Let's Pretend

[finncullen]

I enjoy roleplaying.   This will not be a surprise to anyone who has crossed my path, which in all likelihood will be because of some RP connection or other.   I also have a lot of ideas buzzing round in my head about things I can write *about* roleplaying but I'm having trouble sorting the ideas into a logical order.

So what I'm doing is this - using this post as a braindump for the various things that may make interesting articles, and inviting input as to what people would like to explore and indeed comment upon from their points of view.   That will at least give me a chance to prioritise my ideas.

So... ideas:

"Why so down on fluff?" - useful character exploration or pointless rambling?

"Shaping a story" -  Forward planning without stifling input

"Referee mindset v Player Mindset, or 'Whose is this character anyway?'" -  When is it appropriate to put story ahead of character

"Keeping things moving." - Four pages of conversation later, has anything been achieved?

"Planned or Freeform" - Does a thread need a direction in advance?

"Courtesy Tags" - Letting other players know what isn't immediately obvious

"Paradigm" - literary or cinematic

Comments

[aylarah-scale.livejournal.com]

I don't really mind what order - I think for me they'll all be useful and interesting to read.

I like Chris' idea about entering/leaving threads, but also how about something for people who are new? I was reading sf for quite a while before I started joining in, because it was a scary thing to actually create a character and try to find a way to insert them when there's so much already written and so many relationships already established. So maybe advice for newbies? I still feel like I could use it sometimes >_>'.

[finncullen.livejournal.com]

I can understand the intimidation of joining something new. Just before I built SF I tried to join a long established RP on another site. Now I consider myself a fairly accomplished RPer and writer.. and the people on the site were very friendly ... but I still found it intimidating because I was entering a culture where I was unsure what was the norm, what was acceptable, what was too much and so on. So I do sympathise, and I know my usual glib response of 'oh just join in, it doesn't matter if you make a mistake' doesn't really help.

I'll write some thoughts down then on what may or may not help, but I may not be the ideal person to do it since I haven't really been in your position successfully (I founded SF and abandoned the other site, so I never really got over the problem). You're pretty established now with a few characters in a few different genres... maybe you can give us your ideas on what worked/didn't work for you?

[aylarah-scale.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I think that throwing yourself into it IS one of the best things do to, although being told that at the beginning isn't really useful. I remember the first character I created was Allegria, and I originally was going to make her a Ravenclaw. I changed her to Gryffindor because I was warned that there were already a lot of Ravs and they had a lot of history, and that it would be hard to integrate Allegria into it. So instead I make her a Gryff, when there weren't really many others her age around. Trying not to 'butt-in' to the established group made her much harder to use in my opinion, since there weren't other characters easily accessable to her (If that makes sense?).

I still don't feel pretty established, but that's probably partly to do with the way I've used my characters and how often I get to reply to threads. The character I feel I've used best is Orion, and he's only currently in one thread. I think that whilst a newbie might want to integrate themselves quickly by posting in lots of threads with lots of characters, they can spread themselves a bit too thin and end up having lots of minor characters and no major ones (I use myself as an example here. If only I had a timeturner, I would do things differently).

One of the things that has been the biggest help to me was Alex joining after me, and the fact that I talk to him quite a bit on IRC, but I can't really say "If you're new to rp, get someone else to join after you". I think it was just easier to get to know someone new than break into the already established group.

So I don't really know what I'd suggest - focus on one or two main characters in one or two main threads to start with to develop them? Like I said, I still occasionally feel like I need the guide, so I don't really think I can be much help.