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05:56, 29th March 2024 (GMT+0)

Wanted players: silliness.

Posted by Andrew Wilson
Andrew Wilson
member, 565 posts
Scary? My mask is to keep
your viscera off my face
Sat 24 Jan 2015
at 22:43
  • msg #1

Wanted players: silliness.

I might not be the only one that feels this way, but there should be a limit to how many games you can have advertized at once on the "Players wanted" forum.

1) Your not being honest with yourself if you think you can give your full attention to more then 3 games as a DM

2) If the game hasnt kicked off in over 2 years, It might be time to scrap it, its not healthy to dwell on such things that it becomes routine.

3) Its not fair to the other people on the forum who have to wait a week to advertize there game on the front page again, after you single handedly bumped it to the 2-3 page


Im not attacking another player with this short observation, Im asking if there could be a change to the formula to optimize the success of finding players for games and possibly refreshing the stagnant water that certain individuals are trying to sell.
Holobunny
member, 50 posts
Trust no one.
Keep your laser handy.
Sat 24 Jan 2015
at 22:55
  • msg #2

Re: Wanted players: silliness.

Not to mention it hurts your chances. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but there has been at least one occasion in my pretty limited time here (about 90 days I think), that I've thought something like, "Oh hey, that looks pretty awesome. Wait a minute... Is this guy advertising for the two games above and below this as well? Never mind."
bigbadron
moderator, 14759 posts
He's big, he's bad,
but mostly he's Ron.
Sat 24 Jan 2015
at 22:59

Re: Wanted players: silliness.

There is a limit on how many games you can advertise in a single day.

1) A GM is free to decide how many games they can handle.

2) Some games are continuously looking for players.  They may be running quite nicely, but are set up in such a way that they constantly seek fresh blood.

3) In order to "single handedly" bump your ad to page 2 or 3, an individual user would need to be bumping 25-50 separate game ads in a single day.  Since the limit is three separate ads bumped or created in a single 24 hour period, that would not be possible.
GamerHandle
member, 626 posts
Umm.. yep.
So, there's this door...
Sat 24 Jan 2015
at 23:03
  • msg #4

Re: Wanted players: silliness.

I am very much for everything BBR has posted - not only are these things the way things are... but it makes a lot of sense.  Yes, it is annoying to see your games pushed down to the second page within a few hours; but, I've never seen it even remotely being a single individual.  I've seen one person, I'm pretty sure it's the person that has tipped your annoyance there, Andrew Wilson; however, even so, many people DO indeed read the second or third page.  More likely: they are searching for the system they want to see.

I think some people are perfectly capable of running 4+ games just fine. Also depends upon the nature of the 'game'.  Some are not exactly games, simply discussion zones for certain very finite topics (such as when there was a 'game' for NPC creation - not advertising anything specifically here... just proffering an example.)
facemaker329
member, 6569 posts
Gaming for over 30
years, and counting!
Sun 25 Jan 2015
at 09:31
  • msg #5

Re: Wanted players: silliness.

I'm pretty sure that NO GM is truly giving their full attention to their games...this is a hobby, Real Life demands a lot more attention than I'll ever be ready to devote to gaming...

And it's entirely possible that someone else's one-fifth effort is more solid than my solo effort...there are a lot of factors that impact how good a game is, the relative amount of focus on the GM's part is pretty low on that list.
icosahedron152
member, 419 posts
Sun 25 Jan 2015
at 14:32
  • msg #6

Re: Wanted players: silliness.

For an experienced GM, running games is like spinning plates on sticks.

If they're running smoothly with plenty of player interaction, a GM can get away with little more than reading for a while, but when they wobble, they need a little more attention.

The important factor isn't how many games you're running, but how many are wobbling, how severely they're wobbling, and how much attention you can give them - none of which is evident to an outside observer.

As BBR says, the only person who can decide how many is too many, is the GM.

However, we're all tempted to add one more plate, especially when they're all running smoothly and we have time on our hands...
OceanLake
member, 882 posts
Sun 25 Jan 2015
at 21:48
  • msg #7

Re: Wanted players: silliness.

Since games GM is running and games deleted are posted with the request for players, we players have fair warning.
Andrew Wilson
member, 569 posts
Scary? My mask is to keep
your viscera off my face
Sun 25 Jan 2015
at 22:01
  • msg #8

Re: Wanted players: silliness.

In reply to OceanLake (msg # 7):

The downside to that assumption, is when a game goes from rpol to facebook or the such. Ive had games go on for 2 years that only have like 90 posts in the actual game. Player just asks if it can be moved to skype or some other asynchronous chat to be played faster.
OceanLake
member, 883 posts
Sun 25 Jan 2015
at 22:29
  • msg #9

Re: Wanted players: silliness.

Thanks for pointing that out.
facemaker329
member, 6572 posts
Gaming for over 30
years, and counting!
Mon 26 Jan 2015
at 03:06
  • msg #10

Re: Wanted players: silliness.

In reply to Andrew Wilson (msg # 8):

If the game's moved to FB or Skype, then it shouldn't still be listed on RPOL...it's against the TOU to use RPOL for storing information on games that aren't being run on RPOL.  Yes, you can use FB/Skype/chats to facilitate the game's progress (I'm in a game that used to do that, a lot...two or three characters would be off doing their own thing, they'd all go to a chatroom to play it out, and the GM would edit the whole thing into a post on the IC thread).

But if you're not still posting stuff to the game, technically, you should get rid of it...which would add to the deleted games entry, yes, but it wouldn't give potential players a misleading notion that you've had a game with only 90 posts (or whatever) floating around for three years (or however long).  Better a deleted game than an existing game that shows little or no progress to an outsider...
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