2017-09-14 20:42:33 (edited by Swagtastic 2017-09-14 23:34:44)

Howdy there everybody. You'll find a current character list at the bottom of this post as they're submitted and approved.

    I'm feeling that familiar roleplay craving, and I was wondering if anyone here on the forum might be interested in some roleplaying on either Survive the Wild, Swamp, or any other audio game of that sort. I have a starting point and an idea for both of the games I mentioned, and I've been thinking about the right way of starting out for a few weeks. Now that I have enough background together, I figured i'd throw my ideas out here on the forum to see if I could gather anyone's interest.

Also, if you aren't very interested in roleplaying through the medium of audio games, (i'm new to it myself) I'm also completely open to roleplaying on MUDs, though they aren't usually the type of games that I play. I don't have much exposure to them. However, if you can be patient with a new player, I can absolutely assure you that my writing skills are up to the challenge.

Don't know what Roleplay is? Read this: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?id=22648

Le' Rules:

1) Be respectful OOC. It's one thing to have an argument between characters IC, it's another completely to get rude and nasty OOC because of IC antics. In-fighting and troublemaking will not be tolerated. If all you want to do is ruin other people's experience, this isn't the place for you.

2) It isn't all about you. A roleplay revolves around a CAST of characters. In the user's eye, their player is the hero. But one thing to keep in mind is that.. We're all heroes. We're all protagonists. Do everything you can, do everything you want to, just don't infringe upon another player's right to have fun. They're just as entitled to it as you are.

3) Don't meta-game, please. Meta-gaming is taking OOC information that your character wouldn't know, and acting as though your character has that information when it would normally be impossible for them to do so. Here's an example.

    Ok, so Player A and Player B are at war. Player A doesn't know where Player B is in character, but is trying to search for him. Player B says something in the OOC chat that he's in the desert. Player A sees this message, and though his character doesn't actually know that his target is in the desert in character, he goes to the desert anyway and kills him, even though his character would have no knowledge of that character's location. That's just.. Not cool. It's one thing to discover someone or something organically, and make it make sense with your character. For example, if Player A knew that Player B spent a majority of his time in the desert previously, he could logically assume that would be where to find him. It's another thing completely to just use meta-information to give yourself an edge over the other players. Long story short, just don't do this. It ruins the fun for everybody.

4) In most instances, player death is permanant. Death is permanent in reality, so it is in roleplay as well. Glitches and bugs excluded, for obvious reasons. If your character dies, you can still make another character and keep going in the roleplay. But if a character dies, they're dead. No respawns. Adds more flavor to the whole experience, and makes death actually feel impactful and meaningful.

5) Be as creative as possible. If you have an idea-- let me and the others in the group know! It might just be the best idea we've had for the game up to that point. Creative ideas are literally what keep an RP going.

6) Commitment is ideal. Real life obviously takes priority over a game, but you should do your best to be in it for the long haul. You can leave at any time, that's no problem-- I just like long-term games.

7) DM (me) holds the final say on disputes. If nobody can logically decide how to resolve a situation, I'll figure it out myself. If I can't decide, outcome will be decided via roll of a twenty-sided dye, a coin flip, or some other similar method dependent on situation.

8) Rules will be updated as I see fit.


    Ideas


They're actually pretty straightforward. I want to really get in character with these games. First things first, Survive the Wild. STW has this huge, expansive world to explore, quests to complete, resources to gather and items to craft. The mechanics of the game really speak for themselves, and provide the players the perfect avenue for roleplaying within it. With that being said, my idea is to simply create a character with a basic backstory, and take the roles of newly shipwrecked survivors who are trying to make their way through a tough an inhospitable world. We'll treat the game as reality-- speak only in character (when possible, obviously) and do our best to form a survival plan that will benefit the group as a whole. Building shelter, hunting, fishing, crafting-- our whole goal is the goal of the game, survival. However, as we go on, we'll collaboratively create new objectives for our little tribe to overcome. Perhaps one of the characters contracts some sort of illness, and we have to venture toward the hospital in search of life-saving antibiotics. Maybe one of the characters gets sick of all of us and ventures off on their own, and the rest of the tribe takes up the task of tracking them down and convincing them that there's strength in numbers. As long as we're creative, the possibilities are endless! And I have a whole, whole bunch of quests and tasks (of my own creation, they aren't coded into the game or anything) that could give our group more direction as the game stretches onward. This is just the briefest summary I can manage without getting too carried away and rambling on about this for.. Well, the equivalent length of a short novel.

    My idea for Swamp is nearly identical, but with a different setting. Instead of worrying about the wrath of nature, we'll be focused on overcoming the endless zombie horde. We'll create our characters, form our group, and work on gathering resources (both in-game and fictional) to help us survive. It's easy in the beginning-- in the outskirts of the city, the infected aren't as populus, and the resources are plentiful. But in time, the K-mart's shelves will empty, the gas station's tanks will do the same, and we'll eventually need to fight our way through the sewer system and beyond in search of other survivors, supplies, and the promise of a safe haven. Relationships will form, tensions will rise, and eventually, we might end up having a full-scale war on our hands to deal with alongside the threat of the infected. Who knows what could happen? The more creative we are, the more depth our game will have. The only real difference between this setting and that of STW is the obvious problem of inventory management. For the purposes of the game, carrying capacity should be treated realistically. Obviously you have an infinite inventory limit, but in real life, one can't simply hold 7 assault rifles and 10,000 rounds of ammunition. We'll decide what our characters have when they leave the safe zone. One will carry what a person can realistically carry. Obviously there are exceptions to the rule, but I think you all understand what I mean by this.

    If you're interested, even remotely, please use the following CS to create a character, and either post it in this thread, send it my way in a PM, or both.

Roleplay: (Survive the Wild, Swamp, or other)

    Name:

Alias: (If applicable)

Gender:

Age:

Physical Description: (Short and sweet is fine. A small paragraph will suffice nicely. Just try to be descriptive! We're all blind here, and the best mental image of a character that one can portray is always preferable.)

Personality: (As it sounds, a short, sweet summary of the character's more noteworthy personality traits. As above, a single short paragraph will suffice nicely. Usually a character's personality is fleshed out further IC.)

Strengths: (For roleplaying purposes. Nobody is amazing at everything. For example, a man with a background in fishing is obviously an excellent fisherman and sailor, but might not be so great at hunting wild game or navigating through the wilderness. Keep in mind that a character's strengths should be balanced out with their weaknesses. )

Weaknesses: (A weakness isn't necesarily a bad thing. It just gives your character more depth in personality. It's preferrable that you choose a weakness that will actually effect the way you play the game. E.G: Being great with a spear, but terrible with a bow.)

    History: (As above, a brief summary of your character's more important history and background. A little about their life before they were in the situation they're in currently. Former employment, interactions with people that had a lasting impact on the character, etc.)

Miscellanious: (Any other information you feel is worth mentioning that doesn't fall into any of the other sections.)

    If anybody has any questions, criticisms, or other ideas, feel free to contribute. I'd be absolutely thrilled to discuss this all at length and form a more cohesive narrative for those of us that are interested. And do keep in mind-- Though i'll be functioning as a DM of sorts, this is all collaborative. All ideas are welcome, all input is welcome, and especially, all criticism is welcome. Additionally, if anybody has any other suggestions for games we could use as a roleplaying medium, I'm all ears. I just listed the ones i've been thinking of as of late.

Hope to hear from perspective roleplayers soon!


-STW Roleplayers and Characters-

Swagtastic: (Character sheet work in process)


-Swamp players and characters-

Swagtastic: (Character Sheet work in process)

2017-09-14 22:06:16

All criticism?

Okay, since you threw that bit in there:

It's a niche within a niche. I...don't think many people would be leaping at the idea, honestly, I think yu'd be better off doing a play by post thing on a forum, like set up your own forum somewhere as that is more accessible than any audiogame. That being said I applaud your efforts but....but....

I hate to be that guy, but....I don't see this ending well short of private servers whichh I can't remember if STW/Swamp do, if only to provide a fair playing field.

Also, I'll take issue with your rules, I personally...dislike somebody holding all  the power, this sounds like a sterotypical I am the DM so do it my way or get out, type of situation. Now that may not be the case, I'm merely saying what it comes off as, like you're forcing people to play a certain way which takes away from creativity.

By the way you can be way, WAY more creative if you do the forum idea and spend a bit of time crafting a world, trust me on this and some of the best plots aret the ones nobody is expecting to happen. IMHO, forget the audiogame RP idea, do it on a forum, I mean if you go to somewhere like rpg-directory, if that's still up and put your idea out there the regulars there will pretty much assume Swamp and STW are forums and such....I just don't feel it'll work well on games that aren't specificallly designed for it with the zombies/other players in Swamp, and the stufff in STW.

That's my thoughts

P.S. Also don't think this is the right area for it, maybe ask to have it moved to off-topic too honestl I feel as it'd sit better there.y.

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2017-09-14 23:14:37 (edited by Swagtastic 2017-09-14 23:17:12)

DracoSelene89 wrote:

All criticism?

Okay, since you threw that bit in there:

It's a niche within a niche. I...don't think many people would be leaping at the idea, honestly, I think yu'd be better off doing a play by post thing on a forum, like set up your own forum somewhere as that is more accessible than any audiogame. That being said I applaud your efforts but....but....

I hate to be that guy, but....I don't see this ending well short of private servers whichh I can't remember if STW/Swamp do, if only to provide a fair playing field.

Also, I'll take issue with your rules, I personally...dislike somebody holding all  the power, this sounds like a sterotypical I am the DM so do it my way or get out, type of situation. Now that may not be the case, I'm merely saying what it comes off as, like you're forcing people to play a certain way which takes away from creativity.

By the way you can be way, WAY more creative if you do the forum idea and spend a bit of time crafting a world, trust me on this and some of the best plots aret the ones nobody is expecting to happen. IMHO, forget the audiogame RP idea, do it on a forum, I mean if you go to somewhere like rpg-directory, if that's still up and put your idea out there the regulars there will pretty much assume Swamp and STW are forums and such....I just don't feel it'll work well on games that aren't specificallly designed for it with the zombies/other players in Swamp, and the stufff in STW.

That's my thoughts

P.S. Also don't think this is the right area for it, maybe ask to have it moved to off-topic too honestl I feel as it'd sit better there.y.

1) Criticism greatly appreciated, I just want to get this out of the way right away.

2) I'm totally aware it's a niche-- it's exactly why I figured i'd put something up and test the waters a little bit. I'm a huge fan of forum-based games, and I happen to go on this site to do so http://www.roleplayerguild.com/
I'm already involved in a few forum-based roleplays, and I totally understand the creativity factor there. I'm basically just trying to shake things up a bit and try roleplaying over a medium that I haven't really screwed around with alongside other individuals before. I've had a few brief, short stints of RP through Swamp, but it was pretty short-lived. Just figured i'd give her another shot, know what I mean?

3) Whether it ends well or not? Well, it is what it is. If I find even one person that's interested, I'd consider that a success. The whole idea for keeping everybody on a similar playing field and a similar level would be to create new characters specifically for the roleplay in question. However, I understand the tedium of that and totally understand that from the outside looking in, it doesn't exactly look very viable.  It's why I asked for committed players-- I figured if someone out there was interested, they wouldn't mind taking that extra step.

4) Every single roleplay i've been involved in that doesn't have a DM falls apart in a matter of days. The whole, "I have final say" thing doesn't apply to literally everything. Just disputes in between players, and if I, or any of the players noticed a roleplayer doing something that would really, really break the flow of the game. It's the equivalent role of a Dungeon master at a D&D table-- sometimes, that DM just needs to nudge people back on track, or keep one individual player from ruining it for everybody. Rule sets like the above are extremely common in forum based RP especially, as I'm sure you're aware.

5) I'd say it's fairly obvious to those that play it that Swamp isn't exactly designed with roleplaying in mind. But it literally says in the readme of Survive the Wild that RP is actively encouraged and welcome. There's an IC and OOC chat for that specific reason. With enough creativity, one can look past the raw mechanics of a game and immerse themselves in a roleplay if they're into it.

Seriously though, I appreciate the criticism. I don't want to come off as negative at all-- i'm just of a different mentality. If I don't find any interest, that's that and i'll move on with my life. It's not like i'm going to make a big deal about it or anything.

Oh, and also;I'm not opposed to the thread being moved. If any of the mods see this and feel as though it'd sit better in Off-topic, I'm totally okay with that. I just figured... Well, if I'm asking about roleplaying on audio games, and the general discussion forum is for general discussion about audio games.. Seemed like the right place to me personally. But i'm also relatively new to the forum, so I could be completely wrong, haha.

Again, thanks for the opinions though. Greatly appreciated.

2017-09-14 23:17:28

So, here's the thing. I do lots of RP. If you want to see some of my RP at work, go on Twitter and take a look @ASanguineDevil, @AdroitIntensity, and maybe some others. Sometimes my RPs are off because of muse issues but I don't know if I could RP on an audiogame. For one, I'm not good at STW. At all. I've never played and probably never will. But on games like Alter Aeon, I'd love to do that.

Heroes need foes to test them. Not all teachers can afford to be kind, and some lessons must be harsh.

2017-09-14 23:31:08 (edited by Swagtastic 2017-09-14 23:36:07)

Dragomier wrote:

So, here's the thing. I do lots of RP. If you want to see some of my RP at work, go on Twitter and take a look @ASanguineDevil, @AdroitIntensity, and maybe some others. Sometimes my RPs are off because of muse issues but I don't know if I could RP on an audiogame. For one, I'm not good at STW. At all. I've never played and probably never will. But on games like Alter Aeon, I'd love to do that.

Gosh, I never really play MUDs myself. I just never really got into them. But I can't believe I forgot to mention them! I'm absolutely, 100% game to RP through MUDs as well. I haven't played too much of Alter Eon (I found it while I was testing out a large variety of different games) but I still have the client on my desktop. If you're interested in that type of thing, I can't really see any reason not to dip my toes into the MUD gaming world again. I never really gave the game a fair chance, anyway.

EDIT: I added a section near the beginning of the post referencing my interest in RP on MUDs, and also removed the roleplaying radio channel information. It's not exactly necesary, considering I don't have any interest yet.

2017-09-14 23:51:54

If you'd like to touch base on this subject, my Skype is theghostrider132 or you can contact me on the two accounts I listed above.

Heroes need foes to test them. Not all teachers can afford to be kind, and some lessons must be harsh.

2017-09-14 23:58:59

I just don't think audiogames are the right medium for two huge huge reasons

1. The community is too small honestly.

2. (I ran into this) People don't  tend to follow rules and have hissy fits in some siuations.

Now about my RP...yeah, I write, I...freaking...WRITE, talking 5-10k word posts when I'm on my game.

So, yeah, I don't think Swamp or STW are the right games, MUD maybe, but I'd still argue in favor of a forum sine it's a lot easier and reaches out to sighted players as well to get more to interact with than a few people.

MUD are....well it depends who is running the show honestly, though that's the same anywhere, though....I'd say if you wanna do this, do a forum, make it awesome, original and put it up on RPG-Directory, and you should get people, hell I know quitethere.

Lastly, I personally stick to one specific theme and run with it. I can fire over a sample for ya to peruse ifs ya want....

Oh, one more thing.....I think by limiting yourself to this site you're doing yourself a disservice honestly...it's a shame, the world needs more talented writers....

Okay, bout that sample, sonofa....ben tryina find that mail for five years, I NOW find it. I'm hoarding this...... take.

Then again, I cut my teeth on a brutal game where RP was only part of it, but I managed to amusingly enough lead two factions on it, TWICE, and honestly still know more about several players than they know. Admittedly.....yeah, said game was drama filled and not worth it past a certain point so I left, plus it fawken HATED screenreaders, and such....but I will say I did meet some good people on  a few blind people on RPG-D who turn their noses up at audiogames as beneath them and their creative side, I can get where they are coming from.

The secret to RP is....and this is gonna be obvious......a good crowd of people. , that all can give and take and have fun.

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2017-09-15 03:07:45

Hello,
I've been rping for more than 10 years now..
If you want to rp, you could try to play a mush.. Its short for multi user shared halucination..
Its like a forum game but without the time delays.. Players start a scene, write their posts and stuff.
I'll post examples of my scenes in a super hero mush I'm playing..
HTTP://cmbeta.wikidot.com/cast:aesh
This is the link to my character page, feel fre to browse through my logs.

2017-09-15 03:31:34

I hope you have some success, STW does have some interesting mechanics, but you might find people won't let you RP. They can't kill you if you don't turn PVP on, but they probably will just run around you or act stupid. Honestly, the people there, a lot of them act like 10 year olds. Swamp would be interesting, the grind of it holds no interest for me, but RPing there might. I'd have to configure my keys to use the arrows on the keyboard for turning, as I don't have a mouse anymore, only a laptop track pad, and that's just crazy. I know some people do it that way, but I hate it.

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