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[jc6036]

Sometimes, a game will be going, and it seems fine. But then,out of the blue, it dies. Either all of the players quit or the gm gives up. Or, theres only ever 2 or 3 people playing at once. I realize that the latter may be because of timezones / restriction, but still. Why is this?

[Fniff]

Well, here is my theory.

There are three types of players.

Dedicated Players: These guys will still post as long as the thread is still living. They care about the plot, and such.
Normal Players: They play for fun. They will abandon it if the GM is a bastard or if the game is hard.
The Fool Players: They aren't dumb, but they post really stupid suggestions once and never play again.

You can decide which one you are. Still, the rarest are the dedicated players, which is why there is probably only two or three on each thread. So, yeah.

[Armok]

It varies I think, but one of the most common modes is that there is some function critical to it's momentum that only one of the participants actually fulfil, but then tier schedule changes or they get bored or they stop visiting the site or they stop playing for some other reason, and then everyone else who wants to keep playing can't because they run out of things to react to.

The most obvious case is if it's the GM, but there's also plenty of suggestion games where only one player actualy followed to plot well enough to be able to give good suggestions, or games where only one player constantly commented on how awesome it was and thus motivated everyone else, etc. A lot of these are very subtle, with someone providing some kind of indirect wordless inspiration for other player suggestions and nobody including that key player notice s/he is doing anything special, and even when it disappears it's not noticed but instead people just find themselves with no instant ideas or inspiration.

At least, that's one theory. I don't really have any way of verifying this experimentally.

[Strife26]

It's mostly momentum, in my experience.

A GM starts running his game, it's fresh new and exciting! Updates as often as possible!

However, at some point in time, his schedule gets messed up, people seem like they're less excited about the game, and he *still* hasn't gotten around to updating the information in the first post. So he stops updating. Now this might change if someone PM's him or posts in the thread, but it'd be even better if a real discussion between multiple people opened up in the thread.



Totally going to update my forum game in 24 hours. Seriously.

[Johnfalcon99977]

Yes, I know, its messed up, but thats how it is.

All GMs feel the pain of never finishing. The only one that has ever been finished in my mind was by Retro, and he got Perma banned.

The only Forums games that ever finish are ones that:
1. The GM always stays interested in, and stays at a good enough difficulty, while being kind and/or funny enough..
2. People keep providing good suggestions for, and also do not try and derail.
3. Is Interesting and well done enough to stay alive.

Very rarely do these 3 elements come together. However, everyone once in a Blue Moon, one Forum game gets lucky enough, and manages to survive. And finish.

But, its so rare it may as well be a one in a million chance.

[anzki4]

Pretty much what everyone else said.

Recently I have gotten bored of one of my own forum games (idea was not polished enough), one lacked participants and one suggestion game died due no suggestions being posted. Also two forum games I took part as a player, died because of GM's.

And Strife26; if you ever continue White Rabbit, I'll be on board 

[jc6036]

I was wondering because in keeping up with bay12, there is like 5 people with apartments that are never seen.

[anzki4]

I was wondering because in keeping up with bay12, there is like 5 people with apartments that are never seen.

What?!

Nevermind. Checked the thread and it made bit more sense... Carry on.

[kilakan]

well basic Forum Games themselves are alot harder to keep running and active, especially the passive role-playing ones with no real goals.  As a GM you really need a story to work towards, that way if you hit a boring update, well you can throw in some random plot advancement and it keeps it interesting.  As for actually ENDING that only really happens if there is a set goal, which 99% of forum games tend to not have.

[jc6036]

In keeping up with bay 12, the players generally come up with any sort of story. But most of the time insane stuff happens.

[vagel7]

One thing that puts me seriously off is the fact that a lot of people make real stupid suggestions, like in the new one with the toaster prince. That can probably put other people off and the GM aswell. Some though just die out of the blue. Maybe GM not being interested or all the players gone, like happened in the space freeform game.

[Dsarker]

Toast Prince was the best. You just did not get it.

[BunnyBob77]

You don't understand the beauty of the toaster prince.

[Fenrir]

I am fairly sure that the Prince of Toast thread started as something that was not serious anyway.

[TherosPherae]

The Prince of Toast thread started as open-ended as you could get - I wanted it to be something the forum could take interest in, as opposed to making something stupid that nobody would play ever. It could've been serious, it could've been silly, it could've been anything. And I have no clue in the slightest where it's going - it will be tossed about in the seas by the storm of the forum, kept from blowing into the realm of the completely frickin' retarded solely by the gravity of its GM.