Jig

Woll Manor

Ha, that's terrific. More horror-movie than murder mystery but it sets the tone nicely.

Woll Manor

HA. That's terrific. It's a bit horror-movie rather than Agatha Christie, but sets the tone about right xD

#fail

Woll Manor

HA. That's terrific. It's a bit horror-movie rather than Agatha Christie, but sets the tone about right xD

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

New B!tching:

Stock characters: when players have a set of characters they choose from and bring one to a new RP. I know a lot of people do this, but, if I'm GMing, I want people to build a character that will fit my setting, not to use my RP as a means of crowbarring their character into a context. To me, it says "This RP is a great way of me doing a thing I already wanted to do anyway but couldn't make my own plot/setting" and not "This RP has really inspired me to create something new and add to your world."

Again, I know a lot of people do do this, but I personally don't like it.

*puts on crash helmet*

Looking for constructive criticism

Robeatics said Add little ‘cushion’ to the sentence, and make the action be read as quickly as you want it to be done physically. Let’s say a man is having a gun pointed at the head of his friend. The reader is on a precipice. Will his friend die? Shock your reader.

Definitely recommend this. Comedians keep the crucial words in their punchline to the very end so the suspense isn't broken until the end of their last sentence. Perhaps use a similar technique? I love dashes (-). They're basically always grammatically accurate, and imply an abrupt pause.

Paul was angry. He's never been so angry in all his life, not even when his sister had killed his pet rabbit out of pure spit - he punched Susan in the head.

A crude example off the top of my head, but the dash forces the reader to stop, and then continue onto a short, violent burst of a sentence.

I recommend, and this is dull advice, but looking up comma, full stop, speech mark and apostrophe usage, as well as tenses (particularly the difference between Perfect, Imperfect and Pluperfect). On the whole, you're accurate, but there are mistakes, and, where it comes to SPaG (Spelling, Punctuation & Grammar) there's only a small margin for artistic license on the far end of just being plain wrong. Nobody is perfect, everybody makes mistakes, and there's no substitute for proofreading again and again and again, but if you don't know your stuff, proofreading gets you nowhere.

Try interspersing a section of dialogue with a 'stage direction' every so often - it breaks up heavy back-and-forth conversations nicely:

"You're very naughty," the teacher smacked Icarus across the chops, "Stop being a fuckwit."

The 'stage direction' gives both information about what's happening, and implies the teacher is angry - very efficient.

While Robeotics says avoid clichés, and this is good advice, I'd say it's permissible in speech. People do speak in clichés. I do. So will many characters. The narrator, unless it's written from a very personable narrator that's supposed to really come across as a proper character, should not, however.

Vampires - Powers, flaws and traits

It depends on genre more than anything.

With old-school gothic vampires, you can get away with 'superstition'-based lore, like garlic, religion, 'magic', animal motifs and such, while modern settings tend to favour cod-scientific approaches, 'justifying' vampire traits through genetics and the effect of drinking blood, which, to my mind, discredit garlic and holiness.

Other elements like psychic abilities can go either way. Glamour does, too, with both the glamourousness and the grotesque being gothic features, while modern interpretations may blur these elements.

To the list of traits, I'd add obsessive, compulsive behaviour. An old (I think) Polish 'remedy' for vampires was dumping a load of grain on the ground - they'd be compelled to count them, distracting them for a getaway/slay. Also weak to sunlight/sunrise.

It also might be worth adding a section for breeding; exact method of vampire creation (any bite, feeding off a vampire's blood, unholy rite, other?) and relationship between 'sire' and 'progeny' (as I call them). Can a vampire breed?

Woll Manor

It's awesome. I'm guessing it's America you're writing from but you'll have a bawl.

My advice:

1) find a communal area and stick to it. Clubbing and stuff's great but it's expensive and you'll be drunk and won't remember. I basically spent my fresher's week in a communal place people in my halls of residence had access to, and ALL of those people are now my best friends.My friends that went for fresher's week in a big clubby way thought it was a waste of money. Say hi to everybody, and if conversation's dry, do the usual 'what's your party trick?' thing. Have a party trick (mine is clicking like a dolphin, and I brew really vile but strong mead).
2) get people's names, numbers and Facebooks. It's really fine to ask. Otherwise cool people float off and you don't see them again.
3) EAT WELL. Fresher's flu is a thing. I had it for my first month of university and it was agony. Eat well, be hygienic, and take vitamins.
4) register with your local medical authority that you have access to. See above.
5) join university societies. It's good to have friends outside the people you live with, and it's a good outlet for later in the year if it all gets a bit much. Juggling society was how I got through a really tough January in my first year.
6) enjoy it. You're only a fresher once.

Woll Manor

Yeah. I have no idea who a roomful of gorgeous rich Swedes in a manor might be, but it might relate to the history of the Woll family's history of inviting international weirdos to come and criticise their room and think they're creepy which may be a secret relating to the very foundations of IKEA itself, so I don't want to pry into stuff we'll find out anyway xD

Woll Manor

Is there anything you can tell us about the people already there without spoiling anything?

Woll Manor

With French, my biggest advice is LEARN YOUR VERB ENDINGS. French is actually quite easy to speak passably in my opinion because word order doesn't have many challenges, and you can fluff nouns by pointing, frenching the english or describing the thing, but without verbs you're getting nowhere. I had a bit of a shock when I spent two weeks in France recently and my French had just died on its ass.

I was going to take Russian and German at uni but took a year out to, among other things, see what dodgy Russia was going to get up to. Thank god I did, because taking languages in UK universities means spending a year abroad in that country, and Russia is not the place to be right now - I transferred to German and Dutch instead.

I unrecommend the Sims 4 character creator having now actually tried it.