On which fandoms, RPS roleplay is huge. The Establishment and Citadel over on JF are the biggest fanfic RPGs I've ever seen, and they're all RPS-based, with some original characters in supporting roles here and there. Palace (now sadly defunct) here on LJ was RPS-based with a sort of SFish setting. And there are a number of other RPS games I know of, and probably a bunch I don't. It definitely deserved to have a slot on your list; hopefully most people who play RPS games will write in rather than wandering away. [crossed fingers]
About standards, it's incredibly difficult to hold the same writing standards in RPGs as one might have in solo fiction. Heck, if anything it's going the other way -- In the last year or so I've seen more and more people "scene" their stand-alone fiction with one or maybe two writing partners, as though it were a tiny little RPG, with the resulting ping-ponging point of view and inconsistent mechanics and continuity glitches, all the problems that are pretty much just part of the territory in scened RPG writing. The lower standards of RPGs are creeping into stand-alone fics, rather than the other way around. This makes me sad. :(
I do my best to make my solo stories clean in terms of mechanics and craftsmanship. And when I'm scening in an RPG I'll most often volunteer to do the first edit when we're done scening or tagging, and I'll offer to do mechanical edits on my partner's chunks of the story. Usually they accept, which is great -- I hate posting badly written stuff with my name on it, and if I do I prefer that it be my own mistake and not someone else's mistake that I saw but couldn't fix. :/ But the bottom line is that your partner's stuff is your partner's stuff and you can't edit it unless she/he gives permission, so.... That's one of the downsides of RPGs in my view.
I have no idea what you meant by this -- Do you ever, or have you ever, use(d) fanfiction characters in a roleplay? Clue, please? If you're roleplaying based on something fanficcish, then all the characters are by definition fanfiction characters, now? I think I'm missing something here.
On the manners things, I have a few caveats. I definitely don't think that original characters are inherently bad, unless the game rules say they are. And seriously, if I need someone to be the waitress at the local coffee shop or the stable manager or a character's college professor, and I have no intention of that character ever starring in a major plotline, I don't want to waste a canon character in that slot and I get annoyed at other people when they do so. But if a game specifically states in the rules that There Shall Be No OCs, then of course bringing one in would be rude.
If the only problem with an OC is that no one else has one, then IMO that's not a problem. Unless there's some specific reason why this OC is problematic, something besides, "But no one ellllllse has one!!!" like a little kid whining because his friend has a piece of candy, I'm not going to worry about it. Especially since, unlike the candy, OCs are infinitely creatable and if Little Janie wants to have one too then she can just stop whining and write one. :P And if she doesn't want one then what's the problem?
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-10-20 01:14 am (UTC)On which fandoms, RPS roleplay is huge. The Establishment and Citadel over on JF are the biggest fanfic RPGs I've ever seen, and they're all RPS-based, with some original characters in supporting roles here and there. Palace (now sadly defunct) here on LJ was RPS-based with a sort of SFish setting. And there are a number of other RPS games I know of, and probably a bunch I don't. It definitely deserved to have a slot on your list; hopefully most people who play RPS games will write in rather than wandering away. [crossed fingers]
About standards, it's incredibly difficult to hold the same writing standards in RPGs as one might have in solo fiction. Heck, if anything it's going the other way -- In the last year or so I've seen more and more people "scene" their stand-alone fiction with one or maybe two writing partners, as though it were a tiny little RPG, with the resulting ping-ponging point of view and inconsistent mechanics and continuity glitches, all the problems that are pretty much just part of the territory in scened RPG writing. The lower standards of RPGs are creeping into stand-alone fics, rather than the other way around. This makes me sad. :(
I do my best to make my solo stories clean in terms of mechanics and craftsmanship. And when I'm scening in an RPG I'll most often volunteer to do the first edit when we're done scening or tagging, and I'll offer to do mechanical edits on my partner's chunks of the story. Usually they accept, which is great -- I hate posting badly written stuff with my name on it, and if I do I prefer that it be my own mistake and not someone else's mistake that I saw but couldn't fix. :/ But the bottom line is that your partner's stuff is your partner's stuff and you can't edit it unless she/he gives permission, so.... That's one of the downsides of RPGs in my view.
I have no idea what you meant by this -- Do you ever, or have you ever, use(d) fanfiction characters in a roleplay? Clue, please? If you're roleplaying based on something fanficcish, then all the characters are by definition fanfiction characters, now? I think I'm missing something here.
On the manners things, I have a few caveats. I definitely don't think that original characters are inherently bad, unless the game rules say they are. And seriously, if I need someone to be the waitress at the local coffee shop or the stable manager or a character's college professor, and I have no intention of that character ever starring in a major plotline, I don't want to waste a canon character in that slot and I get annoyed at other people when they do so. But if a game specifically states in the rules that There Shall Be No OCs, then of course bringing one in would be rude.
If the only problem with an OC is that no one else has one, then IMO that's not a problem. Unless there's some specific reason why this OC is problematic, something besides, "But no one ellllllse has one!!!" like a little kid whining because his friend has a piece of candy, I'm not going to worry about it. Especially since, unlike the candy, OCs are infinitely creatable and if Little Janie wants to have one too then she can just stop whining and write one. :P And if she doesn't want one then what's the problem?
[Continued on Second Rock...]