The following one's opinion on current events and the pro's and cons of it all. All words and .gifs should be taken as dry humor and a means to add emphasis...you know, because we're children at heart and enjoy children's books.



Now that I have your attention.




With that out of the way, let us continue with a quote:

"History is the study of change, change is life. When things become static, it means they're dead." -Shaun Hastings

So how do we change?



Ah! Good start, good start.


Day 1

Day 7

Day 21

Day 99






Okay, let me repeat myself:

"History is the study of change, change is life. When things become static, it means they're dead."

We seem to have step 1 down which is admitting there is a problem and yes, we take a baby step or two to change but then we just get stuck in a rut and keep on driving (the same RP)...



...until people start to grow tired of it and pass out from boredom.



So we make tiny changes so that stretch of Kansas road we're on doesn't feel so bad.



But deep down we're all waiting for divine intervention



After all, most if not all of us come from an experience where the Game Operations Director (aka DM) played more of a hand in our day to day. (ie: D&D, WoD, GURPS, etc.)

But this is not tabletop RP and we must come to terms that this is not that and divine intervention is in short supply.



So what does that leave us with?




A for effort.

But in all seriousness that leaves us with:


In other words, we're the master's of our fate, we each our own little DM (for our character.)


Wait what?

Isn't that a gateway for oblivion and chaos?



Yes, yes I suppose it is.

But it is how things are...

I know, dreadfully scary.

Well...but their character's interests do not align with my character's interests!



Modern life (which is what this verse is roughly based off of) just doesn't work that way.

Well I can't think of anything...

• Adventure in the forbidden forest, sh!t happens.
• Visit Pinboria, get possessed or captured by magical pirates.
• Gather like minded folk and get some derp professor 86'ed, learn why he's still around.
• Discover a secret passage and discover its secrets, or give it a secret for others to discover.
  (I can make a list for days)

Well what about the general ambiance and DM permissions?


Going to try to answer this one to the best of my ability. I come from a state of RP where the Game's Operations Director simply designs a world, maybe throws in a hook or two every now and then but ultimately leaves the world's destruction progress to the characters/players ambitions and pretty much is around to offer creative ambiance. That creative spark that adds a variable to an encounter so you no longer feel you are playing chess against yourself. Now is that happening? *shrug*

As for DM permissions, from what I understand from my time behind the curtain. You can RP pretty much any thing you want. (excluding obvious things such as: rape, suicide, and a couple other subjects I can't recall off the top of my head). It is the DM's who need permission to invest in you, though tabs do need to be kept to make sure you're not becoming Voldemort overnight. If no records are kept then yes, you increase the risk of your RP being retconned, which is what I believe many people fear and is why they've been slow in designing stories for their characters.

Anyways, that's all the time and creativity I have for today. DM's, please feel free to clarify. Players, feel free to comment.

Also expect responses to possibly contain .gif responses.

Until next post.

_________________

Supernaturallllllllll. What they say is true: Supernatural has a gif for everything.

Anyway, I wholeheartedly agree with this, and I have come across this a lot. Make your own RP, guys. You will be surprised at how much of a difference you can feel in -your- RP when you are excited to RP something you've been planning for a couple weeks. I can't go into details because it's FOIC, but I did this with Cray a few times recently. The most I will say about that is I knew I was going to be gone a couple weeks, so I was trying to figure out an IC reason why Cray wouldn't be around as much either. So I thought about it, came up with a bit of stuff that was going on for him in that time to keep him active even though I was going to be gone, left for a while, and when I came back, I was excited to RP though Cray's reactions to what the situation I had offered him. That RP is still going, and will be going on for a longggggg time, and it wasn't even something I needed DM permission for. Just something personal to him that he could talk about, stress about, freak out about randomly, be happy about, be sad about, be depressed about... (FOIC for which of the above is true ) Either way, I think it's important to give -yourself- RP. This is something that I alone can RP when no one else is on and I'm bored, instead of Cray just sitting around blank faced.

Like I said, several of these are happening recently to Cray, not all of which are under just my control, but other players too. This gives something for us to RP when it's just us on and no one else, and something that can potentially drag a few other players in too. Be your own story writer. Don't think about your character as just a character, but a person. What would be going on in that person's life? What about their family? What's going on with them? A ton of situations I give Cray are family related. That is something that the DMs don't have to bother with at all, and I can just RP though that just by myself if no one else is on. But to know what Cray's family is like and who they are, it's great. You start to look at your character as if they were a friend (or an enemy/someone you'd like to shoot in the face in some cases) and really get a feeling for what's going on in their personal life. It drags other people in, gets conversations flowing, and gives good character development in my opinion.

Point is.. I've found that many people are tired of just RPing with the same person. Don't be. Make a little personal, non-DMable plot line for the characters who are on the most when you're on. Make a little thing with a couple characters involved if you want, even if your characters are worst enemies. Talk OOC and come up with something (SIMPLE, so you don't have to worry about people changing what's going on or something, or have one person be in charge of "DMing" while the others just ride along.) two or three of you. You will have a blast. I promise. One thing that just pops into my mind is making three kiddos work on a class project together. You don't even really have to add specifics to said project itself, but just say that "McG wants three people to work on this together. Turn it in at this time." Boom. RP. It'd be a ton of fun if those three people didn't actually get along IC. Drama sucks... RPing drama is incredibly fun though. I had a blast with Paul stuff (for those of you who were around for that), even though that was in no way awesome circumstances IC. I loved it, and -I- would go through a ton of that RP again if I could (Sorry, Cray, don't kill me!). But that's really the point. Our character's lives aren't always peachy, but first of all, nothing in life is, right? Small bad (or good) things can turn into intense RP that could potentially set up characters to be best friends. Second, it gives us something to be excited for, and that's really the point of the server, isn't it? To have fun and be excited about what is going on in the server. DO NOT think that if characters hate each other, there is something wrong with that. THAT IS RP. RP IT.

This isn't something just one or two people on the server can do though. Don't wait around for me to suck you into Cray's personal RP going-ons. Get out there and RP for yourself and don't wait for RP to come around to you. You are part of the server, all of you. So make the server.

As for things that aren't allowed: rape, pregnancy, marriage (though by all means plan the wedding when they're at Hogwarts), suicide. Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

_________________
~ShalynArater~
..... Cray Calcifer Fencrow - Xabriel Seth RaventongueGryffindor - Gryffindor