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State of the RP (and a question for anyone who is either still in Duplicity or might think of going back in the future)
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So I haven't really been RPing much over the past few weeks at all. There was a kind of flurry of activity right when I picked up my FFXIV characters, but I had kind of a bad experience with being dropped by a lot of people simultaneously and it sort of killed the buzz for me for a bit.
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(No anger at anyone who has-- I know a few people I was playing with read my plurk. We're in super strange times and my own interest with RP has waxed and waned weirdly and we're just all... dealing with a lot and I totally understand!)
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(Also, those old threads are totally still there and I'm delighted to pick them up again, just saying.)
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It was more just like... I used up all my thinky-starting things brain getting all of that started and up and running and then when some of that didn't pan out, there wasn't any left for anything else new, and I'm one of those people where new stuff fuels my old stuff.
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And, on top of that, I was TRYING to write more fiction. Which I would also like to get back in the habit of doing, but all the moving stuff kind of killed the momentum on that too.
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And, honestly, I'm just flat out one of those people who is a crowd pleaser. If I know people are liking my stuff and waiting for the next installment, I work harder, and while I was getting that on the FFXIV fiction discord for a while, it kind of petered out and I also had some REALLY WEIRD experiences with some of the main people there
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That just sort of left me meh about the whole thing.
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But anyway, been thinking things this whole time about RP. Pretty much all of this year has been a bit of a struggle to figure out what works for me and what doesn't, once it became clear that Duplicity wasn't working at the moment.
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But, having had some distance away from it, I think I've figured out some of what I want out of RP and how to get it, and I'm working on what that means for the future.
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First: I've discovered I'm not really very good at only having PSLs. Without a moving timeline and a shared, persistent world, it's way too easy for me to get tired and just think "oh, not tonight, I'll do that tomorrow morning". There's ZERO pressure to get anything done and I don't do well with zero pressure.
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But, on the other hand: I don't really care to invest in a game world.
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I don't mean in my CR and my character, I mean in the world itself. I can't remember when I had an opinion in a single poll in Duplicity.
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I don't ever really want to make a location (though I'll talk about it sometimes if there's something that suits a character-- but I rarely want it for me), I don't care about the metaplot, I don't care about affecting the game world.
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I just want a framework to hang my character against, a situation to put them in and see what shakes out of them when I do it. It doesn't matter to me what it is, or honestly even if it's good.
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I just want to be able to have a setting to run around in and do my own thing.
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A lot of what Duplicity was doing wrong for me in the months before I left was it was taking too much of my self-agency away and not giving me enough back.
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Big, sweeping changes and events in the game environment that you MUST be part of... but then not enough leeway within those things for me to actually DO anything I might have wanted to do. I miss things like the hotel month, or some of the player-driven, single night events.
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I felt like I was being forced into caring about things I didn't want to care about and interacting with things in a way I didn't want to.
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In short, there were several events in a row where I didn't feel like I was allowed to do my own thing, I had to do what the game wanted me to do, and I didn't like it.
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I think, for a lot of people, that's how they want to play games, though, that without it things feel too sandbox-y or slice of life.
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Anyway, I digress.
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The point is, the best games and the way I like games the best are when they are a quiet framework for me to grow my characters on. BUT, I also realized something else.
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Play anything too long without a break or a change and you become invested in it.
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And for me, feeling like I needed to be that kind of invested in the setting and story of the setting, was the death knell for my interest. As soon as I become more environment-focused rather than character focused, it's only a matter of time before I'm done.
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(this has been a pattern in my RP prior to this as well.)
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All of this is an escape for me. We joke about it all the time but it's literally my pretendy fun times. I don't want it to be too serious, for all that I do like playing serious scenes or dealing with serious topics.
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The act, itself, is not something I want to expend that kind of effort on.
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Which leads me around and around in circles, and has for months now.
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I like being in games and having the schedule keeps me writing. But I don't like getting too wound up in a game and having to figure out all the logistics of it, etc.
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This has led me to wonder if I would be happier in a game if I knew from the get-go that I wasn't going to just be in the game forever.
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I like the newness rush- figuring out initial and developing CR and how the character deals with the environment, seeing what unusual connections shake out, seeing what strange ways the character settles in and grows.
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But once a character really gets established (the timeline on this varies, but it's usually around nine months in a game) I really start to struggle and feel like I've done a lot of the things I wanted to do, and the pressure starts to mount.
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I never really noticed that timeline before, because I've always fought it and stayed on because I'll love my friends and my CR and usually if I'm "bored" with one character, I don't want to play ANYTHING like them if I bring in someone new.
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And I feel like it's seen as weirdly "flighty" to keep dropping and apping characters, even on a scale of nine months.
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Which like, man, most people's fandom of the week barely even lasts a month or two, so I don't understand why 6-9 makes me feel like a flake?
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But it sure does.
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But this is the part where I kind of want input about things.
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IF YOU'RE JUST SCROLLING DOWN LOOKING FOR THE DUPLICITY QUESTION, THIS IS WHERE THAT STARTS. 
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Duplicity is the game I'm the most likely to app back into, rather than something new. I already know it and like it, and I find I'm mostly not interested in non-sex games. (Though if there's another sex game out there you particularly like, feel free to rec!)
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Would you have an issue with having CR with someone knowing that their character is likely only going to be around for 6-9 months, or would you not bother?
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Would it destroy your fun to develop deeper CR with someone and then have them drop in around that same timeline? Is that an asshole thing to do?>
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And also, if the answers to all of that aren't highly negative ones, is there anything you know I play or am interested in that you would love to see me bring in?
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(I'm mostly looking at FFXIV characters or possibly an older version of Carden.)
คςєภคгtєς๏
so... i've already weighed in on this a little, but i think it's worth mentioning that even if people don't plan to drop, a lot of them still do in that timeframe.
คςєภคгtєς๏
like, i'm not going to say that there aren't people who might avoid tagging with you if you're upfront about that, but i have absolutely invested heavily in CR with people for them to drop a few months later.
คςєภคгtєς๏
i don't think it's flaky at all. if anything, you know what your limits are.
Call me Ishmael
I’m willing to play out a shorter timeline with any of mine.
Mis
What was said above, imo...you know your limits and are willing to go "This is what I'm doing, you onboard?" I think a lot of people won't mind the limited engagement, especially with turnover in games what it is anyway.
BRUNO PLS
It's all good.
BRUNO PLS
(I'm afraid my brain can't really make any kind of intelligent reply, but I wanted to say something so you'd know I wasn't ignoring the post and that I'm not averse to the idea. Or. Something.)
Temple
that’d be fine with me.