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Alright, I know I've been putting a few suggestions for the RP thread, reason being that's my favorite part of the site and Steet said he was tweeking them somewhat. Anyway, I'd like to suggest a sperate thread for Advanced roleplays. Reason being, an advanced roleplay can take awhile to attract enough attention from more advanced roleplayers, due in part to quite a few new members joining the site rescently, and thus gets buried under Semi-advanced and normal RPs. This would allow more advanced RPers to have a place they could do more advanced RPs and it would be less likely to fall so far down it dies. Just a suggestion, don't know how it work out but its an idea.

That's quite a good idea. Because most of the non-advanced roleplays get posted in much more quickly than the advanced ones and it bumps them off the page. I think it's a good idea. I also don't like non-advanced RP's either, so it'd be easier to just go there.

It's not major though, there are more important things Steet has to do, but it would be a good thing to add to his to-do list.

I know I'm not a roleplayer myself, but : how do you define an "advanced" RPG?

An advanced roleplayer is someone who completely fills out the entire rp topic post page,and an advanced RPG'er does the same thing.

What Alpha Aleu said, as well as Advanced Roleplays generally require the roleplayers to post more well developed, longer posts as a rule, normally about three lines at the lowest but average of five lines. Overall, Advanced Roleplays require more thought than regular ones and thus it takes longer to find willing roleplayers, which generally causes them to fall off the board, buried under the regular RPs, which are both more numerious and easier to fill. So an Advanced Roleplay section would make it easier for people seeking to join Advanced Roleplays to find them and make them less likely to get lost in the normal roleplays, simular to what happened to many TLK Roleplays in the old Balto/TLK section.

That help?

Dividing into more sections is a problem : there would need to be :
- A Balto "public" RPG section for regular RPGs
- A Balto "public" RPG section for advanced RPGs

- A Balto "private" RPG section for regular RPGs
- A Balto "private" RPG section for advanced RPGs

Same thing for TLK, etc...And just imagine if we would find other criterions to divide.

That's just way too many sections.
But from the way I see it :



That should be required for EVERY roleplay. 3 lines is already very short for a RPG message. Same for posting enough information about the character(s). If the visitors don't want to make the efforts of writing in a good way, then they shouldn't bother posting here. (or just use the RPG shout box instead)
I would be very enclined to enforce the rules in that direction, so that only "advanced" roleplays (as you call them) can be allowed.

We wouldn't need to split the privite RP sections as those aren't ones people can join, it'd only be the regular sections. Mainly, Advanced RPs aren't the number of lines needed to be posted...its hard for me to explain but there is more of a diffrence than that, if an RP mod reads this, mind explaining an Advanced RP in better detail?

An Advanced roleplayer will write around 2-5 well developed paragraphs with elevated word use. The post will be understandable and the reader should get a very good grasp of what the writer intended to say.(adjectives and verbs, etc.) A paragraph is around 4-6 sentences, so the three line thing is by no means advanced, and hardly intermediate.

Thanks, I was mixed up. Though some of the people I advance RP make it a paragraph per character there at the very least, because sometimes it hard to write 2 paragraphs with one character. Anyway, sorry for the confusion Steet.

BTW, Ghostunit, what is your opinion of my suggestion?

If I'm correct, it's not per character, but per post. If someone had four characters, 16 paragraphs would get a little ridiculous. I believe it's just around 3-4 in general, non specific.

I think it's a good idea. A sub-board of the roleplay areas for advanced roleplays certainly wouldn't hurt, considering a lot of the roleplays on this site are trash anyways....But yes, it can reduce confusion and ensure that the advance ones are seen. So I'm for it.

If I can find some people that would be up for some serious in-depth roleplay, I might jump in.

Though I don't agree a lot are trash, though certainly some are, that was sorta the idea. Thanks for clearing up the confusion, I think I had Steet quite confused.

It may or may not be per character, it just depends on the poster's preferences, typically. Advanced rp posts will tend to vary in length, style, and other ways, but your earlier description is adequate. For example, I would consider the following an extremely good advanced (and in general) roleplay post:

Sanguinaria stared at the rock wall before her. The intensity of her icy blue eyes might have been felt from at least a few feet away if there were wolves there to notice, but of course there weren't. This particular fae was all alone in the forsaken glade. Or at least, she was alone when it came to others like her. The birds were singing some strange tune she didn't care to pay attention to. They were high in the treetops so as to get closer to the sun, and the sheer pitch of the chirps and squawks indicated that it was indeed spring time again.

The sun filtered down through the living branches, creating a patchy pattern on her burgundy and tan coat. She was much more commonly referred to as the "rust colored female" and with good reason. The mixture of the colors did make it appear as though she embodied rust itself. Though there was not metallic sheen anywhere on her that the rust could possibly adhere to save for the six silver colored earrings, four on the edge of the left ear and two on the right. Only one was a stud while the rest were small hoops, much like the ones humans wore. Though this was hardly uncommon where she'd come from. Wolves from the Nexxus realms (more commonly called CC by the human denizens) had a great number of oddities about them.

Another such oddity particular to her was the medium-sized black ankh that almost seemed to be burned into her skin on her right front paw and ankle. Markings were not uncommon either, in her neck of the woods. However, few if any had seen an ankh on a wolf for a great while, and she was now one of the few to sport the mysterious and ancient symbol. Other markings, like the ones the seemed to bind her two middle toes on each foot in burgundy flame were also unique to her, but also similar at the same time. Though one more trait set her apart from the rest of the wolfen world.

As she stared at the rock wall of the cave before her, her gaze relaxed and a black dot appeared. It began to grow in size alarmingly quickly until it was roughly big enough for her to step through, if she wished. The edge of the imperfect hole in existence and space met the ground neatly and a black mist spilled out of it, vanishing within only a few seconds of hitting the fresh, living atmosphere. Sanguinaria stuck her head through the portal, already almost regretting having made it a circle this time. How boring the shape was becoming lately. Perhaps next time she'd make a rhombus, just for fun. Her eyes adjusted quickly to the dark gray atmosphere of the Nether world, but instead of getting a good look around it, she simply hooked her teeth into a black leather combat boot and pulled. Gradually the boot came out of the portal and eased lightly into the sparse grass of the forest. But the boot wasn't alone; attached to it was a camouflage trousered leg. And attached to that leg was the rest of a soldier's corpse.

The portal snapped noiselessly closed, spiraling in on itself until it was no more and the wolf looked at the dead man, his face and body marred and torn by vicious claw and tooth marks, as well as a gunshot or two. Poor fellow barely had any hair left to speak of and half of his right leg was already missing, though his pant leg was long enough so that the wound that severed it could not be seen. His blood had stopped flowing long ago and the wounds were brown instead of red. It was strange though. Most of the body had only decomposed a little despite how long this man had been gone from the world.

"Good thing I kept you in the freezer. If I hadn't rescued you from your battleground, the crows would have been on you in a few hours." Sang chuckled. She'd made a joke, though an awkward and macabre one at that. Few understood her humor, but she didn't really expect them to. After all, when you deal with death, many tended to give you a wide berth rather than strike up a conversation. She'd even been teased about it many a time by her own brother, Sokki. She shook her head, smiling as she thought of him.

"I wonder how he's doing..."

But she trailed off, remembering that she'd gotten Fred, as she'd come to nickname this particular corpse, out in order to practice, not to let him rot further. With a light sigh, she dropped the boot out of her mouth and sat up straight, lifting her paw into the air. The corpse immediately responded and shook violently, convulsing like angry waves on the sea. Sang glared at the man at its shaking slowed and then ceased until it too sat bolt upright. Now the wounds on his face and body were pulsing lightly, the red becoming just a bit brighter. His skin looked just a little less gray and pale, a faint tinge of the original tan returning to his cheeks and arms.

Sanguinaria lowered her paw slowly, and as she did, the corpse began to slump back down. "No, you stay sitting," she growled angrily at the body. It didn't notice the command though and continued to slump. With more force she repeated, "Sit!" This time, a new tone had covered her feminine voice. It became husky and rough, like sandpaper along wood. The corpse instantly obeyed, jerking upright and sitting still. The female's brow furrowed in partial disbelief at this as she relaxed her leg. This was new. Never before had any verbal command appeared to work on any of the corpses. But she'd surmised that this might have been due to her practice with the humans instead of the wolves. But now she understood. She'd willed the power into her throat and the corpse obeyed, no matter if she spoke in the wolf or the common tongue.

Tentatively, she got up, her eyes still fixed on the corpse. She was not comfortable enough yet to split her attention from more than herself and the corpse, though that part too, had been easier as of late. She heard the pit pat of a bird inching closer curiously, probably interested in the decaying scent of the body. It was more pungent now than it had been, but much less than it would have been if she weren't controlling it. The wolf circled the body once before again speaking in husky tones, "Get up."

Just like that, the cadaver sprang to its feet, as spy as it must have been when it was a boy. Sanguinaria grinned like the Cheshire cat then and then had another thought. She thought the word, 'Dance' just as forcefully as if she'd said it aloud, and the used to be man began to river dance right before her eyes. The irises of her eyes had darkened in that moment, as if the light was being pulled back into her skull, but naturally she didn't notice. The grin on her maw had only widened.

"I think I'm finally starting to make some headway with this. Hopefully soon I won't have concentrate so hard. Stop." Just like before, the man immediately halted and stood still. "Hmm, you still need a lot of work. But this certainly opens some new doors. Now if only I could find a way to put you on auto-pilot, or better yet, to re-activate that brain of yours and give you some critical thinking." Just as she was saying this, her legs began to shake lightly and a shiver curled its way along her spine. Fred also shivered, a mirror image of his mistress and he dropped a little. "But I guess that's enough for now. I really shouldn't practice before I've eaten; didn't realize how much it would take out of me."

Glancing at the spot beneath Fred's feet, another little black circle appeared and grew until it could fit the man from shoulder to shoulder inside it. Fred stood there, unperturbed by the portal for the moment until Sanguinaria relaxed the muscles she didn't even know had tensed up and let go of him. He slid through like butter slides off a warm knife and the portal again snapped shut after him. A light sigh rushed from the rust colored wolf as she completely relaxed and then sank to the ground. She'd have to remember not to perform necromancy on an empty stomach, from now on.

It's one of mine from another forum, using only one of my favorite characters. Yes, that was just with one character, and with no other poster in particular to reply to. Now, it might fry the brains of those who barely ever meet even the minimum requirement for an rp post in the forums (and I still haven't figured out a good way to require that minimum without locking a whole bunch of topics and getting thousands of complaints, but I am working on it. If it does come down to locking topics left and right, then so be it.) but I would consider that a very good example of what a general advanced rp post should look like; its detailed so that you can almost see and hear what's going on around my character, and though it isn't filled with any strong emotion other than perhaps curiosity, it didn't need to be. If it had needed a more extreme emotion, I would have changed the tone in response and made it somber, joyful, etc.

As to the issue of a separate advanced roleplay board: I can see how this would be a good idea, and it would make it easier to eventually begin weeding out the "bad eggs" from the rps, however there are a few problems. One is that the number of regular rpers vastly outweighs the minority of advanced roleplayers here, and with the age groups we have and the content of the site, that's to be expected. As such, there would only be a few roleplays in there to begin with, and a new one would surface maybe once a month, or ever couple of months, since advanced roleplays tend to preserve their plot and interest from the players better than normal ones.

Second is that several of the rps I've seen which claim to be "advanced" are little more than regular rps, maybe semi-advanced at best. They claim to want only advanced rp posts, however, when the roleplay starts, you get people posting only 3 lines, maybe a short paragraph at best. Play continues that way, possibly getting shorter and/or longer posts, but generally there's little variation towards even becoming advanced. Worse, sometimes these posts sacrifice meaning and purpose just for the sake of length. They'll go on describing a tree or some other object that has no significance to the plot whatsoever and that once they're finished, you'll never hear about again.

Though I think a separate board might be handy, I don't really know if it's worth it at this time. For now, it might just be best to keep bumping your advanced roleplay topics up to get more people to join, then just post as you normally would when you've reached your quota.

I will, however, talk to Lux and some of the other mods interested in roleplaying and suggest another idea: A list of advanced roleplaying topics currently active in each section. This list would be stickied at the top of the Open section for General, Balto, Lion King, Tail Spin, etc. roleplays, so that one could quickly and efficiently find an advanced topic which may have been burried by the other topics. Do you like that suggestion?

Yes, that suggestion would be good. As mentioned, it can take awhile to make an Advanced roleplay take off, so it getting buried happens a lot. So your suggestion is a good one.

I also have to point out, the reason sometimes that happens, the posts shrinking in size, is probably somewhat due to short posts being hard to work with at times because there isn't much to work with, so its not everyone's fault.

Anyway, good suggestion.

We should have a syickied buton or something to see the active and opne advanced RP's. I prefer them, and have made a few, but they always are bumped off pages. :l I like this suggestion alot, it would help the more advanced RPers looking for something that would suit their level of experience.

I still think that all roleplays should be "advanced"...



Mmm, that's an entirely manual operation from a single person : it's not going to work. You'll get tired of doing this before you know it.

I think the best solution for now, would be : to include "[Advanced]" in the title of these roleplays, and allow the authors of these roleplays to "bump" these topics by posting a message when they begin to get on another page.