Because they don't know how to set up a forum.
I'm not talking about a board-for-every-locale setup being inherently bad regardless. Places are subjective. If you wanted to set one board taking place in a busy shopping mall, you could create one board for the mall, or you could create 30 boards, one for each store, and the food court rb_tongue.gif Which is ideal? Well, that depends. Does your whole RPG take place only in the mall? I'd split it up if so--though for starting sites, probably not with 30 boards. If the RPG takes place in a whole town, probably just one board for the mall would do well. Over time, if that mall board became hugely busy and several significant locales arose within it that became game landmarks, I'd set up a few sub boards for them: the food court, the record store, the clothing store, etc. How many would depend on how much activity there was, but also, secondarily, on how many landmarks came to stand out.
Sites just starting out should have very few RPing boards, as few as possible, ideally no more than 10 to 20 in all. {The same goes for OOC boards.} This is regardless of setting or type. Too many boards discourages activity, it does not encourage it. The more boards you have the more your members will spread out, and this lessens the chance that they will encounter one another.
Those rows of zeroes also make a board look really, really lonely. {And hiding the zeroes with code looks worse.}
Less is more.
There is a similar principle in running a dance event. A large empty ballroom will stifle energy because everyone is so spread out and the energy just sort of... evaporates. If you crowd people in, just a bit, the dancing is more intimate and the energy is catching. You want to facilitate good rp venue without creating this giant vacuous space you won't be able to fill.
ReplyDeleteYup! RPGs/forums are social places first and games second, so the same principles tend to apply.
ReplyDelete