Lol status quo
I understand that people think there's a strong, clear, obvious difference between the quality of interactions in formal games, dressing rooms, and museboxes. But it doesn't seem to hold up under examination.
Seems like the differences are purely structural:
Game: has app, (usually fixed) setting directed by mod, plot is directed by mod, required activity
DR: no app, setting suggested but not fixed by mod, plot(s) are directed by players, no activity required
Museboxes: no app or FRIENDSHIP APP, setting suggested or fixed by player-mod, plot(s) are directed by players, pals will nag you for tags
But your chances of getting, keeping, or losing CR aren't that much different in each. People disappear less often in games, but steady day-in-day-out players don't differ much in each. The quality of CR is not that much different in each. The quality of writing doesn't vary so much between categories as it does within samples of each category. For some people I know, their very best threads ever - the most beautiful, the most fun - were done in highly structured games based on formal rules and top-down modding. For others, and in this number I include myself, their best threads were done spur-of-the-moment in dressing rooms.
The biggest difference is in who's calling the shots, that's all. And some players/writers flower more fully under one set of conditions, others under another.
I don't understand the purpose of looking down on dressing rooms, though. YEAH they can be hives of shitty players shittily posting shitty posts to each other, so feel free to sneer if that's your thing, but they are above all a place where people are doing what they want because they want to do it. For someone like me, who has been so fortunate with partners and found so many truly excellent writers and players in dressing rooms, I find it difficult to understand why anyone would believe that it's not possible to get quality interaction in a dressing room.
TANGENTIALLY:
In a larger sense I do take issue with the app/game model of running an RP. I think it's fundamentally broken. There is an overlap between the skills it takes to write a good app and to be a good player in a game, but the two skillsets are not synonymous. There is an overlap between the skills it takes to set up an interesting game (i.e. to be the architect) and the skills it takes to run an interesting game (i.e. to be the administrator) but the two are not synonymous. Games are also very high-committment and high-risk - building out a really good, sound, overarching-plot-type game can take 15-20 hours OR MORE, and you can't even be sure anyone will show up! Advertising a game fucking sucks - what if you're a great game architect but you can't write a cool-sounding blurb for shit? All your hard work down the tubes because you can't sell it. And and and
I'll go on in this vein for a while. The upshot is that all of RP has structural issues and limitations, and I start to think that one of the main reasons people pooh-pooh this or that format of RP is because
it's so hard for anyone to find what she wants in this big muck of games and players. it's already so hard, so why muddy the waters further with these types of RP that this player does not want.
...The fundamental cause of this unhappiness is a friction created by using a setup - a journalling web service - that is not designed to do what people need it to do for RP. It was never intended to run this sort of organization. Therefore I think the solution is to re-architect the way that RP games are set up and presented for browsing entirely.
Needless to say, I have a plan for this, but I'm leaving it to
logios to architect and implement. So people who are interested in that should go friend Logios. :3c
This entry was much more interesting when I posted it @ dw.
Seems like the differences are purely structural:
Game: has app, (usually fixed) setting directed by mod, plot is directed by mod, required activity
DR: no app, setting suggested but not fixed by mod, plot(s) are directed by players, no activity required
Museboxes: no app or FRIENDSHIP APP, setting suggested or fixed by player-mod, plot(s) are directed by players, pals will nag you for tags
But your chances of getting, keeping, or losing CR aren't that much different in each. People disappear less often in games, but steady day-in-day-out players don't differ much in each. The quality of CR is not that much different in each. The quality of writing doesn't vary so much between categories as it does within samples of each category. For some people I know, their very best threads ever - the most beautiful, the most fun - were done in highly structured games based on formal rules and top-down modding. For others, and in this number I include myself, their best threads were done spur-of-the-moment in dressing rooms.
The biggest difference is in who's calling the shots, that's all. And some players/writers flower more fully under one set of conditions, others under another.
I don't understand the purpose of looking down on dressing rooms, though. YEAH they can be hives of shitty players shittily posting shitty posts to each other, so feel free to sneer if that's your thing, but they are above all a place where people are doing what they want because they want to do it. For someone like me, who has been so fortunate with partners and found so many truly excellent writers and players in dressing rooms, I find it difficult to understand why anyone would believe that it's not possible to get quality interaction in a dressing room.
TANGENTIALLY:
In a larger sense I do take issue with the app/game model of running an RP. I think it's fundamentally broken. There is an overlap between the skills it takes to write a good app and to be a good player in a game, but the two skillsets are not synonymous. There is an overlap between the skills it takes to set up an interesting game (i.e. to be the architect) and the skills it takes to run an interesting game (i.e. to be the administrator) but the two are not synonymous. Games are also very high-committment and high-risk - building out a really good, sound, overarching-plot-type game can take 15-20 hours OR MORE, and you can't even be sure anyone will show up! Advertising a game fucking sucks - what if you're a great game architect but you can't write a cool-sounding blurb for shit? All your hard work down the tubes because you can't sell it. And and and
I'll go on in this vein for a while. The upshot is that all of RP has structural issues and limitations, and I start to think that one of the main reasons people pooh-pooh this or that format of RP is because
it's so hard for anyone to find what she wants in this big muck of games and players. it's already so hard, so why muddy the waters further with these types of RP that this player does not want.
...The fundamental cause of this unhappiness is a friction created by using a setup - a journalling web service - that is not designed to do what people need it to do for RP. It was never intended to run this sort of organization. Therefore I think the solution is to re-architect the way that RP games are set up and presented for browsing entirely.
Needless to say, I have a plan for this, but I'm leaving it to
logios to architect and implement. So people who are interested in that should go friend Logios. :3c
This entry was much more interesting when I posted it @ dw.