roleplay Linear or Liquid?

[Huskerdust 625]

So when you're posting, which is your preference: linear or liquid? Why?

 

I personally have a very difficult time arranging things in my mind when I have a character in more than one thread at a time. (Which is happening right now and it's giving me so much anxiety, I hate it!) This is one reason I tend to have a number of characters: so that I'm able to play a bunch of threads at once but one at a time per character. Obviously, I will play a character in more than one thread if asked but my personal preference is NOT to. How about you guys? 

[King Huey 11]

I've never heard it referred to as this. I like the phrasing.

 

Personally I keep it all in my mind or in a spreadsheet. I have it with my partner's name, a link to their app, a summary of the plot, and a link to the thread.

 

....I'm a bit obsessive with organization lol

[Kit the Human 758]

I used to be able to manage alot of threads at once (for one character). I used to be able to keep the timeline in mind and be able to rearrange things mentally if something significant happened.

 

I find that hard these days so I'll limit myself to a couple of threads. It feels nice because I feel like I'm giving this other person's character for space to have an impact, and I'm focused on their character and thus open to the impact.

 

So, more the linear side of liquid these days.

[Morrigan 1,826]

Liquid time has its pros and cons just like linear does. I can do both but in the last 5 years I tend to lean to a preference of linear. There is too much that CAN happen in a thread that could impact other threads I'm in concurrently. I've had to retcon things too many times to like to do it any other way nowadays.

 

I think my favorite quote from two threads I was running concurrently was my retcon in the thread that happened later. It was something like:

Quote

As they parked the rental car because they totally knew that the truck was totaled in the other thread.

 

Mind you the previous post mentioned the truck.

 

This doesn't stop me from playing the same character in multiple threads when the site has a lot of players on it it just makes retconning a little more frequent. I will also talk to people about completing a thread (if its been a while) and what the outcome will be and regardless of if something happens that should change that outcome I will get to the agreed upon end even if it's a little OOC for my character.

[Jones 177]

I prefer linear. Retconning doesn't scare me, and I'm not super nitpicky about slip ups so I'm not afraid to play a character in multiple threads. But I also have over 50 characters, so there's not much call/reason for me to play just the one in several concurrent threads.  

[Deacon Frost 196]

I have played in both styles. I prefer a board that is mostly linear in terms of plot; but flexible enough to allow you to have multiple threads going at the same time. Sometimes having the option to go "this thread should happen before that one" is good. 

 

I think the weirdest moment I had was on a board that had a rule stating that the Start Date of the thread was the day the thread took place. To try and enforce a strict linear real time plot-flow. But of course the board still had some threads that moved very slow and some that moved very fast. Especially because it was a sheeted board that required secret ST rolls to determine success or failure. 

 

Well I had a fluff thread on that board and a really slow moving plot thread. And when the plot thread FINALLY wrapped up I had to contact the people I had been playing with for almost 2 months and say "Oh, and by the way; the Spirits of Nature had dyed my werewolf's hair bright pink for the last two months." and so we all had to look at our completed threads and rethink the reactions as if they had been dealing with a 9' tall neon pink werewolf. 

[Muse 121]

I always track my threads and my forum requires dating of threads by a tag so that we can create a linear timeline.

 

That said, I'm also a memory thread and past thread addict who loves filling in a character's story through previous experiences, either in solos or collaborative threads with others.

 

My forum has what I call a fluid timeline but it progresses in a linear fashion. Like the poster above, the plot is linear but the playing field is somewhat open-ended.  It's currently 2718, and the new year will begin in March. Currently, I have certain events, holidays, and plot openings that occur during each of the months of the year, like we had a riot in the summer in the capital, etc. but a player just joining now isn't locked out of that event and can still participate as if it was in the "present" for their character until the year changes in March (then it will be a memory thread). Players aren't allowed to write in the seasons ahead of whatever the current season is, but they've got free reign in all the months before the current season. So, each year is fluid but contained. Everyone is responsible for their own timeline and even now at the end of this year with the entire year accessible as "present," they're the ones who have to look out and not end up stuck in a time issue. 

So far, this hasn't been a problem, and I'm hoping being somewhat loose and open about time keeps it that way.

When I, personally write, I'm a planner. I like to determine that this is going to happen and then that is going to happen and maybe in the past this happened, too, but I don't particularly mind in what order I write those things if I've already figured them out. I'm okay with the occasional surprise, too, as that's one of the fun parts of RP, but i  do have to be careful of my own characters' schedules so as to not have to retcon or edit my responses should i be irresponsible with my time management. 😉

[Elena 546]

I am working like @Museand I hate retconning. Our timeline is rather fluid, so that we can start threads up to the end of September 1720 now, but not later, and we have to take into account what happened in the story until the moment the thread had started, what the characters are supposed to know or not. 

 

We have timestamps and a board calendar where the threads are listed in chronological story order, no matter when we are writing each thread and how slowly it progresses. So the calendar is linear, how to read the story, but we aren't writing the story linearly and I wouldn't like it. The threads take too long for completion in order to be satisfied with linear.

 

Each ongoing thread has its general outcome established, so you can start threads happening afterwards, even if this is still ongoing, with taking care of the general outcome and leaving other details vague.

 

E.g. On 9-th of September 1720, my pirates will commandeer a ship. The endeavour will be successful. The thread just started. It was roughly plotted, but we don't know how each character will react and which will be their contribution to the endeavour. We just know that the ship will be taken and renamed "Golden Star".  So if someone wants to start right now a thread where they return to Tortuga aboard the "Golden Star", or how they plan the first piratical mission of the ship, they are welcome. They aren't welcome to tell details about the battle for obtaining the ship.

Edited January 18, 2019 by Elena

[Kazetatsu 263]

I prefer liquid time most of the time.  It's the freedom to move my stories ahead at the pace they flow most naturally based on my characters' activity and my own instead of sticking to a site system that can move too fast or slow for what I'm trying to make happen. It doesn't have to be utter chaos, but I don't like sites telling me how to do things where I don't feel it's necessary.

 

Even so, I don't use Liquid time as an excuse to jump around everywhere. I don't really do threads in retro. When I post threads they are happening in the NOW for the characters involved.  I base order of events loosely on the order threads are made, as well as the real time date or season if I need a reference for details like weather or holidays. A thread made yesterday happens before a thread made today, even if the thread from yesterday keeps going for longer than the newer thread. The ic time between any two threads can be shorter than real time, but is rarely longer due to how long some threads take to finish (a thread real time last week can be ic time yesterday to the characters). I just keep things in check with a personal timeline in my head, as my characters' remembered order of events, and it moves as fast or slow as I need it to to keep the stories I carry my characters through dynamic for me.

 

As for the number of threads I may be in with any one character, it varies. The play style of the character matters cause I have some characters who are just meant in pure fun or supporting roles who don't need to have as much continuity as a character in the spotlight, some who due to abilities can actually be in two or more places at once, and so on. the role of the thread matters, because some threads are just for laughs and don't need to be fixed to a solid time, and others are more dangerous and serious, needing to be more fixed in the order of events, and also because of the potential for a phenomenon I call Threadlocking. Threadlocking is when a character's situation is at stake to a point where they can't reasonably be in multiple new threads due to high risk or character development, and their time can't progress past that point until the moment in question reaches a conclusion.

 

I've had some laughs over liquid time of course. I had a character that aged based on character development instead of real time, and all her childhood friends were adults before she saw her first year. Now on some sites I can see folks being bothered by this, but to me it was just a funny phenomenon worth poking a little fun at, and letting it go. I enjoy, the fun of having each character perceive and respond to time in their own ways, and the occasional situation where there's a disagreement over what happened first.

Edited January 18, 2019 by Kazetatsu

[KARA BELLA 18]

Honestly I will do either.  I don't really have a preference.

[StormWolfe 557]

Linear! I am just not capable of keeping up with characters being all over the place time-wise anymore.

 

With that said, I have seen sites that mandated 100% adherence to a linear timeline (mine used to be one of those when we were on Nova) and the stories simply bogged down and, ultimately, stopped entirely.

 

Our solution was to move to a linear - fluid format. Our main plot for each episode flows linearly. However, we set up a block of time, and everyone can post within that block (usually it's seasonal, like all posts need to be set in Spring 1875, etc.). Since we only have one IC forum to write in, it is easy to track who is where and when.

 

On other boards, I simply state that I will not involve my character in more than 2 threads at a time.

[Poe 18]

I like a little bit a both? Is that allowed?

 

I love having different threads for my character, but I definitely don't go too crazy with this. I think the most that I keep now for each character is 3 and that's only if it is requested. 2 is really my sweet spot I think, mostly because I can handle figuring where they lie on the timeline. If you get too many threads going it can be quite difficult to figure it out.

 

We've recently put in a system on the site I am on that is a flexible linear timeline. It requires that everyone put a date in the description of their thread, but the date doesn't have to be the current date or anything crazy like that. It really allows other members to see where your thread lies in the timeline, because we were having a lot of questions about where certain threads were in relation to other threads. So, we feel this really fixes that problem, while also letting people keep having threads in liquid time.

[Huskerdust 625]

10 hours ago, Poe said:

I like a little bit a both? Is that allowed?

 

I love having different threads for my character, but I definitely don't go too crazy with this. I think the most that I keep now for each character is 3 and that's only if it is requested. 2 is really my sweet spot I think, mostly because I can handle figuring where they lie on the timeline. If you get too many threads going it can be quite difficult to figure it out.

 

We've recently put in a system on the site I am on that is a flexible linear timeline. It requires that everyone put a date in the description of their thread, but the date doesn't have to be the current date or anything crazy like that. It really allows other members to see where your thread lies in the timeline, because we were having a lot of questions about where certain threads were in relation to other threads. So, we feel this really fixes that problem, while also letting people keep having threads in liquid time.

 

Of course it’s allowed! 

 

I actually had something similar with a thread calendar back when I ran a Persona site. It was required because of the full moon events that take place in the game. But it was cool and it made things easier to organize in my head. 

[Snickerdoodle 51]

Linear, I think? The sites I play on usually have a set period of time to play in, like a specific week or month. Right now on the board I'm on, it's the middle of October 2018. You can post anything that happens in that chunk of time in any order. I don't usually have trouble keeping things straight timeline-wise, but other people do, so I try to avoid jumping around in time too much so that I'm not constantly nagging them about things. xD
The boards I've been on sometimes had a sub-board for posting things that happened in the past or waaay in the future, but the main focus is on the threads in that one week or month or whatever. I'm really not sure what that would be classified as... I'm not familiar with any other way of playing on a forum, though I've seen the ones where it's closer to "real time" where whatever you post happens the day you post it.... and the ones where there are a million different time periods and locations and everything all being played at once. I don't think I'd like either one of those things. 

[Blondie 98]

I used to absofreakinglutely love liquid. Then I joined a site that was linear. And while, I can say that both are great, linear or at least a combo of the two works for me. Linear helps me keep track of things and timeline things that have happened for my characters. So... choosing one, I would go with linear. 🙂