Giving this some serious thought....

[capri0mni]

[Poll #430550]

Comments

[trinalin.livejournal.com]

It's funny, I used to love roleplaying. But it doesn't appeal to me anymore. Still, I won't ever begrudge anyone of having the fun I once had doing RPG, so I hope you're able to get this underway and have a real blast with it.

hmmm...

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Actually, the hoedowns have always been round-robins (the last 4 times we had them, at any rate); the first two were held on RADW, and the second two on ADWC. The second was nominated for and Adric, and the third won one... the fourth was a disaster.

I'd go back to doing it as a round robin, but the ng's just don't feel all that welcoming anymore. I'd hate to see my characters die out, so I'm considering this option, instead. I've never done an rpg before, and don't really know what it entails, but figured this would be worth a shot.

Need a quorum, though...

Re: hmmm...

[trinalin.livejournal.com]

Heh, while I remember RPGs fondly, Round Robins leave a foul taste in my mouth. The one seemingly successful one that I was on never finished. (It was written by IRCers, which might be why it never finished.) The one that I was on which actually finished (on adwc), had an author in it who pretty much f*cked up what everyone else had set up previously. Sounds like you've had a bit more luck with yours than I have. :-)

Re: hmmm...

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

The one that I was on which actually finished (on adwc), had an author in it who pretty much f*cked up what everyone else had set up previously.

That's what happened with our fourth one (on adwc)... there was one player who tried to see everything in it as a contest, and a fight to see whose plot ideas would rise to the top (I'm wondering if it was the same person ;-)), rather than a simple, cooperative playing "let's pass this ball around, and see what happens."

That, mixed with my own growing ego over the whole thing is what made it disastrous. At least I've learned and can prevent the latter, to some extent.

Re: hmmm...

[pedanther]

The one that I was on which actually finished (on adwc), had an author in it who pretty much f*cked up what everyone else had set up previously.

That tends to happen with round robins, in my experience - although, to be fair, with the chapter-a-week scheduled ones it's just as often because of human error or lack of time as because of malice.

(I have had salutary experience in this respect: I once, in a round robin, included a throw-away joke that I thought was self-explanatory, only for a subsequent author to tie the storyline in knots trying to find an explanation for it.)

If you look at adwc's annual awards, the category for Best Round Robin Chapter invariably consists almost entirely of first chapters, because people get to take their time over them, and because bad first chapters never get selected to start round robins.

That's what happened with our fourth one (on adwc)... there was one player who tried to see everything in it as a contest, and a fight to see whose plot ideas would rise to the top (I'm wondering if it was the same person ;-)),

I rather suspect not; as I say, there's no shortage of people who can mess up round robins.

(Um. Do you mind dropping me a hint by email about who this person was? Only, being the socially unobservant type, I didn't notice anything at the time, and I am now by my uninformed speculations wronging at least n-1 people.)

All four pro-fun round-robins have been redacted, and put on the web.

Well, they have now. Only finished the last one yesterday.