What makes a good RP request post?

[TFcommando]

I've been meaning to put together a one on one and/or a solo RP request post and am trying to figure out what sort of approach would work best... thus I'm asking the community what they like or don't like in one!  What do you look for or like to see in one, format and content-wise, not kink-wise.  I'd be putting a lot of work and heart into it and don't want it to sink like a stone.  Seeing recruiting posts with a dozen bumps is somehow discouraging.

Titling it is the first hurdle.  How to make it stand out?  (Name's) RP request seems the most practical, but also the most generic. (Gender looking for Gender) is a common addition.  I guess I'd specify "looking for characters of X gender" in it, as player gender isn't important.   My name's not a draw and it's too hard to summarize much of what I'm looking for.

I have lots of ideas, lots of characters, settings and kinks in mind, some contradicting others!  I could do a big, amorphous "This is what I'd like to do" introduction type thing, hope to attract someone interested and discuss details from there.  I've had a lot of fun and surprises when details emerge in planning things with someone else in other media and would like to have that as a part of anything I set up. 

But detailed, "snap in" scenarios, sometimes long lists of them, are quite popular, more than the "work it out" approach.  It does seem like it could be a hurdle to ask someone to flesh out a lot of a story, setting and details blind and cold, as it were.  A long list could get into TL;DR, and my list would probably get quite long.

Pictures, yay or nay?

[Far eyes]

Be aware i am shit at following my own advice   ;)

1) Have a little blurb about what you would like to see in the story idea, maybe like a little intro. Personally i find it more intimidating then useful if the little intro feels more like a short story that the person has already written in there head.
2) Clearly mark out what you want in that story, at least the highlights (M/F Bondage, Bunny's, Robots) clearly identifying what you want to play in the story is also a big help.
3) Being generally clear about who you are looking for to write with, do you want to write with just males, females, others you dont care.
4) Being clear about what kind of posts you would prefer and possibly general posting frequency expectations. If its going to be a slow story its only fair to warn a partner.
5) Pictures can be a positive, some people are visual creatures but i would always post them under spoiler tags just so you dont have a page of 10 pictures loading up.
6) On the subject of titles personally i always prefer functional ones oppose to artful ones
7) Sometimes nobody bites, its not because you did something wrong 
8) No really i mean it sometimes it will just not find a partner thats fine.

[Sain]

Personally I love seeing more descriptive titles than (name) + [fluff] + X/x. I've never failed to attract players with the thread name saying as much about the RP idea as possible and have failed with ones that tell nothing about the game. Key words! They can save so much time when browsing for games you might like. Obfuscating an idea behind a wall of non-descriptive thread name that tells nothing about your actual ideas will deter some potential writing partners who do not have time to skim through dozens of threads every day.

Other than that Far Eyes had pretty nice list. I would like to stress that you do not necessarily need to have everything clearly written out. If you have a vague idea it might better that you advertise it as a vague idea rather than hammer out the details haphazardly to get your game started. Well, this is just a personal opinion again, but oftentimes it is more fun to simply present your story 'seed' - the earliest semi-coherent version of it that you can type out - rather than characters and setting in their full detail and flesh those out with your writing partner. Big amorphous list of pictures and tropes can work very nicely indeed, especially if there is space for someone else to input their stuff.

I like to think that the more 'holes' or 'scaffolds' you leave in your idea the more surface there is for it to click with potential writing partners. Those 'snap in' scenarios are more like sharpshooting and then you better hope you didn't aim for anything too niche ;D Of course it all depends on how malleable your idea still is, but if you indeed have many tropes and pictures you want to toss together I say go for it!

e. Another thing you might want to add with more flexible ideas is a list of what aspects of the story you are willing to negotiate on. Perhaps add a list of tropes, themes, kinds, story elements, etc that you would be alright seeing in the story if your partner wants them.

e2. You might also wish to add a note in the end of your thread that nobody should reply to the thread itself, but rather PM you. Even if someone shows interest the idea might fall flat after a few posts so you do not want to have your idea marked as 'taken' by the "Hey I'm interested" reply to your thread until you are certain that you two can actually take the idea off the ground and spin it into an actual game.

e3. (New tips keep popping up to mind :P) Regarding the last few lines of your interest thread. You may want to specify that your potential writing partners to reply to your idea with ideas of their own or respond to some questionnaire (what do you want from this game, what kind of character(s) do you have in mind, etc.). It is easy to send a PM with "Hello, I saw your thread. I am intrigued," but personally I've found that stories blossom brighter when in response to an idea you straight away get ideas back at you and can begin the progress of building a game.

[Far eyes]

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

e2

This... all of this. I find that usually people know better but every so often it still happens

[TFcommando]

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

e2

This... all of this. I find that usually people know better but every so often it still happens

e2?

Good suggestions... had an idea that could help.  Bullet points before an Sblock for each idea, like so.  A snappy title might help, but I'm bad at those.

WHO: A super heroine like Batgirl

WHERE: Trapped in the Savage Land

WHAT: Exploring an environment and moral framework radically different than the one she knows, and sex.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

All the details

[Far eyes]

I have a horrible habit of selecting spoilers instead of quote, i have caught my self doing this multiple times.

[Nico]

What I like most of all in a request thread is at least a peek of the story. Just small tidbits are generally enough for me because I don't need a novel to have my muse jump on something. What I don't like at all are requests for kinks/fetishes/etc. That's restrictive right from the start and rather boring for me, when all those things are already planned out or if I am required to wrap a character around such things. For me, the more creativity and freedom I am granted, the better my muse will enjoy it!

[Dhi]

Titling it is the first hurdle.  How to make it stand out?  (Name's) RP request seems the most practical, but also the most generic. (Gender looking for Gender) is a common addition.  I guess I'd specify "looking for characters of X gender" in it, as player gender isn't important.   My name's not a draw and it's too hard to summarize much of what I'm looking for.

You need a gender looking for gender if you're writing a gay or lesbian story, I am personally never going to look at the thread unless it clearly says F/F. There are so many straight ideas to comb through that this is my very first filter.

Because it's my very first filter, I'm often going to simply ctrl+F that and ignore everything else on the page. It would be a waste of my time to read and understand each straight story pitch I'm not going to be interested in. So if you spell it out in a way I'm not expecting to see, like "lesbian looking for female characters," it's going to be invisible.

"M/F, F/F or M/M" is something I routinely skip as well because as a common practice these threads contain no gay or lesbian story ideas at all, and are just bypassing my filters like spam.

[Inkidu]

I've found the best bet is to stay dedicated to maintaining one request thread. I've had mine for years and I love it. I find it does a lot to make my intentions known, and I try to provide something to make a lot of people feel comfortable from pairings to lengthier blurbs to pictures. By its nature I find it a good litmus test for sorting out potential partners. If people aren't willing to give it a serious skimming then well they won't be interested and I won't be interested either.

[TotesRider]

What would you suggest for basic general search threads (ones with multiple ideas and so on)? I just started mine and this part has always been kiiiiiiind of a challenge for me.

[Blythe]

Here's what I do for my RP requests as of late (for 1x1s, at least). I tend to have pretty good luck finding RP partners, or at least, I like to feel I do:

1) I used to try to have "one main idea thread," but this hasn't been working out for me. I have had far better luck taking time out to detail out an idea and make an individual thread for it, with the thread title being a unique title for the idea. For example, if I wanted a story about a powerful fire spirit who has married a princess for the kingdom's prosperity, I might title my thread "The Ifrit's Bride." Unique titles often get attention. If I have space, I will include the gender pairing I want. In the body of the message, note whether you have a preference about writer gender or not. When I had a dedicated request thread, people did not want to sift through all those ideas. I suspect I've gotten some pretty awesome RP partners this way who would not have otherwise given me a second glance.

2) Pictures. Safe-for-work ones. I find that these are inspiring without being intimidating. I don't tend to read threads with too many links to explicit sexual images, and I've found more often than not too many images is just as bad as no images. I will still read a thread that contains one or two NSFW ones, but any more than that, and I am no longer interested. Use pictures tastefully and sparingly. One or two is about right. Up to four is probably okay. Any more than that, and you run the risk of over-saturating your thread with images.

3) Always have a link to your O/Os in your request thread, even if you have a link in your signature. Note whether people can post in reply to your thread or whether they should PM you instead. Make sure your O/O thread is detailed, too; I've found people prefer more detail rather than less in O/O threads.

4) Mention what post length you like in your posts and your partner's posts, if any. Mention how often you want replies.

5) Don't detail ideas too heavily. The more detailed/niche it is, the less likely you are to get a bite. But if you have too few details, you'll have the same problem from the opposite direction. I've found about three to four paragraphs is often the "magic" number, giving enough detail to interest people, but not so much that they feel they can't contribute to the idea.

[Far eyes]

I always felt it was kind of..    gauche to replay directly to the thread. For me personally there has just always been something off about it.

And yes having a decent O/O either a thread or under RP pref is nice, though being to long winded can also be unhelpful. Honestly i prefer like Rp pref or a Rabit hole or something just for the glance value of checking the like 5 ons and 2 offs i care about or how ever meany it is. And then i tend to look at it in more detail once i know if it is even in question.

[Blythe]

I always felt it was kind of..    gauche to replay directly to the thread. For me personally there has just always been something off about it.

For me, it does have an 'off' feeling to see replies from someone other than the original poster for a "main" ideas thread. Not enough to drive me away from considering someone, but it's a little jarring sometimes. For someone who puts up a new thread per idea, I'm much less bothered by it. I'm not sure why; I think it's an 'organization' sort of thing.

And yes having a decent O/O either a thread or under RP pref is nice, though being to long winded can also be unhelpful. Honestly i prefer like Rp pref or a Rabit hole or something just for the glance value of checking the like 5 ons and 2 offs i care about or how ever meany it is. And then i tend to look at it in more detail once i know if it is even in question.

Very true. I know my own O/O is probably waaaay too wordy, although I use my O/O to store things other than just my preferences sometimes.

For me, for personal preference, I pretty much just skip anything that links an F-list and tend to not approach those that link them for RPs. Mostly this is because I like staying on E to do my browsing for RPs and O/Os. That's just a personal preference; I do think that I'm the exception in this attitude, not the norm; I haven't really encountered anyone else who's ever felt the same as me about this sort of thing. I'm probably just weird. >_>;

That being said, I often use ctrl + F with kinks I like as a search term in larger O/O threads or request threads to see if it's listed as an On or Off at a first glance.