RP Sub-Forum Exclusivity

[Velvet LeChance]

I just resigned from the confirmed user group and I'm not group leader. It's possible. But not very beneficial if you ask me. I can't PM people now and I assume there's other stuff I can't do that I haven't figured out yet.

But anyway, on topic: I've never seen people complain about the roleplay subforum, except perhaps the whole we used to be able to f*cking swear thing and perhaps the smut thing (which I only ever heard about, that was supposed to be a riot.) Though I do share the same fears as Kerr about the whole exclusivity business. Might deter new users regardless of the reminders (which will probably be given the day they join, I didn't join an RP for months after signing up.)

[Deimos]

Mmm. i see.. makes enough sense.

[p-sto]

I think once in general banter I saw someone crying over the fact that most of the recent topics were roleplays. I don't see what the big deal is though. I don't care about 95% of what goes on in UESPF but you don't see me complaining about the fact that people are posting there. Though I know for some people it is an immense burden to read a few extra lines and scroll down. Not sure why but it is quite evident that this is the case.

[Musicman247]

Lulz. I added you back VL. That shouldn't happen, though. I'll look into it.

[Kerr]

I don't see what the big deal is either. If you just own Oblivion and Morrowind would you complain that lots of the active topics are in Skyrim?

[Musicman247]

You wouldn't and nobody does. But they do speak up about seeing "too many" RP threads.

[Deimos]

I think the reason people are like that is that the forums weren't originally for RP'ing. It's for the Elder Scrolls. maybe 95% percent of people on here are here for the games, and not the RP's. but go to view new posts and most of what you see is RP's.. plus, it's not like it really matters since Musicman found an easy way to fix it

[p-sto]

I don't know. I was a member of this forum for six months before I gave the RP subforum a serious look. I never even really noticed that RP threads dominated the top of the active posts lists. I suppose filtering what you read and scrolling is a skill to be mastered.

[Musicman247]

I've got one response:

Hidden:

YouTube Link

[p-sto]

With such busy lives people shouldn't be wasting their precious time on frivolous forums.

[unokitsune]

And I signed up!

[Chaos the N'wah]

I like it, got no problem with tidying up the 'new posts' and having a list for people that might need to send pms for RP purposes such as recruitment or advice

[VirtualWeasel]

I think once in general banter I saw someone crying over the fact that most of the recent topics were roleplays. I don't see what the big deal is though. I don't care about 95% of what goes on in UESPF but you don't see me complaining about the fact that people are posting there. Though I know for some people it is an immense burden to read a few extra lines and scroll down. Not sure why but it is quite evident that this is the case.

I wouldn't call my complaint "crying".

I was just pointing out the fact that more (and probably even a majority) of posts are going into something that's not really even the focus of the forums in the first place. Roleplays have only skyrocketed because it's a way for some people to fit in faster than a person who couldn't care less about them would. Then people realize they like them and stay in it. I've seen a fair share of people come on here to do roleplays only, and while I don't really mind that much that the subforum gets activity, it's that it gets a substantial majority of activity and has its fair share of exclusivity that's really hard to break into. It intimidates new users, and while it brings trafffic, it tends to draw attention away from the forums that were/are the focus of UESPF in the first place. Not to mention it can be a very passive-aggressive when it comes to exclusivity.
Though it's much more organized now, roleplays still seem to bleed into the community and do, whether people deny it or not, form more rifts between people. It's not uncommon that I see posts entirely ignored because there's roleplay discussion going on.
And on exclusivity: There's always going to be a waiter situation, no matter what, where it ends up being "need experience before you can gain experience" to join any good roleplays.

Though out of sight, out of mind is a good step towards eliminating exclusivity, exclusivity is still there and there's really not much you can do about it.

[Archer]

Honestly, I've never seen this "exclusivity" that you mention. Even as a first timer myself, I was welcomed and helped into the process. I haven't seen once where a DM has told someone that they need more experience to join their RP.

[Musicman247]

I don't really see much of the exclusion of new players. In fact we have gained several just in the past month. Brand new players that were all welcomed with open threads.

While RPs weren't the reason the forums were created (Skyrim was the reason the wiki was created either), they have become popular in recent months. They are not everyone's cup of tea, however, and those who do not enjoy them seem to not be able to overlook them and carry on. That's why we're proposing to make it so everyone can see what they would like.

[p-sto]

Having to simply go into your profile and add a subgroup is a tiny thing to do but there is an aspect of a psychological barrier to it that will discourage people from viewing and joining roleplays. In my opinion it will increase the exclusivity of the roleplay subforum even if it diminishes the perception of said exclusivity.

I think it would be a lot more constructive to have a mechanism where people can opt out of seeing the roleplay threads or really any aspect of the forum they're disinterested in, rather than requiring them to opt in.

[VirtualWeasel]

Personally I've had experience with some people as very passive aggressive with their players; yes, new players are welcome in RPs, but if they do certain things or are not typically that great at what they're doing, I've seen a great deal of badmouthing and such behind the scenes, that being said, I haven't seen everyone's habits, but what I have seen isn't exactly friendly.
And I have no problem with RPs, I'd participate in them myself if I didn't feel like an [&@%!] for joining, but I think the main reason why non-RPers can't get over the RPing is because the constant discussion of them is annoying. You can't go much of anywhere on the forums or chat without hearing about the RPs, and people who aren't participating in them feel excluded or just plain annoyed.
I'm not saying what you're trying to do is a bad idea at all, it's a great step to keep people from seeing it, but the point is that it's still going to be there and people will still run on and on about RPs outside of that subforum.
I'm not trying to be argumentative, so I'd prefer to not be blamed when this thread goes to [&@%!].

[p-sto]

As person who has taken part in such activities from time to time. I have to say that there are some actions from new roleplayers that are frustrating and interfere with the enjoyment of the game. Rarely have I ever made a comment maliciously and I have apologized when people have taken it as such. There may be some exceptions but I view most of the people here to conduct themselves in a similar manner, though perhaps I am naive.

As for roleplay stuff spilling into the rest of the forum. Outside of general banter I don't think I've ever seen much of this happen. Though I will admit that I haven't been paying much attention to the rest of the forum in recent months.

[Musicman247]

The forums didn't start out with a General section either.

[Chaos the N'wah]

Role playing goes hand-in-hand with RPGs, it'd be like going to an fps forum and being annoyed by talk of guns or war
Yes, it's an off tangent of the main focus of the forum, but it's something to be expected

As for feeling excluded, that's what we have social skills for, either feel compelled to involve yourself out of interest, talk with someone else, or just use your time productively
All topics spill over into the general subforum despite numerous "X general discussion" threads, it's the nature of socializing with people you're friends with, conversation leads itself.

And as for bad-mouthing, I haven't seen it a whole lot, but most negative comments I see are hashed out in the RP itself (Gentle reminders for new players, it's new DMs that tend to take a brisk lashing for making unignorable errors or excessive puppeteering that make players feel uncomfortable), if it goes beyond that, it's probably more of an issue with individuals rather then a byproduct of RPing being exclusive

[philfredobob]

I joined the group, though i'm only in one RP which is frozen at the moment and i don't read the others.

am i the only person who doesn't use the ''view new posts'' button thingy? i always just clicked in each subforum and checked whatever seemed to have new stuff.

[The SheoDovah]

I've not seen any of the RP stuff spill over into the other forums. I have mentioned some roleplays in what happened to you today but nothing major and haven't really gone into detail with the roleplay stuff in that thread. But people should realise that TES is a RPG and members are most likely going to roleplay in the forums. And it literally takes a few seconds to go into the subforum of General to see what forums have been posted in. Complaining that we are too active is a bit of a silly complaint. But that's just my opinion. That and we have all the sweetrolls.

As for new DMs,I've not seen any get badmouthed or do a rubbish job. That said, i'm one of the newbies in terms of DMing and probably am the only newbie. Do i get a badge for this? If anyone had a problem with my way of DMing and talked to me about it, i wouldn't mind as long as they were involved with the roleplay and not just trolling. Then i'll be annoyed then be forced to bring out the Rabbits.

We don't prevent anyone from roleplaying if they don't have any experience but we do tend to ask that people roleplay first before creating a roleplay which i believe is fair as it gives us an idea of the person's style and they get to fear know us.

[Velvet LeChance]

I think the question here is what do you want us to do about it, Veetz? I don't agree with what your saying, It's my opinion that the RP subforum is the friendliest of the subforums, but if you think there is a problem to fix how do you believe we should go about doing it? Surely you don't want to just close the subforum completely, because that's the only solution I see that will help combat your problem with us.

I myself believe that Roleplayers shouldn't be singled out and made to join some group so the small vocal minority will stop their complaining. The whole group thing really will add a sense of exclusivity to it. P-sto's idea of just creating mechanism of just allowing people to unsubscribe from topics would be preferable.

[Musicman247]

P-sto's suggestion is a good one, but not possible as far as I can tell. At least not with the software we're using.

[Hissien]

Taking all of this into account and adding that many of our RPs have been elder scrolls related and that the entire series was based upon a custom match of dungeons and dragons, I think we can all agree that roleplaying does have a place here...

Still Weasel has a point in that you will see the RP sub forum mentioned especially in chat but that is the only other area of the forum I've seen too much of it and contributed to the issue myself.

Considering I spent the first half of my membership solely in the skyrim general and never once heard a whisper of there even being a roleplay section, I will have to say it is a little unfair to say that it is taking over the entire forum. Not that anyone said that, maybe they did I just can't be bothered to check.