shylarah

Fire and Ice: The Ghoul Wars

@TheMinorFall Whatever's needed to ensure a ghoul stays dead, Sini does that. If Wolf has the ability to come back from the standard finish, then he's welcome to come back.

Adelon: Steeling the Faith [Open!]

Oh huh, I guess it's my turn if Scout isn't going. ^.^;; I may be a bit, though, I'm out of town. Thought I told you guys that! @.@

Fire and Ice: The Ghoul Wars

@TheMinorFall so eventually, but not yet. Excellent. Also Orion what? I thought he was rather young, at least in the old thread...huh. Does he know? I think he had a passing thought that was related....

<Insert Name; Will Edit Once Not Busy> {Hang-out Thread}

@Shoryu Magami if the person in question is psychic, then it's hardly a matter of them knowing something they never found out, now is it? =P

Ah, advanced elitist...yeah I actually started with 2edition dungeons and dragons...and then the neopets forums. ^.^ Though I was a tween at the time and I dont think I would have survived the sort of forum you mentioned.

<Insert Name; Will Edit Once Not Busy> {Hang-out Thread}

@Shoryu Magami Actually I got my start in writing too, but I find that the way I develop characters -- at least, in terms of the things that make them have depth -- I need to give them the chance to talk to me. A character sheet I can do, and I have. But if I want to know what the char thinks about dogs, or what they're afraid of, or if they're a hugger, or how they display anger, or their favorite ice cream, I can only do this through using them. It can be solo, but it comes a little easier (as apparently does all my writing) when I have another person. Additionally, I've had people that were terrible about metagaming, and would have their chars know all sorts of things that were stated OOC but completely unknown IC, and that's made me less than fond of char sheets in general. *shrug* I think a lot of people want far more detail than is really needed because that's the only way to see if the character fits well -- and to see how thorough the player is. Rps fall apart enough already without risking time and effort on someone that's going to make a half-baked char.

<Insert Name; Will Edit Once Not Busy> {Hang-out Thread}

@DruSM157 Drew? You're still around? *tackles* HEY THERE. ADD ME ON SKYPE AGAIN, MY OLD ACCOUNT WAS HACKED! Even if you never talk to me. ^.^;;

<Insert Name; Will Edit Once Not Busy> {Hang-out Thread}

@Shoryu Magami You know, one of the best things, in my opinion, is when you have someone who you trust enough to know your characters at least a bit. Like...my fave dm has written entire stories for timeskips in rps and stuff (he's amazing), and they focus on the various different characters, and I go and read the ones for my chars and he just nails it. <3 *flailing* Makes me so happy, it's like getting arts but with writing! And there's been instances where someone else's character plays a huge role in the life/development of my characters, and I sorta get to adopt those characters for other rps, though they eventually split from their origins over time as all things do. And friends have requested similar permissions when my chars are inextricably linked to theirs, and I've given it. <3

<Insert Name; Will Edit Once Not Busy> {Hang-out Thread}

@Shoryu Magami one of the most bothersome things about a lot of rps is that people want fresh characters...and character sheets. I'm sorry, if I just whipped up a new character I don't know them that well. I have maybe one or two concepts for personality, a couple events in history, and probably an appearance (since that's usually straightforward). I don't know what their weaknesses are, I'm not sure how they'd respond to various situations. And indeed, when putting your chars in situations you design, you can sorta...tailor things so they go the way you want. It's dealing with the unexpected that truly lets you develop or even just get to know a character. I learn about my characters by using them, and once I know them well enough then I can modify them to fit a variety of settings, and will deploy them as needed, depending on what a situation calls for. Need a bartender? Benny's your guy! Does this rp look like a leaps-without-looking prankster might be fun? I'll play Nikki. Too many gung-ho heroes? Let's find a way to insist the cowardly Trill has to go with them. And the fun part is that sometimes through modification, I find alternate versions of character and sometimes they become new characters. Especially if something happens in an rp and I want to keep that as part of the permanent character, since I will often reset to a base form when I bring them in elsewhere, though there could be a few different checkpoints over the course of their life.

<Insert Name; Will Edit Once Not Busy> {Hang-out Thread}

@Gowi@tsukune There's a balance between back-and-forth and collab. The way I find that works best is allowing people the flexibility to tailor post length to the situation. Maybe one post has a bunch of internal thoughts and several different actions. But another might be a single line, a single action, or OOC you've mentioned that the other guy is free to interrupt and change the entire course of what follows. With enforced lengthy posts, it almost feels like you have two or more conversations happening at once. The first part and response to it, the response to some actions, and the response to further actions or dialogue. And this is absolutely confusing and choppy and senseless. Not to mention then the first person has to go back and respond to the first response before even taking the second action from the first post and....@.@ We don't need to cover the same action five times. Once, /maybe/ twice.

I believe that OOC communication is key. "Yo, if I do this, would you do this or this, or something else entirely?" That lets me know that I'm predicting reactions properly, and the action would proceed more or less how expected. I can weave reactions to things that the other guy hasn't actually done yet into my post and keep going. It also helps to figure out what will provide the maximum amount of fun for all parties involved. Willingness to change things if someone goes "well no you couldn't do that because I would have done this and then you really couldn't or at least it wouldn't make sense" is also important. Like...someone tried to grab and bite a character that I mentioned could teleport. Grabbing him is fine. Stabbing him would have been fine. But the amount of time the entire hold&bite action took was longer than he would have stayed put without popping away. So I mentioned that, switched the character that was grabbed for someone else, and we kept going. If there hadn't been anyone else we would have found a different solution.

It's one of the drawbacks of more than one person writing that unless you give one or the other the final say, there's going to be breaks. But I think that those -- even serious ones -- are worth the extra input, so I try to be flexible.

<Insert Name; Will Edit Once Not Busy> {Hang-out Thread}

@Gowi ...*giggles* I have done it. I've done it for rp, writing ahead and on the side, though I have had to scrap whole swaths of things when events take a turn I didn't expect. I've rped out of order, too, though that requires a close relationship with the other player(s) and a solid understanding of where the story is going. Also a willingness to treat it more like collab writing than a back-and-forth rp. ^.^;; BUT IT'S A LOT OF FUN!!

@Shoryu Magami I dunno why but I don't often venture into chatter threads. *shrug* Maybe because I feel like I have to read everything, and I like to take a break now and then...but I'll do it for skype convos so go figure. -.- But yeah, here now, and I'll try to remember to keep checking in.