((OOC - Discussion tiems!))

[sharpestscalpel]

((OOC - So, this mirror game is an off-shoot of the very first online RP in which I've been involved. I've done a lot of table-top, some LARP, and some single-player computer-based RPG but using LJ this way kind of fascinates me. And I was thinking about that and thinking about the things that I love and the things that have been driving me crazy and I started to wonder:

What does your ideal online RP look like?

I'm posting this here because I'm interested in the thoughts of other players but also, if anyone wants to speak on it, the thoughts of readers. It's such an interesting performative way of playing and I'm pondering the back-end portion of it, the meta of it, the tendency of myself to forget that other people can read any of this, that sort of thing. Let's assume that all discussion is out of character - if, you know, there actually IS discussion and not just me rambling along in my little corner here.

To me, the best RP is a form of collaborative story telling. It becomes a tapestry of lots of different stories that all touch on and influence each other. I feel like there are some barriers to that in this format (LJ) - but that in other ways this format is ideal for games that result in a collaborative narrative.

And now we've started Twittering and I'm kind of in love with the idea of a game that works across social networking platforms. But the drawback is that then you have to put in the work to make it happen across social networking platforms and readers have a hard time following everything. I used to play a table-top game that involved a lot of websites and internets research, though, and it was phenomenally fascinating. I'm not sure where the trade-off is for that.

Anybody? Bueller?))

Comments

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

*laugh* I tried some tabletop when I was a kid, but I didn't have anyone instructing me and it all seemed to confusing and overwhelming--I just want to write, you know? And I can sit here by myself and figure out what so-and-so will say.

I agree about the canon thing--ideally, and I actually tend to play this way, it's all canon for O-F. But it does get confusing, and someone would have to be keeping track.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

I didn't start RPing until college and it was with an experienced group so that made my entrance a lot easier.

Right now, I'm trying to figure out how I would classify RP - because I don't think of it as acting (even though it totally is) and I don't think of it as writing the way I do it. Hrmn. It's, like, it's own thing. Like, for me it's almost entirely improv and that's what's so exciting about it. I don't sit and rework tags because the momentum of the play is what keeps me interested a lot of the time.

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't either--I'm very trigger-happy about posting and I think that can be painfully obvious sometimes. Though it all works out in the end, and that's why I love it--I don't sit there lamenting choices I made--I just make new ones based on where I've gone. And that's sort of why it feels like improv-acting to me, because I'm not thinking about the character so much as being them. Writing *as* them.

Which makes it funny that I'm not into improv, but then again, I don't like active chat rooms or being observed while I'm figuring stuff out (I cannot have anyone look at a computer screen while I'm doing most anything) so that's where I see the difference.

But. I also think it's its own thing, totally, and the acting/writing thing is just a way for me to think about it. And naturally, there's a reason we do it, and a reason it's so addictive.

And I think that has to do with the variable reinforcement, the emotional investment with the characters we play/play with, and maybe the communal nature of it?

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

The communal nature definitely keeps me coming back, even though I've spent less and less time in the chat and that sort of thing. And I really LIKE the things that grow out of people being trigger happy sometimes. And the posts that we do just to have something in play - the most interesting stuff develops when we are just noodling.

[behnd-blueyes.livejournal.com]

I totally agree--sometimes the best character development happens when nothing's really going on: see, for instance, Len and Jim talking about cameras and then, wham, bdsm?

And I also happen to like the stuff that happens when someone seems to totally be on crack and you have to work around it and suddenly it means something.

[sharpestscalpel.livejournal.com]

And without that bdsm conversation, there would have been no tidy!sex! Which is still cracking me up.

The supposedly meaningless stuff that has become meaningful is awesome.