Comments on: Totally Off Topic: Writers Who Role Play

By: Jeanette

Jeanette — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 19:03:19 +0000

For role playing enthusiasts, there’s a method of role playing that doesn’t involve books and thus is less restrictive. LOTS of fun. For those in active groups, I’d say give it a try…

1) GM takes scraps of paper and writes character types on them. (druid, magician, healer, soldier, theif, etc.)
2) Players pick a name.
3) Players are allowed any action that is logical for their character and is allowed items that fit their character’s description. (For example, I played a druid and during a fight asked my GM if I might have thorn seeds in my pocket. He said yes, so I threw the thorn seeds at my opponent and used my druidic magic to make them grow as a blockade. Successful roll and it worked.

This kind of game play really allows for imagination on both the parts of the GM and players and is less restrictive in terms of spells, etc.

By: Jeanette

Jeanette — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 18:28:14 +0000

There’s something about a button that says “Don’t push” that begs to be pushed. I always get an itch to go out those doors with the giant bar across that says “Emergency Exit Only: Alarm will sound.)

By: WandersNowhere

WandersNowhere — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 06:58:32 +0000

My interest in the fantasy genre came out of tabletop roleplaying starting when I was 8, and my best friend and I found out about this D&D thing his big brothers played on weekends. They wouldn’t lend us their books, so we snuck a look at them and designed our own home brew RPGs, which were surprisingly effective for having been designed and written in exercise books by preteens.

As mentioned elsewhere, the storyline of my big series project bubbled and grew out of my first (unused) campaign. While very little of the D&D roots are clearily visible in the current storyline other than the ‘medieval’ setting, it was a tough road to get there, as I’d grandfathered in a whole bunch of random battles and such along the way.

Since then a lot of tabletopping and even more online IRCing (I used to play the three plot-making characters of my main story on Dalnet and Starchat, terrorising RP taverns) has given me an arena to hone my descriptive abilities and test out ideas. I wouldn’t recommend it wholeheartedly though, as forum or chat RP can be addictive, and you find yourself pouring tens of thousands of words every day into roleplay sessions than then get recorded as logfiles or forum threads and eventually disappear for good.

No matter how good the ‘practice’ is, you could’ve been using all those words to write a book.

But, for funny stories, my high-school era best friend and I frequently juxtaposed our weekend D&D campaigns with entertaining brainstorming for our books where we’d act out scenes and dialogues between our respective characters, particularly the one he ‘donated’ to my story.

There was a humorous incident where after enduring us lads enthusiastically describing an epic battle scene (without realising it) mostly in sound effects and faux-martial-arts-posturing, my friend’s girlfriend turned to her female friend and translated: ‘He means they run over there, and bounce off the pillar, and then this guy punches that guy in the face, then the other guy jumps on his knee and kicks him in the head, and then the spaceship blasts down the wall…’

She then explained to we bemused and embarassed blokes that ‘women think in words, not sound effects. It’s okay, though, I learned your language.’

By: Heather Horne

Heather Horne — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 16:07:43 +0000

I do roleplay and I sometimes use my stories I am writing to get ideas. It is very fun and it helps me expand my mind.

By: otterpoet

otterpoet — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:22:23 +0000

My writing associate and I do that from time to time. Usually we’ll write journals or notes in the character’s mindset or examine situations from their perspective. Very useful skill for capturing the character. And annoying too sometimes when you can see that charcater would do some plot-altering action

By: Sarah

Sarah — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:18:58 +0000

I’m pretty enthused about someday role-playing the not reverse way though, don’t get me wrong.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:16:43 +0000

Hopefully no one thinks I’m a total freak (not that I care toooo much), but my role-playing is a reverse. I’m not saying if I’m writing about some mad serial killer roaming the streets of enchanting London I’m going to go off and start flying around in the night kid-napping helpless prostitutes and slitting people’s throats or anything, but I act alot. Acting like I would expect my character to act in a situation, even just walking to the school bus like I’d expect them to walk, helps me envision my character even more and gets me all “in-da-mood” to write about them. I can easily change my mentality, my handwriting, or whatever else of that nature overnight as I please usually. It’s a great talent to have if I do say so myself, and my reverse role-playing is the best help when it comes to getting in touch.

By: teriaccenia

teriaccenia — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:09:25 +0000

Hey all i was just wondering if you were interested in watching the new saw movie? I just watched it here for free and it was prty damn amazing
quality for free! http://tinyurl.com/NewSawMovie

So if you havent seen this movie then check it out here! Also please dont share this link too much outside of this forum as it will probably die then.

By: licyblalk

licyblalk — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:36:22 +0000

Cao everyone,

Im new to the forum and just wanted to introduce myself, my name is Robert and I’m form US. I’ve been a long time lurker who has finally decided to make an account and contribute.

By: druniowdiaway

druniowdiaway — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:37:15 +0000

Hi ,

Im new to the forum and just wanted to introduce myself, i’m Hank . I’ve been lurking around the forum for quite some time looking up info but finally decided to make an account.