[FEEDBACK] Roleplay Events and Character Enrichment

[skinstealer]

here comes another feedback thread- i'm looking into trying to get things a bit more cohesive around here in terms of community involvement when it comes to fan characters, and want to know what y'all think about both some new ideas and how things currently are. we have a ton of characters in the community, and some are more developed than others- some people are more content to collect, while others like making more extensive stories for their characters. some people prefer buying designs made by official team members, and others prefer to make their own. some people prefer to make their own morbit fan species and regions, and others prefer to stick to canon. it's very important to us that we make features and events that accommodate for community members of all kinds, so your feedback here is really important no matter what angle you take! 

we're definitely interested in more roleplay events and chatrooms, but our current issue is that we are busy with projects and our own lives- but getting people to remain consistent and engaged with our existing ones as is seems to be a challenge. we want to find ways to motivate people to stay engaged with the existing roleplays that we have going on both on the forums and on discord, but in addition, we'd like to encourage people to make new threads of their own and help enrich the community. we know this is kind of a "you can lead horses to water but cant make them drink" situation though, and as much as i say that i want this to happen, i can't force anybody to make threads. it'd be especially helpful if people could tell us Why they either are or aren't motivated to make or post in roleplay or game threads.

to help motivate roleplay in the forums, we're considering making some utilities to help generate prompts that we'd be posting on a daily and weekly basis. the daily prompts would go in the public broadcasts chat, and would be very simple and flexible in nature, meant to be ideal for sparking ideas for roleplay for those looking for something new to do. the weekly prompts would be much more complex and would require a bit more setup and fine tuning on our part, and would involve setting up a "room" thread- a setting open to a specific number of players with a prompt for being in said setting, as well as a set of prompts for interaction, and perhaps some set pieces to interact with while there. an example molasses came up with while we were developing the idea was a cafe that characters could stop by along their respective, long roadside journeys, with a waiter host character and questions for discussion amongst themselves. upon meeting a goal set for the room, a reward could be given to all participants, typically in the form of unlocking something for the canon such as a new object design, flora design, fauna design, location, etc.  

we want to organize sales, raffles, giveaways and games that involve prizes so that they provide the best community experience possible for people. currently, the plans for events and features that allow you to win/acquire things relating to characters involve characters themselves, clothing, and objects/furniture. worldbuilding elements and illustrations/other art are obviously other things that you can also purchase and obtain, but for the sake of focus, i want to center this on things directly related to what a character would have in-universe. the current setup is that people can get new kinds of outfits and objects designed both for personal use and as designs that other people can get custom recolors/variations of (similar to commissioning TCP types/species morphs), and we're going to continue with that- but we're curious about what kinds of other ways people are curious about obtaining and displaying these goods. 

following up on that, we want to encourage people to use character profiles/character hoards more, but we're not sure how to do that/how to make it more engaging or enjoyable. we'd like to someday down the line make a proper system for this if not a database of our own, but that's a long way away and not within our current reach, so input on that would be great.

forum games would also be a great way to enrich and distribute characters if we could figure out new ways to do so, such as mystery gift or things like the advent calendar raffles- we are very open to ideas, and encourage people to introduce and run their own as well. 

you can answer as many or as little of the questions as you like, and all of your feedback is very appreciated!

• how do you interact in the community with your characters currently?
  
• how would you like to interact in the community with your characters?
  
• what do you feel like the community is lacking in terms of character activity options?
  
• what kind of roleplay events would be most interesting to you? (official OR fan-run)
  
• what kind of sale/raffle/giveaway/other acquisition events of characters/outfits/items/etc would be most interesting to you?
  
• what kind of character-related forum games would be most interesting to you?
  
• what ways could we improve the character profile/character hoard system?
  
• would you be interested in the weekly prompt idea? what stands out to you about it, and where could it be improved?
  
• would you be interested in the daily prompt idea? what stands out to you about it, and where could it be improved?
  

[seppawku]

currently.. i rly don’t interact as much as i’d like to! i’m in the gauntlet and the rp server, but discord and the chat threads move a bit fast for me most of the time;; i like the mission rps, though! and the festival when that happened was super fun. i guess i have the easiest time with prose threads- even short ones, that’s nice and relaxing- with a clear goal. i’ve always really liked uuh! rps that have some rng to them, too, i was on way too many warriors forums as a kid and it’s just a fun way to handle battle or other things where nobody has to worry they’re godmodding, cos there’s something concrete for results. the weekly threads sound super fun, my energy levels are uuuh hit or miss but if they did happen every so often, i’m sure i’d be able to join one eventually and that’s neat! same w/ the dailies. fan-run or official doesn’t make much difference to me, i just think they’re neat. (maybe a cool forum game thingie for tcp overpopulation would be a hybrid-izer? text or images, but u could toss in either two of yours, or whatever else people wanted to do.. very tempting frankly i may come back to that idea when im not dealing w/ school) uuuhh also i personally know replying to threads just slips my mind sometimes or i set it aside for when i have spoons, and i don’t mind being pinged for it but i bet some way that’s a lil less.. confrontational..? would make it easier on others. a thread w/ active rps and members listed, u bump when u have posted so people know? idk that might be double posting..

i think the character hoard system is okay once u sit down and work thru urs, but everyone has a *lot* and it’s kinda time/energy heavy.. not too sure how to fix that tho rip?

would absolutely love to obtain either canon unlocks or items/clothes, maybe i can get more invested in some of my charas that way!

[BlueCrowned]

• how do you interact in the community with your characters currently?
  

Roleplay and posting art

• how would you like to interact in the community with your characters?
  

More "physical" RP; we have a lot of chat rooms but i feel like those can only go so far. Something with a bit of plot and more interaction rather than a general chat room. The chat room threads always seem to die out really quickly. That's not to say I don't enjoy them though, I just am not sure how to get them going a bit better.

• what do you feel like the community is lacking in terms of character activity options
  
  Same as above mainly
  
  
• what kind of roleplay events would be most interesting to you? (official OR fan-run)
  
  Pretty much anything
  
  
• what kind of sale/raffle/giveaway/other acquisition events of characters/outfits/items/etc would be most interesting to you?
  
  Outfits and items for existing characters primarily but I'd be interested in new characters too
  
  
• what kind of character-related forum games would be most interesting to you?
  
  Maybe art RPGs?
  
  
• what ways could we improve the character profile/character hoard system?
  
  None at the moment I think, though one option you could do is something like the wiki just for fan characters
  
  
• would you be interested in the weekly prompt idea? what stands out to you about it, and where could it be improved?
  
  Yes! I like the idea as is
  
  
• would you be interested in the daily prompt idea? what stands out to you about it, and where could it be improved?
  
  Same, I like this idea!
  

[victorianflorist]

how do you interact in the community with your characters currently?

I mostly RP but oftentimes the activities of those RP tend to slope off as time goes on. There are many reasons for this, and many of them are beyond anyone's control. I also write a lot about my characters. But most of my info doesn't see the public, as I'm not comfortable sharing all of it or saving it as a reveal about my character. The latter applies mostly to my deity characters.

how would you like to interact in the community with your characters?

Im always up for more RP, I've always tried my best to encourage RP and have run quite a few events myself. I.e. abandonment, hemorrhage escape, the artist chat room, etc. But unfortunately I run into the problem of having other obligations, especially my job and my classes, that get in the way of running and designing anything. I also love simply writing things about my characters for others to read but a lack of engagement can be very disheartening. It takes a lot of spoons to write anything some times, and without feedback or any reaction, it becomes hard to muster up the spoons to continue when I could try something else.

what do you feel like the community is lacking in terms of character activity options?

I do feel like it's still rather hard to flesh out characters in a way that feels faithful to the worldbuilding of morbit, that problem has begun to dissolve as the wiki becomes more fleshed out but its still hard to contextualize characters in the physical space of morbit without these specific locations we've only recently been able to receive. I can made sweeping statements about a character being a poet, but without knowledge about their physical surroundings and local social norms, I can't create works that feel authentic to the character. The same goes for understanding a character's space and day to day activities, I can say thar Happen Stance lives above a light store in Wonder, but what does he spend his day doing all day. Without context, I can't write those things and I don't want to presume anything about a town and local area that isn't mine to craft.

what kind of roleplay events would be most interesting to you? (official OR fan-run)

I'd like to see more one shot style events, similar to my hemorrhage escape. I think a lot of us fall prey to our hubris when planning something *cough* abandonment having 25 players plus an audience that became its own set of players *cough* so I'd love to see more short, meaningful stories that we could tell together

what kind of sale/raffle/giveaway/other acquisition events of characters/outfits/items/etc would be most interesting to you?
what kind of character-related forum games would be most interesting to you?

I'm a huge fan of outfits and items. Im hesitant to suggest it but it may even be an idea to offer room or apartment commissions? Maybe with the space designed in the sims and then morbit-ified. Just a thought. With characters, I'm reluctant to pick up anymore. And the ones that I do want I usually commission specifically.

what ways could we improve the character profile/character hoard system?

I have a personal storage of my characters, and don't really make use of the character profile/hoard system. I tried but all the formatting can be clunky and time consuming. I don't really know what could be revised to make me use it more frequently. :/

would you be interested in the weekly prompt idea? what stands out to you about it, and where could it be improved?
would you be interested in the daily prompt idea? what stands out to you about it, and where could it be improved?

I think it has merit, I can't be sure if I'll make use of it. It sounds similar to the function storyteller has and that unfortunately isn't used much. I can't say for certain until I've seen it in action. :/

[BlueCrowned]

Puck, I agree with what you said about fleshing out characters. I'm hesitant to write anything about my characters or give them any more than a vague backstory because I have almost nothing to reference. Obviously that means work for Rin so I'm not out to pressure them or anything like that, I just have a hard time knowing exactly how my characters live and interact with their world with no context and I feel like I shouldn't come up with headcanons about something like this when Rin is planning on fleshing things out more.

[King-Clod]

• how do you interact in the community with your characters currently?
  

Minimally- most of my characters aren't well fleshed out or are from scrapped projects/projects on hiatus. Sometimes I let one of them loose in Pickled Corvice but they uuusually have a bad time and never return (that's completely my fault though, I only remember that I can use them in Pickled Corvice when I see a conversation around something they're passionate about...which usually leads to an argument, or them getting upset in some fashion.) The art thread was fun though, as was the Singed Saloon and Divine TCP thread.

• how would you like to interact in the community with your characters?
  

I do enjoy the chatrooms, I feel like more specific chatrooms (in moderation, maybe 1 or 2) for specific pieces of Morb Media or other subcultures could go a long way for getting engagement- while the Pickled Corvice is good for lore drops or general chatter, I often find my characters not really having a reason to post there. A lot of what I would suggest here seems to be covered by the weekly threads, actually- physical locations that characters have a specific reason for being in, with items (and possibly secrets?) they can interact with. Other than that, maybe a thread that is focused on combat? No idea how that would work though. Would take a lot more structure than other roleplays - both for the moderator and people building their character's stats - so it might be more trouble than it's worth.

• what do you feel like the community is lacking in terms of character activity options?
  

I feel it's hard, for my characters at least, to really make friendships with other people's characters.

• what kind of roleplay events would be most interesting to you? (official OR fan-run)
  

Something akin to speed-dating, but that isn't necessarily romantic- it focuses on characters making connections, and can help people interweave their character's stories if they hit it off. If they don't hit it off, it's speedy, and they can always move on to the next person to chat with. Probably wouldn't work on the forums though, forums are better with slower chats without too many conversations going on at the same time.

A duel arena! It can be fun to set up weird duels and show of your character's weirdly specific abilities- and it can be fun to watch, too!

More mission structured events like TCPDex, but for characters who aren't TCPs.

A masquerade dinner/dance maybe? With shenanigans, of course.

• what kind of sale/raffle/giveaway/other acquisition events of characters/outfits/items/etc would be most interesting to you?
  

Something my characters can use and show off later in rp - such as a simple hoodie or bracelet that can go over any outfit, or objects people would generally have on them, such as a wallets, phone cases, or wearable stim toys.

• what kind of character-related forum games would be most interesting to you?
  

I'm a little confused with this question, what would a character related forum game look like?

• would you be interested in the weekly prompt idea? what stands out to you about it, and where could it be improved?
  

I'm really really excited about the weekly prompt idea. I only worry that it may become something difficult to keep up with weekly if it has to be a new and interactive room every time, would biweekly or monthly events work better?

• would you be interested in the daily prompt idea? what stands out to you about it, and where could it be improved?
  

Looks good to me! A lot of days people won't interact with them though, I think, no one can rp every day. I do worry that participation with them would die down as a whole after a month because of that.

Last comment of mine, I think something that could help a lot with having more fanmade threads would be a thread for fans to collaborate/ask for help on big projects they're making or are currently running.