DWRP survey: Doing some filter analysis at the moment and there are some interesting differences between age groups...
Such as media that different age groups play from. 
And activity check preferences. 
these are interesting
Oooooh 
pffft and yet it seems like it would make sense?
The older of us always reminisce that we had more time--looks like that's still the case for people who are younger!
This makes a lot of sense haha
honestly it still baffles me that I'm part of the "younger crowd" despite doing dwrp for the better part of the last 10 years, like. dang, I started this young
(like i'm still in the "under 25" crowd, goddamn)
Meanwhile I'm part of the older crowd but only joined a couple of years ago, so I guess there's those of us who don't fit the mould you'd expect, too.
Huh.
The AC preferences really do make sense and I'm seeing some patterns in the media graph
This is so cool man 
You make me suddenly miss all the research I did in undergrad
You make me suddenly miss all the research I did in undergrad
If anyone is interested to see the raw data these graphs are based on, I've now uploaded the filtered data to Dropbox
There are six categories: activity preference, age group, no. of games playing in, media preference, ships and years played.
You can compare them all in the "DWRP survey filtered answers" spreadsheet. I'm still working through it to generate more graphs!
AC preferences definitely make sense
the older you get. the less time there is for activity XD
I think it's interesting that for AC preferences, "5 comments" is consistently less popular than both "check in only" and "10 comments" across age groups
I'm a bit 'who in their right mind wants AC to be 30+ comments?!'. Not that I'm not capable of churning that much out in an afternoon if I and my RP partner(s) has the time, but that's unreasonable.
Particularly if someone has multiple characters they need to get AC on.
I don't remember if I actually saw the survey itself, was there options for AC models that weren't just a set number of comments?
...And now, due to tired, I'm a bit 'has? have? Which is correct?' I was on the moon with Steve!
bramblepatch: There was a question about what people wanted to provide for activity check e.g. comment threads vs post required.
But I felt it was easier to measure amount of overall activity that people expect by asking about comment count.
The respondents who prefer 30+ comments for AC are an interesting bunch. For instance, out of the six filters I applied, they are the least likely to play in memes or dressing rooms.
And the least likely to play original characters.
They're the most likely to learn about a new game via an advert on rpanons or discussion on an anon community.
And the most likely to prefer a mandatory HMD.
huh
that sounds like a really intense playstyle
Mandatory HMDs are a real fast way to get me to not give a game a second look. 1. I'll decide what I post to my chars' journals. 2. Way too many people use them as excuses to be complete and total assholes--
for me to want anything to do with them.
I would characterize that group as more serious, active game players.
Compared to the respondents who prefer no AC or check-in only, who seem to prefer a more casual play style overall.
it's definitely a combination of preferences that values accountability over ooc socialization
which would stress me the hell out, but I guess if it works for them
On another note, the group least likely to prefer a mandatory HMD are those over 35.
Funny, all of the above apply to me except the 30 comments AC requitement
The over-35 group in general seem to be more conflict-averse.
More fun facts over here!
That post is very much a work-in-progress, so I have disabled comments for now.
Hope to get a more detailed analysis done in the coming week.
on my end, i've always wanted to do a full-on study about the reception of OCs in DWRP
and what factors play into said reception
Pᴀᴍᴍᴜ
was
going to do it for my MA thesis, but i'm on indefinite leave from completing my thesis there now
I like that players over 35 are the least likely to play m/mand f/f, so I guess the other old folks like me prefer m/f
it's also interesting that the older people get, the less likely they are to prefer anime/manga or video games and the older people get, the more likely they are to prefer LA
interesting when all the older RPers I know play from video game canons
OCs look like the one media category that's relatively equal across all age ranges
This data makes a lot of sense to me
30+ and I prefer less HMD pressure and lower AC requirements
because I already spend 40 hours a week at a job where my performance is closely scrutinized
I just want to have some fun on the internet
Wow.
I wonder if the folks who want 30+ comments and structured games tend to be more A-type irl, and that kind of driven, mandatory activity just makes sense to them.
And whether they tend to play more games/characters at the same time or fewer.
For the record? I'm one of the 30+ comments people, and I'm hella not A-type. for me it's a speed thing.
I don't do well with super-slow games. I prefer to sit down, do some threading, and have it done.
however, it's because of how I started in RP.
So I'm probably spiders georg or something.
/chinhands; I used to be a much faster/more prolific tagger but was never A-type, and rl has increased over the years
I just like to sit down and go 'ok, tagging now, let's do a thing', and have the thing done, and move on to another thing.
It might be a couple days before I can get back to the another thing, but that's just me.
I think some of it for me is my ADD. I literally lose the plot of things that go on too long.
I used to be faster back in the dark days of GJ, but I was so much younger then with less responsibilities.
Yeah, same. Back on LJ when I was in college and could get away with staying up all night, I could tag a LOT faster, but now that I'm older with a full time job and my brain is asleep by 9 whatever the rest
of me is doing, I stick with PSLs that don't care if I can't tag for a week
Anon groups picking people apart for favoritism changed the way I tag years ago, too. I usually do tags in order - which means I won't necessarily be tagging when the other person is.
Because heaven forbid we prioritize things.
Man, I wish I'd seen this earlier to have taken part...
Same, I didn't realize it was ending because I was busy.
Anon shit has done so much to rip apart RP, I think. But I just... don't like callout culture in general.
No wonder I have problems here, if the dedicated players are also the most likely to wank.
Criticism is one (important) thing, but bullying is quite another.
Not all the dedicated players are likely to wank.
The group I play in mostly can't stand anon.
I'm not sure how dedicated=wank, tbh. Or I guess... I guess I'd need to know what "dedication" meant in this context.
Interestingly, I find games that require HMD's that I have been in (several) tend to scare off people who cause a problem. Largely, they're entirely empty and never used. The principle is enough
^Same. Particularly when mods are clear about letting players know the difference between crit and attacks, and what kind of behavior is acceptable toward their castmates.
I would give up a great deal if I could go back and have mods who clarified acceptable castmate treatment haha
man im like.. late 20s and i definitely have way less time to tag than i did 10 years ago but it's not even like i'm definitively less busy
i'm self employed and my self imposed schedule is pretty forgiving
i just LACK THE VIGOUR OF YOUTH, i guess
:')
I'm only 21, and I can tell you I had more tagging energy 5 years ago when I juggled 4 characters in Luceti.
25, unemployed but for the LIFE OF ME I CANNOT figure out why some would want 30 tags for AC.
I do other stuff than write ya know.
hahaha, yeah ,
This is RP, not nano.
i've done 20 but that was when i was a teenager |D
man, i feel old
Because I want to RP, not hang out and discuss hypotheticals under the pretense of RP.
And do so all month, not just at the last minute.
i had 5 characters in one game before. i can barely do one now 
Maybe also a lot of us (in every age group) are just tired because the past few years have been draining on a global scale irl. More apocalypse irl = less incentive for apocalyptic rp in our downtime. XD;
I'm actually more surprised that so many over 35 play from anime/manga, since in normal animanga fandom that age range seems to be very underrepresented
(normal speak non-RP)
infiniteviking: That I can see as a factor. DWRP does seem to have a default tone of hopelessness.
i've definitely gained less and less patience for, like
Jamjar Hopelessness
https://www.plurk.com/cy... There's plenty of old anime/manga fans. Just ya know, you don't have to be the exact age with that character to like them.
as a 35+ bracket peep I think that the anime/manga is easier to get into because it's more of a at your own pace medium and we also have the means to pay for services to get it
I know they would exist, they've just never been in the places where I hung out! guess I've been in the wrong places
i think some of the age gap with anime/manga is prob because for Todays Youth its much more accessible? whereas like when i was 20 if you wanted to watch naruto or whatever you had to download all the
individual episodes off of limewire or whatever
OH YES.
like most of us tend to having steady incomes
so obviously folks were into nonetheless it but it wasnt as easy
THE STRUGGLE OF HUNTING FOR ANIME ON A PRE-BROADBAND/CRUNCHY ROLL ERA.
YEAH ,
clearly a lot of us anime RPs are lying or don't talk about our age
sailor moon on VHS tapes
Yu Yu Hakusho on Laser Disk
I'm 25, but I know that struggle. 140p YOUTUBE CHOPPED INTO 15+ pieces.
altho i mean that said, i was super into anime when i was in my early 20s and now im not, but thats in significant part for the same reason i have less time for RP
yeah it was a pain 
my attention span has gotten worse
and i no longer have it in me to watch a lot of stuff with subtitles
because ill zone out and miss stuff.
Yeah, Pteryx, I've bypassed a lot of post-apocalypse/horror jamjars because of that. But then I started in upbeat canon-fusion games on LJ.
Having to deal with shitty dubs because the original Japanese isn't assessble.
yeah HD ? does it play and not shutter is my standard
And I've turned to books for that reason, ormery: I can canon-review a book faster than I can freeze-frame fifty hours of video. XD
ahh, i remember the shitty Card Captor Sakura english dub
Then seeing decent to legit dubs and the babies complain about that and THEY DIDN'T live through 4kids or chopped up mangled things.
cynicalharlequin man I remember watching Real Ghostbusters on youtube: dialup, half an hour's loading time to watch a third of the episode IF nobody picked up the phone. 
infiniteviking hahaha yeahhh
4kids pokemon dub
thanks books
books and cartoons that are 10 minutes long and in english
I still have my fandubbed sailor moon which were better then the 4kids stuff
thank viz for the redub
Also there's the matter of manga and you can get that anywhere these days printed in the correct way with a good translation.
infiniteviking: Trouble is, even a lot of games that aren't post-apoc or horror seem to default to hopelessness. Horror just happens to cut with the grain of jamjar defaults.
god i can't stand the translation minusha wars on manga and anime sometimes
Having to catch that episode as QUICKLY AS YOU CAN BEFORE YOUTUBE TAKES IT DOWN.
That was how I watched most of Kyou Karah Maoh. I think that's why I'm enjoying the original Doctor Who. Old anime has trained me to read synopses for shows that are half missing XD
These kids DO NOT KNOW.
RIGHT?!
nope
Pteryx Yes -- all the "you are trapped here with no way out and the conditions here are lawless/dehumanizing and there's no escape from the traumatic, disruptive events".
and if you had dailup for a connection it was worse
So yeah, the majority of people that pay for their animu are at least 25+ BECAUSE THEY KNOW THE STRUGGLE.
waiting half an hour for the youtube to load
And when I can, I will pay for my stuff too.
Characters inclined to want hope lose it pretty quickly in a lot of those settings.
This is legit why I cannot read manga online. Because I buy mine in physical form.
"And your character is only allowed to make tiny incremental progress towards solving any problems when the mods say so."
/wince
also pirate manga sites take to long to load
Strong worldbuilding with an actively moving plot that the characters can proactively affect tends to help.
I'm still keeping up with exactly one current manga /old
and I will buy it if they ever actually get around to releasing the damn official translation
yeah, and then on top of the fact that the setting is inherently hopeless a lot of the time
characters who stay in a game for a long time end up having to deal with people theyve gotten attached to just
disappearing
when other players inevitably drop
it kind of wears down on u after a while
god, yes, losing CR is the hardest thing for me and the biggest reason I can't do games anymore
because I don't tend to play characters that really move on from losing important people
all of these are the reasons I miss Milliways (or, rather, the Milliways of the mid-to-late-90s) but I'm also one of the few people left who prefers slice-of-life instead of plot-driven
^THIS.
yeah, that stuff's really hard
this is why i really like AU games, honestly?
...ahah, no, early to mid aughts
I can time!
That's been a big continuity/characterization problem for as long as I've RPd. There's ALWAYS rl and characters always drop, but closure is difficult when it happens again and again.
nobody has to be trapped and if you drop a character you can like. just write them out of being involved?
have other characters continue to keep in touch with them off screen?
a while back i played a character who had like a group of teens who kind of emotionally relied on her and eventually had to drop her and like... thank god it was an AU game, because i could just
DryadGurrl: Funny thing is, there seem to be some people who say they want plot-driven but really want slice-of-life. I don't understand that.
have her have to move to a different job and the kids kept in touch with her and visited her sometimes
like they were sad she wasnt as close at hand any more but it wasnt like WHOOPS THERE SHE GOES
I was never a fan of mandatory, game-wide plots, which is why I can't get into most games these days
GONE FOREVER
Back when I was helping out in grid_lined, we tried some ways of having characters still connected to their origin universes and asked players to provide an IC explanation for where their characters went
(I'm also the one who haaaates mandatory AC too, it's supposed to be fun, not a job, but that's a personal rant)
when they left, other than "they're just gone/the Portal got them" so their CR could at least know what happened to them and all that threading with them wasn't just suddenly irrelevant.
There's no easy answer but it's something to think about when creating game mechanics.
See, a plot is something I actually like to have, but it seems like some games just advertise having plots because it's trendy.
Then there are the games with plots that move slower than the naked eye so they may as well not even be there anyway.
I don't want to be left wondering why my character is just sitting around texting.
As human beings, we seek closure. Having people drop out of your life without explanation, in frightening or mysterious ways, is disheartening. Especially people we're close to.
Over time, characters' attitudes and interactions are affected by living in a world where that's a constant reality.
That's why I liked the canon-fusion game style -- your character was written into the game's world and was at home there, and didn't ~vanish into the cosmos~ on dropping.
(Also I always loved the challenge of adapting a character from one canon to another while keeping the characterization constant.)
Canon-fusion is apparently before my time, though seems self-explanatory.
Yeah, I hardly see it anymore.
The biggest one I was in was a Harry Potter game -- multifandom, but your character had to be written into the wizarding world.
Ah. Thought that was just AU.
Never heard of AU referred to by that name.
Hm?
Yeah, terminology changes.
This was mid-2000s; I don't even remember what we called it.
The name "canon fusion" makes me think of a mashup of two or three specific canons.
I think fusion does mean that also, if it still means the other thing (I'm not sure).
I predate "CRAU" and "canon OC" and a lot of terms. XDDD
What you describe I've always heard referred to as an AU game, and I've been around since 2011. Though that's only one type of AU game, the other kind being based on an original setting.
You may well be right!
I associated the term more with the original-setting ones, of which I see a lot more now than canon-setting ones.
But yeah, terminology does change so it might well have been as you say in the 00s.
I've watched "mun/muse" fade away over time too, and it seemed vestigial even back when I came in.
Yeah, those seem to have gone the way of dear_mun.
yeah, ive never heard canon fusion before, just AU
WILD
Everyone used to use asterisks for action tags, too, and suddenly in the late '00s they became gauche for some reason and there was a mass switch to brackets.
and, yea, ive been up in this business since like 2005
Like I say, I may well be misremembering that one. XD
I just don't remember calling the canon-setting games AU games.
i ran a canon-setting AU game in like 2009/10 and we never called it anything except AU
I'd have associated AU more with, for example, a single-fandom game where that canon was AUed into something else -- like a Naruto game set in space but with only Naruto characters.
but, i mean
i think further back the Rp Community was less monolothic though
^Yeah, that too.
Average games now are incredibly sophisticated compared to back then.
like these days basically everyone uses more or less the same terminology
lmfao fuck yeah i was in a lot of single fandom AU naruto games,
back in the day
i kind of miss that stuff honestly
single fandom stuff was a good time
I feel my tastes don't fit with the overall DWRP monolith's tastes, so I'm currently trying to figure out how to move on. Really, my even wanting to play a canon character is an aberration for me.
OCs are more accepted at some games than others.
Mm, just that it doesn't seem worth trying to play an OC in this community because I think I want something other than what this community prefers overall out of RP.
If I liked DWRP norms, that'd be a whole other thing.
When I say "move on" I mean moving on from DWRP and finding some community I'm a better fit for.
/nodnod
Well, I wish you all the best in your search!
{Thank you.} 
I think a lot depends on format. Platform, I mean. RP was different when I started because we were emailing. Then it was forums. Then LJ. Now tumblr--which I still don't understand rping in.
But just as it has changed how fandom itself works, it changes what sort of games get popular simply because, say, communities like LJ/DW lend themselves to "network style" RP.
That was not a thing when I was forum rping
And now it's ubiquitous.
Platform/format is definitely a thing that changes how non-fandom RP plays out too.
I'm still lost at Tumblr RP itself, because nothing stays consistent on there. After some time, you can't go back to read your older stuff
as someone who likes to go back and read older things I've written for nostalgia or to see how far I've gone since writing a certain way
silentdrifterz: Mm, I like reading old stuff myself. That's definitely one thing I see as a core advantage of online RP in general, so it irritates me deeply when a format doesn't allow for it.
So, in turn, I do see that as one of DWRP's strengths.
I'm sure if someone told me what exactly is the benefit of RPing on Tumblr, I might understand better
because it is, it....looks like a disorganized mess, and I've tried it once a while ago out of curiosity to see how it worked
Another is that despite a minority of people getting self-conscious or anxious over tag length, by and large DWRPers do subscribe to making tags as long or short as they need to be.
When it works, I still do think DWRP works pretty well. In some ways I like it better than forums, in some ways, not. But like, I just don't see where else RP lives these days.
they steal icons from LJ/DW and most of them never even credit the makers
ahahah yes, I've had several of my own icons taken
other reason why I'm a little miffed by Tumblr RP
i mean, tbf, dwrp is rife with people making icons out of fanart and not crediting the artists
It seems like a major trendy spot for tabletop RP nowadays is Roll20, but I'm not comfortable with Roll20's terms of service.
Though from my understanding, most times the Rpers on tumblr just google the character and it pops up from there
so they never actually go directly to the DW player
The TOS on Roll20 is never enforced, from what I've seen, but I could be wrong.
ArtWildentanzen: Which just leaves me nervous. When's the trap going to snap shut?
I'd be less nervous if it read like a throwaway boilerplate disclaimer, but the bits that leave me nervous read as a stronger stance than that.
what is the tos for it?
I'd look it up again, but part of the terms state that if you don't agree to the terms you're not allowed to access the site at all.
(Instead of, y'know, not being allowed to have an account, which would be reasonable.)
But what I recall reading involved some pretty strong, repetitive, and paranoid "NO COPYRIGHTED ANYTHING" statements like they're afraid people would turn it into a warez site.
And makes me feel like there'd be a real risk of arbitrary enforcement for using the wrong image search result.
I use images others have produced on roll20 and I've never had an issue. I edit them, admittedly, but still.
Spambots found us.
Yup. I've already reported and blocked it. (Now for everybody else to do the same so it'll go byebye.)
But yeah, if they don't mean that aspect of the ToS they should just have it be a "yeah, yeah, we're obligated to say this part, moving on" sort of thing.
The difference in this case from typical ToSes was pretty striking.
I already have to worry about invisible minefield social situations. Do I really have to also accept a gun being pointed at me on reassurances it's just loaded with blanks?
But more on topic again, it is striking how much of a different branch of RP from my usual DWRP is. It often seems like DWRPers are barely aware that RP that isn't fandom RP even exists.
Overlap clearly exists, but does seem to be the minority of cases.
Shame the survey didn't touch on non-DWRP experience. That might've been an interesting factor to compare against.
Pteryx: ... I'm unaware of that! as someone who's been rping since the early 90s, idk what non fandom RP would be!
Tabletop is a good example!
Like Dungeons and Dragons or Shadowrun, to name two popular systems.
LARP.
wolf RP
^ XD was gonna say, I'm most familiar with original rp through stuff like Neopets and Gaia and those
I know it surely exists elsewhere but
also i guess like, im a big furry and i know a lot of furries do a lot of roleplay with their OCs
Mmhmm, that too.
I started off RP in non-fandom message boards and I'm sure that still exists but....idk where to find it anymore. I think I found all my message boards through Neopets.
oh, I've done those things, just not online
There's definitely plenty of tabletop roleplay over forums or chat clients out there
I mean games tend not to last long in forum format with randos but
It's there
RP happens on MMOs and their direct ancestors, MUDs. And there's another branch off of MUDs (MUSHes, MUCKS, etc.) that generally tosses the "MMOish" qualities and just focuses on RP.
I've never gotten to do LARP or tabletop since I live in places where fnding other nerds is hard, but I've been there for PBeM, message board, MMOs, LJ/DW, Tumblr evolution, with a little chat thrown in
I used to RP on IRC a lot, whether freeform, with tabletop systems, or with made-up systems or partial systems.
I find it helps you gain perspective, since every place has different social norms. like when I played message board, people looked down on playing fandom characters like they do here on OCs
oh yes, IRC! I never did much of that myself since I don't like chat formats except for one-on-one,but that was a big thing, yeah
I miss it, personally.
I've tried to find it again, but IRC generally has receded a lot...
yea,it has.
Technically I still play off of one person there, but I live with him.
though I feel like chat RP must still be happening someplace Discord maybe? since it's geared towards gamers
Roll20 dot net is a dedicated play by chat platform I use for a couple games a week
Also, expectations of playing an OC on DWRP are very specific in a way playing an OC in OC-oriented communities isn't.
It just got an official sponsorship from Wizards of the Coast (D&D guys)
A DWRP OC is specifically a character pulled from an original "fandom".
(Not repeating the full rant, I just did that earlier in the plurk.)
No idea actually, I just assume no one cares about an F2P GM with six players
I see that rant now and as a Star Wars d20 GM I laugh in the face of the idea of enforcing that
Everything I use is copyright Disney guys, don't know what to tell you
i looked through the tos, and it didn't look that bad to me, but ymmv
(Really, the point of it is probably because they have pay-to-unlock built-in tokens and want to make you use those)
(Same racket that D&D runs for physical miniatures except they don't have internet lawyers to force you not to just use dice or army men)
Heh, which version of Star Wars d20, out of curiosity?
Saga
Running Literally The Only Published Campaign for it
nods.
On the online tabletop topic, I'm left to wonder if MapTool is finally going to get less buggy anytime soon now that it's out of development hell and back to occasional releases.