I prefer a statement I heard about value from the Rome 2 debacle.

It is up to you to decide what is valuable. I've seen people who make less money than me drive cars five times as expensive as mine, and that's what makes them happy. I've seen people make metric tons of money, just to give it all away to charity, or gamble at a casino, or buy a 400 dollar shiny pokemon card off of eBay. Or the Skyrim collector edition for over 100 bucks.

Value is only what you make of it. I don't like Stargate, a lot of people do. At the dame time I think Babylon 5 is one of, if not THE greatest tv show of all time. A lot of people would disagree with that and point out star trek or even stargate.

Doesn't matter what other people think of it. It only matters if you enjoy it and it doesn't involve children in sexual positions. Because if it does, I will personally throw you out the nearest airlock into the sun.

But yeah I like anime. So there's that.

Brovo said
When someone you boot from your Rp comes back hours later on a different account and sincerely thinks you wouldn't be able to notice that he (or she now) behaves exactly the same and named their new account after their username change on steam.Ie: I'm not blind. Or retarded.

Reminds me of Work_U_Dumb.

Rtron said
The fact that there's no good, old fashioned, fantasy NRPs annoys me. I just want to create a dwarven Kingdom Under the Mountain. One without any steampunk elements. Just epic beards, well forged everythings, lots of gold and jewels, and golems for good measure. Is that to much to ask?

For once, I'd like see a fantasy NRP that didn't have Tolkien smeared all over it. Or Europe in general.

ASTA said
For once, I'd like see a fantasy NRP that didn't have Tolkien smeared all over it. Or Europe in general.

Oh yeah, weird fantasy is GREAT.



MMMM. Wonder when fantasy became "Only fantastical elements within the realm of elf, dwarves, and hobb- I mean, halflings, legal reasons."

AlienBastard said
I swear when it comes to NRPs people see the limits of the RP as unfair restrictions. Multiple times I have gotten people who complained about how having only 1-2 non-human aliens is such a ridiculous restriction in a space RP that takes place across only 4 star systems that has only one alien world and said aliens can't be space faring on contact.I've gotten people who left the RP over it even when me and iso tried to work with the guy to make what he wanted fit in.I just don't get it. Why is it there is people who some how not see how absurd it is to want to have five alien species that are intelligent within four star systems independently occurring on different planets? I even had people who thought such "limitation" was contrived... Somehow. Even though many intelligent races in close proximity to earth seems far more contrived to me.

I'll be responding to this when I get the chance.

@Brovo: Agreed, most anime is garbage. It just goes back to what Hayao Miyazaki has been saying, Otaku's ruined it for more reasons than he actually stated. Fans of anime are content with just "ok" shows, and the industry see's that and pushes out crappy shows left and right. Rarely is anything decent created, atleast to stand up to older shows like Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell. Hell, even ones from the early 2000's like Death Note & Code Geass. Now I won't bash someone if they like something that is below average, but at the same time standing for below average shows is what creates more below average shows. But hell, I just think that's TV in general

@ASTA: Fantasy RPs in general that didn't have Tolkien smeared all over it. Like hell, I love Tolkien and all but I would also like to see RPs set in a different world. But hey, it makes sense why everyone would want to take the Tolkien approach...Doesn't mean it doesn't get old sometimes. You can do so much with Fantasy, just study up on your mythology and folklore and you're good to go. You don't have to do everything Tolkien did. But the number one rule of Fantasy, there atleast has to be one mention of a dragon.

AlienBastard said
I swear when it comes to NRPs people see the limits of the RP as unfair restrictions. Multiple times I have gotten people who complained about how having only 1-2 non-human aliens is such a ridiculous restriction in a space RP that takes place across only 4 star systems that has only one alien world and said aliens can't be space faring on contact.I've gotten people who left the RP over it even when me and iso tried to work with the guy to make what he wanted fit in.I just don't get it. Why is it there is people who some how not see how absurd it is to want to have five alien species that are intelligent within four star systems independently occurring on different planets? I even had people who thought such "limitation" was contrived... Somehow. Even though many intelligent races in close proximity to earth seems far more contrived to me.

I couldn't run that thread for two reasons:

1) Having human colonists on the vul'kruun homeworld would have had them come into possession of human technology. Space is an Ocean and Space is Air tropes activated in full. Space fighters galore. They just would have been 'aliens' with human technology, which would have meant that I couldn't have steered their society and technological growth in the direction that I desired. The rule about the aliens not being as advanced as humans would have been impossible to adhere to had human technology been adopted by my species. Basically, it wouldn't have worked out. If I'm wrong, then it's too late anyway. The slots have been filled.

2) The intense focus on humanity didn't sit well with me. But I guess that's my fault. I read the OP, so I knew what I was getting myself into.

The NRP section in general has been a disappointment, because the RPs in that section are as listed:

Alternate History: Mostly restricted to PoW, the (many) World in Revolution threads, a single Cold War thread, and some up-and-coming NRP that deals with Rome. There's a reason why no one has ever caught sight of me participating in this genre. And you never will.

The one or two active fantasy RPs in there: They're either Game of Thrones knock-offs, something set in Not!Europe or a single steampunk RP that failed to retain my interest after Serp and Monkey started being Serp and Monkey and Kilo pulled a Kilo. Oh, and Gowia's thread.

A few science fiction threads: One of them moved to the Sufficient Velocity forums and quickly turned into a thread filled with super sayians and space ninjas (I haven't posted since then), the other sci-fi thread died/is dying because of GM inactivity and the other is borderline impossible for me to shift into. All that's left is VotS II. I'll give that two weeks before I leave.

Not saying the NRP section sucks because whether or not something sucks is entirely subjective--but I mean. Yeah. I think my personal opinion of it is very obvious.

NRPs are mostly ruin and yes, it's my fault from asking Mahz to make a subthreads from NRPs. I wise that never happened, because it's mostly full of Alternate History, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and many other things. I got a question from ASTA, why don't you make your own NRP (not trying to say it in a mean way)?

I'm not much of a GM.

And, there's nothing bad about the common genres of NRP, but the current lineup just isn't doing it for me. It's less about the genres and more about the content of these threads that's throwing me off. And maybe even some of the players themselves. But I don't think that's a very fair judgement since I'm relatively infamous for 'nitpicking' apparently.

So, what would like to see in a NRP that could cause you to join?

ASTA said
Alternate History: Mostly restricted to PoW, the (many) World in Revolution threads, a single Cold War thread, and some up-and-coming NRP that deals with Rome. There's a reason why no one has ever caught sight of me participating in this genre. And you never will. The one or two active

In a defense of PoW - if it's needed at all, or an excuse - is that it's been running fairly contiguously for three years straight and those of us in it have been running the thing since day one. We've migrated it around irregardless of pre-existing forum content to keep our investment alive, with a little hope we may rake in some additional interest or contributors.

ASTA said
2) The intense focus on humanity didn't sit well with me. But I guess that's my fault. I read the OP, so I knew what I was getting myself into

Why doesn't a human focused space RP sit well with you, when said RP takes place in such insignificant part of the galaxy?

Anyhow still I find it odd how you see your race incompatible when the initial idea had them rebelling against a alien imperium that took them over; I figured you'd just have to replace the alien imperium with a human one.

Rare said
So, what would like to see in a NRP that could cause you to join?

I'm sure this question wasn't directed at me, but...

#1: Diplomacy needs to have actual numerical value. As it stands, betraying your friends holds virtually zero consequences beyond how others might perceive you. Some economic penalties or something would be nice. As a bonus, nation traits could tweak this value, so warlike populaces hate alliances, emotionless races feel nothing, etc.

#2: Run away from the Civilization model of shit and add morale in battles. In fact, give battles some tactical details. Considering a huge part of EMPIREEEEEE is warfare, it's nonsensical to leave it to dice rolls or, worse still, arbitrary GM decision. As it currently stands, if you're a warlike race, the chances of your success in conquest is entirely randumb or if the GM thinks you should win. Either result is... Unsatisfactory. (With the GM option either you'll always win, always lose, or never gain any real progress in wars due to the GM trying to equalize the battlefields. None of these are satisfactory.)

#3: If you don't do so already, give a defined map with defined borders. Nothing screams "pointless" like a galaxy in which you are a blind mole rat.

#4: NPC factions. Don't need to be literal factions, but ones which the GM can use to balance shit out, like mercenaries, or something similar to this. That way if a warlike faction starts steamrolling everyone, an alliance in combination with the merc faction can beat them back rather than result in a one sided molestation.

#5: This is probably the most important one, more important than the above four.

Give me a fucking reason to interact with other people. And not something weak, like "oh you always have a resource deficit of X" (which makes no sense in the context of space empires, but eh,) but an actual reason to want to send diplomats, make treaties, spy on and infiltrate others governments, even to wage war. Because most of the time, there is utterly no incentive to do so, and if you're talking about nations, they operate very differently from individuals: Nations need reasons to do shit. Why go to war with your neighbour if it would only cost you a pointless number of lives and ships? See what I mean here?

Beyond that, eh, it's icing on the cake, but I've yet to see an NRP pull all of these off to a satisfactory degree as to catch my attention.

Brovo said
@Expollo: It's okay. I think it is pretty funny too, but it is also annoying. And confusing.As for anime? I like anime and appreciate it like I do any visual medium for its aesthetics and ability to convey a story in any number of ways.Though like the rest of tv and film, 90% of it is garbage. The fan service can ruin otherwise good shows. The fan base is... Exhuberent. Yes. Exhuberent.But then I see stuff like Ghost in the Shell and Cowboy Bebop. I can't bring myself to hate the medium. It's capable. The fan base isn't.

If you're a fan of Ghost in the Shell and Bebop you should check out Psycho-Pass if you haven't already. There's a very similar structuring to Bebop and the world is reminiscent of Philip K Dick's work mixed with 1984.

Definitely agree though, all too often the fan-base is just too much. The roleplays people build off of anime are all too often over the top in ways I just can't take seriously.

While still on the topic of NRPs, I've got a gripe list a mile high. I tend to be able to go along with most people and generally grit my teeth with things that bug the hell out of me, but I don't know what it is about NRPs that just bring out the worst in people. Honestly there are so many instances of people just being so caustic that their actions and words make me want to immediately drop a game(and in fact there have been occasions where I have). Its not an exclusive thing to NRPs but in my experience it seems to be very very pronounced there. Above and beyond that I agree that the concept pool for NRPs are highly disheartening most of the time. I barely have the time to commit right now to be a player, being a GM I think would make my head explode until things settle so I'm stuck with what little there is to have. I would love more than anything else to have a fantasy game that isn't hurrr steampunk or hurrr Game of Thrones but NOT(which is especially dubious because ASoIAF is already just European history but NOT) Tolkien stuff I'm fine with for the most part though. I could dedicate an entire forum to the list of things that I want to bitch about in Sci-Fi NRPs but I think I'm going to stick to the biggest one. People who use entire nations or factions from other media. Its especially bad when they are obviously ripping something off but have tweaked it just barely enough that they think they can call it their own thing. If you want to play an existing faction from a setting at least own up to it, and if you're going to steal a chunk of your nation from something wholesale at least have the common decency to change the freaking names. I understand that it can be hard to come up with a unique idea sometimes, but that doesn't give you a free pass to just be something that someone has already made in my mind.

Soapboxing over.

Brovo said
When someone you boot from your Rp comes back hours later on a different account and sincerely thinks you wouldn't be able to notice that he (or she now) behaves exactly the same and named their new account after their username change on steam.Ie: I'm not blind. Or retarded.

My complaint is similar to this: I get annoyed when people assume that I'm stupid. It's okay when I'm out in the city with friends and being a loud, bimbo-bitch... but god damn it, not otherwise. Especially on the Internet, as you don't even have to be genuinely smart in order to appear smart on the Internet — you can almost be an expert in whatever after a few hours of research. But when people don't think that you have any kind of awareness.... fuck, it makes me agitated.

I'm sure it's been said before, but FUCKING HELL I have only been in like two or three RPs that lasted more than five pages, and they were both on a different forum! What the fuck is it with a forum dedicated to RP having about 95% of their RPs die within the first few posts? What the actual fuck!?

Seriously, I'm done. I get so tired of the shit-asses that read through an RP's premise, see a tag that says "Serious players only, no flakes", or something like that, take the time to post a character, then take the time to make no more than three posts before disappearing off the face of the Earth! The least you pricks can do is leave a note saying that you're dropping out and explaining why! I would really love it if I could, just once, get into and RP that garners my interest that doesn't die within a month of it's inception!

As a GM I usually have a habit of trying to PM people. Though I only get more pissed when they don't respond; as had happened in my last mass-reminder PM when only one guy responded that he's busy with other things.

On a similar vein I've sent a PM to a mod and GM of an RP asking them to come back and settle up some applications and a concern I raised, but I don't think I ever got recognition for that. I don't know if it's just that some people fail to notice them sometime or they simply stopped caring and don't want to bring recognition to their failures by not acknowledging their disappearance. But this is a Free RP role play, so I shouldn't expect anything more; I just simply go there so I have something to crack my knuckles over while I wait for posts in my other RPs.

But still, if you're obviously going to still be around the least you could do is come by and say you're dropping something. I know that irritation all to well.

New guild is same as old guild and the nrp problems have existed since the first nrp on old guild. The rps in general follow what's cool at the time so many of the promising ones are just swept under the rug.

Nrps are so notorious for that as people will invest in a rp and change thier mind when something they have wanted for so long opens up. A vicious cycle and we are all guilty of it

When you can finish a CS in an hour and a half and it takes people over TWO WEEKS to finish theirs and not even remotely near the length you made yours.