Hey all,

I wanted to share a few thoughts that I have been having lately with you all regarding the past several RPs.

Over the past month or so there seems to be a lack of energy or a lack of interest in terms of what the RP does. I'm seeing a lot of RPers tune into the RP around the start time of a session but often sitting in the background quietly and eventually switching pearls or logging off completely or I sometimes am told that certain days will never work for people but then I see them online doing other stuff.

First of all I want to express to everyone that no one has to do RP. It's all 100% voluntary and if you would rather do other things IRL, in the game, etc, you have no commmitment to ToV that should take greater precedence than your desire to be there and RP. If you were to leave, we'd all be sad to see you go, but you shouldn't do something that you don't want to do. So feel free to skip RPs that you don't feel like you would like to participate in, or take breaks from the RP if you need, whatever you need. You are here to have fun, not work.

Having talked with a lot of you I get the sense though that a lot of people are still finding themselves lost in-character or not getting stimulated by the events that are often planned… and I have a couple comments and ideas that I hope you will all take to heart because I think it can help us to make a better RP.

1. Bring your own plans!

As I said above, I have noticed a lot of RPers who pop into the shell at the start of an RP and end up leaving at some point, in many cases without doing any RPing. To me, I take this to mean that an RPer comes to the shell with an interest in RPing, and whatever we seem to be doing in the RP on that day doesn't seem to be interesting to them and they get bored and leave. I've seen this happen on days when I don't plan anything specifically and on days that I do.

With regards to this, I'm not offended if other people want to do other things in the RP, or aren't interested in some of the kinds of events that I propose. With some exceptions though I am usually the one who dictates what the RP is going to do (I get a lot of, "So what are we doing today?" questions at the start of an RP). I think putting me in this role is ultimately bad for the RP in the long-term and should be avoided, because I'm not always going to be coming up with ideas for content for RPs that people are either going to like or even care a little about. Just being realistic.

That being said, I think it would be best for all the RPers to assume that I, or the others, are bringing nothing to the RP table in terms of activities for the RP socials. You all have very fascinating characters that deserve more than to just be the follower of some crazed Avina chick. We want to know what your character is doing! Your characters are complex, they have lives, and things that are important to them. Speaking for myself, I feel that Avina as a character has grown distant from the others because she is often put into the role of initiator. This has made her very objective-focused because she's always needing to direct.

So, I suggest, that for each RP everyone should be brainstorming the days prior to the RP for things their character would be doing or for potential ideas for things for us to do in the RP. You may end up brainstorming an awesome idea that we won't use immediately, but then we can save it for the next RP, etc. I think if everyone is trying to put their hand in to do some event planning that we could almost always have a large variety of things to do.

2. Idling

Kind of going along with what I said above, people still seem to be struggling to think of what to do during an RP if they come and have no ideas on what their character should or should not be doing.

Generally speaking, we established the area in Lower Jeuno as the RP character hangout, so if you are unsure of how to jump in, go there! Your character can be there to just hang out, to check the company board, to talk over with others… bottom line is you don't really need a great or wonderful reason to be there, just go and hang! A lot of people lately have been skipping using this resource as the 'go-to' place when you are lacking ideas, which ends up taking you out of social interactions and the 'chat RPs,' and thus will make you seem distant.

Additionally, I think as a general rule, because of what I just said above, it's really not appropriate to log in for RP and AFK your character at the group hang-out. People will be going there to actively RP, and it throws that off if people are afking there, and it's also generally not great to AFK during an event without a warning.