The (*fandom*) Roleplaying Poll (forgive me if the cut screwed up again)

[author_by_night]

[Poll #848590]

Comments

[gryffinclaw.livejournal.com]

I am in the Harry Potter fandom, and yet I find myself heavily involved in a Superman RPG and loving every moment of it. The RPG is getting me more into the fandom.

I think since we are a small RPG with a limited number of players we really do not have RP drama.

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

[Here from metafandom. [wave]]

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...]

[story645.livejournal.com]

In terms of writing, I followed SPAG when I was rp'ing cause I basically had to. The HP rp had decent standards, and shiver had high ones. So *shrugs* there wasn't really an option of not doing SPAG. The HP rp was an OOC/IC one, and I was playing IC!Hermione, so I had to keep it canon, but all I really want from an rp that I'm reading is consistency. If it's a canon rp, stay ic, if it's not, stay within the rules you're playing with.

[shalli.livejournal.com]

Standards can be a difficult thing to pin down. Different places, as you've said, seem to uphold different values. There are RPs in the HPverse, which is pretty much the only place I RP in, which are canon based, which I think can be a difficult one to work with, simply because of the constraints of canon, and the way that people interpret characters in different ways, even when all the evidence you need is there.

I actually run an RP (Sonora Academy (geocities.com/sonora_academy), check it out if you like. We're taking applications at the moment) that takes as a rule that none of the 'modern day' happenings of the Harry Potter books occured. Harry doesn't exist, Snape doesn't exist, Voldemort, none of them. I actually think this is a better way to do things, as it means that you can have a fresh set of people wandering around in a fictional universe, obeying the same sort of rules (magic, wands, international statues about secrecy etc) without having to worry about keeping everything canon.

While not all the people RPing at the site are accomplished and polished at writing, spelling and the like, we do have standards about length of posts, not writing for others, and trying to keep characters realistic. The writers with problems with their spelling and grammar tend to improve as time goes on (with encouragement and aid from others around them) and I'm really proud of how a much better a good many of them have managed to get. I think that RPing, at a site that promotes good spelling and grammar as standards to aspire to, helps aspiring writers hone their skills.

As for bad ettiquette, Mary Sue type characters are high on my list there along with writers who ignore the rules and things they are told by the site staff as well as staff who abuse their position. Talking badly about one RPer to another... happens. Sometimes its necessary, to discuss what to do if you've got a problematic person around. General b*tching isn't really looked highly upon though, and neither is writing things above the site rating (don't even get me started on the first year student who somehow 'stumbled' upon a copy of a wizarding Karma Sutra in the school library a while back).

[ahavah]

In all my RPGs, we *only* play original characters, to respect copyright laws. I also moderate most of them, so I'm in on creating plot twists. Personally, I like when they're sprung without warning, because then it's more challenging/rewarding to write a seamless scene. What's *not* cool is someone springing a plot twist that just won't work - like, they obviously haven't been following the established plot and are just trying to muck things up.

Also, I'm very guilty of talking about other RPGers behind their backs. I try not to be catty, but for me it's kind of important. As a mod, I try to work with the other mods to help folks who seem to have some glaring weaknesses in character or content. And sure, sometimes I just need to vent . I never do it onlist, though, and always play nice. :)

Oh, and most of mine would consider naughty scenes appropriate, so it's not a real issue for me. ;)

[featherxquill.livejournal.com]

Yes. Few to no original characters, grammar and spelling that shows at least mediocre intelligence, canon canon canon...

I would agree with writing rp posts and fic to the same standard, but that standard does not, for me, include 'no original characters'. No Mary-Sues, perhaps, but I don't think the two are synonymous.

I find, especially in RP, the definition of an OC is very unclear. I mean, I play Yaxley in one game. He is a canon name - a DE, but that's all we know about him. I have called him Gideon, and given him a wife, Stella (who I also play, and who is Rita's sister), but does that make him an original character, or not? His name is in canon, but his character certainly isn't.


As fr fanfic characters in RP, I;m not entirely sure what you mean. I write Rita in fanfic a lot, and I play her in two different games. But they're not really the same Rita. They've got different versions of the same family in both games. In my ff100 series, Rita has two sisters - Stella, who ran off to marry a muggle, and Alice, who became Alice Longbottom. In the Merlin's Legacy game, she just has Stella, who is as I mentioned married to a DE in that game, and doesn't have Alice because it was completely pointless - I also play Neville/Augusta - and because it would have had a large impact on her friendship with Narcissa Malfoy in the game. In The Leaky, I've kept Alice because I thought it would be an interesting thing to play with the Neville player, and done away with Stella as superfluous). They also have different attitudes/relationships in the different worlds. So while the characters I fic are often the same, the versions of them are quite different.

[cleverthylacine]

I actually find it kinda offensive that you'd equate the presence of OCs with bad grammar and spelling. Not everybody RPs storylines that take place in the canonical setting with only the canonical characters present, nor should they.

[pinkpolarity.livejournal.com]

*here from Metafandom*

Apparently I'm ancient, for I'm astonished that "tabletop/face-to-face" isn't an option for "where you RP". I don't roleplay online, only face-to-face. Apparently different things go in online games, because playing an OC is not only acceptable, it's incredibly presumptuous in any tabletop game I've ever been involved in to ask to play a canon character. The "stars" of the fandom are GM characters and tend to make little more than a cameo appearance. Outrageous, scene-stealing characters that consistently shift the action away from the rest of the party, though, are bad etiquette in any RPG.