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Closed/Limited Settings?

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Closed/Limited Settings? written Feb 17, 2019 1:58:34 GMT
aliaskappaccino
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welcome and well met, my brave little spark
Question to anyone/everyone

What kind of small/closed settings would you like or enjoy to rp in? (Particularly with supernatural or fantastical shenanigans involved.) An inn/onsen? An apartment complex? An office? A prison? Isolated reform school?

Or maybe something broader? A run down entertainment district? A shopping center? Ect?


I remember way back in the day running a site where the setting was a hospital and a police station right next to each other and that was it. And even though that limited characters to doctors, police, janiters, giftshop, patients, ect everyone had a blast and was more easily able to rp since they were in a small area. It didn't last a super long time though.


Would a closed in setting be too limiting for people to have fun, in your opinion? Do you have any suggestions or advice on making them work?


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Closed/Limited Settings? written Feb 17, 2019 8:10:26 GMT
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I think a closed setting CAN be a good setting for an RP, but only if it's not TOO closed? Like for example a run down entertainment district or maybe a block or section in a city.

You mention fantasy shenanigans, so perhaps a section of a large city sequestered off for fantastical folk, that way you have plenty of breathing and elbow room to embrace longevity, but it's still a small closed off community? I think the idea of a single space for RP is really fun in THEORY, but it really works best for small groups of your and your friends, rather than an RP forum open to everyone and anyone if that makes sense?

I've played with these kinds of settings A LOT in private with a friend, just all our different characters living in an apartment or something, it works really well in that kind of scenario, but not QUITE as much once you open it up unless you constantly introduce things to keep the story and juice flowing.

So I'd say a district or small section of a town or city where there are lots of places for these characters to meet and interact, while also offering a smaller scale area to play in.

IDK if this helps AT ALL, but I wanted to give my 2 cents!
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Closed/Limited Settings? written Feb 17, 2019 15:14:17 GMT
Army-Crushing Star
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All my attempts to rp end in failure, so now I'm a solo act.
I don't mind closed settings; I've been in a lot of those school rps (especially Harry Potter), bars, a few uh...mental hospitals, and even a big apartment setup, once. They're fun, and it makes sense for my characters to be there, so finding a way to interact with others is limited only by compatibility with the characters themselves.

For that apartment rp, it was like one of those luxury apartments, with a few onsite stores. I can't remember any events we might have had, but I didn't feel constricted.

I'm not too picky, tbh.
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Closed/Limited Settings? written Feb 17, 2019 15:29:04 GMT
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I'd love to see a site with a smaller, closed-off setting where the characters are unable to leave due to Mysterious Circumstances™ (because who doesn't love a good mystery?). Something like Under the Dome, Persons Unknown, or Wayward Pines — the setting doesn't have to be limited to small-town, though.
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Closed/Limited Settings? written Feb 18, 2019 15:53:01 GMT
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in turning divine, we tangle endlessly

event horizon is technically a closed setting (with a few exceptions to certain classes of characters but they don't count). i'm not sure if the comparison is going to be helpful since its nature is very open plotwise and more member driven, but the fact that all of the citizens of the city are quite literally walled in an not legally allowed to leave, it does, as far as i can tell, offer members who wish for conflict in their character arcs to have it while simultaneously allowing for people to create characters that are perfectly happy within the site's setting with minimal conflict/slice of life character plots

so i guess my only good advice if you want to pursue a closed setting site is not to pigeon-hole it too much so that only a couple types of character archetypes will fit well into it. depending on what kind of site you're going for (like if you want one that's very heavily plot drive, for example) this is easier said than done, but in my experience giving your members as much free reign as possible within the closed setting will set yourself up for site/plot longevity.

which isn't to say that alternatives are Doomed To Fail, this is just my personal experience!
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Closed/Limited Settings? written Feb 18, 2019 19:51:37 GMT
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Feb 17, 2019 15:29:04 GMT said:
I'd love to see a site with a smaller, closed-off setting where the characters are unable to leave due to Mysterious Circumstances™ (because who doesn't love a good mystery?). Something like Under the Dome, Persons Unknown, or Wayward Pines — the setting doesn't have to be limited to small-town, though.
That would be a dream to see one day. I think I may not be finding the ones out there that may be doing it, but I find that so many of the RPs in the realm I play in seem to want to make the whole world (quite literally) available. While i like how it can make it much easier to have a variety of characters and origins (cuz how many foreigners are there really going to be in a British boarding school or Japanese day school?), it can be a little daunting. If you can just relocate from some problems, it makes it easy to not carry stakes in some plots.
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