A Forum Recommendation to Ease RP

[utakumoli]

I'd like to suggest that there be some way for us to be told what day it is. (And no, not IRL )

As the game gains momentum and players, we should try to have some standard set. I'd recommend two IRL days = 1 IC day (at least, if not more). During WC2, it was one day for one day, and that pace I think would be far too feverish for most of us.

The reason I suggest this is that it would help to solidify context for us, help us make plans, and possibly prevent unscrupulous individuals from being in both Mantis lands and Unicorn lands at the same time (as fun as that might be).

[Hida Setsuro]

That's an interesting idea and I kind of like it, but I don't know how we'd pull it off. If it was a physical counter, that would require a lot of work on my part, haha. I'm just an amateur coder, really. It's something to think about, though. Maybe Jay and Alison would have more to say.

[utakumoli]

No no, it wouldn't be coded at all. It would just be someone posting on some official thread saying "okay, it's day 46" or whatever. *shrug* just an idea.

And one of the rules on WC was you could start a thread for any day that had already happened or for the current day, but no playing ahead. Don't know if we want to adopt such a rule, but it worked pretty well there.

[Akodo Tomatsu]

Your proposing just like a simple statement that says today is X, and it will change for whatever Y time in RL is?

[Bayushi Senshi]

Its a possibility. One of my concerns is getting people to honor it. I don't know what I think about it yet, will follow this thread for more ideas.

[utakumoli]

Something like that. And I guess there really wouldn't be any way to MAKE people honor it, but folks that end up in two places at the same time could be looked at sideways by other players.

Social pressure, you know? Very Rokugani way of enforcing standards.

[Akodo Tomatsu]

The honor system will work well in an RP built on honor. I like the idea, the more little nuisances we establish, the more the suspension of disbelief will occur (at least in my head). Perhaps we should do some sort of season change as well?

[Hida Setsuro]

Oh, I see what you mean, Mo-Li. It's just not possible to do that. That would severely restrict the RP that people do. It's not fair to anyone, especially for those people who are slow posters. You would effectively cut them off from RPing anywhere because they would get passed up and forgotten extremely quickly.

It's just not possible. I can't let the little players get squashed for more 'realism' - we'd scare away half of the potential rpers. It will remain that you can RP in multiple threads. That's about all I can do.

[Bayushi Senshi]

Then I would suggest that individual threads (poster's prerogative, not the forum admin) have their own timeline. I've seen forum rps that have had a moderator before, they seemed to work well. Like I said though it would have to be at the poster's prerogative.

[Kitsuki Yuushahime]

I'm not sure it'd be a good idea for people that are only on the forums every couple of days. It'd also stop people replying to threads in different locations less they be accussed of their character being in all lands at once. I know Senshi gets around a lot for example

I interpret it as "your character has been at X during the last couple of months". So the rps Yushahime is in are abstract in the sense she's been/is in all of them but their exact time doesn't really matter. What matters is what is discussed and roleplayed and what is decided. If the date is so important you can just say the date or specify when the rp takes place (before or after Y) but a rule for 2 IRL days = 1 IC day seems unnecessary to me. Perhaps on a hardcore roleplay forum but I wouldn't call this one. Nor am I sure I'd want it to be ^^;

I think Hida's viewpoint is sensible here. People would get scared of if they felt pressured not to post in too many locations due to the time it'd take to travel

[Bayushi Senshi]

I may get around, but I do try to only be in one place at a time.

[Kakita Kyoshi]

I see no problem without each RP thread having dates when they are. Simply assume that threads started earlier take place earlier than later ones...

[tadakasan]

*nods* As much as I like the idea I'll have to agree here; I mean, look at the RPG; A GM can spend 10 seconds summing up a week's trip between one location and another ("You travel along the road to Kyuden Isawa and it is relatively uneventful") while a 15 minute encounter with a trap and ninja to fight or something can take an hour with combat rounds and initiative and such. And this just becomes more compounded online where the time differences in different situations is grown or shrank depending on the space between posts in a given thread.

That said, at least we do have a year and a setting in the history. As far as easing RP though... I think the best thing would be an info thread on the setting, more fully fleshed out. A lot of us here are long time L5R fans, but not everyone is. More information on customs, the clans, the history leading up to the timeline we are in, and etc. would help people be able to find things of interest to them and to flesh out RPs even more. While one could look a lot of these things on the Wiki (and I would encourage as such), making people new to the setting go to an outside site, not to mention one that isn't neccisarily the easiest to navigate through, doesn't seem as convenient as an information thread here.

That's just my 2 cents as far as easing RP.

[Utaku Kasumi]

My point of view:
When 2 people are RPing in a thread that "time" thing would be ok. But, when you have more than 2.. it's getting harder. Time differences, Real Life stuff (which should be more important than a game), not being able to use a computer (like people going off for weekends) etc.

Some games takes it that as a one round (like fight f.e.) is equal to 3 seconds - but you need like 10 minutes to play it still.
So I have to agree with Tadaka here.