Roleplaying (PbP)

There are many forms of roleplaying and one of those is known as PbP. Another acronym is being thrown at you here but I will, once again, fully explain. A PbP is simply a shortening of the three words Play, By, and Post. PbPs are commonly done via forums, visa vie threads and posting. Currently I am an active member of a PbP site known as The Roleplaers Guild. For short the comunity calls it RPGuild or just RPG.

Roleplaying in this manner has brought forth many questions with myself and within the community. One of the big ones is a difficult matter for me. Are you just playing a game or are we all writing a story together? In my opinion I see Roleplaying in general as only escapism, regardless of how it is done. A point in time where you may be that epic villein, grand wizard or in my case, the noble thief. This is, of course, a restriction on what PbP truly is as there is more then your typical fantasy.

Current Trends On Site Include: Vampires, Werewolves, High School Stories, Mild Fantasy (Moderately grounded in reality) & Heavy Sci-Fi (Barely grounded in reality). Observation made in personal assessment.

There are also many exceptions to the trends. A great example of this trend breaking is my own RP. It may be bad form to post a post about a post but I have decided to do that very thing anyway.

SNIPPET

Not far down the road from David was a semi-driver named Bob. He was working his second double shift, in less days, and didn't seem to be paying much attention to his surrounding. That was until he saw Evan and the several large monsters that were following. Slamming the brakes to his semi, Bob closed his eyes and prayed to every god he could think off as he heard a very loud SPLAT, "Jesus Buddha Crista please don't say I killed that kid."

Bob opened his eyes to see his windshield covered in red and green slim, "What da hell," Bob questioned as he opened up the cab door, unbuckled his belt and jumped from the high cabin. It took him only a couple of seconds to see what was on the front glass of his large truck but nothing more was seen as he was pounced on and taken away, "DA FUUU-?"

This snippet is from the current game I am GM/DMing (Game Master and/or Dungeon Master), aptly named When Flea F*****s Attack. Click the link to read more of this oddball collaborative writing or join the site and participate in it. Snippet edited slightly as there were/are errors in the original.

Kidnap the Sandy Claus (Number 1 or Number 2)

Image via Wikipedia

"The Nightmare Before Christmas" is a movie that I am sure most, if not all, of you have seen. My purpose of this is not to bring attention to a movie that needs no attention brought to it but only three characters. Lock, Stock and Barrel are whom I'm talking about. Their major point in the story is to kidnap Santa Claus and return him to Jack Skellington. They also sing the best song in the movie, "Kidnap The Sandy Claws" which has/was remade by Korn for the "revisit" that was in theaters recently.

This is the original with the video included. These characters always seemed, if even considered major, as minor. The story is all about Jack and someone should fix that.



The audio for what inspired this, not as structurally written as the others but equal in possible spelling and grammar issues, post.



With the Assumption that you have watched both video's and read what limited words I have placed here, I've a question.

Does a guitar make all things better or is it just me?

This is, of course, a hypothetical question as I do know the answer is "No". Korn has only gotten lucky with their remake. The fact that this song was rudimentarily written in a "metal-esque" tone is the only reason for unfailure.

Cantr II (A Society)

An open world of vast possibilities waits those who have the stomach to tolerate such grandeur as the ability to influence a culture with the wave of a hand or a single word. Society as you know it, evolving and evolved in manners few could expect.

Picture a man spawning on his twentieth year with no memory of those before it, this is how each of the beings in Cantr II have started. Many took this lack of memory as an excuse to harm, kill and even maim their fellows, sometimes only out of fear. Others took arms against these and created the guards of towns. Thieves try to prosper but pick the wrong town and are met with being locked up or even killed. A guard chases a man out into the woods only to be ambushed by many more and have the favor returned. Holy men and women preaching of their gods, goddesses and other beings of power. Some are ignored, some gain followers and others may be met with harsh punishment.

Simple Farmers try and protect potatoes from pirates as both need the starch in order to survive. Neither side giving any head way but the simple farmers seem out classed. Perhaps they run for a neighboring town, perhaps they lock themselves inside and pray to any higher powers they may believe. Crowbars in hand the pirates try stealing from the simple farmers but help comes from a local queen. She has her army lay waste to many of the pirates but one some how escapes with his life in tact.

Queens and kings rules lands, as well as councilors, presidents and priests. Some leaders are more peaceful and well mannered then their people and others are cruel and ruthless in their actions. No one town the same as another as each character brings new life to a different location. Life is good, in some areas, food is plentiful and each town member is well cared for. Other places are harsh and only the rough usually last long. Those that do survive long in the hot and violent deserts or cold and barren mountains are praised for their strength or mocked for their stupidity.

The world of Cantr II lives and YOU, the player, bring it to life with each character you spawn. Each character a small extension of yourself, your personality or perhaps just a little quirky thing you found to amuse. Village idiot, master thief, simple farm hand, quirky lover boy; All these and many more will be found, only a mater of time before you see the Cantr world evolve, if only a little.

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PBBGs (An Opinion)

Image via Wikipedia

I play them, I like them and I wanna talk about them!

Now, what IS a pbbg, you ask? Well it is a "persistent browser-based game". These are the MMOs of the cheap encounter! They require NO download, unless you don't have an internet browser in which case you can't REALLY be seeing this unless someone gave you the offline save file, which would be odd.

Nestled in your browser lay a simple game, I play several at the moment they are not so similar as most think but pbbgs still have their positives and negatives.

Positives

Minimal System Requirements: Because a pbbg rests in your browser you do not need more than that and an internet connection. If you are viewing this post, unless you have the offline version (which would be odd), you can play a pbbg. Some may require java or flash but most do not.

Price: 90% of pbbgs are 100% free to play and/or rely on a donation system to survive. This means that unless you WANT TO you do not need to part with your hard earned cash to play these games. It is usually the "hard-core" overly devoted type that pays for some "bells and whistles".

Access: Location is a key feature with pbbgs. Many players have jobs where they are "stuck" in front of a PC all day and in order to amuse themselves they play a game. Now your boss would clearly see a full 3-D game moving about on your screen but would HARDLY notice some links and text. There are even games with "work mode" that actually look like a word document or the like.

Negatives

Get What You Pay For: Not paying has its disadvantages as well as advantages. A free game strickly focues on the donations of others either in time or money. That being said, you are on another human beings time schedule. If the creator of your game goes "on holiday" and the thing crashes you either have to wait for a miracle of god OR him/her to return. Not paying means that, sometimes, you get bad service.

Breaking In: This is common of ALL mmos but it seems the "free kind" are more particular, especially pbbgs. A few games are well known for their "disgruntled" player base and others games are not known at all. This is because there are so many games that a few can "get lost" while others attract EVERY Tom, Dick, and Harry who knows what the mouse button does. Sometimes a community game can be a scary to new comers.

Poor (if any) Graphics: This works on both sides as it was stated in system reqs. The lack of graphics is what makes pbbgs both a BIG TURN ON and TURN OFF. Some players WANT that smearing effect on the ocean and others don't even want pictures on their games. Flash pbbgs and java pbbgs, like RuneScape, are both rather popular because they fix "this problem".

Counter Productive Behavior

Is is counter productive to name your blog after that which it is meant to solve? If my blog is a means of "amusement" then naming it the adverse, with a made up word, should create a hint of intrigue. That is my hope, of course.

On this silly note, and possible anecdote, I bring you the "cause" for my blog. The cause is a simple thing: To inform people, who may or may not even actually exist beyond my computer screen, of my view of the planet called "Earth". I live there, on one of the largest landmasses and on one of the largest peninsulas. It is called "Florida" and it is where I have been sense my spawn.

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