Zapdos

Search of the Abandoned Mansion

@Carmen Sandiego @Rp4life you two are welcome to join!

@Kelewen that sounds interesting! Obviously it just wouldn't be "dog finds the people, the end" but I feel like there's a lot of interesting angles you could use for that kind of character.

I'll work on a CS and get an OOC posted, likely at some point tomorrow. I've been wanting to write a lot lately, so I'm looking forward to this!

Search of the Abandoned Mansion

Edit: the OOC is up and located at the link below!

roleplayerguild.com/topics/184181-sea…

The small town of Grainville was typically a quiet place, seemingly far removed from the epic warfare and magic of the rest of the world. People were friendly to one another and there was no crime to speak of. That is, until recently. It started a few months ago when a dog ran away from its owners near the old abandoned mansion; it went inside the building, but never left. Then the mayor's nine year old daughter disappeared. She had been dared to go in by a friend and nobody has seen her since. Distraught at the thought of never seeing his child again, the mayor ordered the city guardsman to rescue her; he, too, has vanished.

In response to this, the mayor has called an emergency meeting to discuss what to do about the disappearances. Someone in the audience proposed that a search party be made of trusted citizens to discover what has happened and hopefully recover the town's missing citizens. The mayor agreed to the plan and asks for volunteers: that's where you come in.

You've lived in this town most of your life. Maybe you are on your local recreational athletic team or learned a magic trick to entertain your younger family members, but you don't have any fancy magical or combat abilities. You're just an honest man or woman who does their best to make an honest living and who cares about their town. And as such, you volunteer to join the search party. After thanking you and your fellow volunteers for stepping up, the mayor finishes the meeting and gathers the volunteers in a separate room. He then asks everyone: are you ready to search the abandoned mansion?

-----

To summarize the little prompt above, you and the other roleplayers are a group of citizens entering an abandoned mansion to try and find out why people have been disappearing. This is set in a medieval fantasy world, but you are not powerful sorcerers or warriors; instead, you are an ordinary citizen who has decided to help his town. That doesn't mean you're useless though. Maybe you're a skilled carpenter who has always admired the design of the mansion or a stay at home mother whose experience raising eight kids has helped prepare you for leadership. I thought it would be fun to create a story where the players can try out unique character ideas and overcome adversity through creative and unconventional thinking.

If this sounds fun to you or if you have questions, feel free to post. Thanks for reading this and I look forward to writing with you!

Casual, really?

2nd - RPs created over time:

Because people say their RPs aren't as popular anymore, that they few ignored, or have the impression that the Guild is dying somehow. I wanted to see the truth about that and, as you all can see, what appears to have happened is that was a wild, almost ridiculous explosion of new topics created around Summer 2017.

We have been on a gradual decline back to the original stable numbers of the Guild ever since then. What I theorize that is the cause of complaints of lack of activity is people who joined around the boom and aren't used to the old pace being slowly reestablished. So yeah, it's not anyone's posts that are particularly bad or anything like this, it's just that we are going back to the near flatline pace that was between 2014 and late 2016.

So, what's your opinion about this? I think this is the most insight we had about the guild in years, and it really changed how I see things here.

PS: here's the link for the code if anyone wants to take a look/modify it for other sections/etc.
https://github.com/Final-Palladium/simple-rpguild-data-analysis/blob/main/rpguild_scrape.ipynb

@FinalPalladium

I didn't see anyone ask this (sorry if someone did and I missed it), so I wonder - is there a way to measure the number of new members who joined each month? I'm wondering how that data would look alongside the quoted data above. If there was an explosion of topics in Summer 2017 alongside a spike in membership, that might confirm your hypothesis.

Also, do people use tags when looking for roleplays to join? I just browse the casual section and see what interests me, personally.

Sum up your week in roleplaying in just 3 words

Way too slow.

@LostButterfly92

I agree, butterfly

New Collaborative Story Interest Check

Bump.

Friendships

I used to date someone that I met on this site. We don't talk anymore, but it illustrates that roleplay can lead to friendship or more.

New Collaborative Story Interest Check

Hello there! A few months ago, I started a writing experiment: everyone takes turns writing the same story with the same characters by adding their own content, ideas, and so on - what results is a cohesive and interesting story. The end result of this experiment has been The Adventures of Caleb Crowsnest, which has been a great deal of fun to write. So why is this thread here? Because I’ve had fun writing about Caleb and his friends, but the post rate has slowed down, so since I have more time on my hands now I thought it’d be fun to start writing another story!

If you’re interested in getting an idea of what the structure would look like (not the genre or topic of the story), you can read it here or you can read the much shorter example below:

Short Post Style Example

Poster A:

"Frank was walking down the street on his way to work. It was his last day on the job; he was proud of his 43 years at the Wonderful Wheel Company, but he was looking forward to retirement. He arrived at the old factory, same as ever, except he was surprised to see..."

Poster B:

"that it was decorated with banners! The old factory worker saw banners, balloons and homemade posters celebrating his last day and wishing him well. A hint of a smile showed on the man's face. But the biggest surprise was when he walked into the place..."

Poster C:

"a huge array of tires spelling out "BEST WISHES FRANK" right on the factory floor! What was previously a hint evolved into a full-on grin; the man never expected his coworkers to go through all this trouble. Honestly, he thought they didn't even like him. However..."

(Please note that these posts are shorter than a normal post because this is just an example of the concept.)

I’ve found that this writing style has big advantages over a more conventional RP structure, the biggest one being that people dropping out of the story doesn’t grind it to a halt. Plus, multiple authors can provide multiple perspectives, making the story more interesting. I’m hoping that I can take what I’ve learned running the aforementioned story and use that knowledge to run this new idea even more effectively.

So what would this new story be about, you might be asking? I don’t know yet! Part of the fun is collaborating with other writers on the story. I’ve learned from Caleb Crowsnest that establishing a plot structure/starting goal (at least a loose one) can help a great deal; at the start of the aforementioned story, there was no real idea of what the plot was, so everyone was trying to add ideas and pulled the story in unpredictable directions. I'd like to collaborate with everyone on what sort of story to write. What genres or sorts of characters do you want to write about? What ideas have perhaps been lurking in your brain until now? I know that smut, torture, gore and real life politics are things that I am not interested in here, but beyond that (and, if all else fails, a silly Pokemon idea I have) I don’t really have an idea of what the actual plot will be.

The length of writing is “whatever makes sense for your post” which is usually a few paragraphs but can be much more if you want it to be. I’ve written in the past with writers who can say more three paragraphs than some people could with three pages, but at the same time I’ve written with people who took three pages for a single post and every word was worth reading. Quality matters, not quantity; in other words, I don’t want to read a gargantuan post if it’s really difficult to follow what’s going on. (L i k e t h i s f o r e x a m p l e.)

If you have any questions, thoughts or comments, let me know. I look forward to writing with you!

The Adventures of Caleb Crowsnest

The conversation continued on the road out from town, with Caleb and Sara sitting up front while Rainbow was nearby inside the wagon. No matter what the group would decide to do, there was no sense in talking where they could be overheard. Coincidentally, they had turned right on the main road like Alan had said earlier.

“...and then he left. What should we do?” Caleb asked as he finished his recounting of what had happened earlier. So far, Sara’s face had revealed nothing. She had listened respectfully, but had given no indication of how she felt one way or the other. The boy, on the other hand, looked visibly nervous. Caleb wanted to do the right thing; he just hoped that this involve him meeting with Alan tonight.

The elderly woman’s face soon became visibly distressed. “I understand how you feel, child. More than you know, really, but Lydia is in serious danger. I don’t think-”

Before she could finish her thought though, Rainbow interrupted her. “We should go see this farmer.” Caleb and Sara were both slightly surprised to hear Rainbow’s opinion on this, as neither person had expected the rablin to go against anything their leader decided on.

“Sorry Sara, but I know this kid,” Rainbow said, patting Caleb on the side and smiling, “and I know if we don’t talk to this guy now, Caleb’ll never be able to focus on saving Lydia.” The time on the dwarven island was fresh in the rablin’s mind at this moment - Rainbow was certain that this was the right thing to do. Now turning to face Sara, he added “and besides, if we talk to the farmer, maybe he’ll be able to help us with that too, if we’re careful. And since I have a plan, we will be.”

Caleb beamed at his green friend’s position; Edward smiled as well, seeing his friend so happy. Sara was reluctant to keep Lydia waiting, but looking at the boy sitting next to her, she found herself unable to deny his request.

“Alright,” she responded with a nod, “we’ll go.”

The child immediately hugged the elderly woman. “Thank you!”

“You’re welcome, child.” Sara smiled and hugged the child back. Looking at her travel companions and seeing similar looks on their faces, the elderly woman knew that this was something that everyone there wanted for Caleb.

-----

A few hours later, the group of four had arrived at the farm. It was a little worn, but still in good shape, with a red barn out back and a functional ranch-style farmhouse close to it. The wagon, with Edward attached and Flower inside, was parked out front; this would make escape easy if it was necessary. Sara and Caleb then exited the wagon, with Rainbow invisibly walking behind them. Part of the rablin’s plan involved him following the group, staying invisible with his illusion magic so he can assist as needed.

The group walked to the front door; Caleb was nervous, but excited. He had been waiting for this moment for so long and now it was finally happening. Sara gently nudged the child to knock on the door, so he did so; the person who answered the door wasn’t the farmer from earlier though.

“Holy crap, you actually showed up! Guess I owe Dad a silver piece,” said the young man, who followed up by taking a drink of what smelled like beer out of a wooden mug. He looked like a young man, no older than 18 or 19 years old, and wore a worn brown leather jacket over his white shirt and equally worn pants. The man’s hair and eyes somewhat matched the jacket, but this was a coincidence rather than a conscious decision on his part.

“Uh, hi, have we met?” was all Caleb could awkwardly think of to reply with. Sara simply arched an eyebrow at this person whose presence reminded her of Junior.

“Nah, Dad told me about you though. Come on in. Name’s Luke, by the way” the man said as he walked inside, motioning for the pair to follow him with his free hand.

Following Luke with Sara through the simple entryway, Caleb noticed a stack of newspapers on top of a small wooden table; they were issues of the Eagletown Enquirer. The top paper’s date was from a few days after he left town, the headline was “Young Child Missing” and it was accompanied by a detailed drawing of himself.

Animal Crossing RP Idea

@c3p-0h @IvoryKeys Thank you for the interest! And welcome to Roleplayer Guild Ivory.

Animal Crossing RP Idea

I might be interested. I’m guessing this is played like the games with a murder mystery attached?

Are we playing as Animals or Humans?

@Crimson Flame

Yeah, pretty much. The goal here isn't to be some super powerful guy who can jump over buildings, you're just an average person. You can be an animal or a human, it just depends on what sounds the most fun to you.