Lady Absinthia

How can we help improve RPGuild? Community suggestions and discussion.

The amount of work that would place on the mods shoulders is daunting at best, in some lights terrifying. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. They already have enough to do and need more people. Something like that would take several additional mods and I could see them easily getting burned out just from reviewing people.

It's the GM's job to police people in their RP's. That is part of the whole job of being an GM. As a Gm you set the rules, it is your job to enforce them in your RP - that includes how often people post and what to do to them if they don't. Mods are here for general forum rules.

How can we help improve RPGuild? Community suggestions and discussion.

@Hank How would we go about adding a report people for inactivity if it were added? Would it be a GM thing or something more?

My worry is that it would be abused and that it is subjective. What I consider inactive or what another considers inactive will vary. I consider someone inactive if they have not posted in 1 of my Rp's in 7 days without word or request for an extension. Others might put that at 14 days, or 21. This changes even more drastically when it comes down to areas of the forum. In free if you don't post once a day you might be considered inactive. In NRP, I have seen people not post in a month but they aren't considered inactive.

So for example - I am hosting 6 RP's currently. I have 1 person that is in three of them but vanishes for a week - so I mark them as inactive for all three 3 RP's. Three negative markings. Then they go apply for an NRP, this GM only needs a post once a month but this person has 3 negative ratings, they decide not to let them join even though the ratings were given because of two different set of rules.

It gets to be a rather gray area.

Also, what if a GM just has a tussle with an RPer and kicks them? Technically they would be inactive then and have a negative rating. Don't get me wrong, maybe they deserve it, but then again it may have just been two personalities that didn't clash well. The person that was kicked might do great with another GM, just not that one.

It just leaves so much that could snow ball. Even if these ratings were patrolled by the Mods, say the ratings needs to be approved before it goes into affect - that is a lot of work for you all to handle.

Then there is another issue - who rates the GM's if they flake out?

Granted, this is all just mulling it over since it would take Mahz some major coding time to even get something like this set up but that's just my thoughts on the matter. I just see far too many issues arising because of it.

As always, just my two copper pieces.

Common Sense - A Post-Post-Apocalyptic Revolutionary Tale

Sunie Marks

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Hearing another crash from the back of the shop and Lola's voice calling out once again that everything was fine caused Sunie to close to her eyes slowly and take a deep breath. "Now if only I had a way to save myself some headaches," she commented more to herself than to Flo. She loved her sisters, adored them, but there were times she when she was worn thin. Early mornings were not usually one of those times but it seemed that Lola was bent on making it so. Her eyes drifted open once again and she looked over towards Flo as she got the funds counted out and left them on the counter.

"Of course, see you soon Flo, be safe out there," she said as the woman left. Picking up the funds she counted them out and cocked a brow before looking back at the door. Shaking her head she jotted down some notes on the paper and shoved the money into her safe before ringing Flo. If she answered she would say hello and go from there. If there was no answer and she was forced to leave a message she would simply tell Flo of the miscalculation and that the funds were credited to her account with the shop unless she wanted to stop back by later and pick up the difference.

As she let the phone ring and waited for her Flo to pick up she peeked into the back of the shop and shook her head. "Before you two do anything else. Sana take that case out to the range to test. Lola, there is a bike out back I had to work on, it needs a test drive to make sure it handles as needed," she told them before closing the curtain and leaning against the front counter of the shop waiting to see if she got Flo or the message service.

How can we help improve RPGuild? Community suggestions and discussion.

What is considered "flaky" and what is not, is subjective. A system like that could be easily abused. If you join and RP and someone applies for it that you have had issues with in the past, just PM the Gm and let them know. If you are a GM it doesn't take long to look at a persons profile page and flip through their posts to see where they are posting and how often and which ones they suddenly stopped posting in.

How can we help improve RPGuild? Community suggestions and discussion.

@The Harbinger of Ferocity The dealing with people that flake out on Rp's is and should continue to the be the discretion of the GM. Each GM has a different opinion on how people who vanish are dealt with. Me personally, it is stated in my rules that you have to post every 7 days, end of story. You reach day 8, you're booted. If you need an extension you may have one but it must be requested for. There are always extenuating circumstances and for those I shelve characters until the person returns (Death in the family, moving, severe illness, etc.) and those are weighed on an individual basis. I keep a list of who has needed extensions, who has dropped, who fills out a CS and never makes a first post. After a time they just get a black mark in my private book and I don't let them join anymore.

With 1x1, it can be a little harder to do since it is just you and another but for me, I just follow similar rules for 1x1's as I do any other RP. This really isn't a mod issue because there is no rule on the forum that states "if you flake out you get the hammer", it's left to the individuals. People get a reputation though, so in a way they are punished in the grander scheme of things. They get a rep of flaking or being kicked, others won't deal with them or do they so with extreme caution. If I get someone I have not Rped with before but when I check their posting history and see they have Rped with another GM I know, I ask them - "Anything I need to know about this person?" - 9 times out of 10, they give me their "review" and that always weighs into my decision of it I let them in or not.

Bottom line - It's in the GM's hands and should remain there.

How can we help improve RPGuild? Community suggestions and discussion.

@BrokenPromise It does but only up to a certain amount of people at once - 5 is the limit (well 6 if you include the sender). Only reason I know this is because I have to send out Pm's to rpers a lot who are in my rps so I mass PM constantly. I don't know if the mods can send out more than the general population but that is my experience.

How can we help improve RPGuild? Community suggestions and discussion.

Something else I would like to see on the forum - A defined list of rules for the Status Bar. It gets treated as a black hole on the forum. It is spammed, people talk smut on it constantly, and more. Granted, I would also like to see a limit of updates allowed per 24 hour period but that is a coding issue and nothing can be done about that currently but a list of rules or the rules being enforced there would be wonderful. Though I think sometimes it is a blackhole is because it is looked at as a spam section? Maybe? I'm not sure.

But yeah, an enforcing of forum rules on the status bar over all, or a defined list that applies there would be huge.

How can we help improve RPGuild? Community suggestions and discussion.

@Buddha Perhaps then you should make a request of the mods since they are here and active to move this topic to the Suggestions forum and pin it. As well as linking the posts where people are spatting with each other to be deleted from the thread. People need to report more, so let us start here with getting the bickering posts out the topic and this moved to a place and pinned where it will be more likely seen and less likely forgotten in the long run.

How can we help improve RPGuild? Community suggestions and discussion.

Perhaps something that could be done to draw more into the Arena area is to have a trainer. Fighting in Rp, actual sparring can be daunting to those who are unfamiliar with any system. When in Free, Casual, or Advanced - much of the time fights are just thrown out there and people go at it. Whether it is fighting monsters, villains, or each other. Sometimes the GM moderates the fight and lets people know if things hit but perusing fight scenes in areas out side of the arena I personally would classify most battles I have seen as "Free" (No matter how many paragraphs are put into it or how well the descriptors are) - Why? Because there is no system used.

Now I am old school. I remember when T1/T2/T3 were being developed on various chat programs and Angle Fire was the main hosting site for people making websites trying to break down the rules. (Most fights I see outside of the arena are T3 if you broke it down and took out the fluff.) I personally prefer the T1 system though I utilize the §I T1 Alt variation I developed personally back in the early 2000's. It runs off a base T1 style with Para and Ref influences. For me it works better for forum. (But that is me personally and that is for RP's I Gm personally.)

My point is, not knowing how to fight in RP can be daunting. Looking at the Arena section there is no clear cut guides or explanation pinned concerning "Hey, I'm new but I want to learn, what do I do?!?!" - Now there are several articles in the articles section but as it has been stated several times in this topic people aren't reading these thread, many probably don't even know there are tutorials on certain subjects because they are pushed back and older.

If there was someone active in the Arena area that could write up at least a topic that could be pinned in the section that can link people to these already written articles or write some new ones that fit this forum in particular - it could do a lot for the section.

Arena, I feel does need it's own section because it is a monster all of it's own. Being an RP fighter puts you in a different category than the rest of the Rpers. Sure there are cross overs but in the end they need the separation because of the different set ups and such for their fights. It would be too much getting lost in the mix.

Anywho, once again just my two copper pieces.

Common Sense - A Post-Post-Apocalyptic Revolutionary Tale

K, will be posting tomorrow.