Returning to GMing

[persephone325]

Not sure if many people look at this section.

So, I have a lot of ideas for games that I'm working on. The problem is, I'm hesitant to try and get them running because the last couple of times I've tried there doesn't seem to be any interest. Or the game gets started and there's some sort of drama. Or people just end up disappearing. Though I try not to take it personally because things happen in real life all the time that cause people to vanish without warning. It just makes me a little sad.

Anyway, I guess my main concerns are that it doesn't seem like anyone is interested - maybe some of my ideas are too in-depth and people just don't want to read all of it? (Thinking of Anvia specifically for that.) And I feel like I always attract drama queen types that just sour the other players and they don't feel comfortable in the game anymore.

I don't know. I just feel disheartened and don't really know what to do.

[GloomCookie]

I've been similarly disheartened in the past. I feel like group forum games are the most unstable of any game type, and I've mostly focused on things like a living community for Shadowrun. I'd be interested in discussing with you some of the options in that regard, because I feel of different people can operate as both GMs and players in a central universe with real-time collaboration, it tends to work a lot better than trying to go it alone and keep the drama from happening. Because I've had entire games collapse because one player didn't like another and people took sides because they wanted to.

[inkybus]

Good players are not easy to find, they are as numerous as GMs.

But onto the main topic: I have had a few situations where I had a hankering for a very specific setting that other people probably would not like as much as me. The best thing I did was spread the word out wider by using more than one platform.

I advertised the game to be run on Discord (I like that I can have more than one channel and also review previous actions of my players while I am commuting to work or somewhere else) and advertised it on some discord servers, reddit, rpol and other forums I frequented at the time.

Since it was a niche (I ran a Warhammer Fantasy 2e RP set in a bastardized Kenshi setting), there weren't many players on one server that were interested, but at the end I had a dozen applicants from various sources that I could vet for my short campaign.

[Kakihara]

Not sure if many people look at this section.

So, I have a lot of ideas for games that I'm working on. The problem is, I'm hesitant to try and get them running because the last couple of times I've tried there doesn't seem to be any interest. Or the game gets started and there's some sort of drama. Or people just end up disappearing. Though I try not to take it personally because things happen in real life all the time that cause people to vanish without warning. It just makes me a little sad.

Anyway, I guess my main concerns are that it doesn't seem like anyone is interested - maybe some of my ideas are too in-depth and people just don't want to read all of it? (Thinking of Anvia specifically for that.) And I feel like I always attract drama queen types that just sour the other players and they don't feel comfortable in the game anymore.

I don't know. I just feel disheartened and don't really know what to do.

I totally feel this, it feels like group games are very niche and a bit clique on E at the moment, and most seem to require a good amount of opportunity for smut to draw many.  I mean if it's any help I've been DMing for 30 plus years and I can't seem to get a game going on E, it is probably agrivated by the population of the site being fairly low, especally when it comes to group games.  It's strange as when I was doing group games on RPOL, I seemed to always get a flood of people and the games went on for a decent while before it might start to sputter out because of players getting pulled away by life. 

Having started online RPGing with pbem, I kind of wish that was still a thing.  But honestly after having game after game not take off, I've been debating if I need to just return to rpol for group games.  Not sure how well it is, but it's always been a place more about group games than individual ones, so it's at least a better place to start.  The one nice think about RPOL is you are more in command of your game board which I feel like keeps drama to a minimum, not that it doesn't happen, I've had one or two in my time over there.

I know it's not a great offering of advice to say, maybe it's better elsewhere, but it seems the best, honest answer right now. 

[persephone325]

I totally feel this, it feels like group games are very niche and a bit clique on E at the moment, and most seem to require a good amount of opportunity for smut to draw many.  I mean if it's any help I've been DMing for 30 plus years and I can't seem to get a game going on E, it is probably agrivated by the population of the site being fairly low, especally when it comes to group games.  It's strange as when I was doing group games on RPOL, I seemed to always get a flood of people and the games went on for a decent while before it might start to sputter out because of players getting pulled away by life. 

Having started online RPGing with pbem, I kind of wish that was still a thing.  But honestly after having game after game not take off, I've been debating if I need to just return to rpol for group games.  Not sure how well it is, but it's always been a place more about group games than individual ones, so it's at least a better place to start.  The one nice think about RPOL is you are more in command of your game board which I feel like keeps drama to a minimum, not that it doesn't happen, I've had one or two in my time over there.

I know it's not a great offering of advice to say, maybe it's better elsewhere, but it seems the best, honest answer right now. 

You're not the first person to give me that advice, and it does seem to be the best advice. I've heard that people are making Discord servers for their games as well. I'm definitely going to look into this RPOL site and see where it takes me. There was a certain forum I stumbled across a long time ago where you had your main account (kind of like an OOC account) and you had sub-accounts for all your characters underneath your main. I thought that was really smart. I'd like to find it again.

It does suck that unless you're offering smut, it doesn't seem like your game will get any traction... :-(

[Kakihara]

You're not the first person to give me that advice, and it does seem to be the best advice. I've heard that people are making Discord servers for their games as well. I'm definitely going to look into this RPOL site and see where it takes me. There was a certain forum I stumbled across a long time ago where you had your main account (kind of like an OOC account) and you had sub-accounts for all your characters underneath your main. I thought that was really smart. I'd like to find it again.

It does suck that unless you're offering smut, it doesn't seem like your game will get any traction... :-(

It kind of works that way with RPOL.net.  You create a main account that you will be known publically as.  If you join a game, they will assign you one name, or potentially more if you have multiple characters, to use to interact.  Basically under that subboard, you can have multiple drop down names to us to post as.  And each you can assign a portrait, though saidly those portraits are from a preselect group, but you can post in more exact stuff under the character bios.  And as a GM, you basicaly run the board, you approve people, assign them their roles, can assign them what threads they post in, if you want to seperate out parties.  And you can create as many individual characters for PC and NPC as you wish to use as well as create all the threads and such. And you can assign co-GMS while keeping ownership so you will always be able to edit or change things as needed. 

I think the only thing I dislike about Discord is the word count limit.  I tried running a solo on there once and it was painful because of that, since I can be wordy, especially with opening GM post.  I think that's why I prefer it just for OCC stuff.  But it is great for doing TTRPGs with the voice chat if you are running through like one of the virtual table tops.

[persephone325]

It kind of works that way with RPOL.net.  You create a main account that you will be known publically as.  If you join a game, they will assign you one name, or potentially more if you have multiple characters, to use to interact.  Basically under that subboard, you can have multiple drop down names to us to post as.  And each you can assign a portrait, though saidly those portraits are from a preselect group, but you can post in more exact stuff under the character bios.  And as a GM, you basicaly run the board, you approve people, assign them their roles, can assign them what threads they post in, if you want to seperate out parties.  And you can create as many individual characters for PC and NPC as you wish to use as well as create all the threads and such. And you can assign co-GMS while keeping ownership so you will always be able to edit or change things as needed. 

I think the only thing I dislike about Discord is the word count limit.  I tried running a solo on there once and it was painful because of that, since I can be wordy, especially with opening GM post.  I think that's why I prefer it just for OCC stuff.  But it is great for doing TTRPGs with the voice chat if you are running through like one of the virtual table tops.

Surprisingly enough, I found that I have an account on RPOL! lol I must have signed up years ago and just completely forgot. XD

And I did find that forum with the sub-accounts feature, too! I had actually created a forum for a game I ran here and everyone left because of a silly incident.

Oh yeah. I forgot Discord has a word limit... It's something really low, too. If I remember right...

[Cold Heritage]

A lot of jcink boards do the main account/sub account thing. Although my experience there was that it was very visually oriented - the posting field I don't think had any 'built in' formatting so like the posts wouldn't even word wrap on their own and you had to go to dedicated forums where people would make these elaborate chunks of code you filled in (or you could do it yourself if you were into that).

[RedRose]

I haven't even tried in maybe decades. I've had such bad experiences giving it my all.

[salaciouspen]

I tend to find that GMing online is a vastly different experience from doing it in person. Communication is generally not very good and people can get a bit recalcitrant (even downright selfish) when it comes to what they want (and I mean that on both sides of the table), and the fact that they can just walk away without real consequence.  Put those two together and it can become a real nightmare scenario; more so, as I'm sure you've noticed, when drama queens (and kings!) are present.  And then multiply that by the number of potential players and its almost certain recipe for disaster.

My most successful online group games to date have been with very small groups (around the 3ish range) with common and very focused interests; I can usually get to keep those going for a few months.  Solo games are my best successes, and I currently have two that are still ongoing - one of them for over 2 years now!  It has helped that the players have been patient in times when RL has caught up with me.

[VentureErrant]

The only platform I've had remotely successful play-by-posts on - and this was over a decade ago now - was rpgcrossing.com. And even that seems to be in a bit of a decline these days! My experience has always been that interest simply fades as even the most relatively brisk of paces is painfully slow - especially if not all ~5 people involved are posting at the same frequency. Asynchronous play just seems to be a mess - and I imagine the pool of folks willing to try has shrunk as it becomes easier to just use voice and virtual tabletops. (Fortunately, I've not had to deal with drama!)

I also think it's just part of the hobby - I've had plenty of 'regular' games just fall apart too. Either you still have the itch bad enough to scratch it, or you accept it and set it aside.

[RedKnight]

Welcome back to gaming Persephone325,

I’ve been on-line gaming for almost 7 years (since 2017). I got my start on RPGCrossing. I was fortunate enough to fall into an Open/Shared World (aka West Marches style). I’ve been in a lot of games since then, but the West Marches game is the only one that is still going strong. We’ve had a lot of players and GMs come and go. However, the game is still going strong. We’ve got around six active GMs and 30 or so active players.

The overall game is Episodic, with each ‘adventure’ running around 4-6 month IRL. Different GMs have different approaches. With some running one-offs, while others string a series of adventures together into Episodes. Players can start/leave at the beginning/end of each adventure.

The nice thing about ‘drama’ is that we have a group of GMs (and a group of players). We’ve had to eject a few players, and even a GM, but the GMs collectively hash out the situation and loosing a GM or a player doesn’t de-rail the entire game.

RPGCrossing has some strict guidelines (e.g., all games must be played in the Forum, PG-13 limit on content), which is what brought me to Elliquiy.

I’ve found that Elliquiy users are somewhat split between system vs. free-form games (with the system folks split between different systems), solo vs. group, and story vs. smut. So, any given offering will only appeal to a sub-set of the users.

I like a combination of Discord and Google Docs to run/play games. I find that I can access Discord easier and there is a bit less overhead for posting. In terms of length. You can just split your post across a couple of messages, and there is a for-pay Discord option that allows longer messages. 

More later, the cat is calling….

[Envious]

Don't be disheartened! I've had games get immediate interest in 5-10 minutes by 10+ players when it's the exact same idea I pitched a year prior that was completely ignored. Interest comes in weird waves! Or they flop on one site but suceed for a few months on another site.

There's a lot of disappointment when a game doesn't succeed, but there are so many other contending factors that are multiplied by each player who comes into the game that it's not fair to you to internalize the lack of longevity. It's a numbers game.

Good luck in your next adventure and don't be shy to pitch it! My failed games vastly outweigh the successful ones and... Welllllll... It does kinda suck, but you never know when one will take off!

[Fox Lokison]

Don't be disheartened! I've had games get immediate interest in 5-10 minutes by 10+ players when it's the exact same idea I pitched a year prior that was completely ignored. Interest comes in weird waves! Or they flop on one site but suceed for a few months on another site.

This. The right audience at the right time is everything. It's not that the idea isn't interesting, but rather, that the interest for that kind of thing either isn't there at the moment - or, more likely, isn't reaching the audience that would love it. I've started plenty of long-running games, and I've started plenty that didn't get off the ground. It's all a confluence of factors. I had to come to E from F-List, for example, to find the kind of play I wanted. If an idea doesn't take off, I just file away the code, graphics, and concepts, and bring it back another time when I feel more ready and willing to give it another shot.

[RedKnight]

This. The right audience at the right time is everything. It's not that the idea isn't interesting, but rather, that the interest for that kind of thing either isn't there at the moment - or, more likely, isn't reaching the audience that would love it. I've started plenty of long-running games, and I've started plenty that didn't get off the ground. It's all a confluence of factors. I had to come to E from F-List, for example, to find the kind of play I wanted. If an idea doesn't take off, I just file away the code, graphics, and concepts, and bring it back another time when I feel more ready and willing to give it another shot.

Great Idea Fox,

I try to do a couple of things. First, I try to learn things from the game, whether a game succeeds or fails. Some of the more enduring things I've learned are from my failures.

Second, if at first, you don't succeed, try again. I've got a world I'm working on - Vegas after Dark, a supernatural version of Las Vegas. I'm on my third attempt at a game (and I've already lost two of five players. Additionally, I've switched the underlying gaming system - from Cypher to Urban Shadows.

The third comes in two parts. Don't take it personally; games fall apart for many reasons unrelated to you. However, all you can do is try and change yourself. So try and figure out what you'll do the next time differently.

Hmm, and maybe the biggest is enjoying the ride, not the destination. Enjoy each post, and don't wait to enjoy the adventure until it's over. Then whenever and however it ends, you've had a good time. 

[persephone325]

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I do still think that I'm part of the problem. When I was younger here, I didn't do the best job GMing and I know there are people here that don't like me very much. I guess I'm just worried that people might not be interested in a game I'm running simply because I'm the one running it. I don't think my past mistakes should be held against me.

I'm trying my best to work those thoughts out of my brain. GMing takes practice, for sure.

The third comes in two parts. Don't take it personally; games fall apart for many reasons unrelated to you. However, all you can do is try and change yourself. So try and figure out what you'll do the next time differently.

While I was typing my post, I saw your post and just had to quote it. It's like you read my mind. lol

[RedKnight]

One last piece of advice - start light and start small. Here are a couple of examples. In the West Marches game, I'm running an old-style dungeon delve, where each room has no relation to the other (next or previous) room. Each room/scene is a mini-adventure (around 4-10 GM posts), and players are free to join/leave before or after each room. Also, I've got an online friend who wanted to be a GM, so the two of us are playing - with her as GM and me as the player (and providing a few pointers on GMing).

The bigger you make starting to GM in your mind, the tougher it will be to get started.

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I do still think that I'm part of the problem. When I was younger here, I didn't do the best job GMing and I know there are people here that don't like me very much. I guess I'm just worried that people might not be interested in a game I'm running simply because I'm the one running it. I don't think my past mistakes should be held against me.

I'm trying my best to work those thoughts out of my brain. GMing takes practice, for sure.

While I was typing my post, I saw your post and just had to quote it. It's like you read my mind. lol

[Fox Lokison]

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I do still think that I'm part of the problem. When I was younger here, I didn't do the best job GMing and I know there are people here that don't like me very much. I guess I'm just worried that people might not be interested in a game I'm running simply because I'm the one running it. I don't think my past mistakes should be held against me.

We've all had slumps and bumps. My first GMing was at 17. I was awful, and my friends from that group still tease me about it playfully. But there are people from that group who still, almost 12 years later, still rank me amid the worst GMs ever and won't join any project I make. You can't really control that. The fact of the matter is, you're not gonna get better without practice, so just continually trying, learning, and growing is a huge part of making progress.

Great Idea Fox,

I try to do a couple of things. First, I try to learn things from the game, whether a game succeeds or fails. Some of the more enduring things I've learned are from my failures.

This. This, this, this. My failures have taught me so much. It allows me to see issues ahead of time, and avoid them or work around them as they come. I learned more lessons from the wrecks than I did from the successes, just because it's easy to assume you've got it down pat when everything is going right - and you're more likely to critically examine yourself when it's going wrong.