Forums » RP Discussion » Trying to find partners

I have a predicament. I started up my prompt yesterday, but no one's replied to it yet or seems interested. I've had other prompts on my account, which shall remain anonymous, but they never had much attention either. What am I doing wrong? I originally had a theory that if I was anonymous I would get more interest, but that hasn't helped me at all. What's the conspiracy around this place? Someone please inform me.

There's lots of reasons people might not respond ro a post. Sometimes posts are too long, and sometimes they are too short. Sometimes it's just fallen off the front page.

I've checked your post. It's not been a full 24 hours since it's been posted from what I can see, and that's not exactly a long wait. It's also kind of a generic idea with a sparse character, neither of which are bad things, they're just ideas that are already readily available. There's also a few confusing typos that might make it seem less appealing to some people.

what's your rp about. i'll join it if that's okay?

The one I think Sam is talking about is adults-only for sexual reasons.

I mean I guess, I know it's generic but I'm not the greatest when it comes to new ideas. And I know that it's sparce, but I'm working on it. What kinds of typos?

They’re fairly mild so dw, but just a little confusing. There’s only two so again nbd. There’s a line that is just “I thin,” and that’s it. Then there’s the 2 paragraph maximum and the context of that sentence makes it a pinch confusing.

Oh! I also know some people aren’t comfortable with smut roleplays with anon accounts since you don’t really know who’s behind it. However, a lot of smutty roleplays are also posted by anon accounts, so it really goes either way. Really the only real thing that works on this site is real intense persistent patience haha.

Indeed, there's no particular secret or anything. Most folks have most of their prompts get little to no response, and responses that actually lead to anything are even less common. There's a mix of reasons for this, too.

As Folklore pointed out, some folks avoid anonymous characters. Partly it's the age question as mentioned (especially for adult-themed RPs), but a lot of folks are also just generally uncomfortable with annons and feel like they are more likely to mysteriously vanish on them, worry they may be someone they've had trouble with already (but haven't felt warranted being blocked, or don't realize blocks are applied to annons, too), etc.

A step further, most games get set up away from ads/prompts, between players who are already familiar with each other and know what to expect. When it does come to ads/prompts that are posted, a lot of what plays into things is an unpredictable mix of timing, themes, identity of the poster, style, etc.

Timing, because you can never be sure when any given person will look (or be on the site at all), be interested in the collection of the rest of the details (idea, style, expected frequency or replies, etc), and feel they could fit it into whatever their schedule already looks like (some folks overwhelm themselves are try to avoid taking on more as much as possible; some people give themselves strict limits to combat that; some folks just don't feel they could keep up with something for one reason or another; etc).

For style, there's really a lot of things I'm referring to. There's general writing style with grammar, spelling, structure, types of phrasing, etc, all of which can be difficult to pin down definitions on. Length is a factor; some folks want big, meaty posts, some folks want posts that are quick and simple; some folks struggle with long posts for one reason or another, and others have trouble getting into something if they aren't trading back and forth several paragraphs at a time. Time/frequency is a thing; some folks want several replies a day, some don't want to deal with more than a couple in a week, or a month, and others still prefer to arrange periods of rapid-fire chat RP. Lots of other things can play into this, too, and while some folks are flexible about their preferences, others are not.

With the "who" part, this can apply to character and player both. Some folks stick pretty exclusively to players they have already talked with before and gotten to know. Some only play with adults who display their age on their profile, and some minors actually try to avoid playing with adults. Some end up with other groups or specific individuals they won't generally play with; for example, I have a friend who always adores the prompts one person puts up, but repeated attempts to play with them have revealed that for some reason, they just don't play well together.

I'm going to stop blathering now... Point is, a lot of getting a game going is just... chance. I'm not sure how active you already are, but it's possible that participating in more other things around the site, including chats and whatnot, might help by letting people get more familiar with you?