Brand New RPG - Getting Started

Hello all!

I have been in the RPG community for over ten years now and only just decided to bring up my own site. Not only this, but I have also become a member on another new site who is currently in their "Soft Opening' phase.

I'm wondering what tactics/ techniques other forum owners have for enticing players into a new site? When I join something new, I look for a few different factors. Plot: whether their idea is interesting is obviously a big part of the decision. Species: do they have a decent spread? Do they allow creative juices to flow? And activity. This is where I get stuck for my site.
The "Soft Opening" site I have joined had an amazing plot and a lovely attitude towards creativity with your character. However, there are a total of FIVE members. And since I joined, I have seen no one else join and no posts.
My site has only myself and my co-admin. Thus, we obviously look "dead" despite only just opening

So my question to everyone here is this...
How do you get people to join a site that has just opened if they are only seeing a small amount of activity on the front page?

 

I have no idea, this is currently my problem as well. :( Hopefully someone has some advice for both of us...

 

You just have to advertise a lot, and try to maintain as much activity as you can with what members you have. Even if you only get a trickle of new people at first, if you make them feel welcome and plot with them, you'll soon start growing activity that will help attract more members in the future.

 

I'm new here and i want to post my 2 games i don't understand this 10 thing

 

I can only really echo what the above contributors have said: advertisement and directory listing is key, also reach out to some traffic-heavy RPs and request affiliation.

As for activity, make sure you and your co-Admin are getting a post per day out. There might be only a couple of you, but I know if I see even a small memberbase engaged in the story then I'll consider the RP active. But if you guys aren't posting, then I'd wonder how or why I'd be expected to.

 

Starting up a site, if you are starting without pulling in a lot of rp buddies you've told about your forum, you very much have to dig you heels in.

Advertise, create a few open threads, and rp with yourself if you need to.

No matter what, find a good balance, you don't want to expend all your energy doing one of those things and then not having it in you do so the other part.

 

Have you heard the phrase that it takes X amount of time for a company to turn its first profit? It's something like that for roleplay sites as well, where profit is self-sustaining activity. You have to personally keep at making sure there is activity to your website so that when random people opportunistically happen by, they can tell that the site isn't dead. More importantly you have to give them a reason to want to engage. Using threads as a journal or diary of thoughts may make for interesting reading but unless it gives people a reason to post, they won't, so you should have some discussions that invite further discussion

Some more concrete suggestions:

Give your community / RP game an elevator pitch. Be able to describe it in a few sentences. You'll get many opportunities to write about it at length, including at the site itself, but you want to have something stock that you can give to someone when they ask you what it's about, in whatever context available. Include this on your website as well and make this short description prominent

Submit your site to RP directories and topsite lists. Some are more merit based, some will give you votes in exchange for money. Go with caution but generally speaking, the more (relevant) exposure the better

Hope this helps. If it does let me know!

 

I've been trying to check out and join directories and advertising sites, but I've not got a lot of return. I'm not sure people are even taking a look. I feel like, maybe I should toss a gimmick or something...lol. We had a toxic/ manipulative player recently that wrapped her characters into other peoples' storylines to the point that we essentially have lost 3 players when we had to ban the one. I hate it when this happens. I had hoped people like this didn't still swim in our waters. However, now I'm trying to not only fill roles but get us some folks that like to write... it's just not happening.

I run a groups.io Marvel RPG/Writing Group because we had come from Yahoo. Our current folks wanted something simple similar to what they were accustomed to. Unfortunately, most of the advertising groups I found in the post about a directory are either now defunct or are jcink only. Groups.io are very limited. I'm about to update my directory submissions, but otherwise, I'm not sure where to go with this. And that's sad considering I've run RPGs and Writing Groups since the late 90's.

 

I just got out of beta like, early this morning, so I am eager to see how we can start attracting new people as well. I think making affiliates, being active on directory sites, and also allowing your friends to invite their friends is a good way to get a community started. From here, it seems like a lot of it is advertising and and just being generally vocal about your site!