The Roleplaying Forum's GM and Player Critique Thread

Not sure if this is the best place to put this, considering I'm more a newbie looking for advice than anything.

I've got the strongest feeling I *arg*ed up somewhere with my first attempt at running an RP, considering next to no one seems interested (not even most of the people who posted in the interest check thread).

I'd like to know if I did anything wrong, and if so how to avoid those things next time.

I think the main issue might be that it is an open sandbox game. Not to imply open sandbox is bad... but it just doesn't fit for a forum magical girl game in my opinion (in a video game it could work of course).

In almost every magical girl story the overall arch is what sells the story and in your case the game.

The girl that discovers the princess and must take down the dark kingdom is a classic for instance or how they will beat the flawed system that gave them their powers (like madoka) is another. How they balance their normal lives and their superhero lives is almost 50% of the point in most. What's the point of transformation sequences without having a secret life or a main villain? How will they seize their destiny?

Perhaps having a villain or some kind of objective would help a lot to give some kind of plot. I like the fact that you try to make plot lines optional, but even if they are, they are necessary to keep everyone hooked up.

edited 29th Oct '15 5:03:33 PM by RPGLegend

Is there a guide to creating PCs that are interesting, have flaws, and are still flexible enough to be playable with other PCs?

I find that when I play a character, I end up throwing his flaws away one by one until he's the boring perfect guy, because if I don't get rid of those flaws I can't continue to play that character - he would've died of realistic consequences (pissing people off tends to do that, I got rid of a good majority of flaws because of this) and ruin the game for everyone else at the table. I tried to incorporate the flaws in other ways, such as an elf-hater forgiving the elf by saying "you're pretty good for an elf", but by the third time I do this the players (including myself) are irritated by the mere mention of elf-hate.

I'm getting the feeling of "I want to have flaws, but I don't want the consequences of flaws, so... I don't want flaws... wait..." which leaves me pretty stuck.

edited 14th Mar '16 7:40:03 AM by hellomoto

In the case of elf-hate, can't he just have that internally? Like, he doesn't show overt hate, just have a very condescending internal monologue.

I suppose it's a half-flaw, in that it adds to my personal narrative and I type it out, but no one else gets to react it to and I thus receive no consequences. And I get to decide when to invoke the half-flaws, ignoring them when convenient.

Sounds like baby steps to having actual flaws. Does it make my character more interesting in the eyes of other players, though? I've seen cases where 90% of a player's post is internal monologue, and my character only gets to respond to the sole action the other PC has taken. I'm trying to keep the ball rolling without completely shutting down everyone else due to my character's flaws.

@hellomoto: Sorry if this sounds like I'm making assumptions that offend you; I'm just speaking generally here based on what you've said, without knowing any more of your specific context.

My experience with making an interesting character that other players want to interact with is making sure that the character has some depth to them, but also room to grow. That is, if you want to say your character hates elves for some reason, by all means, but hating elves shouldn't be the only thing to him. He should not be defined by the fact that he hates elves, or for any other single fact; he should have a whole host of nuances, both flaws, virtues, and more neutral in between aspects. I usually start with a single idea that I want to base the character off of, but I never stop there; I would think about what happened in his life that makes him hate elves, what other things might've happened in his life that are related to that, and how those experiences make him feel about things. Like maybe he hates elves 'cause an elf killed his single father when he was little, so he had to live in an orphanage and now has a distaste towards the society's treatment of orphans while also feeling sympathetic towards orphans himself. As long as everything makes sense and doesn't contradict anything else, there's a lot of ways you can go about this.

Or if rather your issue is just about the presentation of your characters flaws, then I would say the best advice is the old adage, "show, don't tell". If you've decided that your character hates elves for whatever reason, fine, but you shouldn't be trying to hammer that point home in every post. Don't be like, "and then my character did this rude thing to an elf because he hates elves" or constantly spout internal monologues about how he hates elves. Try to be more subtle about it; something like mention when he meets a group of people for the first time, how he glances at other people normally but when he sees an elf he scowls a little. Make him irritable and harsh when speaking with elves, but again don't blatantly state why in your narrative. Stuff like that.

As for the internal monologue discussion, personally I find those posts that are like 90% internal monologue displeasing, mainly because they tend to swell into large sizes of stuff that I have to read in case I need to respond to anything there, but can't because it's internal monologue; so I just wasted time reading a bunch of stuff that doesn't matter to my character, so it might as well just be white noise.

So I'm very sparing with the use of internal monologue, and tend to use it only in the following circumstances:

• There's mind reading happening, so it's only "internal" in the sense that it's not spoken out loud.
• There's a distinct and purposeful contrast between what my character is thinking and how they're acting, and I want the other players to know that out of character.
• What my character is thinking is a bit too specific and can't just be implied through mentions of their expression or demeanor, and again I want the other players to know.
• My character is by themselves and talking out loud about whatever is on their mind wouldn't make sense in the given situation/circumstances.

Edited by IsaacTheRed on Aug 2nd 2023 at 12:47:13 PM

@Isaac The Red: I just read through that game, even though I'm not personally involved in it. Your intent seems clear enough to me, but your character seems to have made a number of conversational slips, even though your character's supposed to be a diplomancer based on your character sheet signup. He also comes off as a bit cowardly in my opinion.

There's nothing wrong with getting into fights with other characters, provided that you aren't doing anything game-breaking or otherwise unacceptable, but if you wish for your character to be more "diplomatic," then you should try and anticipate how other characters will react to what your character does and says. You should also pay close attention to what everyone else says and does, as that seems to have been the source of one of your slip-ups.

But hey, shit happens. Don't be afraid of getting into scuffles with other characters, so long as it's justifiable in-character.

Edited by IsaacTheRed on Aug 2nd 2023 at 12:47:22 PM

Not sure if this is the best place to put this, though it is related to my desire to become a better GM.

When coming up with a story for an RP, I tend to put all my focus on the beginning and the end. This leaves the middle feeling...rather limp, to say the least. Usually I go into it figuring I'll come up with it as I go along, but going off the two RPs I've tried GMing so far, what's actually been happening is an odd situation where I'm waiting on my players while my players are waiting on me, which more often than not would kill interest in the RP.

So I guess what I'm asking is how to make the transition from the beginning to the end substantial enough to keep players interested.

Edited by IsaacTheRed on Aug 2nd 2023 at 12:52:18 PM

I've been thinking about opening a forum game (May or may not). I've never been in a rpg thread so maybe I'm not the most qualified but just out of curiosity, how would the thread work if I'm running it and I'm unavailable at that moment (Like I need to sleep or something). Like, what would happen to the thread?

edited 11th Aug '16 10:14:01 PM by SephirotAero

Nothing? Unlike a chat game, the thread will still be there after a few hours and most RPGs don't need GM supervision 100% of the time.

I've already opened myself for critique in this thread, but since that was quite some time ago and I'm taking a spin at GM this time around, I'd like to refresh my openness for critique. This being my first spin at the GM role, I'm very eager for feedback on what I could improve on.

I didn't know this thread existed. If anyone was in my Stygian Technologies: Field Agents RP (not the first one), how did they feel about the opening psych eval segment?

Thank you to the OP for creating this useful thread.

It's not had any replies since April, so I'm going to revive it.

I'll admit, I'm not that good at RP'ing, I'm OK at creating characters (and I write my own Fan Fic that's currently private), yet RP'ing with characters is a whole different thing.

This is my current effort in Justice Avengers for criticism; admittedly she's a Composite Character of various incarnations of the character, with my own spin on things.

Idid sign up for this RP - and pulled out because I posted without approval (a mistake), and the GM of that stated I didn't know what I'm doing which was certainly true.. I will admit when I created a character, i just copied a character from my private Law & Order: Special Victims Unit fanfic into here (without really being aware of how she'd fit into the RP). (As it is, I've pulled out of that RP, since the character wouldn't fit, and the GM has politely and respectfully pointed out my mistakes. I took it literally as being an Intercontinuity Crossover; I have Asperger's Syndrome, which is why I partially make these mistakes.

Anyway, I am looking for constructive criticism on how to avoid these mistakes and become a bit better at roleplaying.

Previously my only real involvement in roleplaying was passive, reading them, but now it's turned into being a participant.

edited 22nd Aug '17 9:23:14 AM by Merseyuser1

First and formost, it's always good to be eager, but make sure you wait for actual approval before you post in the main thread. Most G Ms will directly say "You are accepted" or something like that and tell you that you can post. If in doubt, ask before you do so.

Secondly, glancing at that signup, the first thing that jumps out at me, admittedly a personal gripe but I'm probably not the only one with it, overuse of blue links. This isn't the main wiki, there's really no reason to have so many blue links. Once in a while is fine, but that was probably major overuse.

Thirdly, formatting. Use bullet points, they help immensely. Use one * in front of main parts, name, age, that kind of thing. If you get to a section like Personality or Backstory that demands multiple paragraphs, then after the heading, go down to the next line and then use two ** next to the start of each paragraph.

Forthly, I always advise reviewing the signups to see what kind of characters are already in the game to get an idea what might or might not work. While there's nothing wrong per say with a Law and Order character and they can maybe work, done correctly, as a general rule characters from heavily real life based works set in the "Real world" are not the best choices, not what I'd recommend someone new to R Ping use. Also, due to the nature of that particular characters general work (Sex crimes), I'd not recommend it since that's not a topic most R Ps generally like going anywhere near.

Fifthly, remove the descriptors when you copy/paste the signup template. Stuff like the bolded part

"Why is your character here?: Your character's acceptance won't depend on the answer to this question. However, given the nature of the RP, it might help to have a goal in mind for your character.

Should be cut out, and the actual answer put there unless, as before, it's long like in backstory or such.

That's the off the top of my head points I can see in my brief glance.

Thank you. I guess my character choice was wrong for that RP, but that's probably what watching Police Procedural and Better Call Saul does for influencing my characters.

As for the Jessica Jones RP'ing, any constructive criticism on that?

I did not have tine to get to that, and only gave it a very very brief skim just now, I'm about to go into work, but two points stuck out.

One, the same issue with blue links. Generally, in actual RP threads, they are highly frowned on unless you're using an image link, it drags the reader out of the scene when they see a link to elsewhere on the site. I advise completly avoiding those.

Secondly, often with new R Pers I advise trying to write more, bur for you, I would in fact say the opposite. Discribing the area and all is fine, but I would argue that you do yourself a disservice by going through her whole backstory in the first post. In doing that, you make your post very long, which can cause people to lose focus anf start skimming after a while. Also, it usually flows better for an RP if you reveal the backstory slowly, in chunks when it becomes relevant, rather then all at once. Be it the character discussing it, flashbacks, and so forth, it is better in the long term to save that for later on. If anyone wants to see it all at once like that, that's what the backstory part of your signup is for. Your first post should just establish the basics, who is this character, what are they doing and thinking, why are they whereever they are. Stay in the present.

I'm worried I'm not portraying my avatar right in the "Our avatars are in a room together" thread.

I don't know if Aichi's acting enough like Aichi and I'm worried I got a bit mixed up in terms of the anime's timeline. I said episode 52, but then I realized later that it probably would be more accurate to say after episode 58-59 since I forgot that Aichi had one more round to go in the tournament before the finals. I just referred to how he was supposed to go against Ren soon (A.K.A. the finals).

Should I be concerned? Do I need to correct anything in particular about my R Ping? I don't know how many of you guys know anything about Cardfight! Vanguard, but I would like to know if I'm doing anything wrong and how to correct it.

Also I tend to mention a character's thoughts a lot even if they're not speaking them. Is that alright or should it be avoided?

Thank you!

edited 30th Aug '17 11:30:48 AM by CrystalMemoria

Maybe I'll get a hang of this formatting soon.

Welp, let's see what people think of this one.

Opening myself up for critique a bit here. Lately I feel as if I'm losing my touch and becoming a bit gimmicky. Also I'm an absolute perfectionist when it comes to my writing and even after rectifying a post ten times I can end up editing it five times more because the phrasing doesn't flow right.

Also my investment is subjective. Depending on the atmosphere I get from an RP, my posts are either purple or the opposite. Which is irritating.

On the subject of Enter The Arena As Your Avatar, I tried reviving V6, but posting has been very infrequent, so I’m questioning whether to move on to V7.

Not my game, but should Our Avatars Are Posting On A Forum Thread move over from Forum Games to the forum RPGs?

hmmm.