I've been playing on this site for a decade and didn't know you could change color schemes!

Good ol' RPOL, always surprising you where you least expect it to.

Mine's currently light green. Helps set the mood for the character I'm playing, I guess...

Btw, that description of Gren's food makes me long for breakfast! Hmm... glistening bacon fat...

Just give me a heads up when you guys are done inquiring about each other / making introductions and I'll move us along. Don't feel rushed, of course.

Quite happy either way. I'm personally intrigued by the abandoned fortress... wonder if there's any hidden door around that lead to some secret passageways... oooo....

Oh, who says I mean move us along OUT of the fortress? =P

Oh ho ho! Maybe I should try and channel your mind a bit less often one of these days :p

I'd speculate more but I don't wanna be right and ruin the surprise/fun >_>

It's funny, I find that people that try to channel my mind over RPOL are often wrong but those that try in person are often right. I must have a lousy poker face or something. And I mean REALLY lousy. How someone can determine that the pharaoh's mummy stumbling towards them was actually the king under a mind control spell by my facial expressions is beyond me. (This actually happened)

Man.. that sounds like a fun game! Maybe your group knows you so well that they can just guess by a certain glint they see in your eyes whether the enemy is real or if it's some kind of trick!

Also, there were some mind reading a few days back when I had to pick a new class, if I remember correctly >_>

Just for the sake of it, I'd guess that there'd be a passageway somewhere in the abandoned fortress that was quite as abandoned as the fortress itself and quite ran over by a race of monsters of some description. I'd wager that this fortress is dwarven(ish?) in nature and that the passage would be connected straight to Azul Irkul!

I foresee a tunnel collapsing behind us.


I'll post in a few hours, need to hand in an assignment, then get some sleeeeeep. Staying up until 10:45 am writing essays is not fun...

I will neither confirm nor deny suspicions of said tunnel or alleged decrepit Dwarven fortress. Time will tell =P

And yes, the character creation there was some, but not in the game heh.

As for my players IRL, that's probably the case seeing as I've known them all the better part of a decade. But it wasn't even that they guessed that the mummy was a friend, they guessed that it was both the king, and that he was mind controlled the second they saw him. This coming from a group of players who's sole joy in life is to mercilessly slaughter every single enemy I lay before them with brutal efficiency.

In reply to Kassadria (msg # 26):

Tunnel collapsing! That's sooo perfect! No way out now, we must brave the mines of Mori- er, I mean, Azul Irkul... >_>

All the best with your essay! I'm so glad I'm on Uni holidays until end of Feb - more time to spend on RPoL :) What's the essay about, if you don't mind me asking?


In reply to DM Visceri (msg # 27):

Maybe there was a description of the mummy that somehow reminded them of the king? It is pretty cool how they can guess just like that, although I can only imagine how difficult it would be to try and give them unexpected encounters...

That being said, I'm ever so grateful for people that take up the GM mantle coz the amount of time they put into it! Man.

My GM for WFRP IRL only does the session once a month because, apparently, we give her headaches after every session, going off on tangents and just, generally not going where she wants us to go. But, ya know, that's OUR job :p

Admittedly, it can be a pain here and there but the rewards outweigh the pain. My games are my babies since I always make them up from scratch. There is an interesting fact about my games that will come to light soon that one or two of you will get the significance of but I wouldn't spoil the fun yet.

As for players not following the DM's railroading, it's only polite that eventually the group tries to conform to the story at hand, assuming it's not a sandbox game. Think about it, why would you want to miss out on the fun things a DM has prepared for stuff they either didn't care about or have to make up spur of the moment? I try not to railroad TOO much but I like there to be a story that is obviously able to be followed.

I've never actually roleplayed face-to-face, though I've been doing PBP and real-time chat roleplay for about twelve years. I think it's probably easier to surprise and amuse your players with PBP, but I'm sure there are other qualities that you get in face-to-face RP that can't be replicated through other mediums.

As for the essay, I had to choose a relatively contemporary article and relate it to some sociologists we've been studying this semester. I chose an article on the role of social media in the Arab Spring and the London Riots. Quite an interesting topic... it's a shame most of my thought on the subject took place during a semi-delusional state of half-sleep.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:54, Tue 11 Dec 2012.

Well the one benefit of face-to-face RP that I always enjoy, is quick combat heh. Nothing like taking 5 minutes to kill a group of goblins rather than 5 days. The Dance of the Dead game I also run that Gren and Strange are in started as a IRL game with me and two friends and when one went off to the Navy, we moved it to here. In the 2 months we played it IRL, we blasted through 7 levels, 3 dungeons, and a boatload of story. In the year since it's been moved to RPOL, the group has gained 1 level and took 3 months to conquer a dungeon. I have a feeling that it will be the first, and last, dungeon I play in that manner. Again, another thing that RPOL has no real answer for which makes me sad. I oh so love dungeons and traps after all.

Well, currently the game is quite linear but our GM usually gave each character a day in each town we had come across to do whatever we want. However, the choice we often take is something she hasn't prepared or something completely out of the blue for her. I think that's the source of her headache. A player will take 5 minutes going down from his room to grab breakfast coz he'll do whatever it takes to get the breakfast for free, for example. Another player will go to a temple of Mor to pick up random herbs, offending the priests, etc. We'll be there when the actual event happens but before then the group completely splits off most of the times. Also, doesn't help that this is her first time GMing.

Also, I know what you mean re the speed of the game! We had no dungeon crawl yet but our usual combat lasts half an hour or so because we're all quite new and learning. I would very much love to see how traps work in real life games. Do the rogue just naturally sense something's up ever now and then or do the party just continuously check for trap every few meters or so?

Playing online has an advantage of rping, I think. IRL, I tend to be quite shy so I play character that doesn't say much. Also, I don't speak English quite as fluently (or correctly) as I'd like so that doesn't help =/ I think, the storytelling opportunities in online rp can be well worth the wait for events to move along :)

And, Kass, that essay sounds interesting and relevant to the current society. I've never heard of the Arab Spring but I do know bits and pieces about the London Riot (though mostly media fed garbage). All the best with it! :)

The Arab Spring refers to the recent revolutions/protests in Egypt, Lybia and Tunisia. Syria is following along the same theme, it seems... many claim that social media such as Facebook and Twitter were instrumental in these revolutions' success.

Anyway, I've written that essay and handed it in, so I don't wanna think about that too much, haha.

I also like the storytelling aspect of roleplaying online, even though my posts have been rather short and lacking in description lately, I think it's much easier to create a coherent and consistent character in writing than I'd imagine it would be in real time.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:32, Tue 11 Dec 2012.

Hahah of course! But now I might go and do a bit of reading on Arab Spring myself. Sounds like something a friend might be interested in.

You said you've done some real time chat role play before. Wouldn't that be similar, in terms of thinking thinking on your feet and whatnot? The only consistency my char has in that RL game is her determined desire not to speak and slight racist behaviour (wood elves in WFRP are xenophobic...)

Well, yes real-time chat RP is more spur-of-the-moment, but you've got logs to look back on and can see exactly what your character said and did last session, so it's much easier to remember quirks and such, as well as include them in your description without it seeming odd. Often my real-time RPs were based off PBP RPs where I already had an established character, too, so that made things easier.

Well the rogue in my RL parties always seems to get hit by the first trap and then check every single door and room form there on out because he's scared. Ever since I ran this one friend of mine through a Tomb of Horros game (if you're unfamiliar, the unofficial motto of the game is "You will die. A lot. To stupid shit.") he's been super suspicious of anything I do. I like to create a lot of really intricate traps with false triggers, double traps, etc. While they're a little difficult to pull off in PBP, I did manage to kill a rogue because of the cause of one rather simple trap in my other game I play. Gren and Strange can attest to that haha.

As for the whole IRL vs PBP or real-time debate, my 2 cents are that when you're IRL, the game moves faster but the RP suffers and vice versa when you're on PBP. I personally am a huge story junkie so PBP affords me a better opportunity to let some of the details and plot intricacies that might be typically left out to find a place. Plus, I find my characters really come alive when I can take a moment to judge how each would respond, keeping with the theme of consistency.

Hahah this is totally why I'm not playing trap finding rogues. My heart won't last the game!

Btw, just a heads up, I'm working full time today so I can only post later tonight, which may count towards the next day for you guys :)

I'll eventually weigh in with a legitimate response, but in brief... I agree that combat and dungeons are bawlz on RPOL but that it tends to breed vastly superior character representation and development, which IMHO makes it totally worthwhile.

I play 4e IRL with a LAN/MapTool/custom framework setup at my buddy's place and it's pure combat, no RP, because the dullard WotC target market can't handle it, but it's still a ton of fun.  I get my write on via fiction and RP here on RPOL.

Good times.

4e?! *HISS! BOO!* =P

Agreed though, while there have been situations where combat is easy and entertaining (see the scenarios where all players post 1-2 times a day and finish a boss encounter in 3 days) but the all too familiar dredge is the bane of my existence (see the scenarios where 2 people don't post for 3 days, forcing me to NPC them finally, then a different 2 people don't post for 3 days and a fight consisting of 3 measly mobs lasts close to 2 weeks).

I bitch regularly, have no doubt.

I think RPOL combat should be up to the DM to resolve based on pre-submitted basic strategies and such, because it is most certainly NOT fun at RPOL pace.

The problem is, of course, that DND is primarily designed with combat in mind, so we should theoretically be using something else if we plan to emphasize RP, like maybe the oWoD storyteller system. But it's all good.

There's a price for everything, and pace is the price here.  It's totally worth it if you get strong characters and plot.