OOC: I won't even consider joining until I know what the relative story or plot is, first.

And man, talk about overkill on the ellipses. o.o

OOC: What Patch said.

In its current state, this RP is going to generate no interest whatsoever. Think about it. Let's say there's a new movie coming out, but instead of a trailer or anything, they just release the name of film and the names of all the major characters. Nothing else. Who would go see that? I sure as hell wouldn't. I'd at least want to know what it was about first.

You've done almost exactly the same thing here. There's nothing here to draw people in. All you've given us is a name, a bunch of archetypes to choose from (which might actually actively push people away, seeing as it's a limitation - not much of a one, to be fair, but a limitation nonetheless) and a generic set of RP rules. You haven't even told us the setting, so how are we supposed to create characters? People can make assumptions, but they have no way of knowing the setting. Are we talking a futuristic setting here? Modern-day? Historic? High tech/low tech? High magic/low magic/no magic? Humans/furries/mythical creatures/aliens? Themed on any particular geographic location? Without any of this type of information, the best you can do is give your character a name, personality, sex, perhaps age and one of the occupations you've given us. You can't give a character an appearance, abilities, even a species, without know what's allowed and what isn't. You can try and come up with a backstory, but without a world to fit it into it's an immensely difficult task to think up one that makes sense when you do eventually reveal the world and its history without either sacrificing most of the detail or going for the horrible clich of saying your character is from another universe or whatever (and even then that might not be allowed).

Okay. Enough on that matter. Let's assume that we have a setting and you've given us a good enough feel for the type of world that we're RPing in that we can create characters. Still ain't no-one going to join except those 'ignorant n00bs' you so vehemently detest. Why? Nowhere to start. Without the beginnings of the story at the very least, nobody has an idea how to get their characters into the story. Nobody even knows if the RP scenario is interesting. Sure, if you'd given us a fleshed-out setting some people might take a gamble and put down a character then wait for a proper introductory post, but most people want to know what they're RPing about before they join an RP. The least you can do is give us an initial location and a hook to allow people to work their characters into the story. The more original and attention-grabbing the better, but even the old clich of a mysterious old man walking into a tavern is better than nothing at all. Even better still would be to give some background directly pertaining to and leading up to the beginning of RP, to get people interested in your story.

Just some friendly advice to expand upon what Patch said and to help you get going. Take a look at some of the longer RPs and see how they started to get some ideas of how to grab people's attention. I'm sure one of the RP mods or other RP regs will come along in due course and offer more specific advice (or just let the topic fade into obscurity, who knows), but this'll do for now.

Also,

"unless you want a rich experiance, follow the rules and guidelines"

lol

Quote:

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who just play for the pleasure of it

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As opposed to...?

Okay okay, my bad...I set aside my main story because I've delt with too many of the stupid n00bs...the stupid n00bs just wanted to play an RP in god mode...it's okay for video games, but in RPs...Now you've pissed me off, sir!

detals to storyline

Archie sonic universe
Sonic and Sally are both dead
Snively(Lord Bedlam) rules the whole damn planet
Post-apocalyptic setting
humans, antromorphic animals, robots, and aliens from other worlds are citizens....blah, blah, blah

Think of this as archie sonic version of X-Men's Age of Apocalypse...hence "Age of Bedlam"...I just wanted to get a playable roster going before I started, really

I know what you're thinking...Archie Sonic universe? Hey, better than that piece of @#%$ called "Sonic X"...let's face it Sonic X is just as terrible as Pokemon...It just gives me more insentive to say "WTF is wrong with you people, read a book!"

Um, Nash?

That still tells us nothing.
Refer to Nuch's earlier post for details.

The setting is a post-apocalyptic setting in the archie sonic universe...most of the key cities are demolished straight to hell, and recreated in Bedlam's form...Bedlam killed of Sonic and Sally...and before anyone goes and jumps the gun...I am playing the role of Sonic's bastard son...and don't you flame about that...Bedlam has all the chaos emeralds and the master emerald...all of mobius is under his control...and the occupations I made are of cource a resistance movement...Nash is out for revenge...the other 7 characters...that's your problem...you want magic or no magic, that's your problem too...it is set in a near-but-not-too-distant future..43 years into the future...and like i said...other than humans and antromorphic animals, other citizens are robots and aliens from other planets...trust me, once his thing gets going, if ever...it'll be better than you think

Just think of Final Fantasy 7 crossed with Age of Apocalypse in an Archie Sonic Universe

My RP Character data for this is in the "Post your RP character data here" thread, or whatever the hell it's called

There, do i have it all now, or is there something else missing?

Whoa, man. Calm down there with those ellipses. You put periods at the end of a sentence, and you only need one.
That story's still pretty confusing. Though it's not always necessary, it never hurts to throw in some narrative and dialogue to start things off so players can create their characters and join the action right away, which is always more appealing than creating a character and having to wait.

Quote:

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...it is set in a near-but-not-too-distant future..43 years into the future...

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Sorry, I just think that's kind of funny.

Why can males only be THESE things, and females only be THOSE things? Is there a law saying you have to have a penis to be a pirate, or big breasts to be a cyborg?

OOC: Everyone has pretty much covered what needs to be modified to make it more enticing to join this RP. For once you are spared the Tergo-lecture. 😛

I really don't know your experiences at other boards, but we already have an understanding in our rules here that godmoding is not appropriate. We have a complement of Mods and Admins here who can handle any disturbances that may arise, but there hasn't been much trouble in over a year so I don't think you need to be concerned about that so much.

In a way, I do like the specific archetypes that you've presented, and if I were to join this RP I think I'd make use of that; but you need to better organize your information. Right now, I have to read your character's profile to know that Bedlam is the new name you gave to Snively, as well as understand a lot of the real details of the overall story. You have to give everything the RPers need in one place, in the RP thread, because nobody is going to be happy to look in two or three separate threads just to figure out what's going on.

This does have potential, just take a look around at other successful threads and see what kind of ways they use to hook people into the action.

Welcome to the Guild.

kay, here's my profile, just scroll down to see it
[link= http://p072.ezboard.com/fsonichqcommunitysonicroleplay.showMessageRange?topicID=1952.topic&start=41&stop=49 ][/link]

(if you don't see a working link, it's not my fault we have a faulty link code)

And as for all the occupations...well...I know this one user from another forums who did this, hell, she even gave then character names and powers, and these users who have vast experiance with these RPs...they STILL joined her RP and became a big success...but with me...just thank your asses that I've given lots of freedom instead of a bare minimum

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but with me...just thank your asses that I've given lots of freedom instead of a bare minimum

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Or we can just go join one of the other RPs that have backstories, free character creation, and don't abuse elipses.

Don't act like you're doing us any favors by posting an RP here, kid.

Aye, 'tis true. Sounds like an RP like yours belongs on that famed "other forum" you mentioned. Not to say ALL of your RPs belong over there in any insulting manner. Just this one.
We all love to say "ass", "damn" and "testicles" every now and then, but there's no need to throw it around in an offensive manner like "your asses", you know what I mean, my man?
And, though this forum always digs newcomers- and we do dig you- it's much safer to perhaps join someone else's RP than it is to make your own right when you first join us in our nerdy festivities.
As you'll notice, the RPs that actually go places look far different from yours... No offense.
Like Tergonaut has already said, though your particular RP does have potential, it never hurts to check out or possibly join the RPs of others first, so you can see what you like and don't like about their RP, and get a good idea of what you'd like in your own.

sorry for saying "thank your asses....blah blah blah" I'm just trying something diffrent, all i'm doing is giving out an occupation, that's it.

I know RPs are ment to have 100% freedom and expression within the story, but all I'm doing is giving out an occupation and that's all. I just wanted to see how much of a good story I would get if I did a little something diffrent.

I'm not in control of other character's backstories, and I'm not in control of their powers, whether they'e got magic weapons, their attitudes, none of that. still they have about 98% freedom and expression. It's just a new twist I wanted to test out.

I just wanna see how well this will do...plus, this RP's been in mind for too damn long and if I repress it anymore I fear it'll act like a tumor or something, maybe. maybe not, but I don't have the patience anymore, I feel like now is the good time to start

Plus...I'm not really a newbie, I'm really Super Bowser 70 from about a year ago, just got a new username, want to clean the slate and all that crap. Some of you may not know me, but others remember me, Purdy1 sure as hell does.

The problem is that you ONLY gave out an initial occupation listing. I mean, an occupation listing is great, it can work for an RP, but having it as the only part of your initial RP post is weak, due to reasons that others have already listed.

Due to the advice of others, youve given a basic and slightly confusing plot detail, so we have a very rough idea of what the world is like.

But youve still neglected a post detailing a setting where RPers can readily put their characters into and get RPing. As Nutch said, you havent given an initial location or hook for any RPers to use and get into. An occupation can only go so far and is extremely limiting already.

What Patch said. No-one really has a problem with the occupation listing, but for whatever reason you seem to get hung up on defending it even though most people who've posted are pretty much cool with it.

The problem everyone's pointing out and you're still refusing to address is not that you've given us too little freedom, but in a way you've given us too much freedom. There's absolutely nothing here for us to work with. You've given us a couple vague sentences describing the setting and the events leading up to current point in the RP. That's nowhere near enough to gain people's attention.

So what should you do?

First, you should do an in-character, narrative overview of how this Lord Bedlam chap came to power, to set the mood for the RP and give everyone a good feel for the story. Then, you should write up a couple open-ended scenes describing the immediate beginning of the story, giving people an opportunity to jump right into the action. That's probably the easiest way to gain people's interest and get an RP going.

You want examples of what I'm talking about? Take a gander at Wraith's Ghost Ship on the front page - it takes almost exactly the format I've described. In his first page he's got a timeline of the events leading up to the RP, a brief in character post to set the mood and give people a place to start from, and finally the rules (although you've already got that part covered). Rico (one of our own very experienced RPers) did a very similar thing in his No More Heroes, although he gave a lot more specifics as to his setting, since it was his own original world, and made a much longer intro post.

Another example would be Pachamac's Ale and Wenches. He hasn't really bothered too much about history and general backstory, since it isn't as important to his story and he was able to reveal the necessary history as the RP went on. What he did do, however, was to give a nice long, narrative intro to set the flavour for the role-play and capped it off with a situation that allowed the players to get their characters straight into the action, no messing about.

At the other end of the scale of post length we have Tergonaut's Project Uno. (Tergonaut is another of our seasoned RP veterans). To be fair, he didn't give us a lot - no backstory whatsover, just a brief introduction, a quick mention of the setting. In fact, he spent most of his post describing the rules, intention and preferred style of the RP. However, it got off to a fine start. Why? Well, firstly, he didn't need to say much about the setting since it's set in the MFW, which is a very open-ended setting and there's tons of info on it floating about anyway. Secondly, and most importantly, even if he gave us zero backstory, what he did give us was the most useless thing to kick off an RP: he gave us a situation that allowed the players to immediately get their characters into the story.

In summary, the main problem is that a good RP host gives, at the very least, a situation for people to bring their characters straight into the action. Preferrably, he also hands out plenty of information on the world and any necessary backstory or history to allow them to create good characters that make sense within the confines of the RP. With you, however, we're having to wheedle that information out of you and each time anyone gives you a bit of advice you just get uppity and try to shrug it off by revealing the minimum of information to satisfy the suggestions made, before going on the defensive and gloating about past RPing successes. We're not trying to pick holes with our advice that you can plug with a little bit of extra info here and there. It's more like we're trying to open a creative floodgate so that the RPness flows forth and you can set down a good, fleshed-out RP introduction that gives people a framework to slot themselves into the story.

One last thing. Like I said at the beginning, shut up about the occupation list now. It's not the problem here. I'm cool with it, everyone else probably is. The thing in my first post about it maybe turning people away was in brackets for a reason - it was just a side note. It was never a major point. That's what parentheses are for: they're little asides without which the sentence and indeed the whole passage would mean exactly the same thing and make just as much sense. Point is, stop getting so worked up about the occupation list and focus on everything else people have said.

Hope this helps.

Sorry for not making a narrative...I guess it was just wishful thinking that some people would get their occupations first then narratives...but I keep forgetting that's not the way that works, and this is the first time i made an RP where I give players their jobs...understand that, please. I was going to do a narrative yesterday, but parents kept barging in and asking for the computer, taking forever online or just playing a damn game 100 times over! so sorry for not doing the narrative first, I'll try to remember next time in the future.

*clears throat*

"Mobius...In its current state, it's a hell on earth, but let's head backward 10 years in the past, back when it wasn't a living apocalypse" said I in a dramatic voiceover

Backwards 10 years to Castle Acorn

"See that little blue furball with the silver hair, that's me at 7 years old, My name Is Nash." in a voiceover once again

"The wars have ended 33 years ago, peace began not too long ago, it began a day before my birth. The chipmunk with the pink hair next to me is Sonya, my elder sister. The wars ended when all Mobians and Overlanders, including my father and even Robotnik, joined in one climatic battle against a godlike being that calls himself 'The One Beast'. This fiend had the powers that made even gods fear him...But this is when My father took up the Sword of Acorns himself and summoned the strength, courage, and will power of every ally on the battlefield into the sword and struck down the One Beast once and for all." still in voiceover

Back in the castle halls.

"The One Beast dissolved into 7 fragments that were entrapped in 7 chaos emeralds, there the guardians of old, and new watched them in hopes that the fragments were being dissolved by the chaos energy. But let's get back to where we are now." again in voiceover

"Your highness, your highness!" yelled a duck-like doctor

"What is it, what's wrong?" said King Sonic

"The queen...she's fallen gravely ill" said the duck doc

"No!" said Sonic as he rushed to his wife

There was the queen Sally, in a deep sleep, she was terminally ill with some recent virus doctors had no cure for...she now had little time left on this earth.

"We're sorry sire, she's going to pass on and there's nothing we can do" said the doctor

"How did this happen?" said Sonic

"The virus is not of this land, it feels almost otherworldly" said the doctor.

The next day, Sally was dead and the funeral for her had just begun...Sonya was crying, Nash with his head hung down just like everyone else, except Amy who was bawling like a baby.

About a month later...something even worce began.

*Explosion*

"What's going on out there?" said Sonic

"Sonic...It's an invasion! Some new force has arrived!" said Geoffrey St. John

Soon Geoff was kicked in the face far off into the other side of the throne room by some individual with a pointy nose, no chin, long as hell silver hair, dressed up like a Cryx Iron Lich with all the metal attachmetnts and whatnot, and has a metallic eyepiece over the right eye and weilding a huge katana with orb like jewels encrested in its gold like material with 7 barbs in the formation of a torch.

"Snively? You're behind this!" said Sonic

"Surprised? Ever since you defeated my master, The One Beast, all I wanted was revenge, that's why I poisoned your wife, and now your precious Knothole shall burn in the fire...and you...you get the honor of dying by my hands! For I am now Lord Bedlam!"

Sonic and Bedlam exchanged clashing swords for a long period of time and eventaually, Bedlam gets the upperhand and stabs the sword right through Sonic's heart, killing him almost effortlessly.

"Dad!" the young Nash yelled

"Oh what's this, Sonic didn't tell me anything about children...I'll take your arm as a trophy, kid" said Bedlam as he chopped off the 7 year old Nash's arm as Nash screamed in pain

Bedlam somehow used what we all know as Chaos Control to escape the pyre of the falling castle, there, little Nash was there choking on the fumes, Geoffrey St. John went back and rescued his wife and kid(if any) from the fire...other notible freedom fighters escaped the fall of knothole as well, few lived, many perished.

Bedlam's attack fighters and blackguard escaped the fire, the dark deed is done. Nash was looking everywhere for his sister, crying out her name, while bleeding to death.

Just then, someone reached out and saved Nash from a burning pillar that would eventually hit him...Nash was unconcious from the smoke he inhaled and the massive blood loss.

Nash was waking up, but to somewhere he wouldn't imagine.

"Well, wakey wakey, little Nash" said the voice of one Robotnik!

"You're...You're Robotnik!" said little Nash

"Yes, and I just saved your life...look at your arm, notice anything diffrent?" said Robotnik

"The arm, first it's gone...now it's metal!" said Nash

"Yes...I gave you a replacement arm...I'm currently your new father now, so you shall call me as thus." said Robotnik feeling uneasy about his choice.

Years passed by and with more passing year, Robotnik grew to be a more outstanding father with his knowledge he taught Nash about advanced robotics and Nash even built machines that left Robotnik in awe. Making him proud to be the adoptivce father of this child...eventually when Nash turned 13, Geoffrey found Nash, but promiced to keep it a secret, and by an odd request Nash wanted the fur pigment of himself to be solid black, so he can blend in with the background, the mroe years pass on by, Nash was also taught in the arts of Val Tudo and Tae Kwon Do by Geoffrey...Geoffrey even managed to find The Sword of Acorns, but it was left with no power, and Nash was able to modify the robot arm each time he grew and he made it compattable with a pulse laser gun inside his wrist of steel...As the years pass on, Bedlam continued to grow in power with each passing invasion...World officials called this era "The Age of Bedlam" after Lord Bedlam, being the most feared monarch of evil of all time next to the One Beast...More and more time passes on by and Nash is 17 now, and about to turn 18 tomarrow...there nashw as packing up his junk and ready to head out for his first adventure.

"So...you got everything?" said Robotnik

"Just about, you're gonna be okay here by your lonesome, aren't you?" said Nash

"Yeah, just comeback if you need anything else" said Robotnik

"Whatever" said Nash

Nash left without saying another word in his custom diesel, and in the bed of the diesel was motorcycles, rations, and money he got from his treasury that Geoff was able to get for him.

"There I left, and was ready to begin...begin my little vengence quest...to avenge the lives that were taken from me, and also eventually find my sister, wherever the hell she is...I was no longer Nash Hedgehog, nor Nash Kintobar, I was the one and only Nash The Blade!" once more in a voiceover

((As for the other 7 characters, there's currently no relaton, this is the beginning to end kind of senario here, kay...Is there anything else?))