Other Favorite Research Topic for an RP

[Marisathief]

What was your favorite topic of research you've done for an RP?
Bonus points if you link to/recommend any of the research materials.
EDIT:
Anything counts as long as you only looked into it, read it, found out it was a thing for an RP

My favorites were circus culture and fairytale motifs. They were so interesting I'm still really fascinated with both topics.
For circus culture, my favorites were this list of circus slang, and the book The Art of Clowning which is one of the most accidentally entertaining books I've ever read.
For fairytale motifs, Jon Solo on Youtube has a really fun series where he covers fairy tales (and it's where I first learned about the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Classification of Folk Tales) and the book Morphology of the Fairy Tale, which is dry but pretty interesting if you can summon the will to pick it up again.

 

[horrorshow]

I wouldn't say I've done a lot of research for roleplays in a long time, but as a writer, I am constantly researching.

When I was a young teenager I spent a fair amount of time researching the circus culture, too. Online, in books, later in life I met circus performers and carnies and stuff and ended up learning a lot from them. It has stayed with me, and I still write circus themed short stories and novellas.

I grew up on Dungeons and Dragons and medieval fantasy and its lore, but it is always fun to go through my handbooks when tackling fantasy plots.

I had a roleplay partner years and years ago who particularly loved period pieces. She loved the victorian era and steampunk plots, and man was she good at it. I never really was until I started writing with her, and I learned a lot from her about all of that stuff and still research it a lot. I fondly remember those times.

I don't know, I'd have to say as a roleplayer and serious writer, I have researched just about everything in the book in my twelve years of writing. Haha.

I have come across the circus lingo page before, I remember writing a lot of it down by hand in a journal so I could take it with me everywhere when I was writing a particular short story.

 

[Marisathief]

. . .I have come across the circus lingo page before, I remember writing a lot of it down by hand in a journal so I could take it with me everywhere when I was writing a particular short story.

That's wonderful. You're wonderful.
The closest I've ever came to meeting a carny is when a clown was making balloon animals at an event in town and I did an impromptu interview.
And I totally feel the DND book thing. I loved Gary Gygax's AD&D monster manual so much as a kid I would fall asleep with it in my bed. I also carried around this book and this book like I was actually a field researcher for monsters.

 

[horrorshow]

My dad was kind of a weird guy growing up so for whatever reasons he has tie ins with the actual freaking circuses and every few years we will hang around them and I'll get to meet cool people. When I grew up and started working in metal music, my hometown started a music festival that also features performances from side shows. So its just a weird coincidental thing that I've gotten to do all of that!

And that's so cool! I used to take my dragon books everywhere when I was a kid, don't for the life of me know why I did that but I certainly did haha.

Most recently I'd have to say I'm researching about particular musicianship outside of what I am personally familiar with. As I am currently creating a character who is a musician, but doesn't play the same kind of music that I play lol so I'm kinda lost and having to watch all kinds of youtube videos and read music blogs and call up old friends who I know play within his style.

It's amazing when you really think about it how much you learn from doing stuff like this, and it doesn't seem like all that much effort at the time because you're enjoying yourself.

 

[Dmitri Tolenka]

Me I like the weird and amazing things that regular people can do. Stories that fiction writers would throw out as being too far fetched to maintain suspension of disbelief.

Like that one russian shepherd in his seventies who beat seven shades of s*** out of a bear. An actual full grown bear.

I mean the bear won in the end but only by ring out.

As in the beast threw the shepherd off a cliff. The mad lad survived this and walked back to home afterward.