[Amanaduial the archer]

I'm going to get this one out of the way first. A suggestion about possibly a new part of the RPG section: in the future, maybe there could be a section of RPGs especially for slightly less Tolkien orientated RPGs? Its just a thought, but it would be quite interesting to have a fantasy RPG section for this- many people I have found do have good ideas for games which would involve worlds or creatures that do not appear in Tolkien, and with the standard of writing here, I think these would be able to thrive and prove to be quite a valuable part of the RPG section. Thoughts?

Now, Wren:

Of course you're not out of order- it's your opinion, and God knows everyone is entitled to that.

The controlled way of the forum is just the way it has evolved to be, and it seems to work quite well. There was a freestyle RPG room before the changes made to the RPG section, as mentioned before in this very thread, and, I admit now, although it was much more relaxed, it was rapidly descending into 'complete chaos' as you said. It did work for a fair amount of time, and games were started by anyone, and anyone could join with whichever character they wished. But this did soon lead to problems- lots of games were created, and many were left unfinished, when the owners got bored, or had other things to do, and the players lost the plot, didn’t have any real guidance, or lost interest. Characters were sometimes not really thought through- they would be slammed hastily together, and could only have profiles consisting of a few rather sparse sentences. Because there was no one to check up on this, they could get away with this. Sometimes games turned out well, very well even- in the case of The Lonely Star, for example, and Rivendell, although neither of those RPGs would be allowed now, as one included creatures not featured in Tolkien, and/or places not featured, and Rivendell, for one, had no real storyline at the start. But there were soon far more unfinished games than such successes as these two; both of these have produced excellent gamers, many of whom still game here, but there were others- you know, ‘Mary-Sues’- perfect, beautiful elven witches, who can shoot flames from their hands and do every imaginable sort of magic, who are wonderful and always have hundreds of admirers, but at the same time can sword fight better than Aragorn and Eowyn put together and shoot more accurately than Legolas, while all the time not putting a hair out of place.

The way the freestyle room is set out now is really going to the other extreme, but its settled down nicely now. There are fixed storylines for games (these don’t need to be entirely revealed to all gamers in the discussion thread by the way), a discussion thread and RPG thread are necessities for all games, there are moderators and reviewers to sort out the real rubbish that may come in, and all games need to be within Tolkien’s limits (although a few further up may slightly stretch these limits a little). This way of doing things does of course have its downsides- the moderating is quite strict, especially in the Shire, and proposals do have to be quite detailed, but the moderators are always there to help, with games or general information. There are only certain characters you can play, and the storylines are prefixed, but this does mean that you don’t end up with half breeds between Shelob and a dwarf who can have all sorts of powers, and morph into any sort of creature, but have somehow decided to join up with an elf going on a quest for the Eru only knows what, for no apparent reason, and one the same point, games don’t end up with several different storylines at once, all of which are completely random, none of which make very much sense, and all of which seem somehow to include all the characters in several different places at once.

Sure, its strict, and does come as a shock to many people like yourself who come from other places, or who haven’t played before, and it does sometimes take a wee while to get used to- it came as a shock to the system to many of the gamers who played here before, including myself, and caused a few problems initially. But, when you measure up its success, it must be admitted that it has worked out well- its settled down nicely.

Look, a sample from earlier on in the thread:

I do not think you will find a site with Role Play this well moderated, with this level of care, respect and attention, anywhere on the net. No substantive post is deleted or edited silently.

They are important points, and that and the standard of writing found here make it such an excellent forum.

And the best bit: real Mary-Sues are only seen in parodies such as The Revenge of the Entish Bow and its sequel, thank Eru. It’s a pity that things aren’t as free as they used to be, maybe, but it’s a good system really, now it has settled down. The teething problems are long gone, and the Downs has grown into probably at least one of the best RPGing sites on the net.