Character Theory A collective "protagonist" in an RP?

I couldn't think of a descriptive title for this thread, so I went with a question hoping people would be curious and check.

I never started an RP myself, but that doesn't mean I never had ideas or the interest to do so. But one of the things I've been wondering about, and made this thread to see what were people's opinions on it, was the idea of having the player-submitted characters count as one in some occasions.

I think the best way to explain what I mean is to exemplify it. Say there's an RP, and a certain number of characters submitted by players. Those characters can interact freely with each other, and none of them are plot-determinant. However, for plot-determinant events, those characters would count as if they were a single character. As in, the individual characters would matter less in these occasions, and they'd have to do plot-determinant things together. Essentially, those characters would be able to interact with each other (and NPCs too, but in a more controlled manner since they're often plot-determinant) in their free time, but they'd become a "party" of sorts when the plot demanded it. Even if a character disagreed with what the party decided to do, they'd still have to go along with it, so it's a restriction in a way.

If the party interacted a lot with a specific plot-determinant NPC, they'd participate in more events particular to that NPC, learn more about the NPC's backstory/personality, maybe change that NPC's fate, make that NPC more inclined to support the party, take that NPC's side in future events, things like that. It'd be a means to have "routes" or "social links" in an RP, if you're familiar with those terms. The player-controlled characters could certainly have those between themselves as well, with their interactions shaping the bonds between them, making them stronger, sidequests showing up, but they wouldn't affect the overall plot at all.

Hopefully that was clear enough. Assuming that an RP has clearly stated that that will be how things will be done in their intro page, and that every specific mechanic has been sorted out (how the "voting" for the party-action would occur, what counts as a plot-determinant event, when those events would happen, when is free time, etc.) there as well, what do you think of that idea? Would that make the RP lose points to you? Would that be an interesting thing to try as a player? What would be the ideal mechanics to pull that off? I'd like to know the answer to those questions and to hear whatever else you may have to say about it. If I was unclear, do let me know, feel free to ask questions.

Admitedly, I'm not sure if your idea was all that clear to me. It seems to me like your suggestion was that, while these would normally be purely individual characters, when it came to their involvement with the plot they would act as a unit via some form of voting system. Even as I describe it I somehow still feel like I don't fully comprehend whatI'm talking about, so maybe this is just pretty alien to me, or maybe I'm completely flopping what you mean. Either way, the following commentary is based on that as being what you mean, so apologies if I'm working with any false assumptions.

The one that was my most successful RP (though that's only a few months of runtime before it collapsed) did have voting mechanics in it (link here for the curious). The way I used it at the time was to settle certain details about the rules of the roleplay that I wasn't sure about or thought should be left to player interest, or to determine more aesthetic factors or solve controversies and issues that I needed to sure which side of the field people in general stood on. The importance of these votes was mostly fleshing things out in a way the majority would be happy with and giving the players some level of OOC control and nuance over the details of certain rules in a pretty rule-heavy RP. I wanted to show them and make it clear that my rules existed to make sure there was order and clear standards for everyone, they were there for fairness and to make sure I had good grounds to act if anyone went to disrupt the roleplay, not to oppress anyone or limit their options just because.
Now, i won't dive into exactly what happened that shattered the RP in the end, and the voting certainly didn't have much to do with it, so I'll just share the kind of reaction it had: "Yay" to "meh". People were kind of excited about the idea at first, but as time went on they became more neutral. I don't think at any point anybody was particularly against the voting system, but aside from the novelty of it at first, general interest began to sorta die down. The major complaint was that, as the cycle of players passed, certain old players leaving and new players coming, the votes the old players had cast no longer truly reflected the wishes of the majority, but for the sake of consistency decisions had to kept as they were. However, the major benefit of this was that, in times of great pressure to change something about the rules or if I found myself in doubt about the necessity of one, it was at times possible to simply throw a vote and decide what to do about it as a collective. It never made people much happier to do that, however I'd atribute that fact mostly to the couple of disrupting pricks that seemed to be trying to undermine me specifically.

So, using my experience with that as a standard for your idea of a voting system, I'd say they are about on par, as voting systems. Yours has the benefit of acting more on a point-by-point basis, avoiding the problem of permanent decisions that mine had, but it also doesn't have the benefit of being able to correct past problem like mine did. However, besides the voting system, your idea has something else: Characters being controlled as a collective.

If I'm not gonna lie, that's 100% going to flop. While it may seem like a cool idea, if you have say a group of 5, that means that out of 5 characters, 2 may be getting dragged along for a decision they didn't want to take when it was perfectly in their free-will to not take it. Having your character essentially controlled doesn't feel great, ever. There is little benefit to it too, as the players would hence only get a marginally increased degree of influence over the plot, which could be seen as a bad thing too if you realize how much harder a GM may have to work for a more flexible plot.


All that said, while I don't think your idea works for traditional RPs, I do think that there is one kind of RP on site that pretty much has all of those elements as it's standard: Quest RPs. Quest RPs are written pretty much like "choose your own adventure" books, so in them the one running the RP writes the entries, they write the story, while the players vote for things like character decisions. It does have precendent to also allow the players to create the characters for the quest's story, so quest RPs pretty much have your idea built in, to my understanding of it. The difference being that the audience for quest RPs is actually interested in the kind of thing you're suggesting whereas in a traditional RP it's more likely to kill any motivation the players have to participate.



I hope that's helpful, and whatever you choose to do, I wish you the best of luck and happy RPing!

I think that he's just talking about railroading the plot for certain events and making player choices unchangable by someone else once made. If that's ehat you means then that's a terrible idea. You have to work around player autonomy, and a lot of times people can't agree on certain things. Do you think that brooding edgelord in thr corner guy, "I fight for truth and justice bevause my parents died" weeb, and the "lolrandom" catgirl are gonna agree on things?

I think first I need to understand what you mean by plot determinant? You say that a lot and I'm not quiet sure what you mean by that.

Your description reads as if your talking about an interactive story driven PC game. Where the setting and "story" exist totally separate from the player's character. And your goal is to "unlock" the full story through NPC interactions. So basically you just run through the game as many times as needed to get to the end.

Only your taking the added element of having not just a single player character run through this game. But multiple player characters run through this game. But they all still play as if only a single person is trying to get through the game's story alone.


If that's the idea it seems really time consuming and overly complex. First because you as the GM have to do a massive amount of preplanning and set up before anything gets started. You have to create the world. Create the plot. Create NPCs who all have specific plot relevant interactions that are unlocked based on player voting. You have to then come up with a voting system that allows players to unlock the specific points needed to complete the story.

You have to set up your "sandbox mode" where players can just chat and hang out outside of the plot.

You have to give people very specific roles they must play that would fit into the pre-estabilished plot / world.

You're basically making a fully realized PC game only putting it in a roleplay forum.

I mean if you have the time and energy I don't see anything wrong with it. It's a creative take on roleplaying I'll give you that. And there might be a market for it on here.

I will say that your biggest obstacles will probably be

1. Getting everything set up. That will take a LOT of time and effort
2. Getting people to read through all the lore and mechanics of the roleplay
3. Getting people active enough to make this approach worth it.
4. Keeping people engaged in the story when they have very little personally investment in it.

But three and four at least are universal roleplay problems so I wouldn't let them stop you from trying.

I'd usually reply to each post individually, but since similar points have been made, I'm going to answer as if they were one single group post (I'm practicing already).

I know the idea was a bit strange to explain, had that feeling as I was typing too. But it's basically what you've understood. The progression of the plot would consider the "party" as a whole, and choices would be like interactive stories, your choices direct which paths you take and no turning back time shenanigans are planned. Obviously that'd be one of the first things I'd say in the intro. But what seems to be unclear is that it's all IC, there's no OOC voting or for deciding the plot, that'd be decided beforehand and players could discuss it and request changes and stuff, but all OOCly and I'd still have the final say, whereas ICly the poll would have the final say regarding the direction the plot would progress.

By "plot determinant" I mean things that change the course of the story, which does qualify as an RP simulating an interactive story game. For example, if you don't interact with an NPC at least a certain amount of times, they become an antagonist and later on must be killed, shutting down the paths where that character would live and be supportive to the party, and thus meaning one possibility of the plot would be explored instead of others. Imagine that said NPC is a cientist trying to discover the cure to some disease that was affecting most of humankind in the RP. Interacting/supporting/protecting that NPC would make the research be successful and saving most of humankind, but if the NPC was ignored, he'd end up dying before his research was completed and a lot of people would die. Not all NPCs might have that big of an impact, but they would have some impact so that the characters would have to pick who they'd focus on.

Another thing I'd do is to limit how extreme player characters would be, so they'd generally be on the same page and nothing like "random catgirls" or other stereotypes. The extreme ones would have to be limited to NPCs. I personally wouldn't have any issues with being told that I couldn't make extreme characters, and I doubt many people would. If they can only make extreme characters, then they'd definitely not be the type that would enjoy or fit into the RP. If anything, it'd earn points with me to see that the GM is aware that they need to keep things under control. But of course this doesn't mean they'd have to be all the same kind of characters. I mean that in some sense of the expression, they'd be "good guys". They could be rebellious, violent and whatnot, but never villainous. If you want it on allignment-speak, I'd prohibit people from making "evil" characters and would be very unlikely to accept "chaotic" characters. That's about the limitations I can think of regarding their personality, which to be frank, looks mostly standard, so any specific "roles" would be left for NPCs.

Ideally, the same characters would start and remain in the main party until the end of the RP. The number of characters would be limited if that wasn't made clear, and while it's not set in stone, I'd prefer to avoid adding new ones in the middle of the RP unless someone had to leave for good. In which case, the new member(s) could alter the voting results, but realistically speaking it makes sense that things might change a bit if someone in a group is switched for someone else, and I don't see the immediate problem with this. Might cause some IC conflict but that's just fuel for the RP. As for the sandbox part, that'd be their free time. For these occasions, they don't have to all be together, and they can even choose to be alone. I'm not even against them running into NPCs doing daily life stuff. Though those events may affect how they interact with each other in the future and indirectly affect polls, they wouldn't directly change the story.

Thanks for the replies, I believe I addressed pretty much everything that was mentioned in them. I'm aware that it's not a standard thing to see in RPs and just might be too ambitious to pull off. But I still see the potential it has if there's enough dedication to it, and I'd be willing to spend effort on it as a GM, but wanted feedback on the player point-of-view to see if it'd actually be worth all that effort, as well as possible issues with it. If clearly explained in the intro page, anyone who joins would be aware of the mechanics and willing to try them out, so after character submissions that becomes a non-issue. While personally I wouldn't have any problems being on the player-side of something like this, I guess I can see why some people might be annoyed to not have 100% freedom on their characters...but honestly, I'm more of the opinion that RPs need some limits to keep things under control and interesting for everyone. It's not like you have no limits on other RPs for that matter, so I think it's the same "sacrifices" you'd have to make on any other RP that doesn't break itself.

EDIT: Forgot to say, I didn't expect much of positive feedback so thanks for that too.

Yeah I agree with Idea the only way this works is if you make a quest. Or if you go full boar and actually create an interactive story based game from scratch without the roleplay element at all.

Because honestly the players have zero incentive to participate in your roleplay on an individual level.

I got into this in a different thread about sharing the spotlight which might be a good read for you.

Because this sounds like a definite case where there is no sharing of the spotlight.

By making the players work as a unit you are stripping away all sense of personal investment.

Why should I care about a roleplay when I am stuck following whatever the group voted on and my character has no autonomy?

What if I’m the outlier of the group and don’t agree with the decisions of the majority? Not because I’m an ass but because I think there are better ways to handle a situation.

Also what incentive do I have to care about plot progression? I’m not making decisions the “group” is. So why vote? If my character is going to get dragged along regardless than why would I even bother voting at all?

Forum based roleplaying isn’t like interactive story games. Those are like novels. They are a largely passive experience where you are working on your own to complete the game.

Even if you add the element of a group to this roleplay it is still functionally working as if there is only a single protagonist going through each individual level unlocking specific achievements. The difference is this singular protagonist is made up of individual people. Which isn't really going to work.

Because while their multiple people there is no sense of collaboration. There is no sense that the characters are sharing the spotlight of the roleplay with each one given the chance to show off their unique skills / make a personal contribution to the plot.

Instead there is this collective "group" character that has to play through the game. And even then they are limited by the GM's pre-set storyline and interactions.

So yeah in this case your characters might be equal under the story. But unfortunately that just means they're all equally irrelevant.

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Quests would defiantly be the way to go with this. Those don't really require player interaction so much as audience participation. Which I think is what your going for. You don't seem so much concerned with people making characters as you do with an audience uncovering specific aspects of a story your created.

Which fits perfectly with what a Quest is. Now admittedly I don't know too much about that particular style of RP but you might head over to that section and see if there is anyone who can give you pointers.

I admit I've considered doing a quest RP multiple times...but I don't really consider that much of an actual RP mode to be honest. It's one person writing, and the most interaction other people can do (they don't even have characters) is voting, so it's barely cooperative writing. Which is why I wanted to implement actual player-controlled characters, the voting would be on specific moments. I think interactive stories shouldn't really count as RPs at all.

But I see why it's contradictory. I wondered if the setting and everything was sorted out, wouldn't the mechanics seem interesting to people? I guess the popularity of the quest RP genre shows the answer to that. It fits more in a game than in an RP. The issue doesn't seem to be the voting part, but rather the trivializing of the individuality the player characters have. In that case, I suppose some RP could still have voting be part of it, but without counting everyone as being one single entity.

Well, maybe just writing a story, making a poll so anybody in the forums could vote to decide the direction the story would head, and then writing the next part based on those choices is what I should be looking for, not on the RPing sections but on the Creativity one I guess.

Beundo said:

Well, maybe just writing a story, making a poll so anybody in the forums could vote to decide the direction the story would head, and then writing the next part based on those choices is what I should be looking for, not on the RPing sections but on the Creativity one I guess.

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As I understand it this is the exact definition of a quest roleplay.

The Beginner's Guide to Questing

Yeah from what that post says you've pretty much just been describing a text-book quest roleplay.

The only difference is there are no player characters. Instead your "players" are just a site-wide audience that vote on the outcome of your roleplay at key intervals.

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If you do want to do want to do a character based roleplay I would change it to a 1x1 OR simply change the voting method to be randomized.

Which means that either

A. you the GM create the world and then you have a single player move through the game. They vote on outcomes at pre-determined intervals and whatever they vote on influences the direction of the roleplay.

B. you the GM create the world and control the story. So you basically have the same pre-set plot moments. But instead of a vote you simply randomize the outcome yourself. So at key points you'll just tell your players " A Random NPC appears with XXX to say."

And the players react accordingly. This gives them some individual freedom to interact with your story but also keeps the structured story element. It's also a lot fairer. As it isn't forcing everyone to go along with a single action. It is simply everyone reacting to the same interactive event.

Those alternatives are valid but they're not something I'd be interested in doing, thanks though.

I just think that putting it on the quest RP section would make less people see it, but I guess I'd have to deal with that.

Think of it this way. Anime school roleplays are very popular. A lot of interest for those.

But if you put a sword and sorcery roleplay in the anime school section just because there is more traffic

That doesn’t mean that the anime school roleplayers will join your roleplay.

Because that’s not what they’re looking for.

Now the sword and sorcery section might be less popular but at least the people in that section are looking for your kind of roleplay

It’s the same with quests. Just putting a quest roleplay in a more popular section doesn’t mean more people will join. Because the people in the other section aren’t necessarily looking for quests

That's the thing though, people may not have any interest/knowledge about quest RPs, even if they enjoy interactive stories. I think it's an issue with the quest RP "genre", as they really are just interactive stories. There's nothing to "join", especially since anyone can vote and only one person is actually writing. And people might not be interested in quest RPs, but they just want to read a story, which they'd be very unlikely to go to the quest RP section to search for it. If anything they'd go to other sections that have multiple people posting and are separated by actual genres/settings.

In the end, this became a different discussion than intended in the post. From a collective protagonist to the accuracy of the quest RP genre definition. I did give my thoughts on that quest RP topic and that's still my opinion on them. Worst case scenario, I'd post the story in the writing section and a mod moves it to the quest section.

I was under the impression you wanted to do a roleplay not a story.

If you just want to write a story than yes putting it in the creative section is best. Or maybe placing it in a writing website. Maybe do something with beta testers or something.

*beta readers. There might be a site for those kind of interactive stories

At first I was considering an RP, yeah. But for the reasons pointed out, that wouldn't be likely to work well, so I'm turning to the creative section and having polls for readers to vote (assuming I start writing that is).

You might look at A03’s choose your own adventure tag. They have a similar format I believe to what your wanting.

Might search it on here and see if anyone else has tried this

So, do you want something similar to a guided tabletop gaming session, where, in the interests of development, people can just take control of the whole scene, including other people's characters, but are still primary controller of their own?

I've never participated in a tabletop session, but other than the GM directing the story based on the votes, no one would control other people's characters under normal circumstances, unless rule-breaking happened and/or people had to leave or were unable to post, things like that.

It would be something like this: between missions, characters could walk around town freely, chat with each other, stay at home, and other things that wouldn't directly affect the story. Events that did affect the story would be highlighted and would require the majority of the party to want to do said event for it to happen.

Beundo said:

I've never participated in a tabletop session, but other than the GM directing the story based on the votes, no one would control other people's characters under normal circumstances, unless rule-breaking happened and/or people had to leave or were unable to post, things like that.

It would be something like this: between missions, characters could walk around town freely, chat with each other, stay at home, and other things that wouldn't directly affect the story. Events that did affect the story would be highlighted and would require the majority of the party to want to do said event for it to happen.

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That ... just sounds like what a quest-based fantasy should be ... like D&D without the dice. (I get that you haven't played tabletop, but from what I read, it's what it sounds like.) The GM sets the scene, offers the plot hooks, and develops the story, and the group of 3-6 players work as a party to progress ... is my tired brain missing something here?

If I'm right, stop thinking about votes, and just encourage players to discuss what hooks or missions or NPCs they liked... or have their characters decide.

It's just that the votes might be a fairer way to decide really, because otherwise it'd be up to me. I think the main issue is that I was trying to mix traditional RPing in there as well, together with the apparent tabletopness of it. I considered making some sort of quiz that the characters would answer subconsciously (like if they were dreaming or something) so while they wouldn't literally "vote", their opinions would be expressed there with their answers and I could translate them into votes/points.

I think the main source of confusion is that even though it appears that this is standard for a tabletop session in theory, it's still far more railroaded than your average tabletop session. The reason for that is solely due to the overall setup; though tabletop sessions are usually cooperative, they still allow for dissent and individual actions. If the entirety of a player's agency is stripped away in the face of a group decision, you lose one of the primary elements of tabletop play.

Beundo said:

there as well, what do you think of that idea? Would that make the RP lose points to you? Would that be an interesting thing to try as a player? What would be the ideal mechanics to pull that off? I'd like to know the answer to those questions and to hear whatever else you may have to say about it. If I was unclear, do let me know, feel free to ask questions.

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I think it's an interesting idea provided you find a cohesive group willing to go along with it. It would certainly provide a solid direction for the plot to move forward.

Depends on the plot and my interest in the story, but I wouldn't mind trying it out since I'm fairly flexible with my characters. I have many routes for them and the hardest thing for me is decision-making when it comes to plot directions. Having a group decision helps.

Not sure what the ideal mechanic would be, but I'd suggest keeping limitations low. Say the group decides to befriend NPC A instead of B or C for plot purposes. Don't control player characters but let them decide/control how their character would try to befriend NPC A. Or, if they create a character that simply can't befriend NPC A, for whatever reason (personality clashes too much), allow their character the right to express their dissent with group decision IC (while reluctantly going along) or just opt of that particular arc altogether. Bunnying the character along just to satisfy the group feels...wrong...unless players offer the their consent. But then, if they agree to this type of rp in the first place, I guess they are already giving their consent so...*shrug*

My advice, make the story good to make up for the lack of player control.

A cohesive group...sounds like finding a gold mine. Finding incohesive ones seems to be difficult enough, which is why I mentioned it might be too ambitious of an idea. Though it's nice to see that the idea sounds interesting, despite its difficulties to be put in motion.

I certainly wouldn't control other people's characters, and despite the votes they'd RP how they want to handle the voting results, like you said. They wouldn't be treated as if they were one single character by NPCs either, if the party decides to follow an NPC's arc but some characters don't get along to well with them, that could still show on the RP. It just would make it much more difficult to control if every character could do their own thing, so while individual characters could want to seek out NPCs for free time stuff, it could only indirectly affect the story.

I just don't want it to be an abstract thing, as in me deciding the next steps based on posts and my own preferences. I think the players would feel it's more decisive and fair to handle it as a vote rather than by the GM's whim as well, so they'd feel like they're more in control of the plot than just me possibly bending the posts for the plot to go the way I want it to.

I wouldn't want them to be able to opt out of non-side arcs because that'd mean that the character and RPer could be frozen for possibly a long time, but it's a convenient alternative if the RPer has to take a break. That brings another issue though, it might be difficult to get the RP going even with few people, so preferably people would stay together and not just further reduce the number of RPers. It's why the "no extreme characters" thing was mentioned, which sounds more extreme than I'd like. It basically means that no one character should try to hog the spotlight or derail the story, and I don't mean they can't be reckless or anything like that, but more in the big picture. They can direct the story through the voting part.

And yeah, I realize the importance of the story making and keeping people interested in participating, quite the pressure there. There are a few anime fandoms I was considering for this, if the game/Visual Novel-like aspect didn't hint at that, but that's still a lot of planning involved. Thanks for the comments.

I get what you are saying as treating all roleplayers as a collective. The thing is this already happens and it is boring. Breeding individuality is important, so players will not be able see much of sole impact of them in the story if no matter what they get shuffled along like the rest of the OCs. Furthermore, it can drag down the speed as you wait for everyone to do an action that will seem tedious as everyone will just be reading and waiting for the same action to be done multiple times to progress through a plot determinant.