1 hour ago
Friday, October 24, 2008
Cthulhic Laugh
Just came across this post about Cthulhu plush toys and similar weird things over at Jerusalem Gamer. Big laugh, especially the Cthulhu baby coat...
Cottage on Loch Fyne
Three weeks in real time have passed, about 48 hours in the RP started last month. It is an interesting experience, this RP on the forums of a MMORPG.
I and my two thieving comrades met up on one thread at 'Ben Gloum', began to establish our characters. We have since ran a thread on another of the forum's boards called 'Cottage on Loch Fyne'.
The events so far are quite simple. We came across a lone cottage with a barn. We snuck a look at the barn. Hearing some disturbance amongst the cattle in the barn, the lone occupant of the cottage retreated to her room and bolted the door. We took the cattle. She emerged after we had gone.
We have travelled through the night. On the morrow we are hoping to utilise a ferry across the Loch so that we can move the cattle to the southern markets before winter arrives. It will be sometime after we have crossed Loch Fyne and are working through the valley routes towards Loch Lomond and the southern cattle markets that we expect to meet up with a bunch of soldiers.
The soldiers have been exercising and practising their archery on another thread on yet another board. Our times lines are now roughly synchronised. Our NPCs have developed over the past month. It will be an interesting meeting when our group changes threads again to become NPCs in their's.
For interest sake, the cottager was played by another NPC of a player I asked to play the role. She did probably the only thing she could have done to keep her character alive and her cottage still standing. The Ferryman will likewise be another NPC played by yet another player I have invited. I am the only one who has any idea of who else is actually behind the masked NPC characters. Adds an element of mystery to it all...
'Scout', by the way, tracked the army group on their own thread for a couple of weeks, eventually retreating to the opposite side of the Loch and watching from a distance, before he faded into the woods and 'headed north to catch up with his boss'. He might be the deus ex machina we have up our sleeve as badguy NPCs crossing the mountain valleys with our stolen cattle when the army catches up with us.
I and my two thieving comrades met up on one thread at 'Ben Gloum', began to establish our characters. We have since ran a thread on another of the forum's boards called 'Cottage on Loch Fyne'.
The events so far are quite simple. We came across a lone cottage with a barn. We snuck a look at the barn. Hearing some disturbance amongst the cattle in the barn, the lone occupant of the cottage retreated to her room and bolted the door. We took the cattle. She emerged after we had gone.
We have travelled through the night. On the morrow we are hoping to utilise a ferry across the Loch so that we can move the cattle to the southern markets before winter arrives. It will be sometime after we have crossed Loch Fyne and are working through the valley routes towards Loch Lomond and the southern cattle markets that we expect to meet up with a bunch of soldiers.
The soldiers have been exercising and practising their archery on another thread on yet another board. Our times lines are now roughly synchronised. Our NPCs have developed over the past month. It will be an interesting meeting when our group changes threads again to become NPCs in their's.
For interest sake, the cottager was played by another NPC of a player I asked to play the role. She did probably the only thing she could have done to keep her character alive and her cottage still standing. The Ferryman will likewise be another NPC played by yet another player I have invited. I am the only one who has any idea of who else is actually behind the masked NPC characters. Adds an element of mystery to it all...
'Scout', by the way, tracked the army group on their own thread for a couple of weeks, eventually retreating to the opposite side of the Loch and watching from a distance, before he faded into the woods and 'headed north to catch up with his boss'. He might be the deus ex machina we have up our sleeve as badguy NPCs crossing the mountain valleys with our stolen cattle when the army catches up with us.
Friday, October 03, 2008
RP in the RK
After over a year of playing RK I'm finally involved in a Role Play which exceeds the 'I post - you post' model. For what it's worth, here's the story behind the experience...
One of the army generals was keen to stir up a bit of activity in the ranks and so invited some fellow soldiers to come out on a 'training trip' to the highlands. They are doing this in a thread on a forum site called Highlands Hall. Basically, a party of about six soldiers are wandering up the east shore of Loch Lomond, have spent one night there, are going to continue on their journey towards the village of Lochgilphead on Loch Fyne. As far as the soldiers are concerned, they're coming out on a camping trip and will practice some of their bush skills and so forth.
They know that all is not totally right, however, because there has been the odd post in their forum by a NPC (non player character) called 'Scout'. He hasn't interacted with them beyond viewing them from a safe distance. In the evening he was briefly seen on a nearby hill top, he spent the night in an abandoned hut near the trail, in the morning they see him on the opposite side of the Loch after he stole a boat to get there.
Scout is in private communication with the General in command of the soldiers. In these communications Scout keeps the General informed about what is happening and planned with the other related threads of RP activity (see below) so that the the soldiers will turn up at the right place and time under the General's leadership for an exciting climax to their trip.
Scout's friends are a bunch of NPCs who met up on another forum and another thread. Their story started with some of them meeting on Ben Gloum ('Mount Gloom') on a misty night. They waited for some more NPC friends to gather and then headed off to Lochgilphead. Deciding there aren't enough of them to take the town, they have instead decided to go and attack a lone cottage for some supplies and entertainment.
These 'baddies' are all NPCs. No-one knows who is behind the various RP 'mask accounts' being used by the characters. The Ben Gloum 'meeting thread' occurred on a forum board called 'Gathering of the Clans', the raid on the cottage is developing on a third forum board called The Glen. The occupant of the cottage is being played by another player who has taken an NPC for the purpose.
Thus, there are three separate threads on three separate forum boards occurring. The 'leaders' of the various groups are in contact privately to keep time and space co-ordination, but apart from that the storylines would appear to be independent. The aim will be to guide the soldiers and the baddies together. Most likely by them noticing the plume of smoke of a torched cottage, or meeting up with the fleeing cottager (if she manages to RP an escape from the baddies).
The only really agreed ground rule is that player characters (soldiers) can't be killed or maimed without their permission, and that the NPCs (baddies and the cottager) will either die or run away.
It's been developing about a week at the moment. Probably another week or so to go before the climactic scenes when the soldiers and the baddies meet in a blood fest of RP combat.
Fun.
One of the army generals was keen to stir up a bit of activity in the ranks and so invited some fellow soldiers to come out on a 'training trip' to the highlands. They are doing this in a thread on a forum site called Highlands Hall. Basically, a party of about six soldiers are wandering up the east shore of Loch Lomond, have spent one night there, are going to continue on their journey towards the village of Lochgilphead on Loch Fyne. As far as the soldiers are concerned, they're coming out on a camping trip and will practice some of their bush skills and so forth.
They know that all is not totally right, however, because there has been the odd post in their forum by a NPC (non player character) called 'Scout'. He hasn't interacted with them beyond viewing them from a safe distance. In the evening he was briefly seen on a nearby hill top, he spent the night in an abandoned hut near the trail, in the morning they see him on the opposite side of the Loch after he stole a boat to get there.
Scout is in private communication with the General in command of the soldiers. In these communications Scout keeps the General informed about what is happening and planned with the other related threads of RP activity (see below) so that the the soldiers will turn up at the right place and time under the General's leadership for an exciting climax to their trip.
Scout's friends are a bunch of NPCs who met up on another forum and another thread. Their story started with some of them meeting on Ben Gloum ('Mount Gloom') on a misty night. They waited for some more NPC friends to gather and then headed off to Lochgilphead. Deciding there aren't enough of them to take the town, they have instead decided to go and attack a lone cottage for some supplies and entertainment.
These 'baddies' are all NPCs. No-one knows who is behind the various RP 'mask accounts' being used by the characters. The Ben Gloum 'meeting thread' occurred on a forum board called 'Gathering of the Clans', the raid on the cottage is developing on a third forum board called The Glen. The occupant of the cottage is being played by another player who has taken an NPC for the purpose.
Thus, there are three separate threads on three separate forum boards occurring. The 'leaders' of the various groups are in contact privately to keep time and space co-ordination, but apart from that the storylines would appear to be independent. The aim will be to guide the soldiers and the baddies together. Most likely by them noticing the plume of smoke of a torched cottage, or meeting up with the fleeing cottager (if she manages to RP an escape from the baddies).
The only really agreed ground rule is that player characters (soldiers) can't be killed or maimed without their permission, and that the NPCs (baddies and the cottager) will either die or run away.
It's been developing about a week at the moment. Probably another week or so to go before the climactic scenes when the soldiers and the baddies meet in a blood fest of RP combat.
Fun.
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