Jig

The Woll Manor (Dark/Mature/Interactive Murder Mystery)

Ooh. Rather grand.

I think when I invent a money-growing tree I'll live there.

The Woll Manor (Dark/Mature/Interactive Murder Mystery)

I know this is really fluffy-nothingness, but do you have any source photos for what Woll Manor might look like? Trying to picture it, but I've just got Downton Abbey in my head and I'm sure it's not quite like that.

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

Pachamac said
I'm in agreement with Jig... once again. Jig, stop... stop reading my mind, man.

If you had telepathy, you wouldn't not use it.

RPing: Continuing or Taking RPs?

Pachamac said
I think if an rp is still within the interest check phase, then without any GM permission there shouldn't be any effort by players to take it over. Use the interest check for inspiration, but go make your own instead and actually .But for rps that are already underway, and ones in that have been going on a long time in particular... if a GM just vanishes for whatever reason, then... I suppose after a grace waiting period, I think it would be okay for the players to continue on, whether by deciding on a GM to lead up until the moment the actual GM returns, or to just keep soldiering on as best they can. If the players have put in the work and effort and enjoyment to get that far into an rp, why should they be forced to stop because the GM dissapears?

This.

Incidentally, when I'm GMing, I sometimes make nice graphics or stuff for maps and generally try to format OoCs, IntChks and even sometimes IC's so as to be as nice and user-friendly as possible. The thing that would really piss me off would be if somebody used that fluff content in a relaunched thread. I'd go ape-shit.

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

Kestrel said
Meta-gaming means using information the player has and the character doesn't to the advantage of the character. The line between what you know and your character know is often somewhat blurry, especially in RP'ing where there are time gaps between your posts. It is not always abuse, it is sometimes something that happens without you even realising it.

Even at the risk of minor meta-gaming, I still think that guiding your writing with OoC information tends to produce the best and most coherent results, and so it's worth having as much OoC information as possible. That's my experience anyway.

Kestrel said For the rest of your post I'm just going to quote Brovo.

Well, yeah, I agree with him. Overlapping character traits and roles can definitely be used and used well (exactly as in the example of rivalry I gave). It's just that I kinda think doing this well needs an awareness of who the other characters are in the RP and that generally means reading their sheets and OoC communication with the player.

Kestrel said Besides, let's not forget that two people rarely write the same character the same. Superhero comics are a prime example of this. The CS will essentially be void as a descriptor as soon as the IC starts and we get to the show don't tell part of it all.

While this is true, a character's conflict is usually decided (if the player has even given it thought, which is possibly the subject of New B!tching) at the sheet stage. Say, the RP's setting is a community in which werewolves are despised, and the player makes a werewolf character, the conflict of character vs society is already there, and this can be more and more specific, as in the case of the two characters in my previous post with dubious interests for the equivalent of the dark side of the force.

While we wrote differently and the characters were a bit different in their interactions and such, ultimately, their character arcs and storylines were basically the same.

The Woll Manor (Dark/Mature/Interactive Murder Mystery)

I've gone for a slightly otherworldly but cynical novelist.

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

Kestrel said
As a player I sometimes choose not to read sheets outside of appearance and such to avoid meta-gaming. It has absolutely nothing to do with disinterest. It is so that that my mind will be as blank as the my character's, making it more difficult to slip up.Also while character variety is nice, it's also a luxury. What if all the archetypes I like are already taken? Should I settle for a character I like less? What if my writing experience falls short of writing X type of background or character? Should I not join the RP at all?

You can tweak your character so as to compliment the similar character rather than randomly having huge overlaps without addressing them. Case in point, I was once in an RP with somebody where there were two characters particularly skilled at battling where that was their main 'thing' each. Instead of this being player vs player conflict, we turned it into character vs character conflict and used it as plot points and elements of each characters' arc.

My character was an alpha male with questionable (ie: nazi-lite) views and the other character was a gutsy young woman, triggering a whole set of what-ifs. What does it do to my character if he loses in a battle to a woman, whom he'd presume to be weaker than him? What does it do to her if she loses to him, thereby 'proving' him right?

By putting some thought into our characters, we both got what we wanted from our characters (and more) without stepping on one anothers' toes. On the face of it, both characters were very alike in their role in the group (leadership qualities, determination, combat prowess, hot-headedness), but we played it to our advantage - only possible because we worked on our characters with knowledge of the other one.

In the same RP, I had a second character that was thoughtful rather than forceful, lacked confidence, and, frankly, much practical ability. To compensate for this, he had the unfortunate hobby of delving into the powers of ALL THINGS EVIL in order to deal with the same situations the others could breeze through. However, there was another character that was largely the same, and they felt like awkward re-hashes of the other, embarking on the same, but largely unconnected, character arcs.

On the other hand, there will be some situations where it would be simply inappropriate to use the same traits as another character. For example, in a 'team' RP, in which each character brings a different specialism to a team, doubling up is pointless and may well mean that two tech specialists cause a vacancy in a different (necessary) field. A GM-approved character in one specialism is set in stone and other players should choose different roles on the team, so, in that instance, I'd say you should probably choose a different specialism or a different RP. This isn't really character traits, though, and is hopefully not really a controversial suggestion.

For me, meta-gaming only occurs when a character is being given information that they shouldn't have access to. It's not meta-gaming to use your knowledge of the game as the player to guide your character into circumstances and events to make the story itself happen. That's to me, the way to make the most out of an RP as a story.

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

vancexentan said
and size.

Size doesn't matter. ;)

Don't let that put you off Advanced. :)

The Bureau of Unconventional Crime

I'm gonna tentatively suggest we move on if Free Faller doesn't get back to us soon because everybody else is sitting on their thumbs. I -think- they're the only one who hasn't passed on this round.

Incidentally, I'll be gigging from this Friday till next Tuesday, so you'll have to manage the best part of a week without me. I'm sure you'll cope.

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

vancexentan said
When people try to put in things that were not in canon when clearly everyone else was told that it should be kept within the canon of the game.

Lol, I remember my first RP.

It was a nominally Final Fantasy-based world to be 'true to canon'. For some reason, Final Fantasies VII-X were represented by four Kingdoms, even though IX is the only one with any concept of Kingdoms whatsoever. The protagonist from each game was the King of each Kingdom, just, uh, like the originals. Sorta.

One was playing Cloud, like no version of Cloud ever seen.
I was a Water Mage thing with a limitless supply of instant get-out-of-jail-frees to pull out of his ass, featuring the amazing "Haha, if I'm not actively attacking you, you cannot hit me for some reason" spell and access to a crystal that was both for some reason the incarnation of Dead!Aerith and responsible for all the water in the FFVII Kingdom.
The third character was, I fuck thee not, "in control of all time and space".

I hope I've come a long way since then. In fairness, we had a whale of a time and we were all as crappy as each other so none of us kinda went "Yeah, this is the single biggest pile of crap I've ever been involved in."