rpg sucks me into its vortex

[lobelia321]

Some of you know about rpgs.
I don't.

So how do they work?



OK, I always knew rpgs were a baad idea (and look, cesperanza, I used the em-tag and not the i-tag!), and so they are. They looked from afar as if they had mighty addiction potential (for me), and alas, they do, they do. I finally, without even meaning to, tumbled into an rpg and I am rather badly hooked! (*attempts to wrest barb from within flesh*)

So how do these things work, anyhow? There's a community wot i joined. Then there's a username-person with an icon wot posts fictive posts about herself and wot i already commented on.

Then I created three more LJ accounts and identities for myself and am starting to play the RPG against myself and my other identities.

It is totally hookative. And I have no idea whether this is how you're supposed to play. The rules are vague on this point. It just says 'comment'. It says, for example, Nobody will bite you if you comment to one of vivian's entries and don't play along, but it'll be more fun if the comments to all of those entries stay in character! . So that's what I'm doing. Except I'm staying in character for 4 people at the same time.

It is fun and also kind of mindspinning. Because one person commented on my comment and believed what I had said (about someone hacking into my LJ and stealing my username and posting evil things under my name). So I had to scurry over to her LJ and comment there that um, hey, it's not real. Am I doing the right thing? I mean, within the community presumably anything that is commented will be read as role-playing? No matter what I say, it's not going to be taken for real except by other people who perhaps have never played before?

So I can just post whatever I want, is that right? Because I've already, um, worked out an entire plot here... *stabs self with new addiction*

The comm is mydarkestsecret, btw. And heh, if you can spot which people are me, I will send you virtual cookies.

*grins, cackles, stabs self again*



*is hooked rpg newbie*

Also, there's loads of other stuff going on in my life about which I plan to post one of these days but it's because there's all this stuff that I haven't posted, and also I feel a bit superstitious about telling people too early. And no, *heh*, I am not pregnant...!
;-)

ETA: And can one's rpg characters escape the comm and start frolicking through LJ? Liek, omg, could they actually comment in my own LJ? For example??

And are you allowed to comment in the rpg character's LJ directly, or must it all go via the comm? What is the etiquette here? *clueless*

Comments

[freyafloyd.livejournal.com]

Hello. I am hoping that the film will revive my interest in slash as Hugh is in it. Then all I will need is someone to slash him with. I will now send a longer post with my comments on rpg.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

GLOMPS YOU hello, Freya!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

I am carefully ignoring everything you say about RPGs because I do not go there. ;)

I am, however, insanely curious about your real life stuff now, you tease.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

RPG is getting on my nerves now. The comm is sponsored, maybe that's what's wrong with it? I emailed When we are human to sybaritic, btw. Ooh, a submission!! I changed it round a bit. It was interesting to re-read it. For a long time, I thought this was the pinnacle of my fictional achievement and I was afraid to read it because it was just too good and I could never aspire to those heights. But today I thought, actually, hm, there are flaws with this, and it is rather self-indulgent. So that was interesting. Maybe I've now got that thing out of my system!

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Well done!

I like the fact that if you put a piece of writing away for a while, sometimes you look at it again and see it much more clearly. Sometimes it happens after a night's sleep, sometimes years. It's rather clever.

I have had a similar problem with Holding the Pose as you describe with We are Human - you get kind of scared of the things you created - and it's all a bit silly really. Why would we get worse as writers? Writing isn't some sort of black magic, it's like anything else. The more we practise, the better we get. GO US!!

I'm sorry - I seem to have turned into some sort of cheerleader. It's the wine...

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Shelsie! You wrote the words 'GO US'! I am so proud of and happy for you! Drink more wine!

[freyafloyd.livejournal.com]

I am not sure how the type of rpg you have joined works. they are all a bit different. A lot of them you write scenes on AIM and then post a joint scenario. You also write bits on your own in a journal and post them, or you can write fics in a journal where you post alternate parts of the mini fic between two people. Does that make sense? Others work in different ways.

RPG's are wonderful, and addictive. I blame me not finishing my own fic on the fact that I started doing rpg.

RPG problems (for me at least):

1. Character obsession. I was obsessed with my character, and in fact I still think about him and make up new life events for him 3 years on from finishing the rpg. In fact (although this is due to laziness), Angst!Jude is still my icon.

2. The only time I have had an online falling out with someone was over rpg plot lines.

3. Lack of control. You don't control the plot. This is the best part in some ways, as you don't know exactly what the response will be from other characters. It is also the worst part. In a fic you do on your own, you write characters whose stories will match up and blend. In rpg, people had announced what their characters would be like, so I wrote a character who would fit. Their characters then changed, and I would have had to make mine very different to fit in, which I couldn't do. I reached an impasse with Jen's Orli. This seems silly, but it was distressing because we both had huge emotional investments in our characters. Oh the angst!

The moral is probably, write a strong, assertive character. I had Jason Isaacs as another rpg character and he can always fit in.

I'm not sure this is what you needed to know.

How are you? I still haven't got your email address.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I am having troubles with this comm. It is sponsored and the character Vivian is played by an LJ staff member. So maybe the rules are different. E.g., you can't post to the comm, only comment.

I created 3 characters. So I'm not only 'obsessing' with 'my' character but juggling three separate character arcs and plotlines. So far I seem to be able to influence how I want things to go, mainly because there doesn't seem much interaction. It's only Vivan posting, and others commenting, and many people don't seem to be commenting 'in character' but just as themselves and talking meta. Thsi is a bit annoying.

Also, what I found spookiest: two people took what I was saying seriously. I claimed that someone had overtaken my LJ account, hacked into my user account and stolen my password.. and someone commented a sympathy comment! I had to go to her/his LJ and say 'hey, I thought rpg was all about 'make-believe', and she went, 'oh how cool are you'. It disturbs me that people were sucked in. That isn't supposed to happen in a 'real' rpg, is it?

I then posted as the actress who plays Vivian in the film, so I did a meta-canon post, if you will (as if Ewan came in on a thread started by Obiwan and said, hey, how weird, someone thinks that all this jedi shit is real). Another person then commented and said, 'hey,d on't worry, this is not real, you know.'' I was 'bzuh?' Is that not 'done' in rpg circles, to introduce a meta-character like that?

Also, the rules didn't say that only particular characters were allowed. So I just made them up. I mean, I don't know that canon from Adam.

[freyafloyd.livejournal.com]

I appear to have gone comment mad. I am concerned that this rpg is run by lj staff. Doesn't that mean you have to be very careful in what you say,and what you character says?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

They're screening it now, and I think they've screened me; one of my comments had a sort of funny line around me. What does this mean? I am spooked!

[freyafloyd.livejournal.com]

I think it is a really strange form of rpg, and the unilateral element of it is unsatisfying. It is also going to end when the film comes out.

The fact that it is done on behalf of the movie people means that you can't effectively be a character.

If this was a standard rpg, I would expect to email the mod, and say that I would like to play a particular character if he has not been taken so far, and I would expect them (if they did not know me) to request that I submit a copy of some of my fic so that they could judge my writing standard. Then I would be allowed to post, as long as I stuck to some degree to the agreed fanon of that character, or to a version of that character that I had agreed.

If you want to rpg, you should start your own, by posting in your own journal stating the general type of thing you want to do and ask if other people want to do it as well. That was how Jenn did it anyway.

Rpg is great. Don't be put off by this marketing thing.

[moth2fic.livejournal.com]

Most rpgs are quite laid back and if your character (muse) wants to go off and have a life of his/her own via his/her LJ that's fine, but if you unilaterally change the history of the character or any of the others' characters without at least telling them they might get a bit confused (at best) and shirty (at worst).I've seen total flame wars over that. I have a number of characters on the go - most of them just come out of their boxes to play, but one is turning into a novel.
What somebody else said about not having complete control of the plot is part of the excitement - you need to react in character to totally new events.In fact rpg has the best aspects of writing and reading in one place!
If you get anyone worried e.g. about LJ stalkers (are you sure they weren't just playing anxiety in character?) then the normal thing is to post a comment or even a post with OOC (out of character) either in the title or fairly prominent. I don't know which games/communities you're in - a lot of them have a separate site for the 'real' players to chat about OOC matters though preferably game related.
If people know you're a newbie, even if only to their particular game, they should be quite kind at first! The main thing to remember (people don't always) is not to be upset if people are horrid to your character - they aren't being horrid to you!!! And it isn't them, it's their muses.
So far as I know, LJ staff have no involvement in any of the rpgs. They are run by mods, just like any comm.Same goes for the games on e.g. Yaho, or on websites.All amateur, voluntary and glorious!

[freyafloyd.livejournal.com]

If you follow lobelia's link and then click on the character link or the blood chocolate link, it says it is a sponsored community, which according to lj is

A sponsored community is a LiveJournal community that is created and maintained by another company. They can use these communities to post information about various products or services relevant to their business. For example, a movie studio can use a sponsored community to promote the release of a new movie or DVD.

Earlier it said that the main character was written by a lj member of staff and a lj volunteer.

Have you heard of this before on lj? I haven't ever been in that type of rpg, and perhaps I am just being a little paranoid. Can you cast any light on this?

[grondfic.livejournal.com]

An account by (I THINK) the lj volunteer appears here:

http://synecdochic.livejournal.com/96006.html

[moth2fic.livejournal.com]

Goodness,no! Some of the comms I play in have those sponsored accounts, with adverts etc. I assume that's just to get extra LJ bells and whistles.And of course they get adverts and promotions according to whatever they said were their interests, just like private individuals would. (So if I agreed to a sponsored LJ and said my interests included gardening, I might find seed catalogues advertising to me directly).
I suppose it's possible that the staff member and volunteer were as carried away by the rpg as the other players, but I can't think why they'd want to declare their status. Lots of players don't even admit who they are in their non-character LJs! I shall have another look.
My main problem with rpgs is that a lot of them peter out before I feel they're over. Major characters disappear because their players have life changing events, etc. I've never felt stalked by authority!!
I shall join you in your paranoia until I know more!!

[moth2fic.livejournal.com]

P.S. Have looked at info and agree it is odd, but not necessarily worrying. I see that a friend of mine is a member and she's a real life friend as well as a LJ friend so I shall ask her what she thinks.

[chasethestars.livejournal.com]

Hi. I'm an LJ staff member, and I want to clear up a few things here.

Sponsored accounts and Sponsored Communities are two different things. "Sponsored accounts" are actually called "Plus accounts" now, instead of the "Sponsored Plus" it was when it was first debuted. Those are the journals and/or communities that display ads in exchange for more features, such as extra userpics and access to ScrapBook and voice posting.

Sponsored communities are paid for by another company, to use as a promotional vehicle for whatever it is that they are advertising/promoting. All sponsored communities are clearly marked as such. They have a different icon than regular communities () and they contain a band in the upper right hand corner of the page that says "LiveJournal Sponsored Community"

Usually, sponsored communities are maintained by the company, we just help them set it up. mydarkestsecret, the one that is up currently, is an exception. It is run by staff and a volunteer from our support team.

Now, about Role-Playing. The others who have commented in this entry pretty much covered it, and yes, it works a bit differently depending on where and who is running the game, so I can't really speak for that. I can explain to you how it is in mydarkestsecretthough.

mydarkestsecret is a promotion for the movie Blood & Chocolate. Vivian is the main character of the movie. She's posting entries about her life that are entirely fictional. The part where role-playing comes in is how other users respond to her entries. Users leave comments as if Vivian were a real person, giving her advice as if her situation was real even though it's all pretend. The persons posting as Vivian is also role-playing because they are pretending that they are Vivian, and thus, replying "in-character."

lobelia321, the part where you are confused is as you said in your entry: you created 3 more identities for yourself and pitted them against each other. Our intentions with the role-playing aspect of the community was as I said in the previous paragraph, for other users to interact with Vivian as a real person, and for her to respond back as if she was real. You've taken it a few steps beyond that. It's not that you're doing it wrong. You are playing along, and you are having fun. That's great, we want you to have fun.

It's just your comments/characters that concerned me, the way you keep bringing up how your account got hacked into, etc. I wasn't aware that you were just role-playing. You may have noticed that though most people are playing along, there are some users who aren't. So it made it hard to tell if you were serious or not.

Someone's account being hacked into is something we take seriously. It was actually your last comment, where you said that you hadn't heard back from the Abuse Team yet that made me check, since you should have by now. But there were no reports submitted from your username, and this is where I figured that you were probably role-playing, and then I found this entry of yours.

I just wanted to explain, and hope you understand better how this works now. I know I'm not the only one who believed your account being hacked into was real. You may want to clarify this, but it's up to you if you don't want to. Judging by the fact that you created new identities to play with, it sounds like you want to be participating in a larger RPG. There are many different ones out there, there are RPGs based on characters from movies, TV shows, books, etc. and there are ones for original characters made up by the person who is playing them. I suggest you check out one of these. You can find them by doing an interest search or checking the community promo communities. I'd recommend some to you, but I don't role-play and so I don't know of any off the top of my head.

Just in case what I said gets misinterpreted:
I'm not asking you to stop role-playing as you currently are in mydarkestsecret, I'm just letting you know that you don't have to be playing different characters. You just have to pretend that Vivian is real.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

if your character (muse) wants to go off and have a life of his/her own via his/her LJ that's fine
Aha. The comm's rules say nothing about this but this is general etiquette, is it?

but if you unilaterally change the history of the character
I can't change the history because I've made these characters up! is that not done in rpg?

And there seems to be no plot as this is a sponsored comm and only Vivian can post, we others can only comment but not initiate a post. Also, she hardly ever replies to anybody so I try to interact with the other commenters. But then two of them took me seriously, and no, it was not 'in character'! One of them told me 'don't worry, it's not real, you know, it's a sponsored LJ comm' (bzuh???), and another one sympathised with me when I said that somebody had hacked into my account so I had to go over to her LJ and tell her, 'duh, this is not real, this is rpg' and she was totally surprised. This spooked me because I thought that was the whole point of rpg: make believe. Isn't it?

LJ staff have no involvement in any of the rpgs. They are run by mods, just like any comm.
This one's different. It's an experiment with movie industry sponsoring. See the userinfo on mydarkestsecret.

[moth2fic.livejournal.com]

Sounds to me as if you have a lot of other 'newbies' playing!! And maybe you're a better player than some! Perhaps that's because of the unusual nature of the comm. I know another of your friends was/is worrying. I went and had a look; one of the members is a friend, both on my flist and in RL, so I've asked for her comments as she's definitely able to tell the difference between life and role play. However, she's away this weekend (househunting) so I don't expect to hear anything before Monday. Will pass on anything of interest. I think this whole comm is 'different' but can't imagine it not adhering to the normal 'rules' of rpg etiquette. There are articles on wikipedia about rpg if you're interested.

Normal rpg gives you total ownership of your characters. One of my rpg friends plays her favourites in more than one world/game. Not sure how she keeps the threads untangled! There may be no control over the plot within the individual game but the usual rule is that your charcter can't be killed without your consent. If it's a game with real/virtual dice throws your consent is deemed given in advance. Otherwise, although someone can aim a bullet at you, you have to be given a chance to dodge/survive.

OK, you've made your character up (the extent to which you can do this depends on the comm - some have lists to choose from, some have broad rules, some have free choice, but the details are always your own) but if you let him/her say e.g. 'I'm from London' and interact with someone else on that basis, you wouldn't be popular if in the next encounter they mentioned London and you claimed never to have been there (unless you're playing a habitual liar). Or if they made friends and you then 'altered' the history so that they'd never met. I've seen this done and it leads to flame wars!

Mostly, it's great fun. It sounds as though this one is going to finish when the film is released so if you've got 'bitten' by the rpg bug, I hope you find one to suit you. There are plenty out there!

[moth2fic.livejournal.com]

To add to my last comment, it appears my friend is just a member so as to follow how the whole sponsored advert thing works.
I've now read the LJ staffer's comment and I think you were just a better rpg'er than they expected! Find a niche once the 'advert' game ends! No recommendations because there's so much to choose from and it's all down to individual taste.

[moth2fic.livejournal.com]

P.P.S. (at least) - quoting from my friend's reply:
I'm not entirely sure I'd count is as RPG anyway. More a kind of interactive promo, like the games on the websites for various big budget fantasy and SF films and series.

So if you enjoy the challenge of writing in role, and even keeping three or more roles on the go, find somewhere else!! Look at theatrical_muse or deviant_muses. I preferred the second. Both issue challenges/prompts which enable you to introduce or develop your character (fan-based or original) and then people can respond and set up conversations. Not as time consuming or tying as a full rpg and maybe a way to begin. Excellent for honing writing skills, too.

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

It's not run quite like any RPG I've ever seen, but it looks fun.
The movie looks pretty good too. I'll keep an eye out for it. :)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Aha, so what is different about it? So far, I don't like:

- comments being screened
- people thinking that what I say is 'real' and responding as if it were (thus, not understanding the concept of being 'in character')
- people generally not commenting in character or developing plots
- only Vivian being allowed to post and all of us only being able to comment

[starrylizard.livejournal.com]

The last one is the main problem, but all of those things are odd...I don't think it's an RPG. I'd suggest if you like playing in character you look up some other RPGs.

The one's I play in are very "gen" and tame and are played out via forums (the links to them are on my LJ sidebar, but one of them has mostly died out now).

Usually, RPG is played in an LJ community or a message board or forum, such that all characters talk to each other. Not just to one character. Though one character (usually the person that started the thread) is in charge of the gameplay and making twists to the plot.

The site you are on looks like simply one person posting in character to promote a movie and people responding as if she is real... not necessarily with their own characters. I would suggest just looking at some examples to see what I mean.

The Lost City RPG that I play in is basically dead, so I wouldn't suggest joining it...plus it's very tame. But there are some good plot examples, especially in the "Atlantis" threads. Once more with feeling had all the characters singing and dancing Buffy-style (still on-going if people ever return to the site) and Power cracked me up, but since our Rodney left it'll probably never finish.

Panfan is the other RPG is play in and avidgamers is full of RPGs. Take a look around and get a feel for it. There are also loads of RPGs on LJ (atlantis_risen for instance, though that one seems very soap opera-like?).

Basically on the few sites I've been on, you have to register a character and get approval to play from the moderators. This usually involves writing a character bio etc, so that other gamers can see who they are talking to. Then depending on the site, you can join in any thread that is going on, or even start your own thread.

You need to know about stuff like Mary-Sues and God-moding (I think the terms are all on wiki these days) or people will be very angry with you. Otherwise interact and have fun.

Oh and I have a friend with many, many characters on LJ who I know sent me to a few sites where original characters write to challenges and things. Searching OC or OOC in user interests will probably pull them up.

Cheers
SL

[tvillingar.livejournal.com]

Does this mean you will now disappear into rpg-land and never surface again? Which is what seems to happen to everyone who dips their toes into rpg-ing.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I don't think so. Various experiences about the rpg are spooking me, namely people taking it for real.

[msilverstar]

For me, RPGs are about playing a character and interacting with other characters, especially co-writing scenes and relationships. It's much more surprising than solo writing :-)

I can't write two characters in a scene though. I tried.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

But in this one there don't seem to be any plots, nor even much interaction. It's Vivian posting and us commenting, and nobody is much in 'character'. It's not a real rpg, I'm told, perhaps because it's a movie industry sponsored comm. So I'm just generating my own plot, using the characters I made up. I can see that this will lose appeal soon.