How many people are interested in RPG forums?

[Commander]

I'm asking because I can see a market here that people are really missing out on.
Why keep creating webmaster type forums that almost every forum now creates.
A role play forum can be moulded into literally anything....a bit like a dream. 😎
You can create something completely unique out of a simple concept...an idea.
And turn it into a full-on discussion that becomes fun for everyone to join in. 😉
Let's be honest, have you ever considered being part of a role play community?
I seem to notice that, here on FP, there's not all that many role play communities.
Yet the few that ARE are extremely active. All you need is an idea. You're the artist.
Why make gaming forums or webmaster forums about things that already exist? 😉
Why not create something new? People like games a lot more than gaming forums.
The game is the creation, yet the forum merely provides an opportunity to discuss it.
A role play forum is a game, played by words and characters (members) to act it out.
It's incredible what you can do with words. What do you think guys? 😎

 

[Migi]

The idea is brilliant, really. I had tried it once myself and failed. I think it's basically because not everyone is interested in that much writing and imagination. People differs, and writing and imagination is some kind of talent and skill to its own, IMO. It's about how you connect with other members, building worlds and settings, which are not easy to do unless you have clear ideas in mind and are willing to spend time designing, imagining, and writing all those ideas in RPG forums.

I really like the idea, but it's just not for me. 🙂 Good luck with your project!

 

[Casper]

I've joined a couple of RPG forums, and if done well, could produce a ton of activity and a lot of fun 🙂

 

[VirusZero]

I own a roleplay site myself (though a slightly different style than what a lot of roleplayers are used to. I have a multi-genre site where dozens of different types of roleplays occur. Like right now we have one for The Matrix, an original post apocalyptic future set in Kansas, Megaman X, etc...) and I like roleplay sites. (Roleplay admins? Topic for another time.)


I think part of the reason there aren't many roleplays listed here is because (like I mentioned here and all of which still hold true even over a year later) and not to be rude or disrespectful to FP or FP's staff, but a lot of the services offered here just don't interest roleplayers or benefit them.

To expand on the point I made in that linked post about services not being beneficial...

Spoiler

Consider the post packages, even if a roleplay site owner wanted to get post packages (or post exchanges) from here, most people wouldn't want to bother with creating a character and actually playing on the site. (So that ends usefulness and possibility of this being effective pretty much right from the beginning.)

Packages/exchanges tend to be utterly useless for most roleplay sites because roleplayers only care about posts in the roleplay sections. And then they typically want very high quality replies, much higher than what are often given here. (I mean a 2-3 line topic might be great starter for discussions and might be considered a high quality topic... but telling a story? That's often barely enough for an intro. Not to mention a lot of roleplay sites have word counts of like 150-300 words per post. Which means post packages and exchanges would take much longer to do.)

Supposing that a roleplay was ok with letting posts go only in the OOC section... (Which some roleplay sites might only have a single forum or sub-forum dedicated to OOC chat.) The expectation is that section won't be seeing a ton of activity. So roleplayers aren't fussed if it goes 3-4 months with very few posts there. And many times roleplayers ignore that section to focus on in character posts. Which means at best post packages/exchanges aren't going to be helping boost activity in any meaningful or significant way.


Reviews here might offer outside input, but at the same time reviews here don't really take into account what other roleplayers want or understand why that admin made a certain choice when designing the skin/site. (Like in roleplay sites, they often like to use hover codes to hide things until rolled over... This is done to make the site look more attractive with pretty pictures while still providing space for the important information.) So any advice given might not be that useful.

Signature advertising, Text advertising and Featured site all share the same issue... FP users (for the most part) tend not to care about roleplays to begin with (meaning they aren't going to be bothering to check sites out).
This isn't even including the issue that only admins are here and they aren't really looking to join/be a part of another site anyway.

But once you get beyond FP for roleplays... and start looking at sites like Distant Fantasies, Shine, Creating Chaos, Seiryuu, etc... You see that there is a ton more for roleplays than here. (From resources on how to write your rules, how to create skins/themes, etc...)

Plus places like Tumblr and Livejournal/InsaneJournal are decent places to promote roleplays. (They have communities there for the sole purpose of promoting roleplay sites... Which roleplayers watch so they can find new sites to join and be a part of.)

 

[Gio]

I'm up for a good roleplay forum. 🙂

 

[LunarScorpio]

There are a ton of RP forums out there, they just generally aren't advertised here on FP. Like was already said, there's just not a lot of services here that the RP forum admins could really utilize or be interested in. Also, there's already a promotion forum that's pretty much geared toward RP forum owners, which is where they all flock to.

 

[RTC01]

As LunarScorpio said,

The concept of RPG forums have been around for quite awhile.. Even older than webmaster forums actually.

 

[MrSackfist]

I agree with you as it offers people something they want. The opportunity to escape life's reality without using malicious products that can have effects on your body, and RPG forum offers people to become anything they want as they can model the clay to what they want.