There's a lot of good points in this discussion.
I'm pretty new to FF, still, so I don't have a clear view of the RP community here, yet. From RPing in other games, though, I've seen people in situations like you're in. I suspect the solution here is similar to the solution in those other games:
I'm pretty new to FF, still, so I don't have a clear view of the RP community here, yet. From RPing in other games, though, I've seen people in situations like you're in. I suspect the solution here is similar to the solution in those other games:
- Quiet, bookish characters are hard to get RP with, especially pick-up RP*. The best way around this (as other folks have mentioned) is to reach out to people OOCly. They need to know that you're RPing a quiet, bookish character sitting in the corner, as opposed to just being afk.
- I've gotten involved in someone's RP plot through random pick-up RP exactly once. Every other time (both with my own plots and other people's plots) we've all known one another to some degree. I tend to think of pick-up RP as a foot in the door for this sort of thing: it lets you play around with someone you've just met without any commitments.
- Be outgoing with your RP. That doesn't mean that you have to RP an extrovert. Instead, it means that you try to draw other people into RP with your actions. Nebbs makes an excellent point about giving. Acting as an enabler for other people's RP is probably the best way to get people to RP with you. I'm pretty quiet at the moment, since I'm still in the "lurk and listen" stage of feeling out the RP community here, but I normally try to do this pretty much every time I play. If you can't think of anything else to try, ask someone about some characteristic of their character. We're RPers, after all. There's nothing we love more than to natter on about our characters.
- This is sort of a follow up to the previous point: Always Be RPing. I ran into another RPer while questing in some random deserted corner of the world (in another game). I had my RP tag on, and he stopped to chat a little in character. Just a little throwaway bit about how the mist looked evil, then we were on our way. This little bit of random RP stuck with us both, so we ended up doing a bunch of plot RP together.
- Be patient. Some days the RP gods simply aren't smiling on you.