THINK IN TERMS OF MECHANICS
Sometimes you may find yourself with an interesting idea and think it would be great for a roleplay, but, the question is... is it really? Think in terms of how the RP would actually play out at a mechanical level (and by that I mean, simply how players would interact with each other in order to keep an activity flow going). Does the concept for your RP provide plenty of opportunities for character interaction? If not, then you might want to re-think your idea. Does your idea make it easy for players to drop out, or is it dependent on everyone sticking around till the very end? If it's the latter, then that's not a good idea --
because people will drop out, and an RP that can't deal with that will inevitably start to fall apart as soon as the first few players leave (speaking from experience on that one). Does your RP give the players a chance to be the stars? Or is it your GMPC's that will be hogging the spotlight? The latter's an easy trap to fall into, but it's definitely one to avoid if you want your players to remain engaged.
Questions like these are good to ask not only at the start of your RP, but also throughout it's existence, as well. It's easy to make tactical mistakes along the way where you
think you've got an idea for something to do with the story, but that idea then creates some sort of problem that's difficult to back out of. Coming up with just generally cool ideas is good and all, but it'll do you no good if your ideas aren't well-suited for an RP. You have to think about how an idea will actually function in the context of an RP before you know it's a good one.
DON'T LET PROBLEMS FESTER. FIX THEM!
It's amazing how many RP's die just because the GM sat back and
let things continue to be problems. o_o Is your RP stuck because you're waiting on that one person to post? Find a way to move on without them. Either remove their character from the scene if necessary, or just...
keep posting, and let the other characters forget about them. It's fine. Oh, and be sure to actually take a close look at where your RP's problems lie, too. Don't just say "come on guys, why is no one posting??". Try to figure out
why people aren't posting. Look at the IC. Look at who's held up waiting for who. Don't just tell people
in general to post. Tell
specific people that they need to post. If someone's holding people up then contact them, ask them what's up, and try to work something out if you can (maybe if they're too busy to post, they can at least give you the go-ahead to do something else with their character). If contacting them doesn't seem to be working, then
do your GM stuff. Dictate what happens next in the IC. Move characters around if you have to. Be the hand of God. You're the GM,
you have the power. Activity flow is like the RP's blood flow. If it stops for whatever reason, find a way to fix it, or else you're just letting your RP die. And it's amazing how often an RP can be saved if you're proactive about fixing problems before they become big enough to make everything fall apart. o_o
