To poke, or not to poke, that is the question....

[Jarl Tiberius]

I usually wait for a week or so before sending a reminder which slightly also depend on My interest in the game.

But I don’t disturb people with updated A&A.

[Paradox]

If it's been over a week, I break out the voodoo doll and stick hot pins in its ass until my partner catches the hint.

Actually, with college back in session and two of my games having just been dropped, I don't have people to poke even if I had the time to.

[ShrowdedPoet]

If it's been over a week, I break out the voodoo doll and stick hot pins in its ass until my partner catches the hint.

Actually, with college back in session and two of my games having just been dropped, I don't have people to poke even if I had the time to.

*rubs ass*  That's where that pain was coming from. . .

[King_Furby]

I question to myself. How long do you wait for a partner to contact you before moving on and trying to find a replacement player. Where is the cut off of when it's obvious you partner isn't going to return? When they have had plently of time to contact you and failed to when is it ok to find someone else? I would think a partner would want to let people know whats going on, but what do you do if they don't.

It's one thing if they just never logged on, in that cause you can question well maybe something happened. But if they were posting for weeks with their other partners and didn't even give you notice before suddenly disapearing what do you do. I have given it well over 2 months, and i plan to wait at least another. But when is it okay to move on?

What if tons of time has gone by and you find someone else, and then they come back finally. what happens then. is there some sort of elliquiy policy that takes a stand on this? i think there should be one.

[Greenthorn]

Furby...2 months (unless they contacted you and made you aware of a situation) is about 7 weeks too long!  It's my opinion that at least once a week partners should in the very least "check in" with each other...especially if you're the one who owes the post!

I say...move on now.

[Sherona]

If they are posting elsewhere on the site then zip them a PM. If they are not, then you can either assume they flaked out, or something happened, in which case the game is over iether way.

My stories with TheWolf are on hold because they were very dear to me, but he suddenly went from "super stressed and busy at work" to no posts since..I think April? I haven't taken them from my otifications in hopes he returns...but if he was still posting here I would certainly have done so.

[NightBird]

I can speak as someone who's been on both sides of this particular situation. I've got some roleplays I'm holding onto, but I've also put my writing partners through some long delays.

Generally, I don't tend to replace anyone; instead I start a game/story over with a new partner, but then I primarily do 1:1 freeform, not multi-player system games. In terms of my 1:1 roleplays, I usually keep an eye on log-in information. If somebody's not logged in for more than a month, I will usually consider that roleplay to be inactive. If somebody's logging in and active on other things, hasn't posted in A&A about difficulties staying caught up with life and hasn't sent me a PM or anything, I'll send them a PM after a month or so. I make exceptions for people I know well. Those just sit until the person has a chance to post.

If the situation would involve a multi-player system game I was GM'ing (not that that's ever likely to happen), I'd want contact every week or it would be stated in advance that I'd reserve the right to replace someone. If it were somebody disappearing from the site, I'd hold the character in the background or make that character a temporary NPC. If it were somebody posting elsewhere and not making contact with the game or keeping news going in A&A, they'd be getting a polite 'poke' after ten days or so of inactivity. That's just about courtesy to the other players.

I do keep track of all my roleplays, though. If you take a look at my Elluiki page, I've grouped my roleplays into 'active', 'on hiatus' and 'completed or abandoned.' That's kind of how I look at them. 'Active' is pretty self-explanatory, but in my case it means I really do want to keep up with that roleplay, and I'll be giving it my best shot. Like you, Sherona, I have several stories with TheWolf and a few with others where the stories are so great I don't want to give them up with that particular person, so I'm holding them for if/when I or the person I was posting with reappears or wants to start up again. Those are in 'on hiatus'. The entries under 'completed or abandoned' are those where the story/game really is over, where my writing partner is no longer on the site, or where I do not wish to continue with a roleplay. Anybody can tell at a glance which games have what status with me.

So... based on that as background knowledge of my preferences, I'd suggest that you contact the person involved and ask what's up. I wouldn't have let that wait even 60 days. The time you've given it now is plenty to be politely patient. If there's no response in a few days and the person continues to log in, I'd consider that lack of reply to be the answer, and either get a new player/writing partner, toss that concept to the back burner for a while, or start the concept fresh with someone new.

If somebody would come back to one of my 'on hiatus' roleplays, I'll pick it back up again if I have the time. If somebody would come back to one of my 'completed or abandoned' roleplays, I'd let them know I'm not going to be continuing, but my Elluiki page actually does that for me. If it were related to a game where I'd been NPCing the character, I'd have to think it over about letting the person come back. If the character was dead, I'd probably say a polite 'not at this time,' and if there was somebody new playing the character, I'd politely tell the person who disappeared that this was the case, but then I'd never give a character to a new player unless it was a player who was logging in and ignoring communications. I'd not want to hand a character over to someone new if a player was away ill or dealing with an emergency.

Rather than an official Elliquiy policy, I think it's something that should be on the ONs and OFFs of anybody to whom that matters, or one could always make stipulations in the advertisement for or organizational phase of a story or game. There's nothing wrong with negotiating something up front about participation, but I don't know that it would be right to set site rules for that, since experiences and needs vary on here so widely. FWIW, any time I've run a multi-player game, I've had rules for participation that include the time at which a character goes to NPC status and when they are removed.

I hope that makes sense, even though it was a long-winded way to say that I agree with GT and Sherona.

[King_Furby]

I haven't decided quite yet on what i am going to do. But your information and advice has been helpful. I do really like the game concept and it did go for over a year with that person so its not like i didn't enjoy playing with them. But perhaps once i am ready to i can find a person to play it with, even if they play the character a little different which would be fine. I hope there are still some people out there who like drows and would enjoy playing one.

But when i do find replacement players for people, i usually do a slight time skip to help them get more into it. I guess using the word "replacement" is the wrong term. I more look at it as just the next part of the adventure. there is always hope you can you find someone else i think.

[Silver]

Hmm..

What if someone asked you to begin a thread and you've sent out 2 pms already and two weeks (as of today) have passed and they haven't even posted the first reply. I've seen them reply to other threads and what not but my pms are never returned and I see them in chat as well..

What do you do?

[Kalen]

In a case like that, I would send them one more PM telling them that you are tired of waiting, and are taking the game idea and moving on.  Nothing works quite like that, I find.

I myself had a recent situation where I started a game with someone, and got one reply... then nothing.  Occasionally, a note in the SB to say they were working on it.  After waiting forever, I closed the game when I realized they had forgotten.

Forgotten, or changed their mind... it doesn't matter.  And I could have handled it with more grace.

All I'm saying is, communication is the key.  If both people aren't communicating, then there's not much you can do.  (in my case, more communication would have helped, instead of depending on the SB and just waiting)

[Silver]

Ok but what if it was their story idea?

Do you just drop the game or...

[Kalen]

Well, it's tough to say.  At least drop the game.  As for the idea... telling them that you are going to use it again... silence implies consent.  After all, you put work into the idea as well.