Experiences What are some of your most memorable RP experiences?

[BakaTheIdiot]

From a betrayal you literally didnt see coming to a surprising amount of growth a character shows near the end of the story, what are some moments that stick out to you in all of your roleplaying adventures? They can be good, they can be weird, they can be personal favorites, everything goes here! I figure it would be a nice counterbalance to my last post, which focused explicitly on the negative.

And I apologize if this has been posted before!

 

[CorralDust]

There are more ... but here are a couple that jumped to my mind right away!


In a live-action medieval-fantasy game that I got to play a high-level vampire lady antagonist. Some of the players knew the character's name, but not her face. Right before going into play, I let my hands soak in icy cold water until they were good and 'dead' feeling. So just as I let one of the players take my hand, I introduced myself and I will never forget the pleasant look on the player's face morphing into shock and he couldn't find words. That was no acting. He literally had an 'oh crud' moment.

A forum that I was on years ago that was not an RP site at all had a 'games' section and a few of those games were RPs. Myself and 3 others players did a completely impromptu story that had a caravan crossing a mountain pass and getting set upon by bandits. Every player picked up a protagonist and an antagonist and filled in NPCs as needed. The caravan suffered heavy losses in the ambush - several members taken captive - the bandits would sell them to slave traders. The small group of uncaptured survivors had a lively debate about trying to launch a rescue mission, before finally deciding to do it. They snuck in, had some moments where they were nearly caught, then found the captives. A desperate fight followed. The leader of the rag-tag was killed in a scene that inspired tears and a real sense of loss before the wounded and beat up heroes emerged victorious. It was one of the few RPs that I've actually finished!

 

[BakaTheIdiot]

There are more ... but here are a couple that jumped to my mind right away!


In a live-action medieval-fantasy game that I got to play a high-level vampire lady antagonist. Some of the players knew the character's name, but not her face. Right before going into play, I let my hands soak in icy cold water until they were good and 'dead' feeling. So just as I let one of the players take my hand, I introduced myself and I will never forget the pleasant look on the player's face morphing into shock and he couldn't find words. That was no acting. He literally had an 'oh crud' moment.

A forum that I was on years ago that was not an RP site at all had a 'games' section and a few of those games were RPs. Myself and 3 others players did a completely impromptu story that had a caravan crossing a mountain pass and getting set upon by bandits. Every player picked up a protagonist and an antagonist and filled in NPCs as needed. The caravan suffered heavy losses in the ambush - several members taken captive - the bandits would sell them to slave traders. The small group of uncaptured survivors had a lively debate about trying to launch a rescue mission, before finally deciding to do it. They snuck in, had some moments where they were nearly caught, then found the captives. A desperate fight followed. The leader of the rag-tag was killed in a scene that inspired tears and a real sense of loss before the wounded and beat up heroes emerged victorious. It was one of the few RPs that I've actually finished!

Very nice. Your commitment to LARP is honestly really impressive. I would've pulled my hands out ages before that!!

For me at least, my most memorable is the only instance in which a character of mine really bit the dust. This remains the first time, and so far only time, I ever "lost" a character.

Quick context: this was a Sci-Fi RP, loosely based on Firefly, No Man's Sky, and Elite: Dangerous (although I didn't know that last bit at the time), in which there were several major "factions" in space constantly warring over territory and influence. My character grew up in one of only a handful of independent systems, but was suddenly and brutally occupied by the Federation (sort of a corporate monolithic entity). My character found himself the head of his family, all of whom were starving, and figured that if he enlisted in the Federation Navy, maybe he could improve their lives. So he did that - and washed out a couple months later. Feeling defeated and getting incredibly desperate, he took out a loan, bought a ship, and began working as a mercenary. That's the gist, now we're all caught up for the actual experience!

Really far into the RP (this had been going for months, as opposed to the weeks I was more used to), all of us were confronted with a difficult decision: we all had a chance to do real damage to both the Federation and the Alliance (other faction, don't worry about it) at the same time, and that required performing an FTL jump right next to both ships - the distortion of local space would tear them both apart. To do this, our base of operations (we called it a flagship) would perform the jump, as only it had enough mass to do the deed. The caveat was that this mission was incredibly high risk: until the flagship performed the jump, it was wickedly exposed, and all of us had to fight off a small horde of naval vessels. Concerned for his own safety and the stability of his family, my character backed out. He wasn't about to die for a cause he didn't believe in, especially with people to look after.

When we all got into the OOC chat and began talking about how this next bit could pan out, all I said was that my character would come back for one last hurrah before I had to leave the RP for personal reasons. (I don't really remember why, this was a long time ago.)

Near the end of the final confrontation with the two superpowers, things weren't looking good. The group was completely surrounded, and several NPCs were dead, dying, or were flying damaged. Off in the distance, my character returned to the aid of his comrades, not for money, not for promises of a better future, but because he had made a promise to help, and he was going to stick by it. To quote him: "If I can't keep a promise, what kind of man am I?"

After some very tight air-to-air combat which damaged his vessel, he flew directly into the enemy line of fire to try and draw some attention away from the flagship - something he knew would be a one way trip. Firing everything he had at the bridge of the Federation base vessel, for a brief moment, a window was created, and the flagship and all of our peeps pulled off the jump, crippling the two enemy base ships. My character watched in relief as his friends made it out, and as a final middle-finger to the Federation, slammed his ship into the bridge, killing some of the crew. He never made it back home.

I think why this one sticks out to me is because up until then, my characters were (and I'm almost ashamed to admit this) pretty static and shallow. This was the first - and thankfully not the last! - time that one of my characters showed real growth. For the majority of the roleplay, my character was involved, but still pretty withdrawn from the group. He was here for entirely selfish motivations, and left for entirely selfish motivations, but when the going got tough, and my character was presented with a choice to go back with his family, or fight alongside some people he had gotten (with some effort) pretty close with, he, for the first time, stuck with his friends - even if it cost him his life. I remember all of us had a really long "OMG that was so cool" talk after the fact. One of the most fun RPs I ever did, 10 outta 10, think about it a lot.

Wow. This was really long. Sorry!

 

[Knightofthehoolow]

Very nice. Your commitment to LARP is honestly really impressive. I would've pulled my hands out ages before that!!

For me at least, my most memorable is the only instance in which a character of mine really bit the dust. This remains the first time, and so far only time, I ever "lost" a character.

Quick context: this was a Sci-Fi RP, loosely based on Firefly, No Man's Sky, and Elite: Dangerous (although I didn't know that last bit at the time), in which there were several major "factions" in space constantly warring over territory and influence. My character grew up in one of only a handful of independent systems, but was suddenly and brutally occupied by the Federation (sort of a corporate monolithic entity). My character found himself the head of his family, all of whom were starving, and figured that if he enlisted in the Federation Navy, maybe he could improve their lives. So he did that - and washed out a couple months later. Feeling defeated and getting incredibly desperate, he took out a loan, bought a ship, and began working as a mercenary. That's the gist, now we're all caught up for the actual experience!

Really far into the RP (this had been going for months, as opposed to the weeks I was more used to), all of us were confronted with a difficult decision: we all had a chance to do real damage to both the Federation and the Alliance (other faction, don't worry about it) at the same time, and that required performing an FTL jump right next to both ships - the distortion of local space would tear them both apart. To do this, our base of operations (we called it a flagship) would perform the jump, as only it had enough mass to do the deed. The caveat was that this mission was incredibly high risk: until the flagship performed the jump, it was wickedly exposed, and all of us had to fight off a small horde of naval vessels. Concerned for his own safety and the stability of his family, my character backed out. He wasn't about to die for a cause he didn't believe in, especially with people to look after.

When we all got into the OOC chat and began talking about how this next bit could pan out, all I said was that my character would come back for one last hurrah before I had to leave the RP for personal reasons. (I don't really remember why, this was a long time ago.)

Near the end of the final confrontation with the two superpowers, things weren't looking good. The group was completely surrounded, and several NPCs were dead, dying, or were flying damaged. Off in the distance, my character returned to the aid of his comrades, not for money, not for promises of a better future, but because he had made a promise to help, and he was going to stick by it. To quote him: "If I can't keep a promise, what kind of man am I?"

After some very tight air-to-air combat which damaged his vessel, he flew directly into the enemy line of fire to try and draw some attention away from the flagship - something he knew would be a one way trip. Firing everything he had at the bridge of the Federation base vessel, for a brief moment, a window was created, and the flagship and all of our peeps pulled off the jump, crippling the two enemy base ships. My character watched in relief as his friends made it out, and as a final middle-finger to the Federation, slammed his ship into the bridge, killing some of the crew. He never made it back home.

I think why this one sticks out to me is because up until then, my characters were (and I'm almost ashamed to admit this) pretty static and shallow. This was the first - and thankfully not the last! - time that one of my characters showed real growth. For the majority of the roleplay, my character was involved, but still pretty withdrawn from the group. He was here for entirely selfish motivations, and left for entirely selfish motivations, but when the going got tough, and my character was presented with a choice to go back with his family, or fight alongside some people he had gotten (with some effort) pretty close with, he, for the first time, stuck with his friends - even if it cost him his life. I remember all of us had a really long "OMG that was so cool" talk after the fact. One of the most fun RPs I ever did, 10 outta 10, think about it a lot.

Wow. This was really long. Sorry!

That gives me Cowboy Bepop vibes. That is pretty cool man!

 

[PKK]

This is an old post but I figured I will tell the ending of a 3 year RP.

Now to start, when I say this RP is old I mean it is WAAAAAAAAY old, like, Rping on Xanga type of old (03-04) and the only reason I remembered the ending was 1: I didn’t know RP can end. I thought it was an ongoing thing, only ending when someone disappears or stops responding. 2: it left such an impression on me that I even sent her a song that I thought perfectly captured the sadness of the ending and I still listen to it to this day.

Now, I don’t remember what led up to this point but I do remember bits and pieces. It started out as a human X angel Rp with a slice of life/ fantasy/ fish out of water setting and it started at a beach near my character's house (this detail is kinda important). Her character, The Angel, started out as the ‘fish out of water’ character and this was our RP for like a year and some odd months before the plot started to shift our RP setting out of slice of life and into more fantasy.

Before I knew it my character, a regular ass teen, was dragged into a war between angelic like people and it was my turn to be the fish out of water. He didn’t get angel powers cause we figured it would be unrealistic for him to gain power just because he was in another world. We settled on him just being good with a sword or spear. I can't remember which but I do remember he wouldn’t leave her side regardless of his position.

After certain cataclysmic events the war spread to the human world destroying nearly everything just to kill the big bad but there was a way to restore the world but it would erase the memory of every non angelic being (I can’t remember why but people remembering angels was a bad thing and that was the reason why the big bad was….well…the big bad) and our characters, at this point being in love, were struggling to make a decisions. Restore the world but him losing his memories? Or leave in ruins just so they can be together. It was a tough choice.

Now the part we’ve waited for, the ending.

There is a book which I will call the history of the world (it had a cooler title but it is currently slipping my mind) and by her, My partner’s Angel character, using her power to erase part of it and closing the book it will restore everything to the point before it’s destruction and continue a new path since the angels are no longer having a war. The angel did erase everything but struggled to close the book to put it into motion. My character and her argued back and forth trying to convince one another that one path was better than the other.

‘What makes you think I don’t want to close it?’ her voice cracked, tears streaming down her face but she still kept that look of duty of determination that this had to be done.

he places his hands on her cheeks, forehead against hers ‘Because if you did you would of closed it by now’

There is more to this but for the sake of the post I am not going to write down everything we said in the posts. All I will say is my next post was my character waking up in his bed saying that was a really weird dream before getting up to go to school. Even though he didn’t remember the Angel he would get glimpses of her from afar, on the other side of a window, even off the corner of his eyes but everytime he would chase after her or look in her direction she would disappear. And he would just chalk it up to him seeing things.

One night he heard her voice asking him about his day before he sat up in bed and looked at the edge of his bed hoping to see her but he didn’t know who she was but he knew he had to see her. So he hopped out of bed and ran into the pouring rain. Can you guess where he ran? That’s right! The beach! Where he first met someone important to him. But there was no one there.

And my final post was something along the lines of;

he stood on the beach, his clothes soaked and the sand at his feet watching the waves crash and retreat from the shore. With a sigh he slowly turned his gaze to the steps leading off the beach hoping beyond hope to capture the memory that seems to avoid him.

And her final posts was something like;

the beach; the start of her fondest memories and now the source of her sadness. The sea was calmer then, the sky brighter. She stood on the steps leading to the beach watching the boys defeat gaze look at her direction and felt a twinge of pain in her heart. As his guardian angel it was her job to stay close but she never felt so far away.

By shortening my partner's response it does it no justice just how sad it was. Now you might be asking ‘wait a minute who closed the book?’ and the answer is ‘we don’t know’ we never went back to discuss who closed the book we just left that part blank and I think the RP was better for it. The ending was bitter sweet but we had no desire to go back and RP a happy ending because…well…it was just a better ending imo.

That’s my story and damn it was kinda long…oh and if you are wondering what the song is look up 'About Today' by The National that was the song I sent her and she said she started crying again lol.