@HowlsOfWinter You actually bring up several really good points I want to comment on with some experience from past projects I've been a part of, have attempted myself (all ultimately failing) as well as my current project that is so far alive and well much to my incredible satisfaction.
Lack of Communication/Poor GMing skills: Specifically this combines to create an incident of a GM playing "I've got a secret" with relevant lore material. In my dealings with this case, it killed off about half the initial interest before things were even underway, and the limited players afterwards led to dwindling interest and poor pacing. If you're ever GMing, don't fucking do this. If you have lore material, it should be written somewhere visible unless there is a plot-relevant reason for it to be hidden. And if a player unknowingly contradicts that lore, then it's time to reveal the information since the player is clearly trying to go down that road. Players are not going to play 20 questions with you to make their CSs work.
Underdeveloped Ideas: This needs no further elaboration directly. I will say that this guide to GMing should be considered required reading and was very helpful to me. I also wanna indirectly elaborate on the related idea of badly represented ideas. This actually was an early failing of mine in the past where I didn't properly represent an idea in the interest check, which resulted in even worse player losses moving to the OOC than average. This ended up being a deathblow to my motivation and I ended up abandoning the project. I may revisit it sometime in the future.
Boring Characters: It fucking sucks to have to tell someone a straight up no. I had to do it three times with Tear the World Down. It never gets any less unfun or any easier to say "I can't approve this for X, Y, and/or Z reason(s)." It was even worse when I had to tell someone their entire concept was fundamentally incompatible with what I was trying to cultivate ... because I know if I heard that I would filter it as "all the work you put into this really thorough CS was for absolutely fuck-all." But sometimes it has to be done and I think that's what separates good GMs from bad GMs: having the backbone to do it when you need to.
Lack of Communication/Poor GMing skills: Specifically this combines to create an incident of a GM playing "I've got a secret" with relevant lore material. In my dealings with this case, it killed off about half the initial interest before things were even underway, and the limited players afterwards led to dwindling interest and poor pacing. If you're ever GMing, don't fucking do this. If you have lore material, it should be written somewhere visible unless there is a plot-relevant reason for it to be hidden. And if a player unknowingly contradicts that lore, then it's time to reveal the information since the player is clearly trying to go down that road. Players are not going to play 20 questions with you to make their CSs work.
Underdeveloped Ideas: This needs no further elaboration directly. I will say that this guide to GMing should be considered required reading and was very helpful to me. I also wanna indirectly elaborate on the related idea of badly represented ideas. This actually was an early failing of mine in the past where I didn't properly represent an idea in the interest check, which resulted in even worse player losses moving to the OOC than average. This ended up being a deathblow to my motivation and I ended up abandoning the project. I may revisit it sometime in the future.
Boring Characters: It fucking sucks to have to tell someone a straight up no. I had to do it three times with Tear the World Down. It never gets any less unfun or any easier to say "I can't approve this for X, Y, and/or Z reason(s)." It was even worse when I had to tell someone their entire concept was fundamentally incompatible with what I was trying to cultivate ... because I know if I heard that I would filter it as "all the work you put into this really thorough CS was for absolutely fuck-all." But sometimes it has to be done and I think that's what separates good GMs from bad GMs: having the backbone to do it when you need to.