[SnowTroll]

I've never liked limited stage rp muds, i.e. "You're stuck in this small village for magical reasons, and all you can do with your time is talk to the same 5-10 people every day about the same issues until someone important runs an event, or until someone creates a deliberate adversarial character for the sole purpose of stirring things up that turns out to be more artifical and annoying to interact with than actually fun."

From the get-go, there needs to be built-in conflict so people have avenues to be somthing other than chatting buddies in the village tavern, there needs to be numerous things to do (explore and map, craft items, get better at skills, anything) to keep people online when nobody else is around to roleplay with (especially at first), and a really open, inviting, easy to get into backstory and genere. Nobody wants to have to read 50 pages of material from the website before they can make a serious character, yet nobody wants to arrive in the game and feel lost as they wander around with obvious newbie syndrome unable to be taken seriously. Somehow, you need a system where someone can jump in and confidently fill a substantive-feeling and necessary role without being everyone's bitch because they're new.

But I definitely think you're on the right track by recruiting a dedicated core of people whose sole mission in life is to create RP, even at the expense of regular playing of the game, whether they're imm or semi-imm people, or just choice players who pretend to be regular players while going all out to spark interesting fires (hopefully getting actual regular players to catch on and try some of the same).