Roach

How do YOU do 1x1s?

My experiences in the RP scene have been terrible. By my experiences and attempts, it hasn't gotten any better. Sure what I'm about to say may go off the tracks but at this point, I am fed up with it.
I meant different because of my experience that NO ONE can mesh, let alone me with anyone else. My RP luck sucks. I had 45 dead RP's here in a year, one year!
I tried to take a break when it was in the 20's, came back but it worsened.
Been here three years and it is over 50 dead total in a three-year span. I really don't see anything changing for the better for me. Even in searching for new roleplays, my luck is bad, really bad.
I'm tired of being ghosted on and frequently as now I see it as nothing but dishonorable and cowardly. And I feel like no one literally looks at my side of things as whatever I bring up they want to bury underneath the rug.
I feel like I am up against a stacked deck when I try to find partners and I can't find anyone.

@rebornfan320

Have you considered that your attitude towards 1x1s is making this a self-fulfilling prophecy? You post about it quite often, and I don't know about other people, but the promise of being called 'dishonorable and cowardly' for dropping a roleplay is pretty... disrespectful, and perhaps indicative of how you might view the other player's feelings on a 1x1. It may be putting off more partners than you think, because people do read the off-topic sections.

People dip out all the time from 1x1s, especially with strangers. You're not the only one in the world who has been ghosted several times. Barring catastrophic life changes, it is usually because the player is uncomfortable with continuing the roleplay, whether they can tell that their roleplaying style doesn't gel, the plot isn't grabbing them, they expected a different level of writing or activity, or even because they just ain't feeling it. It can be hard to be honest with someone, especially someone who you don't have a pre-existing rapport with.

Communication is hard and everyone has different styles of it, in real life and in e-life. It is important in a long-running, healthy 1x1, but arguably understanding what a partner wants on a personal level – what motivates them to want to write, and what might prompt them to go dark – is more so. It requires some insight and self-awareness into one's own failures too.

I understood why people ghost the moment I tried to be direct and say 'yeah, sorry fam, this isn't for me' in a polite way and then had to justify, explain and defend my reasoning for dropping in a back-and-forth argument. Ghosting is a learned behaviour, and bad experiences are why people learn to ghost. I am wary of someone who says they are so frequently ghosted because it implies to me that they do not understand why they are being ghosted.

Also... Just because you can't mesh with other people doesn't mean no-one else can, as evidenced by the other incredibly positive responses in this thread.

---

To reply to the topic at hand, I find all the discussion about 1x1ing really exciting to me because it's one of my favourite forms of RP, and @stone is 100% right that 'it's harder to observe trends n stuff with this type of thing too because it's all private'. Loving all the 1x1ers coming out of the woodwork to explain what they're doing behind closed doors.

Right now I am in a RP which uses a player/player collaborative style as others have said, but we write the posts from one POV (to make it easier to read through later). My partner's character is the POV because she writes more convincing internal dialogue than I do and I adore reading it, while I generally try to write around it with action, more 'neutral' observations, scene-setting, and of course, my half of the romantic banter 'cus we are shipping trash.

Also while we're writing (in Google Docs) we're sending a huge back and forth of future headcanons or alternate universe versions of the characters in the OOC or just general chit-chat about roleplaying, usually like 600 messages when we're in the zone. I think this is the most important part of 1x1ing for me. Maybe even more important than getting the actual writing done.

It's amazing how much planning you find reading back, all interspersed with:

what if we did a bad end!au where everyone dies
omg aaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaa
a n g s t

Weird Spacing Above Table

Hey, resident Table Experimenter here! The space has nothing to do with either of those things @Hero – fortunately it's kind of a simple fix.

Basically when you add spaces/hit the enter key for good code hygeine, spacing out your raw code for a table, that break is reflected at the top of the table. (Because, uhhhhh BBCode). Since what you've done is press the enter key at least once after every row, and I presume you have a lot of rows, all of those breaks have jumped to the top resulting in a huge gap.

To fix this, you should be able to join up all of the[row]and[/row]tags so that they're sitting in the same line with no spaces between them – like[/row][row].

As an example in a simpler table, this:

[table]
[row]
[cell]Header[/cell][cell]Header[/cell]
[/row]
[row]
[cell]Don't[/cell][cell]Open[/cell]
[/row]
[row]
[cell]Dead[/cell][cell]Inside[/cell]
[/row]
[/table]

Produces this:

Table With Too Many Spaces and a Gap at the Top

Header	Header
Don't	Open
Dead	Inside

While this one, with the[row]tags joined end-to-end:

[table][row]
[cell]Header[/cell][cell]Header[/cell]
[/row][row]
[cell]Don't[/cell][cell]Open[/cell]
[/row][row]
[cell]Dead[/cell][cell]Inside[/cell][/row]
[/table]

Produces this:

No Gaps!

Header	Header
Don't	Open
Dead	Inside

Ask an Admin, v2.

On that BBCode update – hopefully you don't mind me tagging the man himself here to get some discussion going:

@LegendBegins

1) What sort of things should we expect from the update? I'm guessing that a fix for the site-breaker table is in the works, but might I see a working[justify]tag in my lifetime?

2) Should I hold back my 4k-word-and-counting guide to doing weird shit with tables to see if you fix the broken stuff I abuse in it first? Or could I get a sneak-peak?

Ask an Admin, v2.

@Ruby

As admirable as the intentions of the Ask an Admin thread are, I think we both know with the current antipathy between some users and the moderation that it'll never fully be used for, 'Chat with your mods, look they're cuddly humans too and not at all feral!' x)

IMO it might be better served in the News section for that reason.

Ask an Admin, v2.

People complained to Hedgehawk about politics and police issues dominating the status bar yesterday.

That's fair. We asked people to take these discussions to more appropriate places like a thread or a Discord channel. Also fair.

I was unaware this turned into a new rule Hedgehawk was actively policing. That, in my opinion, was a mistake. I've talked to Hedgehawk in the last few minutes, the result:

There is no ban on current affairs/politics in the status bar.

If people complain about seeing too much of it, if the issues discussed result in conflicts in the status bar, expect staff to tell you/whoever to move the discussion somewhere else.

Questions?

@Ruby

Thank you. That is a lot more clear than deleting statuses that are not a part of a conflict (and therefore breaking no rules) without explanation and inciting shitstorms in the status bar through increasingly inconsistent application of the moderation policies.

A follow-up question that comes to mind: have you considered moving this Ask an Admin thread out of the Off-Topic Section and into the News section?

As it is, a lot of info about the changing moderation of the site (eg. here, here, and of course, the quoted post above) can be found in this thread, which ends up buried quite often.

From what I have seen, the Discord is not a great place to reliably inform everyone about moderation decisions since not every member of the guild is in the server, and the status bar moves quickly so statuses are easily missed – and in today's case, the context deleted.

I do feel that the site could benefit from having a more casual chat thread like this more visible at the top.

Given that daddy's gone out for smokes, it certainly has the potential to be more informative than Mahz's Dev Journal is at the moment.

RPGC: General Discussion

I mean, there's no real need to put a stop to reoccurring characters even if entries are anonymous.

When it was done before, it wasn't enforced anonymity. In the past when it was done this way, folks who submitted entries regularly and/or who voted often pretty much knew who's who from writing style alone. I also believe the option was there to put your name on it from the get-go. Some people did, others didn't, but all were submitted in the same way, in PMs.

The main purpose of anonymity would be to make it less intimidating to enter for new folk and shy folk, since friends voting for friends was never a problem in the history of RPGC, afaik. Reducing a lil bit of bias would be more of a happy side-effect.

RPGC: General Discussion

@BrokenPromise

For sure – and not to be like 'ye olden days were better and everyone joined and we had 100 entries and and and'. RPGC's always had a... numbers problem. Lots of things have been tried to solve it. Not sure it'll ever have beefy turnouts even it was perfect.

Yeah, protections from that kind of flaming and shit-slinging would for sure be a bonus to bring in if it continues in the current form, without anonymity. Even if #23 was a fluke, which it thankfully seems to be, being pro-active in stopping this stuff rather than letting it run out would help.

I do, however, think a little anonymity for the entries would mitigate some innate bias against writers or critics, which may be worth giving it a test run.

RPGC: General Discussion

Correct me if I'm wrong, @BrokenPromise, but I think Calle wasn't talking about casting votes anonymously vs. publicly but rather whether the entries themselves should be PM'd then posted anonymously by the contest host.

I can't speak for other people, but I personally have no desire to enter a RPGC that does not have anonymised entries. Indeed, it was actually quite a big draw of the few that I joined back in 2016 that you could get helpful critiques without feeling obligated to respond to it in public, as no-one would be able to mention you in it. The atmosphere of constructive criticism was much more relaxed (compared to whatever tf happened in RPGC#23...) while still maintaining a decent number of entrants.

Furthermore, I believe having anonymised entries PM'd in and collected may well encourage more entrants than the current format. Right now, it seems people who may want to join may feel like they have to wait until the very last second until posting their entries in the thread so that they can continue tweaking, ensuring that nobody reads an 'unfinished' version of their work. It is a lot easier to just... not post at the end of it all? On the other hand, if they are PM'd in, a writer can continue to tweak pretty much up until the deadline in private, and have the grand reveal in the voting thread when it comes out.

I can see a downside, that being that a pre-deadline thread may look a bit emptier, but I think with frequent mod interaction and perhaps some encouragement to report in on your progress in the OOC, this could be mitigated.

In other words, @Calle, I think anonymous entries with public voting would be my preferred execution of the writing contests. So, Option 1.

Cockroach Clusters

Charles Coleman

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█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █	“But it’s so draughty up in Gryffindor Tower, and my bed’s so cold at night. What’s a man to do?” ██████████████████████ BIRTHDAY █████████████████████████████ █████████████████████████████ █████████████████████████████ 19th of April, 1817 (18 y.o.) BIRTHPLACE █████████████████████████████ █████████████████████████████ █████████████████████████████ Birmingham, England BLOOD STATUS █████████████████████████████ █████████████████████████████ █████████████████████████████ Muggleborn WAND █████████████████████████████ █████████████████████████████ █████████████████████████████ Spruce & dragon heartstring, 10" – flexible PATRONUS █████████████████████████████ █████████████████████████████ █████████████████████████████ Hyena BOGGART █████████████████████████████ █████████████████████████████ █████████████████████████████ ▋▋▋▋▋▋▋▋▋ ██████████████████████	𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐧  𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐧 ▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅ 𝟕𝐭𝐡 𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐆𝐫𝐲𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐫   𝟕𝐭𝐡 𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐆𝐫𝐲𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐫 Casanova. Heartbreaker. 'Call me Charlie' is at the centre of every salacious rumour flitting through the halls of Hogwarts, or trying his hardest to be. He lives for the scandal in wooing polite ladies of reputable standing with his good looks and flirtatious charm but always leaves them wanting more; reputed master of the obscuro and incarcerous spells that he is. Charles is seldom seen without a protective pack of Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs around him and is often in the company of his closest friend Marcello Zabini. By night, he can be found wandering the castle, or in ██████████████████████████████████████ – unrepentant about his vices and furthering his reputation as the elusive ██████████████. 𝐈 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐚 𝐫𝐮𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐫...  𝐈 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐚 𝐫𝐮𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐫... “I thought that I would be the one for whom it would last. More the fool I. Our day came and went, and midnight never visited again.” – a former conquest “If he even considers adding my sister to a list of his pureblood conquests, I'll stick his damn broom where the sun doesn't shine.” – a concerned brother .........................................................................................................	█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █

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Has "Casual" become the new "Advanced"?

Firstly, I hope you are not going to start moving threads without the GM's approval, @POOHEAD189.

Secondly, there are plenty of casual threads that would be Advanced by the metric of post length alone, but I would argue this ignores the culture of each section; a vibe that most users of the Guild are implicitly aware of.

If the section a RP belongs in were predicated on the volume of lore squirreled away in hiders, then you would only find fandom settings in Casual, and you would never get any original fantasy or sci-fi settings anywhere outside of Advanced. You can't send a RP to the gulag Advanced just because the world-building is "dull".

When a GM makes a RP, they make it with a certain type of player in mind: people who they have met in previous roleplays in the same section and in the same genre, people with the same expectations of railroading vs. sandbox, people who encourage a certain level of OOC chatter and hype, people who don't argue over granular details of lore for hours on end, etc.

Cynics would say they pick Casual because it's the most busy section, but that's a hard disagree from me. In my experience, it usually boils down to 'I like the userbase in Casual over Advanced and I want to see what they bring to the table'.

I would trust a GM knows best what audience they are targeting for their roleplay and it seldom comes down to word count.