pugbutter

My Heart is on the Throne

@Bishop This is all very interesting but very little of it serves to rationalize the mechanics of your country.

Remember, a "desert" isn't just a big area filled with sand. It's defined as receiving less than a certain amount of precipitation per year (meaning, yes, Antarctica is a desert). So either it was already a desert before you came along, or your "magical" hogwash also happened to curse the land of all its fecundity. Just dumping sand on an area doesn't make it a desert. I know you know this because of something you said to Lady Selune earlier, so I don't know why you tried to use "interdimensional portal-sand" as a real argument.

And literally citing "deus ex machina" to describe how you apparently occupy two spaces at once (being in the middle of the continent, but also being the greatest defender against an eastern invader) sounds like a bad joke. Maybe the GM can weigh in on this? @ScreenAcne

Normally I'd be live-and-let-live about other players' creative liberties, but since a buddy and I planned on playing an expy for 15^th Century Romania, preventing "Turkish" invasions into "Europe" through brutality and efficiency in war, I need to be sure that you've actually thought this through and that you can help us to understand how your national identity actually makes sense within the scope of this world. So far it doesn't at all. It seems to me like you have to choose between being a wealthy trade-route guy or the Margrave hero guy. It's fine for you to "take" the idea that we want to use in this RP but we'd really appreciate if the resulting nation's existence is actually plausible and sensible; otherwise we should be the southeastern nation while you keep the desert in the middle.

Let's Gush!

The best line of dialogue I've ever seen on any roleplay site, throughout my ~10 years in this hobby

"My ass and my heart both belong to you. For you have filled them both."

I don't know where you've gone or if we'll ever meet again. But godspeed, you magnificent bard of the ages. God-fucking-speed.

My Heart is on the Throne

Disclaimer

In no way am I trying/want you to change your idea/creation in anyway. I am not trying to criticize/undermine/devalue your work or have any problem with it. All that I state below is my honest opinion. If it bothers you and/or you feel like you wasted your time then I apologize.

Ok, just to add this. The Devil Sands is the biggest desert that is located in the middle of the continent, so big that in fact forces the other houses to pass through it in order to trade with the other houses. I can't stress that enough cause I've built my whole house around that fact.

You own the largest piece of land since it is first come first serve and everyone that comes after should adjust their territory to the ones that came before and already set their boundaries, I respect you statement. So the house Bastij doesn't necessarily own all the Devil Sands since the farther you get away from the center point of a circle the more the area that is encompassed increases. So it could be just a small stripe of sand but because it is located at the very most outer part of the desert it could easily be as big as the territory of house Bastij. And it all stands as neutral ground, the boundary which separates the territory of house Bastij and other territories. No one has a claim to it.

The concern that I have which pushed me to put this clarification of land mass forth is as follows:

Lets say that the whole continent of Handon is a perfect circle. Now the Devil Sands is another perfect circle located in the middle of the big one. The smaller circle's diameter is approx 3 times smaller than the circumference, the π value. Now if the circle is small enough in relation to the bigger one, that difference between the diameter and circumference is negligible = the distance between point A and point B which are the opposite ends of the small circle is so small that it doesn't matter if you go around the circle. You're not wasting any noticeable amount of time for that small extra distance.

Another thing which poses a problem is the size of land which a house encompasses. Assuming again that Handon is a perfect circle and the Devil Sands is also a perfect circle, means that ideally every other remaining house(9) would take an even slice out of the are between the 2 circles.
Now, hypothetically is the whole southern part of the area between the 2 circles was owned by one house, it means that the other houses would be cramped on the northern side which leads to most of them, the ones concentrated on the middle northern part, to never needing to pass through the smaller circle in order to trade with each other. Exactly the reason why I asked for the shape of your land since you stated it was one of the biggest.

I just want for my idea of a house to be in harmony with everyone's. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

@Bishop

From the perspective of someone who's throwing a "strong consider" into joining this RP, a lot of this post needs some clarification.

So your country is a desert surrounded by other, more fertile lands, which encircle it totally? If geographical realism is an issue here, that would mean you're also surrounded by mountains, creating a rain-shadow in order to justify the bizarre placement of this desert. If this is true then you're implying that your nation is also 99% immune to invasion, since all you'd need to do to prevent foreign invasion is defend the passes and valleys, the chokepoints which run through the mountains. This gives you an overwhelming defensive advantage in any wars waged on your territory.

Furthermore despite being located in the middle of the continent, despite other nobles' territories seemingly enveloping yours, you're somehow also serving as the buffer-area between our lands and those of a foreign horde? Like, how do you have an "eastern shore" if you're, quote, "another perfect circle located in the middle of the big one"?

Using highway-robbery and toll-roads to build your fortune makes sense when you're situated in the middle of the continent, but then shouldn't the easternmost province be the one acting as a buffer zone? The vice-versa also applies; it makes sense to be the buffer when you sit on the shore, but then you can't build your economic empire on tolling vital trade routes which bisect the continent. Please clarify as soon as you can. Thanks.

Would a runescape-world based RP be possible at all?

I personally think RuneScape's lore is terrible and unworthy of an RP adaptation, but the real problem with your idea is mechanical: most people stopped playing RuneScape a very long time ago, either because they grew up, or (as in my case) because the new management drove the game into the ground with half-baked content, microtransactions, etc. Some people played a while, but eventually grew bored and quit. Others were F2P, or simply didn't like the game, and didn't explore very much of it before dropping out.

I would assume that JaGeX has added only more content since then, so anyone who's hypothetically interested in this RP must be a current RuneScape player in order to understand the lore.

Maybe design your own setting which is "based on" RuneScape instead of using its canon directly. Then the players will only need the information which you divulge to them in the thread. This ought to help with recruitment, since it won't demand of the players that they know lore from a game which they may have stopped playing half a decade ago.

Good luck.

𝐀𝐁𝐒𝐎𝐋𝐔𝐓𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐆𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐔𝐃𝐄

@DeadBeatWalking Since this is dead anyway, can I use this space to ask you how you achieved that old/tattered photograph effect in the character roster? I'd like to use it for an upcoming RP.

Cool thread; it had potential. :/

Mahz's Dev Journal

Interestingly, I was working on this back on the vBulletin version of the Guild. Found this rough draft in my archive.



The simplest v1.0 solution might be to just let players submit a Join Request that GMs/Co-GMs accept.

For example, maybe you submit a Join Request when you submit your character sheet, and then GMs accept your request.

I've always wanted to have some sort of Roleplays <-> Participants link on the Guild which lets me build interesting things. One example that yall brought up is the ability to notify all the active participants of a roleplay.

The first challenge is to come up with a system that people are actually incentivized to use because it's useful.

If you have a roleplay with four players and only one person bothered to "join" it, then it doesn't really do anyone any good.

But it would also be a mistake to impose too much just-cuz rigidity on the freeform-by-design nature of the Guild.

@Mahz

If you do this, you should totally add a stat to users' profiles, too: the average time they spend "joined" to an RP (a ratio of total "joined" time to the number of threads they've officially joined). Similar to the "posts/day" stat you added to profiles not very long ago. This would be great for letting us know who in the Guild is abandoning RPs, and allow us to make acceptance choices based on that. I'm sure you know this community has some "commitment issues" when it comes to RP loyalty, so maybe this will help to alleviate that, or at least let the GMs receive some warning in advance about fickle players.

The Forgotten Basics

@BrokenPromise hit some good beats. Here are some more:

1. It's the GM's story, not yours. You can participate in it as it is, or you can make suggestions to the GM in the hopes that he'll change something. Or you can leave. He doesn't owe you anything, so don't be mad if your attempts at backseat-GMing aren't well-received.

2. A GM can kick you anytime he likes. He doesn't need a reason (although he probably has a pretty good one anyway). If it's clear you're unwelcome in a thread, take the hint. Arguing, flaming, or trolling will only prove him right about you.

3. The GM's job is to draw the blueprints, not to singlehandedly build the house. If you're not willing to actively participate in designing the plot, if you're "just along for the ride," if you and your character offer nothing to the group dynamic, then don't sign up. First it's a sign that you'll get bored easily and quit sooner than the other players (since you have no emotional investment in the story), and second, the story will be fucked when the GM is gone due to vacations or sickness or whatever, because none of the thread's player-base will have the chops to keep it running until he returns.

4. Embrace spontaneity and change. The character who either never grows and matures at all, or who does so according to a pre-written script, is just as damaging to an RP as a GM who "railroads," forcing the plot in the direction he likes because improvisation is haaard.

5. And here's one for my fellow GMs, for fairness's sake: the incentive you give to a player to read your thread is called a "hook." The hook begins with the title, and it ends with the introductory paragraph. If I know what your RP is about just from reading the title, you have failed to create an intriguing and engaging hook, and doubly so if, when writing a genre piece (Western, Sci Fi, Horror,...), you have done nothing to add anything interesting to the genre. We know all the tropes by now. Dare to be daring.

Two people in a fight to the death. One of them has a wooden baseball bat, the other has a six inch knife. Who wins?

They are both of equal reach

@Stekkmen

Uh, why tho? One of the bat's great advantages is its range. Plus blunt damage, instead of a cutting blade which can go dull, and which has more force behind a swing.

Bat guy will win every time.

E:\cyberpunk\the_deadliest_question.exe

@DarknessDawning It's been a while. I hope your son is doing well.

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0