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"Realtime" JPs vs "Extended" JPs

Wes

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I was thinking this morning that usually when I run a JP as a GM, things are happening in sort-of real time, where the players there are controlling their characters as things unfold. The benefits of this is it feels close to live action (e.g. you don't know quite what will happen). But the downside is that whoever can't make the JP can't get their character into the action easily. It occurred to me that some other GMs have done a sort of "extended JP" which is more like group storywriting. The JP will be opened for an extended period like a week and during that week, players insert their characters' lines at their convenience. When everyone is satisfied with the result they post it on the forum. The benefits are that everyone has a chance to write in the JP, and the finished JP probably comes out more polished/readable. Basically one style of JP is an "event" where the other is sort of a project.

Thoughts?
 
except expand a week, to a month, and you have my usual JP projects. This is why RP posts from me and my players seem more slow, as we work on them for a while, especially from conflicting schedules. It works for me and my players so far, so I do encourage giving it a try, coming from someone with experience on this.
 
Honestly? I started off in 'real-time' JPs on the old Sakura. I'm fairly used to them and love'em since it causes me to think and react on my feet. While they have some pitfalls, mainly perhaps a lower quality post or interest becoming lacking after a while I find them quite refreshing. Extended JPs I have grown to be fond of as well. As you've stated Wes, it allows players and GMs to attend to things and pop in to make their posts. It feels more like an SP with the bonus of others assisting in spelling, grammar and things. I would love to do more live JPs, I haven't done one in quite some time but job life prevents this a lot of the time sadly. So the other variety has become a mainstay for now. Both work. Both have merits and flaws. -Shrugs-
 
As someone from outside the USA, as much as I love live action, for me and probably for others they can be rather impractical depending on timings. When I was a student, staying up till 4am or whenever to keep up with USA timezones was no sweat. But now I'm in work, it's harder and harder to try to stay up until that sort of time so people in the USA can run their JPs in their evenings (which is when everyone naturally wants to relax and unwind).

I really feel for the Aussies of the site, given I've heard horror stories about them trying to keep up with other timezones. But, there's no getting around the fact the vast majority of the site members are based in the USA rather than scattered more, so whether it's actually worth reducing the amount of live JPs to accommodate international writers a bit better is actually a question all of its own. I don't want the method of plot execution to change for a minority if keeping it the way it is, is better for everyone else. But to sum up, I'd love to have more international-friendly JPs, obviously xD
 
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