Posts tagged with “online roleplay”
Regarding Accusations of Synonymy Myself and Eric Kane
The only plausible argument in favor of this assessment is that I've got some sort of latent form of multiple personality disorder and/or schizophrenia. Which I must admit is entirely feasible, but highly unlikely.
There are a few distinct points in opposition to this evaluation. I have to first point you towards real photographs (!) of each of us:
Since neither of these have turned up at this point, I have to say that the lot of you pretty much suck at internet forensics. Just sayin'.
Perhaps more relevantly, while he and I have a long history of rivalry (and despite my honest opinion), I have displayed nothing but unequivocal justiciality and respect when it comes to fighting or determining the outcome of a fight. On the other hand, Nonpareil has a long history of degrading completely sane debates into flame wars and personal insults. It may be his personality type or the company he keeps, but his character is defined by his actions--and [his demeanor] appears to be wildly different from my own.
Examples against my "bias" go on and on; I guess this falls under the old adage, "If you don't have haters, you're doing something wrong." -- and this is a perspective we likely both share. Nevertheless, I've tried to maintain a consistent approach when dealing with everyone: place responsibility upon the fighters to agree to the outcome of a fight. Conversely, Nonpareil seems to place focus on demeaning and domineering his fellow fighters -- fully devoid of the due respect I strive to provide everyone.
Further points include:
- When SSJ3Mewtwo jumped into an idle fight between Nonpareil and Kouketsu, Nonpareil's character committed suicide and I split the points between Kouketsu and SSJ3Mewtwo. Nonpareil consequently ragequit.
- I'm good at deception, but not good enough to obfuscate my writing ability down to Nonpareil's level, as demonstrated in our most recent fight. I placed several coded messages in the grammar, syntax, and content of my posts, (and it is a shame that we never finished the fight so that I could meet my goal of killing off my character) while Nonpareil made zero effort to demonstrate any literary competency beyond the barebone basics.
- Ran and I were just talking about this:
(11:25:27 PM) Eric: Let's see how long until Nonpareil comes around whining about getting his win
(11:25:36 PM) Ran: LOL
(11:25:41 PM) Ran: I'd give it a weekObviously, since I've finally caught up with all my work here, I went forward with validating the fight (using my personal ability, not my admin ability) and sure enough -- here's Nonpareil. It was just as predictable as the outcomes of his fights--and subsequently, not a coincidence.
- I've got a verifiable public employment record. Stalk me if you want, but I'm fairly sure that if he's willing to provide his own--and when he does, it'll be quite clear that we are not the same person.
Nonpareil hasn't done anything consequential in the past 15 years aside from debilitating the common respect between fighters; I don't want my efforts to improve the world's roleplaying community tainted with accusations of our synonymy. He'll surely say the same about me, and I'd expect him to dissolve these rumors just as well.
Kthx.
The Best Play-by-Post Roleplaying Sites
As many of you know, a lot of my best friends came from an online hobby called "online roleplaying". One of the more popular forms is a type of collaborative fiction called "play by post", in which the participants alternate writing sections of the story. More succinctly; I started a roleplaying site of my own in 2005 called RolePlayGateway to give people the same opportunity I had when I was younger.
I wanted to take a moment and go over some of my favorites, for those who are reading.
RolePlayGateway: an obvious favorite. It takes a little while to find your place (if you're a more 'advanced' roleplayer), but our strength is the wide range of people that play here. Oh, and we have an awesome chat built specifically for roleplaying!
Roleplayer Guild: Run by Dan Neumann, Roleplayer Guild is as close to a sister site of RolePlayGateway as it gets. They've got a slightly different format from RolePlayGateway, letting you browse roleplays based on their "quality" level (e.g., Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced). A great place to go if you're looking to start a nice tight-knit group!
Althanas: Althanas is one of the only other large sites dedicated completely to play-by-post roleplay. I've roleplayed here for a couple years (as an anonymous account!) and they're a great group. The "Guides" sections is irreplaceable, so if you're looking to learn, this is the place to be.
Up and coming!
These sites are new or are just getting off the ground, so they're not as established as the above listings.
Roleplaygetaway: launched as a refuge from the insanity that RolePlayGateway provides, RolePlayGetaway (albeit, a confusing name) is showing a lot of promise. With a brand new roleplaying system built to track your roleplays, it is taking the same route that RolePlayGateway's fabled roleplay tab is taking. It's being run by several of my staff members and close friends, and I can attest that they know what they are doing. I hope to see more sites like this!
Fallen off my list...
These sites used to show some promise, but for some reason or another have fallen by the wayside. As such, I'm rel="nofollow"'ing their links.
AnimeLeague: AnimeLeague appears to have gone the way of AnimeMetro; that is, it has begun to focus more on Anime and conventions instead of roleplay. Sadface!
Gaia Online: Gaia Online used to be a fairly decent place for play-by-post roleplay, but then it got uber popular. It too is now expanding beyond play-by-post, and the focus has been lost.
A Brief History of Freeform Roleplay
Warning: Strong nerdery follows. Please be cautious of your fragile mind.
Since late 1997, in all of my pre-teen glory, I have been involved with something my friends and I simply called roleplay in our own little vernacular. Of course I've since learned that roleplay doesn't only refer to the peer-driven world of online roleplay, it refers to all sorts of real-world tabletop games, live acting, and various amounts of storytelling, but this particular post is written with the word roleplay referring to the freeform online roleplaying that I have always been so close to.
Freeform roleplay, or the idea that there is no GM (game master) or storyteller (as in Vampire: The Masquerade), and is instead driven solely by the players, with no concrete rules for battle, statistics, or progression of the story. Rules and guidelines were driven by common expectation, which developed as a sort of social justice system that remains effective, even today.
The very roots of this sort of roleplay stem from early chat systems, where one could adopt a simple moniker and create a personality around the idea of an "avatar", which in most cases consisted only of this name. Players, without defining themselves as such, would interact in an imaginative world that coalesced out of their collaborative imagination. Each would react to the other characters' actions and dialogue in a fashion that suited their own character's theoretical personality, and this would create a constantly evolving story arc.
As the web (and the young teen's perception of the web) evolved and grew, so did the concept of roleplay. Online forums became an entirely new beast, allowing users to write more and more into their in character posts, instead of being limited to the single lines that chat provided (of course, some chats had enough space for people to post a full paragraph, or even two - but this was limited at the time), they were able to expound upon their writing and even proofread their copy before sending it across the web for the other players to view.
Freeform roleplay had also grown to be very competitive at this point, with groups of players forming groups known as clans, guilds, or otherwise, and expanded their IC competitions from chat to the forums and message boards now provided by a few enterprising organizations (or individuals). It was this competitive banter and challenge that defined what many now call the golden age of roleplay, which is what really drove the forefront of this gaming medium.
There were plenty of players who had entered their late teens (and some even were adults at this point, *gasp*!) who moved away from chat, and who moved away from the conflict-driven world of this type of roleplay. They went on to create storyline-oriented games, with a small and select number of players in more of a collaborative fiction setting. These players often went on to become writers and editors, being driven more by the literary aspect of relaying a fiction onto the internet, and often have their own private niche where they can continue to do this with their long-standing playergroup.
And... that's where we are today. The freeform roleplay community is growing and changing, barely 15 years old at this point. We have the chance to nurture it, just as we have the chance to neglect it. Those of us who've been involved since the beginning have the greatest opportunity to influence the course of growth, and that's exactly what I'm hoping to do.