My handle is mothman47- has been since I created my first e-mail on Yahoo! back in 2000. I've been roleplaying for 20 years. No joke about that- I'm an old man. The reason I mention my age and experience is because I believe that caveat carries with it the understanding that I've been around awhile and frankly, I know what I'm talking about (mostly).
I've been on the internet as far back as '97. I still remember MTV playing actual music videos, when Burger King sold cheeseburgers for an actual dollar, and I've been around long enough to see every kind of hooplah occur through online roleplaying. Lately these days however, it seems like the roleplaying environment, while abundant with players, worlds, and ideas, has a problem with their philosophy, or more accurately, how the sausage is made, and how to apply quality control to the environment. Unfortunately, literally every other server I've had the privilege of visiting in the past 5 or 6 years has been ran by either children, or adults pretending to be children, or adults who don't have the emotional and mental maturity to actually handle those positions; devolving into nothing more than a drama/clout server and it annoys me- to the point of nausea, almost: Late teens and early 20-somethings who want to keep a foot in high school gossip circles and promote excessively reductive behavior to the detriment of the hobby they are participating in- I weep for those who have suffered in those circles.
From age 12 onwards, I made writing my hobby. Growing up poor will force your imagination to work in interesting ways to ignore being hungry, or broke, or bored while living my best life as a Latch-key Kid. Each story I made was better than the last, and after years of writing pages in a myriad of notebooks in between classes and assignments, I wrote a novel- my own story. But even then, I had managed to learn how to roleplay with other people- honing both my writing and my story-telling skills in my adolescence. Not even a stint in the military or starting a family deterred me from my hobby. Much like Dungeons and Dragons stuck with me, so did text roleplaying. I had the fortunate blessing of meeting some fantastic people across the internet with a creative spark that was alight with the fire of inspiration, adding to my own smoldering intuition and curiosity as a child, and as I grew older, my own flame grew, and it created wonderful worlds and communities in its own right. But even all this happiness is overshadowed by the truth of these kinds of games...
The sad fact of the matter is this: No matter how well you design a server, almost all of them are doomed to fail at some point. Most tend to fall apart after a year or two because there's no stability in either the design of the social architecture, or the implementation of mechanics, a lack of maturity of the staff, or sometimes life just gets in the way and QoL is never applied because the time needed to implement it is not there. The worst part is that I've seen it happen to places that showed actual promise; unique in their world building, lore and character demographic- to have it fall apart because of some flimsy Casus Belli waged against the administration from the users, or from the admin to the userbase. I've seen garbage roleplay, terrible GM/Mod/Admin behavior, and I've seen administration done in a Fair, Impartial, Clear-eyed fashion, and everything in between. I've been part of huge Roleplaying forums with almost 100 active players, Moderately-sized parties on mIRC, complete with our own character sheets and conversing over Ventrilo or Teamspeak, as well as small private one-on-one adventures on both mIRC and Yahoo! Chat. I've been a player and a GM, a Loremaster and a narrator- and I suppose now, as the hairs on my head start to turn gray, and my eyes start to fail me, that I take the next step in my life and take up the mantle as an Advisor to you, whoever you are.
Players
In the roleplaying world, I tend to call players 'Mun'. A 'Mun' is a term used to refer to the real-life person who is controlling a character in the game. The term 'Mun' is short for 'mundane'. In a text roleplaying game, players create and control fictional characters, also known as 'mus'. Each 'mun' is responsible for creating and controlling their own 'mu', and must write all of their character's actions and dialogue in the game. The use of the term 'Mun' helps to maintain a clear distinction between the real-life person and the fictional character they are playing, and helps to prevent confusion and misunderstandings in the game. It also helps to reinforce the idea that text roleplaying games are a collaborative and creative endeavor, with each player contributing to the development of the game's story and characters. I prefer this term over whatever nonsense mouth noise you have for yourself, because ultimately, it isn't about you, the mun. It's about your character- Their design, their history, mannerisms, attitudes- everything that creates them, supersedes your personal and no doubt selfish wants from RP. The character is in the RP to aid in creating depth to, and sometimes be the driving force behind the storyline created by the GM.
Players- Bad behavior and Toxic ideations
In over 20 years of gaming, I can say with no exaggeration that you will always come across bad and toxic players. That's just how this goes. This hobby is filled with antagonistic individuals looking to exert some kind of influence on others for their own personal gain. Mind you, that gain is more often than not, psychological in nature than physical. Good roleplayers don't have to make five paragraphs per post, detailing every moment. They simply have to create a contributing atmosphere to the hobby. Even if you do this, it's a rule of thumb to always exercise a moderate amount of consideration for your other players to a certain extent to incorporate positive culture within the community. Too often, I've seen skilled roleplayers act like they're a gift to the server they're in, simply because they're entirely capable of carrying a story on their own- but this attitude defeats the purpose of what the roleplay is designed for- collaboration. Unfortunately, this attitude has only grown in its intensity in recent years, primarily because of the next point- Degeneracy.
Degeneracy in this hobby is rampant, because much like any other hobby, once it becomes popular, it becomes populated with people from all walks of life, both good and bad. The unique becomes the mundane, and the degenerate becomes normalized. I suppose it's attention-seeeking, immaturity, or a desire to push the boundaries, but I find that the degeneracy is simply just the same old toxic behavior with a different flavor, and I count them part and parcel of the same problem. Some years ago, if one were to stumble upon a toxic player like that in the wild, one could simply leave a conversation. Or, if they were in a public chat and someone of the same degenerate stripe appeared, then they'd no doubt be ridiculed and pushed out because of their incompatibility to other players, and their potential to harming others. However, in today's Roleplaying scene, these individuals are either celebrated or given some measure of control over the localized server by which they reside in, effectively bringing down the collective quality of the roleplay server with their behavior. Even more relevant is that these individuals are often in positions of power, and abuse said power over the regular denizens of their servers, much to the dismay of others.
Because of this development of toxic and poor behavior from not only users, but administrators and staff, the responsibility of curation of users in a server becomes the sole responsibility of the user and not the staff. This is a double-edged sword as it forces the user to exercise a measure of discrimination towards their servermates in who they wish to interact with, and if the aforementioned attitudes and degeneracy is never checked by the staff, or worse, is encouraged, then that user will eventually leave, and will tell others about the behavior they witnessed, which is detrimental to the server and the users therein.
Muns- you have the right to better server ownership and collaboration with other muns, free from lechers and power-tripping staff. But do not conflate this with the staff performing their jobs and being stiff-handed about it. Not every staff member will be friendly; it should not be considered out of place for the staff to be diligent in their duties- after all, they're the ones keeping the riff-raff out, and keeping the server operating as usual. The exercise of basic respect is necessary to maintain order in a server, and it's your responsibility, as it is the staff's to exercise it.
Game Masters (GMs) and Admins
In the same manner, the GM/DM/Admin has their own responsibility- to create a Roleplaying world that is dynamic for the characters in the RP to develop in, and intriguing enough to encourage the Muns to stay, while providing an environment for the Muns to enjoy each other's company, and establish a quiet area to plan and interact, without the disruptions of day-to-day life. The users are not there to be your proxy punching bag, venting wall, passengers on a train, or stockade of carnal conquests. They are there to help you build a story, and you do them a diservice by neglecting that and serving only yourself. In the same manner that the players are not main characters, the World setting you have created does not revolve around you; your existence is primarily to provide the world, the lore, and the system, and maintain it to ensure entertainment for others. Your actions should speak far louder than your opinions, which if you have any that aren't pertinent to the development of the story, then keep them to yourself. I personally have a far greater bias against GMs/Admins than I do Muns, however I make it a point to be as fair and impartial as one can humanly perform in that regard, because Administrators should only exercise the least amount of force to encourage positive behaviors.
In that same regard, your responsibility is to the users, particularly when it comes to the quality of members in your server. You should exercise a modicum of inherent respect to new users, and expect that they can accomplish the prerequisites to joining, and offer help whenever possible. Do not involve personal friends in the server if they aren't willing to offer the same effort to developing your story as you are, and if you do involve your friends, make it explicitly clear that your relationship with them within the server should be professional first, and friendly second- neglecting this disclaimer will only lead to pronounced difficulty in the future. The same applies to romantic interests- do not involve yourself in the lives of others in a manner that isn't befitting of the relationship you have established with them as an administrator. Entanglements oftentimes create rifts in the leadership because favoritism soon becomes the norm between you and the other person, negating any barrier of respect and cordiality you have with other users. Ask yourself this question: "If my significant other is having a hard time with another user, is it in my right to punish the other user, even if they did something wrong?"
The answer, of course, is no. Even if you do everything in your power to neutralize the issue that doesn't involve punishment, that other user will always harbor a personal bias against both you and your S.O., which will eventually cause a rift, and particularly so if the other user has a good tongue- they could very well foment even more mistrust against you and your staff, as well as the S.O.- so don't engage in it. HOWEVER- if you and your S.O. created the server, then the two of you have to come to the mutual understanding that you will always have a wary eye cast upon your actions, and you should do your best to never bring your relationship to the public sphere within the server, as the more it's visible, the greater the chance that your users will have a bone to pick about it.
The one thing that has become a sticking point in the multitude of discussions relating to a Roleplaying group's identity and culture is the relationship between GM and Mun. Ideally, there's a relationship established between player and GM: One that encourages the player to perform better than the last time. So, sometimes there's an antagonistic vibe that comes from that- but it's purely from the perspective of a professional relationship- I want to turn you into a better writer, to inspire your creativity, and to give you an understanding of what the term 'mutual respect' means. The relationship between the GM and the players is one of collaboration and communication. The GM must be able to listen to the players' ideas, concerns, and feedback, and incorporate them into the game's narrative in a way that compliments your intent and vision for creating your universe. At the same time, the GM has the responsibility to ensure that the game remains balanced, fair, and enjoyable for everyone involved without compromising the agency of the players. I don't care if you have this 'badass' fight you're planning after you force everyone into a railroad travel section- if the users aren't having fun, then you have to find a way to make the mundane fun.
One of the potential benefits of a strong relationship between the GM and the players is the creation of a rich and engaging story. The GM can help to create a compelling narrative that engages the players and keeps them invested in the game as well as providing lore By providing interesting and challenging scenarios; the GM can help the players to develop their characters and create memorable moments that drive the story forward.
To build a better community, it is important for the GM to establish clear rules and guidelines that promote respect, communication, and collaboration. The GM should foster an environment where players feel safe to express their ideas and concerns and where conflicts can be resolved through dialogue and compromise. The GM should also be transparent and open about their decisions and the reasons behind them, and be willing to listen to feedback and make adjustments as needed.
Rules for the server should cover two aspects of the server's operation- Serverwide rules, and Roleplaying rules.
Server rules are designed to create regulations by which every user, including administrators are expected to follow. Guidelines relating to behavior, what users can expect from the staff in regards to character creation and enforcement of rules, allowed topics of dicussion in general chats, and other extracurricular behaviors expected of the users should be emphasized as important to the server's architecture. In turn, the RP rules apply specifically to character creation and character behavior within the RP. Do not tax the user with useless nit-pick. Do not over-complicate the rules in order to suit every user's need. Do not curate rules to suit your perception of 'comfortable'- your comfort isn't the focal point for the roleplay. Your comfort is a personal endeavor that you have to strive to maintain on your own time- not the server's. Demanding that users use 'pronouns', or some other useless fluff in regards to the user identity detracts from the whole reason you're roleplaying in the first place. Escapism. You are not yourself on the internet. You are a perception of data, pushed into a stream of consciousness that nobody but you cares about. Never expect to be offered any respect when you apply your own personal moral compass to a stranger on the internet; it's an irrelevant detail.
This website will continue in operation until hell freezes over or neocities croaks.
Website designed (poorly) by mothman47, 2023.