Unplanned RP and Courtesy's of RP

Hi guys, gals, and all ranges of the spectrum in between,

Just your friendly neighbourhood RP Advisor here to spark some discussion surrounding some of the recent events on JvS. As always, I do ever so love being topical, and I feel, that as apart of my job, that we need to tackle issues important to the writer's of JvS. Currently, we've had some, I want to say slight controversy, regarding some events that were sparked by a particular group of writer's on Serenno. Now, I want to make it very clear, that this isn't some giant pile on to target people, it's merely just being used as an example that has sparked some debate and discussion amongst the community.

So, I am here to ask a very simple couple questions, What is unplanned RP to you? and what courtesy do you expect from people wanting to write with you?
Obviously, for me, in it's most basest form, an unplanned RP is exactly what you might expect from the label. It's an RP that is unplanned, other than, we'll show up here and do something, not sure what will happen along the way, but come what may, we'll roll with it. However, like all interactions that I have on JvS, I expect some modicum of courtesy from my fellow writer's to get at least a simple "hey, I wanna do something, I dont have much planned, but are you ok with this?", just as I would do with anyone I interacted with. Personally, I prefer if someone let's me know they want to do something, even if it's just "you guys just up for a random visit", so that I can find a way to interact with the person, without messing up something I've been trying to do for months, but unable to because my life gets in the way.
I've honestly always seen it as something that is basic etiquette when interacting with people on a website that is as a collaborative RP site. Like, even just basic collaboration as simple as "hey, you ok with something unplanned?" is more than enough. For me, not asking that question, so that the person has a chance to either accept or refuse your offer, is honestly kind of rude to the person your writing with, cause it's akin to saying "I don't care if you say yes or no, I'm gunna make you write with me whether you like it or not". That'd be like a total stranger coming up to me and going "i'm coming over to your house and your gunna feed me", as opposed to them coming up to me and being like "you know, you seem like a really awesome person, whom I view as an equal, that I'd like to hang out with, what do you think?".

Now, obviously, that is just my take on things, however, I open the floor to everyone else to weigh in with their answers to the question. I ask you all to be respectful and the slightest sign of people arguing with each other, and not only do you both lose, but this thread will be locked and archived.

At any rate. I would like to take a moment to address these questions with regards to the current situation. On the on side, we have the Serenno crew (whom may or may not be written by some of our esteemed colleagues and friends to perform a test) claiming that JvS is dying, with writer's dropping like flies, driving away new comers, and that a simple PM asking if someone is up for some interaction is honestly not enough based on a presumption that it is true. Now, on the otherside, we have the various groups/people who were made targets of this experiment (Kent, the Felucian Jedi/Jedi Order, and the Umgul crew), most of whom would certainly refute many of those claims, and have all this time just been arguing to have had a simple PM which would have done wonders for them to have a chance to say yes or no because hey, Real Life does happen, and sometimes it means you could do with someone giving you a chance to say yes or no, or even just rescheduling to a time you're not busy with say, raising a child, or studying for exams, or dealing with idiots at work who dont know their jobs despite working there longer than you.
I mean, of all the newcomers that have joined within the last month, not a single one of them hasn't tried to interact with people a little bit first, before jumping into some RP. I mean, I've said this time and time again. You want Planned RP, then find people like minded, and organize something with them, you want some Unplanned RP, then the same thing applies, find like minded people and write with them. And everytime I've said this, someone always inexplicabale asks "but where are they?", to which my immediate response is "I don't know, I dont do much unplanned RP, but we have this lovely JvS RP Planning area, where people of like minded natures always find each other". But now, my new response is "well, there is this amazing thread, where people are discussing what unplanned RP is to them, so maybe you should check it out, find out who shares some similar ideas with you, and ya'll get together". There seems to be this double standard at the moment, where planned RPer's are forced to use this area to find people, and then happily keep to themselves, but yet, people who want Unplanned RP seem to not be able to find each other (despite the tools readily being available), and then when a couple of them do, they seem intent on forcing their particular style onto mostly people that are well known for not exactly liking it. Honestly, the Serenno crew had this down pat, in so far as, they were all up for unplanned RP, and were doing stuff together, and then decided they wanted to try spread out, which was cool, until they kind of were like "well, we will assume a simple asking of whether people are up for and have time for this is not enough, cause everyone needs to plan things to the nth degree". (note of point: it is a false assumption to make, since I've yet to see someone on JvS capable of that level of planning and making it work in RP. The more common sight, is people trying to control how other people RP their characters.)

Now, in saying that, this does not extol the behaviour that has been displayed, of which I am also guilty of. And, whilst my reaction was borne from the idea that when I am treated rudely, I treat someone else rudely, two wrongs do not make a right. Something which both sides have been quite guilty of (those who were targetted for their reactions, and those who did the targetting for making crude assumptions). Obviously, as a newcomer, such reactions would be quite offputting, assuming your approach to JvS (and other such communities) was to simply go "i'm dropping in here". But again, not a single newcomer has done that, all of them have at least introduced themselves in chat, and attempted to get to know the people they want to write with.
But a couple points I would like to note:
1. considering the complete and utter bullshit that was 1.0, is it so far fetched that anyone displaying similar characteristics to those days would be frowned upon by the community? I mean, we call it the dark ages for a reason...
2. The people who were pushing for unplanned RP and were meant to be up for anything, suddenly complained when something unexpected happened. point in case, the couple of people on Coruscant that were there to try kidnap the future chancellor, suddenly found themselves outmatched by someone who did something unexpected in return and actually wrote with them. Like, you got what you wanted, something unplanned, and then when the odd's became against them, started hurling insults about people being power-mongers (but hey, it's cool to attempt to mess up something that someone has been succesfully working on and planning for months)


Look, I know it's really making it seem like I'm biased in this, and I probably am a little. However, I liked the potential they had for their idea, however, to executing the idea by forcing change onto other people, has never gone down terribly well in JvS history. I mean, remember that time we closed the banking system down? I sure do, cause people are still angry about it. On the other hand, remember how we phased out the PO after almost two years of people creating ridiculous bullshit? you don't, that's right, cause it was so gradual that people didnt even miss it once it was gone. Unplanned and spontaneous RP can bear fruit, just as equally as planned RP can. The spontaneous RP weekends, and the push for blue badge planets is just proof, that people still like unplanned RP, but the biggest diference, is that everyone was on the same page, they all agreed to it. And that is something that has been animportant part of JvS since 1.5 came around. Communication is a quintessential piece to a Collaborative RP site, without, we end up in the situation we're in, with neither side having any high ground to stand on. Seriously, you don't just start calling people petulant children that are power-monering ignorant stone-wallers. But on the reverse, you don't make some of the remarks that were made in chat (although I can't call any to mind from when I was in chat with others, I'm certain someone will come along with a crude remark that was made).


Essentially, this whole rant/post, comes back to those previous couple questions I asked. What is Unplanned RP to you? and what courtesy do you expect from people wanting to write with you?
An important thing to remember, is that whilst I like someone to give me a heads up, someone else might prefer a surprise without anyone giving them a chance to agree to something or not. Again, everyone is different, and that is something that was entirely forgotten here, by everyone involved. On on side there was "everyone likes surprises because I do, and sending a PM with a heads up to give them a chance to say no before hand is pointless, cause everyone only ever loves long planned out RPs", whilst the other side was felling blindsinded and going "I don't really like surprises, and I'd appreciate a simple PM, but since they didn't, fuck these guys", which devolved to the other side also going "fuck these guys".

But I feel like, if this thread achieves it's intended goal of people putting forth what they view unplanned RP as, and the kinds of things people expect from their fellow RPers, we'll be able to help connect like minded folk, and avoid these situations where both sides are throwing insults at one another and people are getting upset. And I swear, if the sentence "the reactions are uncalled for" is not followed by "from both sides", your post will be removed, cause again, this is meant to be an outlet for discussion, not a place to argue amongst ourselves.
The moment we argue amongst ourselves, the terrorists win (or the whills just lock the thread and archive it).

Hopefully my own comments dont get this thread immediately locked.
For prefessionalism sake, can I just say that while the Experiment was a good idea, it's intended targets were poorly researched (come on, hitting Umgul, who are notorious for keeping to themselves, and Belial, who spent 6 years creating a god, was just ridiculous) and was asking for failure. Next time, some better targets should be researched and chosen, and mayhaps all of the RP Advisors should perhaps be brought in on what's going on, and not have half of them left in the dark. Though, in saying that, clearly some people are still up for unplanned RP on JvS (you guys yourselves proved that)


with his rambling over, concedes the floor