NuttsnBolts

High Casual Rant

@Mara So as a side thought, are you in any RPs that are active, have a decent player base, and not really looking for new members, but at the same time feel that it may be more than benchline casual?

Asking cause lets say you propose the question to relocate the RP to advance to help boost the numbers there and show that it's not going to change the RP (even the thread will remain the same), do you think you'd get the buy in of other players?

I believe part of the concern also lies in how the Guild may advertise with many simply gravitating to Casual to look for an RP, but the final RP doesn't necessarily have to stay in that section.

(Do you have trouble cleaning, are you unable to get off the couch without spilling 5 gallons of juice, then I have the snake oil solution for you!)

High Casual Rant

Please remember we do have a Spam Forum, so any memeing should be limited to that section.

High Casual Rant

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But hasn't it already been established that people (or rather, the mods) don't mind if someone posts a Casual RP in Advanced or vice-versa? What stops people from making an invite-only Advanced roleplay where the more casual members of the friend group aren't lynched by the GM for making shorter posts (a thing that barely happens in Advanced anyway, at least from what I've seen)? Why not just do the same in Casual, where the more advanced members of the friend group can make their posts however long they want? Because, let's be frank, maximum paragraph restrictions are a little (read: very) ridiculous to enforce. Why do people insist on sitting on the fence with a redundant tag that only serves to decrease activity in the Advanced subforum?

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Note also the "see individual GM for RP specific standards" connected to both descriptions. Now, before I write any further, I'm operating under the premise that this thread is only for discussion and doesn't particularly call for change. While change would be appreciated, it's obviously sort of silly to try and outright ban a tag that people put in their roleplay titles. Instead it discusses the issue and collects different people's views on it. Right? _{(This post is also gonna be really disjointed because I keep getting distracted oops)}

Personally, I think the High-Casual tag was founded on the stigma of elitism in Advanced that intimidates many roleplayers. People feel that because their writing isn't a whole damned novel, (this comma is probably in the wrong place but honestly the flow feels weird without it) they should stay in Casual and git gud(tm). I don't think this is the case. I've never really seen Casual and Advanced as being separated by post length, because in terms of post length the two overlap a lot. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there's posts in Casual that are longer than some Advanced posts. Instead, I view them as two tiers of post quality and world-building. Casual roleplays are (typically, though everything described in this post is based on my roleplay experience alone) set in pre-determined real world locations, and posts feature more fluff and 'collabs' between writers. Advanced has more world-building, typically set in GM-created or existing fictional worlds, with posts that are made up of content more relevant to the plot, instead of a paragraph about someone brushing their teeth. Unless it's a roleplay about people who brush their teeth, in which case that paragraph would be relevant. Again, this is all how I view it and there are plenty of roleplays that "break the norm".

Yes, this post is probably me regurgitating everything that's already been said. But I want to be a part of something, damnit.

(Also, I don't think removing the subforums outright and using the tag system instead would be any good. At least with subforums you have the convenience of not having to click through page after page of Free/Casual/Advanced (choose whichever one is most relevant to you, reader) roleplays just to find one that suits your skill level. Maybe if an option to hide roleplays with a certain tag was implemented this could work, but that would require even more work from Mahz.)

@Mara

If someone posts a Casual RP (using that term loosely to avoid the overton window) in an Advanced section, gets a group together, and has a successful RP... then we have an RP that works and may be mistakingly placed in the wrong spot. It's still site activity and it's much better than the many GMs who make an RP and let it die after about 20 posts (we all can hand on heart say we've been that GM, or been in an RP like that).

I can also agree with you that Advanced RPs are more in-depth and detailed. It's like comparing the world of Skyrim against The Mummy (random DVD selected for this) where one has so much more detail and depth that not necessarily everyone wants to invest time into. And you're also right... Advance a few years back was very elite with people boasting about how if you weren't a novel writer, you weren't an advance player.

Not a long reply, and I apologise for not having more detail, but I can't disagree with much with what you say at the same time. Removing the section may help, but people want to have a separation between that "too short" and "too long" player base; a black and white goal for a rainbow of greys.

High Casual Rant

On another note yeah, we need to enforce the fucking labels. There's no point in having multiple sections if everyone huddles up in casual like a gaggle of craven penguins.

@Isotope

There's one major reason why people huddle, and it ends up being Casual. It's because you want to RP with your friends, and everyone has a different skill level so they gravitate towards the closest medium range... Casual.

I guarantee that even if you change the name to "novice, adept, writer", "good, better, best", "short, medium, long" or any other three stage combination then people will still gravitate towards the middle ground because that's how they feel they sit. They may be better than a one liner poster, but they may not feel up to the 10 paragraph scale of Advance... And so they set the bar in the middle.

What's worse, we even do specify the difference between them:

Roleplay here if you enjoy writing at least a paragraph or two, character development, and some depth. Grammar and spelling are encouraged. Generally one paragraph (a few sentences) per post. See individual GM for RP specific standards

Casual

Advanced RP focuses on longer posts, often with in-depth plots, character development and extensive settings/lore. Must make a dedicated effort to minimize typographical errors and to use good grammar. Generally two paragraphs, but usually longer. See individual GM for RP specific standards

Advance

In a nutshell, casual is described as more than two paragraphs, while advance is described as many. It's a bit of an arbitrary way to control writing as it's a creative medium and shouldn't always be so rigid. Everyone has them, but you can have two posts back to back that range from the couple paragraphs to the mega lengths, just because you had those creative juices going.

As for the Ban of High Causal? That is a form of over moderation. The solution presented through that statement is that you are too good to roleplay in the casual section and you might have to lower your standards. The counter could also be said, but what that GM is specifying is that they do not want any mini posts in their section, but at the same time they've ensured that the category they chose is not going to yield a poster who writes a thesis on a character. It is simply a bad label used to manage the quality that they are aiming for.

However the hard reality is that the sections aren't going any time too soon, and if you're in a roleplay with a group of friends and that happens to sit in casual, isn't the more important factor that you are actually spending the time to write and express your creativity?

Delete please.

@Mixcoatl Done

Name Change

All done.

I found the images I'd painted on your website.

So, had some info come my way about this.

@SleepingSilence First off, the person is new to the site and was most likely not interested in sending a PM or didn't know how. It's a bit of a harsh response to say that the "polite" way is to PM you, especially when they are not a part of our community.

Next up, I have the links in question.
The RP
The Image

In future Sleeping when something like this comes your way, it is your responsibility to check your own posts to see which may be the ones at fault. Not only that but you did edit the image and crop out the name for the artwork. That alone is an act of plagiarism. My initial thoughts were that it was just a simple repost but upon seeing that I can say I was mistaken and that you were the one at fault in this situation.

You will be given a total of 24 hours to remove the images from those post or I will be forced to hide every IC, OOC, and Char post that contains that image.

I found the images I'd painted on your website.

@SleepingSilence May wanna have a look at this.

As for the art piece in question, there is not much to go off since you only supplied a user page and not a direct thread URL. On top of this there there was no claim in ownership or an effort to resell the piece, which if it was done so is a violation of copyright.

Without additional information there is not much else I can do.