There seems to be an assumption that a GM who can't be bothered to post information clearly would actually bother to set a flag instead.

In reply to bigbadron (msg # 11):

I don't think they would either.

I think the assumption is that a GM who didn't post information, thinking it was unimportant, would see a flag option and therefore think about it. Or, a GM who thinks words like slow or fast are descriptive, might look at the options on a flag like that and be more clear. Since we've discovered very quickly that fast and slow are subjective, but no one thinks about that until they have a communication issue because of it.

I think seeing a flag to be set on game creation would spur some GMs to think about what they want and then provide the information.

There is a difference between "can't be bothered" and forgot/overlooked/didn't think about it. If nothing else, this would let you know those that really "can't be bothered". That in itself is valuable information.

-1

The definitions are not conclusive or easily established. It will be more confusing than helpful.

For example, my expected posting rate is hopefully once per day, with an expected of once every 48 hours, and no expectation of posting on a weekend. And I also don't mind if they take vacation, holidays, or just give advance notice of being away.  What the heck is that? Fast? Slow? Intermittent?

I agree with bigbadron on this one.  Expectations should be posted in the game, if desired.  If players have questions or if it's not clear, they can ask before submitting an RTJ.

I think there is more chance of people changing a preset field in their "Edit Game Details" screen than adding some text in a W-P add or their Game Intro.

I just checked Wanted - Players, and to my total lack of surprise the first five entries didn't specify a posting rate. I would be gobsmacked if more than one or two on the first page did. It's not really that common BBR.

Which is, perhaps, an indication of how many people consider it important.  I know that I, for one, never bother specifying a posting rate, simply because my own schedule is too variable.  The very most I'll do (and then not always) is tell people how often I'll try to post as a GM.  If the players want to match that, well that's up to them.
This message was last edited by the user at 18:44, Tue 06 Jan 2015.

It is likely an indication of how many GMs consider it critical from an advertising standpoint.

Unfortunately, you could have made similar arguments about game system as there are those who are doing free-form, or doing a variant of some published system, or doing their own system.  Yet I have to say, having the system helps save a lot of my time when I look in the Players Wanted thread.  To be absolutely hones, if I could see that a GM wanted multiple posts a day as a general standard... it would save me time knowing that ahead of times... since I won't be able to keep up with that.

As it stands, you have to hunt and find out those requirements by looking at the advertisement, which frequently wont tell you, then hunt and check all the public threads of the game, which often (although not always) may say something.  Sometimes it requires PMing to ask.

If a general idea were more immediately available, I don't need to chew up my time investigating a game that they won't want me.  If I knew they expected a post once a day... (general rule) I'd know I'd need to be prepared for that, which would mean I would need to expect to have that time, and have enough enthusiasm for the concept to be able to commit to that.  [I would consider that on the faster side]  But having that information available on the WP add and or list would be helpful.  I think it would save people time.

I don't think this is the first time it has come up before... as I seem to remember someone saying they thought it would mean someone might not read their advertisement as a GM.  They might not like it I guess, if they have some reason they want to push back information like that until they have gotten the potential player to read other information.  However, I as a GM would rather be upfront, and save potential players their time.  I'm fine with this information being optional... perhaps default being unknown... and could even have 'Other' as an to represent sporadic burst posting or such?

I would be +1 for something like this, but am not too optimistic.  I agree they can't just be fast, medium, slow... since obviously that is too relative.  Generally: 2+/day(10 or more), 1/day(5-7/week), 1 per 2 days(2-4/week), 1 per week (4-5 per month), Other, Unknown

I think by specifying making it approximate... and generally defining 2 time steps, you can help people to see that daily doesn't necessarily have to mean including every day of the week.  I suppose you could have a Sporadic Burst or something else if there were enough people who would use it.  But I'm guessing there wouldn't be that many of them that you couldn't either use other or unknown for those cases.

Hah.  My players consider themselves lucky if--when, when I post!  What's the rate for that?

...I so wish I was kidding.  But, seriously, posting rate is a significant factor in a game -- although I fall more into BBR's category, eg, I avoid fast-paced games because I know I can't keep up with them.  But I also have to agree that intended posting rates and actual posting rates so rarely coincide.

Would it be plausible to have some sort of average posting rate automatically calculated somewhere?  Or, more usefully, maybe an average posting rate over the last, say, year, so that after that initial buzz wears off it won't skew the numbers forever?  Maybe not that... that sounds much more server-intensive than just dividing the number of posts by the days since the game started, and while it may be more useful, it's probably not that much more useful.  Feature creep: Denied!

Um.  So, right.  If it is to be added anywhere, in any form, I would prefer it embedded inside the game somewhere, or maybe along with the "Last message:" hover-over, rather than displaying all the time for every game, but it does seem most important for prospective RTJers.  Maybe we should just add it to the information in W-P?  And maybe some lines of that should also echo above the entry-window when you send in an RtJ? (eg., specifically and only the window you get when you click Request Access.)

The automatic calculation wouldn't work anyway - GM puts a lot of work in one weekend setting up his new game.  Posts his ad, and the system does some calculations based on the fact that there have been twenty GM posts in two days, and flags it as a "fast" game.  The GM, meanwhile, was planning on one post per week.

And if you want to do the calculation over the last year, where does that leave games that only started last month?

Good point.

Automatic calculations would be very complicated... as do you split it up as average by entity, by PC, or by player... how do you handle if someone is playing two players, someone could notice the calculations for people seem high or low based on what they 'know' and could then figure out that someone is playing two roles, or someone they think is a player is actually the GM and therefore not(?) being counted.

I think... if it is done... it should be a GM defined/planned expectation.  The GM can say they plan on it being 1/day... but even if it isn't working out that way... the GM can leave it that way, because presumably that is where they want to eventually get it.  On the other hand, if they resign to the fact it isn't going that fast, and they want to recruit new players, they can update it so people have a better idea of if it is what they are looking for.

I still think this request is deeply into 'frills and spoon-feeding'. When do you start using your own initiative make contact with a GM of a game you might be interested in? When do you start opening game ads to make a call on whether you want to look into a game or not?

The things is, you're asking RPoL to ask GMs to guess at an answer they can't confirm until weeks after the game has started. And ultimately that answer, if the game gets off the ground and keeps moving, is dependent on the players: on you. The GM can't really force it.

You don't have to join a game when you send an RTJ. There's nothing embarrassing or awkward about asking a question before you make up your mind or saying "Sorry, that sounds too fast/too slow for me". It's not the end of the world if you join a game and feel you need to leave because because the pace is wrong, especially if you asked beforehand what the plan was.

When did roleplaying stop being about talking to each other?



On another note, can we get a light on the main page which tells me when I'm not logged in?
Oh! And an auto-reply button which posts "I take a 5-foot step" when I don't have time to play?

Huh.  Yeah, OK.  I'm a solid -1 on this.

I had been picturing it giving actual numbers ("This game has # posts over # days, for an average of # [posts/day or days/post, as appropriate]")  I totally agree that terms like "Slow," "Medium," and "Fast" are too subjective to be anything but trouble, but I'd been thinking hard numbers wouldn't be.

...But I just checked, and my main game would still indicate about 3 posts a day, and that is criminally misleading.  So even actual numbers are too likely to be wrong, especially given that early rush almost every game goes through.  And GM intentions.. hopes... dreams... yeah.  Not so helpful, I'm afraid.

Picks up flag, moves over to the Best Just To Talk It Out camp, plants flag dramatically, complete with sudden burst of wind tossing both flag and hair

I don't think automatic calculations would have any value at all, and wasn't in the original proposal ... what I'm interested in is what the GM is planning on/hoping for.  If a GM "can't confirm until weeks after the game has started" then they are going to end up with those who want to post multiple times a day lumped in with those who can only post once a week - surefire way of making everyone unhappy and ... whoops! the game just died.

Not asking GMs to guess at all - just want to know what they're aiming at.  Assumedly GMs are just like players and some will want to move things along quickly (multiple posts per day), while others will only be able to commit to a once a week update.  Surely they have some idea of how fast or slow they'd like their game to go ?   If not then easily fixed with a couple of options - "Not specified" as default so GM doesn't have to change it unless they want to and perhaps "To be agreed" which means it can all be sorted out after the fact.

And yes, I expect that most games end up with a slower than expected posting rate as in most cases as RL hits.  I like the idea above that GM's reposting Ads for new players can increase/decrease posting rates to reflect new expectations/reality.

Tileira ... I disagree. (Vehemently ?  Can I do vehemently ? Please ?) F'rinstance: I see three games I like the sound of, but they don't list posting rate, so I PM the GMs asking nicely, only to discover that all three are the wrong speed for me ?  That's wasted my time and 3 x GM's time.  Plus the other 12 potential players that did exactly the same thing.  Maybe all three are the right speed, but I can only take on one new game ?  That's only wasted 2 x GMs time, plus 2/3s of my time.  Maybe I should only ask one GM at a time ... whoops, the other two games just filled up and I just learned the one I started with is the wrong speed.

And if we should be talking to the GM for all required info, then by that argument, as Loreguard says, why should the GM bother putting down what system they're using ?  I can always PM and ask them ... ah, not.

Talking to the GM is not the problem - getting the right information to the players so you can manage their expectations is.  I'm still standing by my opinion that it'd be easier to do that at the player's wanted ad stage than wasting everybody's time with PMs.

And actual numbers are definitely the way to go - if GM says '3-4 posts a week' and Player A thinks 'that's fast, suits me' and Player B thinks 'that's slow, suits me', then both are happy.  Yup, labels confuse things, numbers are good (and that's expected numbers, not actuals, or automatic calcs).

Loreguard - yup, your posting rate ranges work fine too.  Personally I'm only after an approximation, cos (funnily enough) my idea of how and when I can post is only an approximation too.  Some weeks I'll be on every day, others, well sadly not at all.

Utsukushi - of course this means that you'd put one post per week as your expectation ... though please suggest monthly, yearly, "of historical interest" or "every ice age" as additions to the posting rate range. <grins, ducks, runs>

Those with the -1 votes ... would they still stand if the proposed posting rate system was optional ?   Vinny didn't specify and I suggested optional, and aside from the side-quest into auto posting which I think we can safely abandon due to lack of support, there's been no suggestion that it be compulsory.  As an optional feature, then you'd be able to ignore it as GM and I can't see the logic in preferring to not know the posting rate as a player, but if that's your schtick, then by all means sch sch stick to it.

Remember, jase judges the worth of his time spent on building this feature or that, so our +1/-1 voting system relates to whether the feature would be good or bad for you, not relative importance vs all the other possible features that have been or are yet to be suggested.  Q is would this feature reduce your enjoyment/Players Wanted functionality ?

So ... I'm still a very definite +1 on a) posting rate using ranges not labels, b) specified in Player's Wanted Ad, not Game Info and c) optional.  I'd certainly find it very useful and it'd make finding potential games a lot easier. :>

In reply to Skald (msg # 26):
No, Skald. You're exaggerating my point. I'm not suggesting prospective players should take *all* the responsibility for finding out the details of the game. What I am saying is that a GM providing 85+% of the information in their ad and public threads is sufficient. If that missing 15% is enough to put you off sending a PM, perhaps you don't belong in that game?

I don't believe that someone who has time to post 7+ times a week is going to suffer all that badly for "wasting" 1 minute to ask "how fast do you plan for the game to be?" before they apply and 1 minute to check the answer later. When you read a promising game ad and decide you don't want to join, you've already wasted 5 times that.

Of course I also disagree that finding out you don't want to join a game is "wasted" time any more than reading the back of a book and deciding you don't want to buy it is "wasted" time.



Anyway the other alternative is to add a message box when someone goes to create a new game ad which links back to the P:W rules and says something like

This message was last edited by the user at 15:00, Wed 07 Jan 2015.

I'll bite ! ;>

You're quite right ... if the missing 15% is enough to put me off, perhaps I don't belong in that game.  But I don't think it's a bad thing to try to improve the matching of players to games and hopefully reduce the chance of games failing and/or GM's regularly having to re-advertise when players drop out.  Won't solve the problem, but every little bit helps, and I really don't see why there would be any resistance to an additional but optional dropdown if it can assist with that.  You don't like it, you don't use it, simple as that.

And I'm prepared to take your word for it that what I'd call a fast poster will not suffer that badly.  But then I'm at the other end of the spectrum myself and time poor so again, every smidgeon of time saved is precious to me.

Of course finding out if you don't want to join a game is not wasted time, but to my mind without posting rate it's more inefficient.  Only got a limited supply of the timey-wimey stuff and I'd rather make best use of it.

In your suggested message box, the only thing I'd be interested to see in the Player's Wanted Ad would be the post rate.  Concept/mood, char types and RTJ requirements I'd be more than happy to look for in the Game itself - my main criteria to dig deeper are 1) game system and 2) posting rate.  But happy to agree that others' mileage may vary.

Thanks for putting the case so eloquently Skald. Like you, I am fairly time poor and I want to spend as much times as possible here running and playing games. A feature like this would be a massive help for me as a player, as two-thirds on the games on here are too fast for me.



In fact I did specify an optional setting in my first post, I can only imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth if I'd have suggested something compulsary ;)

And another thing: the misuse of -1 votes seems to be a pattern in a lot of these discussions which is quite frustrating.

My coming round to a -1 isn't because I wouldn't use it - it's because I think it would be misleading.

1) If the GM marks a game as "Medium Paced", that sounds great to me!  If, by "Medium Paced", they mean what Vinny said in the first place of a post a day... that's too fast for me.  ("Multiple Posts per Day" is what I call "Maniacal").  So in this case, this feature would draw me towards a game that, in fact, I should be shying away from, because I'm just going to bog them down.  And I wouldn't think to ask, of course, because hey - it's marked Medium Paced, so clearly we're on the same page!

2) The GM's intentions usually mean a whole lot when it comes to, say, what genre the game is.  I suppose it's possible for a GM to really want a cyberpunk game and somehow end up with Fantasy/Pokemon, but that's rare.  But GMs have a lot less control over the actual posting rate of a game.  So if they mark something Fast Paced, or as "One Post Per Day", because that's what they're hoping for, but it actually runs at what I would call Medium, or a couple posts/week...why, I could have joined that game without causing any trouble, but now I won't, because I'll think it's going to be too fast.

...Which is why I had thought maybe something more automatic, that reflected the actual pace of the game rather than something totally subjective and probably apocryphal, might work better, but having worked out that that doesn't either...

So far I don't see anything that assures me I wouldn't find this to be an active obstacle.  It seems much more likely to send people away from games than to draw them towards them, and that seems counter to RPoL's spirit.

Glances out the window  Cripes.  It looks like a new ice age is starting.  If I'm going to get new posts in by the mid-point of the epoch, I'd better stop worrying about this and start working on my games...

People are allowed to not want a feature -- even if it's optional.

jase doesn't tally the numbers - he's keeping in mind the reasons, so please don't discourage people from expressing their opinions, whether they're for or against.
This message was last edited by the user at 19:53, Wed 07 Jan 2015.

Well this is it.

Imagine you're trying to get a group of people to play a tabletop game and you have a game concept you know all these friends will like. But none of them will give you an opinion on whether they'll play or not until you confirm dates. Until you know who is playing and what their schedule is, you can't make that decision.


I have three people in my game who would post 4 times a day if they could. I can't do that and most of the other players can't do that, but I've had no complaints from those three people about being held back and they're enjoying themselves. If I had labelled the game "slow" or "1 post a week", they might not have joined.

Alternatively, if a GM intends to run a game "medium/fast" or "daily", but would be content with 3-4 posts a week, they will scare off players who can't commit to daily posts.

Again: I have seen plenty of adverts and RTJ info threads which explicitly state "you must post a minimum of x" where the GM expects a fast game. They do this so no-one gets held back by someone who expected a slower game. The games I have not seen it on are the medium and slower games (less than 3 posts a week).

Besides, no-one can decide on what should be on the dropdown list :P

I think a "slow/medium/fast" is entirely impractical for the given reasons. As would be a derivative system based on past posts.

That's not to say that an indicator of intended speed is a bad idea -- I think it's great, and I give a major +1.

Whether or not one considers it onerous to send a PM or explore the game's stickies for *possible* clarification, the GM noting their intended posting rate visibly in a game ad is really "best practice," and nobody loses for its inclusion.

How that "best practice" is encouraged, but not forced, might be done in different ways.

There could be something like an extra "Name" "Subject" "Game" line for Wanted GM/Wanted Players set aside for "Expected Posting Rate:" with text entry. If someone wants to leave it blank, that is their prerogative but on the other hand it's a decent reminder when posting the ad to be sure you include (extremely) relevant information.

A drop down that includes options is another way, though it seems impractical because you'd run into things like "Daily", "Weekly", "Multiple Per Week", "Multiple but only on weekends", straying into a huge number of combinations.


Tileira's suggestion about the text reminder when someone goes to post a new ad is in a good direction though, and I would take it over nothing.
This message was last edited by the user at 01:53, Thu 08 Jan 2015.

Sorry Vinny - I should have gone back up or at least hedged my bets - optional as you said.  And I was going for glazed-eyed vehemence, not eloquence ! ;>

Tileira - I can definitely see your point if you were organising something for several friends ... but putting out a Player's Wanted ad here online you're looking at a potential pool of, well let's not say 89560 which is the current total users at time of writing, but certainly a LOT of potential players who might be interested in that system.  Would you ask 200 friends to pick a time/date, then decide which one you could make with four of them ?  With those silly sort of numbers you say "Party is on X/X/XX at 8.00pm - be there."  And then the cops roll up and try to sort the riot out ... but I digress.

And while you might have "we'd rather be fast posters but we're enjoying this anyway", perhaps that was just the luck of the draw (sometimes the dice gods favour us) and you might instead have got some "we're fast posters and the game is good but it's dragging a bit" while there's a potential pool sitting out there who would have really liked that posting speed and happily filled those spots.  But your mileage may be in indicative for all I know - we can only go by our own experiences.

Not arguing with your right to have a different opinion or vote -1 (which admittedly you haven't, unless I missed it, though I did check back after my earlier faux pas), just the conclusions drawn from what I freely admit is anecdotal data we're looking at ... and while I like a good argument and you argue hard but fair, I don't think we're ever going to agree on this, so we could bounce this back and forth till the next Ice Age <winks at Utsukushi> ... and as Shannara points out, that's absolutely fine - as they say, put three Roleplayers in a room and you'll get at least four opinions. <grins>  So please feel free to respond to the above or not, but don't be offended if I shut up now. :>  I think everyone except for those with Creature Type Ooze might have made their Sense Motive rolls and can guess my stance, so enough from me already.

Except for one last clarification.

Utsukushi - I'm hoping we've given up on Fast/Medium/Slow in favour of the actual rates, leaving everyone to draw their own conclusions.  I'd certainly vote against Fast/Medium/Slow now it's been pointed out that everyone interprets that differently.

Personally I'd be happy with any of the suggested variations on the actual intended rates as all of 'em give me the information that I'm looking for (or even Tiliera's reminder message, failing all else).

So without prejudice, I see a potential optional Intended Posting Rate dropdown showing something like <deep breath>:

Not specified
multiple per day
1 per day
3-4 per week
2-3 per week
1 per week
Other
To be agreed

And yes kouk,  you're right, we can't cover every possible variation, but I think this gives us a good cross section, and GM's can always clarify posting rate either in their Ad or else in their Game if it falls outside this.  Oooh !  Alternatively perhaps the dropdown could allow for freeform text entry as well.  I knew we'd get feature creep in sooner rather than later !

And rest. :>

I really can't see a downside to having the information readily available.