Roleplaying Systems

[Flashlight237]

Section 12: Familiars

The term "familiar" is usually used as a fancy term for pets, but I think it's more of an umbrella term used for both pets and summons. While DnD defines familiars as spirits based around animals, when you dig deeper than DnD, you would notice that only summons follow the original definition from DnD. Pets, on the other hand, are more physical beings. Oddly enough, I've only seen the concept of familiars get used once in this entire forum's history, and that was in Stalker1599's RP where I got a spider pig. Before you get a familiar, you will need to tame a creature first.

Taming

Taming a creature isn't as clear cut as you might think it is. The deal with taming creatures is, the more dangerous they are to fight, the harder it is to tame them. The Harry Potter has its own system for rating how easy or how difficult it is to tame a monster, ranging from X for creatures that really aren't gonna do anything to XXXXX for creatures that are impossible to tame.: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Mini...sification

Generally, you're gonna have an easier time taming something easy to deal with like a slime or a spider than you will with formidable beasts like dragons, demons and hippopotamuses. Speaking of hippopotamuses, one of the factors that may make a creature more difficult to tame is aggression. While a demon usually keeps its cool when bargaining with unwitting souls, hippopotamuses really don't give a damn about what you think. Chances are the moment you approach a hippopotamus, it's gonna have you for lunch without seconds thoughts.

Another factor that adjusts the difficulty factor to taming a creature is intelligence. Which would you rather tame?

A Lindsay?:


Or a Tanuki?:


If you picked the Lindsay, congratulations. You got yourself a significantly easier-to-tame pet!

Of course while there are rules to taming a beast, there are some exceptions. For example, you seriously do NOT want to try taming Rimiru Tempest; he'll mess you up good even though he's just a slime! On the other hand, Tohru was swift to serve as Kobayashi's maid despite being a dragon. Also, even though Debby from the Debby the Corsifa manga series is a demon, handling Debby is generally as easy as keeping an eye on your neighbor's dog for an hour. Of course these are only exceptions. Dragons normally don't trust humans all that well, let alone enough to want to bang a person, plus demons aren't normally so dangerously stupid they'll nearly kill themselves by eating fly agaric mushrooms if you so much as take your eye off them for ten minutes. It is advisable to approach any creature with caution.

That being said, here are a few ways on taming a creature to become a familiar.

Capturing - About the most popular way to tame a creature is by capturing it. This method is popularized by the Pokémon series, where a Pokémon is captured just by tossing a Poké Ball at it and hoping for the best. Once the ball clicks shut, congratulations! You got yourself a new creature! Catching a creature is perhaps the easiest way to go about taming one, mainly because you're essentially putting the creature in a fairly helpless position where it'll have to lend you a hand. Even gods like Ho-Oh and Arceus will have to help you out! I wouldn't say it's exactly the most morally correct method; in fact, I'm sure outside of Pokémon, most creatures wouldn't appreciate you capturing them. It just wouldn't be fair to them if you stuffed them into a cage or a box, or even went out of your way to tie them up if they so happen to be one of those monster girl things people are all uppity about.

Feeding - This is perhaps the closest thing to how taming would work in real life, although while it takes some skill to tame an animal in real life. I say this because every creature wants one thing: food. And if you give it food, of course it would slowly gain your trust. In fiction, this couldn't be more apparent than in Minecraft where you can tame wolves into becoming your pet dog by feeding them bones. To me, this is about the most morally correct way of taming a creature despite the fact that it most likely would only work well for more harmless creatures like slimes and bats depending on the source material. 

Bargaining - Some creatures are intelligent enough to negotiate with, most often demons, but this could also apply to more mundane things like driders and tanuki. While bargaining usually means you gotta do some arduous task or shell out something important like your soul in exchange for their alliance, at the same time, it's fairly easy to tame more intelligent entities by bargaining with them.

Taking Them On - Usually, the most powerful creatures that are willing to fight by your side will challenge you to a duel to see if you are worthy of their support. This can never be more apparent than Bahamut, a summon that can usually only be gotten if you defeat him in battle. Bahamut is usually the most powerful summon you can get, even giving some bosses trouble, so getting him to join you is well worth the arduous task of battling him.

I'm sure there are other ways, but I couldn't readily think of them as I hadn't spread out as far as Polyedit2000 had when it comes to fictional media. As such, I'll move on to the two key types of familiars.

Pets

Pets are creatures that you usually have physically by your side. They can either serve as a partner in battle or as a mere companion that's giving you a stat boost. In the former's case, this couldn't be more apparent than in Pokemon where the only way to fight is by having your pets go toe-to-toe against each other.

While sometimes pets in video games need little or no maintenance, in other times, you basically have to feed your pet in order for them to keep their trust in you. Otherwise, you're probably gonna be ditched or turned into a meal. Usually whenever you need to feed pets, pets are omnivorous and likely wouldn't care if you give them a can of 7-Up since they'll probably eat both the soda and the can at the same time.

Summons

Summons are usually used only in battle. In their case, you never have to do any form of maintenance in order to keep them around; however, you can only bring them out in battle. They typically only use one attack, whether it be a buff or an offensive spell, although in the case of Final Fantasy X, they'll basically fight your fights for you, even if they're up against the almighty Deer Tick at the end of the game.

Summons aren't normally entities you find laying out in the open like you would in Epic Battle Fantasy where summon are gotten as soon as you stuff a creature into a box. Rather, you have to either get some training from a wizard, learn about their existence from a scroll, or find them in special areas. In the case of training in order to master the art of summoning, summons can get gradually more powerful as time goes on, and once you master them, even the most unassuming of summons can be forces to be reckoned with.

So yeah, there's that. Once again, feel free to note anything that I've missed.

[Polyedit2000]

Section 10.5: Flags

Remember when I talked about writing endings and bad ends?  I would like to expand on that to include good paths and even worse paths.

You might have heard the term "Flag" used in some games.  Flags would be events that represent a choice like marked paths on a hiking trail, some of them simply changing relationships while others can alter the game greatly.  

Design the Path

A RP is a story told by the players and GM, so first determine how you want the story to go and how strict you want to be.  Ideally, defeating the Dark Lord would be the ideal goal.  That's not to say all your ideas would be used or that players may decide to run off and fish, but at least you as the GM know what you want the players to strive for.

The first flag you may think of is the Dark Lord's defeat, which is not the battle of the Dark Lord itself.  The default ending is that "peace prospers throughout the land", but what if players decide to spare and rehabilitate the Dark Lord, or what if the Dark Lord was powered by a Cursed Crown which can be looted by the player, or what if the Dark Lord promises to return stronger from death and sealing seems to be a viable option?  After that mental exercise, you can move to deciding what happens if the Dark Lord does win (and the setting of the next RP in this place); while "suffering plagues the land" seems like a go-to option, there's also the idea that the next characters may either continue the quest or the players will serve under the Dark Lord.

However, you don't have to diverge the paths too far, as one trick you can do to preserve your path is to merge the choice back in.  For example, say that you plan to introduce the Darker Lord after the Dark Lord flag.  Assuming a win/lose Flag against the Dark Lord, you can a) have your party go after the Darker Lord due to their adventuring ways or B) have the Dark Lord send the party after the Darker Lord.

Flag Conditions and Effects

While you can make the story linear in a sense, it'll be pretty boring to give the players choice after choice, which is why some Flags are known to lock out players from certain decisions while some Flags require certain conditions.

For example, a summoner is doing something with a book and you just so happen to be looking for a book, so you might be thinking one of two thing:  fight him for the book or make him mess up his ritual.  There is a third option:  if you had done some skimming and found out that the summoner was a hero from long ago, you may have vital information that causes the summoner to point you to the correct book behind him.  From this example, you need "information" (and maybe not insult the summoner) to convince him as lack of information would not deter him as effectively.

Of course, once you get the book, you're not likely to meet that summoner again, so whether you fight or convince him may matter very little.  But if the information you found out reveals that the summoner was actually maintaining  a barrier to keep some monsters from entering the realm, that talk could prevent some monsters from appearing in battle.  Let's look at Undertale as another example.  If you decide to kill every monster you meet, you lock out of the "Pacifist" route may head towards the "Genocide" route , but the game still has you going from the ruins to the king's castle.  

Punishment

Speaking of Genocide, some GMs don't like "murderhobos", and that's understandable if the game works on good vs evil with the Dark Lord occupying the evil slot.  Now, while you can have discussions with the players about acceptable behaviors, there are ways to get the game back on track without resorting to bans or kills.

For example, if the players decided they wanted to kill a town for a boat, then it's only natural that a king orders an "Avenger" to track the players down.  In an example I heard, this Avenger is much stronger than the players and will break their equipment as well, but they won't end the game by killing them.  Instead, the Avenger will act as "moral oversight", that they will keep an eye on the party and will step in should they step out of line again but otherwise has no desire to help the party for obvious reasons.  You can compare this Avenger to some of the Genocide-only bosses in Undertale, a Flag that appears only for the unmoral.

Sequence of Endings

Another purpose of the Flags, other than player decision, is how those decisions affect the world.

From the sequence of things we discussed so far, this is an example of how an ending can go:
-Defeat/Lose the Darker Lord (who writes the epilogue)
-Defeat/Spare/Lose the Dark Lord (What he does)
-Defeat/Be Nice to the Summoner (What he does)
-Meet the Avenger (sets the tone)

Of course, not all endings in a game may use that structure, ie if you destroyed the world, but this is a way to remember which Flags you set up and chose or to add more flavor to the ending.

[Flashlight237]

Section 13 - Understanding Scale

In Section 9, there was a brief mention of scale, where it is applied to the general size of a setting. However, it is just one factor in scale. Scale is generally speaking the size and complexity of a roleplaying session. To figure out how scale works, let's look into the workings of an RPG most people are familiar with: Pokemon.

RPGs are generally pretty large in scale for video games in general, and Pokemon one of them. If you wanna run a full-on Pokemon journey, complete with a region and all, then you'll need to work the following out.

Base Idea - The story focuses on trainers setting out on a journey in a new region. Along the way, you take on the region's Pokemon League, where you must collect 8 gym badges.

Setting - A region is generally a huge setting, continental or insular. There is usually a Pokemon League consisting of eight gyms, all situated in eight different towns/cities. There are some variable amount of towns/cities and a Victory Road that leads to the location of the final confrontation between trainers and the Elite Four. Within each town or city, you will need to set up Pokemon Center locations (I highly recommend doing it like Gen VI onward where the Center and Mart are merged into one) and, if you feel like shaking things up, places where you can get items or side quests.

Characters - NPCs are gonna be strewn about. For trainers, you're gonna have to work out the classes (ex. Lass, Beauty, Hex Maniac) and Pokemon, though generally you don't have to worry about more than that. Gym leaders, rivals, evil team members (focusing more on the admins and leader), the professor, Elite Four members, the champion, and whatever this guy is supposed to be generally requires more thought put into their character. For example, let's say I put Magneta (my Electric-type gym leader) and Polyedit2000's Aka Moro (lets say she's a Ground-type for her odd Egyptian connections and her generally laid-back nature (at least that's from what I can remember; I'll ask Poly later)) as gym leaders. I'll have to take care to consider Magneta's charismatic, enthusiastic character and Aka Moro's laid back character separately without getting the two of them mixed up, and don't even get me started on their teams.

Encounters - Pokemon that already exist, fanmade pokemon, you name 'em, you stick them into the region. Though here, you'll have to carefully plan out the mons for each route the trainer goes in.

Plot - I think this is about the easiest of the bunch if you have a general outline here. You know, get the eight gym badges, take on the Elite Four, go up against -insert evil team here-, whatever.

Mechanics - Let's see... Pokemon moves as skills, Pokemon abilities (ex. Mold Breaker), type matchups, learnsets for fanmade Pokemon, base stats for fanmade Pokemon, damage calculation that's best worked out in Pokemon Showdown's damage calculator for faster battles... And don't forget the workings of individual items and moves. Yeah, wrap your head around that as the cherry on top.

This is how big and complex an roleplaying campaign based around a standard Pokemon journey is. Sound confusing? Chances are an RP session as grand as a DnD campaign is a little much for you to run. You'll wanna go with something smaller. What do you do? Well, let's go over the five factors of scale.

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Base Idea - The base idea of your RP. Generally depending on how simple or how complex the idea is, the other items below may be greatly affected by how the base idea works out.

Setting - Detailed in full in Section 9, but I'll put up the Sparknotes version of it up. The setting always involves the time and place of an RP and usually also features a general feel for the world and the overarching mechanics of the world around the RP.

Characters - Characters are the people you stick into a setting. In the GM's case (as this was mainly written as advisory material to GMs), the characters would be the NPCs you wish for players to interact with.

Interactions/Encounters - Interactions and encounters are what it says on the tin. They are elements you want the player to interact with, be it random encounters with mobs or discoveries of loot, or even a selection for players to make.

Plot - The overarching story of the session. At the very least it would evolve a main goal and a means to try and achieve said goal.

Mechanics - The game feel and inner workings of the session. Usually these are best made clear for players when they come up, or at the very least be easily accessible regardless of how hard it'd be to master. Puzzles are typically harder to come up with than "gameplay" mechanics.

While I can't say this applies to everyone, these are the general ideas for what would factor into scale. While I can't fully describe the workings of scale at the time, I can give you a Sparknotes version of it.

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A small-scale RP generally works off a simple base idea. It will have a basic setting and a basic goal in mind, with some simple mechanics and interactions to work out. An example of this would be Polyedit2000's Slime the Dice deal in the Kink Talk section of this forum: https://bastianfanworks.dreamchaos.net/f...hp?tid=112

A mid-scale RP balances out the simplicity of an idea with interesting if admittedly complex mechanics, or makes a seemingly complex idea simple. For example, in my escape room RP, the players had to solve some small puzzles before unlocking the cell: https://bastianfanworks.dreamchaos.net/f....php?tid=9

A large-scale RP is pretty complex, but can be made simpler if you have a grand scheme of things set out for players. Basically a large-scale RP is complex but not as complex as an RPG or a DnD campaign. In Polyedit2000's School of Thot RP (still waiting on the reboot, bro), we have a noticeable setting complete with its own set of rules, a penalty system, a set of classes with their own creative ways to involve kink in the school environment, and yet the objective is simply getting five As. It would've featured clubs, which is a feature I'm pretty disappointed that Poly didn't follow through with: https://bastianfanworks.dreamchaos.net/f...php?tid=63

Lastly, a full-scale campaign is an RPG or a DnD campaign complete with all the complexities of either of those entities! Polyedit2000's Village of Vile Liege deals are a perfect example of this, as the idea was meant to be a sort of Fantasy RPG setting with five isles/continents (Ventasia, Savag, Gyp, Synthon, and I'm pretty sure he called the Dark Lord's island "Elysium"), a wide array of monsters, a general video game feel (Iirc, Ventasia was like Levels 1-25 and Savag was around Levels 28-50), a cast of characters that liven up the setting, and much more. I sucked at being a player in that campaign, admittedly.

These are just general rules of thumb for scales and are to be taken with a pinch of salt. Now allow me to provide some advice for how to make it easier to work out an RP of a certain scale.

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Advice

1. Start out simple. Sometimes, you need a little buildup before you can really let your creative juices flow.
   
2. Create an outline for what you wanna put out. Simpler RPs just need a basic idea, but larger ones need a clear idea for how you want things to go, and an outline can really help you out there.
   
3. Sometimes basing an RP session on an existing entity you're familiar with (let's say, My Hero Academia for instance) will make larger-scale RPs easier to set up and play out.
   
4. When it comes to determining the capability of a feat, generally roleplaying guides (like the ones made for DnD) are a go-to reference for what a player must use, like a certain stat for instance, and hit a certain number for success. Custom content is best considered through personal interpretation on what it takes to perform a feat. Statistics used in a VS-debating environment are generally ill-advised and are only to be used if (A) you know a feat is performed by a pre-existing character, or (B) as a general rule of thumb for settings in an existing world (like My Hero Academia or Pokemon)
   
5. Generally it is easiest for you to get an RP session of any scale through if you have a spark of inspiration around a certain idea.
   
6. Don't be a dick like this dude: https://youtu.be/ukYf-qzGoaI?t=686 That was a joke I wanted to say.
   
7. Most importantly, take your time when planning something out.
   

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Now how should players handle scale? Well, the most important thing for a player to do is to take things slowly. You can write a paragraph like some guys expect you to do it, but ease the GM in with your decision. Don't do too many things at once.

The next important thing is to try not to go off the rails too much. Remember that a GM likely planned out an RP session if the idea appears to be of a larger scale. You can go on an off-beat path, but remember to keep the goal set out by the GM in mind.

Lastly, when need be, ask questions about something you're unsure of. As long as your questions aren't targeted toward something obvious (I mean you're not a braindead idiot like Aqua), a GM will be more than happy to answer it.

I didn't have too much to say for players; this was mainly made as advice toward GMs. Once again, feel free to put down anything I've missed.

[Polyedit2000]

The other part about understanding scale is how to limit it.  Flashlight pointed out my "Vile Liege" RP, which I believe is a mid-scale RP as it should cover the titular village and the region it is in.  And while I did have lore about the world that region is in, it is not the reason the RP is world-scale.  It is simply because I failed to limit the scale of the RP; that I ultimately allowed the one player to leave the region I set and so I had to create new resources and systems, drawing away attention from the people that actually stayed in the village.  And looking back on it, I could have simply ended that player's participation on a good note just because they technically left said region.

Anyway, limiting the scale of an RP isn't as simple as setting boundaries, it's the idea that you know what you want in the RP.  This is best illustrated if you think of a School RP.  You will think about classes, which leads to thinking about the teachers and students in them, and possibly how the schedule works.  In Harry Potter, I can think of 6-7 core classes as well as 6-7 electives in Third Year, and that's not counting for the teachers of each class, the students of all seven years, or which houses pair with each other in certain classes.  That sounds like a lot of prep work.

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Thankfully, you don't need a whole "school" to do a School RP.  This is what I mean:

-You don't have to include "necessary" ideas.  For example, Mashle has a similar Harry Potter setting but is more focused on social aspects and battles, zero classes (unless it's to earn a token).

-You can focus on ideas you want.  In My Hero Academia, there is more focus on the two heroic classrooms with guest speakers and trips, nearly no focus on normal classes.  In Shokugeki, being a cooking anime, it's easy to show the classes with cooking in it.

-You can reuse the cast for multiple ideas.  In My Hero Academia once more, the homeroom teacher is critically injured yet he still comes in to teach despite qualifying for a substitute and commentates during the sports festival during his "recovery".  In Assassination Classroom, the teacher teaches multiple subjects from science to home economics, only excluding PE (because he's too fast) and Language (when an assassin is placed there).  It helps that both shows contain the same students due to exclusivity.

-If you do make a pool of classes, do other than just a sums game.  In Owl House, the single-magic system means that classes are sorted into tracks where Summoning won't learn Botany and vice versa.  In Shadows Over Loathing, a combination of funds and locks means you only choose 3 out of 9 classes to graduate, sorted as Major, Minor and Elective. 

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This doesn't just apply to the number of classes in a school RP.  In Monster Hunter, you have 12 weapons and dozens of monsters.  In the Stories RPG, 6 of those weapons are available.  In the movie, 2 monsters and 2 weapons are known.  In a Monster Hunter RP, it is possible to create a whole game with monster after monster, but if your goal is to fight only one monster, just go after the one monster.

[Flashlight237]

Section 14 - Balancing

Perhaps the one thing that I tend to forget is important and something Polyedit2000 should've started off with is the idea of balance. What does this mean? Well, it's a complicated matter. The simplest way to put it is "what would be fair to both the players and the GM?" In actuality, it's a bigger umbrella than that.

How Does Balance Work in a Fetish RP?

Everyone has their tastes. Our RPs typically revolve around bondage among other things. While some entities, like the Treadroll Sack, does have an accessory capable of power nullification (which helps if you need a way to logically explain why the eff someone can get bound), the general assumption for fetish RPs is A. the characters played are on a more human level (even if you were to play as, say, Android 18) or B. the restraints are strong enough to hold Bugs Bunny of all things.

The are always caveats to this, which are largely decided by the GM. For example, escape checks either through skill or through force, can be allowed. Also, binds can be treated as status effects and can be removed through items such as scissors or peanut butter. It depends on what the GM goes for.

Balancing Power

Ideally it's best to assume that player characters have more or less human capabilities depending on the allowed statistics in an RP as a sort of starting point. Depending on the setting, an RP may allow each and every character to have a certain amount of abilities or a certain power level. In My Hero Academia for example, 80% of all people have physiological superpowers called Quirks. Those who have Quirks normally just have the one ability they got; it's mainly up to the quirk-user to come up with creative uses for said quirk. In that setting, someone with multiple superpowers is rather overpowered, as there are only two users with multiple quirks: Deku (the current holder of One for All) and All for One (I mean, duh!).

Some RPs allow you to get stronger as things progress. For example, in Polyedit2000's Vile Liege deals, character strength is directly tied to level along with their skillsets. Polyedit2000's Gooey Gamble 2 RP, which was based on one mode of Hearthstone (I forget which), had players gain skills and treasures as they progress through the arena. Other RPs have this mechanic where you gain benefits and drawbacks at the same time, like Polyedit2000's Anonymated Rubbery Processing Grounds for example.: https://bastianfanworks.dreamchaos.net/f...php?tid=29

Some items offered will provide an interesting boost in exchange for a drawback. For instance, there was a straitjacket that binds you within it, but gives you a sort of third eye that allows you to find a hidden, randomized door.

Now, bondage is an important aspect in a bondage RP, when a GM expects you to smack some peeps down, don't turn your character into paper for the sake of having them get tied up. Chances are the GM will look at you wondering that the eff you are doing. Player characters are typically capable of killing a slime or pushing a sofa around anyway.

Understanding the Challenge

Another important aspect of balance is understanding the challenge before you. Typically a more difficult challenge means higher rewards. I will go into how to handle a challenge here.

For GMs, while some GMs prefer to roll against players, it is usually easier to have a set number to roll at or above for the player to roll against, especially for things like handling inanimate entities. A braindead idiot like Lindsay would not be able to understand hieroglyphs, but someone more intelligent like Courtney can easily read them. On the same vein, the more difficult a foe is, the more complex the foe would be in battle.

For players, it's best to think about what to do against a foe or understand the instructions given by the GM. The most successful way to complete a challenge is showing the GM your understanding of the challenge. Visualize the challenge if you were there, as players outside the challenge would very likely have a different solution to the problem. For example, during one class in Polyedit2000's School of Thot, I figured the best way to handle the challenge provided is to use my understanding of spiders and how defensive they can get to get the desired result (an A).: https://bastianfanworks.dreamchaos.net/f...708#pid708

Note that challenges will differ among individuals. In the same RP, the challenge in Geometry class was to prove that having a bigger volume would not always enclose something with a smaller volume. I would've handled the challenge myself by just sticking a yardstick in the clear box, as assuming the box is solid and inelastic (geometry always assumes that), the box would be completely incapable of encasing the yardstick. That and I'd Khaby Lame the yardstick sticking out of the box (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35zBb4XV2NI ). As I wasn't there, this would mean that isn't the challenge I should respond to in a way that shows my understanding.

It is important to note that the challenges provided above are intelligence based. For a power-based challenge... Let's say you are faced against a boulder blocking the way. If your instinct is to push the boulder, obviously, your strength will be pitted against the boulder's weight. Whereas if you're pitted against a golem and it decides to slam into you and you decide to block, your defenses will be pitted against the golem's attack.

It's best that you apply the tools you have at your disposal to the challenges provided, whether it be strength intelligence, charisma, or something else.

Balancing Reward Value

This is mainly targeted towards GMs as players don't have influence on the reward value. When handing out rewards, it's best to have a good system in place for progression, or base the reward on the challenge you provided. For example, 100 Poke and a regular Potion would not be sufficient rewards for defeating a member of the Elite Four. On the other hand, an Elixir for defeating a youngster with a Pidgey in Route 3 would be downright broken. Currency rewards can be easy to hand out based on your shop plans, but item rewards are best balanced based on how useful they'd be to your game.

In an RPG, defeating a slime shouldn't provide too much. Typically it'd be a little gold, rarely a potion. If you were to go toe-to-toe with Courtney from Total Drama, I would imagine a good reward for beating her would be a few hundre or a thousand gold and a Hi-Potion. It largely depends on what you put out.

Though it isn't always like that. The rewards in Gooey Gamble 2 always got randomized: a pattern I've personally noticed in games where you have to defend yourself against a horde of mobs in a single map. Those types of games like to hand out three random rewards, like for instance... "Increase Damage by 10%; Increase Crit Chance by 2%; Add a Drone to Your Party". These rewards don't need as much scrutiny as rewards based on clearly-defined challenges, but they should be fair enough to keep the challenge fair.

Outside-the-Box Thinking

A lot of the times, some out-of-the-box thinking can be done by players. The way I put it, as long as it isn't godmodding, outside-the-box thinking should be encouraged as long as it doesn't derail the RP.  It would take a bit of thinking on the GM's end trying to figure out how to handle the outside-the-box thinking, but as long as there's a clear path forward, I wouldn't worry too much about that. Sometimes people will try to cut the Gordian Knot.

It is a little hard to describe this topic further, so I won't hang on to it. There are a lot of things I've missed, so feel free to fill those in.

[Flashlight237]

Section 15 - Continuing an RP

This was something that I've discussed with pals from an RP group I partake in in one Discord server (PascalSage has decent experience with campaigns and how to discuss things with an RP group, so that helped inspire me to write this). We've discussed how to handle RPs and the idea of having them be one-shots or a long campaign. This brought up something that I had concerns with in the RP threads of this forum: continuation.

Taking a Break

Every now and then, the GM will take a break. Perhaps it is to rest or to map out where to carry an RP next. Breaks are encouraged, however, breaks shouldn't be so long as to cause detrimental outcomes, whether it be indefinite cliffhangers, abrupt endings (like what happened with the Anonymated Rubbery Rooms or School of Thot RPs), or dissent from players. A break is simply a means to recoup and think over things, but too long of one will cause players to lose interest. RPs typically have a set goal in mind. I'll discuss how one-shot and long-term RPs can be continued.

One-Shot RP Continuation

One-Shots are simple: they are one-and-done stories with a set goal. When a break or hiatus is taken from a one-shot, continuing the RP is primarily based on if the goal was met or not. If the goal had not been met yet, it is ill-advised to abruptly end the RP, as players are trying to meet the goal set by the GM. Ideally, the best way to pick up an RP like this is to see how players are doing in the RP. The further along they are in an RP, the more disappoint they'll be for not meeting the goal set by the GM. Some elements can be added to freshen the RP up, and some may feel new entirely. As long as they fit in the environment, I'd say you're golden.

Alternatively, setting an outline or roadmap on where to go next is a good idea as well. As stated before, sometimes the GM would need to think things over, and an additional outline or roadmap my help. This approach works because players have done some unexpected things at times, so an amended roadmap helps in that regard.

Long-Term RP Continuation

To memory, there was only one long-term RP on this site: the Maids to Monsters duology (although Poly might not've liked how that went down). Which is admittedly ironic since the first one worked like a boss rush deal while the other was used by Poly to explore the dreamscape at the time. Honestly kinda hate myself for messing that up.

With that side tangent out of the way, the same principles above should apply to long-term RPs as they do one-shots. Main difference is what I would recommend is partitioning long-term deals into chapters given the scale they usually work from. Doing so allows for breaks to be taken from the RP itself in order to try other things in the realm of roleplaying. It's no pressure as long as players are given a signal ahead of time. That way, players can pick up on the RP whenever you feel like.

When going back into a long-term RP, it is best to summarize where the session last went off before heading back into the RP. That way, players can pick up where they left off in the RP.

So yeah, there's that segment. Normally I'd ask if there's anything I've missed, but I think I got everything needed this time.