The chance of a New form of Roleplaying!

Greetings, Citizens!

This is your humble Admin and dedicated friend, Ghostmaker, bringing you an announcement that will rock the foundations of your Roleplaying paradigm! With the opening and continued success of our own roleplaying-site comes new opportunities that were not possible while we resided on ASN. I am speaking of expanding our horizon when it comes to roleplaying!

The proposition is to open another RP-board which will be dedicated to something called a Grand RP. A grand RP works a bit differently from other Roleplays. The whole board is the RP and each thread is a location within the RP. After having created a character (using a much more developed character-sheet than other RPs) you choose a starting-location and if you for any reason want to go somewhere else, your character jumps onto his/her horse and you start writing in the thread you wish to have traveled to. Easy, right?

A Grand RP has a lot longer life-span than the standard RP, something which means it will need your dedication. If you vote for this innovation, it means that you are willing to at least try to hold this project alive. But have no fear! To ensure that the Grand RP never becomes boring there will be held Events on a regular basis which will expand the world and work as a gathering point for the characters. There will be a handful of Minor Events at any time that will be both player-made and issued by the Admins, such as exploring ruins or hunting a bounty. In addition there will be a Major Event every few months that will be the storyline so-to-speak of the Grand RP. Major Events will expand the world with more details options and areas. An example of a Major Event could be two nations going to war and the players choosing to engage in the Event having to choose which side to support.

Please note that this offer will be in addition to the normal RP-boards and if you are unsure if this is something for you, vote yes to try it at least. I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have^^

What would be an example plot-line for this type of RP? I can't think of many that would fit the format (Although I am keen on the idea of a new type of RP)

In essence, this kind of Grand RP contains three layers of plotlines. There is your Character’s own plotline, the plotline of the individual Events and the overarching World Wide plotline.

The most apparent is your own Character’s plotline which develops as you play the RP. Those of you who have been part of an RP that has lasted for a year or more will know what I am talking about. The deeds and actions of your character carries him father than you could have imagined when you first made him/her and has an effect upon him. In shorter RPs, this isn’t as relevant since you often do not have time for character-growth, but here you do. A Char that starts out as a cutpurse can work his way up the food-chain to become a feared leader of the Underworld, only to lose everything and being forced to flee the city. These things change your character, his personality, how he interacts with others and who he is deep down.
You may also want to start your character off with a bit of a plotline co-relating to his background. Is he looking for revenge? Is he looking for help? Is there a goal he wants to achieve? These starter-plots can be side-lined when you engage in the main RP, but can be a nice beachhead into a new and strange world.

I said in the opening post that there will be both Minor and Major Events as the Grand RP progresses and each of these Events will have their own plotline. These plotlines will wary greatly in composition and level of detail as the Events wary themselves. A Minor Event could have as simple a plotline as “Go into a cave and look for treasure” or “There is a bounty on John Doe, so go kill him”. These plotlines can be created by the actions of players or by the Admins. For instance, a player could have his character put a bounty on another player’s character and thereby initiate a Minor Event.
Major Events will have far deeper plotlines as is warranted by their greater scope. Major Events are the big happenings in the world that even the most remote farmer will hear about and maybe also be affected by. War, catastrophes, great discoveries, crusades, invasions, disease, famine and the ilk. Each will have a main theme and a powerful plotline. An example could be an expedition into the deepest desert in search of the resting place of the ancient Pharaohs and their treasure. Will the nomads look kindly upon those who wish to defile their holy places and the corpses of their ancestors? Will the corpses themselves?! And what ancient guardians and devious traps await the would-be Indiana Jones who would delves into the towering pyramids and wind-blown necropolises?
The outcome of both Major and Minor Events are dependent solely on the players participating.

Last but not least is the World Wide plotline. This is basically the results and plots of all the Major (and a few of the Minor) Events stitched together, the extrapolation from that and Frog DNA to fill any holes in the seam. You could also look at it the other way around and say that Major Events are the bends, curves, twists and highlights of the overarching storyline.
To use the previous example again: If the expedition Event is a success and much treasure is scavenged from the desert tombs, then perhaps the next Event entails the long-dead armies of the Pharaohs waking again and marching to war against those who stole their wealth. If the Event fails and barely any treasure is gained before the expedition is forced back by the natives, then the next Event could be that the desert nomads are raiding the border towns, emboldened by their success against the expedition force.
Only the very first Major Event will be what you think of as a plotline, after that first one it moves as the players dictate their actions both directly and indirectly.

Alrighty, that does sound interesting. The only foreseeable problem I can see is the scope and ambition of it. However, you can count me in as a supporter if this idea ever gets off the ground.

Ok, citizens! Last chance to vote!

I'll be making the Grand-RP board and begin a preliminary phase where anyone can make sugestions and ask questions to both the setting and mechanics to the RP in a few days time (unless there's a sudden avalanche of "no"-votes).
If you still haven't voted, please do so we can gauge the interest! Thank you^^

This sounds really awesome. I would love to be in this.

Glad to know you're excited^^

The launch of the Grand RP will be delayed till next week due to some delays in the Background-work and an Anime convention (ALcon) I'm going to from Thursday to Monday. The GRP should be up before friday next week^^' I promise...

It seems that it's all done.

Indeed, my Eagle-eyed friend^^ Now the Grand RP is up and ready for your input! Tell me what you think about the setting and rules I have made and perhaps make sugestions on things you want to see there!

Be negative, be positive, be sceptical! Just please be active!

Launch is here! The Grand RP is up and running! Now it just needs characters to inhabit it! Please people, let's see some character sheets over the weekend!

Sadly, there was little development in this new form. We may just be too small a community to host something like that for now, so let's try to bring in more traffic so we can have a more diverse community that's willing to do something like this.