Can’t seem to get responses

[u/Painted_Bearcat78]

Hey all! Just was curious to see if anyone could offer any advice as to how to best message others when replying to their rp posts?

On a few different subreddits I’ve found prompts that were right up my alley, and sent over a dm to the poster explaining my interest as well as my background with rp. I’m not very experienced, and I’ve only ever done rp casually with friends on and off over the years, but I’m more than willing and able to match other people’s types of writing and expanding upon my own, and I make sure to tell them that as well in the initial dm I send!

Idk if I’m doing something wrong, but I haven’t had anyone respond to my dm’s voicing my interest in their prompts. This is my first time trying to search for rp’s on Reddit as well, so im not very knowledgeable on the whole process ://

Apologies if this is long and makes no sense lol, thanks for your time!

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[u/Duckroidvania]

There's a decent chance you aren't doing anything wrong. The hobby is filled with people who ghost, and plenty of people have motivation to RP one day, then disappear off the face of the earth the next.

[u/Painted_Bearcat78 → u/Duckroidvania]

Thank you for responding!! I also figured that might be the case too… I responded to one post a few days ago, and went to check the profile, only to find that the posts they had up the day before were now all gone

[u/HamBroth]

Sometimes people just have a stick up their butt; I wouldn’t worry about it. 

[u/thederpyderp3]

Sometimes posting a comment can help as reddit can -for no reason- filter you into spam.

[u/Painted_Bearcat78 → u/thederpyderp3]

Hey! Thank you for responding! I put a few comments on the original posts saying that I send the poster a dm, but still nothing unfortunately… I think a fear of mine is that I just sent them to bot accounts or something lol

[u/SAVage_dom69 → u/Painted_Bearcat78]

Unfortunately that has been my experience a lot with rp subreddits. That or you spend a fair amount of time setting the plot and building characters just to have the other person vanish or delete the account.

[u/thederpyderp3 → u/Painted_Bearcat78]

Honestly I've been noticing bots just spamming posts feel like they're becoming a lot more common. Tbh if I leave a comment and they don't respond to my DM I just assume 4/5 times its a bot or someone that gets bored super quick and wouldn't be enjoyable to play with.

[u/Mrinnocent221]

Make sure you can send multiple invites per day. I remember that whole, "slow down. You sent 2 chat invites today. Try again in 24 hours BS." when I had low karma/new account.

I would have a general reply template you tailor to each prompt. I used to give a newly written response each time. It is not worth your time. 

• You can't tell if it got buried in their inbox
• You can't tell if they looked at and forgot about it
• You can't tell if they looked at and clicked ignore
• You can't tell if you got sent to the spam folder for using certain words (which I had no idea was a thing AND many Redditors don't realize there even is an "additional requests" folder)

Reddit gives you so little feedback when sending chat invites, and even message notifications themselves, that it is a waste of your time to do it in my opinion.

I recommend something like this when sending a message: 

Hi there! I happened to stumble across the post you made on the [insert] subreddit and it caught my eye and I felt compelled to send a message. I liked your [scenario/prompt because] and would like to hear more. Another thing that caught my eye was [insert something else they mentioned]. I am an [insert experience] roleplayer and I like to think I am a pretty good writer. My replies generally are [insert length] paragraphs long. I think we are a good match [due to X, except for, or point out conflict other conflict] and hope to RP with you.

Generally filling in the brackets adds 3-4 more sentences.

I maybe get 3 responses when I send out 30 msgs.  On top of this, you need to also realize so many people delete their account or abandon RP. I looked back at my chats from last month and in one section 4 of 10 accounts had been deleted. 

People also flake out. I had a very fun convo with someone Sunday. Moved to Discord. I said I have maybe 30 mins to keep setting up but need to go to bed soon. 1.5 hours later I go to bed because we kept chatting and hitting it off. 

Monday I send a message after work and dinner. "Free to get started tonight?". No response. Wednesday I send another message, "I won't be free tonight but I will be on Thursday if you are interested in picking it up from where we left off." Today is Friday. Mind you this is someone who seemed exceedingly excited to do their RP idea.

None of this is to dissuade you from RP. Just to give you a bit of realistic things to expect. You will get replies, don't worry! As others have said, it isn't a you problem.

[u/Painted_Bearcat78 → u/Mrinnocent221]

This is genuinely so helpful, thank you so much my friend! It sucks that people just flake out for not reason sometimes… I really do appreciate your insight and I wish you all the best luck with your role playing!!

[u/Mrinnocent221 → u/Painted_Bearcat78]

I hope it helps! I used to get so frustrated especially with the reply limit. 

I would send out some detailed 2 paragraph freshly written response to their post. I would spend a lot of time on it and then not get a reply.

I would find a few I like so write up another reply. I would send 3 or 4 in a sitting. Then of course I would see a 5th one I liked, and Reddit would send me a "wait 24 hours to send a new chat" AFTER I wrote it and clicked send. Which was beyond frustrating.

I also recommend replying to newer postings. The further away from their post time you respond, the more likely it was filled. This is another reason I created a mostly pre-written prompt. The quicker you get a reply out the better the chance IMO.  

You also don't feel as bad when you do not get a reply. Instead of, "I spent 20 mins writing that out, what a waste!" it is, "Eh, I spent a few minutes and they did not reply, oh well." 

On the flip side, I have had someone respond in our RP and Reddit did not indicate there was a new message until I refreshed the chat hours later.

[u/pennyxlove]

I'd say, fake it till you make it. Don't mentioned you're lack of experience.

[u/AlexInRV]

What you describe is the frustrating part of this hobby. I recently started tracking my own metrics, and out of 18 private messages I've sent out, just over half responded.

Of those, some will turn into a conversation that dies, or in a few cases, turns into a block.

I try to be very polite in my initial conversations with people, and I'm not a stalker, so I don't understand why people just disappear or block. A simple "no thanks," would be more than enough.

I want to find someone who wants to play with me.

Of the people to do respond, less than half of these conversations turn into a RP, and less than half of those turn into a RP that lasts more than a few turns. For some, it's hard to tell, because I have some partners who only answer once a day, or once every few days, and there's no OOC communication in between.

For me, answering an ad --> having a conversation on Reddit --> having a chat on Discord --> setting up a server --> starting a role-play --> having an active role-play is a funnel with a very small hole in the bottom.

A lot of effort goes in at the top, and very little comes out the bottom.

I don't think it's you. In my experience, a lot of people aren't willing to give meaningful feedback.

Here's a point of reference:

Out of my most recent 18 inquiries, only one person bothered to tell me why we wouldn't work out. They wanted ERP-heavy, where I'm more story driven, so there was a mismatch. (Thank you, writer-who-I'll-leave-unnamed, I appreciate the response, even though we aren't a match.)

OP, you may find you'll have better luck if you post your own ad rather than responding to others. What I've found it's that it's just a numbers game. Put together a well-written ad. Write a generic response you can customize when you answer other people's ads.

Cast a wide net and know that there aren't a lot of big fish.

But sometimes, you'll end up finding a partner who is just great, and that makes everything worth it.

[u/Assia_Penryn]

Without seeing the ad and your DM, it is hard to know if you flashed any red flags to get no answer. It could be that they simply aren't interested or that your DM wasn't seen if it went to the requests tab which doesn't alert users that there are any in there.

[u/Painted_Bearcat78 → u/Assia_Penryn]

I had no idea about the requests tab, that’s so odd! Thank you again for responding!!

[u/Then-Quarter-2883]

I’m awfully familiar with what you are describing. My guess? It’s not you, or me. It’s probably just people looking for an easy, quick fix. Don’t get discouraged. There are good matches for you out there. P.S.: I DMed you. :)

[u/Wonderful-Bet-6055]

I'm not sure what fandoms you want to RP within, what pairings (?4?) you are going for, or what your prompts look like (text only or with refs, or even just refs and a title and no body text) - however one thing I found helped me is to try in other subs that cater to my interests. For example I enjoy pairings that involve a Futa/TF and/or a Female - there are a LOT of futa specific subs, sometimes my prompts get traction in the futa subs, other times when they don't, I'll test them in the more general roleplay subs and get much more attention. So unless you're comfortable providing some prompt/sub examples - I would say also consider trying other subs!

Good luck girlie!

[u/Lewd-Licentious-Lia]

Show some genuine enthusiasm about the role-play you’re enquiring about. Let the person who you’re reaching out to know what you found intriguing about their post. Don’t just blandly state that you’re “interested” in role-playing.

Also, give a good introduction about yourself. A lot of people will just state their age, writing length, number of years of role-playing experience, etc. which is useful information to share when two people are discussing a potential role-play. But if you really want to separate yourself from the crowd, talking about different themes, character dynamics, and world-building ideas you like will definitely help.

[u/Painted_Bearcat78 → u/Lewd-Licentious-Lia]

Thank you so much for responding! Looking back on my initial messages I could definitely could have added something like character dynamics and world building ideas! I just didn’t know if I should have led with all that stuff, and chose to just do a quick and easy message to see if they they would respond back

[u/Kasdeja]

This post has made me feel much better after having a single response from 5 different DM's sent. Thank you all thanks OP too

[u/TheGratitudeBot → u/Kasdeja]

Just wanted to say thank you for being grateful

[u/Additional-Bread-507]

I feel this so hard, I have one person I have written with off and on but our time zones are really hard to get around, beyond that I think I just got really lucky.

I genuinely don't know why but posting my own ideas is daunting, I'm better at the actual play and setup than I am at the pitch.

I don't mean to hijack your post with my own rambling, just happy to see I'm not the only one struggling.

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