Belle Hibiki Wrote:In my mind, we've just been dancing around the truth for a long time now. Whenever we have debates about this, it's always about incentivizing this, or promoting that; "If only we change the CA system, people will play", "if only we can do this, we can get more sagas." But that's completely wrong. The forum isn't a game, as much as we try to dress it up as one; there was an element of that, once upon a time, but that vanished along with the automated bot.
No, what this is supposed to be about is writing with other people, of exchanging ideas, of that excitement you get when you're not fully in control of the story in your hands, where your partner(s) take you down turns in a tale that you might never have seen coming. That's why roleplaying is awesome to me, and why most of us started to do it in the first place. Writing shouldn't be something that the system has to coerce you into, it should be a labor of love, freely given. We focus so much on the 'system' and 'competition' that I think we miss that fact.
We constrain ourselves and our crazy ideas for the sake of 'balance' in what is essentially a formless construct. We deny ourselves the opportunity to build a Titanic on the waves, because we're too busy trying to build a sand castle there. Is CA an issue? Sure, but it's not the main issue.
I completely fucking agree.
When I first joined Chubbs, the first thing that hit me hard was the level of writing and the writers that this site inhabited. I remember there once was a time where I literally read every person's post just so I can whole-heartedly learn how to become a better writer. To that respect, I feel like I have grown a lot as a writer because of this place and it definitely hurts when I witness, firsthand, this place collecting dust and lose its former glory. I looked up to a lot of people in this place, and being able to roleplay and interact with them was a great bliss of mine. Definitely somewhat life changing...
Because of this place, I started really working on my craft. Because of this place, writing became one of the greatest hobby of mine, one that I'm actually proud of and quite honestly the hobby that I find most enjoyable. I really wouldn't like to see this place shut down, yet I'm completely flustered as to what I could contribute to this place during a time of overhaul. All I know is... writing is a dying art.
Realistically, I don't think this place will live on as an RPG. Like Belle said, we're all trying too hard to hold on to the construct of the RPG to really see that this place has actually already evolved way above it. I guess its this unheralded evolution that has brought upon the difficulties for everyone to continue writing, at least for me it is. I've stopped treating this place as a game a long time ago. This has since evolved into a place where I can share my stories, read other engaging tales, receive criticism and quite honestly just hone my craft. I think treating this place as game will spell ultimate doom and I'll explain that.
First of all, kids nowadays, they don't give a fuck about reading or writing. As much as we can all deny this, these kids that don't give a fuck are the future of.. well, everything. Without new blood pouring in, and with the old people here just collecting dust and having whims now and again, there's just no more new material. As a writer(somewhat), the thing that inspires me to write is always something new, or something interesting and we don't get that because it's been really stale. All the vets here, we've all done our fair share of writing, and let's be honest, we're all past the age where we can just sit down and write for hours on end. This is our key demographic gone.
Secondly, we alienate some of the more serious writers out there because we hold on to the idea that this is still a game. People that are around our writing age and ability but have outgrown "the game" will never come on to a "DBZ RPG" to try to work on their craft or interact with some of the writers here. I've been on many boards before, and I must say this place is the most special. Aside from most other boards not surviving nearly long enough to be considered a community, this is a community of GREAT writers. We hide some of greatest writers that I've ever read from. If we could somehow get over this hump, I feel like we'll be able to attract some new blood here as well, just not young guns.
Also, the most important thing of all. When we do attract these people, through advertisement or word of mouth, I feel like we also fuck it up for them because we ARE a community and we come with the faults of a community. This means that newcomers, unless they are extremely socially aware, are often alienated and find it hard to fit in because we as Chubbsians have a very weird sort of chemistry with each other. And because we don't come off as the most welcoming people, or perhaps because people feel like they're not on par creatively or linguistically, they don't stick around often enough. For my experiences at least, it took me awhile until I felt like I was truly part of "the crowd." But hey, I'm a more persistent one.
These are just my two cents. Honestly, I don't know why I posted this, but I felt like there were somethings that I wanted to address on a macro level that maybe some people overlook when talking about re-vamping Chubbs.
Feel free to disagree, g's.