Rhona W

When did you start roleplaying? Share your RP story here!

Back in 1995-6 I was in Secondary School (roughly high school for you US folks), and a friend of mine got me in WH40K. This was 2nd Ed, when it wasn't all so remorselessly po-faced, and still had a sense of humour. I got into the background a fair bit, and I'd always been one for writing my own stories, creating characters, and so on.
My friends and I did this for our own amusement - not 40K characters, but superheroes and the like.
Anyhow, I checked out a local game store, tucked away in a dingy, all-but-forgotten mall in my town on a whim after being into 40K a fair while, but finding it lacking... something, and thinking more about the character side of things, and making up our own adventures.
I found out about the gloriousness that is Role-playing games, and bought Mekton Zeta, a mecha-based RP system, as it tickled the bit of my brain that is permanently devoted to Macross and Gundam.

I tried to understand it, and to run it with a few friends. But as the old saying goes, Roleplaying the first time is a bit like sex for the first time. You don't really know what you're doing, and it feels a bit wrong and secretive, but you know you're having fun, and that it feels pretty good. And the more times you do it, the better it gets.
And this was pretty much true - we ended up getting into a bunch of other games, and my friends got into role-playing as much as I did, and we purchased many gamebooks and systems, and played the hell out of them.

Eventually, people moved away, and our lives all changed. We still played tabletop together where we could, but I wasn't getting the game I wanted from my local group, so I wondered about gaming online, and looked into it. I first found out about Yahoo Groups, back when they weren't the crapfest they are now, and got into a lot of hit-and-miss games on there around 1998-2000, and then didn't really dabble in online much other than a handful of things here and there.
Around 2003-4 I got the impetus to set up a game on Yahoo called 'Thunderbolt Black', about a group of Mercenary fighter pilots. Shock, awe, surprise, it was a hit, and it's still lurching along (barely) now.
From that, I got into a few more games. I joined an awesome Ace Combat one called 'Chasing the Sunrise', which then died after the players all decided they liked WoW more than the game, and I drifted about a bit, before finding the Guild off of TV Tropes around four years ago. I lurked for a while, and then finally decided to take the plunge and make my own game, which has been churning along after numerous re-boots ever since.

So, I've been roleplaying in one form or another for about eighteen years.

(good grief, I feel so old)

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

>You, as a GM, provide a list of equipment/vehicles/weapons/housepets/etc for the players to choose from, as part of your setting

>player, "Hey can I have OMGWTFBBQ thing?"

>player, "Waaaah, why isn't the super-shiny-awesome on here at the beginning of the game"

Dude... everyone else is happy with it. Seriously, stop being such a munchkin and have something to work towards. Everyone else is okay with it, and if it's not on the list, then...

Anyone ever formally ended an RP?

I've only ever finished tabletop RP campaigns, and the few I have finished have been pretty epic endings.

Online ones, especially on Guild, keep dying because people drop out, or slow to a crawl.

Across Broken Skies [Ace Combat inspired RP]

Look, you know what?
If you want to play, then play.

All the aircraft you are able to have at the moment are listed in the opening post. I will not be adding any extra ones for you, or anyone else.
The storyline and background are fine for everyone else. You're the only one bitching about it, and I'm sorry if the world and the idea I have in my game don't suit your idea of how it should be. Make your own game by all means, and throw whatever you like in it if that's a problem for you.

The F-16 and the A-10 will be dropping at the next unlock of aircraft, which will come when it is suitable for the storyline for them to be unlocked, and when I feel like it's a good time. Not before.

Join in, or don't join in. Right now, you're not exactly doing your best to endear yourself to me as a player by moaning about the selection of planes because you can't have what you want, when everyone else seems to have been able to pick something they're happy with and enthusiastic about.

Sorry if that's blunt, but for someone who was so enthusiastic about finding this game is here, you're being awfully whiny about it.

Across Broken Skies [Ace Combat inspired RP]

FYI, the OP aircraft list has been updated with a few more links, and a smattering of new aircraft. This isn't the next stage unlock, just a few things I forgot to include, or previously removed.

Across Broken Skies [Ace Combat inspired RP]

Freeshooter92 said I know I can't have the best plane but i'd at least like something respectable, otherwise we'd just be flying Fishbeds or something. Lord knows I ain't flying no fishbed.

Please re-read the opening again, especially the paragraph underneath the aircraft list:

Hey, Blade! Where's My F-22/Flanker/T-50/JSF/etc?!

While they are all very cool aircraft, I'm deliberately avoiding allowing players to use any of the most modern aircraft - only the aircraft from the OP on the OOC thread are available for beginning players. You may well get the chance to upgrade to something more modern down the line, but it's part of the storyline and background that more modern aircraft are currently out of reach, and older aircraft with modifications to make them more competitive are where we're starting out.

I mainly did this to avoid the 'same old aircraft' being picked - when I've tried to run other games like this, I've just ended up with a handful of F-22's, Flanker variants, and a couple of reluctant F-15 or -16 pilots, rather than anything imaginative, different or exciting (and then inevitable tremendous flame-wars about which is 'better' the F-22 or the T-50 or Flanker family).
I was kind of hoping to inspire a bit of interest in something different, rather than just seeing the same things wheeled out again and again, and to make people consider and look at some of the 'older' generations of aircraft with a new eye for appreciation of what they could do, given a bit of modern technology injected into them.

That completely aside as well, your character shouldn't be based completely around the kind of aircraft they fly, and if you really like the idea and joining in as much as you say, then the choice of aircraft shouldn't be something that holds you back that badly.
Also none of the aircraft in that list will be 'stock' in any way, as they'll all have been upgraded to the balls. I think almost all of our aircraft have vectored thrust engines, digital cockpits, helmet-mounted sights and numerous other modifications that are common to more modern aircraft. Most of them have also be re-engined as well.

Like Park says, there are literally dozens of aircraft to choose from in the list I've provided. All of them are great at something, and some of them exceptionally so. If you were interested in the F-16, try the F-20 Tigershark - it was designed to do the same job, and was pretty damn good at it, but was shittily marketed by Northrop Grumman, and never got a contract. The Viggen is a spectacular piece of aerospace engineering as well, and is an amazingly capable fighter, as well as a solid multi-role airframe. THe Tomcat is on the list, and the projected Super Tomcat 21 was set to make the Tomcat tremendously powerful, and I have nothing against applying those modifications to it.

It sounds to me like all you know about any of these aircraft is what you've seen or heard in movies and games. If you look into what they're actually capable of, then it might be more impressive to you.

Also, fyi, some of us really like 'zooming in and blowing everything up' more than dogfighting. Just sayin' ^^

Wings Over Germany

Bit late, since I've done my post, but that's what I had happen in it, so it's fine.

Across Broken Skies [Ace Combat inspired RP]

Remember that tropes aren't bad, it's how you use them that's Important. Also, it's really hard to create something completely original. Better to have a character you enjoy playing than anything else.

Across Broken Skies [Ace Combat inspired RP]

Sure, we've had a fair few people register interest. Still waiting for sheets to go up, and of course, it depends on whether said people actually post, and how long any of them actually stay in the game, so I'm still accepting for the moment.

As stated in the int-check, we went from a decent group to about four people. I'd like to at least double that if possible, for a reliable player group.

Across Broken Skies [Ace Combat inspired RP]

Will the F15 or any of its variants ever be allowed into the roleplay, just out of curiosity?

Also just out of curiousity, what about the F/A-18?

The F-15E Strike Eagle is probably my all time favourite aircraft, so it and it's family will be making an appearance at a point in the future. Same with the F/A-18 and it's variants, the MiG-29 and Flanker family, as well as pretty much everything else. It's just not all going to be here right away, so that there's something worth working towards, and we don't all start off with a squadron of the best planes possible, and have either ludicrous challenges to overcome so there's nothing to escalate towards, or sweep the floor with everything and the game turns into a shooting gallery and just gets boring.