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State of the RPG Union
Jan. 22nd, 2007 12:31 amMy RPG/writing fixes seem to be drying up.
The Empire City Champions game in which I was playing Hell's Angel (a superheroine strongly modeled on my lovely and admirable wife) has come an end. It had slowly ground to a halt and the GM officially ended it a week or two ago. It ran for over a year, and that is--in my experience, anyhow--a pretty good run for a PbEM game.
On the other hand, I just joined a new game just starting up. Coast City Champions is another Champions game. My character is essentially Hell's Angel with a new name and the powers removed. (In this game, the GM will be assigning powers to the characters as part of the initial adventure, which revolves around the PCs being among the first supers to appear). So I have no idea what powers she'll have. It should be interesting.
Crossing_LostRP has been getting slower and slower as well. I realize that it can't be expected to proceed at the breakneck pace it had in the beginning (December 2005), but I fear that it may have mostly run its course. The game really suffered the Christmas/New Years holiday doldrums, which is not surprising, but it had slowed before that. I hope it will pick up again, and at least one thread is buzzing along (though I'm not really involved). Also the GM and I have a cunning plan for a Big Event which will take place in a couple of game days that I hope will rekindle the game.
But I know from long experience that if a game slows down too much I, at least, start to lose interest. I don't think I'm alone in that. The obsessive desire to read and post and read and post starts to flag as time goes by and there's less and less to read or respond to. If the amount of activity falls below a certain point, even when posts are made I find myself unable to care. I've dropped out of at least a couple of PbEM games for just that reason; they moved with such glacial slowness that when emails did finally turn up on my inbox, I just didn't give a damn. I had moved on to other interests and couldn't muster the enthusiasm to remember what was going on and why I should care.
New Dawn has struggled from the beginning with a number of flakey players. Players show up, introduce characters, then vanish. Or post once in a blue moon. Or show up, introduce characters, and then sit there like knots on a log, taking no initiative and (seemingly) waiting for an engraved invitation to join in ongoing threads. Sometimes it feels like it's mostly just me and the GM with occasional guest appearances by other players.
Five Years Found is even newer and is moving very slowly as well. It's an interesting concept (a kinda, sorta alternate-universe sequel to Crossing_LostRP) but I think we've gotten bogged down in a single time and place. There's plenty of room for other threads following other characters than those involved in the one based in Stargate: Atlantis. I'm as guilty of that as anyone else. I really need to post something with Ash's adventures in Hollywood.
Still, it isn't all bad. This drastic drop in the amount of time I'm spending writing in these various games means I have more time--and more interest--in writing some fiction. I've actually started writing the follow-up to Death and Taxes, a Dead Like Me/Highlander crossover. I may actually get around to writing the Dead Like Me/Columbo crossover too. Then there's I, Cordelia, a Buffy/Highlander crossover I started once. Or the DLM crossovers I've contemplated with Supernatural, Medium and Grey's Anatomy (not all at once, though that could be weirdly entertaining I suppose).
I also occasionally have an urge to start a PbEM game of my own. But I generally lie down until it goes away. I suspect it would be more fun in theory than in practice, and I spend plenty enough time in front of the PC as it is (as my lovely and talented wife![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
snippy would attest).
The Empire City Champions game in which I was playing Hell's Angel (a superheroine strongly modeled on my lovely and admirable wife) has come an end. It had slowly ground to a halt and the GM officially ended it a week or two ago. It ran for over a year, and that is--in my experience, anyhow--a pretty good run for a PbEM game.
On the other hand, I just joined a new game just starting up. Coast City Champions is another Champions game. My character is essentially Hell's Angel with a new name and the powers removed. (In this game, the GM will be assigning powers to the characters as part of the initial adventure, which revolves around the PCs being among the first supers to appear). So I have no idea what powers she'll have. It should be interesting.
Crossing_LostRP has been getting slower and slower as well. I realize that it can't be expected to proceed at the breakneck pace it had in the beginning (December 2005), but I fear that it may have mostly run its course. The game really suffered the Christmas/New Years holiday doldrums, which is not surprising, but it had slowed before that. I hope it will pick up again, and at least one thread is buzzing along (though I'm not really involved). Also the GM and I have a cunning plan for a Big Event which will take place in a couple of game days that I hope will rekindle the game.
But I know from long experience that if a game slows down too much I, at least, start to lose interest. I don't think I'm alone in that. The obsessive desire to read and post and read and post starts to flag as time goes by and there's less and less to read or respond to. If the amount of activity falls below a certain point, even when posts are made I find myself unable to care. I've dropped out of at least a couple of PbEM games for just that reason; they moved with such glacial slowness that when emails did finally turn up on my inbox, I just didn't give a damn. I had moved on to other interests and couldn't muster the enthusiasm to remember what was going on and why I should care.
New Dawn has struggled from the beginning with a number of flakey players. Players show up, introduce characters, then vanish. Or post once in a blue moon. Or show up, introduce characters, and then sit there like knots on a log, taking no initiative and (seemingly) waiting for an engraved invitation to join in ongoing threads. Sometimes it feels like it's mostly just me and the GM with occasional guest appearances by other players.
Five Years Found is even newer and is moving very slowly as well. It's an interesting concept (a kinda, sorta alternate-universe sequel to Crossing_LostRP) but I think we've gotten bogged down in a single time and place. There's plenty of room for other threads following other characters than those involved in the one based in Stargate: Atlantis. I'm as guilty of that as anyone else. I really need to post something with Ash's adventures in Hollywood.
Still, it isn't all bad. This drastic drop in the amount of time I'm spending writing in these various games means I have more time--and more interest--in writing some fiction. I've actually started writing the follow-up to Death and Taxes, a Dead Like Me/Highlander crossover. I may actually get around to writing the Dead Like Me/Columbo crossover too. Then there's I, Cordelia, a Buffy/Highlander crossover I started once. Or the DLM crossovers I've contemplated with Supernatural, Medium and Grey's Anatomy (not all at once, though that could be weirdly entertaining I suppose).
I also occasionally have an urge to start a PbEM game of my own. But I generally lie down until it goes away. I suspect it would be more fun in theory than in practice, and I spend plenty enough time in front of the PC as it is (as my lovely and talented wife
snippy would attest).