Dealing with Chronic Lurkers

[Zindaras]

I'm in 10 games or something at the moment. I only sign up for Minis here, and I play on three other sites (two of those sites only have one game running at any time, though). I've noticed that I lurk sometimes, usually when the game or my role bores me. Yes, that's bad, I know it. However, it's ridiculously easy to get me to stop lurking. One pressure vote or post and I'll usually get completely back into the game.

As for how I handle lurkers:

I kill them. If I'm a Vig, or a Serial Killer, or Mafia, I kill them. I won't let a claimed Cop (with a dead doc) live if I have the choice, but lurkers are just as likely to have a power role as anyone else. Besides, I want to make the game more enjoyable for everyone. I don't get a lot of satisfaction from beating a couple of lurkers.

[Zindaras]

That's 3 people who kill lurkers when they're scum. Perhaps I should start lynching them when I am playing with them and lurkers die.... Easy win!

The good part is that if everyone does it, that argument wouldn't be usable.

Also, I can't say I really see a lot of lurkers here.

[Zindaras]

I

like

that idea.

It's a bit akin to what we do on an other site I play on. The Invitational. Basically, we take the 20 best players on the site and put them together in a game.

Verbose has the same filtering qualities. People who don't post a lot or contribute a lot are filtered out of those games.

[Zindaras]

We've had invitationals in the past, and will in the future. But yeah, this would hopefully "filter" in a similar way.

Oh. Didn't know about that.

Sucks to be a newbie.

As for the Mini thing, I'm afraid I'd sign up for way too many games if the cap would be removed. I don't play in big games either, but a cap there seems to make more sense, as they take up a lot more time than Minis.

[Zindaras]

It's possible to post regularly, and not be enthusiastic. I'm willing to believe that you're at least as enthusiastic about each individual game as the average player in that game, but you'd probably be more enthusiastic about them if you played fewer games, and that in turn might inspire the other people in those games to post more...

This is definitely true. For me, enthusiasm comes with the game. Either the setup is interesting (like ORB Mafia), the theme interests me (like Blizzard Mafia), or the happenings interest me.

I usually need something to really get "in" a game. An interesting discussion, an interesting role, those things usually do that.