SleepingSilence

What Are You Listening To?

You are the Mon

@Lucius Cypher A little downtime wouldn't be a bad idea. Maybe you could post about when the weather may change or what may be happening in our surrounding area. Like a narrator type of thing. Just so we can have some player knowledge, even if it isn't character knowledge.

It might be a good idea to ask the question to @Zanavy, since it's been a whole month since they've posted in IC, if they may be too busy to continue this with us and what they'd like you to do with their character in that case. So if we have another person of interest that might be able to fill their position.

You are the Mon

@Lugia Fair enough. Was just curious since it wasn't specified, is all.

You are the Mon

Ravi

Adventure Log

Moves:

• Swagger: Confuses opponents and raises their normal attack.
• Wrap: Binds opponents like a constrictor and does damage while opponent is constricted.

Health: Full
Status: Cold/Winded
Ability: (Shed Skin) May heal itself from status conditions by shedding its skin.
Inventory: None
Quest: Make friends and get along despite his intimidating voice and appearance.

---

While most of the group seemed to be fighting off the seemingly dangerous pokemon, Ravi slithered inside the cave where the Dunsparce was staring off into space. Having no time to question what his deal was, he headed into the furthest corner. Making sure his valuables would be safe from both the storm and the suspected enemy if it happened to intrude. With a loud gagging sound as his maw cam unhinged expelling the berry-filled nest. “GAK!”

Relieved to be back in the shelter as even without the fire, no longer being exposed to the wind and rain had lifted several heavy burdens from his shoulders...the point was he felt better. Consuming just the minimal amount for him to not feel so hungry, not really able to enjoy them as they still had an earthy aftertaste. Overestimating how far he was able to push himself; not even finding himself capable of separating the berries from the nest, so that it could be put on the dying fire to fuel it. Curling himself up in a sluggish manner to keep warmer. While it was a good endurance test and necessary practice to develop his abilities, too much more would be pushing the body of the young Pokemon's limit. Aware that he was in no condition to fight as he took a slow and deep breath to ease his scattershot mind. His eyes were half-shut in preparation from getting some well deserved rest. Despite it coming at a rather inopportune time...

Fortunately his optimism in trusting others would handle stopping the Bidoof proved to be correctly placed. And it seemed as they arrived just in the nick of time as the storm outside only got even worse.

Persistent Characters vs "One-and-Done" Characters

Not to wag my finger about it, but reusing characters just kind of feels cheap to me. Even if they happened to be "tweaked", it just cheapens the past experiences. Maybe I'd find an exception to ones that had died before they even started, or so early on that there wasn't any character development had to begin with. If a story is over, and a new story takes place in the same universe, also maybe? Like a D&D style campaign. But even in those circumstances I'd prefer creating newer characters. Just how I've always enjoyed roleplaying. By not limiting creative potential, where this concept is a fine example of it.

You are the Mon

@Lugia Just curious, hopefully I'm not missing anything but, my character collected most of the smaller berries/nests and stuffed it in his mouth. Hoping your character would gather some of the larger fruits knocked from the trees. Which you mentioned just grabbing some the berries. (Though that could be just assumed on the character's part that the unspecified larger fruit could be considered/thought off as a berry.) Though when we returned from the cave, it seems like you went right to the Bidoof to scratch it and grab mud to throw at it. But what happened to the fruit he was meant to be holding? :P

What genres do you like?

I’d reply “basically anything if the concept and plot spoke to me, and even sometimes just trusting the writer can write and actually will while effectively communicating is all I really want.” But that’s not really an answer to your/the thread’s question. So I’ll share an explanation for my favorites instead. As it often goes, acquiring taste comes from experience with them. What I find to be true and what happens to make most stories and classics well remembered and popular in the first place is having an engaging conflict.

Dark Fantasy is my bread and butter in that regard. Because not only is it often is the easiest to create it for newer players. (Sci-fi, another I enjoy from time to time, is too often self-limiting as players will try to stick to what they consider to be futuristic/logical. Or slice of life's will also limit themselves on focusing on the mundane like it’s an anime/sitcom. Without having most of the actual reasons watching those are comforting.)

At the same time can be the most engrossing experiences for veterans of the genre. Super Hero and Horror genres would be closest to getting the simplest thing right, but they also have more narrative barriers to break through.

For brief examples of what I’m talking about, Superheroes are quite easy to make and make well for that matter. But you’ll notice they bleed into each other and almost always are far too similar to one another. A genre over-saturated with tropes and 'a been there/done that' feeling. (May not even be the “genres” fault.) But the people making stories or roleplays about them. Just look at all the new awful DC/Marvel comics made now. (But I digress.) Horror can potentially get into this too. All zombie stories trying too hard to be 'The Walking Dead' or all ghost stories trying to be 'Paranormal Activity'. It’s all mediums that seem to be currently dealing with this problem, roleplaying very much included, is my point. (And Horror from personal experiences also gets too easily screwed up by trolls or idiots.) But still both the genres can be a lot of fun, so consider them runners up.

I also love mysteries and the genre. Maybe even more than Dark Fantasy. But I’ve almost never seen RP versions of even the best of them go without hitches. It’s so easy to screw these ones up, even accidentally.

Let's Talk: Why Can't We Be Friends?

Am I allowed to enjoy the pure irony of how correct I am in basically answering "No." to the question of "Why are people such dickheads online? Is there some underline complicated reasoning for it? And how can it be stopped?"

Here's one thing I'll amend to my point/post. Here's how you can reduce the gratification of dickheads being dickheads. By not ignoring it. You don't silently gawk at it and assume it will be dealt with. You call it out when you see it.

@The Harbinger of FerocityYeah, because it's boring to read. You are perfectly in your right to express your opinion on the topic. I in turn am allowed to express my opinion on how you put it. You are also in your right to think I'm a bit of a dick for it. That's cool. That's how opinions work.

@GingerBoi123

Yet you were engaged enough to bitch about it...

Let's Talk: Why Can't We Be Friends?

Now I'm not looking to create world peace here, but we're talking about people who all share the same hobby and likely the same interests, or at least overlapping ones if they're applying for the same RP. So why can't we all get along? We do we lash out at one another or create memes to mock another by taking their comments out of context? Why are we so downright horrible to each other when we barely know the person behind the other screen.

Fall outs between players, GMs etc can kill an RP quicker than any other factor. So what exactly is that creates these behaviours and how can they be stifled? What works for you as a GM/player when it comes to avoiding or negating toxicity around an RP or another player and what factors turn you off from joining an RP?

How can cliques be managed? How do we stop mob mentalities from grouping up on other players and how can new players break into the clique of a group established RP?

As always, please weigh in with your thoughts and opinions below. Let's have a civil discussion!

@Lord Wraith

I've probably gone into greater lengths about subjects like this one before. But I'll try my best to keep it brief, as someone quite used to cliquish/bandwagon behavior. Having been apart of it here for a good while, plus multiple separate forums and various other settings in life. (And several other various instances that friends have experienced themselves.)

I can pretend it's multi-layered and complicated. Or that it's even about potentially complicated matters that are easy to get confused and messy, such as how most online hate mobs usually all come from disagreements or presumed disagreements in politics. But no, I can potentially sum up almost every hate mob and clique fight in existence in online and real life circumstances.

Evil assumes evil. Projection. People have selfish/self-centered desires. They'll never go away and very rarely are used for others benefit. People can and will hate people for absolutely no reason, because it's beneficial to how they feel exclusively. It's a sociological fact that people need allies, but more importantly, need enemies too. Even if they have to create them out of thin air. And in the world's most prosperous and peaceful times that's basically begging for that to be the case. Just read a few books on psychology and suddenly hate mobs almost seem par for the course.

You can be one of four people and choose what person you are and who your enemy is/how to defeat them. And it's pretty self explanatory and it's almost always locked on point that these people will stay this way. Every single one of these achieve the goal of gaining potential allies and enemies.

• 1. Judge everyone else constantly.
• 2. Judge those who have wronged you constantly.
• 3. Judge whoever is being judged or judge the people you've deemed lesser than you for hopes you'll rise in status of those who judge you.
• 4. Judge yourself and constantly, to focus on worrying on how you can be better.

The other question revolves around how GM's or leaders (admins/moderators) of social media platforms, threads, forums, etc. Tend to be the ones that ruin the campaign/whatever is being run through their own laziness, incompetence or abuse of their authority to unleash the ban hammers. And that is true. But that is also almost always the simple outcome of, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Most people in the world (and that includes those that hold these positions) have never held actual powerful positions in life. Which makes them almost guaranteed to fail as leaders, because it's really easy to spot the pretenders in that regard. It's very cheap and fleeting satisfaction to use and abuse any shred of power you have over others. But nobody genuinely respects these kind of people, you just get most of them to stay silent about it. Though that just makes finding the good and responsible leaders, who have the self awareness to respect their position, all the more endearing to me.

There's my two cents on the matter.

You are the Mon

Yeah that will do it. My phone is an autocorrecting disaster.