The Harbinger of Ferocity

Long-Term Character related question thing

This phenomena I recall being much more common with the older roleplaying environment, especially as early forums rose to popularity at roughly the same time as instant messenger roleplaying became more mainstream, @DocRock. That said, I have not seen much of it in the past decade or so, where a continuous character is used and a separate topic devoted to them carries on, to include interaction from other players. It is, in some ways, a relic of the past and in terms of community here, few players continuously use the same characters time and again, let alone interact much with one another's in the out-of-character context.

There are places to do so, such as here on the Roleplayer Guild under the "Character Sheets" section, where the thread creator can appeal to feedback and interaction, as well as keep an ongoing log of events for that character. That would afford you the ability to work on small details to have questions posed in public.

Printed guns, melded metal - An experimental GM-less Cyberpunk RP

By the time Theron had got back it was, early? Late? What did one actually call the meekest hours of the morning, well before the sun? That time was the time he had finally finished. Golemeth was someone else's problem now, reports were filed, and his payment was processing. Who knew what that meant in this case, something probably equally archaic. Either way, it was success now, and they were likely to reel him back in at some other time after sending someone else to check up on the little tidbits and facts his brief informant had provided. To him it was any other babble, it had nothing to originally do with the missing mark, but now it could well have everything to do with everyone involved and probably just turned a fair bit of profit for Intellitron. After all, more information meant more bids by anyone involved to get further progress. Everyone and their grandmother seemed to be out to get the people this guy knew and the guy himself.

Having spent the past half hour fixing up the bit of what was a fairly brutalized combat jacket, Theron's fingers deftly worked at fixing and setting the collar again; the entire thing was a far cry from how it started but at least now it wasn't filthy. He wasn't about to let it go either, one way or another it was getting repaired, a fact he solidified to himself as he looked over the wrist mount display; it had a fair share of errors here and there yet kept its sleek dim glow. Nice, classy, nothing garish, the sort of thing that complimented the tinted shades as he popped them back on to the bridge of his nose. With a closing of the door behind him, securing it, he made his way out one of the rear exits of the corp's tower.

Higher level floors? Good luck, guys like him only went there when there were problems. Everyone else was some suit or techie doing who knows what, not the guys rolling in hardware or skirting by in Cylife False Jackets and packing concealed polymer heat. Theron was just happy to not run into anyone or anything else past the back door, other than the supremely obvious security. They exchanged glances but that was it, as anyone wearing a dim cyan trimmed jacket and shades coming from Intellitron at this time wasn't worth the hassle; they would've known if there was an issue, getting through any corp building at peak crime hour was a nightmare for the would-be infiltrator. So by the time he hit the curb, the chimera was home free.

The rest of the way was uneventful, getting back to the hole in the wall and sitting down for even a minute to contemplate everything that went by. Theron couldn't help but pull out the lone folding metal chair he owned and take a breather, a pitiful lamp glowing by him in the musty place. The conditions were better than being some vagrant again wandering around and this was all for the sake of added splicing in the future, the real goal, but it didn't make it any better. Either way, stripping off his gloves and setting them on the meager counter, rubbing his face down with one hand, he remarked to himself that he needed the next big hit, the next big thing the following day. He needed to keep that momentum going, rolling nonstop, bringing all those goods; what he needed was another of Davison's boys. It helped he had more an idea of who that was now, more of what they were up to, but what he needed was a dispatch; going cowboy as a not nearly geared solo was... difficult, stupidly difficult, if these guys were rolling with the tech they seemed to be and had their own fan club grasping for any piece of it.

Curious?

Here is an actual question to pose, @RoseBloodBorn, how did you come to use the name you do on the Roleplayer Guild? What is the idea and history behind it? Does it have some greater, obscure meaning?

Lark has arrived!

Greetings @Lark Mills,

That is quite some time you have been roleplaying then, as that name is a bit of rarity today! While I cannot speak for everyone else, I am glad to have you join us, especially with that kind of experience in roleplaying; a few of us are from those times and before even in odd cases. All the same, there is a great variety of roleplayers and a diverse number of topics. While this may be somewhat different than email roleplaying, the Roleplayer Guild is fairly straight forward once one browses it a bit. That in mind, if you have any questions, please do ask them as you will.

Greetings & Salutations, Fellow Earthlings! 🦄

You would be correct, the majority of users do not blog but there are ways for you to do so technically, such as by creating a Spam or Off-Topic topic on it and denoting it that way, although do be prepared for comments to appear on it as users, especially Spam regulars, will interject whatever is top of mind. Generally speaking, broadly at that, users at most use the status bar or the associated Discord, @Hazardous Siren.

Greetings & Salutations, Fellow Earthlings! 🦄

You should find the "Edit Avatar" section just below the "Edit Signature" section and just above the "Gender" sections, @Hazardous Siren. The site does not have available avatars so you will need upload one using the button attached, with the image being limited to the following:

• Max dimensions: 150px width, 200px height
• Images larger than these dimensions will be resized
• Animated GIFs often break when resized by the system, so you may want to resize them yourself before uploading

Mahz

On the note about roleplaying topics, I suppose then that comes down to how much you enjoy writing in terms of amount. The Free section tends to be a few sentences and at most a paragraph, Casual is a paragraph or two, and Advanced is several and more. Generally speaking, high fantasy is quite common, much more so that low fantasy as sword and sorcery and the like, as well as fandom based fantasy.

Greetings & Salutations, Fellow Earthlings! 🦄

Greetings and welcome to the Roleplayer Guild, it is a pleasure to have another member.

To answer your first question, outside services and accounts are not at all required, and you can simply bookmark the forum to access it. To adjust your account here, all you need do is look to the upper right corner where your name is displayed alongside "PMs" and "Subs". Clicking your account name there will lead you to those options, as on your user page you will see "Edit" just below your name and that is where you need go; this includes your avatar upload, which answers the second question.

For your third and last question, that all depends on just what you consider to be exciting. What sort of topics are you particularly interested in as far as fantasy goes? There are plenty of interest checks and new threads beginning at large. Other than this, we do have a Discord chat service, which can be fairly lively depending on the time of day.

Post a random fact about yourself.

Despite my love of winter, with all of its white blanket and what it stands to offer for some, I must admit I do look forward to spring, if only to see how many of the wild flowers planted will return. I enjoy the change of the seasons, to include those elements physical and attributed.

Is it overdone? Cliches, popular genres, ect.

There is a difference,@Superboy, between saying "Wizards are studious souls who use magical reagents and implements, words of power, and strange gestures to evoke a wide variety of magic." to set the tone of just how said magic works rather than spell all of it out for players every single possible detail and rule of it. It is not terribly hard for a reader to then use external and topic sensitive context to determine just what is meant by the word "wizard" in this case. If there is a failing, it is on the reader's behalf or the context of the rest of the world is not being presented sufficiently. If something is so unclear it can be revisited with examples.

The other issue you defined later with clashing themes and understandings falls under one universal failure of most players, thread owners too at times, and that is communication, as well as the fact that said characters should be vetted in the long run. The former is the fact players should be obligated to question things they do not understand and or work directly with the Game Master to formulate a suitable outcome. Likewise, a Game Master should reject any character, as the latter superhero example, if it does not fit the theme.

The matter I am speaking to is not some general summarized history, it is the habit of defining every major event in history and outlining the content of each individual element. Again, let me repeat this another way, this is the difference of giving the general history of the world and writing several paragraphs of extremely specific events for each element; the story itself versus a synopsis. Only certain characters should be privy to certain information, spelling it all out grandiosely in the interest check or out-of-character section is the issue I take.

For the last example, if said player is so unfamiliar to their own character and hasn't defined loosely anything at all about what they can or cannot do, or has fallen into a game where a Game Master would impose such a penalty, perhaps they should look for another game. Harsh as that may be, individuals have their own responsibilities. It is not that difficult to summarize a fireball as, "A spell that creates an explosion in a small area with magical flames. It can reach a medium to long distance but has no pressure to its detonation." To loosely encapsulate just what it does, leaving the rest to be defined in the game.

Again, let me reiterate, my issue stems from those topics - which are in no short supply as of now - that feel the need to define everything in their world. No less. I am fairly certain this cliche is not likely to disappear soon as I believe the issue to be firmly nested in the idea that in order to be "grand and epic", many are under the illusion that more is more, when less is more in some cases, particularly fantasy.

Is it overdone? Cliches, popular genres, ect.

Another, notably shorter cliche I have taken note of an issue with. When writing fantasy roleplaying, not everything needs an explanation. The whole backstory of the world, the events, the mechanics and philosophy of magic, the effects and express details do not need to be stated; implications of it should be. It should not feel like there is a manual being written about them, about how "X magic does Y things, but when it happens to be here it does Z." or the details of every race and the entirety of the history of their people leading up to the current era. The players, unless relevant to their character, do not need a history lesson on every major event that has transpired over the past few hundred years and the minute details working in it.

I suspect the reason that this is so common is that in order to make the prospect seem larger and more relevant, Game Masters go through tremendous effort to lay out everything verbatim, in the process destroying much of the mystery. The second reason I suspect this is, is because players have a difficult time grasping just what they wish to do or fleshing it out without delving into the mechanics of it. We, fellow players or readers alike, do not need to know your fireball magic costs three points of mana, burns at this specific temperature, was learned from a college of wizardry and requires the phrase, "Ignatorio!" in an obscure language's specific dialect to be cast. This is an issue of "Show, do not tell." failing to be adhered to.

Likewise, a related issue spawns is that every player under the sun seems to want to develop their own intricate system; there is no need for three different forms of wizarding magic, warlock pact magic, sorcerous bloodlines, rune magic specifics, then spheres of magic used by some. All of them are "arcane" and it has become a cliche to try and stuff as many disparate things into it, almost all of them loaned from media, for the sake of appealing to the audience rather than just say, "You tell me how you manage it, I will decide if that seems reasonable or not in the world."

Summarized, the cliche of spelling everything out in fantasy and eliminating the mystique and wonder of it is dreadfully overdone.