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Bending Nation

  1. 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.
  2. After a discussion with @Gothams Reckoning here, I told him that a discussion about staffing a site is more suitable in the forum. I think, ultimately, it is a matter of preference and control. Some want to share, some want to keep all control for themselves. I want to share. I knew sites with only one administrator and one moderator (or no moderator at all) which were doing well, and sites with several who were doing well. And the same thing for the same numbers, who weren't doing well. I think it is a matter of investment in the story. Sharing the duties and sharing the fun is the best, so that nobody gets tired or overwhelmed. A site having a few core people invested in it from the beginning, has activity which lures other members to join and has the chance to last more, because it has already a core of interested/ enthusiastic people. And this is what I am needing, in general, first and foremost. A second (or third) staff member is needed because hopefully people don't get busy at the same time, because then there is a serious problem among the staff... I think that two people staffing a site can write among themselves and create activity until others join. It is also wonderful when there is one staff member in an opposite timezone, to be there when the other isn't. Staffing a RPG is a volunteering job, which shouldn't take all one's free time. Also, if somebody doesn't want to do a certain task (such as advertising or commenting on bios) nobody can force her to, as long as she contributes with other needed tasks. And I think that involving more people, with more focused responsibilities, avoids burn-out and, at the same time, helps with the community spirit (being invested, a feeling of belonging, of ownership... of being important and meaningful, something like this enhances motivation to help.) Sometimes, when my staff is busy, I feel overwhelmed with doing too much myself and not receiving enough feedback, at least (when I would have preferred concrete help too, not only feedback). Sometimes it feels lonely that I don't have even to whom to ask an opinion (timezones adding to it, but not only this) and I think this is the worst part. They all know that I’ll manage somehow, I always do – but for how long? Everybody sees the site survives without their help… but I am always saying that I need help, because I really feel I shouldn't do it alone! And if everyone pitched in, nobody would feel tired and overwhelmed, because it would be little to do for everyone. Many people judge the number of staff only from the point of view of the number of members, and think that staff duty is only to approve bios and to update lists, needing access to the control panels. There is so much which gets overlooked - the research, the plots, the creation of events.... And we are all people who have a life outside the board too, one wouldn't need to get overwhelmed with duties. A few responsibilities that one can perform while still having time to write. The number of staff shouldn't depend on the number of characters and members, because there are sites for which, no matter how many members/ characters are there, the staff has certain tasks to perform anyway. Or even more tasks if there aren't too many characters/ members, because they have to replace /complement for the missing ones too (eg NPC-ing their role). I found that most tasks have to be done when the site has 4 members equally as when it has 30 members, and most of them don't even require access to panels (except the coding and graphics staff, who of course needs access to administration panel). One needs writing NPCs, researching, leading stories, writing chronicles and lore., no matter how many or how few members you have. And mostly this is what I need help with/ sharing tasks with. You said also why not members? I would have loved if all members wanted to help as if they were staff, everyone with what they love doing: some with advertising, some with leading a thread or another, some with writing NPCs, some with writing articles for the monthly chronicle. And at the same time, if people want to help, why not be appointed as staff, in charge with the thing they want to help, just to make it official and their work recognized? This doesn't mean access at the control panel. It means their names listed among the staff, eventually (not necessarily) the names on a different colour, or a title below them.
  3. I like Discord. @Morrigan taught me to like it. I would like to implement it on my site too, but I wonder if I should do it or not, when neither the c-box is active enough on certain days. Strangely our members aren't very keen on communicating. Some because they aren't online at the same time with the others, and in the rare occasions when it happens, they are talking. Some are talking with me in e-mails or on FB messenger but not with the others. Some others even might have never talked in the c-box and they post on invisible - and not because they had any quarrell or bad experience with communicating with the other members here (on previous sites they had been on, I can't know). They are simply and obviously here to write and not to socialize at all. When in need of a PM to clarify something about a thread, they can talk, of course. Of course I would like it to be different, to encourage the members to talk more together, about the site, plot and characters but about life in general too... however I think in my particular case Discord is not a solution. It won't change anything and it will remain unused. I don't know how to encourage them to talk more even in the c-box, because I guess this has to come from inside, and no outside incentive can work.
  4. So I have a Courtesan in the making who is flat out enjoying the hell out of role playing with his clients...in a role play! ^.^ Like right now he is taking one and they are pretending they are Freki and Fenrir and totally hunting and fucking like crazy. I love it. How many of you have done this? Would this count as breaking the 4th wall??
  5. I had an interesting guest in the cbox the other day saying that someone from DF (who used to staff for me?) Told them that I would be better for her as she wrote too violently for their board. I'm not sure how I feel about this. All of my violent threads are tagged and moved to the mature board, but damn it they were pirates and I'm sure as heck not going to stop them, but now I'm getting a reputation? Anything like this happen to you while running a board?
  6. Aw, I checked and we had one of these before but it's super old and locked now sooo, have a new one! Give us some memorable and favorite character quotes!
  7. Roleplay has ruined movies for me. Suspension of disbelief is still there, but when a story is bad it drives me absolutely batty. There I am, watching this movie. I'm into the characters or the plot, maybe both. Doesn't matter because all of a sudden the story goes dumb. Really dumb. For example, has anyone seen Expendables 2? Really the point of the Expendables movies was to blow stuff up and give us the 80's action movie experience all over again. Lots of beef old movie giants battling for cool points. They don't just have boats or planes. They have Boat-planes. Tattooes, guns, cars, trucks, motorcycle gang, knife wielding, dart boards, manliness... It's just that kind of movie. Fueled by testosterone and meant to be enjoyed for nostalgia. Still, the story wasn't bad. Sort of. The story was good as long as there was no schwarzenegger, Willis, or Chuck Norris. It was as if they wrote this great story then cut a chunk out and duck taped in a quick scene for Chuck Norris jokes. At one point There is this guy who knows his chemistry. He's supposed to be the idiot of the story (the actor actually has a degree in chemistry, I might add). At this one instance nobody believes it was going to work. They are trapped in a cave that has no way out, and he is going to blast through the wall using things he found there with them like macgyver is his spirit animal. What a great scene it would be if it worked. It SHOULD HAVE Worked. That would have been great story telling. Instead the movie editors are like 'time for a schwarzenegger scene'. Snip snip tape. It doesn't work and here comes good old mister terminator on a big digging machine. This was a place one of their men died trying to get. This was a place the badguy had spent years looking for. It couldn't be detected or found and yet without contact this dude finds it. It blew my story telling mind right out of suspended disbelief. Since then, when i see stupidity in stories I find myself calling them out. I can't watch a movie anymore without looking for the plot issues then thinking how it could have been improved. Being a roleplayer for so many years has really made me picky with story. I can see when there are hic-ups, and it drives me crazy. Does anyone else have this problem?
  8. So I was thinking of making it so bio forms can only be done by the OOC account of a site rather then being done by the character account, then wondered if this would count as a turn off, or even if another site has done it before, whether it was successful or not? I mean I can see pros and cons of doing it this way (but for me the pros outweigh the cons!) Pros - Easier to see how many characters a person plays if its all off their OOC account Easier to 'prove' who the character belongs to on the board (and to find who to discipline should someone have stolen a character) Easier to track who does make and run bios (those people who may post with a character 3 or so times and then poof onto the next idea) Cuts out the need for having a 'whos who' list Cons - Bio no longer linked onto the character account (could be overcome by using the signature space to link to the bio) I'd love other peoples thoughts though
  9. I admit I am confronted with an activity problem on my nearly six years old site. Most of the sites have one, at a moment or another. I feel it is something wrong with the very slow pace we have progressed with this year, and with people posting, instead of each week, only 1-2 times a month. In one year of writing, we have covered only two story months. In other years, there were three to six story months for a year of writing. If a quicker pace was possible before, and it created more enthusiasm for "the next episode" of the story, why it isn't possible now anymore? I think some people lose interest because the writing partners take too long to post. I am trying my best to stimulate people to write and be inspired, with everything I can, but it seems I am the only one doing it - and sometimes it feels damn lonely on my own site. This is when I get pessimistic and I think that nobody else cares about it, while I am giving all my best to the story and the community. It feels as one-sided as I am losing inspiration for stories I loved writing. I think this is my main problem, especially that I know this site used NOT to be like this. The community was bubbly, involved, there were people of all speeds, and the stories were written quicker... Now, they are disenfranchising from us by simply not posting and not being anymore part of our WRITING community. Being active means being connected to the community. If we, each of us, no longer feel like putting in the effort, then we have made the conscious decision to let our site die. I am always willing to make this effort, but I can't do it alone. And, unfortunately, not recognizing that we have an activity problem means not seeking consciously solutions, both within ourselves and all together. The inactivity is the problem, at the whole board level. And instead of being stimulated to be more active when others aren't, each one is complacent that "the others haven't posted either, I can procrastinate as well." Some do not even acknowledge it is a problem for the site, in order to seek solutions - both inside them and together with the others. When we can't get more writers (because, let's admit, older sites seem to be less attractive for newcomers, despite the reassurance that they are more established and less prone to disappear in a whim), the solution to keep going on is to be more active ourselves - and it is a collective endeavour. A person alone can't bring the needed activity, when the story is collective, needing various crews. Being needed is a nice feeling, and it should be one more motivating reason to find inspiration and time. (This is exactly why I am always writing more for others than alone; because I know that other people are waiting for the "next round"). I am thinking ”My posts are needed, people are waiting for me, so I’ll make time as soon as I can”. (Which may mean instead of watching a movie or of doing something else which is for free time). When I am sad, bored or tired of numbers or of drama in real world, I am starting to write, in order to get immersed in a different world. And I keep writing. But if one person not posting, doesn't lead to inactivity and site dying, when most persons on a small site aren't posting, the 2-3 who do... can they really make a significant difference, no matter how often they post? Because it is just a little part of the plots, and usually not the important ones, which get forward, and the others get waiting and waiting. I have seen this elsewhere in the past. Sites once busy, then one left, another stopped posting, if those two weren't anymore, others stopped posting too, either waiting for the others' posts, or just because - and in 2 months the site was a ghost town. And it is something which would naturally lead to the death of the site, if nobody stops it somehow. But how to stop it? What more can I do in order to make the plot running smoother, better? I really am trying my best. And maybe from here a big part of the lonely feeling... Don Quijote fighting windmills, misunderstood by the people around? I do care - about our writing community together, writing because this is what gathered us together. I can't do everything in this world, but I am doing as much as I can, and I am searching for what else to do in order to keep the community together, to keep the story going. And nobody else admits that inactivity might be a problem. I understand people being busy for a while and people having lost interest (in writing in general or in this story in special). It doesn't mean I am not regretting their good characters, their writing style, their warm presence and their interesting ideas. I do. But I know I can't fight something which belongs inside each person. If they don't have motivation from inside, to write, I can't give it to them with any outside intervention. And, in exchange, I start losing mine if my writing partners don't care about the story anymore, because I feel I am doing everything in vain, for no readers and no writing partners.
  10. Do you think that the NPCs that were created as cannon fodder for a plot (not the reoccuring ones) should be as fleshed out as the reoccurring, permanent NPCs or as the played characters? Somebody said : "We stop treating them like human characters by admitting that they are only temporary characters not worth being fully fledged. That does create very one dimensional characters who are just here to die. They were made to be evil and their good qualities were never even considered because the plot didn't need a family man who sought to earn a living for his children by doing bad deeds. Our plot needed one dimensional villains whom no one would feel bad about murdering. What if they were just doing this because their bosses had them under control via blackmail? How then would our characters have felt killing them or voting in favour of killing them? How many of our writers would have been in favour of going down this path if the lives that were taken were more than just an evil figure with no personality or significant history?" Do you agree with this opinion? Or do you think that cannon fodder characters are needed too (on both sides) besides fleshed characters? And that this deep digging into the villains' personalities would have been worth for writing a different story, one from the villains' perspectives, but not the ongoing one, where they weren't the subject of the story but more... the flavour of the quest?
  11. It seems that people have interest in writing only certain characters, or only certain aspects of the characters' lives, while a story implies writing several character types in several circumstances which make sense for their lives. E.g. a Navy officer has in the story not only the role to charm ladies at a party, but mainly to take part in battles or to lead work scenes as well... to show only a few aspects. He should interact also with his superiors, with allied officers, he can lead an exploring team, enforce the law under his competence, etc. And among the Navy officers, if they were chosen for example, there can be (and should be) a diversity of personalities as well: the ambitious perfectionist, the drunkard/ gambler who can be blackmailed or can blackmail others into betrayal or extorsion, the womanizer (or soft lover, because he can be sincere too) who spills a secret to his lover by mistake, the one wh o isn't professionally good but he has the right upbringing and patronnage and power thirst in order to advance stepping on corpses.... So if the story needs these aspects/ scenes/ characters and nobody else is willing to write them... somebody has to. We are all here, first and foremost, to write an interesting story together, immersing ourselves in the right setting through this. it seems I will always be this 'someone', because I could never say/ think 'I have no interest in writing this character/ scene.' if it is a part of the story i love and it makes sense in our setting, then I should clearly do all research and everything possible to make the story happen. ...And this is how some people get with more temporary characters than others, and with writing for more NPCs than others who don't have interest in them or who see them less of a character because they have less writing time. They aren't less. There had been a while when I was regretting everything others didn't do, just because I was convinced that, since i am writing with others, everything should be shared. Now I don't care anymore about this, neither about other people's rants that people shouldn't have so many characters or NPCs. They are there because they are needed in the story and nobody else was willing to write them. That's all, folks. Somebody has to do it in order to have a well-rounded story, a well-rounded portrayal of the world we are writing about.
  12. Okay, aside from the $1mil I need, there are some other things that I'd dearly love that are role play related. This seems like a good post to start it off on! Time. Like seriously, can I just be Piper from Charmed and stop time to do rp stuff in the middle of my day? Because I think that's the only way it'll happen. Time. It gets a second one because it's that damn important. A Star Trek rpg. Like, Deep Space Nine. I love my Cardassians, and my Vorta (sexy little bastards). Doctor Who role play, preferably Nine's era. Because I love my 9. Time. Did I mention that one already? Benedict Cumberbatch. I just want him, period. A new house (that's not part of this, and it's more of a need, but I thought I'd throw it in there in case any of you have a spare one floating around. Beachfront works for me.) Sherlock Holmes. A sexy beast that man is. A great rp it would be, I am certain. To be able to talk like Yoda at will. I think I can type like him, maybe? A Harry Potter rpg. I want to ship Snape and my OFC. Seriously. Another Star Trek set after the latest new movie. Khan should be involved. And why? I refer you to 6.
  13. So lately, I've redone a site of mine and got some friends to join, but it's not really picking up. It sucks when people join and then sort of vanish when they say they will stick around, so that threw me off a bit because now the site is so quiet. It's not like I want a bunch of members, but it's always hard to even find a few active ones who can post every once or twice a week. So my question is: what do you guys do and how do you go about handling advertising a site and bringing the right people in? Because I know sometimes it's hard to tell whether or not a person who joins will stick around.
  14. A "member" (I'll call them C) of my site shows up fairly infrequently (their last login was June 21st) and each time they do they generally don't stick around long. (Maybe a day or two at most.) That by itself is kinda irksome simply because we can't really rely on them for anything. (It's hard to include them in posts or anything because they're not around much. And, personally, I don't feel like holding everything up if I can help it simply because they weren't around. Nor do I feel like chasing them around letting them know it's their turn/they can post or whatever. I have other things I have to do and that isn't one of them. They're an adult, if they want to be a part then they need to check in.) C also has a tendency to only really use our chatbox to complain about activity levels. That itself is something I have repeatedly asked people (including C) not to do in our chatbox for the simple reason that it doesn't help. If we're in a slow period (which happens because people are busy and can't post) then mentioning it in the chatbox doesn't help speed things up. It just comes off rude and can actually hamper any attempts to advertise. People are likely to see "no posts" or stuff like that in the chatbox and they click out before even looking at the site (and before they'd even see that posts were made that day or the day before). This especially bothers me when people complaining about activity are the ones who either aren't active themselves or have tendency to vanish. I don't think it's at all acceptable to be complaining about activity if you're not even trying to help out. (Showing up once a month to make maybe one post is not really enough to quality. One post a month is, like, barely there.) I will admit that I've not handled things to the best I could regarding C. I've lost my cool a few times when they've been in the chatbox being obnoxious. One instance they were haranguing a member for details on something and had been told to stop twice. When they pushed the third time I told them in no uncertain terms to stop. Another time I got fed up with their attitude regarding an event and essentially told them if they didn't like how I did things then they could run the next one. There have also been a few other instances in the past which have given me a bit of distaste for them. So now they've visited our chatbox recently and have left a message stating they hoped for activity. (Which, there was some since they last visited and they could within reason make a post to help move things forward. But they didn't.) At this point I'm kind of frustrated and annoyed by C. I've debated with myself a few times what to do about them. I could ban them, it might not be the most fair/justified ban... But I could do it given the evidence and their behaviour. I could ask them to decide whether they're a part of the site or not, and if they are to actually show up and be more active... and if not then to just walk away and not bother wasting our time with these once a month appearances when they can remember we exist. Normally I feel like I have a pretty good handle on most situations and can judge things accurately. But in this particular case I'm feeling like I'm a bit too biased to make a fair decision. So before I take any action I thought it best to seek external thoughts. So then... what should I do?
  15. I had another entry on relationships a while ago. This is a spinoff on it, based on the creative writing articles at http://www.springhole.net/writing/relationships-romance-and-shipping.htm I fully agree with the writer, and I know I have found these concepts before, in other creative writing books and articles. Some of the rules of writing romance are: 1. The characters need to communicate with each other, not only to gaze silently and sigh. To engage their love interest in meaningful conversation. How are they supposed to bond if they don’t even communicate? 2. The characters need to be aware of each other’s emotional needs and boundaries and one shouldn’t hate a major trait of the other (unless willing to overcome that hate, because this is possible too), because one can't actually love a person without accepting what the person actually is. 3. Don’t rush or take shortcuts in showing the relationship develop – show them in detail. Glossing over important relationship developments doesn’t do the story any favour. It makes it impossible for the readers to believe in the characters’ relationship or friendship, because it doesn’t create that emotional experience. 4. Don’t drop in a romance or crush out of nowhere, without a logical explanation and a gradual approach. All these are true - however, how many times one has seen the opposite in their stories? How many times one has picked up somebody's request for a lover... just not having them thread enough together in order to develop said relationship? How many times characters are avoiding effective communication and apply to offscreen shortcuts which make the relationship feel flat? And how many times writers (and therefore characters) vanish mid-story, leaving the other character in the air, and trying the best to glue back the shards into something to allow them to go on? How can a character go on after several such misfortunes, especially if they happen in a short story time? And how believable can be such a progression? Or, by contrary, if seeming unaffected... how it is possible, either? Why don't all the writers keep into consideration the creative writing rules and don't want to keep consistency in their stories?
  16. You say you like your character. OK, then maybe you know that no character development can happen unless you post regularly and get involved with him in the story. That a character grows through interaction with other characters, while doing his duty, while partying or while fighting. There can be (and are recommended to be) individual plots too. But, again, just planning them and not actually writing them doesn't count. He has to be actively part of the story if you want exciting things to happen to him, to grow, to develop, to make friends. Equally, logging in and lurking on the site without actually writing doesn't count; your characters still don't get the development you want. There is no other magic solution than get to actually write.
  17. One hears it so often from RPG partners - "If you don't like it, go write a novel (or fanfiction) instead!" But is this really the solution, instead of talking with the writing partners and finding by negotiation and compromise a solution matching everyone's writing needs, halfway? Writing a novel? Been there, done that (in my mother tongue) - several novel-length stories. (The list is somewhere here, in this blog, but given that it doesn't allow me to past links in words anymore, I give up searching for it. Breaking my blog entry with http links splashed as such isn't an aesthetic I prefer.) And yes, I do finish what I start. But writing a novel is a lonely endeavour. Just me and the computer (or notebooks before) and the research sources. Then, it stays somewhere in a corner of the computer and this is it. If in the past some people were curious to read the manuscript, even when it was handwritten on paper because nobody had a PC (and the existing PCs were writing on colourful cards, not on paper at that time) now people don’t read as much in general, I have noticed this. Since I discovered that RPGs do exist, ie one can write a story together with other people, and get it published on the internet for more people to read it and to discuss about it, I have no more interest in writing alone. (I might return to it some day, I don’t dismiss the possibility. But maybe something would change in order for me to return. Maybe at that moment I’d have around me a support group interested in reading and discussing characters, plots, motives, literary techniques). I like more writing with others instead of writing alone, plotting with others instead of doing it alone, making come true both my stories and the others’, negotiating and finding a midway for aspects where the expectations are radically different, so that it keeps being fun and interesting for all of us, discussing what’s behind the story and the research process, gossiping and discarding several alternatives after choosing the one with the most ripples for the plot. Finding online likeminded friends of any ages, places, cultural, social and national background, interested in writing and reading, when there are none around me. So yes, this is the answer why I wouldn’t write a novel alone, but one with others (a RPG, how writing with others is called) but still applying the rules of creative writing to this writing endeavour, planning included (just planning together, no more alone, and writing together, no more alone).
  18. "...Embrace Chaos." Here, you'll find a collection of my writing, be it poetry or otherwise! Enjoy - - - - - - Table Of Contents "Breathe" - Poetry "See" - Poetry "Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep" - Roleplay Post "Moonlit Sacrifice" - Original Story Part 1 "Death Becomes Her" - Roleplay Post "Silk?" - Roleplay Post "What Dreams May Come" - Roleplay Post
  19. Elena

    Religion

    I understand that not all the characters are religious. However, if a religion is mentioned in a character's bio, one should use it at least a little - even if it means to highlight that he has evolved and doesn't believe anymore, and that his current beliefs aren't the same with the ones he was taught in childhood. Not to have it written in the bio, then act as if it was never mentioned. Why bother then to mention it in the first place? This is twice as valid when it is about somebody hiding his religion. There might be the desire to blend in, to seem unconspicuous and to deliberately not show any trace of the hidden religion. It makes perfect sense - but in the character's thoughts, there has to be this deliberate choice; an inner conflict, from time to time, between what he had been taught initially and what he has to do now. Or minor, delicate little things which still pertain to the hidden religion, even if they can't be directly traced to it. For example, there are two NPCs, one muslim, one Jewish - in a time where Inquisition still existed and... burned. The muslim one still believes in Allah as he had been taught, just that he can't say it in the open. He doesn't pray all 5 times a day, at least not visibly, but he surely says the prayer in his mind when he can. He gets up earlier than the others he lives with, for the ritual ablutions. This means he is cleaner than others, and a little teased for it, but nobody makes the connection between a strange (for that time) desire for cleanliness and religion. He does abstain from eating pork as much as possible; but when he crossed the sea (and not as a passenger) to the colonies, he had to eat what the others did. Salt pork and hard tack was the general menu. As he is isolated from any other Muslims, he doesn't keep any holidays because nobody can tell him when they are (moon-based religious calendar). The Jewish is a sailor; again, he does abstain from eating pork as much as possible; but when at sea, he can't. He eats with the others, so the notions of kashrut had to be forgotten. Even so, I think he'd never mix dairy and meat at the same meal, and he'd prefer drinking strong drinks or ale instead of wine (which, according to kashrut, is sacred and should have been only grown and harvested by Jews according to kashrut provisions). He also doesn't gamble, because he remembers from his bar mitzvah (the only torah studies he had ever done) that it is forbidden. He doesn't know much more than the basics about his own religion, so other precepts he might infringe in good conscience, without knowing. He also tried to avoid medical control aboard the ship whenever he could. At the transfer to a new ship he couldn't anymore, so he trembled what would happen when the doctor would discover the pledge of Abraham carved in his flesh. Fortunately for him, that particular doctor didn't care and didn't report. These aren't much. Just little details to flesh up more a character over time - and taking into account that these are NPCs, even more than needed. But still something to make the characters more rounded and more believable. I wished others would do the same. The Jewish sailor's sister never had a moment of thinking about God, of conflicting thoughts or anything. My Catholic characters, more or less believers, show their religious thoughts (or contempt towards them, for one who doesn't believe anymore). There is one who was once Catholic but turned Anglican because it was bad for business to be Catholic. He isn't much religious of any nature, still there are some inner conflicts within him between what he had learnt in his first school years with the monks and what he is doing now. My point is that if you gave your character a religion, show it a little in his thoughts, deeds or habits.
  20. NIGHTMARE ZERO'S POPULARITY ON THE RISE A recent new video game released at the beginning of this year has gamers from all over Nyxis flocking to play. The video game, which is an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) is set in a fantasy land called Sedna, where players can choose a character from several different classes to explore, fight monsters, interact with other players, and more. The open-ended plot of the game, which involves taking on jobs, fighting monsters against one another, and joining guilds, is said to be a large part of the draw. Read more here!
  21. How Do I RolePlay? The concept behind roleplaying is quite simple. At the most basic, roleplay is done by two or more people taking turns expanding upon a story, whether verbally through tabletop games or textually through online text-based roleplaying. Tabletop games typically come with instruction books, informing players about the way their game is designed to be played as each one is designed differently. Online text-based roleplaying is the focus of most online roleplaying communities, and as such what I will be focusing on here. Roleplay can start multiple ways, but usually starts from a character idea or a plot idea. In the case of online roleplaying what follows is usually the search for a place to instigate this character or plot, although it can also happen the other way around with discovering a place to roleplay first and coming up with characters and plots second. Although roleplay takes place across multiple platforms online, they all function essentially the same way, with one player posting a section of the story with their character and the next posting a section with theirs. This cycle is repeated until the storyline reaches its end. In the case of most roleplay there are a few etiquette guidelines that participants are encouraged to follow, unless a prior arrangement has been reached. No Metagaming. To metagame is to use information that you, the player, know outside of the roleplay to guide what’s happening inside the roleplay to better assist your character in having the upper hand. This usually comes in the form of characters suddenly knowing secrets about the other character in any given scene that they have had no way to discover. No Powerplaying. To powerplay is to use your post to take control of the other player’s character. This can put the other player in awkward positions as perhaps their character would not actually do what it is that they have been shown doing. As roleplay is a collaborative writing exercise, it is better for everyone to write their own characters and not control others’. No Godmodding. To godmod, or to have a godmode character, is when your character is made essentially invincible within the confines of the scene in some way. This can come in the form of being all-powerful or all-knowing, in being unable to be killed, in always being able to escape consequences, or in always winning a fight or not being hit in a fight. Characters like these are difficult to play with as they can make it difficult to move the story forward. Other than those three basic rules, each method of online roleplay and each individual roleplay site or group have their own guidelines and rules to follow, so one should always be aware of those!
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