For the purposes of this thread, I'm talking about online text-based role playing, normally done through chats, IMs, forums, MUSHes and similar avenues. Pretty much if it's online and can accommodate people posting text to one another, there's a role playing community on it somewhere.

For the time being, I'm mostly just curious. I find that it's a good outlet for the way my mind works--I'll fixate on some particular idea and want to play with it for a long time. It gives me something constructive to do with my words when I feel compelled to type on and on about something until the end of the world. You see, when I'm not RPing, well, the last couple hours of my posting on this forum happen.

Most RPers I meet are story-based in the sense that they want to play a particular thing, and make a character to suit. . .I'm entirely less convenient. I make a character, fuse him into a setting and am content to play him doing pretty much anything, as long as it involves interaction with another person. So my present dude is a vampire a la the True Blood/Sookie Stackhouse series. My enthusiasm for the series itself has waned considerably, but I've found that the concept makes for a really fun playground. Just messing around with the playful social justice parallels, writing a vampire doing utterly mundane things, those amuse me. . .probably more so than most of the people I encounter, really, ha-ha.

It's also my first time playing a strong and confident character, which contrasts violently with the character I played for about a decade before that, who was usually shocked when anyone seemed to show any interest in him whatsoever, and was mostly defined by being the skinny, non-super-powered character in any given room, ha-ha. After that, playing someone self-confident is so liberating--I don't have to ask "Well why would he talk to your character?", most times, because he doesn't need a special reason to be social. Having someone involved in supernatural affairs and strong enough to hold his own and defend others when things get hairy also brings more story possibilities to the table than a character who'd see danger, then turn and walk away at the soonest opportunity. . .the experience of playing a savior versus the one saved, I suppose. I like the perspective that writing both sides of that coin gives me.

Well, that's all for now. More rambling to come if there's any response, I suppose. Logically I figure it might be a good idea to find those with, presumably, a similar mental arrangement to mine, because theoretically they'd be more tolerant of my rambling tendencies.

I use to a few year ago. Star trek base, did some vampire too and sexual one too

I dont text rp anymore. I do LARP every sunday though (vampire: The masquerade and Th requiem both). And will every monday tabletop rpg (Shadowrun).

Sweet. A while ago I did try out a text version of V:tM with people who also LARPed and I just couldn't get into all the rules, honestly. I tend to have characters one way when I'm thinking of them conceptually, then I start playing them and they're completely different, which is a process things like clans can make tricky. Not that every character has to be a perfect representation of their clan, of course. I don't think I could LARP because I love making male characters and I don't think I could even begin to pass, ha-ha.

I'm starting to roleplay on a Hunger Games site.

This post was last modified: 04-05-2012 08:13 PM by Xaisede.

I used to be part of a US senate sim.  We never had enough members for a full senate, but it was still fun.  But that was a long time ago, and it's a little different from most of the story-based RP's out there.  I tried to get into those, but I could never decide on a character.

I did some on a site for a while, then it became crap so I left. Everyone was either a troll, a god-modder or simply ran out of ideas. All the good role-plays eventually died.

I find it baffling how many role players and other gamers are giant jerks. While video gaming in particular is a more socially acceptable hobby than it used to be, in general the type of people who will spend hours in a gaming chat or similar avenue are almost certainly the type of people to be bullied by their peers. You'd think that would make them a little more sensitive to the whole idea of it, but no, they just troll incessantly. I guess it's comforting to them or something. I'm rarely actually hurt or offended by the things these people say (I've been online so often and so long that I'm more or less desensitized to it), but it's just so exhausting to watch them dominate the conversation in any given place. It often gets to a point where either you engage them, which is a bad idea, or there's no one to talk to because every decent person is busy arguing with the trolls. It's so frustrating.

Personally, the way I play doesn't really attract too much of the classic god-modding type stuff. Once I found an actual 'voice' in my writing, I discovered that I'm just bad at writing action/combat. I've tried to incorporate some elements of that in recent RP in the interest of practicing it, but it hasn't been going too well (in my opinion, anyway). So most of my problems revolve around people not giving their characters a social life or family life, actually; they always seem to be miles away from family, and my character represents the first friendship or romantic entanglement they have in town. It's really difficult to make an entertaining dramatic RP out of that. There need to be social repercussions for the stuff that goes on, you know? Otherwise it gets boring.

Note: I really need to think harder before I hit 'post reply'. I wind up double posting because of constant "Oh, yeah!"s three minutes later. . .bleh.

So I finally wrote a profiley type thing for him, and although I don't think it's necessarily a stupendous piece of writing, that I put up anything at all is pretty remarkable for me. So here it is, in case anyone cares. I had to approach writing it the way I did because, you know, the dude's a vampire. Thinking about writing a more comprehensive history feels like committing to writing a novel or something. I figure all that's really relevant in a profile like that is what people's characters are in a position to know beforehand, and what would help in thinking up plots, anyhow. Comprehensive histories are for characters whose stories are effectively over.

I'm a Dungeon Master without any players. Does that count? (AD&D 2e if you're wondering).

Oh I would love to Larp, but I don't know a single geek in real life (that's why I always look forward to the Expo. All those geeks! I feel so at home -- even if I am too afraid to talk to them).

Disclosure; I have removed one post from this thread.