sharpestscalpel

I think this is actually one of the best formats for collaborative storytelling I've found, at least in terms of RP. My only other RP experiences have been WoW*, D&D, and one play-by-post d6-based Star Wars game. The pbp was good too, but I enjoy that this RP doesn't have rules, really--no dice, no GM. What happens is determined by you and your play partners, not what chance or an omnipotent entity decides. I like having as much or as little control over the play as I want.

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I've been involved in RP, in some form, for many years. Before I even had a name for it, I was participating on Prodigy (yes, I'm old) bulletin boards and then, when people scattered, through email and even actually letters (I still have IC letters from back in the day). So that involved a very linear, threaded conversation--you couldn't really branch off, without starting a new conversation/room/what have you. But it was all we had.

The one I was involved in before this was on a proboards site, which I liked because it was really easy to organize space. You had physical locations, and within that you could have sub-boards and within each board you had threads. And you could reuse them, or branch off into a new thread, or what have you, though you didn't of course have a "tree" like you do here. It was a different experience, but it did mean it was easy to come back to something--it didn't get lost quite as quickly as something on LJ (or, my god, twitter or FB) does.

So this is my first LJ game, and it's interesting. I like threading. I like notifications. I like that we can have a mix of the personal-journal stuff (because meta is yummy) and the in-play stuff--I don't know how many other games do that. And friends lists and communities and all that are really helpful in making an inclusive, varied game: I don't have to search for all new threads since I logged on, they're all there waiting for me.

But as to the actual nature of play, interestingly this is all I know. Obviously there are different levels of collaboration, but I've never played D&D or been involved in a more directed game and for me, it's just always depended on the people one's playing with and reacting to what goes down in character. And that's what I love best about RP: I love writing, and I love acting, and this gives me a little of both.

I may have more to say later but that's what I'm thinking of right now.

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I do think it's important to distinguish collaborative storytelling in an RP setting from other types of collaborative storytelling so I appreciate you making that distinction.

There are some dudes I know who do a play-by-email - I wonder if that's similar to the play-by-post you mention.

I definitely enjoy the lack of apparatus (I did D&D LARPing but then I got into World of Darkness table top gaming and goddamn, fistfuls of dice) but one of the things I really enjoy the most is plotting with other players. So it's a combination of very organic development combined with a bit of structure that gets decided on by those involved.

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You know, I always forget about the acting that really is a big part of RP. Like, there really is a lot of that involved. HUH.

The messageboard setup sounds really kind of fascinating. I do think I'd lose track of stuff like that - LJ's threaded comments have kept me here for, like, 9 years at this point (insanity) and it's because I'm so scattered about conversations online.

And the meta of the in character LJ posts, oh, man, I love that.

Directed games - I'm pretty lucky in that I've gamed with way more awesome GMs than sucky ones, which means that the players have totally influenced the overall flow of the game a LOT. The GM presented a scenario and a goal and we made it happen through whatever means we could - it's actually not all that different, to me, from when we plot something and then decide, for example, "Okay, there's going to be a booty call in Sickbay" and then we make it work and throw in a lot of weird character stuff - I DO think this provides a lot more opportunity for deliberate character development because we have a written record we can go back and follow to see how our character arc is moving.

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I realized the acting then when, well, I was acting. I got to thinking about how much I love responding to the other actors, the characters, and to the curveballs that get thrown even when I think I know what's coming. I don't like improve, mind. I feel on the spot. But RP is like acting in a play you're writing at the same time--you're not monologing off by yourself, which is great but different.

The way I did the messageboard was by checking my "last five" or whatever for each character I played. So I'd log on, hit the link to wherever I'd been last, and see if those threads had been answered. Yeah. Unless I was on for awhile obviously and switching back and forth, but you can't do that from email like you can here.

I see what you're saying about directed games--I just haven't had that experience. And I like that I only have to worry about writing.

Oh, as for the crossing social networking platforms thing, I think it's totally fascinating but I agree that it's problematic practically. Not only how do you keep up, but what's in-game? What's canon? As everyone here knows, I just don't have time to group chat a lot, and it goes against my "in my own time" preferences for tagging. But I know that's popular, too.

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rarerussianrose.livejournal.com

The way I play, and which is most familiar to me, is one-on-one over Instant messengers. A two-part story from two or more different characters POV. The posts are written in third person, paragraphs, and corresponding posts of two players interacting with assigned characters.

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Structured games are fun to break. I actually prefer it when the GM doesn't tell us what our goal is, but rather lets us figure it out and get there on our own. That's in accordance with my play style here--I tend to not work out before playing it what an outcome will be, rather than just progressing through it and letting it happen organically.

The best D&D game I was in, after one epic session the DM told us, "You just broke everything. I have to rewrite the rest of the plot now." Our characters were actually too awesome--we defeated a boss we weren't supposed to be able to defeat. Part of that was game mechanics, but part was RP--our characters' actions were determined by their personalities.

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See, I'm actually not at all interested in "breaking" anything. I think it's awesome when stories develop organically and it's equally awesome when players (or GMs) have desired outcomes that get shifted because of the way game play goes down, but I am not involved in RP as a competitive thing. I don't win anything if I ruin it for someone else.

There are a lot of things that, I think, evolve organically in the game here but there are some things that, for example, O-F and I have plotted out a little bit into the future because longer story arcs are fun to play. And because we don't want to make anyone miserable, for example, if two characters are experiencing tension that's agreed upon and we know ahead of time that our goal as players is to patch that shit up.

I have goals as a character and goals as a player - and as a writer, it helps me get to wherever we're going even if the plan changes in mid-movement. Otherwise, nothing ever happens.

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And I like that I only have to worry about writing.

That's so funny - because with directed games, I only have to worry about playing. *grin* I think we put a LOT more work into developing stuff in this game than I've ever put into any other kind of RP. It's kind of amazing and engrossing.

In my ideal game where things crossed social networks, all of that stuff would be canon. Though players would have to agree not to play knowledge there is no way they could have. Like, O-F is excellent because he has to give mMcCoy some benefit of the doubt because there's no reason for him to know any of the terrible stuff mMcCoy has done, you know? That'd be true whatever platform we were using at the time. But I don't think there's any way around the difficulty of following all of that stuff unless you had, like, a website for the game that collected links. *laugh*

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*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.

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loyalty-ever.livejournal.com

I used to do this by message board, and did a little tabletop RP with close friends--Shadowrun, with what we called "Matrix Rules", driven mostly by the characters and the lulz and NOT the, y'know, actual rules.

I do sometimes forget that we have a wider audience than each other, but I'm usually at least sort of aware of the last six posts on my f-list/can pick out large general happenings that form a kind of arc. I can't quote anything, and I don't read everything.

Back up, flip it and reverse it: I don't read every. Single. Post. I don't. I don't have time! *die*. But if other players mention something to me, I make it my business to learn what's going on and try and stay involved, insofar as I can actually do something about whatever it is.

I find SWC somewhat helpful in this regard.

Twitter is really just something for me to do while I have nothing to do, in a way that doesn't hurt other people's play. I don't think I'd be part of an ongoing, super-active Twitter-based game. It's too damn 'loud', like Skype (asdhfjdhs *HIVES*) or a packed chatroom. I can't function that way. It's not like it's wrong or lame or something, but it melts my neurons and is otherwise not a fun time.

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I check the @replies when I sign in as a character and just reply based on that most of the time. I don't have time to sit on Twitter and play in real time, ALAS. I can see how it would get really overwhelming really quickly.

I don't think anyone reads EVERYTHING - and I don't think people are obligated to. That's one of the nice things about playing in this format - I don't have to try to stay awake at 2am when someone else is rolling die after die in a complicated arc when I'm exhausted. I can just hit refresh in the morning and see how that worked out.

Eeee, Shadowrun!

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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.

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I hear you on that last bit, if slightly less destructive to me. But I find it difficult to deal with. I don't like noisy rooms or talking on the phone to begin with, so, yeah. It's just not my space.

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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?

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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.

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No, of course I don't want to ruin anything. It's just fun to see how far you can go within the setting of the game.

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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.

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I can see that--figuring out where the box is, and how far outside it you can go. Which is why I love pushing the fourth wall.

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I read everything, except when LJ forgets to notify me that someone has posted. It didn't tell me about Spock's pon farr post; I didn't know about it until Kirk linked it. I track players and posts and just read everything in my email, but sometimes for whatever reason it doesn't email me.

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I can definitely agree with that.

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If I tried to read it all in email, I think I'd explode. *laugh* I get a LOT of email everyday so I know stuff would get lost. I only track threads I am in that are in other players' journals where there are more than two people participating because otherwise I would throw my phone (where I check most of my email) out the window. And I really really really like LJ's threaded comments so I tend to want to read in chunks like that anyway instead of piecemeal.

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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.

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