RP Hotzones

[OccamsClub]

Just my 2c anyways, having been there.

Appreciate the thoughts - I do think they're not quite what I'm talking about though. You seem to be describing bringing some activity back to an officially supported faction that has, in my perception over the years, been the most DM-supported, active faction - even if that activity sometimes dips to lower-than-normal levels. By the sound of things you also had a good amount of direct DM support, which certainly isn't an option available for the large number of players for whom PotM is a fully DM-less experience.

You can absolutely push a factions presence and bring people into it, then use sway and a large friend group  to go and do events in places - that's not what I'm suggesting here. I'm clamouring for encouraging the natural, bump-into strangers, hang-around-looking-for-chatter RP that currently seems to only happen in the Outskirts to be encouraged to happen in other places too.

Nobody 'built' anything in the Outskirts. Nobody forced that location to be active. It's active because of metagame factors.

Therefore, metagame factors are sort of the best levers to pull to add some variety into the potential backdrops for day-to-day, non-event, meet-new-strangers RP. Players cannot pull these levers, no matter how hard they try.

I feel like I've communicated my suggestion here very badly, because a lot of answers seem disconnected to what I'm trying to suggest. I'm not saying that I am incapable of dragging my friends or summoning strangers for an event in these locations. I've done so and had success. It's definitely A Thing You Can Do. It's entirely related to what I'm suggesting. I can certainly find friend groups and good RP outside of the outskirts. That's unrelated to what I'm suggesting.

"The server is full of underutilised ghost towns - are there ways we could temporarily create interest in alternative hubs?" is the question. Flash-in-the-pan events aren't the answer.

So to be clear - What I'm suggesting is that, when you log in, you get a message like so:

This month's alternate hub is: The Village of Barovia. Considering looking for RP opportunities there!

Maybe attach an XP motivator to really get peoples attention, maybe don't. But if I logged in and saw that event? I'd sure as hell be heading to the VoB and trying to kindle up some new RP with some new people. I don't think I'd be the only one doing so.

[FinalHeaven]

I don't think you'd be the only one either but I suspect you'd be one of only a handful. I would say all attempts to foster RP should be promoted but it really does sound like what you're suggesting is the very purpose of the LFRP system to begin with.

I suspect that the people that are looking for the extreme end of the organic roleplay experience, in under utilized areas, the "just run into another person by chance" type of play, is extremely small.  This isn't meant to belittle that style of play but I do think that the tool to promote it already exists.  In general I'd say most people are going to simply go where they know they can engage with others and then use player hosted events as their opportunity to meet new people.

Now, that all being said, I do think the idea of an RP hotspot with slight bonus XP that rotated somewhere new every month is a great and fun idea to help promote roleplay in general as well as encourage people to branch out.