I drift to and from this website and so really couldn't be called a regular visitor to these forums. I do stop in from time to time, see what RPG's are going on at the moment, etc.
I'm going to bring up another issue (as the only issue I see raised at the moment is the one about the newer role players that play on the forums) that I'm pretty sure you all realise, but nothing really seems to be done about it.
I'm talking about how 100% of RPGs here die, mostly due to inactivity. (If one has actually finished please let me know, and I'll edit the 100% to a 99%)
Other forums I visit don't have this as a major issue, and I'm just going to list a couple of differences between Serebii and them, that may help the longitivity of the RPGs on the forums here. They also may not, but I think its a good idea to list them anyway.
Most GMs here make characters in there own RPGs. On other RPG forums I visit, the GMs don't. This could be because the RPGs are different here, as the forums I mentioned Roleplay using some kind of system to create characters, do combat, etc, such as the Dungeons and Dragons D20 system, and controlling the system is time consuming enough, without having a character to worry about as well.
Instead, they take on the role of a narrator if you like. Instead of just letting the players loose on their RPG, they narrate what they encounter.
For example, I'll take a normal trainer RPG and show you how I mean.
Here is an example of a normal post (albiet a really bad one) normally found here at Serebii.
John E. Poster said:
Bob walks down the road leaving Pallet town, having just recieved his first pokemon ever, a Charmander he has named Flame. All along the side of the road is big tall grass that Bob knows pokemon hide in. Eager to test his mettle as a pokemon trainer, the young man looks around for any pokemon to battle. Spotting a Pidgey all by itself, Bob throws Flame's pokemon forward, releasing the fire pokemon from it's travelling space.
<insert pokemon battle>
Bob throws a pokeball at the unconscious Pidgey and it changes into red energy, sucked inside the ball. The ball wobbles once, twice, three times then lies silent, indicating that Bob has captured the flying pokemon.
The GM has absolutely no say in what pokemon appears, if he catches it, or how the battle as a whole goes. Now follows the norm at the previously mentioned forums that I visit, again using the same basic trainer RPG.
John E. Poster said:
Bob walks down the road leaving Pallet town, having just recieved his first pokemon ever, a Charmander he has named Flame. All along the side of the road is big tall grass that Bob knows pokemon hide in. Eager to test his mettle as a pokemon trainer, the young man looks around for any pokemon to battle.
GM said:
Bob has an indepth search for any signs of movement among the tall grass, and out of the corner of his eye, spots some rustling in the grass to his left. Upon closer inspection, Bob finds a lone rattata, pecking and scratching the ground.
John E. Poster said:
Bob pulls a pokeball from his waist and throws it in front of the rattata, releasing Flame from inside.
"Flame use <insert several moves here>!"
The battle would continue, the player probably giving a few moves at a time, as not to make the posts too short.
These examples obviously lacked description, but with little effort description could be added so they fall within the rules of the forum.
I'm not telling you all to start GMing your games like this, you can ignore this post if you wish, this may not even go towards helping the situation, I am just saying what is different between the RPGs here at Serebii, and other forums I visit that don't have so many RPGs dying due to inactivity. In the new example I posted, people don't know exactly what the GM is going to throw at them, and so adds that little bit of excitement and intrigue for the player who wants to post more, to see what the GM is going to pull from his or her sleeve next.
The next big thing that I notice the difference of, is post length. On serebii, so many people are fantasic writers, many of whom write fan-fics also, and can make very long and drawn out posts, not unlike a fan-fic chapter. I have dabbled in fan-fic writing once or twice, I had the ideas there, but I really couldn't keep the length up and I was told so. I myself feel kind of pressured to write phenomenally lengthy posts to keep up with the other players, when perhaps I could get the message across of what my character is doing in a paragraph or two. Again, I'm not asking anyone to change their writing style in any way, shape or form, as for all I know, this could be a problem that only I possess, and no one else feels this way, but if anyone else out there feels overwhelmed by the amount of writing some people do just to say their character wakes up from being unconscious, you're not alone. If anyone realises that they may write a little bit more than they need to get get their point across, and maybe want to tone it down a little so some people don't feel so intimidated, then just cut that extra sentence from your paragraph that just explains in more depth what you just described, avoid using several different terms to describe a tree when one or two will suffice.
It is true that challenges bring out the best in us, and that by having other people that can write longer and more detailed posts can help us improve our own writing, but on the same token, I feel that some people take description a little too far, and have several paragraphs of descriptive writing to the one paragraph of saying what your character is actually doing.
Like I mentioned several times previously, something I can't stress enough, I don't want make people feel they need to change how they go about participating in RPGs because they have too. But if you think maybe changing a little something in your style of GMing or posting length could help people stick around an RPG, by all means try it. If you disagree with everything I have said, and try one or more of my methods just to prove me wrong, then by all means, go ahead. Or if you just want to step outside your comfort zone, mix things up a bit, just take things for a test run, again, it's all yours.
Maybe that's the reason. The GMs are the ones who accept/reject a person from their RPG. So yeah...