Apr 8
On Playing Female Characters
The subject of writing female characters has been broached many, many times in the past by writers who are much more eloquent than me. For this reason, this essay will cover my personal thoughts on playing female characters, but with an emphasis on some special considerations tailored to Imythess in particular. It's not news that most characters on Imythess, according to my [url]informal census[/url], are female. Despite this, I know many members of the community that either seem uncomfortable playing females or have never actually tried one before. I want to stress that a character's gender should really be a simple, almost arbitrary decision based on personal taste, and you shouldn't force yourself to play a character you either don't want to play or may not feel comfortable playing. For those who simply have no idea how to go about it but are still interested, this is a rant/guide/essay for you.
Warning: this essay contains feminism in order to rationalize my advice. I understand that feminism is a very touchy subject with some people, especially feminism spouted by a male. My own brand of feminism may be too mild or too extreme depending on your personal views. All I ask is that you read the entire essay through before you start going off on a tirade.
The issue of gender
One opinion that I often stress is that there really should be no difference between the genders. If you feel that playing a female character is going to be a massive undertaking that will require you to completely change the way you think in order to play her, you will need to alter your perception of what gender actually is -- and how genders actually interact these days. No, I don't care about historical accuracy.
This leads me to my first tip: she is a human being. Yes, I know that's not literally true in the case of elves and other fantasy creatures, but you should know exactly what I mean. A human being is balanced; they have their strengths and their virtues, but also their flaws, regardless of what gender they are and completely independent of that fact.
Women in fiction, especially fantasy, have a long history of being subjugated, humiliated, sexualized, and passed off as helpless -- if they're even present in the story, something often rare especially in high fantasy literature. However, more recently you also get instances occurring on the opposite side of the spectrum. Media may have only one strong female character prominently present, strong female characters being hyper-idealized, poor attempts at making "strong female characters" that actually subvert this concept, or strong female characters being overemphasized as extraordinary as a result of that fact. I see this kind of treatment of women more often on Imythess than the subjugation angle, and I'll talk about this more later in this essay when I talk about potential pitfalls.
Here's the problem: neither of these extremes work when you simply look at a female as a human being. Women are not inferior, but treating a solid female character like it's something unusual just continues to validate the assumption that the average woman is inferior. Just like any other person, a female has, like I said, both strengths and weaknesses. They are present and fully integrated in the society of Imythess just as much as any male. You have complete freedom to give your female character any personality type you so choose. This leads me to my next point.
"Strong" vs. "solid" female characters
I assume that by reading this essay you're looking for tips on how to make a good female character. You want to make one that's really solid, and that becomes easily possible now that you've abandoned any perceived baggage that comes with playing a female -- it shouldn't be treated as playing something completely different. I like to make a distinction between a solid female character and a "strong female character" because I think the latter term is a little misleading about what exactly makes a female character good.
Remember how I said women are human beings? A person's personality develops mainly from what kind of environment they're exposed to and what they experience in their life. This leads to limitless potential for variation in a female character's personality (as you would expect for anyone else). The term "strong female character" tends to imply a certain type of personality that's a bit constraining and often poorly applied. When someone uses that term, I think of a total hardass, your typical "girl with a sword and a bad attitude" that you've seen applied in all kinds of media. I won't go into my issues with how often this archetype is misplayed and how I think it's frequently a sign of people trying too hard. My point here is that you don't have to play that kind of character in order to have a good, solid personality. (That, of course, doesn't mean you can't play a hardass with a bad attitude; it just has to develop naturally from their circumstances, and it's also a matter of personal taste.)
A solid female character is, by my logic, simply a solid character. It seems a little silly spelled out, but a lot of people simply don't realize this. Two traits define a solid female character: her gender is incidental to her character, and her personality follows naturally from her past environment and experiences. It's that simple. Following these guidelines, you can create a female character on Imythess who's bold and tough, or withdrawn and submissive, or clever or strong or an alcoholic or an idiot or a genius. Keep in mind that Imythess in-character more or less has a "passively equal" society -- i.e. a woman is allowed to do pretty much anything a man can, and are very present in day-to-day life. Cultures like this should not cause a female character to pick up baggage often seen in other fantasy settings, leading to natural development.
Potential pitfalls
It's sometimes easy to slip into certain tropes that weaken your female character and are not at all... flattering, for lack of a better term. I've already touched on some of these barely in the rest of this essay, but I'll go over them in a little more detail here and discuss some ways to avoid them.
- The not-so-strong strong female. A lot of people try to make this sort of "strong female character" archetype and, by applying it poorly, create an insulting character. To avoid this, make sure your character's personality reasonably follows from their experiences; they should be balanced with strengths and flaws and every detail should make sense. Some common ways I've seen this go down, even on Imy:
- Angst, "womanly vulnerability," and romantic derailment. She may be hard as nails, but when faced with any real danger -- or romance! -- she'll break down and completely lose her established personality. May need to get rescued a lot. Make sure to keep your female character's personality consistent no matter what happens. Yes, even romantic things.
- Senseless sexualization. I see this on Imy sometimes but it isn't as much of a problem here as it is in other media. It's totally okay for your lady to be a bit loose and prone to flaunting herself, but it has to make sense. Does she do it to control people? Why? You'd better have a good reason.
- The ultimate strong female omg!!11. Have you ever heard of an Anti-Sue, a character who's intended as the extreme opposite of a typical "mary sue" character, yet becomes a mary sue by very virtue of their efforts (look it up if you need more info). This kind of thing is also possible for "strong female characters." Lots of people try to make a female character that's so tough, so violent, so sweary and booze-y that surely it must be the antithesis of all those terrible portrayals of women in fiction! Unfortunately, going to the opposite extreme like this doesn't really accomplish anything. Your character still lacks balance and becomes cliche.
- The damsel-in-distress. A female character that relies on the protection and validation of her love interest(s), gets captured a lot, is angsty and overly emotional, is completely useless in most of all respects, and those sorts of traits. You should already know that this type of archetype makes no sense in the setting, makes no sense period, isn't fun to play, and is pretty terrible, but I figured I'd still mention it.
- The special snowflake. Your character is female and she's got a solid personality. She may even be pretty powerful. Try not to treat them like they're somehow special simply because they're a woman who can actually do stuff; it's insulting. Their fame and merit should come entirely from what they've done, not their gender. Likewise, try to incorporate a normal amount of female NPCs into your character's daily life; you're not the only lady in this fictional world, you know.
- Unrealistic responses to events. You may get so obsessed with keeping your female character fair that you might forget to realize that everyone is flawed. Not everyone is a hero; people get terrified, they have moments of weakness, and people in general can have some pretty terrible reactions to terrible things. It doesn't make you a bad person if your female character actually has one of these negative responses, or gets in a bad position, or what have you. In fact, it may be more realistic (and thus fair) if she doesn't just act super tough. Just do what makes sense, is what I keep saying.
Other applications
I spent a lot of time detailing what basically amounts to a few general tips, but at least you can potentially apply them to a lot of other situations. Not only can you use them to better handle playing female characters, but also non-white characters, LGBT characters, and similarly unrepresented groups. Basically, you need to be fair, realistic, and avoid stereotypes and cliches. It's just like making any other character: all you have to do is craft them into a believable human being and play them consistently how a real human being would act. Like I said before, playing a female character should just be a matter of personal taste. I like playing female characters for whatever reason, so I do. It's very simple.
Jan 24
PvP Guide PART ONE: Unstructured PvP
Now that, as of the writing of this tutorial, the 2011-2012 Winter Tournament has just concluded and my involvement with structured PvP (Player vs. Player) combat has come to an end, I thought it would be useful to have some guides for people to consult in the future.
There are three main types of PvP on a play-by-post RP forum such as Imythess. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses, some moreso than others.This month, I'm going to focus on IC Victory PvP.
- 1. IC Victory - The winner of the combat is determined by who wins in-character. This is the most common form of PvP because it doesn't need any outside moderation or judging, but it's also possible to have a more structured PvP, such as a tournament, using these rules. On a level playing field, it tends to emphasize a player's ingenuity.
- 2. Entertainment Judging - The winner of the combat is determined by which competitor's posts were the most compelling and interesting to read. The goal is to entertain the crowd, not win the fight. Tends to emphasize RP ability over writing ability.
- 3. Skill Judging - The winner of the combat is determined by which competitor's posts were the most well-written and contained the most "skill." This is the only PvP type with a focus on writing ability over RP ability, so it's more often used as a type of writing contest.
With this type, I'm only going to talk about unstructured combat
The problem with this type of player-versus-player combat is that it completely and utterly depends on items. I strongly discourage anyone from creating or joining a structured PvP such as a tournament that has IC Victory rules. Instead of having fun and RPing well, those sorts of combats become more about finnicky inventory matching, people power-building their characters, and other things I find cheap. This is why this guide will focus only on unstructured PvP: basically, any sort of PvP fight you might get into in a normal topic. Your average topic doesn't have a judge or anything, so it all comes down to who wins.
For the remainder of the guide I'm also going to make a couple basic assumptions about the fight you're getting into unless otherwise stated:Now that these assumptions make the playing field completely level, IC Victory PvP becomes extremely interesting and rewarding, almost like a chess match.
- It's a relatively fair fight -- the level of power between you and your opponent is pretty much equal, or there at least isn't a massive gap. In this style of PvP, you're screwed if your character is significantly less powerful than your opponent.
- Both of you play by the rules and will realistically let your character get injured if they're in a position to be. If both or even one of you are power-dodging every attack, this type of PvP is completely pointless and you're better off not continuing.
First of all, know your character
You need to be familiar with your character's entire repertoire. Keep a good record of items in your inventory, including full item descriptions, so you can consult them easily. You'll want to use everything at your character's disposal to get the upper hand, and that means knowing their abilities well. It's also advantageous to know your character's fighting style well so you know the full extent of what they can do.
In the fight your goal will be to play up your character's advantages and put them in situations where they can use all of their skills to devastating effect, at the same time avoiding their weaknesses. This even makes sense in-character because a person tends to be aware of what they're good at and what they're weak to.
If you want a character that you can specifically use to fight other players frequently -- or one that will want to attack other players instead of tag along on their adventures -- I regretfully recommend that you strengthen their inventories significantly (at least if you want to win). If you want more of my opinions on maximizing your character's power and tips on how to do it without making them boring invincible people, read my earlier blog post [url=imythess.com/blog/entry/459130/1520/]here[/url].
Opening the fight: surprise and superior terrain
If your character doesn't object to dirty fighting, you should use everything available to you, including the element of surprise. Obviously levels in the Stealth skill and getting the Rapid Assault feat are going to help you here, but simply getting the drop on your opponent and taking the initiative can help a lot. If you can, try not to let the other person make the first attack. The person on the offensive tends to have more flexibility and battlefield control than the one who's just reacting to everything.
Also keep aware of the terrain of the battlefield. Make sure you constantly know your character's position relative to landmarks, hazards, loose objects, and similar obstructions, since they can be used to your benefit. Try to move your character toward any kind of superior terrain or (if they don't object to dirty fighting) use obstructions against your opponent.
Your character's distance from their opponent is also extremely important, as it determines what abilities you can use on them. This leads me to my next point.
Be vigilant about vague wording -- and use it to your advantage
This is probably the only time when raw writing quality can contribute to a win in this type of PvP. In typing your posts, make sure you're decently specific about distances and areas you're targeting with your attacks. Wording your attacks vaguely can give your opponent the opportunity to (completely legally) interpret your post in a way that benefits them. Don't swing to the other extreme; don't write so specifically that the writing becomes mechanical and boring. Everything in moderation, you know?
But this can also give you an advantage. If your opponent phrases an attack vaguely, you can interpret the vagueness in a way that limits the devastation of the attack or even lets you benefit from it.
For example, the most common exploitable vagueness I've seen is body distance. Often someone will talk about stepping back, but not specify how far they went. This can work to a melee character's advantage by allowing them to interpret the distance as a very short one, allowing them to close that distance quickly -- and it's both legal and realistic for them to do so. Another common action is a fighter launching "a flurry of attacks" unspecifically against an opponent, letting you take those hits in non-vital areas because of its vagueness. Don't give your opponent the opportunity to do this!
More on battlefield control
When you have control of the battlefield it vastly increases the different types of actions you can take while at the same time limiting what your opponent can do. The easiest way to gain battlefield control is to have any sort of effective large-area spells or other abilities. The Storm Kindler PrC is a good example of a prestige class based entirely around control of the battlefield. Fighters can also gain battlefield control by keeping hold of superior terrain and forcing their opponent to stay within range of their attacks. They can back people into corners, relentlessly pursue them, or cripple their opponent so they can't move.
With control of the battlefield, winning an IC Victory PvP fight is much easier.
Attack attack attack
Any other tips I might have would really depend on the character you're using, so I suppose my final word of advice is to keep practicing your PvP skills. With good opponents you'll learn all sorts of new moves, "chessmaster-like" gambits that pin your enemies, et cetera. Imythess isn't a hugely PvP-oriented board, but the community of members interested in this sort of unstructured combat seems to be growing, so I hope this short guide helped. Let me know if you have any other tips you might want to contribute to this guide. Future edits may make it more extensive.
Dec 22
Tips for Writing Combat
Being able to write decent combat is an important skill to have on a combat-oriented board like Imythess. Back when I was a newer member, I had serious issues with writing combat; often I would choke up and take hours figuring out how to choreograph a fight and write it down in a way that makes sense. Ultimately, the only way you're going to be able to write combat better and easier is to practice. Thankfully, the board offers plenty of opportunities for that.
The following guide provides tips and tricks that may help you with your combat writing. While I designed this entry specifically to help with combat against NPCs or monsters, some tips can be applied to player-versus-player fights. However, I plan to do a comprehensive PvP guide in a later blog post.
A few things to ask yourself before you start writing the fight
Certain factors can influence how you can write combat.All of these things will play an important role in how you go about writing combat, so I recommend you get into the habit of keeping track of this information while you're RPing.
- Is this a one-on-one fight or is your character up against several enemies? Does she have allies on the battlefield?
- Are the enemies stronger or weaker than your character?
- What does the battlefield look like? Is there any interesting terrain or objects/obstacles in the environment?
- What is your character's fighting style? Are her attacks fast or slow, reckless or tactical?
Two things become very important: pacing and verb choice
As far as sentence-level concerns go, these two aspects of writing become more important than ever when you're writing about a fight. I'll start with pacing.
Pacing
I already wrote a guide to pacing last month, so I'll keep this brief. Pacing, the control of how time flows in a piece of writing, is a finnicky technique that becomes important in combat because it helps make your post clearer and easier to read. Most if not all combat posts have a pacing on the faster side because a lot of stuff is happening in a very short amount of time. That means your sentences are going to look a bit choppy, with some comma splices sprinkled in there.
In combat, you need to strike a balance between two things: making sure your writing gives the impression of a lot of things happening quickly, and clarity. The latter is the most important, so don't worry if your initial fights seem "slow" or "off" because you sacrificed pacing for clarity. As you practice more and more, you'll be able to form sentences that are both easy to read and convey a sort of panicky feel that conveys the chaos of combat effectively.
Here's what I personally recommend as far as pacing goes -- this tip applies more to group combat than one-on-one. When you're fighting a lot of things at once, it becomes infeasible to describe every single action your character makes. (Believe me, I've attempted it.) Instead, practice what I call "zooming in and out."
This is the same technique I described in my Guide to Pacing that you use to show a lot of time passing, except altered slightly. Basically, you include just enough specific instances of combat, but also alternate between specific actions and more vague descriptions of the fight. When using this technique, it gives the reader a better sense of how many people your character is fighting. I'll be sure to include an example of this type of writing in a later edit of this guide once I find a good one.
Verb Choice
Another sentence-level concern that becomes more important in a fight is word choice, specifically your choice of verbs. Verbs are the most important part of speech in the English language, and you'll want a diverse repertoire of strong verbs to use when you're writing a fight. A good way to tell if you lack this repertoire is by looking at how many adverbs you tend to use in your writing. If you use a lot, such as saying "She punched him hard" or "He shouted angrily," then that may mean you don't use enough strong verbs.
Knowing a lot of different verbs, each with different specific meanings, can help your combat writing in ways you might not realize. At the very least, they give you tools with which to write combat faster and easier, because they let you convey certain actions easily. To give an example of this, take my character Ozan for example. He wields a two-handed mace, which makes writing his fights a lot different from my other characters. I try to use as many verbs as I can that convey attacks that are devastating but a bit slow. Instead of saying that "Ozan hit Shan with his mace," I could say "Ozan whirled his mace in an arc, slamming the flanged head into Shan's temple and sending him flying across the room." This is why you should keep in mind your character's fighting style, because it can affect your word choice.
To add new verbs to your repertoire, I recommend doing a lot of reading. Reading a ton of books is the best way to learn better writing techniques in general, but it can also introduce you to words that you might not have been able to access off the top of your head. Thesauruses can also work in helping you broaden your vocabulary, but make sure you know the specific connotations or ideas behind a verb since some synonyms can convey slightly different things.
Keep track of where everything is
Before you write and as you're writing combat, make sure you know for certain where everything is in space. A few things to consider:While it may not make writing combat easier, keeping track of where everything is will at least improve the quality of your fights and won't make you come across as lazy and not bothering to check things. Sometimes, though, keeping track of the battlefield can help you choreograph large-scale battles where a lot of people are running around.
- Where is your character relative to her enemies? Your character's allies? Make sure to keep track of how far away your character is from other people, especially her enemies.
- Where is your character's equipment? What weapon is she holding? Is she wearing armor?
- When the fight starts, was your character taken by surprise or was she already in a battle-ready stance? (Stance is really important in every fighting style because if you have a bad stance you can be easily knocked down or overpowered.)
- Are there any loose objects on the battlefield? Obstacles? Environmental hazards like ice or mud? Like I said earlier, make sure to keep track of the terrain.
Other tips
Here are some other miscellaneous tips that may be expanded into larger sections in a future edit of this guide.
- It helps a lot, but isn't required, to know the nuances of your character's fighting style. At least try to learn how real combat works. With this information it becomes much easier to write about your character fighting since you know a lot of different moves they can make.
- If you're having a lot of trouble learning how to write combat, you might want to consider making a character with a very loose, agile fighting style. In my opinion, fighters with a lot of opportunities for movement are much easier to write. I say "fighter" specifically because spellcasters are often quite boring to write in a fight, as they tend to stand around uttering incantations and not much else. Archers also tend to be more difficult to write about.
- More tips later, as I have to leave to go Christmas shopping right now. >_>
Nov 16
Guide to Pacing
I won't have that many writing tutorials on this blog at all. Two reasons: the first is that, in the long run, maximizing your ability to write really isn't that important compared to just having fun on the site (in my opinion). The second is that there are already plenty of tools on the board full of tips on improving your writing, such as Polishing Your Writing Skills and The RP Help and Tips forum. Whenever I do writing tutorials I'll be sure to focus on more specific, advanced, or subtle aspects of creative writing; stuff that you probably wouldn't care about unless you really want to improve or really want to get ERP status.
In this tutorial, I'm going to focus on the concept of pacing. In a nutshell, pacing is using language to manipulate the speed at which time flows. This is a difficult skill to master, and I admit that I myself haven't completely gotten the hang of it in every post. Because of the delicacy of manipulating time flow in writing, I barely put any consideration into post pacing when I evaluate RP level applications; you won't be denied on the grounds of bad pacing.
You might wonder, then, why improving your pacing is a good idea in RP. It's a pretty valuable tool when you want to make a point of something or elicit some sort of emotional response from your reader (presumably your RP partner, in this case). If you want to show that a lot of time has passed, pacing will do that for you. If you want to make everything slow down to a crawl, making your reader feel every single torturous step of the process, you can accomplish this with some good pacing. The opposite, of course, is true; your character might be really fast in combat and cutting down everyone in a blur, and you can use language to get that across as well.
Since those are the biggest categories in pacing, I'm going to divide my tutorial into those three techniques: slowing down time, speeding up time, and covering long stretches of time in a small number of words. To demonstrate these methods I'll include selections of writing from topics I've participated in that exemplify those techniques (it's an awesome excuse to reread topics I liked).
Slowing Down and Speeding Up Time
Time seems to slow down in extremely tense or tedious situations, and you can emulate this effect using language. In this case, the period is your friend. A period is a much stronger pause than a comma, so it breaks up the action. Small sentences will give your writing the impression of lurching forward step-by-step. From there, you can more finitely tweak the flow of time by adding length and punctuation to your sentences. The slowest patterns of sentences tend to be short and have very few or no extra punctuation (like commas), and the speed increases the more extra complexity you add.
The other major thing you should consider is word choice: basically, the space that words take up. Punctuation and structure alone won't get you the speed that you need; you also need to consider how much time it will take your reader to read a certain thing. Phrasing an action in a more wordy way can slow down your pacing, as, of course, it takes longer to read something like that.
Details will also slow things down. You can assume that if something is moving slowly, your character has the chance to perceive a lot of things around him or her, so add more detail if you're going for that type of pacing. If you want things to be torturously slow without making your sentences small and choppy, go into absolutely insane detail. Talk about the water dripping from the brass spigot nearby, or the blood pounding behind your character's ears. (Obviously, you'll want to keep these scenes relatively brief, as they can get extremely boring if overdone).
Here's a good example of a slow-paced scene written by Leyanni. Her short but moderately complex sentences help convey the stillness around her character while she waits for the village to be attacked. Notice how the sentences get even shorter as the scene begins to slow down even more.
- Leyanni in "Fire's Kin"
Speeding up a scene involves pretty much the exact opposite techniques. Your most effective tool in speeding something up is the comma. Commas set apart sections of a sentence so they're easily readable, and your eyes tend to pass right over them without losing speed like they would when they hit a period. An extremely fast-paced scene usually has some comma splices: commas that set apart complete sentences. It's grammatically incorrect and will give any Engish major conniptions, but it's a great tool for creative writing. A lot of commas in rapid succession convey an extremely quick, almost panicky feel.
Like in slowing down the action, speeding up a scene also takes some changes in word choice. Pick simpler or shorter words that convey strong ideas without throwing off the speed of the sentence. You can also speed up the action by reducing the amount of details your character perceives. Limit them to the most bare-bones important things such as actions or crucial features of the surroundings that your character is directly interacting with.
Here's a great example of an extremely fast-paced scene written by Vyse. Vyse, a character whose fighting style relies on a flurry of fast attacks, takes down a company of smugglers in this short selection. The use of commas between important details keeps the reader going without a chance for them to "breathe," further conveying the heat of combat and the speed of Vyse's movements.
- Vyse in "Bloody Shores"
In general, manipulating the flow of time requires an internal sense of rhythm: an ability to notice how much space certain details take up, and a means to perceive how quickly your readers will blaze through what you've written. With these simple tips, you can manipulate the flow of time surprisingly easily.
Covering Long Spans of Time
You've probably come across a lot of instances in your writing when you have to move to a new scene or skip forward in time without describing every single thing that happened on the way. Most of the time it's fine to toss in some sort of line break to indicate the skip, such as using the "hr" tag, but you can also use your writing to accomplish the very same thing.
Writing that glosses over long spans of time tend to be on the slow side when it comes to sentence-level pacing. You need to give just enough detail to make the reader feel like a lot of time has passed, but not too much detail so that the reader feels like their time is being wasted on pointless things. You also shouldn't just gloss over it completely, or your reader is likely to not even realize that a lot of time has passed. For example, Rin in the selection below could have easily written "They rode across the desert for several hours" and then moved on. As her RP partner, I might have read that sentence so quickly that I might not even have processed that -- and even if I did, it would have felt a little cheap.
The example below written by Rin is only a few sentences, but succeeds in covering the events of about 8 or 9 hours and making it feel like that much time had passed. As she shows here, it's best to strike a healthy medium between vagueness and specifics: you want to be specific enough to slow down the action, but vague enough to show that a lot of stuff has happened in all that time.
- Rin in "Bitterness"
Obviously, you'll need different amounts of space to cover different lengths of time. My final project for one of my classes involved my main character traveling for several months, for example. In cases like that where you're not just glossing over a few hours or days, it might be helpful to alternate between "fast scenes" and "slow scenes." You might want to write sections where very specific events are happening that are crucial to the plot, and then gloss over lots of time in the next scene. This alternating format makes the writing feel like a huge amount of time has passed and makes the story more convincing.
And that's about all there is to it! Pacing is a finnicky sort of thing, so the best way to get better at it is to practice with these few rules of thumb in mind. You'll start to get an internal sense of time flow in your writing and improve as a result. I hope this guide was helpful to you!
If you've come across writing in topics on Imy that have good examples of a certain kind of pacing I talked about in this tutorial, send it to me; if I like it enough I might even make a section at the bottom here to put additional examples for people.
Oct 13
On Maximizing/Limiting Character Power
Most play-by-post roleplay forums have an emphasis on either combat or romance. Imythess, of course, is almost always about the former. The board is unabashedly item-driven: shops, prestige classes, holiday giveaways, and the five-gold-per-post earning system all focus on items, particularly items that enhance a character's ability to fight. This is not a bad thing, and the reason why it isn't a bad thing is something I'll probably elaborate upon in a later essay. For now, I want to focus on the interaction between Imythess' item-driven culture and the player characters themselves. Specifically, I want to focus in on the different strategies members use when they're tackling the growth of their characters, giving my own opinion on character power manipulation as it goes.
One of the best things about Imythess is the sheer level of variety and customization available to your character. The board has all the intricacies of a video game without being bogged down by cumbersome statistics; it balances creativity and practicality and lets you tweak to your heart's content. In the same vein, you can buy almost anything you want if you have enough gold. With all the money in the world, you could bulk up your character to something like a demigod if you wanted to. This brings me to my first point.
What people mean when they're talking about 'walking inventories'
You might have heard the term "walking inventory" used in the board or Cbox before. The definition might vary depending on the context or the person using the term, but here's what I believe is the most common meaning: a walking inventory is a character with a massive amount of items that combine in a way that makes him or her excessively powerful. The items this character has tend to have very little in-character explanation, cohesion, or theme, and exist only to make the character more powerful. This makes them more like a sentient inventory than an actual character.
As you can probably guess, the term "walking inventory" has negative connotations. Not every powerful character is a walking inventory, though. The important part of the definition is not the fact that they're powerful -- it's how they're powerful. The repertoire of a walking inventory is littered with seemingly random items that don't seem to fit with the character and usually serve to cover up their perceived weaknesses. For example, a walking inventory could have Master level in five unrelated skills, have lots of self-healing spells without any other knowledge of magecraft, or abuse the Chitinous Absorption tattoo to gain an immunity to the main elements of their enemies.
Playing the game
This sort of behavior -- the very intentional, calculated creation of a walking inventory or something like it -- is what I call "game-playing." The game-player almost completely forgoes character development in favor of making their character extremely competitive in player-versus-player fights, nearly invincible, or both. I consider game-playing a poor choice for obvious reasons; invincible characters are not fun to play. I guarantee you will get bored of this sort of character. I also look down on game-playing as a general abuse of Imythess' shop system and do not consider it classy in the slightest.
However, not all walking inventories ended up in that state on purpose, as is often the case with people "playing the game." Some are created in the wake of a massive character shifting: a powerful character being scrapped and all its stuff moved to an alt, for example.
Follies in maximizing character power: "If I can afford it, I should buy it"
If you think I'm picking on you personally in my discussion of walking inventories, I'm not; there are a lot of walking inventories on Imythess. I believe that this has happened for one reason: a flawed philosophy when it comes to perceiving the board's shop system. It's pretty simple, actually. Because Imythess' shop system is so extensive, members fall into the fallacy that if they can buy an item, they should buy it. You have lots of gold, and you can only benefit from these extra items or abilities, so why not?
Having a powerful character is not always a good thing, and I hope more people start to realize this someday. Pushing the limit on character power takes away two of the most important tools at your disposal as an RPer: character growth and conflict. Without growth, your dynamic, multi-dimensional character becomes static. At high degrees of power, your character can destroy anything in its path, making it difficult to come up with ways to have a believable conflict. Growth and conflict are what drive creative writing, so you're actually killing your own muse when you maximize your character's power.
Powerful characters can still be interesting if you limit yourself
Having a powerful character isn't necessarily a bad thing, either. A variety of abilities can open up new opportunities with storytelling and the writing process itself. For example, a character with only starting equipment can only use his longsword a few different ways in a fight against three bandits. A more powerful character could cast spells, use more advanced fighting techniques, and similar things. For this reason, I'm not recommending that everyone go sell all their stuff. Since having a weaker or more powerful character can have its own pros and cons, it only makes sense that you should choose whatever you prefer.
Having said this, I do think that characters work best when they experience a natural progression from a lower to a higher-powered state. This is -- like the rest of this essay -- my personal opinion based on experiences with a lot of failed (and a couple successful) characters. This advice may seem kind of obvious, but it's actually a pretty uncommon practice among seasoned members with a lot of gold; they bulk up their characters from the get-go. If you're one of those people who hasn't done this progression since you first joined the board, I really recommend trying it. Let your character improve their skills naturally through experience.
If you're going for this sort of thing, don't fall into the trap that results in walking inventories. Carefully think about what you're buying. Does it make sense for the character to have it? This applies especially to things that are extremely powerful. A character that has Master rank in a skill has practiced that skill intensely for their entire life: is that what your character did, or are you just buying that level because you can? I'm of the firm belief that only one or two skills should be improved to Master on a character; any more and it becomes very unrealistic. You don't have to make each of your character's skills Master-level; try to leave most of them at Expert at the highest.
In that same vein, just make sure to maintain weaknesses on your powerful character. Usually when a person becomes more proficient at something, their skills become more specialized. Someone who's very strong probably won't be just as good at dexterously avoiding attacks, so don't get them both. Limit yourself. When your character has definite weaknesses, you preserve the sense of conflict that walking inventories tend to lose. To preserve the dynamic nature of a character, I recommend you design your character and its plot well -- something I'll cover in a later essay.
But what about Ozan?
My character Ozan is extremely controversial. I have been accused many times of the sort of "game-playing" I describe in this essay: abusing the Arcane Rune system and covering my character's weaknesses. I plan to defend my decisions about him in a later essay on this blog so I don't have to keep repeating my arguments to people in the Cbox.
Next month I plan to write a tutorial on pacing in creative writing.
Sep 13
Simple Table Tutorial
Now that Imythess has been upgraded to Zetaboards, a lot of its formatting relies primarily on tables. Tables are a great way to organize lots of items in a good-looking, compact way, making them ideal for character inventories or whatnot. This tutorial will quickly go over the basics of making tables -- it's really quite simple -- and then provide some codes that are frequently used on the board.
Making a Simple Inventory Table
To start out, you'll need to figure out how many cells wide you want your table to be; that is, how many columns you want. Most tables on Imythess have three columns: one for an item's image, one for its name, and one for its description. The only big exception to this is shop tables, which have another column for entering the item's price.
Tables open with the aptly-named "table" tag. In this same tag, you'll also define how many columns the table has and what its name is. The "1" in this example is how many rows of heading cells you want, since those will be defined in the table. You'll see what I mean later.
- Code:
[table=3,Inventory,1]
From now on, every new cell will be flagged by the tag [c]. This tag doesn't have a closing tag to go with it; you simply mark a new cell by adding another [c]. Each cell will be created from left to right, skipping to the next line once it reaches the previously defined number of columns. For example, in our three-column table, a new line of cells in the table will be created when you make a fourth cell.
I find it useful to separate each line of cells with a line break in my code. This doesn't actually make the table look much different, it's just good for editing the table later so you know where you are.
On Imythess, everything inside each individual cell is centered with the "center" tag. You need to close this tag before you start a new cell, or you'll have to write a bunch of "/center" tags at the very end of the table, which can get confusing or annoying.
In most Imythess tables, the first row of cells are simply the headings for each column. Here's what our inventory will go when it comes to headings:
- Code:
[table=3,Inventory,1][c][center]Icon[/center][c][center]Name[/center][c][center]Description[/center]
Then you just go to town, inputting that information for each item in your inventory. Don't forget to close the table with a "/table" tag at the very end.
- Code:
[table=3,Inventory,1][center]Icon[/center][c][center]Name[/center][c][center]Description[/center]
[c][center][img]Image URL[/img][/center][c][center]My First Item[/center][c][center]My first item that Ozan told me to put in a table because tables are pretty.[/center]
[c][center][img]Image URL[/img][/center][c][center]Another Item[/center][c][center]Another item. Woo![/center][/table]
Here's how it looks:
Inventory Icon Name Description [img]Image URL[/img] My First Item My first item that Ozan told me to put in a table because tables are pretty. [img]Image URL[/img] Another Item Another item. Woo!
Not too hard at all.
Other Table Formats
Here are some codes for other table formats that you may need for whatever reason.
Guided Role Play Information
- Code:
[center][big][big][u]Title[/u][/big][/big]
GRP INTRODUCTION[/center]
[table=2,Criteria Outline][center][u][b]General Information[/b][/u][/center][list][*][b]Location:[/b] #
[*][b]Post Requirements:[/b] #
[*][b]Availability:[/b] #[/list][c][center][u][b]Quest Requirements[/b][/u][/center][list][*]#[/list][center][u][b]Plot Suggestions[/b][/u][/center][list][*]#[/list][/table]
[table=3,Rewards,1][center][b]Icon[/b][/center][c][center][b]Name[/b][/center][c][center][b]Description[/b][/center][c][center][img]Image URL[/img][/center][c][center]Price Name[/center][c][center]Description[/center][c][center]$$$[/center][c][center]100 Gold[/center][c][center]Who doesn't need an extra pocketful of cash?[/center][/table]
Standard Shop Table
- Code:
[table=4,Shop Name,1][center]Icon[/center]
[c][center]Name[/center]
[c][center]Description[/center]
[c][center]Pricing[/center]
[c][center]Image URL[/center]
[c][center]Item Name[/center]
[c][center]Item Description[/center]
[c][table=2][center]RPer[/center][c]#
[c][center]IRPer[/center][c]#
[c][center]ARPer[/center][c]#
[c][center]ERPer[/center][c]#
[c][center]Selling[/center][c]#
[/table]
Shop Table (Armor)
- Code:
[table=4,Name,1][center][b]Icon[/b][/center][c][center][b]Name[/b][/center][c][center][b]Description[/b][/center][c][center][b]Pricing[/b][/center][c]
[center]Image URL[/center]
[c][center]Item Name[/center]
[c][center]Item Description[/center]
[table=2][b]Weight Class:[/b] #
[c][b]Armor Pieces:[/b] #
[c][b]Material: [/b] #
[c][b]Add-Ons:[/b] #
[/table][c][table=2][center]RPer[/center][c]#
[c][center]IRPer[/center][c]#
[c][center]ARPer[/center][c]#
[c][center]ERPer[/center][c]#
[c][center]Selling[/center][c]#[/table]
Hopefully this was helpful in some way! Next post I have planned: An essay on my thoughts about maximizing character power on Imythess.
Aug 14
Making Our Lives Easier in the Shops
A very large chunk of a moderator's work on Imythess is related to the Shop Counter. Filling the shops is done constantly -- ideally as soon as the order is placed. Most orders are small and quick to fill. Others, such as long auction topics involving transactions between multiple players, can take as long as fifteen or twenty minutes when you correctly insert items into inventories and such.
In 2010, Imythess enacted a Mandatory Shop Format that aimed to make the moderators' lives easier by letting the members themselves do a portion of the work. While this surely must have cut back on the average time it takes a moderator to fill a purchase request, there are some additional things that I've noticed that can help as well.
If you're willing to take a little bit more time and go beyond the format, here are some things you can do to get your order filled much faster (and to reduce Ozan-headaches).
Disclaimer: I'm going to write the remainder of the essay in the first person to clarify that these are my personal opinions after filling hundreds of shop orders. Keep in mind that they may not reflect the opinions of other mods or admins that fill the Shop Counter regularly.
- Link directly to your alternate accounts' inventories. If people did this regularly, I would be the happiest mod alive. Allow me to explain: a very large amount of transactions on Imythess involve a player and their alternate accounts, whether they're transferring items between accounts or using the money on their alts to pay for the purchase. Now, the rules only state that you need to have an Alternate Accounts topic linked to in your profile, so I can still fill the order without a direct link.
However, going on a wild goose chase for your alts takes more time than you would think. This is especially true if you have so many alts that it takes up multiple pages of the topic, forcing me to use the Find function on my browser multiple times (hilariously, I'm beginning to memorize which characters are on which altoholics' alt pages). If you linked directly to the alts' inventories that are involved in the transaction, you could potentially cut off several minutes from the time it takes me to fill your order. And that would make me so happy.
To insert a hyperlink into your shop request, use the following code:
- Code:
[URL=paste link to your alt's inventory here]Descriptive name for link, such as the alt's name[/url]- Divide up your purchases rather than making one humongous purchase. I would personally rather you spam the shop counter with multiple topics than you making a single, impossibly huge purchase. This is especially true for player auctions, as wading through multiple players and inventories can be needlessly time-consuming and might increase the likelihood that I make a mistake.
As an additional tidbit, I've noticed that very large purchases tend to get filled much slower. Mods click the link, look at how huge it is, and suddenly lose the will to fill purchases. I'm pretty sure that's not just me who does that sometimes; I've seen especially huge orders get bumped without being filled.- Total up the gold being moved. This is part of the Mandatory Format, but I just want to reiterate it. It is especially crucial in larger purchase orders to put sub-totals after each section and then a grand total at the end. The grand total tells me how much to ultimately add or deduct, and some people forget to do this step in their larger purchases.
- Point me in the direction of the shop images that you're buying. If a mod is fulling purchases correctly, your items (with their respective images) will appear in spoiler tags in your inventory once the purchase is filled. As you can probably guess, finding those images takes time. The Mandatory Format requires you to tell us which shops your purchases come from, but there are other options as well. If you're buying something that has an image to go with it, please do one of the following things:
- Tell me which shop the item is from; point me in the direction of the image, basically. This is a little more time-consuming than the other options I'm going to describe, but I really don't mind with this one actually.
- If you don't do that first option, link me directly to the image, either as a link or as a code tag.
- Put the code in your request. If done correctly, this is the fastest option.
Some things you probably shouldn't do:
- Don't add additional purchase requests in subsequent posts of your order. For example, don't transfer something to your alt, then post a reply in the order as your alt to confirm the transfer and then buy something additional. Please just put all of your transactions in the first post of the order.
- Don't convert gold amount to post amount on a non-admin only purchase; it just wastes your time. I believe that this aspect of the mandatory format is a holdover from back when only admins could fill requests via the Admin CP. Moderators do not change your post amount when they fill orders; they have special auto-tools that add or deduct gold amounts. This makes the conversion unnecessary for you, unless you're buying a guild or house, which are both admin-only transactions.
- You don't have to confirm transactions with your own alt accounts, unless you're just providing links for me to their profiles and inventories. Which seems like the more time-consuming option for you, since you could just link directly to their inventories in the main purchase order.
- Don't tell me the description of the item. All I need is its name and image. That's it.
Thanks for reading! Hopefully with these tips, the shops will be filled even faster.
- Ozan
Next Essay/Tutorial I have planned: Table Tutorial and Common Table Codes
11:41 AM May 19
