Grey
Dialectical Hermeticist
Welcome to a short instructional post from The Meanest Senpai.
We've all been there; you've come up with a new RP and you're raring to go, you've gotten some interested parties, and maybe even some characters - but wait, those characters don't seem to fit! They're either a little short and flat, or they go way off the deep end in a way you're not sure you like.
Well, better get started anyway, right? You do all the fingerwork necessary to get a thread going and the introduction posted, and then... silence. Maybe a post or two. Maybe three pages of aimless conversation and wandering which, inevitably fizzled out.
The place this probably fell down is context. See, if you face a player with endless possibilities, two things will happen; they'll freeze up, paralyzed at the lack of boundaries, or they'll go right off the damn wall and derail things beyond a point anyone else can deal with. They'll make a few posts, mostly about their own character, trying to meet up with other characters, or generally look for anything to do.
Context for your roleplay is vital. Context gives shape to actions and characters. It's a combination of setting and plot, with a dash of character thrown in. It's one of the reasons I emphasize good worldbuilding; if you have some constraints, the players can act creatively within them to enrich the narrative.
A player who makes a character of, say, the Elder Faith in an RP where the role of that Faith within the setting isn't given context won't get much more out of it than saying, hey, my character is related to this thing. Or maybe there is no Elder Faith and they just wanted to add something to the character's background.
On the other hand, if you've contextualized that Elder Faith is a resurgent religion in the setting and not everyone is comfortable with it, suddenly the character has more of a place in the world, a way in which people can be assumed to react and the seeds of a story based around their travails.
This goes for kewl powarz, too. 'My character draws on the power of demon blood to fight!' Okay, xxEdgemaster420xx, that's cool but what does it mean? Where'd that demon blood come from? What is a demon, in this context? How do the powers manifest? What rules do they follow? Importantly, how does everyone else feel about your powers?
Narrowing that stuff down provides even more fodder for plot, offers a guidelines to character interactions and opinions, and helps manage player power. If the rules for how something like that works are clearly laid out, it encourages ingenuity from the player to use the tools they have.
So, what I'm saying is; think carefully about what you include in your RP, and give as much info to your players as you can. Think about your setting and your story, and how one works with the other.
View full tutorial
We've all been there; you've come up with a new RP and you're raring to go, you've gotten some interested parties, and maybe even some characters - but wait, those characters don't seem to fit! They're either a little short and flat, or they go way off the deep end in a way you're not sure you like.
Well, better get started anyway, right? You do all the fingerwork necessary to get a thread going and the introduction posted, and then... silence. Maybe a post or two. Maybe three pages of aimless conversation and wandering which, inevitably fizzled out.
The place this probably fell down is context. See, if you face a player with endless possibilities, two things will happen; they'll freeze up, paralyzed at the lack of boundaries, or they'll go right off the damn wall and derail things beyond a point anyone else can deal with. They'll make a few posts, mostly about their own character, trying to meet up with other characters, or generally look for anything to do.
Context for your roleplay is vital. Context gives shape to actions and characters. It's a combination of setting and plot, with a dash of character thrown in. It's one of the reasons I emphasize good worldbuilding; if you have some constraints, the players can act creatively within them to enrich the narrative.
A player who makes a character of, say, the Elder Faith in an RP where the role of that Faith within the setting isn't given context won't get much more out of it than saying, hey, my character is related to this thing. Or maybe there is no Elder Faith and they just wanted to add something to the character's background.
On the other hand, if you've contextualized that Elder Faith is a resurgent religion in the setting and not everyone is comfortable with it, suddenly the character has more of a place in the world, a way in which people can be assumed to react and the seeds of a story based around their travails.
This goes for kewl powarz, too. 'My character draws on the power of demon blood to fight!' Okay, xxEdgemaster420xx, that's cool but what does it mean? Where'd that demon blood come from? What is a demon, in this context? How do the powers manifest? What rules do they follow? Importantly, how does everyone else feel about your powers?
Narrowing that stuff down provides even more fodder for plot, offers a guidelines to character interactions and opinions, and helps manage player power. If the rules for how something like that works are clearly laid out, it encourages ingenuity from the player to use the tools they have.
So, what I'm saying is; think carefully about what you include in your RP, and give as much info to your players as you can. Think about your setting and your story, and how one works with the other.
View full tutorial