Welcome to Gaia! ::

I could be working on a post for Mammon or Aasimar, but I am too lazy to open the notepad file needed to do that.

And I am too busy laying on my bed, on my side, typing without looking at the screen... sweatdrop

Want to know what I hate? What I really, REALLY, hate? When one or two, hell, even when its about five people who just keep posting back and forth with each other and advancing a situation along, when someone else has a character standing RIGHT THERE who'd be bound to react to something, say, as obvious as a horse's leg bursting into flame and the shogun's daughter throwing herself in the way.

I could understand if I hadn't posted in a couple of days. But I know all of this happened today, because I posted my reply to Kat this morning. Now, I know how much fun it is to be posting and get a reply right away, and on and on and on, and feel like you're really living out the story or whatever, but please, control yourselves. I want to play too. I don't like the feeling of being screwed over and kept from actually doing something in a scenario where Tiel would have acted.

I'm sure none of you meant to do that, but I feel really shitty right now. If you guys are going to do this again, just tell me, and I'll leave before my character gets too involved in the plot. There's no point in my staying in an RP I can't keep up with. There's no point in RPing if, everytime something exciting begins to happen, people say 'well, Owle's not online right now, I'm sure Tiel will just sit quietly by the furniture stall and watch the pretty horsies burst into flame.' Because, you know what? If that keeps happening, I CAN'T RP. Everything will happen without me. Always. I just plain don't have the time to sit by my computer, constantly refreshing the guild forum page to make sure that you all didn't get online at once and start RPing lots of cool action.

I know that you're all going to say 'I'm sorry, I didn't think of it, I was caught up in the moment, I didn't think you'd mind', and blah dee dah da da. Well, that's nice and all, but what I really want to know is, are you going to do this again? The next time something like this has the opportunity to happen, will you stop yourselves and say 'well, that character's standing right over there, we should give her some time to react to everything that's going on'? Or will you just keep going? If you can't stop yourselves, I'm quitting now...it isn't worth the frustration. I love you guys, and I love RPing with you, but if this keeps happening I won't be able to really RP with you anyways. Unless you count this as me RPing:

*Tiel falls over*

*action happens while everyone assumes Tiel stands still as chaos erupts in front of her*

*Tiel does her best to pretend that she really wouldn't have taken all the actions she would have taken if people had given her half the chance to, and reacts to the aftermath of the chaos*

*more action happens while everyone assumes Tiel is still busy reacting to the previous chaos*

The inherent problem with RPing on a message board: Pacing.

In a standard Table-top/Face-to-face RP session, the GM asks each player what their character is doing for that particular round.

Then the actions go through, and the next round begins.

Now on a message board things can't flow that easily because some people are accessing it constantly, and some only come through every once in a while or when they can.

Solution: Can we try and coordinate the posting so everyone who's involved in a scene can be there before the posting begins?

ninja

*Runs at full-speed and tackles Josh, clinging to his chest.* twisted

Now...shoudl I hug you or hump your leg? Oh how difficult this decision is to make... sweatdrop

That's what I just said.

So let's get together, through PM, IM, Email, whatever; and coordinate everyone so no one gets left behind.

People flock to Sey as the center point of Gaia. I never even considered that ideal after seeing how many people had already clung to her character.

Thus I started Mammon off to be alone in Al. and set up Aasimar for some nice sSolo-RP. At least until I start his tavern preformance that is...

They are drawn to the child white mage like a crackhead is drawn to crack. stare

I don't think that's a solution, at least not for me. It's difficult to coordinate schedules, and I really don't have time to sit on my computer and just post for several hours.

My solution to the problem is relatively simple. Whenever you do something that is likely to be noticed by the people around you, you stop for a minute and take stock of the characters around you. Before moving on, you give each of them a chance to react. And by a chance, I mean 24 hours at the very least. Hell, I waited that long just for Tiel falling on her chair...a relatively unnoticeable occurence when compared to things bursting into flame and horses panicking in the middle of a crowded marketplace. Honestly, it's just courtesy to the people who can't be online 24/7.