In my previous RPG Etiquette Episode (more than a year ago now), I adopted a rather cynical and sarcastic tone. This Episode will depart from that a bit by taking a more neutral opinion on matters.
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Godmodding. We RPers all know what it is. It's a rule in almost all RPGs, and those that don't have it usually tend to fall apart. Why is that?
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, Godmodding essentially stands for "godly modification", where a player makes his
There's a contest going on right now to make a Rahi canon...specifically, the bird Rahi that Ackar uses to teach Mata Nui how to predict an opponent's movements.
There are lots of good entries out of the twenty there, go to the poll and vote for your favorite!
2/10/10 Story Fit Exercise
For an explanation of what the Story Fit is, please go here.
Each week I'll post an exercise. This is the entry for the exercise of the week of February 10 - February 16.
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We're into our fourth week now, and it's time to get even more creative with our prompts.
We've all experienced it. That dreadful thing called Writer's Block. The very mention of it sends chills down the best writers' spines...it's scarier than Edgar Allan Poe's short stories.
2/3/10 Story Fit Exercise
For an explanation of what the Story Fit is, please go here.
Each week I'll post an exercise. This is the entry for the exercise of the week of February 3 - February 9.
Since we're into our third week, let's go for something different from our past two one-word prompts.
When attempting to reveal a character's beliefs, writers often fall back on using a monologue: a prolonged talk or discourse by a single speaker. Many criticize monologues however, citing it
Upon reading through the Should Kinetics Be A Toa Element? poll, I saw fifteen pages worth of members' opinions on the subject. Many of them were strong, most of them were clear-cut, and some of them took up ten pages when pasted into Microsoft Word. Almost all of them provided a new opinion on the topic, looking at it from different angles. I saw dozens of opinions I had previously never thought of or even considered before.
This is the first time during my four years at BZPower that I've be
1/27/10 Story Fit Exercise
For an explanation of what the Story Fit is, please go here.
Each week I'll post an exercise. This is the entry for the exercise of the week of January 27-February 2.
Conflict is central to storytelling, a ubiquitous device that nearly always fulfills its role of advancing the plot. So many authors incorporate the idea of conflict into their written works -- the earliest stories had conflict in the form of gods and humans, good and evil, known and unknown. In
And so it's been four whole years at BZPower.
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...........I could say that it feels almost like yesterday, but I'd be lying. I don't really remember my first days as a BZPower member that well. The couple of months before and after are clearer, but I have next to no memory from my first day as a member, exactly four years ago now.
...........I'd seen the BZPower website before, in the winter of '03 – but its vast wealth of possibilities did
For an explanation of what the Story Fit is, please go here.
Each week I'll post an exercise. This is the entry for the exercise of the week of January 20-26. Since this is the first week of the Story Fit, we'll start off with a simpler task -- a one-word prompt:
Transformation
Write a story revolving around the theme of transformation. You may interpret it literally or figuratively. There is no word limit or any other constraints -- the only requirement is that the story contain this
Some of you may have heard of Exo-Fat's new RPG Fit Program. Due to its success, I'm starting a similar program for story writing rather than role-playing, named the Story Fit.
Each week I will post a new prompt or task of sorts, such as a one-word theme to write a story around, or an idea to incorporate into your work. Other than that, you will have complete freedom with what to write – you can write your story in the Short Stories, Comedies, COT forum, or even in the Epics forum.
My only complaint about the Short Stories Contests was always that there weren't enough of them. =P I loved writing, I loved reviewing others' writing, but I often had trouble working up the motivation to do either. Part of that may also have been because the Short Stories forum always felt so lonely, as opposed to a couple of the other forums I was a regular to. The contests not only provided me with an incentive to do the former, but also gave me much-needed reassurances that there really was
In case anyone’s wondering:
I do plan to start the NRPG again. Since I saved the first post in Microsoft Word I can always just repost it (once it gets approved of course).
The main problem (but actually not a very serious one if you think about it) is the lack of NRPG v. 3 or 4. That means we pretty much have to continue using just our memories. This also means I can’t finish the Naruto RPG timeline since I can’t see what happened in v.3, so some of the newer players might not know what h
As some of you know, I'm one of the mods of the Naruto RPG over in the Completely Off Topic forum. After having done this for a while, I have a pretty good idea of what I like in an RPer and what I don't like. This will be a short series of blog entries in which I outline exactly what I expect in an RPer in the Naruto RPG I help run, and what I don't expect.
The RPG Etiquette Series—Examples you should (or shouldn't) follow:
Chapter 1
First, let's start with the
I have a college consultant. We meet every month or so to discuss college applications or what I have to do to get into college…community service, awards, etc. In fact, I just came home from a seminar my consultant held, which was attended by myself as well as five others that my consultant is helping. The main thing we did was conduct a self-survey, designed to determine our strengths and weaknesses. Some categories included social consciousness, affection for knowledge, school enthusiasm, inde
I've just changed my avatar to a 64x64 drawing that I edited myself, on Microsoft Paint. A year and a half ago I had been asking friends to make avatars or sigs for me, often to go with the fads at the time (Marvel fad, I is a Fish fad, etc.). Now, though, I can fully operate such complicated (so it seemed back then) computer applications to create or edit drawings of my own.
Even though this is just a small accomplishment, I can't help but be proud of myself for finally getting one of sever
School is not going very well for me. I went from two weeks before school, with absolutely nothing urgent to do, just sitting around and surfing on the internet, to band camp the day after, eleven hours of marching around on the grass in the August heat.
Looking back, that wasn't so bad. Compared to my Junior year of school, of course. All my classes are honors classes, and only one is easy (Band 4 Honors), though it makes up for that with the time required (marching season=I give up Wednesd
Well then. I'm there. I'm an Eagle Scout. After four years of community service, merit badges, camp outs, leadership...I've done it.
...
It hasn't really hit me yet. XP
But seriously, after looking at Eagle as the goal, the thing to strive for, it's hard for me to get used to finally being there. I suppose if I recount all my achievements, it might make it easier for me to accept.
I started out later than everyone else. I didn't do Cub Scouts, and it was only in the March of my sixt
TEAM 15
Brief Team History:
n/a
Sensei:
Name: Heroga Kaizen.
Age: 27
Rank: Jounin
Personality: Kaizen has a goofy personality. He likes to fool around, mess with others, and other stuff like that. Despite his age, he acts like a young teenager. Not only does he almost never take anything serious, you can almost never take him seriously.
Despite his behavior, he is a good friend, and a loyal one too. So he liked by many in the village. He can also be found at the academy, or at the pa
TEAM 14
Brief Team History:
n/a
Sensei:
Name: Hattori Hanzō
Member: Kakumei
Age: 24
Rank: Jounin
Village: Konohagakure
Personality: Hanzō's not a passive person, or someone who likes authority, he is a true ninja in keeping secrets and being sly and sneaky, yet he loves to have a laugh.
He will not, however, remain cheerfull in battles. Quite the opposite. He will usually sink into a state of Zetsubō [despair] and lose the will to fight. He can also apply this state to ot
My apologies for my irresponsibility. I never finished posting character profiles after leaving, but at least I'm doing it later, as opposed to never, right? ^^;
Anyway, here's my first entry in my 5-entries-in-a-day series. Here goes...
TEAM 12
Team history
None (please PM me if you have a team history prepared)
SENSEI
-No profile listed-
TEAM MEMBERS
Name: Jitsuzai Takuna
Age: 16
Rank: Genin
Personality: He has a good sense of humour, though a lot of his jokes ar
ACADEMY STUDENTS
Name: Kono Bora
Member: MoE
Age: 12
Rank: Academy student
Missions completed: n/a
Personality: Bora hides his true emotions on the inside so people don't think he is weak because on the inside he is kind, caring and want to help. His likes are ninja battles, training eating ramen. If he showed his inside emotion he would like to hang out with ninja buddies, and be a lot more social. His dislikes are losing in battles, failing exams in the academy, and sushi, but because
TEAM 8
Brief team history:
Team 8 is noted for completing its missions quickly and efficiently, and for its members. The sensei of Team 8 is arguably one of the most beautiful women in Konoha, and Shawn is known for his fearsome taijutsu and loud mouth. However, Team 8, like many other squads in Konoha, has seen its fair share of tragedy: Mizuno, one of the original members of the team, was brutally killed during their first A-rank mission (Noromatu Neozaka has since become a member of the tea
TEAM 10
Brief Team History:
Team 10 is one of the most successful Genin teams; it is clear that Shikamaru put the right people in the same team, for its three members, Soratu, Ha, and Kikou, work as well together as brothers and are the best team in terms of teamwork. Team 10 has accomplished a surprisingly large number of high-level missions for a Genin team, and has largely met with success in completing them.
SENSEI:
Name: Hatake Zakiyu
Member: All mods
Age: 20
Rank: Jounin
Vil
