RP Post-Mortem: What Worked, What Didn't?

[ViceVersus]

Howdy-hey, guys & gals! Your friendly neighborhood Sato here with a little workshop of sorts.

A post-mortem (which literally means "done or collected after death") is written at the completion of projects, like, a film, a video game, a presentation, that sort of thing. It offers a chance for self-reflection on what went right, and what went wrong so that future endeavors can benefit from the experience.

The purpose of this thread is for all of us to look critically at our work as GMs in the past through a similar lens for the sake of constructing new stories with greater perspective.

We all have roleplays that had a bright, promising start and fell to nothing - either that, or never saw the light of day. Seeing "INACTIVE ROLEPLAYS" tagged on our profiles is often a sobering reminder of this.

So. What things do you know currently as a GM that you wish you had known when you first started? What improvements could you have made? What things went right? What things went wrong?

Use specific examples from your roleplays, if you care to. I'll start with my first venture into tab RPs.

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Then:

"Hey, Wizard!" is a rollicking comedy-drama about Wizards taking over the world (in the over exaggerated style of most zombie apocalypse media), set against the droll background of suburban America.

It started off intending to be for a wide, wide audience of role-players, and not just for my circle of friends. I grew so married to the fun, off-the-wall concept and its workability as a screenplay in the future, however, that I locked down and stopped accepting characters that weren't my friend, Script. If I ever go back and remake the thread (the setup is hilarious) I would scrape off what I can into a private document.

The concept and the posting thus far is some of my best character work. I think that's why I grew so attached to the content. Letting someone else into this tight, terse, well-developed little world that I had created seemed not only offensive, but a huge hassle.

I would also outline. The premise is strong and goofy enough, and there are intersecting character arcs that were a joy to brainstorm - but what Script and I should have done from the start was outline, outline, outline where the story was going to go. Not down to the letter, mind, but to the point where I know where things are heading, and what to do to get there.

I was writing little one-shots of things happening way, way, way off in the distance in the story, just so enamored with the world and the characters. I was, to use the old expression, blind to the forest and too caught up with the trees.

It'd be like if I were trying to draw a person on the wall, but got so tied up in the details on the hand, making the hand perfect, being excited about the hand, that I didn't pay attention and realize that I didn't have room for anything else. Poor situation.

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Now:

Outcross: The Letter M is a pseudo spy thriller, pseudo autobiography, pseudo experiment in roleplaying through self with the entire world as a stage; the world is connected by "Specialists" in a program called Outcross, experts in their particular field ready to step in when authorities cannot.

My experiences with how stunted "Hey, Wizard" became led me to do extensive plot work with Outcross, which has four members currently. I consider Outcross to be my "flagship" roleplay - the thing I am most proud of despite its brief post count. This pride comes from knowing not only what's been written out in post format, but what's coming next. At this point in my writing journey, I had become more sophisticated with story structure, thanks to my Screenwriting classes for school. This allowed Outcross to be more fun.

Outcross suffers from my inability to maintain a consistent post tempo, however. "Hey, Wizard" did as well. That's one thing I can take from each roleplay that I try to do - it's always, always me that falls off the face of the Earth and forgets to post.

However! "Hey, Wizard" did teach me to not keep my plot cards so close to my chest. Including other players in the grand scheme of where the roleplay is going to go, without letting them know everything that's going to happen on the way there can be a huge joy as you reveal whatever plans and tricks you have up your sleeve. And just because we have outlined scenes that happen doesn't mean we can't have fun with the dialogue.

Similar to "Hey, Wizard", the characterization and world allows for some one-shots to be produced. This time, I created a separate OOC thread for those sort of fun, random posts that exist outside of the canon (read: the established and developing plot) where everyone could post at their leisure.

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So there's my little rant, simply, I suppose. I look forward to see what you guys come up with!

-VV

[DragonWriter]

I'm not exactly sure what went wrong with the "Origins of Magic"... I suppose its because I stopped posting and everyone else did, I didn't make a character sheet for people to use and wanted them to use the one the site gives, and I have a plot that's really open ended and focused on two characters really. The way I'd set it up though I thought I might be able to have it based around more than just them. I didn't give a character sheet in hopes of seeing what people could create and because of these two opened ended things nothing happened.

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The land of Alluvial magicians have been a force of good and evil throughout the world. Magicians have kept order and balance, stirred up chaos and trouble, and have risen to prominence as people who hold a general respect or disrespect among the citizens of Alluvial. Unfortunately, no one ever tells the real story of magicians... Generally speaking a codex of magic is seemingly brought down from the heavens, naturally given to the sorcerers at birth, or through other grand schemes. No one has ever thought to question the beginnings of magic.

Well, in the role play we are going to. The main aspects of this role play are time travel and two siblings who decide to find the "Great Source" of magic, a power that is legendary among all magic users. The names of these two siblings are Alastair and Lura. This brother and sister pair come from the small city of Malena in central Alluvial where many young people, such as them, are taught magic. The area that the siblings live in and that surrounds Malena is rocky with lots of greenery and flowing water. The perfect kind of place for fishing, boating or farming. Due to the circumstances provided Alluvial, the country has become prosperous and well known for its kind and just magicians who keep the peace in order to promote the kind of livelihood the country has to offer.

One day Alastair and Lura are sent on a peace keeping mission for the first time. The two of the them are very excited about their duty, but quickly learn that their most recent job is babysit the child of an important official in town. The two were hoping to do a little bit something more exciting and get to thinking "Why are we magicians if we cannot use our powers to help others?" After getting pain for their services they hear on the way home about the local legend which tells of how magic came into existence from the "Great Source". Unfortunately, nobody knows what the "Great Source" truly is which is why it is possible that maybe magic just came to be rather than how it is believed that one source of strange power created magic.

Alastair and Lura get mad upon hearing this story again. The two siblings believe it is a travesty to not know the source of magic since it is of great historical importance to the world. The two decide to go to the library to investigate the "Great Source" and come up empty handed until a strange book called the "Times Forgotten..." falls from the shelves. Upon reading it Alastair and Lura learn that it is a book that explains how one can time travel into the past via magic. Alastair and Lura decide to form an expedition and secretly gather their friends one by one to go into the past and give the creator of the "Great Source" a peace of their mind.

The countryside of Malena:



Alastair and Lura:



The Book "Times Forgotten...":

[Kestrel]

Oh hell so much went wrong it's not even funny. Ironically the first game I ever ran was on gateway. Migratory Beasts is also the only game I ever ran on here. Something I learned very quickly was that as exciting as new concepts can be to people they're still gonna drop easy. I came from small sites see, where dedication per game was much higher. So this was pretty much one of my first experiences of sites where offer greatly outweighs demand. It wasn't enough to have a story, because everyone has a story, and the excitement of being 'unique' lasts as long as it takes before people to get their sheets accepted. Sure the setting was 'original' but most characters sure weren't. It was a good sell for a newcomer, but fuck did I learn a harsh lesson there. Or I should have; instead I was like YEAH WELL EVERYONE SUCKS and joined a game created by the only lasting player I had and soon faded away from gateway entirely.

Not long after I decided lolgatewaysucks I joined RP guild. Being my lovely antagonistic 'No fuck you-self' I got into some more games, before I jumped to my own thread again; Sandcastle. I learned the importance of creating a group cohesion and well... Hey, the 'original' lure worked again. I created a game inspired by ancient Persia and Egypt, totally raped their mythology (because raping mythology is awesome and also accepted unless you touch vampires or christianity) and gave people more power into creating their characters power in addition to personalities. Really; this got me much better results. Don't put people into pre-determined roles because the majority will be less motivated to continue playing. We actually finished a game. Sure in the end there were only three of us left, but who gives a shit we concluded a story and it was awesome. Fuck yeah. People and bonds are important. Without people you don't have a game and without bonds people tend to leave easy.

Then I tried to follow up my finished game. Got a great amount of hype and praise on the set-up. Making more of a name myself around the forum didn't hurt either. For some reason I was considered some kind of writing pro and till the day of today I have absolutely no idea why. Sadly I tried to force too many people into the same group at once and this made the game run way too slow. Also there was a lot less direct action and a lot more background plot. The game died. So yeah well fuck I figured out that was largely my own fault. I didn't consider what people wanted and was so caught up into running my own plot... I made the exact same mistake I had with Migratory Beasts.

Now this right here was the biggest break I ever took from GM'ing. I had no idea what I wanted to create other than Sandcastle until I suddenly decided... Let's try something completely different. Let's use that unique setting lure and start experimenting. The Alluring was born. I created a game that had absolutely no direction. Zero. Nothing. I didn't create any plot. Not until I began replying to players. I didn't make a character of my own; I was just the GM. DM. I was the host; I allowed people to create their plots and weaved them together. This game... Or rather project was filled with experiments. It wasn't even a roleplay anymore, it was a collaborative story.

It turned out a great success; I saw people posting way above their level for my our RP and get excited about plots and become much more pro-active. We finished this game too and... The overall experience was that everyone loved it and some seemed to have thought that I had planned everything all along. Even so it was this successful because I had managed to grab some particularly dedicated and creative, but also very relaxed and trusting people.

Meanwhile I was also running another game; Brave. Brave was a game I wanted to create; it was unlike any of my other games. The setting and plot were ripped straight off shounen manga. They were excuses to fight with badass monsters. Lots of things went well, but things often took a hitch because... I still put people together in large groups. I had a stat system to reward, but there was no significant story-reward system, no "congratulations you have achieved this" just a slap on the shoulder saying good going guys after having finished a training session... Which were a bad idea. It was too forced. I swear GM's should LEARN from highschool RP's. Every single one of you bastards. Interaction in highschool RP's typically goes very fluent because it's very free.

Either way, even though Brave had a great run, it too had to die. At this point my success count was 2/5... Which was considerably awesome for any GM's reputation. I decided to try something completely different again after seeing a 'newest roleplay' when browsing gateway that was cut off to be "Love, romance and how to survi..." and my mind automatically filled in "a Zombie Apocalypse!"

Sadly it turned out to be how to survive highschool but the idea was born. I wanted to create a parody on zombie survival games. Another huge experiment in the wings, but I fucked up really early because I went a little too far to be safe considering who my audience was :P That and I was too lax. Way too lax. Oh well.

And honestly that's not even half the mistakes made and experiments conducted. I'm just tired of thinking/typing because I could fill pages with this. Also scatterbrained. So now I'm going to randomly stop ty-

[LawOfTheLand]

I like this idea. It's a way to learn from not only your mistakes, but those of others. Here's hoping this becomes as successful as the pet peeve thread.

I've tried to throw together a Pokemon League setting not once, but twice, with the assistance of BBClock. Besides our mutual passion for Pokemon, however, our styles are nothing like each other. In particular, since I was being given the position of right-hand man and a couple of prominent NPCs in the creation of the RP (apparently he does settings, I do characters and promotions), I was led to be under the misapprehension that I had some amount of liberty with the story, which offended my partner's OCD. Our second effort with ChaoticMarin on board never even got to a playable form as egos continued to collide, this time with Marin caught in the crossfire. I maintain that the man brings out the worst in me, if only because it's easier than saying that I'm to blame for what happened and still happens between the two of us. As for Down With The Crown, my collaboration with Marin, that wasn't even on the tab system due to a lack of co-GM support at the time. That one died out due to our inability to find "ins" for people that arrived in medias res. Jehanne's extended absence didn't help, either.

I also tried to spin off a murder in Gambit's into its own RP, "Murder Most Foul", but this also failed due to a lack of activity. I just didn't feel like seeing through the consequences of what happened. I ended up beating up the character/player responsible in a ranked match...just another example of street justice.

[ViceVersus]

QB, in your post, you only listed the negatives in what happened. Let's try to synthesize some answers for you, for the sake of posterity.

With something as well-known and occasionally tedious as Pokemon, I can see how easy it would be to gravitate towards someone with the same level of dedication towards a subject for you, even if you don't see eye-to-eye on a creative level. It's curious to me that even after the first iteration of trying to make a Pokemon League setting, you went back and tried it again. What about your relationship with BBClock made the roleplay not work out? Did you disagree on the more technical points of planned gameplay, as you both have such an exhaustive understanding of the content? Or was it a result of poor communication of longterm goals and ideals?

In the case of adding ChaoticMarin in the mix, what dynamic did she bring? You say that the situation brought out the worst in you - what specifically do you mean, and how can you avoid the same thing happening in the future?

You bring up a golden point - what to do when an important, substantial player in your story leaves. Do you absorb the roles they were meant to play, do you plead them, guilt trip them cajole them, or (in the case of them simply vanishing completely) do you just move along like nothing happened? What sort of role did Jehanne play, that his absence crippled (or at least slowed) your storytelling?

The idea of a Multiversal arc has been done a few times before. Not feeling a sense of consequence can be a result of the odd atmosphere that exists in the Multiverse. What elements of those encounters would you keep, and what ones would you take away?

[shadowty]

There is not much you can say if a roleplay was never born to begin with.

[LawOfTheLand]

VV, I'm going to try to hit those points in the order you brought them up.

The first warning sign that I should have called it off happened with the planning process of Breaking The Chains. There was a scripted situation in which the players, after a few battles and going undercover to gain access to the secret club below a prominent hotel--not unlike the Rocket hideout under the Game Corner--there's a scene in which a Lopunny waitress exhibits her Klutz ability, and the new recruits (the characters) are tasked with punishing her in an appropriately explicit manner, hopefully forcing the characters to make a decision between keeping their cover or their morals. As several people are aware, the situation between the two of us degenerated from there to the point that I was stripped of moderator status. I don't think I've really forgiven him or myself. At first, I thought the main problem was that his OCD meant that god help you if you interpreted a situation he presented differently from his version, so I thought that Marin would act as a buffer between the two of us. I was wrong. I was also sort of greedy in that he gave me control of a few important NPCs, and I kept asking for more and more creative control. So yeah, I suppose it was the second option of a lack of agreement on long-term goals.

In the case with Marin, I thought that her experience actually taking over a long-running and well-known RP using a similar battle system as the one we had in mind on another board would make her a valuable addition, but her other responsibilities meant that it was me and him again, just like old times. When I did ask her to come back, it was only so I could use her as leverage in another argument. ._.

Down With The Crown started strong. Perhaps too strong. People kept wanting in even after we said we'd only accept four character applications for the heroes. When Jehanne, one of the four we had accepted, vanished before the heroes even got to the first town up the road (if you've ever wondered how hard it can be to get a group of characters to move in a straight line, there's your answer), there really wasn't a good opportunity to replace her character so early on. Sure, we had a character that was acting as the Big Bad's puppet to serve the twin roles of field general and rival, but I've never been good at having a Plan B.

Murder Most Foul was born out of my ambition to test Remæus's shiny new tab system, and to take an existing story arc with unanswered questions and spin it off into its own RP with only the characters involved that had to be. I ultimately found the interface a bit daunting, and this combined with Ylanne's hectic legislative schedule was a recipe for disaster. Lesson learned: Check for player availability before starting a roleplay.