[ thoughts & questions! ] since new rps are unable to open rn

lolz i’m surprised by how little comments there are considering the amount of complain blogs & comments i’ve seen. yet when there’s a proper thread to contribute to, there’s so little comments.

anyway i don’t usually comment on blogs like these bcs in the end, rpr is just a place for people to have fun, unwind, write, etc so why should i waste my limited brain cells on trying when others don’t? also, people like to twist words and find fault in opinions && observations but this is meant for discussion and an exchange of perspectives so here’s my thoughts:

* i’m going to be completely blunt, i have no energy to sugarcoat my words. i’m saying things as it is and from what i’ve observed ++ personal experience.

(1) the people in a nonau makes it last. basically, you’d need a loyal community. i think being a popular user helps too but still, not everyone would know a user, yk? if there’s a constant group (or groups) in the chat, the rp is constantly active, it’ll b aight. i don’t think it matters anymore if a nonau has anything extra to offer bcs nobody cares about badges or events. nonau now is a place where people talk about themselves behind a nice face. a place where they cuff each other’s charas. a place to vent. i’m not against it. but i don’t see the point in it. it gets boring. imo the only thing that differentiates nonaus is the group of users in it. i can’t say much bcs i’ve also used a fc to talk about bs instead of trying to rp and speak as an idol. and i enjoy crack. but i miss nonaus w events and badges. it gives me smth to work for. definitely i would want to see nonaus function as what they were meant to be: where everyone is an idol / celebrity. i don’t think i cross the ooc lines too much and if i did in the past, i’ve been trying to separate pure ooc talk from ic topics. it’s hard when everyone in a rp talks ooc tho.

(2) i do avoid rps w certain users LMFAO i’d like to think i’m chill and neutral but there are some users i prefer avoiding due to past experiences. i don’t want the same thing(s) to happen again so what better way than to steer clear from them? i have no energy for drama and i’m not here for that either. i’m here as an escape from reality for a short time, so if i don’t vibe w you, then i’m not going to force myself to. i’ll remain cordial tho, i don’t bring my issues to places. others don’t need to deal w that.

(3) i’d join any au rp i have muse for. can’t say what my muse is bcs it’s v sporadic. i always end up inactive or struggling to cope w muse after like a month bcs ooc scheds clashes and it just s me up a lot. i don’t force myself to write and if my muse isn’t present then :shrug: i like seeing complex aus tho. i don’t think they’re intimidating. sure, we’d have to read more to understand the content and build a chara properly but we all need to put in effort. if the admin(s) has put in so much effort to create an original setting / bg / lore, then reading thoroughly is like bare minimum to appreciate their efforts
[ this comes hand in hand w the addln thoughts: i believe people don’t read rules anymore bcs “it’s the same in every rp anyway”.]

(4) i think faceclaims is an individual thing. some are alright w having many different muses, others can only write well w a specific muse. idt faceclaims should limit you to rping tho. bcs what matters most is the writing? tho granted, i do get muse it a certain fc has many dps to choose from. idk why but the content just stablises or boosts my muse

(5) idc about aesthetics. they don’t have to be professional. just at least put in some effort. if the main layout looks halfassed, it’s obvious the admin didn’t put in effort to the rp so it probably wouldn’t last. so if it’s halfassed, i won’t expect much from it

(6) idk about semiaus but i’d like to see more of them bcs maybe then people won’t mix ooc and ic issues together. i think semiau is a good way to have a nonau that’s centralised around events. i’ve been wanting to open one since over a year ago but decided against it bcs my efforts will be wasted anyway LMAOOAOAOAO the same as how i had two aus but both didn’t gather much attention/audience/members. i don’t blame the community tho, there’s defo more things i could’ve done to get more people to join. which is why i’ve put them off on hold until i have enough time to dedicate and commit to them :”)

that’s all ig. idk if rpr would ever improve LMAOAKAKA but if it does, hopefully there would be lesser drama and more Roleplaying.

+ additional thoughts

1) i missed out on semiaus since i rarely and barely see them around, and i’ve always wondered why? a semiau seems like a good “loophole” to have both nonau and au components in one, which theoretically should mean that it’s a balance of chatting, relaxing, cracking, as well as literate writing, plotting, ideations, etc.

2) i’ve seen a blog (?) regarding rules / passwords these days. is it true that people just glance through the rules nowadays w/o actually understanding and following them— i get that rules are more or less paraphrased and repeated in every rp, but those are guidelines to follow (and since we see the same set of rules in every rp, shouldn’t we be familiar with the do’s and don’t’s ? yet there seems to be breaching in guidelines happening) so nonetheless, we should read each of them for the sake of understanding and following the guidelines, and not read them just to find the password.

3) what constitutes a good rp? or, what makes a rp last long? many rps close within a few days or a few weeks later. for nonaus, i noticed it’s bcs the rp isn’t active anymore so people just abandon their characters. i understand this to a certain extent— while it’s normal to leave a place to find a new one to chat in since the previous one has nobody around to talk to, why don’t people just stick to one or maybe a maximum of three *nonau* rps instead of joining every single one that opens? i don’t see the mass joining as much in aus, and that’s probably bcs not every genre/concept is someone’s cup of tea. but for nonaus, there are many users who hop rps. it’s not right or wrong, just wonder why they do that. because you’re with the same faceclaim, behaving the same way, so why make clones of yourself in multiple rps when you could dedicate your time in 1 and help the admin(s) create a strong foundation in their rp?

these are just observations which genuinely piqued my curiosity. i’d like to reiterate that there’s no right or wrong and each of us could use this site however we want to (keeping in mind the terms of use, of course). but rpr has been in this constant state of ‘dryness’, so it seems like a good time to rethink and reflect. especially with a possible app coming our way, which could make roleplaying more convenient.

For nonaus, I think it depends on who joins and when. There have been 100s of non aus it feels like. It seems like if there's a huge influx right off the bat, it's quick to die off. From what I've seen, a slow to steady trickle builds a better community. Admins making people feel welcome, and multiple events, even just games or movie nights. It's definitely different from how nonaus used to be. I've been on rpr since 2013 I think. I remember when people were studying videos of idols and googling and checking the online profiles. Now, not so much. I don't necessarily think it's a detriment. The level of expectation of how much you're supposed to know and how much you're supposed to guess has changed as well. I remember being like terrified I would ruin SVT's Joshua for someone when I first started playing him. I think a lot of nonaus are a way for people escape from real life and pretend to be another person and since nonaus aren't that strict, makes it easy for people to just chat or explore more if they want.
With that, though, roleplaying nonaus has changed like most cultures change. Some people vibe with the change and others don't. Nonaus have become chat based and I've read some of the other comments about people talking about their ooc lives in main chat and while I understand how that can be quite annoying to some people, that's just nonau culture at this point. I feel a lot of people use nonaus as a "use a hot/pretty/handsome/whatever person as a face and kind of stick to the idols' lives but also i want to meet people who also like asian culture or who people online who don't kind talking to other people online in a relatively non confrontational space". I notice there are a lot of introverts or people who don't like meeting people in person or have anxiety talking to people without a bunch of text in front of them. A lot of them also flock to the relaxed nature of nonaus. Personally I don't mind the change, it is what it is. You'll find people who annoy you and people with whom you vibe with.
Granted, I've been in a few aus over the years and while I love them and I love the stories and plots, I find a chat based au rp to be an interesting parallel. there's an anime au i joined recently and you could say it's like the nonaus in the chat based nature, a lot of different people than who i usually see in nonaus but similar outcome. the admins have rp wide events that stem from the anime/game/cartoon characters' worlds, they have rooms for plots and a lot of people plot on walls or pms. So really, what difference does it make? I guess the admins, the intent of the admins and the rules of the roleplay. A lot of aus Ive seen have different activity requirements, and post requirements ( there was one a while ago that said you would get a warning if you wrote oneliners in a room, outlier probably but i've seen it), character background requirements. These things help cultivate the creativity of aus and keep it going but it limits others, whether to the rpers dismay (wanting to join but not having time/muse/etc) or the admin's delight (not wanting a bunch of chatters). I personally try to join an au every so often when i get muse. I enjoy the writing process about 20% of the time. I personally like to build my characters through interaction with other characters and go from there. That often can't or doesn't happen because timing or plotting.

This is a very long winded post oof. But it felt good to articulate my thoughts. I think about these things a lot because one of my irl friends here prefers aus and I prefer nonaus.

Also I forgot to mention that it has been a while every since I saw a reality show plot which could be both au or nonau, something like America's next top model, survivor or island survival kind of thing. Could be matchmaking too but there used to be many in the past, Im not really a fan of this genre though.

I've been active in this site for quite a while so this is my opinion according to my experience
Non aus: most people already know each other and rp with their friends, if you see an active non au it could be due to the ooc chatrooms and not due to actual rping, most people rp there in 1st pov(1st detailed too but quite rare), they dont make profiles for their characters, they are popular because they are more convenient, require less literal background
Aus: majority are 3rd pov rpers(raging from semi para to multi para), they have profiles for their characters, people actually rp there but the catch is thar you should check the masterlist if you see many active characters because some rpers may have multiple face claims and you could be fooled by thinking that more people have joined because of that
I think face claims sadly matter to both aus and nonaus. I'd personally love to see something more supernatural themes than school and city aus with less mature content (I kind of dislike the master/slave and hybrids plots), maybe a historical au, abo mixed with many creatures, mithology aus(north,greek,egyptian).
I personally dont really mind the face claims because I opt for actors and I kind of want to see a rp without idols just actors it would be something new? Their roles in movies/series spark my muse most of the time I dont know if it works for anyone though.
Id also like to see something similar to battle royale movies like the hunger games or alice in borderland since events could be kind of more intriguing this way.

Hello, I am here because I can't add new rooms and update the masterlist so, I hope it's alright if I share my thoughts.

⇢ ɴᴏɴ-ᴀᴜ
To make things clear, I don't hate the idea of a non-au roleplay. It has its own perks, just like what you have mentioned. I even enjoyed it in the past. But these are some things I have spotted in some non-aus, not all, that watered down the genre of non-au into a basic OOC chat.

I was in a non-au rp up until recently, but I have told myself to quit it. I believe, around a year or two ago, non-aus aren't this bad. There was still a connection room that allows idol characters to connect with others, find a friend, and even a nemesis. And of course, there were plenty of location rooms as well. But these days, as you can see, there is no longer a connection room, and the location rooms are only implemented if a roleplayer requests it (I don't mean the apartment or private rooms), and they can be counted with one hand. Instead, there are more chatrooms (rated, non-rated, soft, fast, slow ones).

If you have been in an IC chatroom, you will see an idol character suddenly pop in and say stuff like, "I had an assignment to do." or "Sorry, I had to deal with a customer." without using brackets at all. And other characters will start talking to them in an OOC tone too. Sorry, but why is everyone mixing up IC and OOC?

There is also one thing I notice a lot in non-au rps: there is a lot of non-consented IC drama. Without talking to all parties involved to receive their consent, some roleplayers will impose harsh changes to other characters in the rp through their character. And before you know it, things happened, you hate this person, your IC lover is being snatched away, and you're confused 3000 (this is just an example, but I have seen this happened before). Communication is important, yet I seem to find a lot of roleplayers in non-au forgetting about that. They just do it. No thoughts, head empty. I am not too sure if this is prevalent in aurps, but I have never encountered this issue yet from there.

In any social system, cliques will always be a thing (IDK why I am not a psychologist). So, I usually ignore them and find my own crowd. If I don't, I'm leaving, folks! However, we all have been ignored by them, one way or another. I am not going to sweep that fact under the carpet. If this becomes too much of a thing, actual people trying to roleplay will just leave, and sooner or later, the rp will die (IDK why, but I have seen this happened too).

I think non-au rps should re-implement the connection room and add more location rooms. And I don't see many that still hold events — we want events (and not only for activity check)!

⇢ ᴀᴜʀᴘ
In terms of what kind of aurp I would join, it depends. I am not interested in school aus (sorry! I am dying because of school already, I don't want to have my character relive through it too. High school shoujo anime can be a lie too, y'know!).

I'd prefer if the roleplay has more content. The more content they provide, the better grasp I have over what my character will be like. Let's take an example, if it's a cityau, what kind of city is it? Is it also the home of vampires? What kind of society does it have? What's the focus of the rp? Is it the rich people of the population? Will there be poor versus rich? Some sort of revolution going on? The less information I get from the roleplay, the lesser muse I have for it.

And most importantly, what makes your aurp different from others? Here is where the rp's lore comes into play. Because, with a lore, the characters in the rp, most importantly, my character, can grow with it too. The lore doesn't have to follow a story plot structure. It could be the simplest thing. Use the newspapers or social media to implement it. If it's a cityau, introduce the weather. Roleplayers can use it in their threads or have it affect their character's mood. Or how about creating small stories that others can use as a prompt for their threads. Add crimes that will make the neighborhood feel a little unsafe. Add festivals, make some if you don't know any. Don't let the characters in your rp interact with only one or two others. Create situations that make them want to reach out to other characters.

Aesthetic is important, but the content is the thing that makes people want to stay.

Regarding the face claim, it's not an issue for me. I used to only rp as Chanyeol, but now, I have been expanding my muse list to join interesting rps.

This is long, but I hope that there would be more intense roleplaying done on the platform. And I also hope that people would no longer be afraid to do more intensive roleplaying than they do now. It's such a shame to come here and only talk about your issues when you can glide into your character's story. I think it's alright to talk about OOC issues. Understandable. I, too, have done it. But the site is not only to chat about your life. It's about taking your mind off your woes, put it away for an hour or two to write, have creative discussions, and enjoy each other's writing. If books and games can do that for you, why can't roleplay do the same thing?

Your font isn’t too small btw, it’s completely fine (and I need glasses to look screens)

So I’m not in any roleplays atm since I’m slowly getting back into the swing of things after an extended hiatus; but I still checked in on the rps I was in / ran / lurked like a stalker and I’ve been on this cesspool(and I say this out of love, I really do) of a site since like 2011 so I feel like sharing my thoughts and opinions, some people might relate to them, some might not but I like hearing the sound of my own virtual voice lol so take this all with a grain of salt

Here’s some pretty brackets cause that’s the easiest way to separate my comments

〖 non-au 〗
My thoughts on non-au roleplays will be relatively short for the simple fact: I don’t do them. I used to participate in non-au roleplays but that was way back when non-au actually meant something and wasn’t just crack.

I’m not going to speak for all non-au roleplays because I’m, obviously, not a part of them but from what I’ve stalked, lurked, observed if you will, is that they’re pretty much all crack and completely ooc. It’s not even non-au anymore. And to me that defeats the purpose of roleplaying.

In my opinion, It’s not roleplaying if you’re acting like your usual online persona but with the face and name of an idol. Now of course, there are probably role players who treat non-au as it used to be, which is roleplaying /as/ the idol. If there were more non-au roleplays like that, I would 100% join because I think that there’s some real potential with the nitty, gritty reality of being an idol such as overworking, sleep deprivation, harmful eating habits(not to glamorise those issues of course) and more. It doesn’t all have to be dark of course but sometimes it’s nice to explore some of the more realistic aspects of life.

But I understand that crack roleplaying can be immensely relaxing, especially after a long day of work or study. Cause I enjoy ing around in ooc rooms as much as the next person, it’s hella fun, it’s de-stressing, you make good mates during the process and for that, I give my kudos to crack roleplays.

Again, I’d like to make very, very clear: I have an extremely minimal exposure to non-au roleplays and I fully acknowledge that I might only see what I want too see by checking out the chat rooms, confirmation bias if you will, but that’s been my experience so far. I’d like to see it change, but I don’t know if that’ll ever happen.

〖 au 〗
Me, personally, I have no overall preference over simple or intricate au concepts; I will just like what I like. That being said, I’ll say that right now, in this moment, my muse does swing towards intricate because the simple ideas have been done to death on rpr. I’m not claiming that I offer up fantastic and individual ideas, not by a long shot, but how many times do I have to read the same description over and over again with a different username behind it before I rip my eyes out? Kind of a violent reaction but 11 years of “be who you truly want to be”, “these are the best days of your life” and “make memories that last” can be tiring. I’m guilty of this too, not gonna deny it, and I’ll probably be guilty of it in the future cause they’re pretty key phrases when you think about it, but you look at the sheer amount of roleplays on tumblr and it’s just like.. wow, why can’t the same be applied here?

I’d like to see a little more thought going into roleplays but also, I’d like to see more effort from roleplayers, including myself. Real life is a , I know that first hand, but I believe that rpr, as a whole, has really lowered the bar in effort. There are other roleplay sites where their roleplays last a year, two years, more, and i don’t really understand why we can’t do the same. I genuinely believe rpr has one of the best interfaces from an admin and participant standpoint to do what we do compared to tumblr, mewe, Reddit, etc.

I babbled on a little too much but I can go further indepth if you want, but I won’t right now :)

Moving on to your next question, faceclaims do matter. I wouldn’t be surprised if I was known for almost exclusively playing Jeon Jeongguk in roleplays and tbqh, if he’s not available, I do pause at joining unless I feel as if one of my very few other muses would suit; and they usually do. My muse is highest with Jeongguk and I never feel as if I do my best if I don’t use him as a faceclaim. I’ll admit I’m a little territorial with him but not so much in a ‘ u for using my faceclaim’, it’s more of a ‘dangit, I missed out on using Jeongguk’.

In relation to other people’s faceclaims, I can be biased and it’s a huge flaw. If I see the only characters in a roleplay are, for example, all J-idols, cosplayers, or part of scenes that are a little too alt for my taste, then I probably won’t join. I need to vibe with other peoples faceclaims and I’ll admit I’m a basic who prefers to roleplay with faceclaims that I know or have easy access to getting to know(such as tumblr picture spams or wiki pages). The username behind the face, however, means jack to me; unless you’ve committed a serious grievance against me or you are known for having some dubious/downright wrong preferences, I don’t care who you are, I’ll roleplay with you.

I think I briefly touched on some of those extra points but I’ll do a quick opinion share for the ones I don’t think I gave my opinion on!

Admins and moderators generally fall under the same category of me when roleplaying with users; unless you’ve proven yourself to be a dickhead or done some personally offensive that I can’t forgive, I don’t care too much.

One type of admin I will admit I avoid are the ones who open a roleplay every other day. I understand their frustration that nobody joins them so they make new ones with different concepts but it becomes a double edged sword; you make roleplays because nobody joins but nobody joins because you make so many roleplays. From my perspective, these places are hastily made, they look it, they read like it, and if an admin isn’t willing to put in the perceived effort and has a track record, then why would I join a roleplay that’ll be shut down three days later for another one? It’s a bit harsh and there’s obviously going to be some background insight that I’m not aware of, it’s just how I feel about it.

Aesthetics are important. It seems silly but if you can’t take the short time it takes to find some good quality images, find or create a nice colour palette that’s thematic, then to me, that symbolises what I mentioned in my previous paragraph which is: you don’t seem like you’ve put in the effort for something so simple, so why would I?

I think that’s pretty much everything I have to say, I might have more that I didn’t think of later but I image this is going to be a behemoth of a comment so I’ll leave it there. I’d love to hear insights from users, if they have any, I’ll check in with this blog every so often to see what comments pop up :)

I don't join nonaus so I can't say

I miss complex aus, with lots of lore and stuff in it. The issue I've come across though is that if you aren't part of a popular friend group, it'll fail whether it's complex and detailed, or whether it's a standard basic city au
Just when it's a complex au it hurts more because you've put so much effort into it.

I agree with you with AU. I mostly write AU as means to enchance my writing skills since english isn't my first language and it gives a lot freedom to do it. I did plan AU RP with complex futuristic concept and decided not to publish since since I don't think anyone will stay for a long time.

But at the same time, I think some au have been going for years with actual plot in it. Personally, I like mafia concept but most mafia RP suddenly focus on the part rather than the action part (since in most mafia RP, there is red light district) but actually I prefer to have action parts more because I can practice my writing skills.

That's my opinion and as for non au, I have never joined one so, no comment on that.

wow the font might be small but i can’t really tell since i’m using my phone and not my laptop