I hear a lot lately people saying that walk up is dead. I understand burnout and writing slumps, they suck. I’m not going to downplay that and no one should. It’s a tough thing to work out of. But I do find myself getting a little put off when I hear people say that walk up is dead. Often spoken by the very same people who I never see out in the streets, engaging the community. Or, more commonly, those who throw ‘walk ups welcome’ into a TRP and then go AFK in the corner of the Pig or something.
That’s not how you engage. It’s not how you seek walk up. It’s never going to work, and that tactic has rarely worked in past unless your counterpart was super engaging. You know what -has- changed? RP Desires. Desires for the big, sweeping stories and the massive arcs. A sort of writer’s gluttony designated on the massive plots offered often by guilds and community RPs. And there is no shame in that, RPs like that are wonderful and expansive. They bring out amazing things.
But when is the last time you, as an RPer, took your character and went somewhere casual? When was the last time your character purchased a drink for a paladin and then listened to him spin a fantastic tale for you in a dingy bar? When was the last time your character played the guitar in an open space and got invited by a group to sing for them as they sang along? When did you last take your character out and let them just.. live?
Exist. Without your overbearing mind weighing them. Without expectations put on them. Where you just let them walk the city and breathe. Feel normal. Feel Human, or whatever race they are.
Your characters can not always be expected to storm in the tempest of plots you push them through. And that is where I see this lack of walk up. People want the grand, and forget to simply let their character be a character in a living, breathing space. For just a little while.
If you desire it, get it. It’s out there for you to obtain. The people are there. The city is there. And if more and more people put themselves out there we’d see the city we know come back to life. I can guarantee that. But it takes more then simply sitting on a bench in the park or standing in a tavern. You need to flourish. Give them a task. Make them go shopping. Seek a companion to climb a building with. Pick flowers. Whatever you do, do it with someone. Find someone. Make a connection.
And sure, sometimes you will fall flat. Some days, I fall flat too. I’ll put my character out there and find no one. Or find only couples and groups I don’t want to interrupt. But a majority of times I go out there I find something brilliant. Those examples I gave above were from recent walk-up RPs, and they are just a few of the random, exciting little adventures I got into simply by letting my character go out into the city and exist without my expectations pressuring them.
What I’m saying is, don’t let your RP die simply because you think it’s already dead. I come from a mentality that you must be the walk up to get walk up. And if your character is not friendly, that’s fine. There are a slew of fantastic ways to be an antagonist and still create a positive experience for others.
Go out there and make the stories. The walk up is not dead. Never was. You just have to be a part of it. And we’re RPers. That’s what we signed up to do.
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