So I have a question that's been bugging me lately. This isn't meant to be a dig at anyone and certainly isn't me whinging (well actually it is, but I do still need some help).

I have a Harry Potter Roleplay site, based in the marauders era so there are plenty of canons available; a basic, open plot; a discerning staff that do their best to keep the quality up... And no members.
Altogether there are four of us: Myself, the board creator; Kelly, my fabulous coding and plotting whiz; Ebony, my adorable ideas basket; and Kyle, plotter extraordinaire. We're all competent writers and we love playing.

But nobody wants to play with us!

Please Help? Pretty please?

I know what you mean, I had the same when I restarted an old HP RPG of mine.

To give you a few tips that might be helpful, they are generic tips, that might apply to your forum (if it's Bellezza_Scura, then it's the one I'm giving the tips for.)

-Try to fill up your forums, including RP sections, this will make your forum appear more active, thus more appealing for guests to join
-If you can't fill certain RP areas, try and merge them together, or move one as a subboard into another, later on if it gets more active you can move them back on the main page
-Make multiple character accounts, if both you and your other staffies do so, you can RP with yourself and each other and fill up the board, again to make it appear more active (and you have fun yourself), and more appealing again for guests to join up
-Advertise! advertise anywhere and everywhere, where it's allowed of course. One site not advertised could be a missed member.
-Never have catagories with only one forum in it, move that forum into another catagory.
-Start up general chat threads, reply here and there, make some fun and weird forum games, again to make your forum look more active
-Try and affiliate with other marauder RPG sites and other HP or school related website. And try to advertise on those kind of RPG's and related HP sites (non-RPG, mugglenet forums?).

The first few weeks or even months you have to advertise your but off, try to get friends on who RP, refer people, if you get new members, ask them to refer people who they know who might enjoy the RPG.

Good luck.

Honestly, I have had a new member slump lately myself, thankfully, we still have many active members but it is discouraging. What I would suggest is to give your rpg a little more time. Keep doing what you are doing, start a little plot between yourself and your staff to keep yourselves busy and posting. It only takes two members for an rpg to be fun. One thing rpers like to see is an active staff. Right now is a bad time since everyone just had their holidays and are either still off or just getting back into life/school/work/activities ect.

So, keep your chin up, keep advertising, try getting some new banner exchanges, maybe host some sort of contest or something extra to add to you advertising to draw people in. Good luck, I hope I've helped a bit at least. :)

Seriously! Those first two repliers, listen to them.

Never give up! Thats most important! When I search for an RP, I like to see all the forums have the latest Post thing filled, not empty. It makes it look active.

Try to add something unique to your site as well to make it different. Y'know! Different is (cool) !

Good advice here. :3 I'm going to take some of that to heart for my own rp.

The only other I can say is, sometimes rps get clique-y and its frightening to start with people like that. I know I have a tendency to avoid those boards because I never feel like a part of them. Try keep silly things like inside jokes (if they were made off the board) away from the board. Uhm...maybe designate sponsors? To introduce and give advice and whatnot?

I only have one suggestion from that list left to try... We moved to InvisionFree after three months and we've been there since April. We occasionally get a new member but other than that it just seems to be current members making new accounts.

If the suggestion I left to try doesn't work, I'm actually going to go out into the street and start harassing people to join!

Thanks guys. Those are some excellent helpful tips (:
I've had a mess around with the forums, hidden the ones that aren't in use at the minute and left those more likely to be used at the outset.
We all as staff already have multiple characters and have started playing amongst ourselves - and we'll have to be sure to make it un-cliquey, cause I know how it is to come into something like that *headdesk*
Now all's left to do is fill up the open forums, and hopefully grab some members with the advertising.

Thank you all for the advice o_o I don't know where I'd be without you. Besides festering on my dead board! Tehe XD

Good luck Scura! *offers a cookie*

Gasp!! Cookies!! *shares* XD thankyou!! on both counts ^_^