Has your character ever been involved in a purposeful, compelling story?
I've been involved in quite a lot of meaningful RP. For me the trick is finding people I trust out-of-character to not just be in it for their own characters exclusively, or for other reasons (Cybersex, attention woman-of-ill-repute-ing, etc).
That said I did kind of just drop out of a group of really good RPers awhile ago due to major personality clashes out of character as well :/ Our characters got along famously, but as players, not so well. But enough about that. 
Some of the best RP I've ever experienced was completely impromptu with all involved totally shooting from the hip, but some of the worst has come from the same, so it is sort of a mixed bag, and I'll agree with what's already been said about having someone to kind of help direct the flow.
The key to really great RP is, to my mind, understanding that characters are like plans - they never survive the opening conflict, and as such should be open to change except under certain circumstances.
My DM said it best recently when we were discussing an upcoming D&D campaign. "I never try to plan too far ahead. Instead I focus on rounding out where I want the characters to be at the start, then I let RP decide where they go from there."
To give an example, I've finally made a character I'm happy enough to keep the "Emerald Phase" name with. She has two very distinct, very different personalities right now. One is a hardened, almost robotic ruthless killing machine, when she's under Arachnos' control. The second is her "normal" self. It's sort of a forced split personality thing, where neither has any knowledge of the other courtesy of supplanted false memories and a psionic trap to keep anyone tampering with Arachnos' well-laid plans ... Yet.
Freeing her won't be as simple as just flipping a switch, and even when she is freed, there will be Serious Consequences. Ultimately I'd like to take her blue-side after GR, but if I find a group I enjoy RPing with that find a way to convincingly turn her one way or the other, so be it.
Half the fun, at least for players like me, is in not knowing just where our own characters' lives are going to take us.
*ahem* Sorry for the long-winded rambling. I do tend to get carried away when it comes to my creations. ^_~
TLDR version: Yes, I've been involved in quite a lot of epic, overarching RP. The two secrets for me have been to have a small group of regular, trustworthy players to RP with, and to be willing to go with the flow sometimes, but alsoo to remember to have fun. If you're not having fun, then there's just no point in trying
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Seriously? That is a little annoying >_> I don't mind long bios as much as I used to, if there's something about the character in there, but then, I tend to break bio lengths myself these days :P|
Originally Posted by poptart_fairy
Yaaaaaaargh. Okay, one week on I have an incredibly burning question to ask:
What is with all the purple bloody prose in character descriptions? People seem to have an incredible habit of rambling on for about five paragraphs talking about war, suffering, loss, etc etc, without telling you anything about the character. It bugs the living goolies out of me, and smacks of pretentiousness - even if some of these folk are really quite lovely. |
I'll have to start paying more attention though. Now I'm kinda curious.
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To be fair though, all you need for an impenetrable disguise is a pair of thick-framed glasses and a cheap suit.|
Originally Posted by poptart_fairy
Eurgh, looking a a lot of the descriptions floating around I'm kind of glad there aren't many 'epic' stories right now. There's a ridiculous amount of wanted heroes, criminals operating in Paragon City, 'undetectable' vigilantes that only change the colour of their costume, etc. Seems 'epic' equates with 'no consequences' to most people.
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Did I reply to this already? I can't remember.
Ah well;
No, I haven't. Not to my recollection anyway.
I'd like to, but my character personalities and Australian time zone makes things a little difficult.
Eastern Standard Time (Australia)
is 15 hours ahead of
Eastern Standard Time (North America)
which is 5 hours behind
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
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Great advice...for those people that live in a universe where a DM narrates their life...|
Originally Posted by Danifae_NA
I will +1 to the comment that you need a central person directing the story. A 'DM' if you will, as much like life... |
I haven't been in any actual 'meaningful' RP because RP outside of 'for its own sake' is meaningless..
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You can as well. Nominate a DM. Make whoever comes up with the story stretch their mind and keep the story directed. It's just a stone cold fact, when everyone is a "consensual equal" in the RP, then your storytelling can never be cohesive. Everything degenerates into ridiculous "I'll make another alt which is yet ANOTHER child from the future of my character while she sleeps with that guy over there but this kid is the child of THAT other guy. What amazing drama and angst it is to run the same 10 base plots again and again and again because none of us are willing to use our imaginations and stretch beyond the boundaries!"|
Originally Posted by Tokyo
Great advice...for those people that live in a universe where a DM narrates their life...
I haven't been in any actual 'meaningful' RP because RP outside of 'for its own sake' is meaningless.. |
Don't be afraid to take your turn at the wheel as well. If you suck at it, fine. Not everyone who tries it is good at it; but it's unavoidable. Without one person directing a story, the center will NOT hold. You need NPCs to move a story along if you ever want to advance past soap-opera level stuff.
Also, a DM who "narrates the life" of your characters is an incompetent. At no point can a DM EVER tell you what _your_ character is doing or feeling. The DM presents the world and flow of events to you, you, as a player, have your character exist in them. You change them, as you change your own life, and just like a good campaign, you have no control over anyone but yourself in real life.
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You speak the absolute truth. If you try to involve that many people at once, you might as well just call it quits ahead of time or keep the RP so generic that it never advances past "DA BAD GUYZ ATTACK-ED OUR BASE WE GOTS TO GET DEM BACK!". I've never been in a campaign or adventure worth being in that had more the... 7 people, tops, and even that was pretty directionless.
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Originally Posted by Kai
I totally don't miss 40 people trying to have a conversation and a plot :7 I think a lot of us realized that if you want a story to go anywhere, you have to limit the number of people involved, and the first people you pick are your RL friends and SG mates so the visibility just got smaller.
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*just has to laugh* That summed up my first D&D experience right there. There were seven of us, and a bigger drama bomb, I have never seen.|
Originally Posted by NobleFox
I've never been in a campaign or adventure worth being in that had more the... 7 people, tops, and even that was pretty directionless.
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I like to have at least two different storylines going with different characters in case one stalls out due to RL invasion (which happens a lot >_> Can't be helped, though), but I try to avoid super-massive stuff in terms of the number of people involved.
This reminded me of the time I did try to run a big story. It was an absolude disaster because everyone (like, 20 people
) had their own ideas of how to handle the situation, and were stepping on each others' toes to try and be the hero.It just... Yeah. Herding cats is an apt phrase, if said cats are also rabid.
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Several times, a long time ago.|
Originally Posted by Merry_Mint
My characters feel like nightclub attendees. Has your character ever been involved in a purposeful, compelling story about superheroes? How did you achieve this?
Help!  |
How? I don't really remember, but I know for a few of them, I ran them with a few friends and colleagues.
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At least one can ignore rambling character descriptions. Want to get any of my characters out of a room? Start rambling on in local for paragraphs at a clip in noirspeak/purple prose. Y'know, "/em, takes a long, sorrowful look into the bottom of his almost empty glass, tilting the cup to watch the intoxicating liquid circle around the depths of the glass. It had been a bad day, yaddaa yadda yadda blah blah blah." Good gods do I hate that.
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Originally Posted by poptart_fairy
Yaaaaaaargh. Okay, one week on I have an incredibly burning question to ask:
What is with all the purple bloody prose in character descriptions? People seem to have an incredible habit of rambling on for about five paragraphs talking about war, suffering, loss, etc etc, without telling you anything about the character. It bugs the living goolies out of me, and smacks of pretentiousness - even if some of these folk are really quite lovely. |
Tales of Judgment. Also here, instead of that other place.
good luck D.B.B.
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omg sidneyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
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Originally Posted by sidney_b
several times, a long time ago.
How? I don't really remember, but i know for a few of them, i ran them with a few friends and colleagues. |
There are no words for what this community, and the friends I have made here mean to me. Please know that I care for all of you, yes, even you. If you Twitter, I'm MrThan. If you're Unleashed, I'm dumps. I'll try and get registered on the Titan Forums as well. Peace, and thanks for the best nine years anyone could ever ask for.
Sid!
... *Grudgingly hands over the Medic badge.*
The Elysienne; Magical controller
Silent Sickle; Natural scrapper
And many more.
Aenigma Rebis: "Actually, Ely's more like Jean Grey. Only... smart."
((It is! It really is! Sid! Hello! *does the happy, happy, joy, joy dance*
*does best Tom Cruise sincerity acting expression* Sid, you complete us.
))
Uh oh, I've called attention to myself. I suppose it's too late to vanish? (Nice to see you all again!)
Anyway, sometimes the only way to make a purposeful, compelling story is to ask a few friends and run one yourself.
It's a lot harder, but.
Let's see, off the top of my head:
Kelp's, Kel's, and what's his name's being turned into girls, with White Geisha totally playing the straight woman in this.
30 or so characters played future children of their characters sent back, with some epic door mission where we had 100 or so people in it.
Something with the Guardian Angels containing one of their teammates who was a warewolf.
Neo Kitsune's decent into emoness.
Anything even briefly touched by the genius of the players behind Questing Eagle and Chrome Fist (Which had so many offshoots because while they were the center of many a story they trusted people to create things around them. The memorable Eric / Shinsecktor regen sword fight in Gemini)
I even ran a few where I would pseudo-GM missions, with my character 'playing' various NPCs. The players used random drops of enchancements and insperations (This was before salvage) as plot tokens: hand one in to change the course of the story / have your character do something big that they can't do in game but in character.
Arc #345863 - When The Bough Breaks
"Curse you Perry the Plata...wait, is that Love Handel?" - Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz, Phineas and Ferb
Let's see, serious RP.
There was one where my SG leader was framed for a murder. The murder of a literal witch who had tried to kill him several times, so it's not like he didn't have motive.
I once created a character just for an RP where one of my friends unearthed a Sky Raider ship and decided to use it to start a merc group. I wanted a MA/Regen, the ship needed a mechanic, so I made a tomboy who was good with a wrench 
.
My all time favorite has got to be a long storyline I set out. My main character, Jet Falcon, upon finding out a secret from his past, lets his inner rage take over to the point where it became a separate personality, named Damien Jager. Damien wreaked havoc across Paragon and the SG until he tried going back in time to the year 1900 and nuking Paragon City in the past. But my SGmates knew he was going to do this, and had exactly the right tools to stop him. Why? Because Jet doesn't age, and after being trapped in the past, he merely waited 100-something years and starting manipulating everyone from the shadows, making sure it would go the same way he remembered it going. That's right, Jet Falcon pulled a Xanatos Gambit on himself.
"You must never imagine, that just because something is funny, it is not also dangerous." - Neil Gaiman
"You know what I love? People who respond with aggression and belligerence thinking it replaces logic." - Blue Mourning
Yaaaaaaargh. Okay, one week on I have an incredibly burning question to ask:
What is with all the purple bloody prose in character descriptions? People seem to have an incredible habit of rambling on for about five paragraphs talking about war, suffering, loss, etc etc, without telling you anything about the character. It bugs the living goolies out of me, and smacks of pretentiousness - even if some of these folk are really quite lovely.