something big going down in clown town

[socksuke_uchiha]

Rundown: rpanons is an anonymous community for role-play related topics. This place serves as a forum for game discussions, canon discussions, RP solicitations (ATP, game ads, open memes), and advice. The occasional off topic comment is inevitable, but please keep heated social and political topics to their respective communities. Posting them here will only get them frozen. Subsequent threads made to bypass a freeze will then be deleted.

Rules:

Do not post pornographic or shocking images.
Do not share private entries, plurks, chat logs, etc.
Do not post personal information. This includes but is not limited to full names, addresses, phone numbers and so on.
Do not use this community as your social/political/hatespeech soapbox.
Do not be redundant. One page does not need three or more threads on one topic/theme. Your unfunny, forced memes also fall under this rule.
Do not treat this comm like your personal therapist. Threads about nonfictional suicide, self injury, rape, and abuse will be deleted. There are better resources out there for you.
Do not treat this comm like your personal Plurk or Twitter. Off-topic happens, but it should be open for discussion and not just a play-by-play of your life. No one cares.
Shut up about Tumblr. If it's not a discussion about Tumblr RP it will be deleted.
Do not solicit money, Dreamwidth points, or other currency unless you are offering a good or service in return.


CONCERNS | RESOURCES


Navigate:

Political topics are banned. Report threads and they will be deleted.

LATEST PAGE | LATEST FLATVIEW PAGE

GAME DISCUSSIONS | CANON DISCUSSIONS | HTML/GRAPHIC HELP | RP COMMISSIONS

ATP/ENABLE ME | GAME ADVERTISEMENTS | PB SUGGESTIONS | USERNAME SUGGESTIONS

GAME IDEAS | CHARACTER ADVICE | RP WITH ME | TEST DRIVES

KINKS YOU WANT TO PLAY | PAIRINGS YOU WANT TO PLAY | RECOMMEND A CANON/CHARACTER | GENERAL DWRP QUESTIONS

Comments

Re: reactive events

[(Anonymous)]

I think "can the characters only have an opinion?" will be a design question on all events I write from here on in. Feels like a good guideline.

I still enjoy a good status effect event (game I'm in just had a sexy monster TF event and it was good fun) but I also get what you're saying, that it can get samey if that's all there is.

The vibe I'm getting right now is ICly talking about an event is ok as an option but it shouldn't be the only option. And it would probably help the event mods to have a list of results ready if characters want to investigate, fight, fix, or break things. Doesn't even have to be an essay of things (that could be a fast track to burn out) but like some quick sentences:
"Bob investigates the cold spot in the poltergeist room and finds a piece of amulet." Or "Bobert works on holding a seance with the poltergeist. The seance table gets broken but they learn about violent deaths in the spooky mansion."

I figure players don't expect essays, but they do like hearing their actions lead to at least a small blurb they can build their own fun off of.

[(Anonymous)]

Occasionally a reactive event is okay but it's usually when it builds upon an existing storyline.

Using ayrt's poltergeist example, if there was a gamewide plot where all the characters had to make a choice and the winning choice caused poltergeists to be released to harass everyone, it would make sense to have it be a reactive event because the characters are reacting to the consequences of their actions.

That being said, it should be used as a segue into the next part of the plot because it's going to motivate characters to go "ok, what's next?" and that's a good thing. I think a problem arises because mods worry about people trying to "fix" an event and end up shutting down a lot of interaction. Not every investigation or action has to be successful, but there should be some way to succeed or it becomes frustrating. Instead of shutting people down, give out clues that will lead them to the clues you actually want them to find.

There can be no way for the players to get rid of the poltergeists but maybe releasing them allows characters who can talk to ghosts to get a plot hook they couldn't get before, and so on. You could even do this as a special event where you drop the reactive portion a little early so characters have time to form opinions and then drop the actual event a few days later when everyone is ICly (and OOCly) hyped to do something about it. A purely reactive event should never be standalone IMO.