Nogrod,
I wanted to get back on several questions you raised. I'm hoping my answers will be helpful not just to you but others.
First, in regard to your concerns about the character of Granny Brenna. Since I don't know the context of the discussion you had with Undómë, it's impossible to address your specific point. I would strongly urge all posters to try and hammer out such individual matters by pm. Should you not hear anything back from a poster or encounter what you feel is a problem, just let one of the game founders know and we'll try to help iron things out. It's much better to handle specific concerns about individual characters or posters by pm rather than on the general discussion thread, especially if it involves character development.
As I understand it, this is the heart of your concern:
Quote:
I don't know whether you are timid on this one, or I am too careless, but I think we need to name people in the big group - at least when it seems hard to contact other actual players becaue a being-away or anything. Writing just solitary monologues is not good gaming from my point of view (in which I surely can be wrong - but I wrote so many of them in my last game being the one to join the company so much afterwards... and getting badly wounded very soon -so that was not so much an interaction).
So I was just wondering, why I am (almost) the only one to come up with these characters that are being involved in the groups but are not played by anyone? Am I just so poor writer who can't make a monologue or hasn't the patience to wait for another poster to answer a challenge / co-operation plan for a week or two?
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I don't think it's your carelessness or our timidity. Rather, the whole philosophy of Downs RPGs is to give posters as much freedom as they can handle. That's especially so in Rohan, which is our intermediate forum. Yes, there are certain rules and guidelines but beyond that we encourage people to make individual decisions within those rules. Thus, if some posters want to name people in the "big group" they can do that. If others don't feel the need, that's not a requirement for them.
The only exception would be if the game founders declared that all posters must do "X" thing, or if the posters themselves decided by general consensus that everyone needs to do a certain thing a certain way. My own preference--and this is personal--is not to fill in all the blank holes near the beginning of the game. So often, later on, we require flexiblity, and it's nice to have some of those blank spaces to fill in. You've done a great job naming and identifying people, but not everyone has to do that, unless we collectively decide that's important.
Regarding the question you raised about writing isolated "monologues".... No, we certainly don't want that. But the heart of an RPG is to write true to your own character and then address or involve other actual characters in the game (not carry-alongs). RPGs and fanfictions are different. RPGs are centered on a few characters, and each speaks with a different voice. RPGs present a tiny slice of the reality that occurred at a particular time from those character's point of view. Fanfiction paints with a wider brush with only one hand controlling all the moves, and there's potentially a much wider group of characters involved.
At least that's how I see it. If other posters want to add their own thoughts to this, they are welcome to do so. And
Nogrod please don't let me discourage you from continuing to name a reasonable number of characters and encouraging others to do the same, since this is something important to you. But there's nothing wrong if one poster wants to do this, and another does not.
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Since I'm already wearing my game founder's hat, let me mention something else. Thanks to many who've told us by pm or on the thread that they are using someone else's character with their permission. It's always good to indicate that on the discussion thread so everyone knows what you're doing.
Just a reminder. If anyone feels uncomfortable with how some other poster has used their character, you are free to send them a polite pm requesting an edit.
We're off to a good start, and Durelin and I appreciate everyone's hard work. This is not easy with three different groups doing three different things! It should pull together once we're all on the same page.