BangoSkank

I hate to say it...

The site is in decline, yes, but so is the hobby in general.

Part of it is the Official Discord with its innumerable issues and the general movement of RPing toward Discord rather than forums. Part of it is the season. Part of it is an aging base. Part of it is just the hobby itself aging. This is still, for my money, the best site for the hobby.

With that in mind here's my cheap plug for a guide I wrote. Well, a guide I compiled with advice from a ton of users here, including BrokenPromise, Kuro, Ammokkx and ERode

Cheap Plug - particularly the "Can't Find a Partner" section
roleplayerguild.com/topics/184596-rpi…

In short though my advice would be to join one or two of the group RPs. You may not be a huge fan of group RPs but just because you are in a group RP doesn't mean you have to split your interactions equally between every participant. It would be wise to try to a little bit at least to sort of flex or stretch your writing muscles, but it's pretty normal for people and characters to form little cliques.

Writing with a group, and writing in general, gives you a chance to interact with others and see whose writing style you like and whose writing style you don't like, as well as further develop your own writing style and display it for others. Essentially building a reputation as a writer with certain strengths and certain weaknesses.

There are enough writers here with enough talent that with a little work you can likely find your niche.

What are some of the most confusing/cringiest OC's you have ever encountered?

My Cringe:

Long long ago when I was but a quarterling, in my first RP with other folks (instead of just writing stories in Notepad or on an actual physical notebook) I RPed an Orc who wanted to be in the Morag Tong. This was on the old ass Bethesda Fan Fiction and Artwork Forum. Set in Morrowind, it was called something like "A Bar on the Road to Nowhere" and I joined in with this dude.

Dahnk Gro-Bisnuh. He was mostly cringe, or at least the writing was, because I didn't really know what I was doing. I had a funny idea, a big mean violent Orc who wanted to be a sneaky assassin but was too big, green, and angry to effectively sneak around, but I couldn't write action very well and I didn't really have an idea of who he was outside of Big Mad Green Want Be Sneaky. Thankfully, I guess, the story died pretty early on so I didn't really get exposed for having no idea what the f I was doing, but that was probably the origin of me writing goofy ass non-human characters.

Others Cringe:

CRINGE 1 : Absolute Kringe

This guy would always RP with the same character in the same setting. Setting was Fallout. His character always shared the same initials as his username, likely his initials. Didn't matter if it was set two months after the Great War or forty years after the last chronological game. Was always this Masked Prodigy Super Soldier guy. Character was about as Mary Sue as it got. Always the son of the most powerful man in the setting. Always leader of the Special Forces unit of the highest powered faction. Always universally loved by his men.

Pretty weak set up from the get go but the more cringe aspect was that there was never anything to balance that. That could be taken in a cool sort of Ender's Game direction. Like "Steve Rogers (this was not his character's name) is the ultimate soldier, but he keeps getting his men killed because they can't keep up with him" or "Roger Wilko is the ultimate soldier but he seems to take a little too much pleasure in killing the enemy." It was consistently a "this guy makes all the right decisions and is the best at all things" deal...until it wasn't.

When it wasn't that, the one time it wasn't that, dude captured and tortured a canon lesbian character, after rewriting her to be straight and desperately madly in love with his character. We're talking tied her to a chair, cut on her, beat her, told her he was never really in love with her and he was doing all this for the good of the faction, then set her on fire and shot her repeatedly. Then retconned all that when people had a hard time still taking that character as a hero or at all redeemable.

CRINGE 2
Much shorter stories.
One dude who was similar to that last dude, except he wasn't as good a writer and didn't blow up as magnificently. He was just an absolute one upper whose one character (which was literally just his username without the numbers that came after it) was basically just used to one up whoever had posted before him in the next post. Dude was a sniper, dude was super sneaky, dude was a brilliant leader, and none of that was backed up in the writing. Couldn't write it convincingly, didn't try to develop it along any particular line, just an amazing guy who would consistently show up every other character in a subsequent post.

Eventually he got a warning about it. You can't be a better Medic than the Medic character who is depressed from working with so many wounded and secretly dosing himself with painkillers, while also being a better Pilot than the Pilot character whose father was Air Force before the war and whose legacy she desperately wanted to live up to, while also being a better Big Dumb Ox (my character) than the Big Dumb Ox who knew he was a Big Dumb Ox and was trying to make sure he didn't get abandoned by the other survivors by working himself into the ground....you can't be better at all those things than the character's whose things those are and all at the same time.

The OP eventually posted a pretty ugly but very necessary post about exiling that guy from the group and luckily he took it pretty well considering.

CRINGE 3
In that same story, a while later on, we had another cringe character with a similar situation. Character's name was literally the User Name of the writer. Character just had a habit of solving things in the most simple way possible that was obviously not intended to be an option. Basically taking the power from everyone else by just going immediately solving each issue in one post.

This specific issue was a hospital the group needed to enter and explore. It was all locked up and there was a guy a few stories up looking out at them from a window shooing them away. Up on the rooftop there was a helicopter the group wanted to use to explore. Lots of interesting scenarios possible. There's a bit about the leader of the group talking with the doctor guy who is shooing them away from the window via an Intercom system.

Dude posts next and in this one post he "climbs up the building" and then "sneaks in through a window" and then "holds a knife against the Doctor's neck" taking him hostage and effectively ending the situation before anyone else gets a chance to post in about the most hostile way possible short of executing the doctor. Similar situation, group wasn't happy with him and he dipped out without another post.

Panau : Superheroes in a South American Warzone

Hey everyone, Bing in particular, I'm sorry but the hits keep coming and I'm going to need to deal with a lot of life shit rather than do this.

Feel free to take the idea if you want. Doesn't belong to me.

I'm not going to be posting. The idea for Wolverine was basically slums detective, alcoholic, no adamantium skeleton, just is able to keep working because he survives it any time someone tries to kill him to prevent him from finding out about the dirt being done.

Kind of a tragedy/comedy character. Was going to work in a bit where he's "tracking" this group of human traffickers but someone keeps killing them before he can take them in. Was going to turn out to be him who kills them.

Cheers.

Panau : Superheroes in a South American Warzone

So long as the adamantium suit isn't treated like Superman's skin I see no issue with that.

I am not particularly set on a Modern Setting.

I am hesitant to set it in any particular period or year rather than a nebulous "near future" for the same reason I am hesitant to set it in the United States or any real country, or during the known tenure of any President.

If folks would prefer to set it in another time period that would be fine, but one of the advantages of setting it in a country that is essentially a fictionalized Cuba (with elements of Brazil) is that it becomes relatively easy to justify have the dictatorship vibes you described and also to have something like the cars and technology of another era if people are more interested in that.

Cuba is known, among other things, for it's classic American cars as a result of embargoes from the US.

A more violent Spiderman would be very interesting to see, but you might also take that the other direction. A Spiderman in a very violent world, with police he can trust less, with a government he can trust less, without an Avengers or an X-Men to help him when and if things get heated. Less hospitals to take wounded civilians too if he webslings into a burning building to save a family of four.

An interesting arch (if you are doing an Origin or a Brand New Hero sort of story) might be her starting out with a No Killing Rule, and quickly realizing the very real danger she is in despite her powers. Struggling to hold herself to that standard despite the increased restraint it requires and the increased danger that represents.

But then I'd also get a kick out of Spidey just webbing some asshole up and swinging him/her hard into a wall several times.

This reminds me of a story I really liked, probably influenced this idea, details in the hider below

My Hider

I believe it was set in either the Warhammer Universe or a like Days of Future Past XMen Universe.
The premise was basically a gang in a vaguely post-apocalyptic world where the police had completely abandoned the streets. Gangers shoot it out pretty openly, control food supply, and vie with each other constantly for control. The story was basically about a small gang as one of them sought to take control from the current leader. This was all during a small war that quickly got out of hand.

Young runner comes back telling them that "Oh My God, they killed her" and they're coming here. Big shoot out ensues. Lots of cool action. Lots of the gang, who you've come to like well enough, get absolutely wasted. Lots of the attacking gangers get obliterated by Gang Leader Dude. At one point there are only like 3-4 of the gang left alive when they find out that their leader has powers that basically make him invulnerable to the other gangers guns.

To me at that point it becomes quite interesting. How different things become when the leader of your gang knows the other gang simply can't kill him. You die just as easy as anyone else, but the guy telling you to protect him or to go hit the other guys has no reason to fear being killed.

Panau : Superheroes in a South American Warzone

That's a fun idea. I don't know who Silk is, I'll have to look it up but a twist on Spidey sounds cool. What kind of resistance are you thinking of? Like is it general teenage resistance or an organized adult group like Antifa or a opposition government working toward a coup sort of thing?

One thing I thought would be fun was having something like seasons. We write for awhile, wrap up stories while planting seeds for future ones, and then either have a big Season Finale that hints at what might come next or just do a time skip.

One such finale that I thought would be fun was a crackdown or an invading army.

Panau : Superheroes in a South American Warzone

Little less free time than I expected. I'm going to just post a bit about where the idea for this originated. Hopefully it will help explain a bit more about it.

Influences:
The Boys - TV Series
The 1968 RP Series
Marvel Knights series' in general
The "Batman: White Knight" series

The Boys
The perspective of living in a world with supers as a normal meatsack human was very interesting as was the eventual outside influence involved in supers superpowers (no spoilers). Their intersection with government was also very interesting and something I would like to play with, but not in modern or historical America or even really future America due to the drama that would likely summon up.

The 1968 RP series
It ended up dying, unfortunately, fairly quickly before I could get much more in to stuff happening in Vietnam and back at home in America, but one problem I saw myself running in to was posting as the Nuke character. An American soldier who is basically spun out on pills and enjoying killing during an actual historical war. He wasn't supposed to be a good guy but he's also not supposed to be as utterly evil as we would often see someone killing on the scale he would be killing at. It's a controversial war and I know we have users here who are Vietnamese so while I was trying to make it clear he was not a good person I also tend to try to make characters likable on some axis and I could see the potential for that to become a problem.
I liked having an enemy that wasn't evil. They weren't super villain evil. They weren't normal terrible evil people evil. They were another government that the main characters' (both Cpt. A and Nuke) government was opposed to.

Marvel Knight series'
Though I haven't read most of them and am not familiar with quite a bit of it I liked the more gritty nature. The Punisher series in particular was ugly. The violence was unpleasant. Just close enough to real to be a bit disturbing rather than entertaining as it usually is. That and the street level nature of the series really helped separate these stories from most comic book stuff. I also read some of the Wolverine issues that looked like theyd fit in the Marvel Knight series'. Maybe he actually had one, I'm not sure. Same concept applies though.

Batman: White Knight series
The concept that Joker, if sane, might actually be good for Gotham. The concept of a Batman Related Disaster Relief Fund. The idea that there is a superhero (I don't recall his name) who is essentially the Batman of a less economically blessed neighborhood near Gotham and the idea that Batman seems to be blissfully unaware that he's not looking out for this neighborhood and they instead have their own dark knight.

I will put out a little blurb or two for character ideas. At least two. Should get the first one done tomorrow, it's the most thought out of the ideas.
Wolverine as a low level, low life, detective in the slums of Panau, dragging ass through life drinking, drugging ****ing, and not really trying to get his act together.
A Superman level character working for the current Panau government, but very apathetic. No real loyalty for the government. Sort of a Patrick Bateman as Superman. Obvious similarities to whats his face from The Boys, but without the weird fetishes, or daddy/mommy issues, or rage issues.

Panau : Superheroes in a South American Warzone

Yeah, sorry. It's been a weird time. Got back from a hell of a vacation. Getting ready for a promotion. Got Covid and beat the living shit out of it. Lost a good friend to an untimely heart attack.

I was just thinking about this today. I'll try to get up a bit more of an interest check. Build up the intro post a little more with sort of like a flavor guide of what I'm interested in.

Primarily it's just low to mid power characters. Either "What If" versions of existing characters or brand new ones.

I'll use a few more recognizable characters to do it but that doesn't mean they're set in the position I put them in or that I'm writing for/as them. I'll probably write as a version of Wolverine/Logan

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

I always loved the CoOp aspect of DS and the sort of location based invasion aspect, particularly when/if that location is optional, but the actual like Invasion at anytime aspect I didn't much enjoy.

It's part of the genre, it's probably not going anywhere, and lots of people use it reasonably, but I think it encourages some of the worst people to be their worst.

Panau : Superheroes in a South American Warzone

Modern times, probably without Covid because Covid is just dull.

Alternate timeline though just so we don't have actual modern politicians in office. And then also because mutants and aliens and supernatural shit and all that.

Panau : Superheroes in a South American Warzone

I'm about to go out of country so I won't be around much for the next two weeks but I'll try to post more about what I'm thinking on the slower nights.

I'm thinking primarily more street level type to keep the supers from becoming too distant from the populace and too protected from repercussions. I'm a big believer in villains you can empathize with and shades of grey. Makes it much more impactful when a bad character or a generally good character really crosses a line.

I'm thinking one of the main cities will be something wherein the streets are favelas and the wealthy live literally on the same blocks just in high rises far above them. Strata based on wealth. Some will be off by in protected hills and all that but some are just right there as in parts of Brazil.