Has an static RP team ever been successful for you?

Lately I've been really dissatisfied with RP. I'm looking for stories more than personal relationships, but I seem to only find the latter. Being a part of a small, static RP team would be ideal, but it seems impossible to coordinate.

Have you ever been a part of a satisfying, long-term static RP team?

A group of friends plus my Husband, right after CoH came out, got together for a once or twice a week static team. We only played together, and we had set play times, so there was no question on if it was the right day/time to play. We worked our schedules around our team. Anyway, my second 50 (my first real character, since before her i was playing on my Husband's account) played from 1 to 50 with this team. It was uberfungoodness and i loved it so much. i miss it greatly. Unfortunately, everyone that was part of the team has moved on to other games except me and my Husband, and my Husband's account expires in a week.

Yes, i've done it. Yes it was fun. No, i don't think i could ever find another team that fun and satisfying again. (Mostly, because the team only had ppl i knew IRL in it, except for one person that joined us in the 20s when we lost one of our IRL friends to another game.) Having played pen and paper RPGs before this with these friends made all the difference in the world.

I'm currently a member of an SG composed of static RP teams. That said, we haven't been doing much of anything in a long time with the particular squad I'm involved in. One of the leaders took off to play with another sg all the time, and a number of people never could show up. Once the meeting day started changing, it was all downhill from there. Haven't really played in months. It's a shame too, when the whole goup was there, it was possibly the best fun I've had playing the game.

I'd definitely recommend giving it a try if you can find the right people. Can't say you'll be successful right off the bat, but when you find that solid group, it'll be a ton of fun.

Static teams in general seem very difficult over the long term as rl schedule conflicts always pop up.

I've tried and tried with friends and with randoms. My work schedule dictates otherwise though. =(

Work also dictates that I shall miss most events, raids, weekday taskforces and other fun things.

I hate work. Keeps getting in the way of fun.

*Butts his head into a NA Server thread and waves hello*

I've come across this 'static team' term a few times now and if by it you mean an RP team that meets the same time every week then hell yes, I've been and still am in a great one.

The Militia formed about 4 years ago on Union and since then, we've all dinged 50, rolled up a new team and are on our way round again as well as spawning a separate rival villain group, The Cadre. A common theme helps along with regular plots being planned by various people. RP often descends into personal plots over time but keeping a constant, over-arching threat helps to keep people's mind focussed.

So yes, very successful I would say.

RP Static Teams. Good God RP Static Teams. Usually, they start off strong. People feel inclined to play, and while doing so find they are actually having fun. However, it doesn't take long for little pieces to fall away. You find out one person wasn't as interested in the RP and get's mad because you spent time doing it with the team. Schedules change, attitudes change, people can't accept the terms that were laid out for said team beforehand. It's hard to keep them in order, simply because of how specific some of them can be. In order to start one and maintain it, your theme and concepts needs to be as specific as possible, how you plan on playing and the activities you plan to participate in have to be explained before people evn decide to join. Guidelines must be set and such as well, but it's difficult even to do that because you don't wanna feel like that one 'Rules Nazi' who makes everything less fun. Finding the balance between overall team evjoyment, RP, and general guideline adherence is hard, but if you can achieve it, it's certainly worth it. The only real issue that could occur is drama. One person has an issue and all of a sudden everyone gets involved on the issue. It's hard to maintain that in a tight knit group, but, it's just one of the risks involved.

One issue I've had with Static Teams in the past is enjoying too much, believe t or not. Once you like it too much you start thinking of making more and more and more and more teams and having a SG dedicated to Static Teams and then everything just falls over the edge. Take it slow, have fun, dont go overboard, find balance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler you *******!!!!

I've been lucky and had very good, high quality, story-based static RP teams from CoH Beta up until now. There's only a few of us that have been here since the start, but a few new folks were added here and there. But on the whole, I'd say smaller, static RP teams been successful for me.

It's very hard to coordinate, especially as players go through life changes (going to school, new job, marriage, babies etc).

Yep. The Sphere has been an ongoing static 8 man SG with regular meetings for about 2 years now. There has been a few member changes but all in all its been great.

I've known others who've started static teams and had them work out very well, for them anyway; I don't care for them myself and tend to be disappointed when I see them start, to be honest, because when they work out they seem inevitably to lead to the people in the static team spending all their game time together and little or no time with their other friends. It's a nice idea and all, and for those who can make it work without alienating friends and SGmates outside the static team, good on ya, but that's not something I've seen happen often, if at all.

Only really been successful in static duos. Anything past that falls victim to the problems listed above by most of the others.

One thing I'd add: If anybody in the group has a highly variable schedule, like people with jobs where the hours change every week, that's basically an instant monkey wrench in your plans--at the very least, everybody else's playtimes will be based around when that single person can be on. If there are more than one, forget it. I don't think I've ever seen it really work out that well.

I'm an altoholic and had a schedule like that for years, so I don't know how anybody ever put up with me. When it wasn't 'sorry, I have to work the next four nights...' it was 'these guys are pretty neat, but what I really think would be fun to play is...'

Altoholism really does hinder the possibilities. Part way through you just start thinking of new character ideas and eventually forget that your playing a Defender. And forgot to buff. Everyones dead. FFFFFFFFUU- But yeah, it's a disease.

Stan, get me another alt. Don't you understand? I'm sick, Stan.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler you *******!!!!

I've had static teams that worked well and RP teams that worked well. On the one memorable occasion that I had a static RP team it worked well until personal OOC drama met up with random Real Life schedules and BOOOOM!

The only time I'd consider doing such a thing again would be with a single writer (GM)-type who knew what the end was supposed to be and was able to steer a little. It would make the group size limited but would create goals that we all could enjoy.

Also, I got very bored with trying to come up with ways to explain my characters' absence and way she knew (or didn't know) the information everyone else got in the last session. I'm sure that sucked the fun out of it for other people too. So I'd make sure to plan for that sort of thing before I jumped in.

I get tired of standing around waiting 5 minutes for someone to type out "/e runs fingers through hair and flashes lop-sided grin." Like a few others, I'd like a story rather than someone going on and on about whatever is in their bio.

Static RP has never worked for me. I'm too impatient, I suppose. The Gods of the Golden Age had some epic RP stories/mission runs when I was with them. I think @titansfan was writing them up. I enjoyed that group. I just didn't play heroes enough to retain a spot in the SG at the time.

It's out there.

Yes I have.

I like static teaming and coordinated/regularly scheduled SG events with RP built in. League of Justice had that for a while. We did Task Force/Radio Mission Sundays for about two months. In the end, though, like everyone's mentioned, real life will kick the everloving crud out of statics. I happy to just RP in any team I pug myself into. Plotlines can be reserved for writing.

Lately, my routine has been logging on and searching for other low-leveled heroes with RP-related search comments. I also joined an RP-oriented supergroup. I haven't gotten much combat RP out of either.

I'm at a loss for what to do now. I have no idea where to search. Should I take out a want ad?