BrokenPromise

New user experience -- suggestions thread

I'm actually surprised at how fast it's taking off. And I get to write with everyone I've never been able to get into a serious RP with! Also, is it me or is activity in other role play discussion topics also going up?

But yea, making it directly in the introduce yourself thread feels kinda wrong to me. But I agree we need to make it more accessible to new users. I'm all for a mention in the new user PMs. Our greeting crew could also mention it to people who make a welcome thread.

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

@Lady Amalthea I actually made a rule forbidding people from talking in the OOC about anything that could spoil the experience. But I think the fact that it hasn't happened yet has more to do with the fact that I have awesome players than a cool rule.

The Forgotten Basics

I get the feeling that the big collab discussion deserves it's own thread rather than this one.

@Ammokkx

Meh, I don't really think that will be necessary. @The Harbinger of Ferocity and I were just expressing our view on the subject, and I think we're done with that now. I could go on to mention all the things that come up when you have these big 5-15 character groups in earshot of each other posting one at a time, but that's more the fault of the dynamic of the situation than it is trying to solo post it out. If I have something else to say, I'll save it for my guide.

Anyway, some more basics...

Make a Character AFTER You Find an RP

This seems pretty simple, and is actually a basic I forgot recently. The idea of roll playing is that you are entering a different world. Naturally, you need to be a part of that world. I recently made a character for an arena fight, and felt I did a pretty good job with them. The problem is that I then went to try and enlist them in a real honest to goodness RP that actually had standards regarding lore and magic. I'm a fairly cooperative and resourceful fellow, but it was still took a lengthy discussion with the GM (who I'm friends with) and some edits to the character to make them fit. It could have been worse. I could have become completely infatuated with my creation and refused to edit them at all, barring them from any worthwhile RPs. Do yourself a favor and make your character AFTER you've found a home for them.

Be Social

I'm not going to blow this one up with too much fluff. You're writing with people. The more you know about them, and the more they know about you, the better it will be for everyone. You can get away with some crazy stuff if everyone in the RP likes you. Better to be safe than sorry becomes better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Even if you're writing isn't the best, people will be glad to have you around if you're a powerful force of personality.

Compliment, But do so Sparingly.

In the same vain as keeping your problems between the involved parties, it doesn't hurt to let people know you enjoy their characters. You don't have to give a big shout out in the OOC, but you can send them a PM or even mention it during a collab. Though you don't want to go too far with your compliments. Egos can grow pretty rapidly if left unchecked. Make sure they did something worthwhile and exceeded your expectations before commenting.

You Can Have Too Many People In One Place

You can. Trust me. I don't know what the number is, but I'm confident that if you put enough characters together, they could talk for a full year without advancing the plot. Don't do this to yourself if you have talkative players!

"You Are Your Avatar"

All of the fashionista's accessories had vanished. "You may be right, Harbinger." Referring to his assessment of the robot's guns. It was hard to tell if her lingering smile was sincere or not.

Junk rolled her eyes at the naga. "Well yea, it doesn't make sense for normal high school students to be this popular. But I'm a special case. Ultimate isn't just a name for show, I really am the best at what I do. Not to brag, but everything is pretty effortless for me. I'm pretty much the perfect human being. Perfect looks, perfect body, perfect mind, I guess that's why I find so many things... boring..." She let out a girlish giggle. "Kidding, kidding! I just come from a rich family. It's easy to get a good start when you have money."

Junko flipped open her phone and ran a google search on ERPPC. "Ummm, don't see any on amazon. I'm sure we could work something out. I know a guy who knows a guy." She flipped the phone shut again. "I would like to know your name though, pilot."

The fashionista looked at the snake. was it possible that she was able to understand it too? Or was her mind playing tricks on her? "Weapons? I have no use for them. I'd break one of my nails if I tried to handle a weapon."

"You Are Your Avatar"

Junko gave the cat an amused chuckle before setting her glasses on the bridge of her nose again. "It is pointing artillery at us, which makes the dictionary definition of the word bondsman I'm most familiar with seem appropriate. But it hasn't attacked us yet, so you may be correct." She adjusted her frames. "While I am a popular teen idol, I would like to remind you that English is not my first language, and I haven't graduated high school yet. So it is unfair for you to assume that I'm trying to fool anyone. I've been very forthcoming with my name and title. You are the suspicious one, withholding your true name while giving me your mantle instead." The fashionista lifted her finger into the air, as if to silence further comments. "Regardless, you are the party's shaman. You are a sort of spiritual leader, so I will defer to your judgement... This time.

When Junko turned to face the large robot, she was wearing a crown instead of glasses. "If it is coin you are after, your queen's coffers are loaded to the brim! All you need to do is assist me with my quest, and riches shall be yours!" The "queen" looked at her notepad again. "Are you capable of such tasks like walking me to rehearsals and the local market? The vagrants around these parts can be MOST unsavory, and your company on such a quest would be valued."

Mahz's Dev Journal

Maybe the RP search could go by a tag AND keyword system?

So if I wanted to find a zombieland RP, I would check for the fandom tag, then I would type "Zombieland" in the search field. So anything that had "Zombieland" in the OOC and had the fandom tag would come up right away. You're never going to have a tag for everything.

Mahz's Dev Journal

I still don't see a "Wild West" or "Victorian" tag in time period or genre. Mahz, we talked about this!

@Inkarnate

But 1x1 rpers now have that all important 18+ tag. _{(likely in preparation for the split non-erotic/erotic sections)}

Danganronpa: Tower of Carnage (Finished!)

The gift was a pleasant surprise, but he couldn't get sidetracked now. Davis came here to figure out what the story behind the casino was. Conquest had seen almost every variation of casino games, and he knew they could all be cheated somehow. But first thing's first.

“So Nariko...” Davis leaned against a counter and brushed his hair back. “You look pretty good in that dealer's uniform.”

“O-oh?” Nariko sighed. “You can't really mean that.” Her eyes lowered to the ground. “You're just being nice to me because you want something.”

“Guilty as charged!” Davis chuckled and slapped his knee. “Now beautiful, care to tell me what's going on?”

“Um.” the carnage sister trembled. “W-why are you flirting with me? You said you wanted something from me already, s-so naturally I'm going to assume that this is just another attempt to do the same thing.”

“Yea?” Davis scratched his chest. “But you haven't figured out what that is yet, so let's keep going.” Perfection winked at the robot.

“O-oh. Okay.” Nariko gestured towards a wheel. The fan in the back of her head was making her hair blow in front of her face. “Have you ever played wheel of fortune?” The wheel actually looked very similer to the one in the mentioned game show. It was large and colorful, but there were no prizes marked out on the wheel.

Davis blinked. “Yea? You spin a wheel to determine your prize, then you guess a letter. You get the amount of money you rolled on the wheel multiplied by how many letters were in the phrase.”

“Well.” Nariko hugged herself. “It's just a little different than that. But everyone places their chip on this giant wheel, essentially betting where they think it will stop. Then I spin the wheel once, and prizes are handed out depending on where it lands.”

“Sounds a little childish for my tastes.” Davis laughed. “So about the other games?”

“There aren't any.”

Davis raised an eyebrow. “I'm pretty sure that's a black jack table you're standing behind.”

“It's just for show.” she whimpered. “I don't have a deck of cards, and I don't even know how to play black jack.” The carnage sister tugged on her pigtails. “I-im sorry.”

“It's okay baby! It's okay.” Perfection sighed. “I don't suppose it's possible to cash these in without playing the game is it?”

“No, you really need to play the wheel game if you want a prize. W-why?”

Davis started to walk away. “No reason hun Just...” Sure enough, the despicable damsel snatcher was dragging around his two newest trophies. Davis wasn't sure how much of his exchange the three of them saw. He could have pulled out that report and cut Daimyon down a peg then and there, but Davis really couldn't be bothered right now. “Yea, talk to you later Nariko.”

“B-but you wanted something else?” The carnage sister started pulling at her hair. “I-I screwed up again, didn't I? Oh! I wonder what he wanted?”

@Ariamis@Melo@Mateotis

---

Davis was grumbling under his breath when he back tracked into the patient's quarters. What the hell was he doing? He couldn't keep moping around like this! “I can't keep letting myself get distracted by Daimyon!”

“Oh?” Monokuma was standing before Perfection. “And here I thought it was all those lovely ladies that were getting you all fired up! I had no idea you were so passionate about the poet.”

Davis growled. “The hell do you want?”

“I just can't BEAR to see you like this! You and Mondatta were so ready to let me take your lives. That isn't natural is it? That can't be healthy!”

Perfection waved his hand. “Begone! I've already grown tired of your games. I will destroy you, mark my words.”

“Still mad about last night?” the bear sighed. “You know I tried to send a lot of girls down here just for you?”

“Fuck off!”

“But I see you're being beaten to the punch!” Killgood pointed at an elevator door. “So I'll let you get a head start with this one! It's Alice Masson. She's as cold as ice, She's willing to sacrifice our love!” The bear chuckled. “But she took a few rounds for the team, so maybe there are some cracks in that cool exterior, eh?” Perfection could hear one of the elevator doors in the hallway started to open up. “Don't screw it up this time Davis. I don't typically take pity on losers.” and with that, the bear disappeared.

“The hell is going on?” Davis immediately bolted towards the elevator. He knew the bear wasn't a giving sort, so he naturally expected something horrible to be waiting for him. He didn't quite reach the elevator before the mentioned woman walked out in front of him. “What the?! Hey! You! Uhmm...” Davis folded his arms. “ Alice?” He gave the woman a sideways glance. “You look...Kinda young?”

@UnknownScarlet4

---

It was actually not very difficult to find good reading material for the children. There were tons of books for children based around animals and the like. Bliss was sure Caora would enjoy these books, if only for the illustrations. However, Bliss wanted to get something that Shaun would also enjoy. He was probably a little too mature for picture books. Perhaps if Bliss and the programmer took turns reading to Caora, he might find these books more interesting. As different as those two were, they did seem to share something of a bond. Bliss had gotten three books for Caora, which she suspected would be enough. She did find a teen novel about getting pulled into a video game, but hoped she wouldn't have to resort to it to keep Shaun interested.

During her entire search, Bliss would occasionally look up at the giant safe along the entire wall of the study. Obviously it wouldn't open. Obviously it was pointless to try and guess what was behind it. But how could you not at least try to speculate? Before Bliss knew it, she was walking towards the massive metal safe. She knew she couldn't open it, but maybe there was something that would help her guess its contents. The first thing she tried was feeling the safe itself. Even with her gloves on, the steel was cold.

“Open says me?” The safe didn't budge an inch. Not that Bliss was expecting it to. Saying that phrase was just something she tended to do when she came across a locked door. It made a lot of the younger kids giggle. But to really get the children laughing, you'd also have to knock and place your ear up against the door. Which Bliss proceeded to do.

“Escape...Let me... escape...”

“Gu!” Bliss pulled her head back sharply. Maybe there were some things that were better off remaining unknown.

What is your favorite type of cloud

Manly Cloud.

The Forgotten Basics

I'll admit that I don't go around looking at other RPs very much. But some of the best writing I've ever seen in an RP came from a collab. I have yet to see a really bad collab post. I have yet to see one that limits interaction. There's almost always some form of plot advancement, be it characters becoming closer/further apart or some type of reveal.

Do they always involve the other characters? No, but very few solo posts do this either. In my ten plus years of collaborative writing (most of which was not here), I have seen very few bad collaborations. The ones that were bad usually took too long to write and were no longer relevant, or the characters didn't really have anything worthwhile to discuss. The problem was never the collab, but the planning of its execution.

Collabs are definitely a tricky subject, one that probably deserves its own topic. My goal here was just to take collabs back to basics. They are a tool. Not a cure all, but certainly not a poison.

...now I want to make a guide for the site on how to properly collab.