What keeps you at an RPG?

[elfgirl]

I was wondering what everyone likes most in an RPG. What's most important? I mean, activity is wonderful, especially now, but if you had active threads to choose from, which would be most important? (And by constant activity, I mean 2, 3, 5 posts a day or so.)

[YayGollum]

Why did you make the poll the sort where you can vote for more than one thing, if you were looking for what people most enjoyed? oh well. I went with the first one. Superly cool characters are always fun, even if the writer isn't the greatest or nicest of all time. Good characters can keep me interested in a story even if the dude in charge isn't so great, or if the story or plot twists aren't so great. As a matter of course, I greatly enjoy some good plot twists, stories, and evil masterminds in charge of them all. I am merely writing that interesting as well as achingly unique personalities are what I live on.

[chrysophalax]

I agree with Yay...WAY too many options to choose from! I chose good writers however, because without decent writing and fairly long posts, it's hard to retain interest, at least from this Dragon's point of view.

[Rosalee LuAnn]

Its hard to choose because all of the options given are important for an RPG, but I think it's more important to have nice writers/threadmasters than good writers/threadmasters.

We're all here to have fun co-writing a story and maybe learn to write better by doing it, so if you're not a good writer that is fine. I think it's more important to be nice--to cooperate with the other players, to give and take constructive criticism on posts graciously, and just be friendly in general. And hopefully become a better writer in the process.

[YayGollum]

Do what? Niceness? *recoils* How is that helpful at all? Good threadmasters equal the cooperation and accepting and doling out constructive criticism, but how does friendliness help a story? Yay for having all kinds of fun. The fact that humans deign to work together on a story instead of just writing their own stuff is close to friendliness, yes? :confused: *has had a few confusing encounters with those accused of being friendly* :rolleyes:

[AraCelebEarwen]

From my exploring other forums (*gasp!* Yes! I've written on other forums! :rolleyes: ) I've found that it may not always be a matter of how the writers get along. True, it can be nicer if everyone can at least stand to be in the same place to talk about the story line, but on at least one count that I can think of, not everyone got along that well, but the blend made for a rather interesting RPG. Sadly it didn't last long however.

I'm going to say that what tends to keep my attention is; good writing (I've seen some that was far from it), reasonably good communication between writers (helps to know other's ideas), a good threadmaster (I'm sorry, but no, we can't all be in charge) and reasonably consistent and fairly frequent posts (at which even I've been known to fail at for reasons beyond my needing to go into *coughworkcough)

There's a lot of other things, sure, but I'm not wanting to write out so much of a post as that as I'd much rather spend some time over in the IC and other halls. :D =^.^=

[Snaga]

I decided to vote for only one thing - and guess what? It wasn't for niceness!;) I voted for a good threadmaster, because I think it is essential. Not all writers are equally skilled. But I've seen good RPs work with a mix of good and bad. I think plot IS important, but that is just one part of the responsibility of the threadmaster. Most of all the threadmaster has to keep things moving along: cajoling posts from people, posting even in the quiet times, coming up with enough that is fresh to keep things interesting.

I remember reading some brilliant posts in RPs that sounded fascinating, but they fell apart because the threadmaster disappeared.

[Narya]

I voted for GOOD WRITERS. I once joined an RPG where the threadmaster had no idea what to do with the RPG. Fortunately, there were some brilliant writers who joined in and made it into a great RPG! The threadmaster disappeared, probably irked by what had happened to the story, but the RPG went on.

Being nice is a good thing, but it can't replace Good Writers--and when I say good, I don't mean that they don't make mistakes. I mean good as in imaginative, passionate, and has a good sense of character.

I've been very fortunate to have worked with the best in this forum. :)