New rules and guidelines needed?

[Raineh Daze]

One idea is for you to stop having such a dim view of other people. Lives do not revolve around PbP's. People are not inherently inconsiderate or not using common sense for not posting and then forgetting to post. They're simply human.

If a blacklist is a warning, it's a waste of time.

If a blacklist is banning people from playing, you're being just as much of a dick by adding to it as not posting.

Ergo, anything that involves blacklists? Waste of time.

As for better suggestions? Look up! I notice you haven't responded to Garryl's idea. :/

EDIT: ... and if 'playing the game' isn't enough of an incentive for people to keep posting, a blacklist won't spur them on. It just turns the game into a chore. Even if they do post, it'll just make the whole thing worse.

[Concerned Ninja Citizen]

I also posted an alternative suggestion.

I wonder if an informal agreement whereby players consent to being PMed by the DM/other players when it's their turn to act, or possibly give some other contact info to direct a "poke" to would help?

[ShadowViper]

One idea is for you to stop having such a dim view of other people. Lives do not revolve around PbP's. People are not inherently inconsiderate or not using common sense for not posting and then forgetting to post. They're simply human.

If a blacklist is a warning, it's a waste of time.

If a blacklist is banning people from playing, you're being just as much of a dick by adding to it as not posting.

Ergo, anything that involves blacklists? Waste of time.

As for better suggestions? Look up! I notice you haven't responded to Garryl's idea. :/

EDIT: ... and if 'playing the game' isn't enough of an incentive for people to keep posting, a blacklist won't spur them on. It just turns the game into a chore. Even if they do post, it'll just make the whole thing worse.

I'm not saying that people lives have to revolve around a play by post(please point out where I said this). But if a person is so busy that they don't have time to quickly check on a campaign regularly(like 10 minutes once a day), then they should probably avoid joining a campaign(Honestly, how many more times do I have to say it)?

So we should just let people be dicks and waste other people's time and not do anything about it? That seems to be what you're saying, please correct me if this is not the case

Rather than assuming that a warning blacklist is a waste of time, why not try it? See how it works, if it doesn't work. Cool, move on to something else/better. Simple as that, no big deal.

As for Garryl's idea, it is a good idea, we will be trying it and hopefully it'll help Jewel progress more smoothly. However I see it being a bit hard to implement as a forum section wide thing. Rather than "Hey, if you(*) make a habit of being an inconsiderate player, you(*) get put on this list that warns others not to play with you(*)"

*(not you specifically, the general you)

But honestly, if you don't like the blacklist idea, then feel to suggest one of your own, but creating negative posts about other people's ideas, not offering constructive feedback and not offering any ideas of your own really just makes you as a big of a dick as those adding people to blacklists and those not being considerate. There's also a word for it, it's called trolling. Please refrain from it.

[ShadowViper]

I also posted an alternative suggestion.

I wonder if an informal agreement whereby players consent to being PMed by the DM/other players when it's their turn to act, or possibly give some other contact info to direct a "poke" to would help?

Yes this could work quiet nicely as well and may even make it easier for some to post more frequently. They only have to worry about posting when they get the email notification that they've been sent an PM. Would make it more convenient for those who are rather busy.

[Raineh Daze]

... so saying that I think it's a bad idea is now trolling? Five other people have said similar things, I'm just reiterating it because you keep saying it's good.

You're the one basically trying to turn an online RP into a chore. Check in at least ten minutes a day, regardless of your feelings on the matter and anything else, or you're out? You'll get people not joining, even if they would post regularly, simply because of the restriction.

Add too many obstacles and rulings to something meant for enjoyment, and you'll just drive people off. ._.

[ShadowViper]

... so saying that I think it's a bad idea is now trolling? Five other people have said similar things, I'm just reiterating it because you keep saying it's good.

You're the one basically trying to turn an online RP into a chore. Check in at least ten minutes a day, regardless of your feelings on the matter and anything else, or you're out? You'll get people not joining, even if they would post regularly, simply because of the restriction.

Add too many obstacles and rulings to something meant for enjoyment, and you'll just drive people off. ._.

The 10 minutes was only an example, honestly are you purposely trying to misunderstand things? Please point out where I said that if you don't spend at least 10 minutes posting once a day, you should get blacklisted...

The other people haven't been negative about it nor have they accused people of being dicks, and this is not the first time I've seen you make these types of posts. Please refrain from posting in this thread until you can be constructive.

[littha]

Blacklists breed resentment and are an absolutely terrible idea in a relatively small community.

[Raineh Daze]

So your basis for blacklisting someone is simply 'not checking in regularly'. Since you've said you aren't advocating checking daily, what's 'regularly'? Once every two days? Once a week?

Even if this idea had all the support in the world, you can't just say 'check in regularly' if there's actual consequences. Too vague.

I didn't call anyone a dick, either, so I don't know where you're getting that from. Not going to listen to 'don't post until you can be constructive', because you're applying an extremely narrow definition of that. :/

[Concerned Ninja Citizen]

I was and am entirely negative about the idea of a black list. Littha's comment above represents my feelings well.

[Nanshork]

If you find that certain people don't post as often as you'd like, don't play PbP games with them. 

[Garryl]

Here are some reasons that a blacklist is not a solution to the problem:
- It does nothing for games that are already in progress. For such games, the players (DM included) are, at best, simply encouraged to kick offending players, without offering any solution for the stalled game and potentially worsening it in the search for replacements (or ending entirely).
- The presence of a blacklist encourages the community to be more hostile and unforgiving to its members. Newer members may be scared off from joining, and existing members may be pushed out.
- New players who stall games will still do so, as the blacklist cannot recognize bad players until they have shown themselves to be so.
- Maintaining a blacklist is, in itself, a significant task requiring significant community buy-in to identify the offending members and non-trivial oversight to avoid false positives.
- Consistent PBP offenders will already generate a reputation as such due to the social nature of PBP games and this board's community, thus implicitly being identified as "blacklisted" without the need for an explicit blacklist.
- Most people who go long periods of time without posting do so due to changes in their life. It's far more likely to be a matter of lifestyle changes that were not foreseen 3-6 months prior than it is dickishness. In my experience, people in that situation tend to withdraw from PBPs, not apply to more of them. They don't need a blacklist to keep them away, they have real life for that.
- A blacklist would take a fair bit of time to fill with any useful amount of names, maybe more. It then doesn't even do anything for some time further until said blacklisted individuals would want to join a PBP game. It could be a year or more, easily, before the blacklist even has any positive impact, if it has any at all.

ShadowViper, you have yet to prove that your blacklist idea will produce any positive impact. Meanwhile, it has significant potential for negative impact. Before pressing further, you should reevaluate your position, examine what your idea hopes to achieve and how it will do so, and whether that is actually likely, and whether it is worth the potential consequences and collateral damage.

[Nanshork]

Also there are a total of about twenty or so regular PbP players on the board, our community just isn't very large.  If it was something like myth-weavers it might make more sense.

[ShadowViper]

I don't mean to be impatient or annoying, I just want play by post to be better, move forward and progress more smoothly with as few periods of inactivity as possible, I've seen way too many cool campaigns die due to players just not posting.

I'm not dead set on the blacklist idea, pretty much the only idea I could come up with at the moment. I also don't mean a hardcore blacklist, just more of a "Hey, if you play with these players your campaign may suffer from inactivity" type of thing.

[veekie]

Blacklists breed resentment and are an absolutely terrible idea in a relatively small community.

I've seen PbP blacklists implemented once. It killed the entire PbP section after a few months. The reason given was that people don't want to be blacklisted, so they don't join at all unless they can forsee that for the next half a year, nothing will interrupt their ability to be online 5-6(approximately once every 4 hours, to maximize chances of finding a new post) times a day for at least 5(personal experience, you need at least that much to locate the post and respond, sans rolling) minutes each. Someone working 9-5 won't have that either, they'd be capable of a high post rate after work, but posting while AT work is a good way to build bad habits that the employer won't appreciate.
Family events and holidays will easily cut that down to half, as they'd hog your attention sufficiently that you'd be checking in before bed, and after waking. Road trips or going overseas drop the post rate for entire weeks. For those people living in storm prone areas, a good hit leaves them offline for the same. New game purchase, sports, or other non-RPG hobbies each take their 4 hour bite out of your life.

Nevermind enforcement, what are you going to do when the DM falls off the internet? I've had more PbPs end because the DM can no longer update than because the post rate flagged. It is more productive by far to grease the wheels for things like mechanics, make it take fewer posts to perform given actions. It is also helpful to have a weekly check in, unrelated to game posting, where you'd say something if a week would be particularly hectic.

Think of it as an optimization problem, the choke point here is the DM's available online time and motivation, followed by synchronicity.

[Agita]

Short answer: Not going to happen. Taking this thread as a sample, it's neither considered necessary nor desired by a majority.

Long answer: This is a well-known trait of play-by-post gaming no matter where you are. In general, people who join PbP games regularly have made their peace with this. The simplest "solution" if you want a stable, long-term game is to forgo recruitment threads and instead just hit up people you know to be reliable personally. This effectively accomplishes what you want for yourself without impacting anyone else.

As speed of replies goes, I happen to consider the slow pace of PbP a positive.

[SorO_Lost]

I find the discussion it's self helpful through.

Advice to speed up PbP games would be great.

[Flay Crimsonwind]

Part of the thing of pbp games is that they alow for people to take their time. Stories do unravel much more slowly, albeit with much more detail and character development than would normally be allowed. It's the difference between playing a videogame (faster payoff) and reading a book (high payoff over time).

Some people take a lot of time formatting their posts and editing to allow for the direction they want their character to grow as do people formatting and editing essays to properly communicate an argument. Not everyone wants to type an essay, no matter how small, a night. I dislike (usually) making a post of only three or four lines, but sometimes that's the game; I generally like to take some time writing it properly. A number of people on here are even better at it than I am, and they take more or less time depending on the skill and attachment. Most of the DM's run multiple versions of incredibly in-depth games, with highly developed worlds.

All said, pbp's are the slow game by nature; speeding it up forcibly will just force 90% of these games to end, with people either wanting or having to drop out. There might be one dedicated game, but there will probably only be that one dedicated game. DM's wont want to start up too many (or even more than one) game, so you've basically lost the community for the single gaming group.

If you want a fast paced game, get a gaming group, and make that time you'd post go to them. If you want a chance to really write a deep character, or at least have more fun with tht character, do pbp. I always thought that was kind of the understanding.

Then again, I could be wrong, and your mileage may vary.

[ShadowViper]

I really just want the periods of inactivity to be as less as possible across all campaigns. I do like that detail and time for thinking that PBPs allow, but posting once a month is a bit ridiculous in my opinion.

Right now for me personally, PBPs are the only D&D I'm able to play.

And I've seen alot of PBP campaigns die simply from people just following off of the face of the earth.

I can't really think of a way to solve this issue, even a warning blacklist(which does seem like it really wouldn't work, but really the only thing I could think of) would just be a band-aid rather than a cure.

[Scout89]

My two cents on the matter:

We all have emails registered here. If there could be an option of sending a "Miss you" email, the missing player will know his postings are really needed. If he/she still doesn't show up to at least say that RL is crushing his/her skull in, say, one week, you can give him/her a warning of some sort (email too). And, if it still doesn't bring him/her back, then add a -1 to their Respect. With a negative Respect, any GM that receives this person's aplication to a campaign would know that that guy/girl isn't that good to have in the group.
Every GM can give Respect to players that keep posting regularly. And every player can give Respect to a GM that keeps posting regularly too.

Note: I'm talking about Respect, but that can be a completely new "atribute" to a poster. There could be a GM Respect and a Player Respect so that a part-time GM that is not around so much gets a buffer of Respect from his ten players.

[Agita]

My two cents on the matter:

We all have emails registered here. If there could be an option of sending a "Miss you" email, the missing player will know his postings are really needed. If he/she still doesn't show up to at least say that RL is crushing his/her skull in, say, one week, you can give him/her a warning of some sort (email too). And, if it still doesn't bring him/her back, then add a -1 to their Respect. With a negative Respect, any GM that receives this person's aplication to a campaign would know that that guy/girl isn't that good to have in the group.
Every GM can give Respect to players that keep posting regularly. And every player can give Respect to a GM that keeps posting regularly too.

Note: I'm talking about Respect, but that can be a completely new "atribute" to a poster. There could be a GM Respect and a Player Respect so that a part-time GM that is not around so much gets a buffer of Respect from his ten players.

Clarification: There is no (and there will not be) negative Respect, and, for that matter, you can't give Respect in Play by Post games. This is so for various reasons, the most pressing of which are that the former has empirically proven itself to be a terrible idea and the latter is about as open to abuse as the D&D 3.5 ruleset.