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What's the deal with the role-play forum? Now parts of the GDF have very much become the place for playful interactive stuff, I think it could be a good time to re-start the role-play forum for something a little more serious.

Excellent! Someone has finally shown some interest!

We just need some more people who will participate and we'll get it going again.

Right, I've just seen the new post in the role-play forum... but I can't reply because my e-mail is totally screwed up right now, and until I can get over to bloody BT (confirmation in 7 days, yeah roght!) it will stay like that. So I'M interested, but I'll have to say so right here.

Then why didn't you two ever post when I ran it?

Hey there, EJ! I was still pretty new around here when it was still running. I took a look a couple of times and the threads had gone a little... odd. I probably would have gone on anyway, but then came all the unpleasantness and it shut down.

Now the freaky side of things is well catered for in the GDF, so like I say, it seems a good time. I;ve got some stuff we could run through it, but ass it seems the COuncil is showing interest as well it would be unnecessary.

Welcome back EJ.

I'm not even sure how roleplaying works. Could someone post a quick lowdown on whats involved in roleplaying? What sort are rules are used?

Are we going to have a poper roleplaying forum, no silly tales, just real, serious role play?

AH, I see.

Well, it depends how we are defining role-playing. At the basic level, it's simply character acting, exactly like we do in the GDF. The old role-playing forum (from what I saw) was interactive storytelling in the idea that someone continues someone elses story- not strictly role-playing, but perfectly valid, though it didn't always seem to be working out.

On a more advanced level, someone (presumably one of the Council) could host a story in which the other posters play the participants. This could be as complex or simple as you like- you can set how many people can be in, or have it as a complete free-for-all, whatever you like.

The most advnced level would be to completely transfer a tabletop role-play into on-line form, whicvh is actually nowhere near as daunting as it sounds, but it's not for everyone. In that case there would be definite rules, what the rules are depend on the host and the system used.

WEG do an official Star Wars role-play, which is reasonable enough (and certainly has extremely well-researched supplements), but the action movie simulator role-play Feng Shui is actually far better at getting the Star Wars feel, being a game entirely based around the idea that heroes takeon loads of unnamed charatcers in huge numbers (they call unnamed characters 'mooks', in Star Wars a mook would be a stormtrooper or battle droid).

I like the idea of continuing posts that build a story, but character based rather than just pure story.

Character definition could be used???

What I could abide was the stupid, jokey lines of the old RP forum. Lits keep that in the GDF where it is enjoyed already and have serious roleplay in a role play forum with a mod who understands roleplay.

OK, so who knows about roleplay. I'm just an idea man...

Well, I know a bit. Actually, I know a lot, but doing it on-line is unknown territory. It's all down to how far people want to take it.

My forum was just a continued story. I guess you can say it wasn't typical role-playing, but it still was something.

I gave him 2 weeks and I was right, back after just 5 days. I KNEW you wouldn't be able to stay away.

Actually, I preferred the serious role-playing to the silly, I only posted silly things when the thread got silly by someone else's hand. Now having the colorful reputation I have in GDF, I know some of you find this hard to believe, but I love writing different story lines for SW as I wished things might have happened. JediOasis and I had (what I felt, IMHO ) was a killer story going back and forth for awhile under a topic called "what if". I found it very exciting going back to it every day to see what JO had added and how the storyline twisted and turned. (He writes good stuff )We didn't play roles, we just used the SW characters and made up a new storyline as to what happened in the throne room in ROTJ...and beyond. I thought it was pretty cool.

Oh, I'm, sure it was great. Perhaps the two things- story-writing and role-playing- should be seperated.

Is EJ eating his own words again?

I did some role playing at TF.N once. People played out their characters and the character's stories mingled into one great story. The participants sometimes used the Private Message system to synchronise their stories in secret. It was great fun, but it went so fast and I was in the wrong time zone. Wheneve I returned 5 or 6 pages had passed. And no one was online when I was, so I decided to become one with the Force and disappear from the story.

YEs, it wopuld need a strong organsiation. And the tighter the story, the fewer maximunm players it would be ableto cope with.

We have a lot to think about. We could have one forum of story writing, one of mass roleplaying and one of more specifuc stories

Hmmm....that sounds like a good idea, Ush. What does everybody else think ?

Well, I don't think we're ready for various forums..but we could try working within one forum. I'd try it, but I don't know ANYTHING about serious roleplaying.

SO basically, are we talking about basically queeqs bar but with a serious story and noe dream sequences. ???

I think we should start with the serious role-playing first, then later on, if theres interest, the storybased.

We just need someone who knows what they're doing and can get the forum going...

When I did role-playing on TF.N they had a good start. Maybe they're ideas for this role-playing game.

Whenever anyones started playing (even at a later stage) he/she stated his/her character name, profession (Jedi, Sith, smuggler, princess, boutny hunter, etc.) age etc. And then you play along, from post to post, thus the story evolves. They had a separate thread which listed all the characters and after a while they also had another thread with summaries about the story so far. That way anyone can enter the story at a later time or after a break.

When you die, your character is gone and you can return with a new character.

As for the rest, allow yourself to be surprised.

Did it have anyone in overall charge,or did everyone have an equal say in the story? In any case, it looks like queeq and myslef could have a stab at running things.

Just to clarify the three options here:

1. Continuous storytelling, in the style of the old forum, where people write the starts of stories and other pople continue them.

2. Mass roleplaying- as has been said, this is just like the GDF but with serious characters and no dream sequences. Presuambly, nearly everyone is responsbile for evolving the storyline, which assumes the maturity of all concerned, and I think we can handle that.

While this can make for lose stories, there is a lot of fun in mass participation and no-one is left out.

3. Serious roleplaying- A more structured story, in which someone takes charge and acts as the storyteller while everyone else takes part in his story- but the players still have a vital impact in what happens.

This tends to produce the best stories, but good story-telling needs good control and this necessitates fewer players. Mind you, a. you can run more than one at once (or even the same story twice, and you compare how well one set of players did compared to the others) and b. the number of continuous committed posters here who would play is probably small enouigh to be manageable.

I reckon we could do all three. The third is my speciality (and I even have a story ready to go), but whatever people want, you know?

The TFN ideas look fine.

This may sound like an odd request, but I don't want to jump the gun here...

Is it ok if I post some queries, for people to reply to, to help me establish how a role-play would work and what charatcers people would play? I've got some story suggestions I can submit, as well.

I think that would be fine..