What ever happened to free form RP'ing?

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unanun

unanun

Child is born, with a heart of gold
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I'm wary of magic with lots of rules.
Back in the day (4-6 years ago), RP boards were usually generated around one generic scenario, like Hellsing, and players were free to come and go as they pleased, with their unique identity embedded in the characters they sowed the world with. Plots were player driven with no overarching theme, did not have to be grand but could be grand, and all content was mostly spontaneously generated. I briefly dabbled in 'walled garden' RP'ing like this and it is the most vulnerable to a weak plot and 'GM.'

Also, has real time RPing fallen out of favour now? Things are the most fun when you can do rapid fire postings within minutes of the other.
 
We used to have Iwaku World alongside all the GM run RPs, but it proved too clumsy to keep up. Franky I prefer smaller scale RPing it allows more intimacy and dynamic relationships between characters and is reliant of a fewer number of players to keep moving.

By real time PRing I take it you mean Chat RPs.... we still have those, drop into the CBox and see whose game for one.
 
Even large worlds can sustain free form RPs. A forum world is a great breeding bed for social dynamics, sociology, and psychology. You might get cliques who prefer to interact with themselves, or a few players scheming to do big things to the world. Of course these things are made possible by power rules that allow characters with more posts to do more. These worlds are usually very self pruning and only require admins to occasionally reset playing areas by deleting and remaking threads that represent areas.

Forum world RP'ing actually over time replicates a lot of small world intimacy, but it takes a lot of initial set up .. which in itself is a delightful thing to experience. A lot of scenarios already have the setting laid down, and in doing so skip the crescendo and the nascent period of the RP.
 
So why are you here if what we are doing and are about is the opposite of what you're looking for? I live new members and new ideas but you seem to be trolling this site. What is your objective if not to enjoy the fun of creating with others? This site and those like it have been on the net for many years after all so I don't know why you're stating we're a failed idea.
 
Old school real time RPs usually have posts within minutes of each other - actual real time can be stressful.

Another great thing about free form is the unlimited release of imagination within the confines of a very large and open setting. I find that these smaller RPs are restrictive and, to step into sensitive territory, a little too wordy - they leave nothing to the imagination! Sometimes one does not need to be specific - having a picture of a general description of someone can lead to the person on the other end filling their imagination in a much more satisfying way than being needlessly detailed.
 
Ocha Hou-ou said:
So why are you here if what we are doing and are about is the opposite of what you're looking for? I live new members and new ideas but you seem to be trolling this site. What is your objective if not to enjoy the fun of creating with others? This site and those like it have been on the net for many years after all so I don't know why you're stating we're a failed idea.
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Not trolling, I'm trying to see what makes this site tick. Also, since RPing is a rather poorly indexed Google search term, trying to see where the whole community has faded to. Even back then the only way to get around was through illusive referrals and shady links.
 
Then explore the site. That's the best way to see how we tick. Also introduce yourself. Who knows you might find some people that like your style.
 
And we have members from all over the world from all different timezones. If you're experienced with sites like Gaia online where the member base is large enough that RPs get enough members in minuets to start we just don't have that many people here. Things happen at a slower pace but at gives players and GMs time to talk to each other about their next moves. Ochas got the right idea, put up a thread introducing yourself, talk to members. Read OOCs and maybe a few ICs too. We're friendly and love ideas to plot around so get to know us and the comunity maybe start an RP yourself by your rules if you want to.
 
If you make pleasant with enough of the members in our member base, then you might be able to determine who is on at what times and attempt to recruit people into a roleplay with you so that when you play, they tend to be online and will post very quickly with you as well. This takes a fairly good knowledge of the members that we have here but it is not that much effort.

Here, we allow for a variety of roleplay types and there are some freeforms that exist though they tend to have a difficult time since the weak plot ang GM can sometimes struggle. You might try to talk to the member currently trying to create a more freeform roleplay - Xindaris.
 
Everyone has their preferences on how they like to RP. Iwaku is a multi-genre, multi-style roleplay site that doesn't focus on just one theme. This way we can allow members many different options of stories and styles to cater to their preferences.

For YOU, if Iwaku's style is not to your liking, I highly recommend that you visit Roleplay Directory or Roleplay Collection. You'll be able to find single-theme freeforms in the way you're describing, and have much more success than searching Google.
 
Wow. Seems that we really have rallied to answer a question. If only we could do this to roleplay ideas.

If you want a free form roleplay go to roleplayerguild.com

That has a whole section on it.

The name might be a bit wrong...
 
Personally, I've found that freeform leads to cliquey little circle-wank groups who spend the entire game trying to show how their character is the most awesome of the lot.

Give me a decent GM with a good plan for a story and some rules to keep the meta-gaming, power-hungry twats down any day.

Oh, and protip? Maybe have a look through the site before you starting posting these sorta threads. Iwaku does actually have pretty much exactly what you've described, as some of the others have pointed out.

EDIT: Oh, and hello troll.
 
Thanks for the replies, and interesting links. I'll look around.

No one probably knows, but I hail from order of mayhem, which was home to the best RP experiences I've ever had.
 
Order of Mayhem? Excuse me while I slip into something more nostalgic.

Order of Mayhem was my first actual attempt at forum-based roleplaying, I was, oh, 'round 17 or 18. Oh, hey! There I am! My username was Manu. One of my first characters: a feisty Cajun girl who lost her arm in a skirmish with a vampire. I changed it to Xun Li whatever because that was the last character I played before going inactive.
I met a few very talented roleplayers that I practically stalked in the IC forums just so I could get better at writing, and just because they were so much friggin' fun. They were also a breath of fresh air compared to the majority of the other members; who only seemed interested in making other players blood slaves or trying to get it on with Alucard. Hopefully they don't do that anymore. A few of those members are here, now, and they've grown by leaps and bounds in terms of writing talent and unique, engaging online presence.

My experience in Iwaku has exceeded my expectations as to what a roleplaying forum should be. I credit this to mature administrators and staff who understand the need to cultivate a diverse membership. This means welcoming all newcomers. No matter who they are.

You're making some very big declarations for someone so new to a forum. Please, do have a look around. You might like what you see.

EDIT:

Got a little fired up on that trip down memory lane and went off subject. Forum style tastes aside, your first post piqued my interest.

I remember that rapid-post style in Order of Mayhem. While it's a fun challenge to put your ass to the fire and type out as well-written a post as fast as you can, not to mention that sweet instant gratification, there were a lot of complications involved. Mostly involving posting order, figuring out who was going to edit what in their post if two people posted at the same time and so other things of that nature. It basically felt like a frumpy Chat RP to me.

The upside? Pausing and archiving the logs is a breeze because they're in a forum and not a chat room.

There's more than one way to write a story. Perhaps there's some juicy creative nugget in the rapid-post style that we're all missing. Food for thought.
 
STOP WAXING LYRICAL, TEGAN. >:[

But seriously, I'd actually be up for trying a rapid-post game some time. Make for an interesting challenge, at the very least.
 
While I see this as a healthy discussion setting emotions into play, the way you come on this here forum makes you seem like , no disrespect, an asshole. I don't share the view of this as trollish behaviour though.

As this community has aged so has most of it's members and it's only natural that there'll be a change of attitude, most people don't have as much time as they used to have to RP(our memberbase isn't a made up of a majority of teenagers anymore), so some forms of running a game will in general rule out of favour with most in a parallel development of "culture".

Pointing fingers as to why Mass-World-RPs have been failing here can be rightfully aimed at both the members(pussywhipped, intimidated by GMs) and the staff(too strict, letting individual plans/goals get in the way of overall progress, intimidating members(???)).

Chat-RPs are scheduled way ahead of time because the usual cast involved live on different continents and have different timezones, therefore, theres not as many and as often as some members might like it. Thats just the way it is currently.

As mentioned above our community is open to pretty much any type of RP- no matter form, genre or whatever, so whats stopping people from checking for interest? For crying out loud, this is ROLEPLAY TALK, the sub-forum described to "Promote your new ideas or advertise your roleplays!" And you can always check for live-interest in the cbox, even though first impression of that place might leave you asking "WTF is up with these people?!" And while you could argue that this thread is just that; checking for interest, your tone/attitude seems to suggest otherwise. Nobody's stopping you from making a real time-RP.

Didn't mean to come off as bashing, but...

DO UR RESEARCH, DOOD
 
Apologies for not categorizing my post correctly! Again, I am humble and did not mean to come off as combative.

I found that a lot of these links, directories, and top 100 lists are always quite outdated and dusty - the admin's concerted attempts at reviving OoM never worked because whenever we advertised out, all the aggregation sites were always dead and received zero traffic. RP'ing, especially on forums, has always been somewhat of a word of mouth thing, which is what I mostly blame for OooooM's death. Someone posted two links previously that sound promising, and I do not have any problem digging through them, but again, word of mouth is the best way to send traffic around.

Pointing fingers as to why Mass-World-RPs have been failing here can be rightfully aimed at both the members(pussywhipped, intimidated by GMs) and the staff(too strict, letting individual plans/goals get in the way of overall progress, intimidating members(???)).
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I'd argue that 'life' is the main reason. People move on, and no one comes to replace them because the RP network (was?) is pretty disjointed.

My initial intention was to find out the motivations behind the de facto RP style at iwaku. I feel that it's a pretty neutral question and it still stands!

Please feel free to move this thread to the appropriate subforum.
 
Because we encourage people to come up with their own settings/themes/rules/stories its as simple as that. Come up with their own ideas and run with it.
 
Found some promising stuff, so I will see how it goes!

I think I was on here before, but it's been a while.
 
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