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The Multiverse

Patch's Notes On How To Run a Multiverse RP Plot

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Patch's Notes On How To Run a Multiverse RP Plot

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Patcharoo on Thu Dec 06, 2012 12:29 am

Foreword
I am very very very very bad at arranging my thoughts. So this will not be in order of importance. It will be a series of useful notes that will overall help you craft a plot. I will reference most likely two or three major things I have done, the first being Orsa of Terminus and the second being Ezplot (the things I consider my two greatest successes).
Orsa of Terminus was a massively involving event that I was not ready or mature enough as a roleplayer to handle. Fortunately some other players were, and took on the burden of running it and did an excellent job.
Ezplot was a great improvement of my own end. Everything went pretty much perfectly, and even today I'm figuring out why. It included ten players and spanned the length of a year, entirely in a chat environment!

So today I want to talk about something that some people surprisingly have trouble with. Pacing.

Pacing is introducing someone to an RP slowly so they're not immediately dumped into the middle of everything. I know lots of my characters when put in the middle of trouble will just try to get out of it, not fight or find out who's behind it. Where's the exit? They'll take it. So how do you include someone into a plot without overwhelming them with information? It's easy! Introduce them over three scenes. And it goes like this...

The Introduction
This is incredibly simple. The introduction can be a fight, or it can just be two people walking into each other or whatever. But the goal is always the same; introduce two characters together who will meet in the next scene. Try to leave an impression of your character without establishing what your character thinks about the other persons. Here's three different and interesting ways to do it.
A: Two old friends meet up.
B: Your character offers to buy a drink for another
C: They uncover your character in the forest.
Expect this scene to only be a dozen medium sized posts long (300-600 characters)

The Relationship
Relationship being a very broad term. It can be a friendship, rivalry, emerging romance, employer/employee. This scene is about establishing how the two characters will interact in the future. Try to have a goal in mind of how you can work it in that direction. This can require some setup, but will mostly just work on its own. For example...
A: The two strike up their old friendship when talking about old times.
B: Your character discusses the other characters situation and offers them a job, but remains impersonal.
C: Your character acts obnoxious and demanding, but insistently hangs around.
Expect this scene to be about twice as long as the first to establish character more thoroughly.

The Plot
Now this is where you can finally bring them into the fold of the plot. Reveal some interesting detail or hint towards it. By now the other player already associates with your character, their behaviour, speech, mannerisms and so on. They can probably pick them out by the user name + font colour you use (if you use different font colours based off character). This might require some setup or circumstance to get it across properly. For example...
A: After agreeing to meet, your character arrives late, apologizing as they were accosted by a particular group.
B: Someone the boss trusts does something to betray the company and their character sees it.
C: Your character reveals they are an apprentice to a master who will be coming to rescue them and is only waiting around until they show up.
This scene will most likely be as long as The Relationship, maybe longer. Don't be afraid to throw something unusual in there, but try not to throw anything unrelated in. If you want the characters to work together against an attacker, make sure the attacker is related to the plot, and has a very good reason for targeting them.

Real Examples
A: A long time ago my character, Drakus, had made another players character fall for him when he had no intention of following up. Heartbroken, she left. The two met up a while later and he gave a very honest apology, having learned that it was a horrible thing for him to do. This ultimately lead to a romance.
B: Drakus, once again, was in the bar when he saw a lone woman, Avia and offered to buy her a drink. He discovered she was looking for work, so he offered her a job.This lead to...
C: Avia, while working for Drakus, discovered a man in the forest. Initially this man was obnoxious, citing that his master would pick him up soon and that he was great and powerful, but due to damages he caused he humbly (albeit unhappily) worked for Drakus. When trouble struck, the man mistakenly thought Avia saved him and promised to repay her. This turned into a deep friendship between the two characters.

This method is very diverse and a great way to involve people a little more slowly.

Why not just jump to the relationship?
This can work, but if you do you run the risk of having everything go too fast. Having one brief short intro scene gives a chance for the two characters to just get to know each other without throwing any depth in it. Just 'Hello, nice to meet you, see you in the future'. It also let's the player see the character and their quirks.

One important thing to remember though, don't try to 'lock-in' a relationship in the first, second or even third scene. Relationships have to work naturally. If it looks like no way in hell two characters won't mesh, don't try to force it with contrivances. That will just kill it.

You'll get more from me in the future as I post up more advice that I hope will be helpful for chat roleplays with large player bases.
Circ wrote:When I first joined RolePlayGateway, it was a place where positive conflict fostered creativity and friendships were formed rather than cliques. Honesty and transparency were valued, new people were incorporated into the community rather than judged based on what style of writing they preferred, and despite the youthfulness and zeal of the population there prevailed a reasonable degree of common sense.

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Engaging Players/How to Villain

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Patcharoo on Thu Jan 10, 2013 2:30 am

This is easier than most people seem to think, if the number of complaints about the inability to get an RP is anything to go by. I don't know where this problem stems from. The only thing I can tell you is, be engaging.

I don't mean have a wonderful character that people want to RP with. That's part of it. But you can't expect people to appreciate your wonderful character if they never talk to them. So how do you get people to talk to your wonderful character?

You don't.

The harsh fact is if you don't make any attempt to engage players in your RP you'll never get RP. You have to go over to them and talk to them. But talk is rarely enough. You need some reason for them to want to tal to your character. Something interesting, exciting and alluring.

1. The promise of romance
Flirting, hitting-on and general innocent temptation of romance is great. However, moderation is the key. You can't have the two of them hook up and decide to get married the moment they meet. They have to actually know each other. Flirting is fine, heck even a one night stand is fine. But you must remember to follow up with plot hooks. Like 'Oh, now that we actually like each other, here is whats going on in my life. Howabout yours?'.
You won't be forcing the plot onto them, you'll just be including them idly be association. Which I personally believe is one o the best ways to do it. 'You walked into the mud with me now we both have to sink or find a way out together' so to speak.

2. The promise of action
Plots can easily be started with adventure. A drunken man or a social scholar telling people about a hidden treasure buried deep south of here to which only he has a map. Tell them you need guards or help, or that the treasure is great and wonderful. There are many opportunities to include players who are just after a bit of action instead of drama. An adventure means bandits, trolls and maybe even guardian monsters.

3. The promise of interaction
And then there are some people who are just so ignored they are grateful for any interaction. Just talking to their character, no matter how small, and communicating with the player, can make them feel involved.

Wait for interaction and it will never come. Go out there and get some.

Ah, but now How to Villain, like I promised. Bar Style.

1. The Digger
Dig dig dig, that is this villains goal. He goes to a person and he positively gouges them for information. He asks questions in polite and calm ways while secretly trying to whittle down defences with charm and alcohol so he can uncover dirty secrets to use against the character. He'll make an enemy from them just by being conniving.

2. The Deceiver
This villain wants people for some reason, but people are often in short supply and kidnapping can get ugly. So he'll usually lure them out away from others and then betray them. For example I had a villain who wanted blood or test subjects for his experiments, so he'd get them drunk then tell them about this great idea, bring them to his house, and then he would strike, trying to incapcitate them for one reason or another.

3. The Derp.
Duh, my villain is gonna go attack Gambit's lol, people will realise he's evil and sewious then, uhuhh.

I highly highly recommend never to attack any location without a very good established reason that cannot for any reason be achieved elsewhere. Kidnapping people? Easier to do one at a time. Conducting large experiments? Safer to do on captured people in a controlled environment.
Here are some examples it can work...
A) Trying to get people interested in whatever is going on.
These attacks are the riskiest as they most borderline 'lolrandomtest'. Your aim isn't to start or win a fight, your aim is to lose and perk the interest of potential players. Its best to have one or more of your characters attempting the 'engage players' actions up above before pulling this.
B) Targetting players already involved in the RP who have grouped together.
In Gambit's? Go ahead. Outside of Gambit's weigh this one up very carefully. It's all well and good to make the players have to face a constant threat, but by golly if they are trying to do something like have a romantic dramatic character developing moment and you wreck it by marching in a demon? You've made a mistake in pacing, my friend.

Additionally, if you are playing the villain the two best ways to make the heroes come after you is to have the players want to see the villain taken down in a good way. The best two ways? Have the villain make them an enemy as a result of something he does not directly targetting them (takes the treasure they wanted because he wanted it) or betray them (use them to defeat the things guarding a treasure, then take it all for himself).

Final notes...
Pick and choose your interaction carefully. Sometimes, no matter how hard you force it, two characters just don't mesh, or a character won't be involved in what's going on. And you have to accept this and move on. You can try to manipulate it so the character will care, but too much can just as easily backfire completely, and chase off not only the character but the player.

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Power And Its Place

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Patcharoo on Thu Feb 21, 2013 11:38 pm

Power And Its Place

If you are using a villain who does not confront the heroes, feel free to skip this post.

If you are playing a powerful villain, one to oppose the heroes on a physical level (including magic powers etc) they or their villain team should be stronger than the heroes for most of the plot. Unfortunately this means your villain has to at least be stronger than your strongest player, right?

Well, not quite, but I'll explain in a minute.

For a start, the person you want to finally face the villain is the one who has the strongest emotional tie to them. You want to scale your villain to a level that either this character can overcome them with training/an artifact/powers or with the help of their friends. However, you do not want the best friend of this character, who is twice as strong, to kill the villain for them, nor do you want to impose a cliched 'Only I can kill him' into your plot (as it excludes your other players to some degree. I will additionally note that you can do this from the start, but you need a damn good reason!)

So what happens when the uber powered friend wants to jump in and beat down the villain for their best pal/loved one? Well, then you throw up a Dragon. I don't mean a literal dragon (unless appropriate) but the Trope 'The Dragon'. This is a character who is commonly stronger than the villain but serves just beneath him because of some reason.

For example, in EzPlot the two most powerful characters were mages recently betrayed by the villain. To stop them from going to fight him they were stopped by a monstrous creature, near invincible, with powerful psychic powers and vicious claws, physically huge. Had the two mages not been there this creature would easily have dealt with every other hero on their own. Likewise, the next most powerful character was taken away from the location to deal with an entirely different problem. It was related to everything that went on, but he was required to face something that only he could deal with.

So there you go. Peel a powerful character away with something that matches them.

So how to keep your villain ahead but still beat them at the end? Well there are lots and lots of ways. So I'll list a few.
1. Attain power through abhorrent means in front of the heroes (like stealing others power, forbidden rituals etc)
2. Have a weakness the heroes do not discover for some time, which they then must plan around
3. Have the villain only able to overcome one or two heroes at any one time, but not more
4. Have a 'Dragon' protecting the villain
5. Have something that grants them power

That's all for now. I'll probably next talk about the final showdown.

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Re: Patch's Notes On How To Run a Multiverse RP Plot

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Patcharoo on Tue Mar 05, 2013 10:24 pm

If it ain't organic it ain't gonna work.

What do I mean by that?
You cannot force something to develop. A group. A romance. A plot twist.

Well, okay, you can. However to do that you need a massive dedicated effort from all major players involved. Those who don't give the same effort will fall behind.

But don't ever make the mistake that I did several times. You can't plan for two characters to have a romance. You can have them romantically flirt and show interest, but you can't have two people romantically fall in love. You can't just go to your friends 'let's make a group of characters' and then do it.

What I'm trying to say is, if you want to make these things work, put them forth. Don't push them. Just leave the suggestion of what it is or what it could be and let it play itself out.

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Re: Patch's Notes On How To Run a Multiverse RP Plot

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Patcharoo on Wed May 15, 2013 12:05 am

This post is retracing many of the things I already said, but is equally important to read.

I should add at this point as extension to my previous point, you can't make a plot happen. That is to say;

[quote=Patch]A plot is just a catch-all term for a series of related events that is currently going on and not something you plan in advance.[/quote]

What does this mean? Well its simple. Don't try to 'make a plot'. You can't. Oh sure, 10% of the time it might succeed, but that's a very small margin and it might end up flat and uninteresting. See, the plots I have done which I consider my best are not a result of trying to make a plot happen and go in a direction, it was just me doing things and watching things happen.

Corruption? Just the Corruption going around doing evil.
Orsa of Terminus? Gathered up a bunch of badguys and gave them a reason to stick together.
Ezplot? Just Ezrael going around doing relatively evil things. Let me give you examples of this one.

Every enemy Ezrael made was a result of him doing stuff. He was trying to make things go in his way to obtain power, get stronger, understand more magic and science, until it all came crashing down on his head. He made friends, used their powers to help him do great things, and ultimately betrayed them due to madness. But what did he do exactly?

He build a tower and enchanted it to amplify magic. He created a race of bee-wolves. He tried to recruit people to his service by any means necessary (mostly deceit. He never did anything to directly offend if he could avoid it). He encouraged a paladin to brand a Drow. He forcefully had someone gain a split-personality through magic so they would serve him. He recruited enemies of the protagonists. He destroyed things the protagonists loved. And in the climax of the plot, he tried to have them all killed, destroying the home they all had come to share at that point in the process.

If you notice, the first half of that list doesn't actually seem to be directed at the main characters. It's not. In fact most of the protagonists were just enemies he made as he went about committing evil at those times. And that is ultimately the point I'm trying to get at.

I didn't plan Ezplot to happen. It was at least one or two months of him running around doing evil before it really struck up. By then other plot threads had already started and I simply went 'Well, these things are going on around Ezrael, how might he react to better benefit from this?'.

So to recap.
Ezplot was a title I gave to the events that revolved around the actions of Ezrael at the time. Little plot trains had been moving and I involved him in those plots, or he involved himself with his schemes and plans. The only thing I really 'planned' was the ending, and up until that point the day to day events were just a cause and effect of each character's personality.

A villain should have as much life, friends and character as the other characters in the story, and things should keep moving and happening even if the plot isn't. In fact, if you play it well, things like dinner parties, just hanging out with friends and other trivial day-to-day events can contribute to character development and the overarching plot.

And I feel at its core keeping things going and involved is as if not more important than any planning you can do.

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Re: Patch's Notes On How To Run a Multiverse RP Plot

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby LawOfTheLand on Wed May 15, 2013 9:58 am

Learn from my mistake.

If you're going to host an in-character event, advertise it in the roleplay's OOC board and not in the general interest checks. >_<
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