The Elvenqueen

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

<Snipped quote by The Elvenqueen>
Star Wars. Dingo's version of the Mandalorian Wars.

@Inkarnate

Ohhhhhhh! Yes I remember that now, was a shame that one died, I liked it ;-; ah well, such is life!

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

<Snipped quote by Ammokkx>
I also once RPed with Elvenqueen, but that’s really a stretch of “ties”. Also, pretty sure you arguing with me that I was being a jerk a few months ago shows your impartiality in the matter.

@Inkarnate

We did? O.o welp, I totally forgot that, my apologies! XD

Spoiler alert: 3/4 people in this topic are the exact same person.

Guess right and you win a lifetime supply of Tupperware. Guess wrong and alpacas will eat your hair off your head.

@Dervish

Not like I like my hair anyways, the alpacas can have it ;)

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

Came up with a few possible options again, feel free to elaborate on one or come up with something entirely different that I haven't thought of yet! :D

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

The two Champions followed their unnamed contact into the elevator, the loud mechanics of which prompted anxious whines from Chwuq and Taral. They were clearly none too fond of the assault on their sensitive hearing that the grating mechanics made. Aria tried not to wrinkle her nose in distaste at the dilapidated state of their surroundings, no doubt it would not help their contact’s impressions of them, which already seemed to be….less than friendly. She could only hope some of the other Force users would be more welcoming.
As the elevator shuddered to a halt and they stepped out into the room of conveyors, Aria reminded herself that just a few months ago they had crawled through the sewers on this very planet in pursuit of the Xiis, the filth (and the smell) in this room was nothing compared to that.
It helped a lot. Helped her keep a straight face too.
“I suppose that is one way to keep yourselves protected. But it isolates you as well.”
A sideward glance as they entered the room, the Zabrak muttering a comment of:
“And if that's what we want?” before the Twi'lek man came forward and addressed Yerbol. Some pleasantries were exchanged and Yerbol elaborated a little on , during which Aria simply smiled and nodded politely until she was spoken to.
“Well, it's good to meet you nonetheless. We hope we can change your mind, at least somewhat.”
“We'll see about that.” the Zabrak snorted, lowering the hood of her cloak to reveal the rest of her face; a set of five small horns projecting from the crown of her head revealing her younger age...perhaps a decade older than the two Champions at most. “We were expecting Malu, to be perfectly blunt.”
“Well, we’re sorry to disappoint you but Malu decided to send us.” Aria answered earnestly, turning her attention back to Kartan as he began speaking about Manus’ deeds prior to Bracknell’s purge order.

As the Twi'lek claimed there was little evidence to support their condemnation of the former Jedi Master, Aria raised an eyebrow and leaned carefully on the table.
“If Manus really is the hero you say he is, then why isn't he helping you?”
“And the Qyaari are any better?” the Zabrak retorted, arms tightly crossed over her chest.
“We're here now.”
The Champion’s statement was met with a glare from the Zabrak woman and a dubious frown from Kartan.
“Thanks to MALU.”
“I have to agree with Vaerth.” Kartan grunted. “The Qyaari haven't exactly gone out of their way to help us either.”
Groaning quietly, Aria ran a hand through her hair, her gaze darting from the neutral Force users to the ceiling momentarily as she regained her composure and tried not to appear confrontational.
“We're not here to argue semantics.” the Champion spoke slowly, almost pleading with them to hear the words and THINK about them properly. “Yes, the Qyaari are not entirely blameless for what is going on here. We could have, SHOULD have, made a better effort to find and support you all.”
“And we're SORRY, but we can't go back and change that now.” Yerbol put in. Surprise flickered over their faces at the open honesty of the duo’s words.
“But we want to make that right by helping you now. That has to count for something, doesn't it?”
“We'll be the judge of that.” Kartan chuckled humourlessly.
“You still haven't told us what ‘proof’ you have that Manus intends to turn on us.” the Zabrak, who they now knew as Vaerth, put in, redirecting the topic of the conversation.
The Champions produced their data pads, calling up the saved holo messages between Nuly and Manus where they had discussed Soto’s breakout, and a few records which Malu had acquired (Kandar and her former Intelligence contacts were surprisingly efficient at finding information the Qyaari Elder needed!), which showed supplies had been diverted from their original drop-off points with very vague reasoning (and little explanation about where the supplies were going instead).
“This holo recording was taken from the Warden’s apartment. We visited him to question him about Soto’s escape and ended up finding a corpse and the Assassins Manus sent to kill him.” Aria explained, her gaze moving carefully between Kartan and Vaerth. “The other records were given to us by Malu before we left Zinuthra. She believes it proves Manus is stealing supplies from you and others on Coruscant to keep for himself.”

Aria simply nodded and cleared her throat.
“So, the question right now is: what do you know about the supply convoys? Do you know where Manus keeps them?”
“Perhaps we do.” Vaerth nodded slowly.
“Well, we can't help you take them back if you don't tell us.” Yerbol pointed out with a quiet sigh.
“You're under no obligation to change your allegiances if you don't want to.” Aria reminded them. “We only hope that we can show you we could be valuable allies, should you need us.”
The Twi'lek and Zabrak exchanged glances, as if weighing up their options, then nodded slightly.
“There's a section of private docking bays in the back of the spaceport.”
“Just tell us what you need us to do, we're here to help.”

The docking bay Vaerth had mentioned was indeed well tucked away at the back of the port, and vigilantly guarded by two individuals in the black masks and suits they had come to recognise as Manus’ soldiers.
“There are probably a lot more of them inside.” Vaerth muttered, the four Force users huddled together to peer around the corner at the doorway they had indicated as the likely culprit.
“Probably.” Aria muttered wryly. “But one thing at a time, right? We need to distract those two.” a nod towards the two door guards.
“Hmm. Kartan or I could try and pose as some of Manus’ men picking up cargo.” the Zabrak suggested.
“And you'd be happy going in alone, presuming there ARE more guards or droids inside and they attack you when they realise you're an imposter?” Aria frowned warily.
“What, you think we're not capable of holding our own in a fight just because we aren't Qyaari?” Vaerth’s blue eyes narrowed to slits.
“No, no that's not what I-”
“Do you have a better suggestion?” Kartan cut in before Vaerth could escalate the conversation into an argument that the guards would overhear.
“Well…no, not really.” Aria admitted, face flushing. “It just seems like a reasonable concern to worry about whether you'd be overwhelmed before the rest of us could get to you.”
“You telling me you can't cut through TWO people to come and help?” Vaerth snorted derisively. “I saw the way you worked when you were an Inquisitor.”
Heaving a long-suffering sigh, Aria chewed her lip as she muttered.
“If you're trying to rile me up to prove a point, Vaerth, it's not going to work.” With a sideward glance at her husband, the Champion reached out to him through their bond:
I guess we hit a few more nerves than we thought with whatever we're doing in the galaxy. Mind helping me out here, everything I say seems to make her more upset. This is why I'd be a terrible politician; my mother is probably turning in her grave right now.

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

@Ammokkx point taken...though compared to the implied several page CS, with 10 paragraph back stories it would be short to me xD

Elvenqueen also forget to hit the enter button on a few paragraphs.

@Inkarnate

Why yes, I probably did pahahaha. I blame the tiny phone screen and my erratic brain. Sometimes it lumps things together to get them down and then I lose track of what was written where and what needs separating. *sits in the dunce corner*

Yet again @SleepingSilence you are making sweeping generalisations o.o personally, I don't interact with most of these people in any other place than this thread (though we have had some pretty neat discussions on differing opinions here ^^) so to say we are all "involved" with one another is a broad statement with no actual merit.

And nowhere did I imply CS's were not good? Where on earth are you pulling that from? I made it clear several times that in my personal opinion I prefer to look at a person's IC writing instead. Am I demanding people scrap CS's and only ever provide samples? Noooopeeee.

As for whether somebody already has other posts in their posting history, of course I would look at those and wouldn't necessarily need to ask for another. (And FYI most GM's who I have seen ask for samples of previous writing, so it's usually not even something that requires this gargantuan extra effort to write a "waste of time" sample, which is what you seem to be implying). However, if they were applying for say a fantasy RP, but all of their post history was slice of life or something on that vein, yes I would ask for another sample to be written in a genre closer to the one they were applying for. It proves that they can write for that setting.

I've had more than enough cases, for instance a person who tried to join a normal, fairly "realistic" Wolf RP (where I was Co-GM) with a dimension-jumping werewolf/shapeshifter when the GM explicitly stated that the humans that may present challenges for the wolves were primitive, tribal people and were not playable characters. This person was able to write up a character sheet just fine but clearly had problems with creating a character appropriate to the setting given by the GM (or indeed even reading the backstory of the RP in the first place, in this case).
Ability to write a character sheet =/= ability to cooperate with other players in a collaborative roleplay. Just like, yes, it can be said that writing a sample post =/= ability to write better. Neither is better than the other, but certainly for me personally in my 11 years of roleplaying I find sample scenarios are both more reliable for me to judge whether a potential player and I will get along well, but also more enjoyable for me to write and present to someone.

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

Here's a final note from me, everyone tends to make mistakes in their writing. That's why all writers have first drafts. Plus it seems like a lot of advanced section users and in general do not spellcheck their own work. So, stuff like that would really make me raise an eyebrow if these same people were forcing to give me tests that I will assume, if flawed in anyway. I won't be accepted because that's the post they will look at. So unless the person dishing out tests, is also read/correcting every post in their RP. It feels like it was just a waste of time, for the person involved. I mean do you correct every mistake you see? I know plenty of people get offended really fucking easily, so does that worry your image and how you're perceived? So when your bound to make a mistake....like that sentence.

But yes, I understand that you feel like I called you and others you may know 'pretentious', I reacted defensively to match intensity. Because I didn't. But I still disagree that tests don't lead to complications and aren't particularly fun for anyone involved and often are pointless...Making a failed CS that isn't accepted, change it a little and maybe someone else will like them. Fail to make a test writing? Congratz you wasted your time.

@SleepingSilence

I was gonna stay out of this since it feels a bit like arguing with a brick wall here but I feel like I have a couple of things to say on this section specifically. (I honestly struggled to understand what you were saying for some of it, but this is what I did understand and take from it)

Where, anywhere was it mentioned by any of us who were talking about samples that said sample posts had to be novel-perfect writing? Nowhere.
Sure, good grammar is great and it helps people to understand you better but not everybody is perfect. People write posts while they're tired, they miss mistakes and post them and don't realise it till the day after. People write posts on their phones and miss autocorrect fails that they didn't see the first time (and believe me, I have had it happen to me from both sides, where autocorrect has made such a glorious fuck up that I've had to ask a partner what the heck it was supposed to mean (and had partners ask me the same) because it was just that bad that it couldn't be figured out alone XD

(Using "you" as in the general/"royal" you here, BTW. So if you're going to choose to get offended by it then that's on you.)
Sample posts give an example of your writing as is, as you would write IC, rather than your ability to just regurgitate text into a flowery/purple prosey 3-page long CS that really isn't always necessary for the actual plot of the RP. I, personally, as a partner, player and a GM (although I tend to stick to 1x1 mostly nowadays since I don't have the time to manage a group) much prefer either a short CS that covers the basics to give people a feel for the character, or literally to give just the most basic information on a character like their name, age, gender and a brief appearance/personality traits and then let the rest be revealed ad lib in the IC, and maybe create more detailed sheets later should it feel necessary for information management I don't care how fancy a CS is. I care about how your writing style "feels" to read and how well you portray the character you set out to play.
I don't care about grammar mistakes (within reason. If I can't understand a single word typed then yes there will be an issue there), a few mistakes or minor issues with grammar are not grounds for me to not to accept somebody for a role play request, what I am interested in is whether they can portray a character that is interesting, fun, and believable for the setting of the RP.

As for "if you can't figure out if they can write if they present you with ten paragraphs of backstory", they could be ten paragraphs of complete garbage that doesn't actually make sense. As said before by many people, quantity=/=quality. I would much rather have a short thousand words post that really shows the person can portray the character in the roleplay's timeline than ten paragraphs of purple prose and repeated points.

EDIT: case in point, I just had to correct a few autocorrect fails in this very post..does that make me a bad RPer or a bad writer? Absolutely not. Nobody was implying that, ever.

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

@Buddha This is also true. I'm not saying that sheets suck and nobody should use them at all of course, just that more paragraphs isn't always better. I appreciate that as a GM it can be useful for gauging a person's writing abilities but personally I just think there are better ways to achieve that (asking for links to writing samples from other RPs, or even providing a mandatory prompt which the person must write a response to as their character/from the character's point of view, for instance) than asking people to purple prose 2-3 paragraphs in a section like personality which in most cases (but not all, I also acknowledge) works better as a "show, not tell" thing c:

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

<Snipped quote by The Elvenqueen>
Character Sheets with proven, trusted partners just serve as a info-dump. It’s a fun time.

@Inkarnate

Precisely. It's an organisational tool rather than something that restricts your character to a certain thing in that case. A way to keep track of perhaps where they have been, who they have met and skills/abilities they have learned while IC for instance. C:

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

If I were more confident and trusting with everyone and anyone on RPG I would probably void a CS entirely.

@Inkarnate

This. I largely prefer doing this with a good partner/set of partner (s) over having to fill in a CS. Is it because I'm lazy, or that I hate CS's or I don't want to characterise my OCs? Nooooo!
But rather because I hate being obligated to stick to that character sheet precisely, for the entire duration of the RP. Especially those ones where they demand multi-para personalities. It's all very well and good to summarise a characters thoughts and beliefs but if I have to spell out every single aspect in several paragraphs then I often find myself purple prosing for the sake of length/word count and that is quite...painful, for lack of a better term. I am then also restricted to having that character only act that way because that's what is in the bio/CS....What about character growth during the RP which then changes the way my character acts and perceives the world through events they have been through with or without their companions? There's less freedom to do that I feel, when you have to keep to what you've put in the CS.

I prefer to give a brief summary, such as a list of a few traits and maybe a few sentences to a paragraph that summarises how the traits come together to form their personality, and then let them speak for themselves in the IC. A lack of CS or lack of detail in a bio does not always equal a lackluster author or a lack of thought into the character. Sometimes it's just more fun to let things unfold as the RP goes. Where would all the fun be if I revealed to you their entire back story before it came up in the IC? it takes away half the excitement because it takes away the "shock" factor of me revealing something IC that you weren't expecting because you already knew it would happen when I had to reveal it in the CS.

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

Sweet, working on a post now! Work today was a killer so apologies if I'm a bit slow xDD