Reference The RPF Policies, Programs, and Events Thread - Now Disc.: New User Welcomes

My very subjective view on things is, that people (at least those newbies I saw in my games) do join certain games, but stay critical about the board as a whole. For whatever reasn that is. Once the games end, they are gone again.

 

Not just newbies.

There were several long-running players of Galaxy at War III flagship, who seemed to disappear after it closed, and have sprung back up a year later, for the next chapter.

If you are only involved in one game, it becomes too easy to ignore the rest of the boards.


Having now seen the suggestions, earlier on this page, I do like Bravo's idea for three separate awards, School, Summer and Annual. Maybe the Star Awards can be separate too, in the School one for instance.

Also like Sinnre's Darth Writing thread idea.

I had a GM issue last week, that I came on here to seek advice from other GMs, only to find the GM thread locked. I don't know where to go for that sort of thing, now.

Sithy

 

I was told here was an discussion I would probably be interested in, but I actually wonder why this did not come up earlier.

The Awards are too often, no doubt. You can simply outwait one to vote in the next. I always felt like the best players of the Season are not available and ESPECIALLY the rule that being voted as a player does block you for GM awards makes no sense at all. If we seriously try to motivate people through appreciation of their work we can´t force everybody to vote for the second best GM, because No. 1 was a good player half a year ago. No, it felt always like you vote someone who is still available. Not the best person.

Then I would dare to ask IF their might have been harmful effects of awards. No matter what people say, they seem to be taken quite serious. I felt like some GMs felt bad about not winning. While the winners didn´t care that much. So I have no idea what to do about it, but that was a shame.

When it comes to the players who are exclusive in games, I think that´s the nature of these very games. Only two come to my mind lately. (Maybe ToF is a third, but I never read it or watched it, so forgive me for not including it) Galaxy at War is a very FanFic-like format (judged from outside) and therefore unlike any, any other. So why should players go to a game completely different, when they can get there? I am not surprised players play exclusively in GaW. It seems like a platform for playing unlike any other.

Same was true for Sins of the Saints (I assume you talked about that one Fin) which attracted about ten players not in any other game anywhere on the board. Who were all exclusive for that game, won some awards and then vanished with Fin closing Part I. Those players made it for a small time the biggest game on the board, but the players were not all regulars around here. From what I heard many are ready to return for Part II. Why? SotS was not based on a franchise, was a mystery-game and almost arty in it´s meta-fiction approach to it´s story. A puzzle of a story. Very demanding and sometimes ocnfusing, yes even frustrating (in a good dramatic sense)
It wasn´t for everyone. It did not truly allow for "posing strength" but demanded a more "grounded" play-style. Enough people felt like it wasn´t their cup of tea early on. Many felt fanatical loyal to it. But there was no offering for those loyalists, once the game closed. No other game around here felt the same. So why enter a Jedi vs. Sith game, when I am looking for SotS II? At least there was no other game jumping to the eye.

It´s like Twin Peaks. There is no heir to Twin Peaks. GaW is more like The Wire. Also no true heir to that one in TV. People who watched The wire didn´t watch Desperate Housewives because it felt like "more of the same". Then again people who liked X-Files have a large base of heirs to that format, varrying it and giving them chances to see more stuff until today in shows like Supernatural, Fringe etc.. So while this might make a great philosophy article, I feel we can do little about it. Some games are just attracting people who don´t like the usual stuff. That doesn´t make the usual stuff bad, it just makes it different.

 

Sorry I haven't chimed back in before this, guys; I've been having a hell of a busy time at work (hence, well, the green). Anyway ...

One big reason why we haven't reduced the frequency of the Awards before this was because we were having regular drama every season, and making the Awards less frequent (and thus having fewer available, and thus making them more highly sought-after) would have made it worse. Now the pendulum's swung the other way, which is why we're in a position to consider making them less often.

Regarding newbies: I don't like the idea of skewing our Awards seasons (in any direction) to allow newbies to Win Stuff. It feels like handing out gold stars or something, and really, that's not something I'd like to see us do. I mean, we're not a kindergarten. The Awards should go to the top few GMs and RPers of the season, and if newbies aren't eligible in their first one or two (or three, or four) seasons, well, that gives them something to strive to. If we make them too easy to get we destroy the entire purpose of having them in the first place, you know?

That said, yes, we do have a Best New RPG awards and a 6-month (or longer) cycle would greatly favour either (1) new games that just opened before the Awards (which was a problem even with a 3-month cycle, sometimes), and (2) new games run by old GMs who can last the duration. On the other hand, we haven't been getting enough nominations to fill out this category for the last few season anyway, so we could perhaps even do away with this entirely and/or run it as a separate thing altogether. A sort of New Game Of The Month thing, perhaps.

I also don't think frequency matters much at all when it comes to newbie participation. I have a feeling that the lack of newbie participation (in nominating and voting) is mostly because they don't know when the Awards are happening and/or they have no idea what it's about even if they are aware of them. So if you know the newbies, guys, tell them about the Awards! Get them to participate.

Regarding frequency: I'm hesitant to go for an annual Awards season because I really think this will cause much drama. A lot of us here remember how that goes, I'm sure. As most people seem in favour of them being at least 6 months apart, we'll go for that for now, and reevaluate things next time to see how we're doing.

Regarding the individual prizes: we can certainly award longer colours, perhaps 2 weeks instead of 1. Might even be able to swing a month if we're reducing the Awards to 1 best RPer/GM every 6 months, but this I'll have to check up on. VIP red for 6 months is also doable, but I think is a far less interesting prize - half the fun for me was always being able to blind people.


Well then, we've pretty much run out of discussion points by now - everyone who was going to chime in has pretty much done so, I think. I'll work up a new Awards thingo and post it within a few days, then. Stay tuned ...

---

On a completely personal note, Sins of the Saints was very interesting for me, but mostly because I got to play completely against type. :p If I were trying to play my 'usual' character archetype, it wouldn't have been nearly as fun. Perhaps that's an argument for stepping outside your comfort zone and playing an entirely new kind of character.

 

Well, darn. I didn't see this until just now. You guys probably don't know me since I am one of the newbies around here (I've only been here around a month). The main reason I didn't vote was because I'm just not that knowledgeable about what goes on around here yet and wouldn't be able to cast an informed vote. I don't like casting uninformed votes on anything, be it "pretendy fun time games" on some Internet forum or a Presidential election. I'm slowly learning what goes on around here, and I expect to have a good enough grasp of how things work here to be able to cast an informed vote next season, whenever that is.

Anyway, just wanted to let you guys know why one of the newbies didn't vote.

 

No worries. I was the same way when I first started. I don't think anyone is expecting someone as new as you to know your way around and to know what is going on during voting season.

 

Hi all.

The RPF Adoptions programme exists to guide new roleplayers in the way we do things, let them know about new games, and try to meet their stated needs.

While Ktala and I are maintaining a service at the RPF Academy venue on Iskalon, where we do have volunteer players who can write articles and lessons, we are missing players to act as one-to-one mentors with the new players.

Are any of you veterans and experienced players able to put your names forward for this very important role?

Sith-I-5
RPF Adoptions emergency medical hologram

 

I would like to show my appreciation to Trieste, for stepping up to look into what it means to be a one-to-one mentor for the RPF Adoptions programme, and then to volunteer!



Ktala, the previous Adoptions Coordinator, said of the role, "They are there to help a new person as they feel they way through the RPF boards. Talk to the new person, so that they get of feel of just how much help they might need. Let them know that their PM box is open to them, or any other way they wish to communicate, so that if the new person needs help, or to simply ask a question, they have someone who wont turn them away. Obviously, a person who has played table games before is going to need less handholding than someone totally new to the game. Give that new person support, and praise as they earn it. And to let them know what type of things are not looked at kindly at the board.

Really, just to be there to answer their questions, and to be a friendly face so that the board dosent feel quite so scary, is all we ask.

Occasionally, they get a student that needs ALOT of hand holding. hehe. And I do mean alot. So, if are not up to being pumelled by questions, then being a one on one teacher might not be for you."

 

I would like to welcome SirakRomar onboard too! Now we have two one-to-one mentors!



Thank you, Sirak.

 

Sith, not to sound like a promotion billboard or anything, but I think STAR WARS: INTERVENTION (A story-telling style OT starfighter game)---Always taking new players! would fit perfectly for new players. We can handle two more players at our current roster.

We have four old-time vets, (Mitth_Fisto, greyjedi125, Bravo, and you), not to mention plenty of experienced players. Liam_Vehn mostly wants to do hanger stuff (starfighter support when needed), so if I move L_V exclusively to the Hanger Chief position, that opens up one slot with Two Flight (me for vets) and two slots for One Flight (you and Mitth for vets). I can further arrange it so we put a newbie into each flight, so one of us vets can help guide the new players through the ropes of RPing.

Its just an idea, but hey, Intervention does have four veteran players here that have been around a while and know how to RP in they're sleep (not to mention our other experienced players as well). I don't know how "one-on-one" I can be personally with a newbie to RPing (I'm already up to my ears with GMing, college, and two jobs), but at least any newbies coming on-board will have an environment where they can learn from, grow in, etc. We both know Intervention is coming to a close here soon, but we still have a few months before that happens (at our current speed), and the second game will be coming after that anyways. At least newbies will have a place to get they're feet wet in the RPF around veteran and experienced players with an established game.

Just an idea.


God Bless,

Jason

 

I agree. I have already PMed your game advert to my current Academy participant, and featured Intervention in the thread a couple times.

---

[b][color=red]Peng[/color][/b]' has re-joined the mentor pool! [face_grin]

While I do not have anyone currently who needs a mentor, I should probably check my most recent newbies to see if they are still in need of a mentor.

[face_doh] Gotta go, I should be writing up a lightsabre lesson now!

 

So, I have a question (a little change of subject, sorry Sith).

Have we decided when to hold another round of new RPF Awards? Over the last few months, we've had some games with high expectations flop and other games surprise us with success. We've also had some new and returning players join the RPF recently that have made some great impacts. I just thought maybe it was time to recognize some of those games and players/GM's for they're efforts and hard work.

 

I think the problem is, that we still have little "room" for voting here. vActually I think I could predict the outcome of the next awards, because in some areas we have had so few newcomers. As an alternative we could think of doing more regular SW-AWARD shows and less regular NSWRPF stuff. But right now only players would be an interesting contest, I think. Because many of the crowd-favourites have skipped to GMing or have left. Otherwise . . . so a six-month-award with all games locked and unlocked might be a good idea.

 

Our last awards were in November, and our last plan was to run them every 6 months rather than every 3, so the next round is planned for May. We decided on this because we were starting to get a combination of awards fatigue and voter apathy - like Sirak said, we could practically predict the winners for each round, and it gets far less interesting when it's a foregone conclusion. If there is enough interest now, we can certainly try having them every 4 months again and run them now ... but if we do that, I would like us to stick to it, because I think having the Awards run on a "hey there are interesting things happening; let's do Awards!" cycle creates an unpredictable Surprise Awards Round sort of thing which is prone to modly favouritism.

Or even separate out the game awards and the player awards, yeah; that might actually be an elegant compromise between awards regularity and voter fatigue. So we could run a Player Awards now, a Game Awards in three months, another Player Awards in three months after that, and so on.

Thoughts?

 

I like this idea. Although maybe game awards every six months and keep the player awards every three months?

 

Would leave the question how we deal with GMs?

 

I myself would throw that in the Game Awards, but if someone has justification for putting that in Player Awards, I'd enjoy hearing it. None of this is set in stone, but we would like to hear what you folks are thinking.

 

I think GMs should be in with the Player Awards. Player Awards being about the individual (be they RPer or GM), Game Awards being about the team effort.

 

And if both are votable GM and game awards always go hand in hand, so it might make more sense to have seperate GM awards put together with the player awards.

 

I had the idea of starting a series of interviews with people on TFN who I think would be interesting to hear from. How they develop games or characters or how they experienced the boards over the years and it´s changes. Simply to reflect a bit about the boards history and the rescent revitalization and maybe give people a bit background about games and GMs. What does everybody think? A good idea? A stupid idea?

 

I think it sounds like a pretty solid idea. The YJCC does something similar for its regulars, and those are pretty good reads, so I think it's at least worth investigating a sort of RPF analogue to that concept.

 

I've been interviewed a couple of times at other boards I've participated at and I like the idea. Increases the sense of community, lets you peek behind the curtain and compare methods if you're so inclined. I'd definitely read. And frankly, after reading some of the games recently, I'd be fascinated to hear people's methods, sources of inspiration, etc.

 

Well, I am afraid this discussion won´t really get off the ground, as I can only agree with all others. Go ahead! What schedule do you think of. Monthly? Weekly? FAQs or do you come up with the questions? I would advise you do it, as I think you might be a more interesting choice and a little more . . . journalistic.

Otherwise I train my No Comment face

 

Joining the general opinion. Might be interesting. I would love to read about people. How often and GMs or also players? Are there actually any around here who are only one thing and not both?