The Roleplaying Forum's GM and Player Critique Thread

Need criticism. Shoot away, be as harsh as necessary. Just starting on the epic fantasy adventure on Aether Cross

Could use ConCrit. There's always room for improvement, IMO.

Master your writer's block. Even if you can only think of a sentence it's better to post that instead of posting nothing and stalling a game.

what the heck, I'll throw my nametag into this hat, to be blasted to pieces by hot criticism lasers before it hits the ground

@Ominae. This is my opinion.

For as long as I have seen you on the forums, I have not seen a change in your style of posting. Your posts are generally short with your characters doing little in relation to the others around you. I'm saying that short posts is a bad thing if you haven't realised yet.

Short posts often leave little room for the role-player to truly delve into his characters and other roleplayers are left even more miffed about who your character actually is. Characters that remain enigmatic due to their writer's incompetence and not due to their writer's choice are generally rather boring to roleplay with- we don't know what you character will do in a certain situation, we don't know what they will say and when they do say something, we don't know why.

A person will only like a character or be interested in interacting with a character that has qualities the other can relate to- personally or no. A flat character presented by a few lines of text is not appealing at all. If you take a look around, the 'good' roleplayers, the role models, seldom write only a few lines and if they do write only a few lines, those lines are written in such a way as to confer as much information as possible.

Also, by writing so little, you yourself retain a very weak grasp on your character as a whole. This will cause your writing to very easily become out of character.

So please, write more. I don't care if you suddenly jump to walls of text because then at least you getting stuff out. From walls of text, character and good writing techniques can be extracted.

To counter that: beware Purple-ness and contemplating your navel.

edited 27th Apr '14 12:23:31 AM by desdendelle

Seconded.

Unfortunately, I can't comment on either Des or Bio, as both have been decent at RP'ing, and most issues are usually addressed. If I do catch something, I'll let you know.

I'm still unsure as to my own level though.

edited 27th Apr '14 12:28:27 AM by joergenjetsam

@Des: Rebuttal:

For a person that argues for short posts and warns about the dangers of purple-prose: your shorter posts are rather lack luster.

For instance, I must say that your infinities character is bordering on one dimensional sometimes. He could really do with some fleshing out sometimes. The thing is: you are a good role player and I want to read more about your character but your posts are so short as to make further discernment impossible. But since you are a good role player, I am perfectly fine with your posts even though they are on the short side.

But your posts are still different from Ominae's. His lacks substance, gives off no character whatsoever, are often irrelevant: therefore I theorize that if he wrote more, he might actually get more done- a longer posts means he needs to actually think up more stuff to write (He did that for a while in the Beacon City role playing game, I was very happy and hoped he continued would continue). I mean right now, I'd be impressed if he did do a navel contemplation because thus far, he has never written a long post before.

Oh, and Ominae, please please stop making your characters talk in bold letters, its like they're constantly shouting. Its the least you can do.

Double Post.

Noob, one thing you should try working on is getting your posts to be slightly shorter. Apart from even this trivial little thing, I have nothing.

Joergen: You are decent role-player but for some reason your characters seem shallow. Its not that they don't have character but.....Right now Siega is doing pretty good but she returns to her usual smugness with too little effort- its like her displays of character are but creases in a shirt that get ironed away every so often. Sorry, can't really pin down the thing that is lacking.

Yeah, that's enough from me. Feel free to take me to bits too. I'm not perfect.

Bio: my issue, as Parable noted, is Writer's Block; this is the origin of my shorter posts. Ranmaru is bordering on one-dimensional because in Warriors Orochi where I took him from he is one-dimensional; what not!one-dimension-ness he has, he has because I added it.
Re: Ominae: what I meant to say was that (as I've experienced myself) when your writing is beige/purple and you're told so, you tend to jump to the other extreme (purple to beige and vice versa); I was merely warning him against that. Your point, however, still stands.
Noob: Commas inside quotation marks are your friends.

Ooh, ooh! Do me, do me!

@Des, agreed, agreed, though I would dearly like to see Ominae attempt purple prose.

@Everyone else who asked me to critique them: I have had too little time role playing with you guys to say anything of worth.

Might as well put my head on the chopping block, for all three people who have actually seen me run/participate in a plot to completion.

While you don't have Ominae's problem — your case seems more like mine than his — your posts could use some length, too.

Considering I'm about to GM a game for the first time, I could use some help improving. I feel like I have plenty of room for improvement, I could just use some help figuring out what specifically. So be as harsh as you want and I'll appreciate it.

edited 30th Apr '14 10:52:48 AM by IgnisFuturus

Double Post: I've already started the RP, so if anybody who reads it, or any reason, would like to point something out about what I'm doing, I'd love to hear it. I really don't want to mess RP up.

Link here.

edited 5th May '14 10:58:31 AM by IgnisFuturus

So I just discovered this thread and I would like some criticism/ improvement tips.

...Except for the grammar issues because I am already aware of those and working on them :).

edited 22nd May '14 6:24:32 PM by Rpglegend

Well, if I can say the one problem I have with you (apart from the lack of commas) is how everything seems very lacking. Like, looking at your latest post.

That could have easily been beefed up and it would have still had less lines. It could, for example, be turned into:

All I did in that paragraph was join phrases together by using connectives, using . and ! instead of commas, adding some adjectives, and generally trying to keep things together by putting the dialogue parts in the middle of the paragraph, instead of starting a whole new paragraph just for them. It makes it feel like its a scene playing out in front of your eyes, instead of you reading a script for a scene.

Have you considered getting someone to actually help you with those things? Like, sit down and look at your posts and give you suggestions? I know it may sound like too much, but you have a lot to improve on and some kind of tutor/beta reader might help.

edited 23rd May '14 6:16:30 PM by stratofarius

I would love to but I don't know if anyone would be willing to take the time for that. Still thank you for taking the time for that critique.

I promise to fix that problem ASAP by working on it. I just bought a book on that so I stop doing this embarrassing mistakes

edited 23rd May '14 6:40:31 PM by Rpglegend

Hmm, a volunteer newbie and tutor plan? Now there's an interesting idea. We get enough people willing to try that out, then we could actually make something out of that.

I certainly wouldn't mind helping somebody out.

edited 23rd May '14 7:01:43 PM by FirockFinion

I would love some help actually. This is honestly one of those embarrassing flaws of mine I want to overcome .

I could help if you want me to. Don't know if I'm good enough to do so though.

edited 23rd May '14 10:10:27 PM by joergenjetsam

I would certainly appreciate help on my end.

I'm prettty new, but I'm trying to start an RPG that has it's own original universe but has pretty loose continuity. Any suggestions?

...although this might be the wrong thread...

Thank you joerg and firok.

In the mean time, I am studying this sheet about punctuation rules: that might be helpful to anyone besides me.