A collaborative RP idea

[James Gryphon]

It's been my theory for quite a while that a bottleneck for quality RPing is the number of people involved. The more players there are, the more action has to be held up because you have to wait for somebody before continuing on. Either the RP bogs down, or people do move on without somebody and feelings get hurt, and no matter what, the story suffers.

Well, I had a strange idea a few days back about making an RP that would not be dependent on having a completely active cast of players. The proven success of the Overlord's Orders game series caused me to wonder what would happen if there was no rule against power-playing. Under this model, nobody's characters would be fully their own; each person could make posts playing as any character, and move the story along without waiting for the person who originated a character design. All the other rules (no godmodding, etc.) would still be in force.

This idea is not perfect; the RPers would have to be pretty well in tune with the entire cast of characters, for one thing. The players would also have to be careful not to be destructive to the story or other people's characters (keeping in mind the "Endless Story" here, where "and then they died" or "and then the universe blew up" is not an uncommon response to any event or character a player dislikes). However, with the high frequency of RPs that bog down and die, I thought it was worth proposing this idea, and seeing whether anybody would be interested in giving this a go.

[The Skarzs]

Skarzs smacks James and sends his head flying off into oblivion.

Sure, I'm up for it! I think the people who decide to join should be more mature members and experienced RPers, so they can handle power plays without getting upset, know when PPing would be acceptable, be reasonable in their PPing, and know the other members well enough to know how they would react. (The last one will be harder.)

In addition to that, to make people more aware of the way characters are, the detailed character sheet that Faiyloe made up would be a necessity.

[Wylder Treejumper]

Oh, good. I like this one. That means if I leave I won't be jamming up the RP. Count me in! (As long as it gets started in time)

[Faiyloe]

Oh this looks fun!

*Phil* But you are already in to many Rps and you have School to do. *Phil*

That is the beauty of this! I don't have to keep up or anything I can just play when I have the time. Besdes most of the RPs I am in are going at a snails pace.

*Phil* Oh alright fine *Phil*

yeah!!!!  . Awesome I'm in! And I am so glad I made that character sheet though it will be a pain to read of of them sheets when there done XD.

[Unimaginative]

This would be fun, and a interesting concept. I think this would be good for me, as, though it pains me to admit, I've caused the deaths of several roleplays since I joined the forum.

[Skyblade]

I like this idea! It would be nice to do.

[Cornflower MM]

Sure! sounds cool! *Gathers up PPing ideas and throws 'em out the window* *Grabs a few more sensible ones*

Oooh, character idea! *Runs to copy 'n' paste Faiy's sheet to a Word doc*

[Jetthebinturong]

This seems like a cool idea, I might join but I probably don't have the time.

[Lady Ashenwyte]

Skarzs smacks James and sends his head flying off into oblivion.

-__-

I'm joining.

[James Gryphon]

...so they can handle power plays without getting upset, know when PPing would be acceptable, be reasonable in their PPing, and know the other members well enough to know how they would react. (The last one will be harder.)

Well, my concept is more that characters should be "communal property" and that people can play other people's characters with relative freedom, and even develop them beyond what the player who made a character might have had in mind.

I expect players will prefer to play and develop certain characters over others, and that's perfectly fine, but the idea here is to try to get away from thinking of any one character as being exclusively "your own". Otherwise it's just a RP with a much looser definition of when somebody is inactive (and needs people to play for them). Of course, players are free to detail their ideas for a character's development in the OOC thread, so that the others can follow through with their ideas if they choose to do so.