@JrVader I'm still reading them over. Today was a busy day and I only skimmed it last night ;u;

can i join this rp :0 i find it rlly interesting & i think i have a character in mind already

@xia what kind of character did you have in mind? P

Stayed up all night drawing my character concept, so I will work on the bio tomorrow.



Essentially my concept is a guy with very destructive powers (something like a death touch which doesn't sound very heroic at all), who wonders how he could have possibly used such a thing to help people, or why he would ever have made an agreement with a celestial for a power like that.

A guy who doesn't understand who or what or why he is.

That too much?

@Nyxira I like your concept idea ;o

@Sonnenschein Awesome,thank you! I will get to work on the written part, then.

I am wondering if it makes any sense to write a backstory for before the events of the battle if my character doesn't remember anything from before? And feel like it could take away from the in-rp process of discovery a bit to have everyone just know about it already... What should I do?

@Nyxira uhh. The people would know about it, but none of the characters do. I at least want to know about your character's past, so for me it makes sense to be there because unless someone is power playing or god modding then there's no reason for it to not be there.

I use the skeleton more as a guideline for a character rather than a roadmap. It shows you where things are and the kind of character you're playing as a reminder. I don't really like "theoretical characters" where people purposefully leave things out saying "you'll find more about them in the rp ;)" because I kind of feel it's a bit lazy writing. For me it doesn't take away from the rp because the skeleton is getting to know your character and for others to see your character in an attempt to see who and what they want to set up character relationships with if that makes sense.

Hmm yeah. I guess I just like to give other players a chance to enjoy the storytelling experience. It's fun to learn things about characters during the course of rp.

I personally like knowing what they are like, and important backstory bits that are integral to a character, but if my character doesn't know things it sometimes feels more appropriate to not have that out in the open, because... well, it's not yet integral to the character. It's what will be important when the character learns, but is not important while they don't know.

Sometimes if it's important AND best if kept secret, I'll send that info to just the GM to make sure it checks out (and to contribute to plotability), but in this case I'm not sure how important it is.

I'll see what I can do to make it fit both standards.

@Nyxira but it IS important. It's part of your character's story and life. It's not like their memories of their previous life are gone forever. To me, this information is very important, and would like to see it in the skeleton like everyone else's.

Okay, so what is it that we are rping, if not the characters rediscovering their pasts?

Prior to whatever the next plot point is, of course.

@Nyxira because it's LAZY writing to be like "you'll discover more about them in the rp ;)"
This is a roleplay not a book. In solo writing you can do hints of back story here and there in the plot, but in a roleplay, the whole point is character interaction, and if you have an incomplete character you're actively cockblocking people who want to write with them. How can you actively write a character that isn't complete interacting with other people? It's just so lazy to me to do that in a roleplay. Yes, we're discovering them as we go along, but what it seems like to me is "I have a character that basically has an insert plot points here backstory because I'm too lazy to write it out for the sake of discovering it via the thread". That's the point I'm trying to make.

What I am saying is, yes it is probably important, but would it maybe be better if that stuff was sent only to you as the GM so that it's not ruining the intrigue for the other players? For myself, I want to learn about the other characters over the course of the rp, not just from reading about their whole life story. Because they don't remember it, so I want to enjoy the process of them learning it as they are. It's like when you read a book. It kind of takes away from the intrigue if you already looked up all the answers about the characters, or skipped to the end.

But if you are dead set on having all of the history in the bio, I will do my best to comply.

[edit:] Also, it may be a bit much to be assuming that people are being lazy, or even that a character with a backstory that does not include their entire life story is blocking other people from rping with them. A good character bio should still include some key information, personality, etcetera, and the bios provided have an awful lot of slots to fill for anyone to not be able to learn something about the character from them. I am not saying anything to the effect of "I don't want to fill out the backstory".

@Nyxira I just have a question for you. Can you not separate IC from OOC, and that's why you want to keep it hidden? Because you don't want people to power play? Because I can assure you, as someone who has been writing and roleplaying for ten plus years that keeping something out of your bio for the sake of intrigue doesn't make it more interesting. I really do not understand why you want to separate them out the way that you are trying. It just seems more complicated to me, and it really baffles me.

I do think it is a bit lazy to write that way because on every site that I've been on, people like that generally write their characters that way because they don't have a past to put there, so they just make it up as they go. I'm really not trying to be an asshole, but it's hard for me to fathom the reason why you're wanting to keep it out. There will be plenty of intrigue in the thread, and even if you DO put their backstory in your sheet, it's up to you to use it in the thread itself and be creative in your wording and story telling.

@Sonnenschein It isn't about power play for me, but rather the enjoyment of the story that is being created together as a group. I want to enjoy the story, and if there are too many spoilers, it just isn't as fun and takes away from the intrigue.

It is a bit unfair and unkind to assume that people are not creative or are lazy just because they don't like to have absolutely everything about their character immediately available to look at, though. It's just different from what you do. Different is not equivalent to wrong or bad.

And all of these opinions of mine have come from ten+ years of experience in role playing as well.
I do like a certain level of complication, because it adds more layers to an rp. Rp is not just about characters interacting to me, it is about stories being told in a dynamic, interesting, and collaborative way.

Honestly, from the premise of the rp, I was expecting that you, the GM, would be affecting the backstories. Since you were expressing that things may not be as they seem, and that something about the town seems off.

There is a great opportunity there to throw the players some really interesting curve balls.

@Nyxira I, personally, like to have everything the same and out in the open. There are plenty of ways that I can alter and affect the story even with people knowing your character's past. You can still enjoy the story even knowing things about everyone else. It doesn't take any intrigue away from the story. For me, it does not create MORE intrigue if there's less information. It really doesn't. It just feels like there's something missing, and if you leave things out, then it feels incomplete.

I'm just a little peeved that we've had this discussion because you asked for my thoughts and opinions and then went "I'm going to do it my way anyway" pretty much. It's a little irritating to tell someone something multiple ways and still have them be like "oh, but can I still do this the way that I feel? :) "

I'm really not trying to BE an asshole, but I'm kind of losing my patience; I won't even lie about that. I know how to tell a story and how to manage a thread, and I don't mean to be this person, but if you don't like the way that I do things or want things, then it's very simple that you don't have to join. I'm asking for things to be done in an orderly way where the characters have all the needed information. I'm fine if you want to dm me and ask me questions about character's back stories or pasts. I'm fine if you want to dm me to finish this conversation, but I am done having it here in the OOC. I understand that everyone does something their way, but this is my thread, and I am asking you to do something rather than take the lazy way out. It is true that RP is about telling a story, but the way that you want to tell a story is more suited for solo writing than group writing.

As for different outlooks on how to write a character, from personal experience, the exclusion of information, has ALWAYS been an indication of laziness for me. On eliteskills, people would try to pass off unfinished characters for a thread, and it baffled me that people didn't seem to try. I know that if I leave things out of a skeleton, I forget about it or forget to pull it into the story even if I write it down somewhere else. I understand that people do things differently, but it's very hard for me to understand the way you want to go about it.

Well, I was going to tell you that I would write my bio how I had in mind and let you see if you approved of how it was done after that, but I can see that you really don't want to even experiment with that.

I am sorry that you feel that I am somehow insulting your ability to tell a story, but I believe that it is actually you who has been constantly hurling insults about the way that other people write and do things. It's a bit distasteful, really, and while it is very sad to me since I was very interested in the story and have already put a great deal of care and thought into planning out a character for it, I do not believe that I would like to be involved in an rp if there is going to be such strong negativity in the OOC environment.

@Nyxira I will say one last thing, I told you you can dm me about it, but that I would prefer it to be the same.

There's no negativity from me other than the fact that you've literally contested me and tried my patience since this morning. I've not insulted you personally, and if you think that I have, then take it up with me. Stop posting in the OOC thread and creating more of this. You've literally tried to get me to do one thing over the other that I was telling you that I wanted from the beginning. If you don't like the way that someone does something, then it's really just a simple matter of not joining. I'm sorry that you feel that way, but as it stands right now, I've no interest in rping with you because talking to you results in a circular conversation.

Any further discussion on this topic will be discussed in dms.

Thanks.