@tsukunePshehehe, the green is my thing. It ain't gonna chaaaaange~
EDIT: Sorry 'bout ya eyes, though. T_T
EDIT: Sorry 'bout ya eyes, though. T_T
For the record, @tsukune I will say I’ve seen more inconsistent collaborations then I have back-and-forth posts. Constantly changing POV, erratic tense changes/shifts, and over-reliance on collaboration posts are some of the issues I’ve seen on average and have at times turned me off from collaboration posts through the various mediums (docs, pads, PMs, etc). I think my preference for back-and-forth is more in the spirit of play-by-post RPing as well.
OP
Shoryu Magami 𝔊𝔲𝔞𝔯𝔡𝔦𝔞𝔫 𝔬𝔣 𝔄𝔰𝔠𝔢𝔫𝔰𝔦𝔬𝔫
Member
Seen
2 yrs ago
@Crumbs
Good to see you finally decided to pop in here. As for the green, I'd imagine highlighting the dialogue may or may not make it easier on the eyes for people; hard to say.
@tsukune@Gowi
On the subject of collaboration vs. back-and-forth, I don't have a particular preference off the top of my head but admittedly I've had a lot more experience with the latter. I've only really done collaborations with Ailyn and with the person who got listed as a "Special Mention" in my bio. Admittedly, those collaborations (not even full collaborations; more like back-and-forth with OOC discussion going on in the background to make sure things were collaborated, since we never role-played each other's characters outright) were the best role-playing experiences I've ever had.
One of my proficiencies as a writer also happens to be that I'm rather good at taking role-plays that are completed and then converting them into proper narrative that would work for novels (assuming the back-and-forth had not managed to do this convincingly, which becomes more likely an issue with longer posts).
As for your comment about relating role-play to real life... well. xD I don't exactly make a habit of letting anyone "GM" my life.
Good to see you finally decided to pop in here. As for the green, I'd imagine highlighting the dialogue may or may not make it easier on the eyes for people; hard to say.
@tsukune@Gowi
On the subject of collaboration vs. back-and-forth, I don't have a particular preference off the top of my head but admittedly I've had a lot more experience with the latter. I've only really done collaborations with Ailyn and with the person who got listed as a "Special Mention" in my bio. Admittedly, those collaborations (not even full collaborations; more like back-and-forth with OOC discussion going on in the background to make sure things were collaborated, since we never role-played each other's characters outright) were the best role-playing experiences I've ever had.
One of my proficiencies as a writer also happens to be that I'm rather good at taking role-plays that are completed and then converting them into proper narrative that would work for novels (assuming the back-and-forth had not managed to do this convincingly, which becomes more likely an issue with longer posts).
As for your comment about relating role-play to real life... well. xD I don't exactly make a habit of letting anyone "GM" my life.
@Shoryu MagamiYeah, no problem! I meant to do it a while back, like I said, but been kinda busy when I'm on here. Catching up with posts for my various involvements. Thanks for invitin' me! I'm sure I'll get more involved in the discussions, once I feel comfortable jumping in. ^^
shylarah the crazy one
Member
Seen
1 hr ago
@Gowi@tsukune There's a balance between back-and-forth and collab. The way I find that works best is allowing people the flexibility to tailor post length to the situation. Maybe one post has a bunch of internal thoughts and several different actions. But another might be a single line, a single action, or OOC you've mentioned that the other guy is free to interrupt and change the entire course of what follows. With enforced lengthy posts, it almost feels like you have two or more conversations happening at once. The first part and response to it, the response to some actions, and the response to further actions or dialogue. And this is absolutely confusing and choppy and senseless. Not to mention then the first person has to go back and respond to the first response before even taking the second action from the first post and....@.@ We don't need to cover the same action five times. Once, /maybe/ twice.
I believe that OOC communication is key. "Yo, if I do this, would you do this or this, or something else entirely?" That lets me know that I'm predicting reactions properly, and the action would proceed more or less how expected. I can weave reactions to things that the other guy hasn't actually done yet into my post and keep going. It also helps to figure out what will provide the maximum amount of fun for all parties involved. Willingness to change things if someone goes "well no you couldn't do that because I would have done this and then you really couldn't or at least it wouldn't make sense" is also important. Like...someone tried to grab and bite a character that I mentioned could teleport. Grabbing him is fine. Stabbing him would have been fine. But the amount of time the entire hold&bite action took was longer than he would have stayed put without popping away. So I mentioned that, switched the character that was grabbed for someone else, and we kept going. If there hadn't been anyone else we would have found a different solution.
It's one of the drawbacks of more than one person writing that unless you give one or the other the final say, there's going to be breaks. But I think that those -- even serious ones -- are worth the extra input, so I try to be flexible.
I believe that OOC communication is key. "Yo, if I do this, would you do this or this, or something else entirely?" That lets me know that I'm predicting reactions properly, and the action would proceed more or less how expected. I can weave reactions to things that the other guy hasn't actually done yet into my post and keep going. It also helps to figure out what will provide the maximum amount of fun for all parties involved. Willingness to change things if someone goes "well no you couldn't do that because I would have done this and then you really couldn't or at least it wouldn't make sense" is also important. Like...someone tried to grab and bite a character that I mentioned could teleport. Grabbing him is fine. Stabbing him would have been fine. But the amount of time the entire hold&bite action took was longer than he would have stayed put without popping away. So I mentioned that, switched the character that was grabbed for someone else, and we kept going. If there hadn't been anyone else we would have found a different solution.
It's one of the drawbacks of more than one person writing that unless you give one or the other the final say, there's going to be breaks. But I think that those -- even serious ones -- are worth the extra input, so I try to be flexible.
1x Like
shylarah the crazy one
Member
Seen
1 hr ago
@Shoryu Magami one of the most bothersome things about a lot of rps is that people want fresh characters...and character sheets. I'm sorry, if I just whipped up a new character I don't know them that well. I have maybe one or two concepts for personality, a couple events in history, and probably an appearance (since that's usually straightforward). I don't know what their weaknesses are, I'm not sure how they'd respond to various situations. And indeed, when putting your chars in situations you design, you can sorta...tailor things so they go the way you want. It's dealing with the unexpected that truly lets you develop or even just get to know a character. I learn about my characters by using them, and once I know them well enough then I can modify them to fit a variety of settings, and will deploy them as needed, depending on what a situation calls for. Need a bartender? Benny's your guy! Does this rp look like a leaps-without-looking prankster might be fun? I'll play Nikki. Too many gung-ho heroes? Let's find a way to insist the cowardly Trill has to go with them. And the fun part is that sometimes through modification, I find alternate versions of character and sometimes they become new characters. Especially if something happens in an rp and I want to keep that as part of the permanent character, since I will often reset to a base form when I bring them in elsewhere, though there could be a few different checkpoints over the course of their life.
1x Like
shylarah the crazy one
Member
Seen
1 hr ago
@Shoryu Magami You know, one of the best things, in my opinion, is when you have someone who you trust enough to know your characters at least a bit. Like...my fave dm has written entire stories for timeskips in rps and stuff (he's amazing), and they focus on the various different characters, and I go and read the ones for my chars and he just nails it. <3 *flailing* Makes me so happy, it's like getting arts but with writing! And there's been instances where someone else's character plays a huge role in the life/development of my characters, and I sorta get to adopt those characters for other rps, though they eventually split from their origins over time as all things do. And friends have requested similar permissions when my chars are inextricably linked to theirs, and I've given it. <3
1x Like
@Shoryu Magami You know, one of the best things, in my opinion, is when you have someone who you trust enough to know your characters at least a bit. Like...my fave dm has written entire stories for timeskips in rps and stuff (he's amazing), and they focus on the various different characters, and I go and read the ones for my chars and he just nails it. <3 *flailing* Makes me so happy, it's like getting arts but with writing! And there's been instances where someone else's character plays a huge role in the life/development of my characters, and I sorta get to adopt those characters for other rps, though they eventually split from their origins over time as all things do. And friends have requested similar permissions when my chars are inextricably linked to theirs, and I've given it. <3
Yeah, I have a lot of friends I can definitely trust that with; my oldest writing partner, @DruSM157 and I can basically do that without fear of writing each other character's incorrectly and it generally goes fairly well.
shylarah the crazy one
Member
Seen
1 hr ago
@DruSM157 Drew? You're still around? *tackles* HEY THERE. ADD ME ON SKYPE AGAIN, MY OLD ACCOUNT WAS HACKED! Even if you never talk to me. ^.^;;
Hey!
I'm Ryoko, you can call me Ryo too, and a newcomer to the forums but if you want to check out my introduction thread, here you go.
What's going on?
I'm Ryoko, you can call me Ryo too, and a newcomer to the forums but if you want to check out my introduction thread, here you go.
What's going on?
OP
Shoryu Magami 𝔊𝔲𝔞𝔯𝔡𝔦𝔞𝔫 𝔬𝔣 𝔄𝔰𝔠𝔢𝔫𝔰𝔦𝔬𝔫
Member
Seen
2 yrs ago
I went and took a shower; dizziness was getting the better of me... Anyway, I'll reply now.
@Crumbs
Sounds good to me. Welcome aboard.
@shylarah
I think this is one of the places where I differ significantly to most (not all) role-players. Not only because I'm a writer before a role-player, but also due to how personal my main story project is to me, all of the characters I create are vastly fleshed out pretty much from the moment of their conception. Before I even begin using a character in a role-play, I usually have their entire (relevant, though sometimes more) history thought through and everything about who they are as a person worked out.
Also, my introduction to role-playing was a bit unorthodox; I'd never even used a PC before a little over ten years ago, or done any form of major storytelling through text (I've done plenty verbally and using some "Tabletops" and a lot of other "games", plus I'd done a very small bit of writing without prior experience, such as in one of my TAFE classes; got top of my class for that short story too) at this point, and I'd never even heard of play-by-post before. I signed up to my first role-playing forum, a Final Fantasy one, and it turned out to be a high advanced role-playing forum, so I actually was forced to put my skills to the test without any prior experience at all.
Before you could even start role-playing, you needed a character sheet consisting of several paragraphs for appearance, several paragraphs for personality, and several paragraphs for history. You also needed to provide a role-playing sample to prove you could use this character. In each case I was able to pass at the top grade (Level 10) despite being, for all intents and purposes, a complete beginner. This is another reason I always have my entire characters worked out very quickly, so I don't really learn about them through role-playing; they adapt and evolve through it as almost any person would when experiencing new things.
Due to that first role-playing forum, and also the fact that my characters in my main story project are very complex and fleshed out, especially the ones more closely rooted to myself as a person or my philosophy (or based off on me entirely in the case of one specific character, with a couple others embodying alternate routes I could've gone down in my life), I've never had to worry about not knowing my character upon creation.
This ended up serving as an "Achilles' Heel" of sorts for me too though; on every role-playing forum I ever joined afterwards, and even that old forum when I returned to it eventually, I constantly found myself having to severely water down my character sheets because they were considered "overkill", and in the few cases they weren't I even had some really flattering compliments about having the most thorough character sheets the sites had ever seen.
You more or less have to tailor things to the way you want in order to write a novel, since the whole point is that it's your story. That being said, I don't so much learn about my characters (as I said previously) through role-play so much as I consider role-playing with them a personal challenge to prove I know the ins and outs of them.
Admittedly, this is a complicated situation outside of my own setting because my characters are so intricately detailed and based around certain concepts that are entirely unique to my setting for the most part that it's extremely difficult to "modify" them to translate them into another series, and since most of them are very personal to me I don't like having to edit or change them.
This, on the other hand, I do relate to. You'll recall I mentioned previously that before I'll involve my characters in any sort of role-play that I insist on knowing them thoroughly and having everything worked out; the exception to this rule is when I'm doing role-play within the setting of my own project. I actually use these role-plays as an experimental ground to test out all the odds and ends of my characters and finalize ideas I have, and, yes, sometimes due to the role-plays I have with Ailyn or with someone else in my circle I actually decide that I'd like to make alterations to the characters before finally putting them into the story properly; I prefer to test characters this way before bringing them into the canon.
There's another, more complicated example of this, but it's a lot more convoluted to explain so I'll save it for the time being.
This is something I actually don't relate to much, so I'm different to you and @Gowi in this sense. The only exception to an extent is Ailyn, and in that case it's more like she knows my characters because she knows me, although she's still learning a lot of them and it's all a work in progress due to how complex my project is and how many characters it has. She wouldn't be able to write them (other than those mentioned in the paragraph below this one), but she's getting really good at understanding my vision for a lot of them and making comparisons and links to them when we have discussions. Overall, I don't think anyone knows my characters well enough to write them; I'm not saying it's impossible but considering how personal most of my characters are to me in some way I think I'd probably be one of the most difficult people to satisfy in this regard (though Ailyn has done amazingly with the handful I'll refer to below).
Yeah, you've mentioned this to me in the NaNoWriMo thread, actually. Like I mentioned back then to you, Ailyn is definitely the only person who has that sort of liberty with any of my characters; I've allowed her to "adopt" certain female characters in the project since the posts are more enjoyable and meaningful when they come from her, especially since she's essentially pouring herself into them as well, so it's more like "adapting" characters I've created more so than actually "adopting" them completely, though they haven't changed all that much since me and her just have really good symbiosis.
@Crumbs
Sounds good to me. Welcome aboard.
@shylarah
one of the most bothersome things about a lot of rps is that people want fresh characters...and character sheets. I'm sorry, if I just whipped up a new character I don't know them that well. I have maybe one or two concepts for personality, a couple events in history, and probably an appearance (since that's usually straightforward). I don't know what their weaknesses are, I'm not sure how they'd respond to various situations.
I think this is one of the places where I differ significantly to most (not all) role-players. Not only because I'm a writer before a role-player, but also due to how personal my main story project is to me, all of the characters I create are vastly fleshed out pretty much from the moment of their conception. Before I even begin using a character in a role-play, I usually have their entire (relevant, though sometimes more) history thought through and everything about who they are as a person worked out.
Also, my introduction to role-playing was a bit unorthodox; I'd never even used a PC before a little over ten years ago, or done any form of major storytelling through text (I've done plenty verbally and using some "Tabletops" and a lot of other "games", plus I'd done a very small bit of writing without prior experience, such as in one of my TAFE classes; got top of my class for that short story too) at this point, and I'd never even heard of play-by-post before. I signed up to my first role-playing forum, a Final Fantasy one, and it turned out to be a high advanced role-playing forum, so I actually was forced to put my skills to the test without any prior experience at all.
Before you could even start role-playing, you needed a character sheet consisting of several paragraphs for appearance, several paragraphs for personality, and several paragraphs for history. You also needed to provide a role-playing sample to prove you could use this character. In each case I was able to pass at the top grade (Level 10) despite being, for all intents and purposes, a complete beginner. This is another reason I always have my entire characters worked out very quickly, so I don't really learn about them through role-playing; they adapt and evolve through it as almost any person would when experiencing new things.
Due to that first role-playing forum, and also the fact that my characters in my main story project are very complex and fleshed out, especially the ones more closely rooted to myself as a person or my philosophy (or based off on me entirely in the case of one specific character, with a couple others embodying alternate routes I could've gone down in my life), I've never had to worry about not knowing my character upon creation.
This ended up serving as an "Achilles' Heel" of sorts for me too though; on every role-playing forum I ever joined afterwards, and even that old forum when I returned to it eventually, I constantly found myself having to severely water down my character sheets because they were considered "overkill", and in the few cases they weren't I even had some really flattering compliments about having the most thorough character sheets the sites had ever seen.
And indeed, when putting your chars in situations you design, you can sorta...tailor things so they go the way you want. It's dealing with the unexpected that truly lets you develop or even just get to know a character. I learn about my characters by using them, and once I know them well enough then I can modify them to fit a variety of settings, and will deploy them as needed, depending on what a situation calls for.
You more or less have to tailor things to the way you want in order to write a novel, since the whole point is that it's your story. That being said, I don't so much learn about my characters (as I said previously) through role-play so much as I consider role-playing with them a personal challenge to prove I know the ins and outs of them.
Admittedly, this is a complicated situation outside of my own setting because my characters are so intricately detailed and based around certain concepts that are entirely unique to my setting for the most part that it's extremely difficult to "modify" them to translate them into another series, and since most of them are very personal to me I don't like having to edit or change them.
And the fun part is that sometimes through modification, I find alternate versions of character and sometimes they become new characters. Especially if something happens in an rp and I want to keep that as part of the permanent character, since I will often reset to a base form when I bring them in elsewhere, though there could be a few different checkpoints over the course of their life.
This, on the other hand, I do relate to. You'll recall I mentioned previously that before I'll involve my characters in any sort of role-play that I insist on knowing them thoroughly and having everything worked out; the exception to this rule is when I'm doing role-play within the setting of my own project. I actually use these role-plays as an experimental ground to test out all the odds and ends of my characters and finalize ideas I have, and, yes, sometimes due to the role-plays I have with Ailyn or with someone else in my circle I actually decide that I'd like to make alterations to the characters before finally putting them into the story properly; I prefer to test characters this way before bringing them into the canon.
There's another, more complicated example of this, but it's a lot more convoluted to explain so I'll save it for the time being.
You know, one of the best things, in my opinion, is when you have someone who you trust enough to know your characters at least a bit.
This is something I actually don't relate to much, so I'm different to you and @Gowi in this sense. The only exception to an extent is Ailyn, and in that case it's more like she knows my characters because she knows me, although she's still learning a lot of them and it's all a work in progress due to how complex my project is and how many characters it has. She wouldn't be able to write them (other than those mentioned in the paragraph below this one), but she's getting really good at understanding my vision for a lot of them and making comparisons and links to them when we have discussions. Overall, I don't think anyone knows my characters well enough to write them; I'm not saying it's impossible but considering how personal most of my characters are to me in some way I think I'd probably be one of the most difficult people to satisfy in this regard (though Ailyn has done amazingly with the handful I'll refer to below).
And there's been instances where someone else's character plays a huge role in the life/development of my characters, and I sorta get to adopt those characters for other rps, though they eventually split from their origins over time as all things do. And friends have requested similar permissions when my chars are inextricably linked to theirs, and I've given it. <3
Yeah, you've mentioned this to me in the NaNoWriMo thread, actually. Like I mentioned back then to you, Ailyn is definitely the only person who has that sort of liberty with any of my characters; I've allowed her to "adopt" certain female characters in the project since the posts are more enjoyable and meaningful when they come from her, especially since she's essentially pouring herself into them as well, so it's more like "adapting" characters I've created more so than actually "adopting" them completely, though they haven't changed all that much since me and her just have really good symbiosis.
1x Like
OP
Shoryu Magami 𝔊𝔲𝔞𝔯𝔡𝔦𝔞𝔫 𝔬𝔣 𝔄𝔰𝔠𝔢𝔫𝔰𝔦𝔬𝔫
Member
Seen
2 yrs ago
@Ryoko
Welcome to the hang-out thread (and the site). We've mostly just been discussing a few things while I try to organize some of my information after my PC decided to have another one of its trademark breakdowns on me.
How're you doing?
Welcome to the hang-out thread (and the site). We've mostly just been discussing a few things while I try to organize some of my information after my PC decided to have another one of its trademark breakdowns on me.
How're you doing?
@Shoryu Magami
Oh, those are always fun. I hope it gets back up and running again. I just bought a laptop two days ago because that was happening to me too.
I'm doing good, just hanging around and browsing, talking to people.
How about you?
Oh, those are always fun. I hope it gets back up and running again. I just bought a laptop two days ago because that was happening to me too.
I'm doing good, just hanging around and browsing, talking to people.
How about you?
OP
Shoryu Magami 𝔊𝔲𝔞𝔯𝔡𝔦𝔞𝔫 𝔬𝔣 𝔄𝔰𝔠𝔢𝔫𝔰𝔦𝔬𝔫
Member
Seen
2 yrs ago
@Ryoko
Good to see you're getting a warm reception.
Well, other than that PC issue I just mentioned involving possibly losing work, I've been awake for almost twenty-four hours (again), and I've got a pretty severe migraine. Ideally I'm meant to be awake in about two hours or so, give or take a little. There's also been a bit of drama with some people here (site, not thread), but I'm in the process of dealing with it.
Good to see you're getting a warm reception.
Well, other than that PC issue I just mentioned involving possibly losing work, I've been awake for almost twenty-four hours (again), and I've got a pretty severe migraine. Ideally I'm meant to be awake in about two hours or so, give or take a little. There's also been a bit of drama with some people here (site, not thread), but I'm in the process of dealing with it.
@Shoryu Magami
Thanks!
That doesn't sound too good but everything has a way of working itself out. Since you've been awake that long and have a severe migraine, why don't you try getting some rest? Lying down and watching TV. You don't have to go to sleep if you don't want to but it'll lessen the pain at least.
Drama drama drama, what fun, I hope that too works out.
Why do you think you'll lose your job though? Did something happen?
By the way, I like your Cowboy Bebop quotes.
Thanks!
That doesn't sound too good but everything has a way of working itself out. Since you've been awake that long and have a severe migraine, why don't you try getting some rest? Lying down and watching TV. You don't have to go to sleep if you don't want to but it'll lessen the pain at least.
Drama drama drama, what fun, I hope that too works out.
Why do you think you'll lose your job though? Did something happen?
By the way, I like your Cowboy Bebop quotes.
OP
Shoryu Magami 𝔊𝔲𝔞𝔯𝔡𝔦𝔞𝔫 𝔬𝔣 𝔄𝔰𝔠𝔢𝔫𝔰𝔦𝔬𝔫
Member
Seen
2 yrs ago
@Ryoko
I'll probably need to take a nap, although admittedly resting for short periods of time usually doesn't work with me and I just end up sleeping through, but I'm getting to the point where I'm no good to anyone. I went over thirty hours without sleep a few times in the last week or so too, so that doesn't help.
Not so much losing my "job", and more so losing some of the work I've been doing. I'm not currently employed, due to a variety of reasons I won't go into (not because I don't want you to know, but more like I don't have the energy to tell a long story right now), but my main story project I'm working on is my life's work and frankly I work a lot harder than most people with paying full-time jobs do; for all intents and purposes I'm sorting notes sixteen hours a day, multitasking it alongside this site and my long-distance relationship.
Cheers; I usually pick quotes that fit my philosophy.
I'll probably need to take a nap, although admittedly resting for short periods of time usually doesn't work with me and I just end up sleeping through, but I'm getting to the point where I'm no good to anyone. I went over thirty hours without sleep a few times in the last week or so too, so that doesn't help.
Not so much losing my "job", and more so losing some of the work I've been doing. I'm not currently employed, due to a variety of reasons I won't go into (not because I don't want you to know, but more like I don't have the energy to tell a long story right now), but my main story project I'm working on is my life's work and frankly I work a lot harder than most people with paying full-time jobs do; for all intents and purposes I'm sorting notes sixteen hours a day, multitasking it alongside this site and my long-distance relationship.
Cheers; I usually pick quotes that fit my philosophy.
shylarah the crazy one
Member
Seen
1 hr ago
@Shoryu Magami Actually I got my start in writing too, but I find that the way I develop characters -- at least, in terms of the things that make them have depth -- I need to give them the chance to talk to me. A character sheet I can do, and I have. But if I want to know what the char thinks about dogs, or what they're afraid of, or if they're a hugger, or how they display anger, or their favorite ice cream, I can only do this through using them. It can be solo, but it comes a little easier (as apparently does all my writing) when I have another person. Additionally, I've had people that were terrible about metagaming, and would have their chars know all sorts of things that were stated OOC but completely unknown IC, and that's made me less than fond of char sheets in general. *shrug* I think a lot of people want far more detail than is really needed because that's the only way to see if the character fits well -- and to see how thorough the player is. Rps fall apart enough already without risking time and effort on someone that's going to make a half-baked char.
1x Like
OP
Shoryu Magami 𝔊𝔲𝔞𝔯𝔡𝔦𝔞𝔫 𝔬𝔣 𝔄𝔰𝔠𝔢𝔫𝔰𝔦𝔬𝔫
Member
Seen
2 yrs ago
@shylarah
I wasn't insinuating you didn't start out with writing (keep in mind that I started out more with verbal storytelling, and informal childhood acting, rather than storytelling on paper/text itself), so when I said my origins were unorthodox for a role-player I was more talking about the whole "immediately thrown into an advanced elitist role-playing forum the moment I started and before I even knew people did any of this stuff online" thing. That said, I still determine a lot of these things before I start role-playing, though I'm not against adding or removing some once a role-play allows me to test them out. When I say I'm a writer before a role-player, I'm speaking of priority/preference rather than where I got my start.
People who don't know how to separate IC from OOC are definitely a problem, yeah, though to be fair in certain settings (my own included) it's actually justified when you have psychics and supernatural entities as characters in the mix. Admittedly, I am definitely one of the severely detailed types of writers, as you can no doubt tell from the lengths of my OOC posts, so while I don't always expect people to have as much detail in a character sheet as I have I nevertheless do not like dumbing myself down. What you said about avoiding a half-baked character and making sure characters fit well into the setting is also something I appreciate; I'm a very thorough person and would prefer that the people who involve themselves in my setting actually take the time to make something that makes sense in my world instead of creating a sort of "Naruto X Bleach" crossover nonsense.
Actually I got my start in writing too, but I find that the way I develop characters -- at least, in terms of the things that make them have depth -- I need to give them the chance to talk to me. A character sheet I can do, and I have. But if I want to know what the char thinks about dogs, or what they're afraid of, or if they're a hugger, or how they display anger, or their favorite ice cream, I can only do this through using them. It can be solo, but it comes a little easier (as apparently does all my writing) when I have another person.
I wasn't insinuating you didn't start out with writing (keep in mind that I started out more with verbal storytelling, and informal childhood acting, rather than storytelling on paper/text itself), so when I said my origins were unorthodox for a role-player I was more talking about the whole "immediately thrown into an advanced elitist role-playing forum the moment I started and before I even knew people did any of this stuff online" thing. That said, I still determine a lot of these things before I start role-playing, though I'm not against adding or removing some once a role-play allows me to test them out. When I say I'm a writer before a role-player, I'm speaking of priority/preference rather than where I got my start.
Additionally, I've had people that were terrible about metagaming, and would have their chars know all sorts of things that were stated OOC but completely unknown IC, and that's made me less than fond of char sheets in general. *shrug* I think a lot of people want far more detail than is really needed because that's the only way to see if the character fits well -- and to see how thorough the player is. Rps fall apart enough already without risking time and effort on someone that's going to make a half-baked char.
People who don't know how to separate IC from OOC are definitely a problem, yeah, though to be fair in certain settings (my own included) it's actually justified when you have psychics and supernatural entities as characters in the mix. Admittedly, I am definitely one of the severely detailed types of writers, as you can no doubt tell from the lengths of my OOC posts, so while I don't always expect people to have as much detail in a character sheet as I have I nevertheless do not like dumbing myself down. What you said about avoiding a half-baked character and making sure characters fit well into the setting is also something I appreciate; I'm a very thorough person and would prefer that the people who involve themselves in my setting actually take the time to make something that makes sense in my world instead of creating a sort of "Naruto X Bleach" crossover nonsense.
shylarah the crazy one
Member
Seen
1 hr ago
@Shoryu Magami if the person in question is psychic, then it's hardly a matter of them knowing something they never found out, now is it? =P
Ah, advanced elitist...yeah I actually started with 2edition dungeons and dragons...and then the neopets forums. ^.^ Though I was a tween at the time and I dont think I would have survived the sort of forum you mentioned.
Ah, advanced elitist...yeah I actually started with 2edition dungeons and dragons...and then the neopets forums. ^.^ Though I was a tween at the time and I dont think I would have survived the sort of forum you mentioned.
OP
Shoryu Magami 𝔊𝔲𝔞𝔯𝔡𝔦𝔞𝔫 𝔬𝔣 𝔄𝔰𝔠𝔢𝔫𝔰𝔦𝔬𝔫
Member
Seen
2 yrs ago
@shylarah
Pretty much, yeah. xD I have a lot of characters who either possess some type of ESP or are not even mortal, which is just one of several reasons why a lot of them are quite difficult to fit into other people's role-plays. Honestly, if I was to explain the full extent of what a lot of my characters were capable of nearly all of it would sound "broken" or like "god-moding", but in the context of my own setting they're actually balanced very well, and I've put a lot of time into power-scaling everything. One of my good friends went so far as to say I've created the most powerful/"broken" series in fiction, period, at least if you don't include parody/joke stories that can't be taken seriously into account (and even then it's very arguable).
Surviving that forum is one of the reasons why I'm quite confident that, even if I don't have anywhere near as much "experience" role-playing as a lot of people, my proficiency is definitely nothing to scoff at. I've mentioned this forum a few places around the site so far; it's the role-playing forum I am arguably responsible for destroying (I didn't hack it or anything, for the record). Essentially, while I agreed with the strict rules and emphasis on details, I didn't agree with the staff and some of their lackeys (the "Mahz" equivalent had technically left the site) because they were abusing members, including newcomers, and instead of focusing on detail they were more interested in bashing anyone who made characters they didn't like for preference reasons. I called them out that they were breaking site rules so they actually went and changed the rules, at which point I publically admonished the staff and their lackeys and migrated over to the site of a friend I made, plus this was around the time I started creating my own role-playing forums. My actions seemingly caused a domino effect that killed the forum, and I only returned later when it was mostly just the decent people left; I even ended up as part of the mod team myself at that point.
On a side note; I also use role-playing in order to test out new powers or abilities I've come up with for characters, essentially putting them into a simulation of sorts if you will, so some of the competitive collaborations I've done with associates were for that purpose. Whenever I'm writing the actual content of the official story, I really do see it as role-playing with or against myself, and Ailyn if it involves one of those female characters I mentioned, and I've gotten into a habit of making sure I get into both character's mind states equally during a fight. While my characters are very powerful, the combat is often as much a battle of wits as it is a direct confrontation.
if the person in question is psychic, then it's hardly a matter of them knowing something they never found out, now is it? =P
Pretty much, yeah. xD I have a lot of characters who either possess some type of ESP or are not even mortal, which is just one of several reasons why a lot of them are quite difficult to fit into other people's role-plays. Honestly, if I was to explain the full extent of what a lot of my characters were capable of nearly all of it would sound "broken" or like "god-moding", but in the context of my own setting they're actually balanced very well, and I've put a lot of time into power-scaling everything. One of my good friends went so far as to say I've created the most powerful/"broken" series in fiction, period, at least if you don't include parody/joke stories that can't be taken seriously into account (and even then it's very arguable).
Ah, advanced elitist...yeah I actually started with 2edition dungeons and dragons...and then the neopets forums. ^.^ Though I was a tween at the time and I dont think I would have survived the sort of forum you mentioned.
Surviving that forum is one of the reasons why I'm quite confident that, even if I don't have anywhere near as much "experience" role-playing as a lot of people, my proficiency is definitely nothing to scoff at. I've mentioned this forum a few places around the site so far; it's the role-playing forum I am arguably responsible for destroying (I didn't hack it or anything, for the record). Essentially, while I agreed with the strict rules and emphasis on details, I didn't agree with the staff and some of their lackeys (the "Mahz" equivalent had technically left the site) because they were abusing members, including newcomers, and instead of focusing on detail they were more interested in bashing anyone who made characters they didn't like for preference reasons. I called them out that they were breaking site rules so they actually went and changed the rules, at which point I publically admonished the staff and their lackeys and migrated over to the site of a friend I made, plus this was around the time I started creating my own role-playing forums. My actions seemingly caused a domino effect that killed the forum, and I only returned later when it was mostly just the decent people left; I even ended up as part of the mod team myself at that point.
On a side note; I also use role-playing in order to test out new powers or abilities I've come up with for characters, essentially putting them into a simulation of sorts if you will, so some of the competitive collaborations I've done with associates were for that purpose. Whenever I'm writing the actual content of the official story, I really do see it as role-playing with or against myself, and Ailyn if it involves one of those female characters I mentioned, and I've gotten into a habit of making sure I get into both character's mind states equally during a fight. While my characters are very powerful, the combat is often as much a battle of wits as it is a direct confrontation.
1x Laugh
© 2007-2024