[quote=@Chairman Stein]
This works for all RPs but any GM that has the utter nerve to say 'WRITING IN THIS STYLE ISN'T ALLOWED BECAUSE WORLD BUILDING.' Not only is that the most fascistic thing a person can say but it's also utterly nonsensical. If I'm interested in your RP I'll write my characters/nation/whatever however I damn well please. If I want to write like it's a high-school text book I will. If I want to write like [s]John Green[/s] a mediocre teenie-bop author I will. Just because the GM has some specific idea on what 'world/character building' means doesn't mean everyone else has the same opinion or idea. If you want to dictate your RP to the point where using a certain style is banned then maybe you should re-think your RP.
[/quote]

I can definitely see what you mean about being told not to write in a certain style. I mean... There's a reason a bunch of different writing styles exist, and I'm personally a fan of writing stories - not necessarily RPs - more like a myth or oral heritage story. Not everyone wants to see that in their RP, and I do get that, but especially in the case of an NRP... Is anyone being HURT by having things written from the perspective of, say, a fable? A history book? First person?

Now, that said, I could see certain roleplays that WOULD practically demand a certain writing style... but the GM should note that in the very first few lines. Say, for instance, the roleplay is about Greek-era heroes and you want folks to experiment with writing in a way that conveys that rather than a more modern style of writing. Or say you're doing a Victorian RP and you want people to [i]at least[/i] handle their dialogue and their letters to folks like they're someone from the Victorian era. I think both of those situations would be fair. But again, the GM should have that noted in the very beginning.

[quote]When it comes to NRPs, Space is literally the most overdone and overrated things on the entire board. Everyone and their dog now has some 'sooper kewl' Space confederation that they wrote around 25k words for when it's just literally a race ripped from the Star Trek Wiki. Plus I never have been a fan of Sci-Fi regardless since I feel it's a incredibly uncreative and simply boring backdrop for a story/RP/whatever.[/quote]

This really depends on what sort of space RP you want to have run. See, I love sci-fi, and I think sci-fi NRPs can be really, really good, but... Frankly, I think a lot of people do sci-fi RP wrong. They don't really depict what it means to be alien.

Let me essplain. [color=red]WARNING: Rambling is about to commence.[/color]

If I'm going to write about alien life, I want to write about alien life that does NOT think like a human does. The typical human experience is one in which we taste, touch, smell, hear, see; being able to interact with your environment with two hands; thinking as a single, individual being... So, why not omit some of those senses, or change some of those things we consider so natural? Why not change how some of those senses function? Maybe you create a species that does not interact with the world with their hands, but has to depend on something external to them - another species, say, or mechanical objects? What about a species that isn't physically tangible, but instead exists in 1's and 0's? A species that has a hivemind (okay, that's common)? A species whose members are actually two organisms melded together?

When I stop and think about [i]those[/i] weird species, I start to really enjoy myself and dig into what it must be like to [i]be[/i] alien, and I start to think about the cultures that would develop around that. I don't want to just play a blue skinned human or a race of green alien babes. When I write sci-fi, I want to write about a species that is something we humans cannot understand.

Moreover, I want to write about the values such aliens who are so different from us would have. A species of 1's and 0's floating about in high tech computers would probably see physical forms as fleeting and temporary and not understand why humans care so much about protecting their bodies. A species that inherently lacks some of our human senses might not understand why we put so much importance on them at all. And if you have a species that has a hivemind, they might very well pity humanity for not being able to be a part of that greater connection, and if cut off from their hivemind might freak out and wonder what the Hell to do. And... well, there's so many examples we could discuss here.

And I think that's what so many folks in online sci-fi games [i]don't[/i] do. They write about stuff that's, well, pretty mundane, really: dragon aliens, orc aliens, aliens who have a confederacy of united stars, aliens who are fascist, aliens who are the most deadly extreme form of capitalism. And I suppose some of those are really fun; I especially think the last one ought to be thrown into space NRPs every now and then, because there IS a dark side to truly [i]laissez faire[/i] capitalism. But the real opportunity that sci-fi RP allows us is to explore what it means to be so alien that we can't even truly imagine it. We can only guess.

Now, I'm not saying that all sci-fi has to be of this nature. I'm not saying you can't RP green alien space babes, or just have fun writing about giant mechs blowing each other mechs. Dude, I [i]love[/i] giant mechs blowing each other up. But I [i]am[/i] saying that sci-fi can also be used to explore the human condition, and explore also what makes someone "alien," and... well, to explore how vastly different you can be from the human experience and yet still be a sentient entity, and arguably still be just as "human."

So, I guess this turned into a gripe of my own about sci-fi NRPs, though a very different one. There's GREAT opportunity in sci-fi settings, if only we're willing to explore them.

(Side note: I'm sad to realize that the only sci-fi NRP I was going to join still hasn't kicked off. That was the RP that I was going to use "two organisms melded together" for.)