A fundamental discussion on roleplay events and World Forum activity

[Izaakia]

2024 rugby World Cup, on a 3 year rota, due next year.

[Flaming]

A big issue, I think, is that while we are a part of TSP, we do not really use Nationstates as a recruitment tool. I think that there was a feeling, especially a few years ago, that with the activity of veterans combined with a steady stream of people, some of which would stay long term, that recruitment didn’t really matter. However, many of our biggest veterans have scaled back significantly, or (in the case of Ryccia) fallen off of the face of the RP as a whole. I think we see ourselves kind of as wholly separate from NS and TSPolitics, and while that’s mostly true, we still need to draw recruitment from there.

This would require some effort, and (dear god) someone or some people to maintain an active presence on NS, but we could try making specific recruitment materials. An idea would be, for instance, to simply cross-post TIR to NS, but we could also have more frequent and less high-effort posts, like a basic newsletter that contains a summary of the week’s events in this canon. The only issue with this, of course, is that we need activity to have compelling things to write about..

This is a very good concern, tbh. More discussion about it would be useful to keep TSPRP alive.

[RobbyTheSeal]

@Flaming

The only issue with this, of course, is that we need activity to have compelling things to write about..

I’ve been thinking on and off about this issue for a while now, and I believe that I have answers for at least some of its components. The core of the problem is that major public events (that is, major roleplays open to participation by others) just aren’t run very well in Pacifica as a rule and haven’t been for a while now. To quote a thread from the olden days, back when activity in Pacifica was very high by current standards:

@im_a_waffle1

Currently, live war RPs (with minimum or no planning beforehand) are very chaotic and can cause lots of frustration among those who are participating in the war. After the war, large revisions may be made or the entire war could even be retconned… …Mandating a full war plan would help keep a war controlled and prevent it from going completely wild, frustrating everyone participating in the process.

While the above thread focused on lack of planning as a core factor in causing conflagrations, and I do believe that it is largely accurate, it is also my assessment that lack of publication of important event information is also a significant contributing factor. Therefore, I came up with the following idea to fix some of these problems:

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I suggest that a new pinned thread be created where people intending to run roleplay events can post notices describing important information concerning what they want to do. Each notice will have fields for the following information:

1. Game masters / main event organizers
2. Non-GM participants
3. Join status (is the event open for new participants at this time?)
4. Script status (is the event fully scripted, partially scripted, or unscripted?)
5. Outcome status (are any outcomes/end-states predetermined or are they responsive to participants’ actions?)
6. Event synopsis
7. Link to main thread
8. Links to any supplementary threads or wiki pages

Using this form, people will be able to tell quickly and easily whether an event is open for involvement, where the important threads/information for the event are, and whether their involvement in the event will have any effect on the outcome; as a bonus, the thread will also work as a central location for people to both look for and advertise events that are seeking participants. I’m sure that there are other things that will need to be done to fix the problem in its entirety, but I believe that this would be a good start.