poly_tldr | Question

‘Ello Poly~ I’m currently in sociology in college and we need to write a few small papers for extra credit points. One of the subjects mentioned were gender stereotypes, such as girls don’t play video games or boys don’t play with dolls, the stereotype of what society views should happen. I’d like to write about RP’ing, I’ve found that generally (at least with RL people I know) RP is thought to be a “guys” thing.

So I need some basis of statistics to go off of, so if you don’t mind can you please leave a comment with your gender?

To be clear this is optional, it’s not a huge deal as I don’t need the extra credit to pass or event get a great grade, you’re lj name will not be mentioned, your online name/real name won’t be, and where I got the info won’t be mentioned. Basically all I need is a number in real life to go off of, the number won’t event be mentioned. I just need to know which side to go with, if it’s completely absurd to think that girls don’t rp (which is what I think XD) or if it’s fairly accurate.

If you’re not comfortable with telling your gender, don’t worry about it! The last thing I want is anyone to feel uncomfortable so don’t feel like you have to!

Thanks for reading~

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

My mistake, then. Have you ever tried tabletop-style RPing yourself?

No, I'll admit I'm social phobic (literally, diagnosed) and I have no friends at all since high school and am too afraid to attempt to go to join in some group or attempt to. I'm a loser really haha I've always wanted to though, besides the part that involves numbers it's always seemed really interesting.

It's possible to do a tabletop game without numbers or rules. The key is that there has to be a story, driven by someone with notes and a mental picture of the game setting; otherwise the game descends into chaos (at least, that's my personal experience).

One thing I always miss from a game like Poly is meaningful interaction with NPCs. In LJ RP, usually players control NPCs themselves, to the degree necessary; and, since that's open to abuse, the degree is as small as possible. In gamemaster-led RP games, usually the players function as a group or team, and so there's interaction within the group but also between the group and the environment (played by the GM).

So, they're very different in a lot of ways. I haven't played a synchronous or tabletop-style RPG in a very long time; they're difficult to play and impossible to organize. They can be really great if everyone is on the same page, though.

Sounds like a lot of fun. I'd love to try but I'd never get up the nerve unless I knew someone. Event then I'd have a hard time.

What would make them impossible to organize?

Oh, wow, where to even begin. Number one is time. Everyone involved has to play at the same time, for the same length of time. There are things you can do to make it a little bit more flexible, but basically, substantially all the players have to be present (physically present, except for on an internet game). And not just present, but participating; on an internet game, it's easier to get people together, but if any one person isn't engaged in any particular moment, they're more likely to have their attention wander than to find a way they can participate in a scene (in person, this is less of a problem and people will be more aggressive about participating).

Number two is that all the players have to be on the same page as far as ruleset, genre, seriousness level, and how to roleplay in general. There are always SOME rules, even if only to the degree that a game like Poly has rules, and if you want a ruleset on top of that (which can add important dimensions of scorekeeping, realism and fairness to the game) then everyone has to be familiar with that. The players have to all be interested in the same genre, obviously, but even moreso they have to be interested in the same seriousness level. It's possible to convince a steampunk player to play space opera but it's really not possible to have someone who wants to play a one-eyed, one-legged prostitute "for the lulz" and someone who wants to play out a serious medieval drama with serious characters in the same game. And people have to know how to roleplay, which is an issue on internet games like this but is even more of an issue when there are only four players in the game and everyone is regularly put on the spot to RP in turn.

And, of course, the time issue limits the candidate pool so much that it's hard to pick and choose.

Three, there has to be a game world and the GM has to know it. For a "fish out of water" game the GM has to know the world, and for every other kind of game all the players have to more or less know it to.

Four, the GM has to be good at GMing, which is an extremely difficult social skill that can only be acquired by attempting to, and failing to, GM multiple disastrous games.

So, yeah. It's... very, very hard to get a successful game running. That doesn't mean I don't regularly try to do so, because the rewards can be so great. But I'm probably batting about .133 this decade so far.

Wow that is really complicated. Would it be possible for a game to be stopped mid-way and then picked up another day? Or would that just make things event more complicated?

It sounds like there has to be a lot of pre-planning involved in it. Are there ever games where the GM rotates or something? That seems like an awful lot of work for one person and a lot of responsibility. I guess though if the person really loves it it wouldn't matter.

In most cases games either take many sessions or are actually open-ended. This only makes the time issue more complicated since people have to be present consistently. Most games move really slow, particularly if a turn-based or dice-based ruleset is used, so trying to finish a story in one session would be grueling.

GMs have a lot of options to lighten the planning burden. Really, the hardest part about being a GM is actually playing (keeping the game moving and improvising so the players feel they have freedom of movement within the game), and the planning is more of the fun part. But for GMs who don't like writing or worldbuilding, you can buy "canned" adventures or campaigns, complete with maps, NPCs, premade player characters for players who don't want to design their own, really all sorts of stuff. There's a big market for books like that.

Rotating GMs is also an option, but actual competent GMing is such a difficult social skill to master that it's often best to stick with one person who knows his or her stuff. Of course, the experience level of the players matters a lot there as well.

Oh, that's another thing - these kinds of games are exclusively OC. I've never played a fan-based tabletop game. It's not impossible, but that's just how it is. One of the functions of the ruleset is to give players freedom to create their own characters, but in line with basic restrictions on power levels and the like. Without a ruleset, it's much harder to keep the characters balanced so that they all have a role in the game.

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