Syn's 2 cents:
I count myself included in what I'm about to say, hence what I say is in the third person - not first.
1) There's like, nine active RPG posters who are involved in rpgs at this time. Out of these nine, five to seven are in more than one game. That's less than nine people spread across 6-7 RPGs. Most of these nine people tend to play the same characters, therefore, they all tend to interact with one another with the same characters. Despite everyone's talent, it tends to get old.
2) In every RPG, it tends to be the same people running the 'major arcs' that incorporate the whole RPG and essentially classify that season of a specific RPG. Because of this, the major threat that opposes everyone in the RPG also tends to only be beaten by the major heroes (because that's the way it is in the comics, generally), so the people playing the big league characters become pivitol, while everyone else just sits idle until the arc's climax ends.
3) It's not the availability of the character's that drives interest in an RPG - it's the availability of the posters who control the big characters in an RPG. Or, not even the big characters - just the characters who are pivitol in a specific season of an RPG. The more available the posters playing the core characters are, the more interest in the RPG there will be.
4) The major arcs driving a season tend to be centric around a certain class or group of characters. It may start out as expansive, and open to any character, but it always ends with a specific group of characters as important to the arc at hand.
5) A lot of the recent major arcs tend to be action and disaster - big monumental threats solved by brute force and perserverence. Not everyone has a character who has super strength, speed, invulnerability, etc. What happened to threats that occur on a psychologic level - threatening the characters' status or roles, as oppossed to their physical stature? It always seems that at the end of these arcs, the only ramnifications are characters die (who will be revived next season anyway), or easily restored alterations to the status quo. It feels like the arcs serve no purpose to the rpg as a whole - the arc just becomes a way for characters to have interaction on a major scale together, which is fine, but after multiple seasons in multiple rpgs? It gets old.
5) Not every major arc needs to follow what's happening in the comics right now. We just read it - I don't want to re-enact it with slight varients in the RPGs. (This is not just referring to DC RPG - it's been happening since I've been here).
These are just some things that come to my mind off hand. There's probably more, but I think that's enough from me right now anyway. This is not meant to offend anyone, nor is it directed at any poster specifically. I'm guilty of these just as much as anyone else, but it doesn't mean it doesn't affect the RPGs. Hopefully this helps.
All these points are pretty much variations on the same complaint, so I'll handle them in a single response. I for one HATE the whole "it's a clique where only the favorites get to do anything important in the RPG and the rest of us are stuck on the sidelines" argument.
When I first joined the DC RPG, back when the first Dark Alliance story was well underway and I had no part of it, I just came up with my own independent storyline and went ahead with it, and other players started to become involved with it organically as it went on. Nobody is holding a gun to your head and saying, "You need to be a bit part player in the big mega-arc." It's just the onus is on you to do your own thing. The slump isn't down to the "Big Guys" spoiling things for the "Little Guys". Back when the games were at peak activity both had plenty to do. But activity is down right now across the board equally.
The reason that it's the same people in control of the major arcs every season is because THEY'RE THE ONLY PEOPLE INTERESTED IN ACTUALLY DOING IT. If Byrd or Watchman or wiegeabo or whoever didn't come up with a storyline, odds are there would be no storyline. I remember one time in the past, when Red X became incredibly outspoken about being frozen out of plotting arcs, so we gave him pretty much complete creative control to do his own Civil War in the Marvel RPG.... the fact that we later had to reboot says it all. And similarly, perhaps it's the same people involved in the big climax every season because they're the only people with the drive and commitment to see the game through to its end each season? Don't complain that the current story sucks if you're not going to offer anything of your own in return. The best remedy is to bring your own thing to the table. I'm not involved in the big season arc every season, but every season I find something for The Joker to do.
I do agree that re-enactments of recent comic book events don't work too well. With incorporating
Blackest Night into the DC RPG, it was an attempt to line up our continuity with the comics and introduce a slew of popular characters that didn't exist in DC continuity before our cut-off point. In theory, it would have been this slew of popular characters being picked up by players - we were careful not to proceed until the major roles at least were all filled by player - but the mass drop-out of activity once the saga started pretty much hobbled the story and left it NPC-dominated. But we're better doing our own thing in the games, I think, rather than aping what's trendy in the real comics.
I don't, however, agree with your complaint that heroes fighting huge, world-threatening foes is wrong. Welcome to the superhero genre. Intimite, personal, existential dramas tend to be found in other genres, though I'm impressed with how much character work many writers have been able to work into the tapestry of these large-scale stories. Similarly, the concept of characters dying and getting brought back to life is very much reflected in the comics that inspire the games. As for the status quo of characters never really changing, I think we have a responsibility to leave characters largely as they were when we picked them up, so as to make it easier for new players picking up the characters to do their own thing rather than be beholden to what we put them through.
None of this is meant as a personal attack, Syn. You just brought up some points, and I'm trying to present the other side of the argument.
