my dream RP prompt is already up on cherp! it just ainât gettin no hits lol
i was already doing a thread that was extremely similar, was going at an incredible clip (like, we were 10+ pages in), but I fell off RPing around Thanksgiving and although Iâve long since replied my partner has not. I hope they come back someday! Even if itâs 100 years from now it would be a guaranteed sheetghost summon
also i figure iâll answer the plotter/pantser tag meme also:
iâm a little of both, though I figure most folks are and itâs more of a spectrum than anything. Iâm really very focused on characters for RPs, so I like having characters with specific goals or conflicts, maybe the vague shape of a predetermined arc, and see how they interact with another character to achieve or not achieve those ends.Â
Like. Say Character A works on a cargo ship manned by their father. They have a successful shipping company and are expected to take the reins once dad retires. But thatâs not really how they want to spend their life -- they want to explore and see what else the world has to offer. Character B is a privateer, they represent the sirenâs song of a more exciting type of life on the seas, going on daring adventures and dripping gold when theyâre ashore. But maybe they struggle to find purpose -- theyâre not particularly loyal to the nation with which their crew does business, itâs just a paycheck, even if a hefty one. Maybe through their connection they discover that the monarchy is directing privateers against loyal ships, to cause shortages/civil unrest, or maybe to frame another nation and instigate a war. Unraveling and exposing the conspiracy could give them both what they want, but being in on it could mean riches beyond their wildest dreams -- surely happiness can be bought as well?
So like, you take something like that, and then decide what you want your focus to be. Interpersonal conflict between characters? A larger scale conflict between factions and kingdoms? Who are the major players, will they be individually controlled by each writer or shared like NPCs?
So you can kinda carve out the shape of what you want the tone to be, which way you want things to go, but then change things up on the fly depending on whatâs more interesting because youâre not beholden to a point-by-point outline.
I admit I get a bit frustrated when people say they want âplot,â but they seem adverse to actually shaping out a story. Naturally RP is not going to flow as smoothly as conventional prose, itâll be a little drawn out and disjointed by its very nature. But it feels like often people say they want plot but what they actually mean is âwe have to put in enough non-smut tokens into the RP machine to justify writing a smut sceneâ so it just ends up being... either a lot of mundane minutiae (which can be fun to write and read depending on the genre, pacing, and character dynamic!) or just a lot of exhausting trauma-dumping/angst/weird antagonistic shit between characters when weâre all just here to get them to bone which is less appealing to me personally.
