Why so few? Why so rare?

[BIos_Reaper]

I've noticed that the number of active role plays on this site is at a minimum. Reapers UB, Reapers New Dawn I believe, I haven't seen many other role plays up and running for a while now. Rping appears to be the bane of any website these days, nothing much to join, whats interesting about sci-fi has become common place, the beauty of space appeals to no one unless it's filled with pretty-colored lasers, even though you wont even see a laser in space anyway. Here's hoping something will pop up, until then I'll have to contend with private rp's and video games, there's little enough happening here as it is.

[Brome Teks]

Actually, In addition to Unstable Boundaries and Last Dawn, There's Inglorious Return, Exiles of Sol, The Numberless, and a few others that could be revived fairly easily. If you're so concerned about there being few roleplays, you can start your own or get that First Encounter one you were working on off the ground.

Heck, you'd even be allowed to start your own Age of Rebirth Roleplay, since it's a setting anyone on the site can use.

[SliceOfDog]

I agree that the pace of the site has been a bit slow recently, but actually it's in most areas other than RPs! As Brome said, there's been a revival of almost biblical proportions of Exiles of Sol, Inglorious return started up and my ol' Numberless RP is still chugging along, as well as the ones owned by Reaper that you mentioned yourself.
And again like Brome says, there was a lot of interest in your First Encounter RP. I'm certain you could get that going, I'd still be interested.

Also, why limit yourself to RPs? There are plenty of topics around here that could use a bit of sprucing up. We even have a competition going on that needs a few entries, and there's new XAP stuff too.

[Nelle Kozera]

Heck, you'd even be allowed to start your own Age of Rebirth Roleplay, since it's a setting anyone on the site can use.

He is right, Age of Rebirth is an Open Source Setting that anyone can use. That was the main purpose of its creation, for it be used by anyone. Not Just me.

And First encounters can be started as well.

[Dusty]

I know I'm kind of slow on posting right now because of school. I actually just got back from a Future Problem Solving meet tonight. And I got 2 projects to do. I'm keeping up reading but you'll have to bare with me guys

[themnax]

i can only speak for myself, but the choice of theme options provided just don't appeal. they may be fine for gamers who are into the conflict based foundation concept that has come to rule the rp gaming world, but that's precisely why i got out of it.

this is a little thing i wrote about my thoughts on the subject in general. again of course i'm speaking only for my self in saying it, but here's where i'm comming from anyway:

i remember when children used to roll play before roll playing games were invented.

many of us, i was one, would roll play the kinds of worlds we wanted to grow up in and the kinds of things we would have wanted to do once we had.

sure, some kids would roll play some sort of armed conflict or an other, (world war two and the infamous 'coyboys and indians' were the most common) but those of us with a little more imagination, and there were many of us, would roll play things like solving real world problems that would eliminate conflict, armed or otherwise.

if we wanted to take over the world, it was because we thought grown ups were doing it wrong.

and the were. and still are.

its a measure of how far the ambient culture has gone down hill, that almost no one today seems to want fantasy simulation to be capable of this.

when i entered young adulthood, science fiction was fiction ABOUT science. NOT shootem ups in space. or soap operas set within shootem ups in space.
good real science fiction is still being written, of course.

popular conception is no closer to the real thing then it ever was.

the whole point of real science fiction for me, was that it wasn't indentured to the narrowness of the then and still popular dominance of aggressiveness. that there was and is, a bigger, wider and endlessly more diverse universe, then human imagination can ever begin to conceive.

the real disappointment of roll play gaming, or at least how it generally tends to get played, is how much it turns its back on those wonders of relatively peaceful and harmonious diversity.

[SliceOfDog]

(I'm not going to quote the above post because it would take up too much space, but this is a response to themnax's post)

I agree with you in a lot of ways. I prefer dialogue or puzzle based RPs over action based ones, and I have been trying recently to remove all or most violence from my scripts to see if I can have an interesting story balance on its own merits.

However, you must agree that conflict in some way or another is necessary for maintaining interest? Yes, it doesn't always have to be violent, but a perfect world isn't really very interesting to RP in, at least not for me.

Put it this way: I am a human and animal-rights loving Liberal pacifist who thinks that all non-violent beliefs should be accepted and opposes judgement based on anything that is not a choice, including race, gender, sexuality and lots of other categories. At the same time, I absolutely adore Dystopian and Post-Apoc fiction. Worlds which include massive amounts of suffering intrigue me, and I especially love false utopias, 'perfect' worlds with a secret horror or a lack of reality to it.

My interest in these things doesn't reflect my appreciation of these attributes in real life. In fact, quite the opposite. I can understand your feeling tired of violence and action RPs, but it's clearly what people enjoy playing, and I don't think it necessarily reflects real life in any way.

However, if you'd like to start a non-violent RP, and you'd have my interest and full support if you did, please feel free. As we told BIos, anyone is welcome to start their own RP. There is little cause for complaining about a lack of RPs that interest you unless you've tried to start your own

[redtail]

I can see the appeal of that sort of thing, but to be honest, my life is full of life and when I'm trying to escape it for a few minutes one evening, the last thing I wanna do is think about real problems.

[SliceOfDog]

I can see the appeal of that sort of thing, but to be honest, my life is full of life and when I'm trying to escape it for a few minutes one evening, the last thing I wanna do is think about real problems.

Hah! A very good point! The most fun Rps, rather than the most thoughtful, tend to be popular, and for good reason.

[redtail]

Often "fun" can lead directly to "thoughtful".

I mean, take TV for example. Some times the most creative plots are absolute drivel because there wasn't enough fun, but other times the plot is just *so* awesome that it makes up for most of that.

ANd then you on rare occasion get a show that manages to have everything just *perfect*.

But that said, yes. It's just personal choice on my part, but for RP at least, I tend to shy away from the mundane.

[BIos_Reaper]

True, so true. Mass Effect is a pristine example of one thing, a good story that maintains combat as an interest and movement progressor. If you wish to create a story, more often than not, people enjoy playing lets say... A game about discovering ancient alien mysteries, because there's shiny technology, because you get to see marvelous things, and experience them. More or less, story alone wont do it since there always has to be something to keep ones interest. For me? In Mass Effect what kept me going was the mystery of it all, would've preferred them making the Reapers a bit of a mystery but I enjoyed it nonetheless! Since it's a fresh thing if you KNOW the truth but cant get others to see it despite overwhealming evidence... That or said people are just dense in the head, no pun intended X3. Either way, an rp is hard because you have to write everything up. Admittably, I´d prefer a story that is not set in stone, i.e. freedom for unexpected things to happen, like a mystery being solved early, a device being invented later or an enemy facing greater opposition than he'd have thought he would. In short, freedom of choice, yet not to such an extent as to where it busts the entire thing. Either way, back to hitting the books! Nice to escape! Zwz

[themnax]

i was more giving my answer to the topic question then intending critique. appreciate and love the reply though. i didn't mean to come across as being rabbitly anti-violence. it all CAN be interesting, SOME of the time. as for starting one. i like the idea. one of these days when i can count on have more connect time to play around with, and a few other factors, not having to do with anything here, that seem to be putting a crimp on my imagination, i just may. right now though, i've got a fixed amount of bandwidth i can use because of where i'm living not having a direct internet connection nor within a free wifi zone. so i have to pay 60 a month for 5 gigs. which i realize isn't that bad or anything. just a constraint, that tends to stiffle my thinking while on line.

i do have a world to set it on/in relation to. that like the kind of sf i like, is about making infrastructure and life closer to harmony with nature, while continuing to evolve ever higher levels of technology.
it could be an 'alternative' no so distant future earth. i like to think something like it COULD happen here. but IS, that small green planet in a distant galaxy i call lananara. i'm not sure what kind of theme to set for a story line. i kind of like the idea of an open ended random ramble that goes wherever it does, provaded it stays within the paramiters of that world. or if it needs more focus, possibly a mystery investigation story, but with that kind of a twist that doesn't require anyone to have actually intended major harm, or be punished for it.

i'm not really ready to set it up right now, but i am very deffinately thinking about it, as i have been all along.

non-leathal energy "weapons", where they enter into it at all, a very advanced system of little trains replacing the automobile, and energy coming from sources that don't involve burning anything, sum up that part of the setting. other aspects my sound too peaceful, but life happens, even in the best of times and places. and it isn't like solving familiar problems, doesn't reveal just as many that had gone unnoticed because of them, to sink our teeth into down the line.

[redtail]

C'mon, where's the literary spirit?

You create a perfect world and it gets boring!

Break stuff!

[themnax]

some of us find breaking stuff boring. believe it or not. and i happen to be one of them. the thing about violence wasn't my point.

it is the dominance of a whole way of thinking, of looking at everything, that just assumes that if you throw enough violence or anxiety or any other arbitrary thing into the mix, that this somehow automatically makes it interesting, and i'm sorry, but for some of us, again i'm one, it just plain don't.

read some good REAL science fiction, like the stuff published in analog-sf for example, and MAYBE you'll see what i mean. what i'm actually geting at.

the stuff that interests me, when the violance or whatever else as a substitute for interests comes along, tends to dissappear from the story, whether it gets destroyed or just from that point on ignored.

also; what perfect world? there is no such thing as endpoint perfection. there's no reason anything can't be improved without this nonsense fear of reaching some sort of stagnating point of perfection. there simply isn't any such thing. that's just more of the nonsense people have been enculturated with to keep from fixing things that really are broken, because someone or some many think they're gonna get something out of not doing so (and then wonder why in the hell they never do).

[SliceOfDog]

Be sensible please, guys, this is nothing to get heated over. Some people like violence in stories and others don't, simple as. There's no right or wrong in this case. And themnax, if there are particular types of sci-fi you really like, particularly if it's indie, please feel free to make a topic about it

[redtail]

FOr one, I was trying to be fun and goofy in the particular way I worded my posting. I figured that my personal text "I break stuff" that's been below my avatar for the last couple of years would have given this particular phrase some context.

You're right, you don't have to have death and violence and guns and warfare to make a story. You don't have to have government conspiracies or alien invasions, you don't have to have a dystopia or a post-apocalyptic wasteland, either. If you really want a stretch, you can even make-do without any arguments or fights or disagreements of any kind, though at this point your plot ends up looking more like a storyboard for an ABC's book unless you've got something really special up your sleeve.
That wasn't at all the point I was trying to make. And while it's true that I generally lean on fear, mystery and violence as a source for contention in my own work, I never said that it had to be that way.

However, you *do* have to have some point of functional conflict. Otherwise you've created a universe, not necessarily a story.


Now in order to help describe what I'm trying to say, think about this:
There's some form of conflict in even the dumbest canned romantic comedy. Even if that conflict is as simple as a breakdown between a character's self-image and what he feels he has to be to attract his romantic interest.


I wasn't trying to kick down anyone's genratic preferences. I was merely trying to make a point on basic story mechanics in a crudely playful way.

[themnax]

the other little problem with breaking things, is that then you end up with a bunch of broken stuff, and that doesn't make a world more interesting, it makes it more depressing.

a universe that isn't a story. yes. stories are ok. but they're also where cultural values come from, so there's something to be said about being a little bit careful about that.
does a roll play HAVE to be a story, if it says within a particular imaginary universe?

i think this is why diversity is good. so some people can live in stories if they want to, and some of us can live in the kind of universes we'd like to see, or even make happen.

the main stream of real science fiction isn't the so called science fiction one sees in the corporate entertainment mainstream, but in genre journals like analog-sf, asamov's, f&sf, and so on.
the litmus standard of what real science fiction is and isn't, was created by a journal of professional science fiction writers, called L.o.c.u.s.

[Rakaziel]

Ok, then let's actively ask the question.

Who would currently be interested in a rp that is more about building a world than breaking stuff?
I have some ideas for one, could for example be settled in the time of the creation of the first anthros or the like or a reseach team exploring a distant planet. Or maybe a post-apoc utopia, the Fall is some time away and we are building crystal cities from the ruins. Anyone interested?

[themnax]

Ok, then let's actively ask the question.

Who would currently be interested in a rp that is more about building a world than breaking stuff?
I have some ideas for one, could for example be settled in the time of the creation of the first anthros or the like or a reseach team exploring a distant planet. Or maybe a post-apoc utopia, the Fall is some time away and we are building crystal cities from the ruins. Anyone interested?

ok. here i'm very interested. but the exploration team and the after the fall but before/in the process of, rebuilding. espcially the idea of rebuilding with a degree of deliberation to avoid repeating conditions for the fall, while enjoying the world left behind by what is no longer there by having fallen.

i don't know if everyone's 'gotten' it yet, what i was trying to get at, that the idea of throwing violence, or any thing else, at something that isn't interesting to begin with without it, just doesn't make it so.
or at least it doesn't at all often for me.

cars and guns for example. its not that they're "evil", whatever the hell that means. it's that they're cleche's. the idea that they, or the country one lives in, or anything else, including the attitudes and perspectives one is familiar with, are going to be around for ever is nonsense. even war for that matter.

it's not a matter of setting up "utopias". its entirely besides the point if a setting is seen by some as utopian or not. there are ALWAYS things that need to be fixed, or to be improved upon. so there's plenty of opportunities for story building challanges, that DON'T have to be the kinds of conflicts anyone is familiar with.

that's another one of those whole point of SCIENCE fiction. to look at those things we're NOT in everyday life all that familiar with.

i have a slight reluctance to commit myself, because i can't and won't guarantee my being able to keep up with contributing on a regular basis. though that IS what i had in mind once upon a time when i was looking for places to roll play.

there's a story i could tell, or set up. the setting is a university deep space research vessle. a handful of crew and an equal number of grad students working on their advanced degrees. it receives a distress call from an isolated colony world that is near enough to its course to get there in a timely manor. and the problem is that people on this colony world are mysteriously disappearing. i mean disappearing completely. seemingly into thin air. once or twice recently it has taken place in front of witnesses.

[Brome Teks]

The old Age of Rebirth actually had a lot of us simply fleshing out our nations and working out the politics between them. This would've been better if we didn't wind up setting ourselves up into 2 major and somewhat opposed factions, but it goes to show that we could actually have a lot of fun building up a universe/setting. Off of this site, I participate in an RP that is primarily based around a given setting and dumping characters from all sorts of different universes into it. This results in much fun when, for example, I have a Zrackli getting philosophical with a werewolf (just an example).

[Nelle Kozera]

I Haven't posted in this topic in awhile so excuse the retrograde topic answers.

some of us find breaking stuff boring. believe it or not. and i happen to be one of them. the thing about violence wasn't my point.

it is the dominance of a whole way of thinking, of looking at everything, that just assumes that if you throw enough violence or anxiety or any other arbitrary thing into the mix, that this somehow automatically makes it interesting, and i'm sorry, but for some of us, again i'm one, it just plain don't.

And

i don't know if everyone's 'gotten' it yet, what i was trying to get at, that the idea of throwing violence, or any thing else, at something that isn't interesting to begin with without it, just doesn't make it so.

I Can understand this, violence doesn't automatically make something interesting. It can make entire stories and ideas seem artificial, forced, or down right silly. A story, and the world that it set in must have depth. There must be some meat to the world at hand, other wise it boils down Characters A, B, C, D against your big Bad set in Universe Y. Aside from that you have nothing but pointless conflict.

read some good REAL science fiction, like the stuff published in analog-sf for example, and MAYBE you'll see what i mean. what i'm actually geting at.

What is REAL science fiction and not is up to the reader, plain and simple.

the other little problem with breaking things, is that then you end up with a bunch of broken stuff, and that doesn't make a world more interesting, it makes it more depressing.

and

it's not a matter of setting up "utopias". its entirely besides the point if a setting is seen by some as utopian or not. there are ALWAYS things that need to be fixed, or to be improved upon. so there's plenty of opportunities for story building challanges, that DON'T have to be the kinds of conflicts anyone is familiar with.

This is merely personal opinion here: I Like degenerate setting as opposed to Progressive settings. I can understand the appeal, but at the same time something about these kind of worlds seem artificial. Sure You have solved the majority of problems modern society but at the same time what new ones have you created? Can we connect to these new problems? I mean some of the problems that might be seen as major in the future might seem arbitrary to us now, or even not even seem like a problem to us. For these reasons I like Degenerate futures where many of the problems we faced today have not gone away but have gotten larger.

Not exactly sure why but i have a intense dislike for the "Good" Prevailing over the "Evil." For me these elements are not black and white but just a large wash of Grey.

does a roll play HAVE to be a story, if it says within a particular imaginary universe?

I'll bite, No it doesn't have to be a story. But at the same time, mainly for the forum format it would help tremendously. Here on the forums things tend be a lot slower than say a IRC or IM format. So its a lot harder to keep interest in someone that might update once every 2-3 days as opposed to something might update once a minute or so.

[Nelle Kozera]

The old Age of Rebirth actually had a lot of us simply fleshing out our nations and working out the politics between them. This would've been better if we didn't wind up setting ourselves up into 2 major and somewhat opposed factions, but it goes to show that we could actually have a lot of fun building up a universe/setting. Off of this site, I participate in an RP that is primarily based around a given setting and dumping characters from all sorts of different universes into it. This results in much fun when, for example, I have a Zrackli getting philosophical with a werewolf (just an example).

Age of Rebirth does have an almost entirely Unexplored politics side of it. Problem is, is keeping the majority of players interested. I would love to start it up again if I can enough interested people.