Ghost Town
Not all the time, hear me out.

First of all let me tell you that I love the game and I look forward to playing for a long time and contributing.

Sometimes the game feels like everyone's having a Mexican stand-off in the wild west and they're waiting for each other to say something on SIC that will reveal info. This is probably an exaggeration, but that's how I feel when I don't see any players doing anything publicly and if none of your usual RP buddies are around or you're not involved in a plot you basically have to look everywhere for a player until you bump on the odd person who's not sitting in a cube or other private location and try to initiate some RP.

I understand that many might not have the time to RP talking about trivial things like the weather and music. I'm not really sure what to make of this phenomenon and would like to start a conversation about it.

Be someone's pawn when you are new. Find a clique. Be it a Corp, be it an independent company, be it a Gang, be it a fixer. Go find them and be a pawn. These people love new player,s and actively recruit them.

I think one key change would help: Do not conduct your BUSINESS in your home. Don't have those private business conversations in your home. This single change could affect this hugely. Too much RP is occurring where others are never going to see it. By dividing up instead of mixing it up, we're fucking up.

When I started, yea, didn't know but for a few people and then two of them dropped off the grid so to speak.

I did deliveries and spoke to people I came across. Or didn't...

But explore. Explore and explore some more. That is what did it for me and some others I knew.

Use sic to meet up with someone. Maybe you notice them on sic talking about one thing or another - hit them up. Sometimes there are call outs to come to the Drome or the Milk Bar - heck even Sing-a-Rong. We are around and we do show up... usually.

It also depends on your schedule as well. Early in the morning PST and then in the evenings is when I noticed more people about. But explore buildings as well. I bumped into some waiting to get a package for a delivery, or decided to stop for a tea or a drink and bumped into some people at the counter.

We are around. Some more than others but we're around. Use the sic and pay attention when you explore. You can end up meeting people who are looking for places when doing deliveries for example and decide if you want to brush them off or not. Maybe run deliveries with someone else who's doing it with you?

Mann mentioned "Make RP" and yea - that there is fun. There can be some info you have and you know, sometimes it is fun to include someone in on it that otherwise may not be in on it. (Even if not paid for it...) Just giving them that little bit of info can add a little more RP into your life and theirs, plus, later, maybe they come across a tidbit that fits along what you had told them and they return the favor, so to speak. :)

Happy hunting.... so to speak.

(PS: Check the malls, parks, various buildings like the Drome, Grunen's Tavern, Wholesale Warehouse, Acme... - people are there.)

I am going to impart something I've learned from some serious veterans in the game, things I've seen them do on their first days with freshly rolled characters.

Be bold. Start shit. Create conflict right away, roleplaying it according to whatever motivations and values your character has.

These are characters who have PC and/or NPC enemies within a couple of hours of entering the game, and they're played smartly enough that they have defenses against just getting ganked off right away.

These are players who will NEVER be starved for RP, and guess what? Making enemies has the side effect of gaining you friends too. It's practically automatic.

Here I am, wandering around, trying to find people. SIC is going off like crazy, but it's all encrypted. So I make an IC comment about it and people basically say 'get better engrained and maybe you'd have people to talk to as well'. Well sure, okay that's fine and dandy from an IC perspective, but as a new player OOC this says to me, "Listen, you're a newbie, you don't have any cool friends, so we're going to sit here and talk all garbled as fuck because we are friends and don't want to even attempt to include someone new to the conversation."

I want to give you the most helpful response I can, but I need to know where your dissatisfaction stems from.

Another example, Veteran Player A) is walking along, headed to buddies house to collect him up and go crack some skulls. Veteran Player B) *said skull about to be cracked* happens to run across a newer player. Veteran B tags along with said newer player or simply invites them to go hang out at a bar. Veteran A) shows up to crack said skull of Veteran B) and now Newbie 1 has found themselves in a very interesting situation indeed! Do we support Veteran B because we've known them longer, or try and get Veteran A to explain the situation (which sometimes could turn into being clobbered as well) so you can better understand it, or do you just run?

Which, again to me, says Veterans get to do what they want to do, and New Players need to do what ever it takes to get involved without expecting anyone to go out of their way to return that.

However from my experience. i would suggest a couple of things to bear in mind.

1. like it or not SD has quiet a high turn over of new players.. in my limited experience new players either last less than a week or they are here for months and years.. Anyone that has been around here for awhile has been burnt on more than one occasion spending time and effort befriending and investing in numerous immies and then been burnt when they just drop out never to be seen again usually logging out in the middle of the street. Thats not to excuse anyone ignoring new players and i would guess that 99.9999% of established players are overjoyed with new players joining as we all want an expanded player base and more people to interact with and RP with.. but it does go somewhat to explain why until a player has for lack of a better word 'proven' themselves worthy of investment then players will be responsive but probably not proactive in 'recruiting' immies. Having said all that, there are still plenty of us established players that are and will also be willing to give that new fresh through the gates immie the time of day and take a punt.

my 2nd point would be that please please please dont mistake rudeness and gruff responses on sic , especially mixer character as being dismissive or not wanting RP.. its a mean dark world SD and especially in the mix.. its meant to be hard to make friends.. thats not to say that we dont want to intact or RP with you.. its to say that ICLY you gotta give as good as you get.. this is the Cyberpunk.. emphasis on the PUNK part.. your meant to be spikey and a little mean and generally in your face.. this isnt cyber fully bunny time.... if you say something on sic and someone gives you attitude.. give it right back with fucking bells on.. you might just earn some respect.. most people aint gonna ice ya for mouthing off.. well most wont.. ahhah..

3rd.. thank you stryder for raising your perceptions and taking the time to post on the boards. its something that i for one like as its easy to forget the impressions of new SD players when youve been here for awhile.. Dont forget to ask the bar tenders where the party is at.. its a great way to find a party of people ingame and then top tip dont try and jump straight in if there is already an active RP session going on.. rock up and then observe for just a minute or two at least and ease yourself into the RP at an appropriate point.. even a carefully placed emote works a treat in my experience.. trust me.. people want to include you into the RP if you are patient.

It's not that I expected it to be happy bunny fluffy time, but when 90% of what is returned on SIC is rusted, crusted, sarcasm or dismissal, I can easily see why there is a high turn over rate, which in turn I can then see leads to more jaded players not wanting to put time into Immies. I used to GM on a game that had a similar high turn over rate, but already had an established player base of hundreds of people, and I never felt that I wasted my time teaching any new player to the game even if the ended up quitting in the near future. Any interaction with a new player or character has always been fun and entertaining for me.

My main point is that finding/making RP should be a 50/50 investments. If New Players are expected to make compromises to get RP, Veterans should be expected to make compromises to make RP, perhaps that would help lessen the turn over rate, perhaps it won't, but at least you can walk away from it going 'I tried damn it, that is what is important.'

Does this mean perhaps being a bit more forgiving and not killing them outright when they're giving you smack like you would a more experienced player or going out of your way to specifically interact with a player when there's really no reason for your character to do so? Or perhaps extending a bit of trust to them that ICly, it might not really make a hell of alot of sense? Yeah, sometimes it does. I'm personally prepared to suspend my own playing experience to a certain extent to help other players get through the significant learning curve that Sindome as a game has, it can only work to our advantage with increasing RP to do this.

Or you could trust your fellow players to not metagame.

Is it creepy when it's a tabletop, and you can't avoid knowing who plays which character?

It's possible you did something obvious to give yourself away, I don't know, it's also possible that NVT is totally wrong about who they think you are, I don't know that either. I'm telling you as an admin that it should not matter if some player does know the screen name and comments on the BGBB which belong to the player of a character they know (of) ICly. It shouldn't matter because it's against the rules to act ICly based on that knowledge, whether the knowledge they think they have is accurate or not.

That right there should also clue you as to why some players might be offering a mild resistance to the idea ICly going out of their way to get involved with new Sindome players. Metagaming us universally regarded as bad for the game, no exceptions.

However, there are characters who are ICly motivated to reach out to immigrants, and with this in mind they do it whether the character belongs to a first time player or not. Again, it shouldn't matter, whether that player knows the 'age' of the player or not. Many immigrants are played by veteran characters.

Many aspects of 'running' Sindome, whether it's on the admin/GM side driving plots and other IC interactions, or on the player side, where it's a player driving their own character's agenda, do match concepts from the tabletop/PnP paradigms ('paradigms' plural, there are more than one).

One thing thats very different about Sindome compared to tabletop/PnP games is, a shitload of stuff can, must, and does happen without GMs/admins getting involved at all. There are players who drive entire <can't say OOCly> and <can't say OOCly> and plots with NO GM input at all, other than maybe puppeting the doctor or the judge or the employer boss or whoever else, when events blow up and call for it.

(Not to say GMs don't drive a lot of plot and action. We do.)

I've seen first-day new Sindome players get into shit very quickly. Real first timers, not just veterans on new characters or new accounts. (Obviously veterans do usually manage this more quickly, in general.) The first-timers who do achieve this are usually ones with significant roleplaying experience.

Many, many first time Sindome players to spend weeks finding their way. It is not uncommon at all to spend this amount of time learning the conventions and the effective ways to pursue their character's agenda ICly. I did when I was new, I spent a long time treading cautiously and not having anything for my character to offer or attract other characters' attention. But all of us went through this, and, if your character's has an agenda and pursues it, it will probably get other characters' attention and earn you some RP.

For better or for worse. Because, I've also seen players fuck it up by having their characters behave in alienating ways, and wind up with no allies. Or become victims of someone else's agenda, outside their own control. This is positive and not negative, because, both failure and success are necessary for the telling, acting and living of any worthwhile story.

To support what Linekin has most recently said, or part of it, I think you really can get into things from your first day. I came from a MUSH/MUX game environment, so I was technically a veteran in that I already understood many of the concepts of the game (enforced RP, IC/OOC separation, acknowledging ambient population, etc).

That said, most of my characters have become involved in things quickly via means any player can take. Simply being outgoing and pro-active can do it. Take the initiative in greeting someone if you're sharing the bar. Post on the Grid that you're looking for employment. Apply for a job with a business or corporation and become acquainted with your co-workers, and possibly more via the schemes of said organizations. There are many ways that simple acts can lead to involvement in a big way.

You're at once literally threatening to quit if the metagaming rule isn't enforced, stryder, and at the same time, suggesting that people have an obligation to you to do exactly that - metagame - by contriving reasons for their characters to approach yours when they don't otherwise have any reason to, other than the players' wild-ass guesses about whether your character's player 'needs RP'.

(My exaggerations are rhetorical but the basic irony is real.)

I very much hope that you're capable of bringing this much irony in-game and part of the stories your character(s) drive(s), because irony makes for great stories. It will be a gift from you to the players you get involved with.

So will running a character who others want shit from. Your character's loyalty, secrets, connections, knowledge, skills, brass, willingness to do certain things, hate for a common enemy, I could spend a long time listing things which make characters want to go to another one for IC reasons. No, it's not easy to make these traits and motivations and capabilities known or even real overnight. But having a character who someone else wants shit from is the way to get RP.

Alternatively, an extremely effective way to grt intense RP really fast is to make an enemy. Guess what? Doing so has the side effect, almost automatically, of making you a lot of potential friends. Really fast.

(Speaking of 'making good stories'.)

Just some ideas. Game on and good luck.

Classically or not, here at Sindome, "metagaming" is defined as using OOC knowledge ICly at all. The @rules says that. It doesn't specify advantage or not. There's also this, which we recently posted:

https://www.sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/game-problems/metagaming-209/

I suppose that's where the disconnect is. Forgive me for going overboard when I didn't mean "metagaming" quite the same way you did.