The Harbinger of Ferocity

Why is Casual so much more popular than Free or Advanced?

Casual can go either way and while it is more coherent, dynamic and with greater depth than Free, I believe that's what most roleplayers are looking for on average because Advanced can be and so often is a devourer of time. You can have the really large, sweeping posts, or the bear minimum paragraphs in the same topic and not really be terribly wrong - barring what your Game Master desires in the initial post of course.

I admit I tend to longer posts despite having reassigned myself to the Casual realm owing to my schedule, but that is by my choice; more often than not because I am trying to acknowledge everything that transpired to some extent and my character's reaction or role in it. This tends to draw it out, but I feel that's fair enough to acknowledge someone else doing something else. That, and there's not excessive details - whole inner monologues, self-discussions, character exposition, plans, et cetera played out - which are only sometimes appropriate in any scenario... not always.

Going to the other end of the spectrum, Free roleplays tend to be absolute chaos incarnate from what I have experienced and or seen. If you leave for any length of time you've missed ten, maybe twenty posts, and although they may not be supremely pressing or important, you now need to divert yourself into the conversation or action again. The stories are often of questionable quality, with the plot being at most an ill defined paragraph; there's no semblance of remote "balance" either among characters, let alone any sort of character development. Not to say those who enjoy Free roleplays are wrong, it is just a large amount of the material is substandard.

Casual just falls into the right balance, at least the perceived option of it depending upon the individual topic's requirements, or so I believe.

Just Werewolves...?

It doesn't "need" a conflict like vampire/werewolf to work out, after all, you see movies with just one of the two succeed plenty of times, but mixing them together makes for an easy story setup. Throw humans into the middle, and you've got a triple conflict.

non-wolf weres would probably benefit if they got stories of their own without werewolves

@Ellri

That's more the point I mean in that scenario. In a way it has become a staple of the genre, just as zombies have, but they're usually self contained to the three aspects all at conflict for one reason or another. Some series involve more, but not by much, others stick to one archetype. Most just seem to focus on that conflict rather than anything or everything else.

As for the other zoanthropes, getting traction by themselves, I would be curious to see if people would bite or if the interaction between this specific strain and the lycanthropic one would be a better idea; sort of building on the conflict found in the werewolf versus vampire archetype. Albeit it would be much harder to divide the two, let alone involve them well enough. Of course one can invent conflict, but I suppose it wouldn't feel "as natural" whereas it is with werewolves and vampires.

Waeldeshore 1.0 [CONCLUDED]

Admittedly it was unintended - certainly chaotic on every front, evil slightly for the subsequent handling, but it wasn't murder for murder's sake, destruction for destruction's sake, and so on.

Absolutely not good in any sense, but more pure chaos than anything.

Waeldeshore 1.0 [CONCLUDED]

No one gonna mentionthe fact that i killed someone?

@boomlover

The majority of us are not there. Actually, barring the inn keeper, yourself and Tirarrian, no one is.

Just Werewolves...?

<Snipped quite by Dinh AaronMk>

Lions, tigers, and other big-cats aren't nearly as wide-spread as the wolf or often as close to humanity as the wolf. Likewise as said before, big-cats are considered the realm of the modern furry. The canine is more the realm of classical anthropomorphic ghost stories.

@Dinh AaronMk

Actually a very enlightening read on the grounds of some historical elements I was not terribly familiar with and how it ties into now; thank you for the contribution. I admit that it seems more and more inherently grounded and less evolving than I imagined. Not to say that werewolves and zoanthropes as a whole are "behind", but again it just strikes me as strange that a roleplaying community with all its glorious strangeness and cross-overs or mixed material and ideas still hasn't hit this note much, if at all to my awareness.

As for the last portion, I've never heard of big cats being the "realm of the modern furry", my impression of that genre has been that it was really "anything and everything anthropomorphic animal" was fair game as content. I am uneducated enough on the sort to know if that's true or not.

More than anything I assumed it was because of geographical separation and early history, which seems to be more and more the root cause.

We think a lot of the blame lies in the field of the historical role of "farmer". In western culture, the wolf has traditionally been vilified by the people. And if the regular wolf is evil, imagine then how much more evil the human that turns into a big and nasty wolf would be. Big cats just never were common in the traditional western culture, thus they did not develop the same fear.

Today of course, big cats are visibly much more dangerous than wolves ever were. But that doesn't truly sink in for most.

@Ellri

As said before, culture and location seem to be the two driving forces of this. Zoanthropes of any color are terrifying monsters, in particular against a mundane human being; human and feline contact being "rarer" seems to fit in with this regardless.

The werewolf/vampire conflict is also a reason. the other weres haven't had a traditional enemy.

With less writing covering them, the other weres require more thought and study to use, as there isn't a flood of available sources for how they work and what traits they exemplify. A werewolf can both be a lone wolf and a pack animal, which gives an author/artist more options when choosing the variety to use. A werebear, for example, doesn't have a natural pack mentality.

We think all sorts of weres can be good if done right. Yes, even a were-muskrat.

I find it interesting that there needs to be a conflict among werewolves and vampires to make them "interesting" in a way. The concept alone has a lot to work off of and its own incredible implications among fantasy, which have been explored quite a bit. Did that burn out somehow to the point where we need "Team X or Team Y?" - not to abuse a well loathed example, but it isn't the only one. That's another discussion altogether I suppose, but you are right... other zoanthropes have no real "enemy" or "struggle" outside of those already sort of expressed. Not to say they lack unique ones, but the werewolf and vampire competition is a major element of its modern draw.

I admit though that the one thing I would disagree with in terms of dynamics is that werewolves somehow give more options. If anything the other strains are options in and among themselves, just not well represented.

As a side note, I've not seen a weremuskrat character, but I would be legitimately curious.

Cara's Originally Titled OoC Hangout Thread ♥ (Still)

I am indeed a stranger, but not much so unto here. But this term will suffice as well, as there are those strange and those stranger.

What Is The Avatar Above Thinking? Version 2.0

"I looped The One's bullet time."

Mahz's Dev Journal

We personally think an app would require quite a lot of new coding with only minimal benefit. We'd rather have more complex features first. The notifications bit could be taken care of by, say, implementing the option for email notifications.

@Ellri

As long as it remains an option to opt out of email notifications, I would see this as the best stopgap solution to people not wishing to miss content. "Tag this topic, when it receives a new post, send me an email notification with who posted in it."

Just my passerby opinion.

Just Werewolves...?

I think werewolves have kind of earned their place in mythology not to seem intrinsically naff. Any other x-thropes haven't quite got that historical weight behind them, and seem naff as a result, particularly given the internet's attitude toward furries. Everybody knows a werewolf, but a 'novel' concept involving another animal will be approached as something new, and through that rough spectrum of 'How much is this furry?'.

@Jig

I wouldn't quite say the other zoanthropes lack a historical weight; most every culture seems to include them, but certainly not in the same way or for the same reasons. I believe it is more along the lines of werewolves just being so established in European culture - and more so in modern times with the West as a whole.

I admit you are likely entirely correct on the "How much of this is 'furry'?" spectrum, in that that entire genre of anthropomorphism versus furry is a very ill defined battlefield. Admittedly I have been called a "furry" (with the negative connotation intended) for playing shapeshifters, zoanthropes, or using other elements of anthropomorphism.

Pretty much every defined 'supernatural/horror race' is intrinsically naff in its purest forms, but werewolves have a long-established lore to draw on. Part of the charm, for me, at least, of watching supernatural/horror-race-themed media is to see how they will interpret the lore and what new spin you'll give on it. If it's not an established 'thing', though, there's no room for any of that comparison, which makes the new thing seem more alien and less approachable. The audience doesn't buy into it; it's considered naff.

The werewolf is indeed well defined and established, but I think there must be something more to it, as with the vampire. After all, European folklore even includes werecats - both of the more "mundane" sort and the "panther" sort. Either way, I would be shocked to learn the idea of "There are werebeasts other than werewolves." is a shocking notion that people consider cliche. It strikes me as just a natural and reasonable extension of the concept.

Werewolves, incidentally, have a long history in Western cultural awareness, from being the antagonist in Biblical parables, fairy tales and even aphorisms, which lends them to the villainous, or, at least, dangerous role in a given story. I'm not sure big cats have that lingering cultural or folkloric heritage.

While not explicitly regarding felines, the whole issue eludes me in concept - big cats being the most confusing, in that they're well established in the human psyche and one of the more "common" zoanthropic strains. While wolves are well accounted for in European and Western myth, the cat isn't terribly disregarded either. I could understand the more exotic and bizarre renditions which only distantly relate to what we call a zoanthrope being unheard of, but those familiar? To the point that werewolves are the only real presence?

It all just seems strange... on the Internet of all places where information, stories, characters and concepts are freely floating about. Or the fact that the World of Darkness or other roleplaying game material, to include Dungeons and Dragons, includes them as well.

A lot of that just comes down to the literary background of a lot of people who do internet RP's, doesn't it? I know if my lifetime there has been quite a bit of interest in supernatural tropes in teen fiction. For some people, i'm sure they are mostly just RPing what they already like.

@Vilageidiotx

I suppose - it goes back to the saturation of modern media with the entire "werewolf versus vampire" trope that's become a now reinforced staple. Not to say werewolves and vampires shouldn't get the attention in supernatural fiction, but its grossly overpopulated and overpowered.

Waeldeshore 1.0 [CONCLUDED]

I find it exceptionally amusing that a halfling, who are notorious for being unafraid, is interacting with The Red. There's just something humorous about how his natural reaction is essentially useless on her - she's obviously unafraid as it is.