Forums » RP Discussion » How to join/make a one-to-one or small group RP?

A bit of backstory to my question here:

I've been doing large-ish group RPs of roughly 12-30 people for several years. However due to many of these groups collapsing from declining interest, the annoyance of having to schedule things and the lack of culmination; I've decided to cast my line for smaller RPs.
Unfortunately I have no idea how to do so. I've tried several times but none of the RPs I've attempted to join have ever gotten past the planning stage. So I've decided that I should probably ask for help from people who have had some of those. Any tips, advice or other things to know about getting one of these kinds of RPs to start? From both the making a post and replying to a post angles.

Thanks in advance!

Note: I'm not interested in romance RPs so advice on getting a ship to work isn't going to help me unless it's of the naval kind. Yes I know this eliminates at least half of all the open RPs; I'm still not going to reply to a prompt on something I don't want. Also my writing style is usually concise but occasionally one or two paragraphs, though I'm on board with receiving any length as long as there's at least two sentences.

Hey there!

I'm super new on the site, but very seasoned to online RP.
I've been doing RPs for more than two decades. I really don't attempt to run groups anymore, as the effort it takes really doesn't have the return that I used to get from the community. Like, I don't know if it's a generational thing, but (for me) it has become very VERY hard to get committed people that can cooperate and shell out multi-para responses to the setting I would come up with. It's a lot of work on the part of the GM, and people just dont reciprocate the effort.

I've never done mass groups like you have. Generally, I never went for more than four or five other participants. I guess what I'm trying to convey is that you might not even be doing anything wrong. In my own experience, people have just gotten really lazy about their participation in the last (10-ish) years or so. I blame social media outlets for getting the status quo used to simple, immediate responses. And grammar and syntax have completely gone out the window as well.

I myself have been looking to join a group on here but have yet to find one that is in the setting I want (much less actually being ACTIVE). I actually don't quite yet have a grasp on how to do proper searches, as I keep finding the same stuff I have already looked over, OR when I use certain search options I just get a "no Results" notice. So maybe part of the issue is the visibility of the groups you are advertising? I dunno. Like I said, I'm still very new here.

Hi!

Thanks for the input. I've attempted a couple posts but due to the lack of replies I figured I'd just reply to someone else's prompt. The thing is that somehow I never quite seem to catch someone's attention to RP. Often it's just a pure lack of response to my reply; presumably because they've moved on for the idea or decided I don't meet their expectations. There has however been a few times I managed to get to the brainstorming stage. ...however once I get there the RP becomes stuck at it for a couple months and the spark of interest dies off without it starting. Any idea of what I could do to move on from that stage? Also how long after getting no response to my reply should I give up on the prompt? I was thinking two days but, again, new to this kind of RP. Oh and should I have a character pre-made before responding or is making one afterwards to fit the RP alright?

On the mass groups, while they contained roughly 12-30 people, the RPs usually contained around two to five people at once. I'm personally not that much of a fan of multi-para, so having multiple people at once worked out well with two-three sentence lines getting thrown out over the course of minutes. Personally I find it helps the characters feel more alive when they tend to respond and act directly to the situation without having a soliloquy; if you get what I mean?
Anyhow the groups worked as a setting for people to use their characters in while keeping a coherent story. The idea was that people could RP the plots they wanted to in a bit of a shared setting, with periodic large RP events that would gather more people and advance a meta-plot.
...the issue with this is that since the majority of my group sees me as The Admin (with the capitalization) it causes me to become a linch-pin of activity. So, whenever life gets in my way the activity just, stops, and then gradually gets started up when I return, to die off again when I have to leave.

Apologies for the unintended mild vent. It's been part of why I want to try this style of RPing. Basically I just want to RP without having to perform "Activity Generation" every time and I think smaller groups of people is the way to go for that.

Also to try and aid with your conundrum; if you use the site's search tool you can look through all RPs, not only the currently active ones, as well as groups about it. This might help you see if there's interest in what you're looking for? Though I personally find is that there's also not all that many active posts to search from either. While this may be skewed by my own interests; I believe if you want a particular setting you might have better luck posting a prompt instead of searching for one.
Hope that helps, and let me know if you find one!

best advice for small group RP? don't

No but seriously. They never work out; I don't think I've ever met someone who has had a small group go for more than a month or two. Even the ones on the larger end (4-5) fall apart because if even a single person drops, the group's left in shambles trying to fill the giant plot hole. The only reason bigger public group RPs work is because you have a constant influx of people coming in and out to replace the spots of anyone who isn't able to commit for one reason or another - that, and no one person is designated as "game master". Small groups demand someone to lead the charge, and if that person gets burnt out from having to carry the plot (because lets be real 90% of the writers will not provide any of their own content to the story), a week or two of slowdown is enough to kill it.

As far as 1x1s on this site go, it's pretty much the wild west of "sort through 393845 romantic/smut ads posted by the same person who bumps daily to find the metaphorical needle in the haystack", unless you turn on the filters to remove ads with sexual content. It will greatly improve your stay. p r o m i s e. Speaking from experience, you're best off not digging through all of that and just posting your own advertisement. Lots of folks post ads specifically for one character of theirs, but I recommend doing an "all-call" of all your current characters/ideas you're wanting to play out. I typically include what I want from a partner, rules/boundaries, and a post sample. Collapse tags work great for that.

It also tends to move pretty slow around here. My suggestion is to post it and forget about it for a week - as far as the regular all ages and no smut adult LFRP boards go, your ad will stay on the front page for about that long, maybe more.

And I mean, for posts in a 1x1 format, it's the same thing as replying to a post in a group format. Only real difference is you both share the responsibilities of a GM instead of relying on one person to do it for you. I like keeping planning to a minimum for these until I've scoped my partner out with a few posts to make sure they're committed. Keeps you from spending two weeks plotting and worldbuilding just to figure out you're incompatible or someone isn't interested.