Those are problems, but they’re symptoms and not the cause.
Confusing, potentially false advertising, I believe to have stated.
The issue I brought forth was the lack of clarity as to the vision for this project and its execution. I brought objection to the plot hook, not the plot itself, due to vague and potentially misleading expectations. The mishandling of goals, the creation of a cursed problem.
I don’t know what you want to sell me and it seems you don’t either. But your business partner does and, quite frankly, I wouldn’t have even given it the joking chance without him. And something tells me this would have been abandoned entirely by now (if it even started), if not by you then certainly the players, where it not for Ghid. There’s little evidence that suggests you want to be here.
So tell me,
why is that? Which curse did you make? I already gave you potentially two of them. Misalignment of player and character was the first I told, conflict with the larger purpose was the second.
If the mystery is only a player motivation, then what is the characters? If the mystery is only a character motivation, then what of the player? Are both to have the same general motivation? No, then what is it? From a gameplay perspective, there is no clear or obvious reason to participate. Lack of clarity.
But that can also stems from the larger cursed issue. Traditionally speaking, post-based RPs are collaborative fiction, unlike most other RPGs. However, despite being in the written form, it’s still not a writing project, it’s a game. Like I said, we’re being asked to help write parts for a larger work. But we’re given no information, no direction, nothing for which to help write. A mystery story where only the head writer knows what’s going on, what needs to happen, but said writer refuses to actively participate and just gives vague homework.
Do you want a game or a publishable work? You cannot do both.
You can salvage a game into a publishable narrative. Or get a bunch of people together to write one book, comic, etc. taking different parts, perspectives, functions, whatever. You cannot create a collaborative work when no one knows what’s going on, what’s their part, or what they should do. We need information, everyone actively in the writing room, bouncing ideas off each other.
Even purpose conflict, in and out of game, aside, do you want to be here? If you do, you certainly don’t want to deal with the managing portion of the game. As I said in the first post, “Perhaps this statement was to say that GM involvement was to be minimal.” Character driven or not, the world shown so far requires heavy GM involvement. This isn’t DnD with nice little segments, only needing your attention for a few hours, maybe some prep or review here and there. It’s constant, sporadic responses, it needs more attention. At the very least, consistent amounts of attention.
Potential steps towards solution: Reassess. State a clear mission goal in one sentence. Look at materials created and rank how they support or conflict with that goal. And how those materials are being used to incentivize your other collaborators into helping achieve that goal.
In essence, convince me of what you want and are hoping to get out of this. Though in the meantime, Ghid’s post is a decent break fix for the immediate things plaguing the game/activity. It won’t fix the code on the backend, but at least it will make the interface nicer.
Ask and you shall receive.
. I’m not meaning to make it seem like I’m joining the “gang up on aJTaZT” bandwagon; I just really like to debate certain things, and projects that involve writing, especially one I’m involved in, is definitely going to be one of those things.
