Some thoughts on how to roleplay in larger groups

I recently realized that I have some things that I often find myself wanting to say to people who are struggling with roleplay, especially group roleplay. Group roleplay is such an interesting phenomenon. In my experience, pairs roleplay is more or less the standard form - a person who has a serious roleplay habit may play with a lot of people but often even then, the stories they write together are isolated from each other.

 

I've done a decent amount of pairs roleplay, and I've found that it's fairly easy to fall into a rhythm with a compatible writer, even without a lot of experience. It's easier to stick around to see where things go and eventually finish out some kind of satisfying arc. It's fairly straightforward to keep track of what's happening in the storyline and there's a certain amount of expectation from the beginning about how things might go. 

 

I'm currently involved in the third group roleplay I've been a part of, and all three of them were very much spontaneous events. In two cases, during a group chat associated with another activity, people began changing their display names and acting the parts of characters associated with the activity or group. In one case, a pairs roleplay was started in a public forum, based on a property with a large ensemble cast, and within the span of three or four days, all main and most secondary characters had sprouted up beside them.

 

It's a very different feel, and often it's powered by a sort of swell of enthusiasm that can prove difficult to maintain once the practicalities of large-group roleplay start to form speed bumps.

 

In the first two groups that I have been part of, play petered out before we could resolve many of the arcs that we had started. Every problem the group encountered made it more difficult to continue, and every person to drop out for their own health or because they were dissatisfied with the state of play left more for the remaining players to figure out on their own. 

 

Both times, I was one of the last players left with enthusiasm to write. I've been trying to figure out how much of this is simply my personality, and how much is the things that I know about improv and storytelling.

 

(I hate doing stage improv, but I have watched a lot of it. It impresses the hell out of me every time. Even chat or real-time roleplay allows me enough extra time to get me comfortable with formulating ideas on the fly.)

 

Here is a really great article on stage improv. A lot of it applies to roleplay, even things you wouldn't think to apply. Establishing the physicality of your surroundings, describing and interacting with them, can do a lot for the playability of an RP.

 

The part about large groups onstage is applicable in some ways to the kind of situation I'm describing, but in others, it isn't. Because of the spontaneous nature of these events, and because they can sometimes be very open to new people, there's not really a practical way to avoid leaving people alone "on stage." 

 

Entrances and exits can be much more abstract in a roleplay, especially one framed through chat or social media. Because of this, it's often really up to the person "stepping onstage" to make themselves a place in the story. This can get awkward if they find themselves continually approaching people who are uninterested or uncomfortable with the things they're initiating.

 

Every approach needs to find a balance of interesting, benign, and manageable, as well as the additional requirement of fitting the established setting. It's a difficult tone to strike.

 

Becoming part of a roleplay can be looked at from the perspective of making friends, or from the perspective of storytelling. Friends are often made through common interests, and through helping each other. Stories, in their simplest form, are a question and an answer. 

 

My formula for a good, compelling starter to attract attention within a group RP is this: Ask an interesting question with a simple/manageable answer.

 

Here are some ways of coming up with such a thing: What is strange about your character? What are the specific things that they want that are hard for them to acquire by themselves, but easy and fun for others to provide? Company does not count. We are all playing to find company. The fun and interesting company has unique and specific questions, or unique and specific answers. The most approachable established characters are often those with unique skills or knowledge bases that can be worked into a new player's story fairly easily, or unique problems that new players may be able to step up and help solve. 

 

There are a lot of characters in the properties I've played in who are extraterrestrial, supernatural, or otherwise outside the ordinary, and I often feel the urge to push people to leverage that strangeness more effectively. Invent things that your character needs/wants/misses/is less capable of because of their strangeness, that others may have the resources to help provide. 

 

This does take some effort. Friendships can be hard work. Storytelling can be hard work. Natural chemistry between players is nice to have, but sometimes it takes a little nudge to get the chemistry started - or to keep it going.

 

Maintaining the roleplay to a satisfying ending is one of the things I'd most like to help people with. It's also one of the things that the rules of stage improv don't really help with. This is where we most need storytelling theory as well.

 

This is because the rules of improv are focused on building energy and tension, and not on releasing or resolving it. Stage improv tends to release its tension in a satisfying way naturally, via humor. One doesn't really need to find a way to answer all the questions brought up in a stage improv, as long as one finds a satisfying punchline. 

 

(So much of stage improv is the timing of the unpredictable. This makes it easier in some ways. This is also why I hate it.)

 

When some players get fatigued, and others are still running high on enthusiasm, it can be difficult to try and negotiate your way to an endpoint. What I recommend most is for those players who still have energy to burn look out for fatigue in their closest other players, and start to pull more of the storytelling weight.

 

This involves a lot of the same basic components as my recommendations for joining a roleplay. But because the stories are most likely now much more involved, you'll have more to work with. The biggest challenge at this point is often setting reasonable limits.

 

Make a list of priorities for tensions that you want to see resolved, and a plan for each one that takes a short, easy route to that resolution. Do make plans, but don't get too involved. Present the plans to the relevant counterparts one at a time, and pay attention to any objections they may have, if one plot point or another seems like it might be rough for them. Adapt. 

 

This is where we try to stop ourselves from asking too many new questions. This is where the "yes, and" rule often stumbles over its own weight. A lot of open questions can be very overwhelming and draining for a player. If you notice fatigue, try and resolve some of the open questions before posing any new ones. Work together to find a resolution for each one that works for both of you.

 

These are strategies I'm working to put into play right now, and we will see how well they work!