The Role Players Louge

A coven for all those of us who enjoy role play to gather, whether it be in the Tv Tropes fora, off-site, table top, online RPG's or just in general.

Share stories, discuss techniques, ectra.

Rarely active, try DA/Tumblr Avatar by pippanaffie.deviantart.com

I am a terrible GM. And almost as bad as a player.

"Evii is right though" -Saturn "I didn't know you were a bitch Evii." -Lior Val

Yo.

I've been roleplaying since fourth grade. I play D&D, Shadowrun, World of Darkness, Pathfinder Legend System (especially Legend, these days. Check it out. /Shameless pimping), DQ, and others. I Freeform roleplay frequently, though rarely in forums, and LARP whenever possible.

I've noticed that my biggest problem when designing characters seems to be that I can't not focus on Intelligence in games with stat systems, yet I dislike playing pure casters. I also tend to fixate on character concepts that are hard to express mechanically- even in Legend, which is basically GURPS with more balance and less stupid minutiae, I'm fascinated with the ONE concept that can't be pulled off without losing something important.*

The upside to this is that I can figure out how to express pretty much any other concept with relative ease, if the system is flexible enough- every gamer group has people who do specific things, and to mine, I'm The One You Ask When You Have Difficulty Making Your Character.

edited 6th Sep '12 1:13:25 PM by Exelixi

Mura: -flips the bird to veterinary science with one hand and Euclidean geometry with the other-

Hey there.

I've been doing the roleplaying gig on and off ever since I was a wee lad. I've traveled the world and interacted with a fair few different kinds of roleplaying "cultures", if you like. There are those who play for the intellectual challenge, those who like to exercise their inner actor, those who want to feel powerful, and those who are a little of all three. Even within freeform, you get your writers and your roleplayers. The former sometimes drive me up the wall with their contempt for any sort of numbers.

Even after all this time, it still seems foreign to me to think of a freeform RP as a collaborative fanfiction exercise.

Wise Papa Smurf, corrupted by his own power. CAN NO LEADER GO UNTAINTED?!

Well, I've been Role Playing (of the post-based variety) since I was about ten (so about five years); much of it spent as Warrior Cats, much as horses, a whole bunch of other original stuff between friends, and most recently in We Are All Pokemon Trainers here on TV Tropes.

edited 12th Sep '12 5:23:34 PM by Crewe

Victory! Honor! Destiny! Mutton!

I read more about table top games than I ever really participate in.

Also have a tendency to flake on R Ps. So I'm refraining from joining them unless I'm certain I'll stay.. :/

Since this seems to be intro corner, I guess I'll give a go and a self plug;

I was introduced to R Ping some years ago for the sake of a small indie game that I eventually took over and ran with an iron fist for a few years. Eventually activity petered out though, however I keep a few groups of friends from the site for more general gaming needs.

The game I was introduced to, Dungeons&Discourse to was keen on word play, improvisation with liberal interpretations of abilities and playing with [sometimes demolishing] the fourth wall. Very generally; bullshitting. This shows in a lot of my "higher concept" games as well as in much of my comedy [which often invovles rolling with what players put out in a way that's either bizarre but works or else bites them in the ass with their exact words] with even the simplest games often having various levels of play and high levels of intrigue and even the most serious having minor elements and off hand references worked in to mean something.

Realism and history geekdom [which eventually shifted to amateur linguistic geekdom] tend to get me a decent bit of respect in world building and my projects tend to be ambitious. Code Geass: Ballad of the Rebellion was restarted on the request of a friend who has since mostly retired and is a bit of a simpler game. Still once I properly get it going, there should be intrigue and treason abounding.

However my newest game, Sphaera, I get to play out the scenery porn along side my history, language and philosophy geekery. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to see me in my element and can commit to a long term play. While I'm going to be strict with realism, I am more than willing to help anyone fix/add touches to their civ. Check it out here.

edited 16th Sep '12 3:52:04 PM by Fauxlosophe

Mé féin ag daṁsa faoin ngealaċ seanrince gan ċeol leis ach ceol cuisle. DS FC: 4141-3472-4041, feel free to add me.

If any one is alive right I noticed that anything related to a fandom has much more post than something a bit more original(like my rp for example but there's others out there Overshadowed by Awesome) that seem to not get much of a thought. There's replies here and there but that it's no more than just one or a few more post until months later it's covered up by other hot topics that much cooler than what some other people start there conversation on. I'm not asking to be some Attention Whore that begs to be noticed but someone who what's to be part of the tv tropes community for a change and see what opportunities are available for me. I may not be the best or most liberate writer using Purple Prose but for once give some underrated rp like mine a try.

MIA

Salutations!

My journey into roleplaying (the tabletop variety that is) didn't start until i was in university, since where I grew up nerds didn't seem to exist.

And now I play a regular game of Traveller, and even won 2nd place in sci-fi in the National Student Roleplaying and Wargaming Championships 2015 (based in the UK)!

Not that having a certificate saying I'm a good roleplayer is amazing, but still it's a spot of pride I maintain.

World of Darkness (Old and New), Dark Heresy, Traveller, Star Wars, even a little bit of pathfinder here and there, I like variety and wish I could play more than I do. I've tried LAR Ping but sadly it was linear and had little in the way of actual roleplaying, and I'm lazy when it comes to making a costume.

For whatever reason I'm loath to play casters, I think it's a dislike I developed early on, with too many players never writing down their spells and spending ten minutes each turn casting a spell. Intelligent, strong people are usually who I play, which is interesting since I started with shy dex-based characters. Oh how I'd matured (Not that playing a thief is bad).

This is a really slow board but let's try to get some conversation going.

A lot of it might have to do with the pitch. I've run as many originals and a few fan RPs and the latter tend to attract much more new blood. The reason is recognizability; people don't need to learn a whole world that only /I/'ve built but have recognizable figures or at least rules. They know how it works right off the bat, rather than having to read me try to build a world from the ground up.

I'm going to take this as an example of one of your RPs since it's the first thing that popped up searching you on this site; https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=14375825670A74860800&page=1

Looking at your intro? It's very very difficult to parse. You're immediately text dumping me when I have literally nothing more than a title; "Guardians of Nature". Even skimming the whole thing, I'm not really sure what the setting is; I read the title assuming some sort of Fantasy game focused on Rangers and Druids, but after reading your background I get the impression of it being some Darker/Edgier Captain Planet.

Frankly, it could still go either way.

I'd say the biggest issue is that you're not making it clear how the players will fit into the setting. The second biggest is that you're throwing a wall of text a them before anything else. The first few lines of the Intro should be punchy, not the generic opening of a long lore.

Rather than "In the beginning... (Full Paragraph)". Try a line like

"You are an incarnation of nature, summoned by the goddess Gaea to guide humanity. Can you redeem this slowly decaying world?"

And then explain how this world differs from our own, where the players fit in and etc. Some of this is covered in rules, but frankly, I'd flesh them out pretty significantly and explain the setting in terms of how it differs from modern day Earth.

Personally, since 5e, I've really taken to playing Warriors. Pretty much for the same reason as yourself; I really really can't be arsed to learn 50 plus spells and figure out how to apply them strategically.

Generally, I like playing slightly underpowered characters with a handful quirks that I can make useful situationally. Controllers are pretty fun for that with the added bonus of making a solid team player when possible. I feel like Rogues sort of have the disadvantage of being a bit more individualistic in terms of flavour and gameplay but it can be worked around and in some campaigns it suits.

edited 21st Aug '15 1:12:34 PM by Fauxlosophe

Mé féin ag daṁsa faoin ngealaċ seanrince gan ċeol leis ach ceol cuisle. DS FC: 4141-3472-4041, feel free to add me.

I'm gonna try to bring more activity to this thread, yo.

I'm fond of forum roleplays. I don't care much for roleplays envolving fandoms and such, mostly because they make me uncomfortable and I'm terrible at writing non-original characters. I've never actually tried tabletop or dice roleplays, but they do seem quite interesting.

Also, I'm curious about how folks feel about freeform roleplays involving combat. I tend to avoid them, because, unlike in dice/tabletop roleplays, where there's an usually valid outcome, here things can get ridiculous very quickly. Well. Sort of.

edited 7th Oct '15 2:23:01 PM by Bast

“Tʜᴇʀᴇ's ɴᴏ ᴊᴜsᴛɪᴄᴇ, ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ's ᴊᴜs

From what I have seen those specific roleplays generally have a GM or a OOC thread. The GM usually can intervene or pro lounge combat (they generally control the NPC enemies obviously). If the fighting is between several player characters then the role players will communicate in the OOC thread to decide on the satisfying outcome of a battle.

Atleast that's my observations from being involved in several roleplays in other sites. It's not full proof (miscommunication still happens on occasion which can lead to issues...) though.

And yeah I am a avid forum R Per. The only reason why I haven't tried to participate in this site's forum RP is because I participate in enough already so I don't have the time to concoct another original character for another RP.....

edited 8th Oct '15 3:38:49 AM by Bleddyn

Oh, oh, I know! Sadly, not all roleplayers are so willing to compromise and the communication doesn't always work so well, like you mentioned. Specially without a GM, who at the very least can try to direct the situation. Without one, some combat roleplays I've seen are just a succession of progressively crazier and less realistic posts to win a ridiculous fight.

Me too, haha. I've spread myself thin with all the roleplays I've been into, although lately things have been quiet.

“Tʜᴇʀᴇ's ɴᴏ ᴊᴜsᴛɪᴄᴇ, ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ's ᴊᴜs

Hey, I hope I'm not too late to join in the conversation. I've kind of been sparse around these forums but I lean in to peak at what is going on now and then.

Personally, I'm a dice hound; I can think of only one RP that I ran which was freeform. The issue with this is that I've seen my attempt at a full blown D&D die because even moving on a fairly quick guaranteed pace, the players eventually found the combat unengaging. This can happen at a table too, where a skirmish can take hours, but even relatively simple combat can be extended for weeks or a month.

Meanwhile, I've definitely seen worse problems with freeform. Most of them you've listed above, so I won't go into further detail here. I will suggest though, that there are a few ways around it;

For instance, if I were running a Freeform that went Pv P, I'd probably insist on a coin flip for any major action that initiated a conflict. Whoever won gets to decide how the conflict plays out. Ideally, players would be reasonable here; a Ninja attacking the team Hacker might end up slipping on an empty cheetoes bag allowing the hacker to escape and get help, Rather than deftly kicking the crap out of the trained assassin. Still, everything in the middle could still be freeform, as long as the players got roughly to the right end and ridiculously God-moddy moves wouldn't need to be pulled.

Meanwile, in a freeform more generally, I think the thing to look for is a small but tight group or else a popular and stern DM.

The former is ideal; I've joined a few freeforms with people I knew on the forum who pitched it and largely ran it for a few friends. Here, if you're a new-comer there can be groups that are a bit clannish but if you're willing to be patient and go along with the group a bit you'll be fine (In the best case, just make sure you have the genre right. Though some groups are more exclusive and picky about arbitrary thing). If everyone knows what everyone else is doing and how they work, then freeform is usually pretty manageable.

The latter is more tricky. I'd definitely warn against games which had huge sign up from the get go, but if there is an experienced DM who isn't afraid to stamp down their veto then a lot of these problems can be avoided even with fairly large groups. Generally though, even a good DM will do better with a smaller group where each character can have their strengths catered to and weaknesses played on.

Mé féin ag daṁsa faoin ngealaċ seanrince gan ċeol leis ach ceol cuisle. DS FC: 4141-3472-4041, feel free to add me.

The coin-flip is an idea to solve the problem, yeah. Other ones could be simply discussing it in the OOC forums, like Bleddyyn mentioned, and try to avoid problems like Godmoding, Powerplay, Metagaming and all that. (I actually found this really cool thing◊ a while ago. It's funny.)

Oh, I know. Strong, tight-knit communities are always excellent to make the roleplay move along nicely, specially when a more troublesome new member shows up. Strong G Ms are also important, although if the former is in play then the latters become less necessary, I suppose. When being a GM, myself, I generally feel like I should be harsher and less lenient, especially when it's a smaller roleplay (as in with seven-ten people) and folks start taking ages (and by ages I mean a week or more) to post in pretty important parts.

I actually mostly hang around here when roleplaying, but I'm thinking about taking a look around TV Tropes' roleplaying forums one of these days!

“Tʜᴇʀᴇ's ɴᴏ ᴊᴜsᴛɪᴄᴇ, ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ's ᴊᴜs

I think a lot of skills from a strict GM still carry over into tight groups where less dispute is necessary, just not all of them. I've definitely heard of cases where the GM let friends do all of the policing and then suddenly, those friends had OP characters while nitpicking at everyone else's.

So a discerning eye and a willingness to piss off a friend by giving that person a flat "no" is still a GM skill that is really necessary to have amongst friends even if it doesn't come up often. On the otherhand, G Ming larger groups of unfamiliar people requires some social clout as well; there's far more likely to be haggling, people trying to slip in character elements under the radar or just actively being unpleasant. None of these come up with a group of friends and even when it does, the rest of the group are usually eager peacemakers.

So there are definitely some skills that a GM always needs which can get you called "strict" in some circles.

Now, to shift/add to the topic; I was surprised you called 7-10 a small group. I'm used to more traditional table top and/or wierd experimental games where I'd consider 4-6 average. So I'd be interested in talking about group size and dynamics generally.

But what is really interesting to me at the moment and I consider a personal weakness (as well as a way to make Freeform games good for everyone) is player-plot-essentialness.

I usually write small games and as a result, I flesh out some particular purpose for the character in game world. If one of them scribbles a line about an ex-lover, then that ex-lover might end up taking the place of a minor villain who'd otherwise be unremarkable and due to player interaction and fascination, become pretty integral.

I think this is key for freeforms; If someone ends up writing Aquaman, write it in so that every other mission has some side task that requires swimming, or poisons from specific fish or some broad relation to the ocean. Not enough that it's obvious but it can be done subtlely. Even if the PC is put next to P Cs more like straight up Superman and Wonderwoman, the niche lets Aquaman shine through and lets the Player have fun with the character even if it's hard to justify Aquaman charging in and punching badguys in the same league as Supes.

The issue with this which is I'd say was the cause of at least 2/3s of my games dying is that while characters need to become plot essential for engagement, you can very rarely risk players becoming that. I've had a lot of games die because even though I managed to hold onto a few dedicated players, a couple of my most essential players dropped (who I've shaped the campaign around in part) and thus the plot has become a mess which is less tied to the remaining players than I would like. I mean; it's easy to stop having robberies take place at the aquarium right up until you've written in Black Manta as a major villain. Straight up dropping these particular player oriented plot points is cheap and can kill the immersion of the players even if you set up an in-universe BBEG and then excuse them on flimsy plot reasons. Meanwhile keeping those elements in also feels clunky and in my experiences results in a more gradual player wane of interest.

The worst are Pv P games; I've lost at least 1 campaign (I think it's closer to 2 or 3) where players were set up in vaguely opposed factions up until 1 faction just petered out. I run with smaller groups so if a faction of 4 shinks to 2 or 6 shrinks to 3, that can mean the end of the group all together when the remaining few have no idea what to do. Their rivals meanwhile are still eager and ready to go

So my thoughts are; how can you let every character/player feel like they're essential to the plot without having hte plot unravel when life smacks them in the face and they take indefinite haitus?

Mé féin ag daṁsa faoin ngealaċ seanrince gan ċeol leis ach ceol cuisle. DS FC: 4141-3472-4041, feel free to add me.