I know I'm not one of the main RPers on the forums, but I'm going to stick my .02 cents in anyway (as a "former" RPer).
Personally, I have always been against roleplays that rely solely on one person (in this case, the creator) to keep them moving forward. If something happens and they lose interest, get stuck, or disappear... well, like you guys said, too many good RPs die because of it. As much as I love some of the extensive stories you guys create, sometimes I think ya'll rely too much on the creator's "plans" for where
they wanted the story to go, and then you stall out if something happens to the creator or their story mojo.
I'm not against making plans, and having a general goal, but part of what makes RPs so interesting and so much fun is the creativity and characters brought in by
other people (after all, if you roleplay by yourself all you're doing is writing a book, and not
really roleplaying)... and if something goes wrong with the original plans (even if you have no idea what they were), the story can still be adapted and continued by the rest of the players. There's no reason to let it die just because something happens with the creator.
Now that
that's out of my system...
-climbs down from her soap box-
...I'd just like to say that, having a second-in-command is not a bad idea, either. However, I still stick with my previous point, as well: You don't necessarily need the creator to finish a story. It may deviate from the creator's original intentions, but that doesn't matter if they're not around to finish the RP, anyway.
Also, if there's ever any sort of problem in the RP forums, please feel free to drop me a PM. If someone disappears from an RP and you don't have their contact info, I have everyone's e-mail addresses on file now. I won't give out their contact info, but I don't mind contacting them (or at least trying to) to find out what's going on.
And if someone is constantly ditching RPs without warning and screwing everyone over... Let me know. If necessary, I have the ability to ban people (temporarily or permanently) from
just the RP sections of the forum.