The Festival of Being Excellent To Each Other

Posted by Kim on December 3, 2015, 9:30am

It might be cold outside, but your heart is about to be filled with warm fuzzies!

It's that special time of year when the RP Repository celebrates the Festival of Being Excellent To Each Other. During this festival, we pause and reflect on what it is that makes RP not just meaningful, but possible -- strong friendships, vibrant communities, and the connection, respect, admiration and trust that we have for our bestest RP partners. And, we talk about ways to keep these relationships evergreen for years, decades and centuries into the future!

This year, we'll be taking a look back at some of the best articles on friendship-craft that have come from FOBETEOs past. Prepare for a week of excellence!

Let them know you care

It's tradition during FOBETEO to take time to thank our RP partners of the past year, for giving us the gift of their attention, time, creativity and talent.

So give the gift of public recognition! Write your RP Partners a kudos to tell them how much you appreciate their time, their brilliance, the effort that they put into creating story hooks and plot twists and special moments. Tell your friends how much you've seen them improve and that their hard work has not gone unnoticed. Tell those who were there when you were going through a hard time what a difference it made. It doesn't have to take a long time, but it's sure to mean a lot!

Every five kudos you write this week will earn you a special winter candle accolade to display proudly on your profile, available only during FOBETEO.

Remember, to be eligible, a kudos needs to contain a clear "why" explaining what makes your friend so special! Don't just say "He's awesome!", tell the world what makes your friend so awesome. Click here for the complete kudos guidelines.

When to speak up

We can't spend months or even years playing with the same group of people without someone going through a hard time and needing a little extra support, an occasional misunderstanding, or perhaps even a full-on argument. That's just the nature of communication, especially via text.

But these things don't have to mean the end of a friendship - or the end of a RP - if we're willing to brave some brief but uncomfortable feelings and hear each other out. Let's begin our look back at past FOBETEO articles on how to tune up a friendship by looking at two pieces about whether or not to speak up when your feelings get hurt:

Why it's best to be honest about hurt feelings
Being Excellent to Each Other and "Being Nice"

Next: FOBETEO Past: Starting a difficult (but important) conversation » « Previous: Meet Moa, the adventuring merchant