Group Threads

I have had some great ones and some really terrible ones.
What pointers do you have for a successful group thread?

 

Consult. That is the most important element when working with more than one player. Plot OOC threads; they are critical for you to nut out all the details before committing to your post. Make sure you're all on the same page, and if you're admin or GM of a game, be sure to provide plenty of hints in game for the others; leaving little breadcrumbs for them to follow. If you do it well, you'll have far more entertainment and fun than doing one on ones.

 

I'm not a huge fan of group threads myself, unless there's an actual plot worthy good reason for them. I get lost too easily, especially when a site doesn't enforce some kind of posting order.

 

Where there is no order, chaos reigns. It depends on your staff; shabby staff, lousy experience.

 

My experience of this has not been a good one, but it's probably because of the culture of the site where I rped on. I was once invited to join a group story-line, but it went sour because the organizer didn't bother to consult properly with the people they invited. I had no idea what I was doing and one player decided to deliberately cut me out of it which ruined it. They are good when people co-operate properly, but in some cases, the ignorance of some people can raise to the surface. This has made me weary of group writing. I won't do it now unless I know that all participants welcome me in it.

 

I genuinely think the best ways to keep a group thread from getting crazy is to constantly communicate with the RPers involved. You can then agree on the general path/ plot of the thread, who posts when (a posting order is ideal and then you can each decide when it's your turn if there's enough to respond to for your character or if you'd prefer to be skipped this one time), and adjust things as needed, depending upon what comes up IC.

I've been in some bad ones, yes, but all of those have lacked communication or a willingness to adjust to the existing IC material.

 

Nothing worse than someone creating a RP intended for group play, then they leave it up to the players to create the plots when its their damned story in the first place. I have left 3 sites because of that alone. You create it, you run it, as simple as that. If you just have this 'idea' in your head and are eager to get it going, you need to be on top of your game from the outset. Story line, concepts, potential plots, the whole thing before you even open. Then, don't run it on your own, you will die a thousand deaths; find someone you trust to help you, the more mods/admins you have that are on the same page as you, the easier it will go.

 

Wait your turn, and make it clear when your character has left the group.

 

My biggest advice for group threads is to actually interact with the group! Don't limit yourself by interacting with just one or two characters in the thread - put yourself and your character out there!! And leave your posts open for other people to interact with. Sometimes two or three characters in a thread can branch off and leave the others not meshing well, which isn't always a bad thing, but do your best to keep things open, or interject yourself somewhere.

I think group threads can be super fun and rewarding if you try, and the unexpected can surprise you.

 

Definitely communication. Chat about it, a lot, whether in private chat or the plotting channel. My most successful group thread lasted a long time because of that and barely any of the characters were heavy into plot with each other, they had their own storylines going on. The least successful groups I've been in, no one actively talked about it. We just waited for our turn, did our part, and waited again. Those fizzled out quickly because people lost muse and had expectations of each other ... but none of us are mind readers. xD

 

Communication is definitely key. Having a vague plotline to follow or an endgame for them to reach usually helps keep things flowing. Planning things outside of the actual thread and talking about it with everyone involved is a good way to keep things rolling!

 

Communication, communication, communication. Without this, group threads are impossible. You need to be willing to communicate with your partners, and vice versa. Nothing sucks more than having someone suddenly stop posting and disappear without a trace, leaving the entire thread hanging in limbo.

You don't even have to have a plot entirely ironed out, imo. It's fun to have a twist or two thrown in, but everyone should be on the same page.

Also, it's so important to set up a posting order to keep things neat and tidy, and to prevent people from feeling left out of ignored.

 

for all my boards (4 of them) we use Discord for group chats and plotting. Works well.

 

What everybody else said! Communication is key :D

However, there is the problem of people in the group thread flaking, especially if you have a huge amount of members involved - it's not bad, really, but it's annoying to deal with when other, active members are waiting to put out some replies. I actually put in a rule (and multimod) on my site where if two weeks go by, we poke the poofed member; and if three more days pass, we skip them until they're ready and able to come back. It's an awesome system, and works very well <3

 

I cannot say about the plots.But Honeestly just be there.ive seen so many roleplays tank because there own leader isnt there.Its ridiculous.

 

Communication is key, and while you can get away with a post order, often once one person drops out, it all scatters. A loose posting order (go in the order each reply, then if someone hasn't replied in a certain amount of time the next person can take their go) seems to work best with me. I usually advise a week per person, because if you have 4 people then that's still a month of posting. If you're into them, try groups of three at first, or strict posting requirements, but honestly, find your medium and what you're most comfortable with.

 

Discussing some key points beforehand is important. You don't have to plot everything, but having no direction usually makes it boring and a little messy. Depending on the size of the group thread and the number of characters involved, doing a post order may not actually be the best idea. There's always at least one person, typically more, who disappear or takes a long time to post and leaves everyone else waiting because they're not "allowed" to post. Let people post when they want to, within reason. If some are super active and might get carried away with the group thread before anyone else has a chance to write, try putting a post-per-day cap per character in the thread.

Group threads can be really fun, especially when there is prior plotting and all members are on the same page with each other in terms of what they want, where it's going to go, and any limitations they have. Sometimes it's nice to experience your character in a dynamic, group setting rather than one-on-one all of the time.

 

I love groups threads. In my opinion the most important thing is to talk frequently about posting order so that people know when it's their turn. Other than that I don't have any sage advise.

 

I am not really a fan of group threads... I can usually handle 3 participants, but any larger and I find it difficult to keep things straight in my head with respect to what is going on. I have tried some different approaches to group threads, for example I recently ran an 'event', where a scene was written out, and everyone reacted. The participants were encouraged to talk about what they would post etc on Discord.

It was weirdly successful.

 

definitely communication and giving other members leeway in your posts to have something to react with. i always aim for a balance between internal thoughts and reactions with my characters and external (depending on the type of threads of course). but communication really is key along with knowing where to go with the thread when you make it, even if it's a general destination.