RPGN Rebirth: Issue #4 15/11/2016

[RPGN]

ISSUE #4

Super mooning friends.

Greetings ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, fans and haters. First I want to open by apologising for the delay in our regular scheduling. The Super Moon caused @vietmyke to run wild and we had to spend most of the day hunting him down. I can confirm that he is back home safe and sound, and thank you all for being patient. Especially given that all of our schedules have changed dramatically. That said, rest assured that we will do our best to ensure that every two weeks there is a brand new issue of RPGN to sit and look pretty for your reading pleasure. So without further ado…

Notable Roeplays

^{By @Vietmyke}
The reason most of you are here! Let's see what the all seeing, all knowing Vietmyke has for us this time?

Up and Coming!

Interest checks are often the first stage in recruiting players for an RP, and a really good one can net you a lot of applicants.This week, we’re going to highlight some of the best looking interest checks that caught our eye. Best of all, they're looking for players!

Notable Interest Checks

Casual Interest Check

PRIES by @Holy Soldier - A dark fantasy in a modern setting. PRIES is a sandbox style game in which you take on the role of a supernatural agent.

Advanced Interest Check

The Last March of the Living by @Nariata - The walking dead meets fantasy warriors. This has a little bit of everything for the fantasy lovers our there.

Cool and Current

Sometimes Roleplays do something special that needs to get them recognized. If you yourself know of such an RP send it in to RPGN or to Vietmyke.. It maybe just passed a certain milestone, or something dead awesome just happened. Let us know.

Notable Roleplays

Free Roleplay

The Nameless Tavern by @Dark Light - A little hole in the wall for you to kick off your proverbial boots and relax

Casual Roleplays

Phoenix Wing by @Caits, @Expolar, and @Zarkun - An RP truly massive in scale. I've seen very few RPs with this many consistently well written posts and such a massive cast of characters. Something on this scale deserves a mention- 2 years and its still going strong.

Advanced Roleplay

Manifest Anima: Planes Divided by @Celaira, @yoshua171, and @Ganryu - A delightful modern-fantasy RP that mixes magic and technology. This little gem has been steadily chugging along and features a welcoming cast of players and a dedicated group of GMs.

Nation Roleplay

The Peace Keepers by @Polybius is political nation RP that takes place in a Galaxy Far far away, but is not Star Wars. Its a refreshing looking RP that appears to be shaping into more than yet another galactic war in space.

Challenge to RPGN

Challenge posed by @Ashevelendar and fulfilled by @RomanAria as requested.

Image

Question to RPGN

Again posed by @Ashevelendar to @Sep and @RomanAria

What type of RP genres do you like ( sci-fi, fanstasy etc ) ?
and
Arena , NRP , Tabletop or Normal RPs ? Which one do you like the most and which one do you like the least and why ?

Sep

My favourite RP Genre is definitely Sci-Fi without a doubt. I originally started roleplaying on the guild in Star Wars RPs and it really got me into the Star Wars universe. More recently I have spent a large amount of time working on the canon for my roleplay No Turning Back making a Sci Fi World of my own choosing.
_{Shameless advertising}

In terms of what RP I like the most, I tend to stick to traditional play by post in what you would consider “Normal”, spending most my time in the advanced section. I like how free it is in terms of it is essentially writing a novel with friends. Tabletop is likely my least favourite, I find the reliance on dice and stats annoying and feel like it takes all the fun out of writing.

It’s more fun when my character is stabbed by a wild ogre because I cocked up, not because a couple of dice said so.

If you guys have a question you want to ask, leave it in the comments below.

Question to the floor

This week the question is getting a bit deeper, how do you build your characters?

Music? Basing them off yourself? Singing a song? Poetry? Reading? Basing them off a friend? How do your characters come into existence is the point of this, they don’t come out of nowhere.

Puzzles

^{By @Wade Wilson}
Help! I don't have much time! This is Wade! Wade Wilson!

The Spirits of RPGN Past have held me captive, and hidden three things in the past three issues - a top hat, some text, and a pumpkin. If you can find them, specify which issues they're in (and what the text says), and I'll be able to escape! You have to hurry, though, there isn't much ti-

Hider

The Spirits have also messed with our avatars, whose is whose?

Sep

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Interview?

This week we’re not going to have an interview, sorry to all. Though in the next issue for the interview we have something special planned. So stay tuned.

Closing Note

From all of us at RPGN, apologies again for the delay and thankyou for reading. I’d like to thank @Wade Wilson for joining the team, as well as @Vietmyke and @RomanAria who have been members for a couple of weeks now.

As per usual feel free to contact us on our Discord Chat or PM @RPGN directly. I look forward to seeing you all in the next issue, we’ve got some real treats in store for you all.

Until next time!

[Wade Wilson]

oh neat i got a special mention

[Polybius]

@RPGN Thanks for the mention!

[RPGN]

Due to time constraints, what with Americans having holidays, and the restraints imposed by jobs and educational institutions I apologise but there won't be a RPGN this week as scheduled, however it will be released next week.

We apologise for this profusely however the whole team has been swamped.

[Sep]

Sorry guys,as I said swamped. There's something coming soon(tm)!

[Sep]

I want to profusely apologise, work and studying took it out of me. Though my job ends on Saturday so with considerably more free time, you will all get what you deserve.

[Rawk]

...you will all get what you deserve.

@Sep

And I do deserve a lot @Sep, so don't forget that in February ;)

[TwelveOf8]

Hey there! Long time fan of the site! Don't get to take part in many Rps though. Here's how I make characters. To me, characters are stories themselves. So they're like stories within stories. Ideally, for me, the character story drives the greater story. Not the other way around. Just my humble opinion.

[Melkor]

I miss RPGN, glad you're back. To answer the question: I build characters in two ways; I base them off of my friends and off of characters I create in role playing video games.

[Rawk]

@Sep!

Before the question of "How do you build your characters" disappears forever into the RPGN archives, I should probably answer it:

Primarily, the basis of my characters stem from my own life and the people I've encountered growing up in a middle-class family in South Boston, going through the trials of adolescence and gangs, moving from one dark corner of the US to another followed by yet another, selling anything I could to satisfy whatever vice got me by at the time, relationship hopping like it was going out of style, and then trying to raise two kids on my own who mean the world to me...

...all the while hoping upon hope that I lived to the next day.

I tend to draw from a sense of surviving in a world that doesn't really give two shits about who you are and is doing all it can to push you away unless you have the balls enough to push back even harder. To stare opposition in the face like the twisted bitch that it is, and shove your [insert favorite appendage here] down it's throat.

Growing up in the 80s and 90s, music was a huge part of my creativity and I'd say is a significant part of my character development as it takes the framework I've mentioned above and thrusts it deep inside it's own fantastical landscape, fleshing out the rest of the character's background to allow for stepping stones into story ideas/arcs, and any future shit that can be vomited up.

[Kho]

'How do you build your characters?'

There isn't any one particular way in which I go about building my characters. It varies depending on the type of RP and my state of mind at the time of creation, as well as the various influences I am under. (No, not drugs. How could you even... 'Influences' here refers to, say, a book I've recently read, a show I've watched, a piece of music I'm hooked on, a particular period in history which has suddenly and very randomly gained my fascination, etc.)

While the above varies, what I have noticed remains constant is that my characters are built around ideals - or perhaps they are idealistic. I tend to place in them certain 'virtues' (if you will) which I personally admire and aspire towards. However, being human, they must have flaws. I have recently tended towards 'heroic' flaws - wrath, obstinance, foolhardiness - in the sense that they don't detract from the 'integrity' or 'standing' of a character - as things like cowardice, greed, indolence, etc. would. Of course, in the past I have explored characters with these latter traits also and they are doubtlessly very interesting to play.

So, as a general outline, my characters tend to be built around central virtues and tragic flaws, and it has often been the case (though not always of course) that they are idealists.

When it comes to the substance of a character sheet, the history of a character, appearance etc. The influences mentioned above tend to play a greater role. However, I am not averse (as I know some RPers are) to recycling previous characters - with slight modifications - for similar RPs, particularly where I feel I was not able to fully explore and develop said characters in previous RPs. I have actually noticed that I have recently been less inclined to create new characters when there are old concepts that went largely unused or were not explored in a way that I found satisfactory. And so they are revived and sent back into the IC milieu.

Last of all, while it is necessary to create character sheets for characters, I tend to find that the true creation process of a character happens in the IC - the character gets a life near enough its own. The CS remains relevant for a while of course, but the beauty of any character lies not in ensuring they remain as faithful as possible to the CS, but in seeing just how much they can grow and develop from that very basic starting point.

[Rawk]

Last of all, while it is necessary to create character sheets for characters, I tend to find that the true creation process of a character happens in the IC - the character gets a life near enough its own.

@Kho

^This^