Pimping an RPG
I've been meaning to write this post for about a month. Given all the great Doctor Who (inc Torchwood and SJA) characters I have on Harry's friendslist, I thought I'd pimp you all one of the RPGs I'm in. I'd pimp relativespace too, but I'll wait till something's happening it.
Instead the one I'm going to pimp is the_blank_slate (called Tabula Rasa, usually abbreviated to TR).
It's a big multifandom game and the criminal thing is that there aren't enough Doctor Who characters in it. I think there's ten (and I play two of them (no prizes for guessing which two)):
The Doctor
Jo Grant
Jack Harkness
Owen Harper
Harriet Jones
Ianto Jones
Donna Noble
Sarah Jane Smith
Harry Sullivan
Bernice Summerfield
It only accepts human-shaped characters, only one of each and only one version of the Doctor. Also, there are some characters who are currently retired, so no one can play for six months or so (The Master and Rose Tyler).
But that still leaves plenty of eligible characters - and not just Doctor Who ones either, because I know there are people on Harry's friends list that have muses from other fandoms too.
I know I wrote a mun prompt not long ago saying that you shouldn't join RPGs based on your friends being in it, or even which characters are in it, since you can't rely on either of them staying. You should join because you want to. So now I'll tell you why you should want to.
Because it's fun. Obviously, I mean I like it. It is a big game - there are about 100 people involved in it, many of them have play one than one character and none of them play less than one. I've been in it just over a year and there are still muns I've never played with, never mind pups. But the thing is, that doesn't matter because you expand your comfort zone gradually. So you can start by playing with Doctor Who characters, say, then work your way up to characters you know, then go onto ones you don't. Sometimes it's the ones you don't that surprise you - one of Jo's best friends there is played by someone I didn't know before the characters met and I'd never heard of the fandom, never mind the character.
The one thing that struck me before I started playing was that its very organised. There's a big Wiki with loads of information in, so it looks like there's loads of stuff you need to remember, but actually you don't. The newbie guide lists the basics that you need to know when you start, everything else is easy enough to pick up as you go along. Every time I go in there I find something new about the game, but it's also really useful for looking up more details on the characters and the people in the game. So you can feel like you know a bit about them and they're not all strangers before you start.
It has game-wide plots, some of which are cracky (the most recent had people waking up as the opposite sex), but also ordinary ones where, for example, it rained constantly for a week. So it's rarely boring. While they're there, there are all sorts of jobs (or not) characters can choose to do - or just choose to party a lot.
There is a thing on the Wiki that says their players in the game take a great deal of pride in their writing, but since I think that could be said of anyone on Harry's friends list I've read, that's not going to be a problem for anyone.
It is a 'stuck on an island' game, so any characters that would go stark raving mad, probably wouldn't be good ones to play. Or they might, I don't know, but I wouldn't be able to cope with playing them.
There are other cool things that go on that are game-related. There's an AIM chatroom, if you live in America. There's a community entirely dedicated to fun stuff (my_slate). The only annoying thing is that the OOC community is friends locked, but if anyone does want to know what sort of stuff goes on there, I'll happily tell (without giving exact details).
If you want more information, you can either ask me or waste time read the Wiki. There's some information on the main comm's profile, but it's a typical pretty profile - pretty but completely unreadable and I don't have the energy to read those things any more.
Instead the one I'm going to pimp is the_blank_slate (called Tabula Rasa, usually abbreviated to TR).
It's a big multifandom game and the criminal thing is that there aren't enough Doctor Who characters in it. I think there's ten (and I play two of them (no prizes for guessing which two)):
The Doctor
Jo Grant
Jack Harkness
Owen Harper
Harriet Jones
Ianto Jones
Donna Noble
Sarah Jane Smith
Harry Sullivan
Bernice Summerfield
It only accepts human-shaped characters, only one of each and only one version of the Doctor. Also, there are some characters who are currently retired, so no one can play for six months or so (The Master and Rose Tyler).
But that still leaves plenty of eligible characters - and not just Doctor Who ones either, because I know there are people on Harry's friends list that have muses from other fandoms too.
I know I wrote a mun prompt not long ago saying that you shouldn't join RPGs based on your friends being in it, or even which characters are in it, since you can't rely on either of them staying. You should join because you want to. So now I'll tell you why you should want to.
Because it's fun. Obviously, I mean I like it. It is a big game - there are about 100 people involved in it, many of them have play one than one character and none of them play less than one. I've been in it just over a year and there are still muns I've never played with, never mind pups. But the thing is, that doesn't matter because you expand your comfort zone gradually. So you can start by playing with Doctor Who characters, say, then work your way up to characters you know, then go onto ones you don't. Sometimes it's the ones you don't that surprise you - one of Jo's best friends there is played by someone I didn't know before the characters met and I'd never heard of the fandom, never mind the character.
The one thing that struck me before I started playing was that its very organised. There's a big Wiki with loads of information in, so it looks like there's loads of stuff you need to remember, but actually you don't. The newbie guide lists the basics that you need to know when you start, everything else is easy enough to pick up as you go along. Every time I go in there I find something new about the game, but it's also really useful for looking up more details on the characters and the people in the game. So you can feel like you know a bit about them and they're not all strangers before you start.
It has game-wide plots, some of which are cracky (the most recent had people waking up as the opposite sex), but also ordinary ones where, for example, it rained constantly for a week. So it's rarely boring. While they're there, there are all sorts of jobs (or not) characters can choose to do - or just choose to party a lot.
There is a thing on the Wiki that says their players in the game take a great deal of pride in their writing, but since I think that could be said of anyone on Harry's friends list I've read, that's not going to be a problem for anyone.
It is a 'stuck on an island' game, so any characters that would go stark raving mad, probably wouldn't be good ones to play. Or they might, I don't know, but I wouldn't be able to cope with playing them.
There are other cool things that go on that are game-related. There's an AIM chatroom, if you live in America. There's a community entirely dedicated to fun stuff (my_slate). The only annoying thing is that the OOC community is friends locked, but if anyone does want to know what sort of stuff goes on there, I'll happily tell (without giving exact details).
If you want more information, you can either ask me or waste time read the Wiki. There's some information on the main comm's profile, but it's a typical pretty profile - pretty but completely unreadable and I don't have the energy to read those things any more.