HOW'S THE GAME?

[paradisamods]

It's time for another round of Game Discussion, also known as

HOW'S THE GAME?

Here we come together to discuss the game, its plots, the settings, and just about anything we can think of that we'd like to talk about, expand upon, improve, change, etc.

This is not an HMD for players and their characters; this should be about the game's function as a whole and not the people in it. If there is something you feel is absolutely necessary to address that involves a specific person, please IM a mod first to discuss it. We can be reached at valawie (Valerie), fan of todd (TF), or never die ftw (Ashley).

Anonymous will be left off for this round. Sock journals are allowed, but you will have to request comm access to post with them.

Here are the sections that we've come up with. Add your own, and we'll edit it into the list. :)

➜ HOW'S THE STAFF
➜ RETURNING CHARACTERS
➜ THE CITY AND WORLDBUILDING
➜ ORIGINAL CHARACTERS
➜ PLOTTING 101
➜ APPLICATION SAMPLES

Comments

HOW'S THE STAFF

[paradisamods]

Our current staff includes Valerie valerie, TF teeff, and Ashley frisky as mods, with Jenn superheroine and Ruru plonks as helpers.

How do you feel the staff is faring? As always, we welcome and encourage any questions or comments you may have for us. All feedback will be greatly appreciated!

[fanstheflame]

As far as approving ideas and events and keeping everything flowing, I think the mod team is doing very well, with a couple of exceptions. But I know that even those have their reasons, because RL happens to mods just as much as it does to players, so. Here you go:

I'm glad you're available through so many different avenues - email, PM, AIM, and Plurk - but your response time to player questions seems sporadic. I know that this is because of time zones and work constraints, which is nothing anyone can help, but maybe a solution to someone who needs a time-sensitive answer would be to have a list of guidelines posted on the Mod community? IE: "If Character X wants to do Destructive Activity Y, it's allowed if it meets these guidelines", or "assuming such-and-such kind of establishment exists in the town is fine (until we assemble a committee for worldbuilding maybe?)". I've had a few new players come to me with questions in the past as to what they can do, and my default answer has usually been "I haven't had any issue with doing similar things in the past, but I don't know for certain, so you'll want to ask a mod".

It's just my two cents, but having something like that tacked on to FAQs or Rules might be really useful and help players who're around during those times of day/week/hiatus/whichever feel a little more secure in doing what they want to do.

RETURNING CHARACTERS

[paradisamods]

We have had two rounds of returning characters so far, with a third on the way. Each round has been re-introduced to the castle during a plot, giving players the opportunity to form CR before they re-enter the castle.

We'd like to hear some feedback with regards to how returning characters have been handled. How is the timing of each round? Do you feel that returning character app rounds have been too frequent, or are they spaced out well? Tell us how you feel!

[ino]

I think it's been cool so far, but I also (personally) think it would be a good idea to avoid falling into a sort of routine with this. Even if the apps are still spaced out the same way, perhaps they could show up in different ways, instead of with a world change every time. Like maybe some people could be found during an expedition, or something like that ... if that makes sense!

[eternityalone]

Having gone through the process with the first round of returning characters, I will admit to not having much to do with them once they were back? It seemed as though it was just a "Oh, okay this is what the castle does now." thing. There was no real purpose to them returning and I'd love to see more work put into people trying to sort out why they are back or what they are doing there in the first place?

It felt like they got folded into daily life too easily. I know that I had Rose struggle with it for a while, trying to get resettled into the castle and into having all those memories slotted in -- but I also felt like I was the only one that was doing that, because there was no real basis for how these characters should be getting involved again.

It's a definite learning process and I'm sure that there are things that could get ironed out to make things go smooth, but I would like to see more done with these characters once they get back to the castle.

Not that I know what that is, but it does seem to be turning into one of those "oh it's a world change I wonder who is here now?" things.

[waterproofed]

Having done this myself, I have to say that it is really fun to play them into wherever they are and have them with those fake memories, but at the same time it would be cool seeing them arrive in other ways as well.

Like Christina said, it is a learning process, but I definitely feel like there can be more to the characters returning with memories. I'm not sure what that could be, but maybe they can somehow lead the others toward a part of Paradisa's mystery?

THE CITY AND WORLDBUILDING

[paradisamods]

There has been a great interest from players who would like to help flesh out details regarding the city and the world of Paradisa.

We can put together a small committee of people who would like to contribute their ideas to the worldbuilding of Paradisa. Would you be interested in joining this committee? Let us know!

[cheerupemoborg]

YES Sign me up!

[persequor]

OOH ME. PICK ME.

[eternityalone]

I would be interested in knowing more about the small committee and what sort of things they'd be doing, before committing to anything.

So this is like a half-raising of my hand.

[workaphilic]

YES HELLO

[innerpeace]

YES PLEASE! Wrong account but whatever

[confidente]

ME TOO!! /WAVES HANDS AROUND

[courageous_wit]

Also volunteering!

Re: THE CITY AND WORLDBUILDING

[samson]

This would be something I'd be interested in.

[excalibured]

oh man hell yes all over this

[accidentalrebellion]

... Wait, I just remembered. I'm on a Katniss Everdeen account.

[save_the_souls]

Late but I would be interested in this!

[fanstheflame]

Yes yes yes! I've already got some substantial stuff pulled together on the church, so that when people arrive in threads and logs, I can set the scene. Also, I've still got the WildKat wiki, which Blaze is going to be getting ownership of.

I love the town as a setting - it's got a LOT of potential for some fantastic CR, but I think sometimes the problem is that people are afraid to throw their own ideas in and make it work for them.

[not_like_the_rest]

Yes please!

ORIGINAL CHARACTERS

[paradisamods]

After our April Fool's prank, it came to our attention that there are some that would genuinely be interested in having original characters in the world of Paradisa.

The game has only allowed fandom characters since its beginning, but would you be interested in including original characters in the game?

We'd like to give people the chance to discuss the possibility. Give us your thoughts!

[cheerupemoborg]

Personally, I'd rather we not have OC or even AU characters. It totally throws off my groove.

I may not know much about, say, the Boondocks Saints or Tales of Symphonia but a cursory glance at Wikipedia can easily solve that. An OC character, even from an established franchise like DC Comics, would make things a bit too confusing.

You also have to take into account what kind of limitations there'd need to be. You don't want some silly hax character, but at the some time you wouldn't want to exclude anyone's ideas from the apping process.

Tellin' ya, it's a headache waiting to happen.

PLOTTING 101

[paradisamods]

As always, we'd like your feedback on any plots you'd like to see in the future. Perhaps you have an idea but don't know where to begin writing it up yourself, or maybe you have a question about something you'd like to try but aren't sure how it would work. If it's related to plots you'd like to see happen, it goes here.

Kellerman's Resort Summer Vacation

[eternityalone]

I am planning to pitch an end of summer-ish plot that takes place at Kellerman's Resort in the Catskills a la Dirty Dancing.

I plan on taking volunteers to be randomly assigned jobs within the resort and I know that people are probably tired of the "sudden twist where people are evil now" so I am just curious if within a plot like this do you still want some sort of mystery/action-themed part to solve or for an end of summer plot are you guys okay with it being slightly slice-of-life?

I can promise if there is a mystery solve-it element it will not be aliens or something we've done in the past, but I'll try my best to make it something that fits the plot theme itself and also allows the creation of new CR.

First-person samples

[persequor]

I learned of the switch from five sentences to 100 words for the first person sample when I apped Arya here. To put it bluntly, it was a pain. Mostly due to the "write as if the character were making an entry in their journal, ideally using little to no action descriptors" addendum. I feel like it's really more of a hindrance to people with reticent characters. Some characters really don't talk/write that much even if you wind them up. I know of a few other muns who had a headache trying to come up with 100 words, which really doesn't seem like much until you try to app on of these quieter characters. If it were 100 words them speaking/writing, thinking or split between speech/writing and thought (and retaining the first person POV throughout of course), it might be easier. Quite a few characters can go tl;dr in brackets because they think and overthink everything, but only say one short sentence or just a word. So the mods would still get the 100 words, but the mun isn't headdesking trying to think of something their character would make a short speech about. Maybe even allow the mun to link to threads they've done so you can see how well or not they handle their character's voice and just ask that whatever the character says/writes in the thread adds up to 100 word min.

[eternityalone]

I am not fond of the term first person sample, to be honest.

When I first - first - first applied at Paradisa I was entirely new to the format of [action tags] and I actually wrote out an entire first person piece. After learning of how others did their applications, along with the general more mainstream effort of using [action tags] within RP this sample is not truly a first person sample anymore.

It's really more of an informal third person or a loose narrative format.

Linking to threads is a far better judgement of how IC a character can be, because it shows interaction over a flat sample and it encourages someone to be consistent over multiple replies instead of polishing up one small sample.

I would be comfortable with linking or with providing a sample [action tag] post more than trying to come up with 100 words.

HOW TO MAKE IT IN PARADISA

[precede]

Aside from rules, plots and applications, the game's also made of the players. So here's where we can throw suggestions at each other on how to play better together. The only rule is that there absolutely be no finger-pointing at specific people or circumstances and no criticism without suggestions on how to improve things.

I'll start~ by saying that a roleplay is based so much on the CR you build, positive or negative doesn't matter, but that's what will help your character develop and you have fun, essentially. So try not to only meet the activity check and post entries twice a month, it's better to tag around and get to know new characters. This can be difficult with introverted characters, but I find that stretching their social skills in the beginning will pay off greatly in the future and I don't think anyone will complain about OOC-ness as long as the content of the tag is still IC! Tagging is like--You rub my back, I rub yours. And you'll be helping the other muns because they'll find it easier to tag at your character's entry if they've spoken before, so more tags all around~

Secondly, there's a tendency (I think?) for the goody-goody characters to blend with other goody ones while avoiding the villains, as if they have a radar for evil, which doesn't exist. If they've been specifically told by people they trust to avoid certain unsavory figures, then it makes sense, but it isn't realistic for them to conveniently avoid the evil ones just because. I find that it's even fun to disregard the many public service announcements made by what used to be the Peace Patrol and venture over to the dark side, intentionally or otherwise. It makes for more interesting relationships and may develop into exciting plots down the road. There's little risk in dabbling in a little evil in roleplay, no one's going to really be harmed, so embrace it! Cross over the line! Have fun!

Ok, that's it from me, I'm sure the rest of you have waaaaayyy more useful things to say so don't hesitate to jump in ♥

$0.02

[fanstheflame]

Even if your character is antisocial, try to work something into your tags that the other player can pick up on and roll with! A gesture, a glance, even something in the emotes that gives them an idea of what's going on in their head. A lot of threads are lost by the wayside because players don't know where to take them ... try to take a potential dead-end and turn it into something that'll let your CR grow!

4th Wall Meme

[fanstheflame]

I've noticed we've had a lot of drops with not a lot of new characters recently... and while I'm not about to say that we're "OMG GOING DOWN" or anything, it occurred to me the other day that it's been a while since our last 4th Wall meme.

Maybe we should/could make something like that happen soon?

[justsay_goodbye]

I'm not sure on the difference between fourth wall and test drive but it could be fun and draw people in/give a chance to test characters with the setting?