In which I lose at the internetz

[mhalachai]

So, what exactly is an livejournal RPG? How does it work?

I'm so curious these days.

No fic this week, as work continues to suck gerbil testicles and I have a cold, but I'm still around. I'm working on the next chapter of Dawning Light (yes, it's the Asher chapter) and a surprise chapter from a WIP. I'm saving my pennies (literally) for SPN season 2 dvds, and for season 2 of SGA. Any word on when season 3 of that comes out?

I'm still behind in answering questions at the Open Thread II, but I'm going to be getting back to that tonight. Feel free to pop on over and ask a question or two :)

Comments

[sabriel-0405.livejournal.com]

Elle_blessing is the best person to answer your question because she's in one but as near as I can tell, it's a community journal where you post in character in response to other people's posts. It looks cool. I just don't have that much time in my life.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

I'd like to have that much time. Oh man, would I like that much time.

[catherinecookmn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I hear you. I've got barely enough time to check LJ to keep up with the collaboration I'm writing.

[lillian13.livejournal.com]

SGA season 3 comes out this Tuesday the 18th.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Dude, so soon? Excellent. Much better than last year (when the dvds came out in January!)

[lillian13.livejournal.com]

Yeah, for once they're coming out before the season starts!

[shadow-in-eden.livejournal.com]

From as far as I can tell, a LJ RPG is just like a normal internet text-based RPG, with a few differences. Such as, having an account solely to post and comment in character. The system confuses me a little too much for me to want to play in it other than a cracktastic HP-based assassin-high game, which is just for the lolz.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Yeah, see, I have no idea what an internet RPG is. I think I watched a D&D game once. It didn't seem all that interesting (mostly because I wanted to go watch a movie)

But from what you say, it sounds like a round robin. Hrm.

[shadow-in-eden.livejournal.com]

I'd explain more, but I think elle_blessing covers it pretty well. ^-^

[gilded_lady]

As mentioned above, an lj-based game uses IC journals to post with and threads are done in comments, as time permits for each player. I dig this method because the game can either be slow or fast paced :D

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Sounds interesting. But the thought of this makes me wonder, if the interpretation of the characters differ between RPGers? This is why I can't write with anyone. I'm too ornery on my own :D

[gilded_lady]

Depends on the game, of course, but for the most part I've always found that as long as your interpretation is seen as believably IC, people are cool :D

[elle-blessing.livejournal.com]

As some have mentioned earlier... (I'm going to use Harry Potter as the example)

*RPG (Role Playing Games, of course :) is done by having each player (you and me) have a journal for a character (let's say I'm Oliver Wood and you're Alicia Spinnet).

*You write your character and I write mine. It's like writing a Fic together.

*Some games write in Comments. That is, they start the 'story' or 'scene' in a post to the community journal (where all scenes are posted) and then comment back and forth, writing a paragraph or two from their character's perspective, etc.

*The games I've played in do all the 'scening' in Googledocs. Googledocs is like realtime Microsoft Word that is shared with other people live. We plan in IM on the side and tag each other back and forth when it's their turn to write. For example, you would write "Alicia..." and then I would add to your story by having Oliver interact, "And then Oliver..."

*You have a character journal so you can have access to posting in the community journals and such. Some people write character diaries in them, some don't.

That's the basics really. The fun part of it is writing and creating with other people. I've been lucky to have been in RPGs with some really good writers. That always makes it re fun.

If you want to check out an example of some RPG fic, I'll point you to some Katie Bell/Fred Weasley stuff that I've written with another writer in the RPG I've been active in for the past few months.

The first time Katie and Fred kissed in the Culpaepatria RPG (http://community.livejournal.com/culpaepatria/81717.html) ... I play Katie and another person wrote Fred. For the most part, we write back and forth a paragrah or two at a time :)

Oh, and I'm joining a new RPG that's starting play in Oct. If you're interested in finding out more about RPG and such, the moderaters of that game have actually made a website. You can read the rules and stuff and look at character bios. It'd give you an idea, anyways :) CLICK HERE! (http://caligaortusrpg.5gbfree.com/)

Hope that helps a little bit!

♥

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

I saw your post on the new RPG, which is why I started to wonder.

Is there any planning ahead of time? Like, the persons in question map out the plot, or is that part of the fun?

[elle-blessing.livejournal.com]

There's a bit of planning, I guess. Whatever comes up while your forming your character's bio and stuff you can jot down for later. I do know that most games have an overall storyline. Big though. Like the one I advertised in my journal takes place 5 years after the fall of voldemort and is not Deathly Hallows compliant. I do know that the mods have a big plot arc in mind, but the game is generally very organic. You can only plan so much b/c you don't know where your characters in relation to other characters until you 'scene'/write with the players that play them.

How much you plot though is largely up to you. You can only plot for the characters you play though. If you were to involve other characters, you'd have to ask their players.

For my character, Katie Bell, for example, I've built a backstory and where she is "now." She plays Quidditch and her dad owns a pub in Diagon Alley. That gives me room to have her be in different places to meet lots of different characters. She could go down to WWW to visit Fred and any of the characters could drop in to her dad's pub and she could see them there. Since she plays Quidditch professionally, I have possible endorsement deals and injuries that may or may not happen. That's as far as I can plot b/c I don't know what the other players/characters will do yet or how Katie will react to them.

Does that make sense?

(oo! And the icon I used is my Katie in the new game I was pimping :)

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

I was wondering about that one in your lj, as I noticed that you have Tonks as a character.

I think I understand how things go now. I think I'm too much of a control freak to be able to have something that loosely planned going on. I'd be tearing my hair out :P

One more question -- does each player get only one character, or can people double up?

I have a suspicion I'll be watching this RPG when it begins :)

[elle-blessing.livejournal.com]

I actually don't play Tonks! My friend Liz does :) I've only played Katie so far.

Hee! It doesn't have to be loosely planned, I guess, but I personally am not a big planner, so that's been my own experience. The game I'm currently writing in has quite a few big planners. I mean, you can make big plotlines if you work with people. That's what I like about it, the team part of it. I personally am just not a planner :)

You can play more than one character for sure. I think in the new game that's starting, three is the limit until you've proven that 1) your writing is good enough to sustain more and 2) the mods don't think the game will suffer as a whole if you take on the load of more characters.

I like to have really fleshed out characters and really there's only room in my head to do one at a time (And there's only so much time in the day for me to write too :). Plus, Katie has been very...possessive of my head space, lol, so I haven't taken on another character yet.

People don't generally double up. Like you said before, not everyone has the same idea about how a characters should be characterized. One player plays Ron, one player plays Hermione, etc.

I really hope you do watch! It's so much easier to get into the story if your with it from the beginning :) We have a fan journal, caliga_fan, where people can interact with the players/characters. In the RPG I'm playing in right now, it's really handy for "reviewing" and squeeing over other people's work. It's also fun to ask the characters questions and stuff.

And to watch the game itself, just add caliga_rpg to your friends list. The only stuff that gets posted there is the actual fics themselves. The cool thing about RPG is that it reads like a WIP fic...that's updated all the time! A few of the diehard fans that are following us to Caliga say it's kinda like watching a soap opera :D

♥

[elle-blessing.livejournal.com]

Oh, and here's the official "Game Canon" (http://caligaortusrpg.5gbfree.com/gamecanon.html) for caliga_rpg. It kinda tells the overall "plot" that's gone on and generally where the game is going.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Sweet, thanks!

[laney-1974.livejournal.com]

I'm saving my penny's for season 3 Atlantis too (it hasn't been shown on Aussie TV at all). I have until the 25th, and then on the 3rd I have spn 2!

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

This is the thing -- I cancelled my cable tv last year (in Canada, one has to pay for the channels and since I'm cheap, I gave it the axe) so I missed a lot.

Of course, I still know a lot of what's going on as I've read spoilers, but *so* not the same.