be some long complex thing about time-space continuums and time warps and so on and so forth, but you end up with the hilarity that ensues when an elven ranger sits down for lunch next to a jedi and a warewolf. You know, sounds like the start of a bad roleplay joke: A jedi, a vampire and a furre walk into a bar... All of this happening in some sort of neutral setting would probably be best, what came to mind first is a deserted island - Gilligan's Island-type, where characters don't really want for anything other than to get out of the place. ;P

The other idea is that it's coupled with the already-proposed character profile critique area, so if someone says "You know, this character could be great or horrible, I just don't know - depends on how you roleplay" they can answer "OK, want to come roleplay with me?" Each thread is basically a mini-game, kind of like on Gaia or Neopets. In other words I start a thread outlining the basic plot and world of a Fantasy roleplay I want to run, post an intro, and then people come along and begin roleplaying linking to their character's profiles that are being critiqued. There may be a cap on how many of each type there can be - for example if I started a Medieval/Fantasy roleplay, it would make sense for somebody to start a Victorian/Fantasy roleplay, but it wouldn't make sense for five other people to start Medieval/Fantasy roleplays. A lot of problems with characters come out in interaction and not just writing samples, so this could be a valuable part of the critique if done politely and in good spirit. :clown: I could also see people who enjoyed roleplaying a perticular topic in a thread going on to make their own RP board with an immediate strong base (and for people thinking of making a board, it's a way to gauge interest).

The idea with both of these is to include as many people as possible - Fantasy and HP are two very popular genres but obviously not popular "enough" if that makes sense. Perticularly with the second idea, people could roleplay whatever they felt like.

Another totally different idea: maybe an incentives system for roleplaying? (Mods really like your character/RP post, you're offered a special spot to advertise your site on RPG-D, etc)

What I mean is a constantly moving plot, not a stale one. I didn't read too much into Auravita, but the Harry Potter one was just kind of. .take a stab at it. I know that there wasn't a real plot for that one, excepting of course the Harry Potter world itself. Part of the reason I never bothered to join was because there were tons of roleplays that were just as stale as that one being advertised. The onboard RPG's have to be completely unique. RPG-D's main purpose is, of course, to aid roleplayers and to advertise, but roleplaying 'onboard' could become just as large of an aspect after some involvement. :) Am I still not making sense? After somethings in my head, I understand what I'm trying to say but I can't express it in words.

Yeah. It didn't work out well for RPGC either. :(

It worked very good for about the first month, but then all the RPers started getting too busy or were having personal issues and all that other jazz. We're probably going to be closing our's soon. :(

I noticed that on RPGC, that your RPG was pretty slow too.

But I'm just going to try again lol. I'm not a person to give up that easily. And I think an onboard RPG could add a lot of fun to RPG-D if done in the right way and if it appeals to most of the members.

I completely agree. It just will take a lot of dedication. Our loffly admins can find ways to make roleplaying on RPG-D beneficial, like coming up with rewards or something like that. :)