Leki

Yeah, I noticed how most RP’s (and by most I mean everything beside RotE and LotAF) seem to die pretty quickly. And from the looks of things it looks like the cause of death is an uncommitted GM (Wow, nothing new there) a needlessly complicated stat system which is unmanageable (With the exception of a dedicated GM) and of course, the typical player dropout. Strangely enough I’m actually watching to see how a FE RP on another site is going. It’s full up now, (I’m not a part of it) but it’s basically a FE game RP, (GBA map, sprites etc, + Stats and calculations). So basically a manual running of a FE game…… For some reason I get the feeling it’ll crash in the next week or two despite the huge amount of interest it got. Don’t really know what it is about RotE, but it just doesn’t appeal to me for some reason xD (No offense intended, preference thing). I might check it out the side chapter thing though if I’m notified of it. (Maybe an advertisement thread which I can see in plain sight, or even a link to a post in the OoC/Signup? If thread spamming isn’t allowed here) . Not really sure what it is about ongoing RP’s. I mean you’ve addressed the key complications with ‘information’ and ‘stats.’ But I guess it’s just overwhelming joining a group of people that already know each other, and being so far behind on ‘knowledge of events’ regardless of whether it matters or not. Stats I’m not too worried about since I don’t really mind being a flimsy grunt unit as long as stat death doesn’t equate to RP death (I know it doesn’t). But yeah, I guess I’ll keep an eye out for the so called ‘Side Chapter’ and see if it can pique any interest in me. Now’s not a good time for me to be picking up RP’s anyway considering I’ve got a huge assignment due in on Friday which…. I’ll do tomorrow! xD

Being from several RP forums (I don't consider Serenes to be an RP forum) I have to say that your sentiment towards stats is echoed quite frequently. I've taken a look at the two successful RP's 'Lord of the Azure Flame' and 'Return of the Emblem.' And to be honest, I've got no idea why they've been so successful. I guess a commited player base and a diligent GM is what's made it succeed, seeing as I'm certain it would have failed on the other forums I've seen. (The stats and all are enough to scare most hardcore forum RP'ers away IMO). Stat system seems pretty simple, but people just have an aversion to stats. xD Watching Snowy_One's thread at the moment to see if it goes anywhere, personally I prefer a more story oriented experience, but it's the only thing getting launched right now, and I'm against the idea of joining something which has already well and truly started.

I've read the rules, but I'm not sure if I've done anything inappropriate, so it'd be appreciated if you could let me know.

While it's not stats, there's a certain thing called 'real life' or 'leavers' that have the exact same effect. Though more often than not it usually kills the RP along with the character. xD Pretty much what SnowyOne said. What you're probably looking for Toogee would only work if there was no overall plot. RP'ers are scarce enough as things are, and while people have varying preferences on how strong they want their character to be, seldom do people want their characters killed. In a type of RP you requested the possibility of being killed is ever present, and the possibility detracts from the motivation to develop a character, and adapt it to the plot. So yeah, only type of plot where that would work is an RP crafted to fit that style of play. I know of one ongoing RP that's like that. Essentially characters are thrown into a labyrinth full of monsters, and the sole objective/plot is to get out. Character interactions are fleeting, and posts are pretty obsolete. It's mainly a stats/dice game with text accompanying it seeing as 98% of it is rolling dice and killing monsters.

Another problem with stats are that they're not really 'kind' on newer players. Don't know how things are around here, but on the site that I frequented people seldom joined stat RP's unless they were around from the very beginning. As you can imagine, people drop out of RP's all the time, and to keep things going new recruits are always great. Unfortunately with stat RP's the people that are around are (rightfully) stronger than the newer players, and that apparently doesn't sit well with potential applicant. Stat boosting them and allowing them to start on the same level as others on the other hand result in the older players feeling dejected since their 'hardwork' starts feeling obsolete. --- roymbrog I've seent that style of statting in a few RP's. And I have to say that the biggest problem with them is applicability. More often than not, they start feeling obsolete after awhile and people just start ignoring them. It's also extremely difficult to keep track of exp when it comes to indicator stats, so what I normally see is the GM handing out universal level-ups at certain intervals. Or fixed stats, where exp is removed completely and stats range from 1~5. With players able to have 5 STR right from the very start. Though in such cases the value of '5' gradually increases during the course of the RP. So max STR doesn't mean you'll be OHKO'ing a boss character or anything. It just means you're the strongest physically in the player base, and it'll be your fastest growing trait as the RP progresses. Chances are that you've scrapped the above RP, but I'd personally suggest adding a Luck stat. Luck: Would essentially be a useless trait that doesn't do anything normally, but it comes into play when there's a tie 3STR vs 3STR. Obviously putting points into LCK would be great universally, making it one of the most prized stats, but at the same time it'd be useless if you're other stats aren't strong enough for it to be brought into play.

Just signed up here, so be honored to take my first post! xD It really depends on the type of RP, and the type of audience you're catering to. I mean I've tried organizing an RP with the average age of players being about 13, and frankly it doesn't work unless there's some sort of system in place to prevent people from playing the hero. Could be wrong, but people who are more reserved and realistic/faulty are either experienced RP'ers, or people who are of certain age. More often than not, people who have seen an RP ruined by bratty 13 year olds who want to be the solution to every problem. With a good group though, stats are unneccessarily, but online you usually end up with more 'randoms' than you do friends. To be perfectly honest stats aren't my thing, they slow things down, and make things move clunkier. They work in some instances, but I'd rather write, than calculate, and stats are restricting for both better and worse. Overall I just tend to avoid RP's that are combat oriented since that seems to be the main user of stat based RP's. Stats can work, but as Acacia Sgt said; it's need to be adapted constantly. And more content doesn't always equate to a better system. Simple and effective is the best way to go, but on the other hand it needs to be interesting or rewarding enough to promote interest. If people start seeing stats as a hassle, scrapping the system usually isn't enough to continue the RP as a drastic change like that makes participants question DM/GM competency. So it's probably a good idea to refine and perhaps even consult with potential players before actually implementing a stat system. --- How you deal with HP=0 is also dependant on the RP. In most cases it's better to just go with a knock-out (KO). But there are certain types of RP's were a death is more suited. (Dungeon run, D&D style thing). In most cases though, it's important to respect that the characters belong to individual participants, and killing them off without at least consulting their owners will result in unhappy people. xD Not really sure if this was just a general discussion thing, or an attempt to test the waters for a planned RP :P