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Another ginormous poll because I love polls. Anyway! The Character Concepts You'd Like to Try thread has gotten me thinking about this topic. I don't think there's any arguing that characters with any kind of disability are underrepresented in RP, and I'd like to talk about that! Why do you think disabled characters are so uncommon? Why do people shy away from plotting and posting with disabled characters? If you've played one before, what made you decide to play them? What was your experience with them like? How did other people react to the character? What challenges did you face? Was the experience rewarding for you? How so? If you've not played a disabled character before- why not? Is there anything we can do to increase the representation of disabled characters (outside of 'make more!')? I think that characters with disabilities are uncommon because people are concerned about portraying it accurately, and sometimes it can be hard to find the right information on certain issues. But I think that a large contributing factor to the lack of disabled characters is the fact that people are very concerned about their characters being likable and about getting plots with a character. That's understandable, as RP is a hobby that relies on other people, and if no one else is posting with you then you're not going to be having any fun. I'm not really sure where the stigma on plotting and playing with disabled characters comes from, though. I guess a lot of people are into romance in their RPs, and for whatever reason don't think that disabled characters could ever be considered attractive????????????? I'm just taking a stab in the dark here, since romance is never the point of my RP and I don't really know. I've never avoided plotting with a disabled character because I think they can provide challenges- which are fun! The disabled character that was not my own that I played with most recently had been severely messed up by the mob, and had even had her poor eyes poked out. My character fell in love with her almost immediately, not because of how she looked, but because he greatly admires strength and perseverance and there really is no better way to say "fuck you" to the people who fucked you up other than going out and making a life for yourself, which Miss Eyeless did. My guy thought that was really great and was just smitten from the get go because he felt he could only aspire to be that tough and was amazed that anyone could be as tough as her. I've played characters with disabilities before as well. Most recently, I played a Templar Knight who lost both an arm and a leg as the result of a fight, which meant that he could no longer fight (of course). This loss happened ICly, so it was a wild ride while he tried to cope with the fact that the thing he was born to do and had done all his life was a thing he couldn't do anymore. There was a whole storm of emotions to go through and deal with, and it was really interesting to see parts of his social circle fall away, and how other characters came to help repair it. It was fun to have him try and figure a way around his disability as well, as he's never been the type to be content to have other people taking care of him and has always had a clever mind for inventing things. It was INCREDIBLY STRESSFUL to write about and whenever I had to write with him he was always kind of simmering in anger, but I'm glad I got to go through that experience with him (even if he's not LOL) because I got to see a whole different side of him and the RP he was in. It made me think on my toes and stretch muscles I hadn't used before. Aside from playing more disabled characters, I think that there needs to be more information provided on them. The RP community has a great wealth of information and experiences on these matters within it, I'm sure. At some point in our lives, all of us have probably known someone with some sort of disability. For example, my mom is legally blind, so I know a lot about the problems that blind people face even though I'm not blind myself. It could be of help if I wrote some information about that in a guide or something, so other people can use my experiences in their RP. The reason I've not done this before is simply because I literally didn't think of that until right this very second LOL. But I'll add that to my list of things to do.

Recently, I happened upon a roleplay forum that caught my eye. I liked the mood, I liked the staffing style, I liked the creativity, and I thought the skin was cool, even though it wasn't the current style or wasn't very complicated. Even though it wasn't something I'd normally join, I felt drawn to it and I admit I lurked for hours and hours just basking in its light, reading, exploring, etc. Has anyone ever felt like that? Not so much that a board is cool or neat or that you like it, but that you find it irresistable. That something about it just makes it feel like it is calling to you personally.

I've thought about this topic in the past, and knowing it's probably common amongst roleplayers, I looked through three pages on here to make sure it wasn't already touched upon. Seeing as how this thread was created - you now witness my poor research results. Anyway, Open Threads. For something so inviting it sure is hard to drag people into them. Seriously, you'd think they'd lap up the opportunity to get their new or half-used character some fresh interaction, but no. They gotta be snobs about it. Okay, that last part was a bad joke, but really - has it always been so hard. I've only been writing for a short amount of time, so I'm really unaware if this is singular to some communities or just forum-wide. So far, I've only experienced the prior. If you don't go out of your way to come up with the idea, explicitly state the thread is private and then make the most extra post - nobody and I mean, nobody, puts in a lick of effort. But why not? To me, an open thread means limitless opportunity. Well, less limited to a private and static one. Your character could stumble upon valuable allies and travel into other - possibly also open - threads, which would make an already interesting interaction that much better. Plotting would be ten times easier too due to all the connections they could have made. In just two or three threads no less!! So, dear members, I ask you: 1. Do you like or dislike open threads? Why? 2. Do you go out of your way to find them or just jump in when you see one? Or do you just outright avoid them? 3. Do you feel open threads limit you? Why or why not? And finally, 4. Are people in your community (s) willing to join in on open threads? Is it not a forum wide thing like I initially thought? Note: using a tablet, will fix spelling errors later.

I don't know how common a problem this is but It absolutely drives me insane, and particularly right now. I'm a pretty lenient admin, so if someone misses something then I just shoot them a PM, let them know and wait for them to fix it. I'm probably a little too lenient because I will do this several times. Especially on a new site when I'm trying to build a member base I want to be accommodating and helpful. But what do you do when a member is blatantly either ignoring or not understanding the simplest rules? Example: The number one rule on my sites is 1. Registration. Please register each character an account as Firstname Lastname just like that. NO OCC/ALIAS accounts. Applications must be completed as coded. I had a member who registered with an Alias account. They posted their application under the alias account. They included our 'rules phrase' in their application indicating they'd read the rules so I PMed them quoting the rule. Given them the benefit of the doubt that they just might not understand, I even wrote it out for them indicating Alias accounts weren't allowed, that we had a section in the mini profile for the alias, so could they please correct the user name to their characters full name 'insert me writing example of the character's fullname' (not their nickname) because there was also section in the mini-profile where the nickname can be indicated.So they 'corrected' their name but instead just to the characters one-word nickname. So I had to PMed them again and basically reiterate the same point a second time. Eventually, they got it right, and it was more or less fine (except they're using a different alias than the one they're listed so I'm kind of confused about that) Then, same member asked 'Can we used another site's application template and just post it here' again... I pointed back to rule #1 Fourth time's the charm? Member has now posted a new application, for a canon character for the site. Except they posted the application under their current character's account instead of creating a new account. So this is literally the Fourth time I've had to direct them back to our First rule in a couple weeks. Am I being a total pushover? XD

I think this would be a nifty thing to do every month. As the month goes along, chatting about site accomplishments - Boards hitting X amount of posts, successful plots, happy site-family moments, whatever you consider "important" to your board/your members. Post multiple times, drag your members in to post, brag about stupid things! Whatever strikes your fancy. Cry Wolf hit 33k posts this month! We also trapped another one of the "I'm done making characters" members into another character. xD

In the rp I run, most of the group has characters with a similar personality albeit very different background circumstances and/or augments, magic powers, etc. Do you prefer to have a character similar to yourself or not? I'd love to know why you would want to have a different personality in a character and how you achieve good results with said changes.

So I brought this up brief in the Pet Peeve section but wanted to elaborate on it more and see if anyone else had ever encountered it because frankly this is my first experience with it and I'm totally shocked that any writer would think that this normal. The issue was this, people who change their characters history (as they see fit) in a way that completely contradicts everything they've previously been writing. I have no issue with 'surprises' like oh you thought you were a single fun-loving bachelor oh shit, your ex actually had your kid and you just found out. That's fun or w/e but these were blatant contradictions totally changing the character's history I find that extremely annoying and confusing. Especially when it messes up what's already happened between other characters on the board. In this case it's two staff members making these blatant contradictory changes together and then blind siding other members/characters by suddenly changing up their character history/adding things to their pasts that they previous stated in thread/site canon that they didn't have expecting other member’s characters to be aware of what’s going on. It’s like they’re trying to use a plot twist tool and doing it all wrong it’s like … The Right Way: Chance was raised as only child, his entire life and personality has been defined by this fact. He never knew his father, and his mother never really talked about it, so it was just the two of them. Years later, he runs into a man who he eventually realizes is his half-brother. He is shocked by this revelation and those in his life begin to find out only as he starts to come to terms with it. The Wrong Way: Chance has talked again and again about never having any siblings or a father, just him and his mom against the world until she died. It’s his entire life he’s just on his own now, it defines his character. He tells everyone in his life (and in threads) he has no siblings, no father, and that his mom’s dead. Two weeks later, Chance is hanging out with his miraculous brother at thanksgiving dinner with their happily married parents and then is getting angry at other characters for not knowing about these people in his life. They’re doing it the wrong way. As if that wasn’t annoying enough in this situation they are ‘in character’ are berating my character for not knowing these things about them when the character would have no way of knowing. It’s like they’re expecting you to metagame which is another shock. How are they supposed to know if they weren’t there or if they weren’t told, or if they were previously told the opposite? RP is supposed to be fun but I also write as a career so I take my story building/character development very seriously. I treat every forum/board as if it’s a novel and my character is on a journey within this world. I would never blatantly contradict anything in their past because it’s convenient or I felt like it because I have too much respect for my fellow writers and their efforts. It’s not fun to suddenly have everything you worked toward just tossed out as if it’s nothing. I think of like... imagine reading Harry Potter, knowing the whole time Harry Potter's parents are dead. Last book starts with Harry's parents sending him off to school with no mention of the fact that they had been dead, written as if they're been there the whole time but we're all supposed to pretend like this is normal/canon. I’m just curious to hear others experiences/thoughts on this.

What are your thoughts on RPing sensitive content? Do these sorts of things need warning tags in all threads? For example, let's say that you're playing a character who had unfortunate childhood experiences. It doesn't come up every post, but it comes up occasionally through narrative and maybe dialogue. But the point is that it's not like woah hey obvious content that needs a warning. It's subtle. And let's assume this is a run-of-the-mill RP. It's not a G-rated fantasy land, but it's not an anything goes, NC-17 RP.

Hi there! I find it interesting and fun to incorporate quirks and habits into my posts. I think it helps flesh out the moment and the character. However, I sometimes struggle with the best and natural way to slip them in. How do you manage to showcase your character's habits within a post without it being distracting to the overall writing?

In the affiliate friendship thread, the topic of poaching was touched on, and I kinda wanted to explore it in a little more detail. First off, how do you define it? I mean, most RPers I know run multiple characters in multiple games, so where's the line between recruitment and poaching? Second, are you worried about people doing it to you/your games? Do you do it to others? If so, what do you do to try to prevent it, or what have others done to try to stop you? My phone is being super cranky for some reason, so I'll answer as a reply. I guess I see poaching as a malicious form of recruitment. Where instead of saying something like 'I think you'd like my game too, you should check it out if you have time' it's more like 'what are you doing with these losers, my site's so much better. Ditch them and join me' sometimes with a side order of bribery with a special promise of power, class/rank, or something unique to the player only. The star trek fleet I used to play in, before going independent, seemed to think that mentioning the existence of another fleet to any of the current fleet players was poaching. While I don't really agree with that, there is a fine line that I've seen crossed, where a player was trying to convince players of one fleet to start helping out with admin stuff in another fleet they weren't part of. This only really crossed the line because fleets are a gathering of many games together to share resources, so most players tend to stick to one fleet, and committing to staff level stuff is usually only done for a fleet the player belongs to. Overall, I don't worry too much about it. If a player is happy in my game, most poaching efforts aren't going to be successful. On the other hand, if someone is unhappy, or I need to go to unusual lengths to recruit them, I'd rather not have them. Chasing unhappy players isn't a good use of my time, I'd rather focus on things that benefit all my players. And if someone is willing to ditch another game in a malicious manner, I can't help but wonder if they'll do the same to my game when they get bored. Overall, I don't worry if my players choose to talk about other games in my chat, and I do on occasion talk about my affiliates. Though if someone showed up in my chat who isn't in my game, and starts talking about their game instead of mine, I might get irked and ask them to stop.

So I know this can be a sensitive topic for a lot of people so I want to be clear that this isn't here to offend anyone I want to see honest opinions on how it's treated and whatnot and how you feel about the ways it's been treated. So there are plenty of ways out there that gender is in roleplay I've seen many a SJW rant about fairness and all that however I don't know, personally, what is the most acceptable thing now. For the most part I know that people identify with one gender or the other or completely opt out of gender (which I think is non-binary) which makes things easy, you have male, female and non-binary. However I'm not sure that it would work all the way. I've seen gender switched to Gender Pronouns, She/Her, He/Him, They/Them which I think is helpful I guess but I don't know if it is the appropriate way or if there even is one. So questions are what do you do about gender in your roleplay or how do you like to see gender displayed in roleplay?

I have been working on a roleplay concept that appears somewhat novel, but I feel utterly stuck with how to go about it. But I don't really want to talk about that. Instead, I want to talk about the concept of pushing your ideas out from little baby thoughts to full-grown things. Maybe it's a site concept, a site feature, a character, or a character plot. What are some of the things that you do, or that you find helpful, in order to get that particular meal idea from ingredients, into the oven, and out as a new, fresh, entirely-baked idea, ready to eat?

So some people use the term muse and that's interchangeable with being blocked or not (writer's block that is). When you have muse you are unblocked and when you don't then you are blocked. I know many people don't like the word muse so I just want to explain what I mean here before I continue. I may use the terms interchangeably. So that being said, I recently got a lot of inspiration for any idea that I've been blocked on for a while but I have so much inspiration I'm blcoked. I have no idea how to put the inspiration into words. Sadly it's also blocking me from any other writing that I'm doing. I'll sit here and focus on something else and write it and my mind will wander back to where I'm the most inspired and just sit back at my black. Have any of you experienced this and how did you focus yourself enough to really get unblocked and get back into your grove?

The question is simple. This can be what drew you to make your own forum as well but this is primarily as a member. What drew you to the forum(s) that you are on now? For me? It was a wanted ad. It happened to have a PB that I use frequently (Lena Headey) that drew me to read the ad and I picked it up. It actually ended up being a mistake to pick up said wanted ad because the two people it was wanted for ended up leaving the site within the next month and I had to ret-con her so that she was no longer related to said characters but the site is still awesome.

How do you guys feel about Offsite Lore and board related information? I know some boards have facebook pages, or twitters, that pretty much handle newsfeed type stuff and tags. But has anybody tried things like, a "Hype Blog", using a Wikia account to map Original Content (like location information etc), etc. Rather than clogging up a whole board with a ton of lore threads that end up looking kind of overwhelming at a certain point.

What are some special features or unique concepts that you have seen in a roleplay? Maybe you thought it was neat, maybe you tried it and loved it, maybe it just made an impression, or maybe that you still remember as 'wow!' ? -- I'll start! Personalized comfort zones A site I played on once had a form that every player filled out asking a little bit about yourself, but what it was really after was to help you convey if you had any areas that you would be uncomfortable roleplaying with, as well as spots to list triggers and the like. Some people did list triggers, but I just remember the gentle air of kindness that these had. Writing challenges One site would find an inspirational picture and let people post stories about it, whether it involved their characters or original ones. Another site (the one above), had a list of questions/themes that you could pick out and the goal was to write one each day for 30 days. On days that the site was slow, this was great to do, and watching others draw near to completing their challenges was always inspiring. It also helped on days when you just didn't feel like roleplaying, getting the inspiration to write up and running in your blood.

When I was younger and in the rp community I had a tendency to make my characters mirror myself, with only minor changes to give them their own breath of life. At times I'd make them into who I want to be, at other times they'd become who I'd never EVER want to be. I had enemies and lovers and friends all crafted after my own ideals and personality traits. After awhile, I always grew bored with them. They felt far too predictable, two dimensional, and overall no fun to write after a month or three. Recently I've been analyzing my own characters now, both past versions of them and present. I noticed that eight years later I do the exact opposite. I try to include as little of myself as possible, and give them an entirely different set of traits, goals, and even responses than myself. Different from being a complete opposite...but not too far off from becoming one with a tad bit more charrie devs. I'm usually more surprised with these, but I also end up disliking them to a certain extent - even wanting to see my own characters suffer more, as well as being much more willing to throw them into risky situations. So with that, I wanted to ask you guys; Do you think it's more character-productive (for lack of better words) to make a character holding some of your traits or ideals, or make a character without them and watch them grow on their own with little sway as to what you - the creator wants? How do you draw the line between clone and chaotic? Can you still predict your character if it's a Chaotic one, or do you feel surprised by clones despite putting a lot of yourself in them? How on earth do you keep yourself from getting bored with either after a period of months...?

So, how diverse is your cast? I speak not only of skin color or origin, but also gender (or lack thereof), sexuality, age, religion, occupation, personality, and even species. There's a lot of different kinds of diversity, after all! Do you tend to make characters that share the same set of traits? What can you do to increase the diversity of your characters? Why is diversity in RP important (or not important) to you? I lean strongly towards making male characters in the age range of 30 - 50. I simply prefer males to females, and that's the age range that typically allows for the most flexibility in most of the settings I play in. It's also not uncommon for those characters to be an enforcer of something- either of the law, religion, or even the enforcer for a criminal organization. That all being said, I also REALLY enjoy playing characters that are very young (as in fifteen or younger) and very old characters (seventy or older). On most sites where I play more than one character, they tend to be about the third I make. I like to put these characters in positions that allow for a lot of surprise as they grow and eventually show their cards, because children and the elderly are pretty consistently underestimated. In certain settings, I also really enjoy playing characters whose genders are basically decided for them by their profession. For example, in one game series, anyone of any sex can join the military but they are automatically considered to be men, then. It's fun to play an anatomical female in that position- or one who has left that life, but hasn't known anything different and has the chance to learn about femininity (if they choose). There's not a common ethnicity, religion, or sexuality for my characters. I suppose it can be said that I often play characters of a certain personality "type," but I tend to play what is needed and that's often bad guys- so I play a lot of those. In order to increase the diversity of my cast, I tend to look at what I currently have the most of on a site and then consciously make the polar opposite of that for a new character. If I'm playing all males, for example, I will absolutely make a female as my next character. If I'm playing a bunch of grunts, I'll create someone who's the brain instead of the brawn. If I'm playing too many clever characters, I'll make an airhead. You get the picture. Diversity of characters is important to me not only because I like to see a lot of different kinds of people represented, but also because the more diverse my own characters are, the wider range of plots and stories I get to write with other people. I like to have lots of different kinds of opportunities, and there's no better way to make that happen than by having a very diverse bunch of characters!

Have you ever sat around, doing your RPing and come back to reality and found....you started acting like your character? This isn't just pinned to sitting upright for a character who is more proper or anything...but more... I have a character, she's a vegetarian (she'll eat fish). The other day, I went grocery shopping, tried some new stuff and realized...I really like eating vegetarian...oh god I'm my character! Please tell me I'm not alone on this...

Imagine you have an old friend. Years spent together. In recent months, Friend is taking longer & longer with replies. Imagine a month+ between replies. Friend regularly throws in the I Have the Flu excuse. They're online every day, but haven't been vocal about your 'ship/role-play for a long time, UNLESS they see you playing with others, and you can feel their jealousy/envy across the seven seas. Friend doesn't chat anymore; gossip, discourse, headcanons. What do you do with Friend? I have 4 in-progress role-plays; one hasn't been acknowledged since Halloween. The Main RP has taken nearly a year; hasn't finished yet. I've reached the end of my rope, and about ready to send a note saying I'm shelving the lot because I feel like I'm being taken for granted, and if Friend was anyone else (or I was someone else), I would have flaked, myself, a long time ago. I feel hurt and used, TBPH. I'm patient AF but I still have limits.

So something that is huge for me, I hate apps! I hate looking at them. Thinking about them. Maneuvering through them to find what bits go where. I blame it on laziness but really I just want to jump in and PLAY! That being said I know that I have a basic formula for creating apps. From personality to appearance it's almost like it's math but with words. Character name is XX tall with a blank figure..... It's not always the same per character but the same details come across in every character in very similar ways. My question for you is, do you have a method to your madness? Do you have a specific way that you write your apps especially when you're tired of writing them? Do you always write your apps in the same way or are they unique to each character? For me they are all very similar for each character. The character themselves, the way they are played and think are unique but their resume is basically the same for all of them.

My friend and I are creating the matriarchs of a family of elementals, and I've been a bit stumped on the name of mine. The surname is Cardinale, and they are of Italian descent. The face I want to use is Carolina Sanchez, and she's going to have power over water as a naiad. We've narrowed the names down to Carmina, Liana, and Narcisa. We've tested them on How to Pronounce, and they all sound great, but I can't choose!

Hello everyone. So, I run a Dragonball Z RPG. I use the word RPG because it's actually a game. Maybe more like a freeform RP/tabletop game hybrid. We use a dice rolling plugin on the forum to roll for attacks and deal damage. You have character sheets and can progress by gaining points. The battle system is very much a modified version of the D20 system, made to better suit the feel of Dragonball's intense and ridiculous fights. I notice not a lot of sites out there are games. More just places to write collaborative fiction? How do you feel about sites with game mechanics? Is it a turn of or is it something you've wished to see. Thanks for sharing!

So, a friend and I have been working on a whole new futuristic sci-fi site for over a year. It has a lot of content that requires people to read, and I'm afraid it's scaring people away (even though we did include a newbie guide that includes tl;dr stuff). We had out soft opening about a week ago, and we did our grand opening not that long ago. However, it seems that no one is interested. We have four staffers at the moment and we all talk in the C-Box in hopes that guests might pop in and talk. No one has even tried to talk. I've advertised everywhere I could think of, including site searches and whatnot... Are worlds this descriptive just a turn off for new members? We've put a lot of effort into this site, and I really don't want it to go to waste.

The old saying is "Write what you know?" Isn't it? But that's not true, is it? One of the joys of roleplay is being in settings you would never have the hope of being in, and seeing that environment change. But, hey, lets face it, I don't know how how to fly a spaceship or how to fight with a sword, so what do I do? I go to the internet and read up about it, and I know a bunch of you guys do too. But what weird places has your character's interests taken you? For me, I've been reading about 18th century literature, cold fusion and virus replication.