Oh, I love One Piece. Have been on and staffed a few sites about it too.

Problem I think is that it's just not the easiest RP setting. The focus is usually on ship crews which means dead-locking a group of roleplayers together and having to work around where they are in liquid time and restricting their movement otherwise things quickly devolve into nonsense. That also requires a lot of communication and if you lose people / captains it falls apart and can't be easily substituted. If you want to be truly free to roleplay wherever, you can't be on a crew. But then you're just flying solo in the world of OP which defeats the nakama power purpose.

I also just in general don't see as many fans of it as I do the other big shonen settings: Naruto, Bleach, Fairy Tail, Black Clover, whatever else is next and trendy.

I absolutely agree! I've found that previously, on other One Piece sites I've been apart of, you end up either a revolving door for people or alternatively get super isolated groups that devolve into "Not part of my crew? not my problem." I've been just brainstorming ideas how to create a setting that allows for both groups and solo to thrive.

Personally I think one of the biggest drives towards that mentality is just the nature of the series. It's sets up a very 'linear' progression naturally. As in progress from island to island or do x to get y power, etc. I really only have two ideas for a setting/story but I wanted to see if any of them resonate with people or alternatively if there are any similar ideas others have had that can be added to make a more cohesive idea.

The first being somewhat of a more freeform structure. Aside from potentially some 'stop gates' (Like shop purchases for rank ups or whatever) it's more overarching plot, some set pieces, members dictate the world events? Sort of let the site, aside from a few important set pieces, develop it's own identity.

The second which is probably more formulaic was something more akin to offsetting the uncomfortable situations you can run into when perhaps wanting to make your own crew or be worried about people coming and going. Having a cheap purchase for Player Controlled Crewmates. So people could fill in their ranks with 'NPCs' while retaining as much freedom as possible to move/RP at your own pace and not be as worried about filling them with PCs. The background I imagined more for this would be somewhat more of a pirate/lawless world (vs. the standard Marine/WG one) with alliances/betrayals along with territory related plots being a big focus. So people can still "play solo" while being not as separate as you would via joining a crew or not. 

Or maybe some hybrid of the two? Idk site creation isn't exactly my forte lol but I do have ideas for sure. 

While I never have been part of a One Piece RP, I have done a One Piece DND and I really do love the world and the fun sometimes wacky aspects of it. What was said before is more or less correct, that the medium lends itself to being only part of a pirate crew because that's what it is (about pirates and nakama etc) and a majority of people will want to create that experience. But as RP is, people come and go and groups/partners are very hard to maintain. 

Perhaps a freeformish setting that focuses on a larger Pirate Crew that might have multiple offshoot crews underneath it that is run by staff and is always open to new characters being recruited or can be written as part of it for a long time. It would limit people who wanted to be independent, but it would always allow a background a default pirate crew to always be a part of. 

I'm a terrible systems person myself, so obviously the powers/devil fruit/haki abilities would all have to be system'd out at one point, with stats or keeping it stat light. I've seen a trend toward very stat-light sites recently going for more freeform, but it has its own pros and cons. 

I would also personally prefer an AU without canon One Piece characters floating around, but that's just me who doesn't really prefer being part of panfandom or fandom sites that allow canon characters. 

I don't think the fandom is small at all, and I've seen some One Piece sites come and go, but they don't naturally last very long for some reason? I'd hate to say One Piece is niche but I definitely know a lot of people who dislike it as much as a people who do like it. I only ever read up around 300 chapters myself before just giving up. It's another discussion for another day of why people dislike/like One Piece, but I would agree that its world setting and lore is some of the most unique out of major shonens! 

Ooooh I actually like both of those ideas! I've seen a bunch of One Piece sites and aside from a few changes (Pirate King dead, missing, etc.) it's usually preeeeetty much the same setting as canon. Same set up etc. Hence my idea for an inverted story sort of leaning into the more popular aspect and I'll throw some bullet points based on my own thoughts and the suggestions here? I'm decent with systems and story but I have very basic coding skill.

• Lawless World made up of smaller zones with Pirates being the dominant force instead of Marines/WG

• Territory related events. Ex. Pirate X (Site Created NPC) and his crew holds the East Blue Territory of a set of islands.

• Umbrella Crews stemming from the larger Pirate Crew that own territory. Ex. Creating a crew that's allied with a larger crew or being a new 'member' (This is where I imagine solo players will go) of one of the NPC related smaller crews.

• Stat-Lite with a bigger emphasis on tiers of character [Could be fleshed out more]

• Elements from Canon but utilized in a completely different way. Such as having Admirals just not canon ones. [No Canon Characters.]

• Completely Custom Islands? They could have a blurb of information including the weather, population, and special notes but I do like the idea of starting with the Blues and opening more and more for exploration.

• Territory Wars/Expansion? Like perhaps travelling to a new island and competing with another crew. NPC or PC trying to establish yourself. Could make this into a special type of "mission" or mini PVP contests with site consequences.

• World Government/Marines are the underdogs. Was thinking like the Marine/WG hub is a artificial island or something in the center of these Territories. They're usually not as popular as Pirates but I could imagine a larger appeal if they're the underdogs working towards dismantling these larger pirate groups. 

• Waaaay more for Bounty Hunters to do. Perhaps even less popular than Marines in my experience if we make a Bounty Board and throw some NPCs (Most PCs I can't imagine would like to be caught by BHs) giving them much more to do since in this specific situation that Pirates would outnumber other factions by a large amount. 

• For Devil Fruits and all the more funky powers perhaps allowing just custom ones? some DFs in canon I've seen (Looking at you Law) just seem like a headache to balance to make it fair for others. It would be like wiping the slate clean completely so you could make a Fire based DF even though there's one in canon. 
  
  Does any of that sound like something you guys could get onboard with?

Been kicking this idea around in my head further and honestly? I think I'm gonna do it. Easier said than done I know, but if anyone wants to participate in any capacity (or just be in the loop). It's been a few years since I've actually made an RP so it'll probably be slow going but yeah! Expect something at some point and feel free to add me on discord 'Edo#3667' if you'd like! 

First I just need to think of a good name but it'll come to me xD

I hope this takes off 🛫🤍

I’ve been scrawling ideas on the topic for a long time, especially trying to get around the “having to stick with a specific crew” thing. One of the ideas I came up with was allowing people to purchase (and find IC) generic & special NPC’s? As far as generics go, a lot of folk in OP have 25-50+ member crews, and like Whitebeard some have those commander type characters who stand out from the generics. Maybe members can scoop up those generic characters & make their own special NPC’s giving them a crew of sorts to run around with and still letting them play with other members?

Super interested in what’s going on though

I'm pretty much in the brainstorming stage BUT I am definitely looking for input and would be happy to incorporate any ideas others might have. I also decided on a name (which could change but I personally like it) Aozora or Blue Sky [Not sure which i'll stick with]. 

For a few updates to those who are interested and would also like to be more directly involved with the process I created a discord! Feel free to join discord.gg/KPfVZ2M6dv and just hang out if you'd like or throw some ideas/things you want to see in there. Right now it's just my roommate and myself working on it. Can't give a strict timeline as to when we'd even have a beta up but feel free to ping me directly!