I was wondering if anyone would being willing to maybe read through my RP and see if there is anything that blatantly sticks out to you. I always want to improve as a writer. If there is anything I can do to improve let me know!
There are a couple of things I want to point out as a reader, let's start with grammar.
I think the dialogue runs as so:
"I guess it's about time to get on with today," he groans. Picking up his...
versus
“I guess its about time to get on with today.” He groans, picking up his
The punctuation flows easier because it connects what he said to the action. I'm sure there's more to it than just that.
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I think your detail is great but it might be too passive in immersing the reader into your world. Are you familiar with active and passive voices? The tone I get from reading is like reading a text book that's describing factual information. I think I'd get more of a kick to understand your character's preference as in the how he perceives the world around him.
Does that make sense? I can explain more if needed.
There's also a passivity to your writing that needs to be balanced out by an active voice. This is more apparent during the setting explanation, the character's actions, and the encounters with other characters.
There are also some run-on sentences in your role play. Consider adding periods to end a phrase before starting a new one. Comma usage is tricky and it befuddles me sometimes as well.
A lot of rules I think I know intuitively but I break some of them too. I think it's okay to break some rules as long as the decision is made by choice. I hope this helps.
The year is 1463, war has ravaged all of Doman, since 1291.
Comma splicing. When in doubt use a period or a semi-colon. You're writing run-ons. It's better to be a bit short and choppy than to combine clauses like that.
The year is 1463. War has ravaged all of Doman since 1291.
The year is 1463. Since 1291 war has ravaged all of Doman.
The year is 1463; since 1291, war has ravaged all of Doman.
Hey. Here is a very basic review I made up in my spare time - this really only covers the first OOC post and the information provided sections, since your intent seems to be to attract a small group of other posters to join you. I assumed your IC posts were all written by yourself, and so I am going to be focusing mostly on aspects of your roleplay as pertaining to individuals who might potentially want to join it. Since your in-character posts are more in-line as character introductions than as lore-establishing posts, I will not really be talking about them.
I will address your Prologue first since you have it set up as the OOC introduction. In most cases, this will be the first thing other posters see - so you want to make sure it shines and leaves a good impression on them. To that extent it should be fairly showy, attention-getting, and reasonably easy on the eyes. For your convenience, I have marked every error in the prologue and written one possible refined version that achieves the same overall effect.
Original: The year is 1463, (without a proper conjunction you should use a semicolon here rather than a comma) war has ravaged all of Doman, (unnecessary comma) since 1291. Ever since the last true emperor had been (improper tense) assassinated, no one has known true peace. The continent of Doman has somewhat conglomerated (wrong word choice, a synonym for fractured would have been better) into smaller kingdoms and ducal sized (Duchies can vary greatly in size, just omit 'sized') lands. Since there is no great empire to enforce peace, other kings have been trying to make their own empire (this sentence only makes grammatical sense if the addressee is a King since Empire is not a proper synonym). None have succeeded since Emperor Vasan was alive in 1291 (improper tense, improper transition, improper context. Emperor Vasan should have been mentioned in conjunction with the empire). At the moment, (unnecessary comma) there are no great wars, with Doman being somewhat docile for the time being (superfluous qualification). Sadly all it would take to spark a war is a small incident. Who will start a new war (awkward)? Or perhaps a long lasting peace time (improper segue, improper tense, superfluous adjective)? Who knows, all it would take is a single ambitious man (awkward and repetitive of prior statement) to start turning the gears for a new era (implying the era already exists, of is more appropriate). We shall see what happens in the near future as we follow along the journey of our brave warriors and adventurers.
Revision: The year is 1463, and since the assassination of Emperor Vasan in 1291, the land of Doman has known only war. The entire continent has fragmented into small kingdoms and duchies, all vying for dominance in the absence of a greater authority that might keep the peace. The powers stand at an uneasy détente despite the chaos, but all it would take is a single spark to plunge the whole of the land into war unseen since before the time of the great empire. The dawn of a new era looms; whether that dawn shall reveal the blood-scarred plains of war or the rolling, golden plains of peace remains to be seen - and as events are set in motion to usher in that dawn, we shall begin to follow the journey of the brave warriors and adventurers who will become the central figures of the history that will be...
Focusing on your character sheet, there is an unusual - shall we say curious - focus on upfront provision of information best left to more detailed biographies or else for development in-character. Although there is no accepted standard for character sheet templates, it is a given that they should enable one to envision a character in short order, followed by a consideration of what kind of person they actually are.
Your character template asks about race, height, and weight, which is a good start - but then it strangely asks for moral alignment, sexual orientation, and marital status out of the blue. These particular aspects of the template are poorly chosen and ill-placed. They do nothing to further inform the reader what the character actually looks like, and assuming no picture is provided one imagines we are left to depict them as typical racial stereotypes. Putting the particular aspect-related questions such as sexual orientation and alignment ahead of personality, in addition to sending the wrong message (possibly, unless this is a surprise ERP), is superfluous since if it was serious enough to be noteworthy it would likely be mentioned under personality. That is not to say these are bad questions - but if asked, they belong in a different section, and probably should not be keynote aspects of the entire character sheet.
Then there is the problem with what the template implies - it asks for a class designation and provides examples, including two spellcasters - implying a magic system that is not elaborated upon. Then, despite this supposedly being a class-based adventure RPG with tabletop aspects, there is no template section for describing equipment.
As to your collaborative tools - Deciding to use etherpad was a good idea. That said, here is something a touch easier on the eyes and more streamlined.
Conclusion: Far be it for me to criticize a largely private roleplay with only reserved spots available that, for all I know, already has a developed system in place - but it would seem to me that what you have here is the facade of a roleplay, implying substance where there is none. If the entire point of the roleplay is for collaborative worldbuilding, great. If you had something more distinct in mind, you are not doing the best job you could in conveying all the information your posters should known in order to be participating. You need a foundry to build on before you can have a house, and right now you have yet to present enough information to enable other people to help you build it.
tl;dr: There seems to be a lack of overall substance to the roleplay, more details on the setting in general across all aspects is required.
Thank you. I'll try to put what you said into place. It seems I need to spend more time proof-reading, instead of just checking for grammatical errors, which I'm still poor at doing. Writing is hard.
I do like your revised prologue.
That being said, I just have to grow as a writer in all areas.
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