Brave Galaxy is set in a world loosely based on Hiro Mashima’s Fairy Tail and Eden’s Zero. It is a PG-13 or so rated space fantasy RP, and uses a combination of character statistics, which can be acquired via roleplaying and events, and creative freedom to help direct players’ characters. While there is a main storyline, which can be found in the events section, characters are free to interact with others and their environment however they see fit.
Explore the galaxy. Overcome the obstacles in your path. Shape the future of humanity.
It used to be that, on an RP board, you'd have threads where people talk about random shit... And it would just sit there... Collecting replies and just... generally growing. It could be something simple, maybe a discussion of a TV show that people liked... Or discussions about whose waifu was best. Or even just a thread asking people to reveal their face, so that people could actually see who they're talking to.
But that damn discord.
*Shakes fist angrily at the sky*
It's ruined the whole system! We're basically in a giant chat-room with stream-of-consciousness posts about how their day has been going and what they're thinking about. And while, sure, there's a few channels with specific themes... it's really easy for the early posts to be completely lost to time, simply due to the fact that people can spend an hour just talking to one person and burying all the posts before it with pages upon pages of 1-2 sentence "posts".
Maybe I'm just getting old, but does anyone else feel like... idk... the sense of community in a forum has changed? I feel like, at once, we are closer to one another, but also further away..? Or... perhaps it is that it's... almost exclusionary? In that new members don't have a place where they can go in and join the conversation quickly and easily?
I don't know. In the end, I only know this... I want to make a ton of topics. Even if I'm the only one posting in them... because I want this board's social regions to be full of life. And maybe... sometime in the future... Someone will respond. And we can have this song and dance start up just the way I remember it.
Post by Reya Starlyght on Jul 25, 2019 22:28:32 GMT
I definitely think people should use the General Discussion more. Part of that is so the whole forum will look less empty, but most of it is because, yeah, people are more likely to put time and actual thought into replies of stuff instead of just rapid-firing whatever happens to be on their mind. One also causes less problems for me :)
Okay, but, what the heck. I don't watch the Simpsons but that picture makes me happy.
Post by fairchild.txt on Sept 29, 2019 9:32:15 GMT
I just like things better this way, though there's not really much I can do about it on my own. I suppose it's all a matter of finding more people who, idk... are just the kind of person who likes to do an RP like this? I feel like more and more they're a dying breed. So many people have shifted away from the storytelling focus and moved towards other aspects of creation, or even going beyond.
Like, let's look at the folks that are the creators of this generation... The actual ones creating things though, so let's just completely forget how many people only consume media and don't make any of their own....
What are they making? Two things: pictures and games. The pictures can be in a lot of forms, but I mean... damn. All of the AUs for Undertale, right? They're all based in the same concept: Fanart. It all just started as "what would it be like if Papyrus was the one you had to fight" or "What if Undyne and Alphys were more alike" and people building whole worlds around those concepts. Which is... which is just awesome. Like, seriously, I don't knock it. I read SO many comics that are based in "what if" scenarios...
But it's a wholly more solitary pursuit. The same with making a game. You can have a few people you work with, but for the most part, you're not interacting with a large group of people, like you would in the golden days of what I am now going to refer to as "Prose RPGs".
CheatPlanetForums is where I started out. CheatPlanet is where you went to get cheat codes for your games, back when... games still had cheat codes. But they also had a forum, where people could talk about their experiences in a game, exploits/glitches they found, or even just unrelated stuff. Eventually, this lead to having RPs in some boards, and... it sorta steamrolled from there. And when CheatPlanet got bought by GamesRadar (who said they were gonna pull the plug on the board and start new) everyone scrambled to leave the board, together.
But nowadays, I feel like... there's less loyalty to that kind of concept. If a board shuts down... you can always move to another one which may be better or worse.
Post by Reya Starlyght on Sept 30, 2019 0:58:20 GMT
Honestly, I think most of the whole loyalty issue lies in there's too many people making boards who don't put in the time and effort to create a fleshed out concept unique and different than others. Maybe that's just the admin and cynic in me talking, but on the Proboards Support board I have seen so many new forums popping up that are just, well, the same concepts with hastily thrown together themes and similar, shallow premises, expecting people to come on board with minimal advertising. As well, the people who create them don't really... seem to know what they're doing, and boards that I've been on other than FTG and here have died pretty quickly, either literally or just in captivating my interest.
That's most of the reason why I've stayed, and why I put all the effort into bringing people onto the new site. Partly because of the uniqueness of our little world, but mostly because of the people I've met here, even those who have left that I still talk to on a regular basis. It's also why I pop into the Discord so often, I genuinely believe the community of a roleplay is its most important asset, even people that are not actively RPing that still pop into a chat I really appreciate, because over the years (wow it's been almost 3 years now, that's the longest ever for me!) I've grown to appreciate the connection I have with people and how they've helped me get through some really difficult times.
As for writing itself, yeah, it seems like people are doing less and less of it nowadays, even when I mention to people around me IRL that I'm a part of a roleplay site I always feel the need to clarify what exactly that is. It's a bit sad, but I take solace in the fact that the people that are still connected to the site now, whether actively roleplaying or just hanging out with the community, seem to be here to stay :)
I mean, I feel the need to clarify what I mean by a roleplay site, because most of the people I hang out with are either in the cosplay community (and therefore they think I'm larping) or they are normies who think I'm doin' weird sex shit.
I would agree that a lot of people don't really know what they're doing anymore... it's definitely something that has been very lightning-in-a-bottle, too, to some extent.
I remember the first dedicated RP board (that is, a board, like this, where the entire board was dedicated wholly to RP) was Dark Forest, which died a few years back when the RootAdmin went a little loopy and deleted the whole board, removing years of many peoples' lives from existence. But... before that, it was a PHENOMENAL RP. Simply because it was STREAMLINED and SIMPLE... if not a bit more restrictive.
{Spoiler}Old Man Ramblings Ahead! The concept was you chose your class. And at certain levels, you got more powerful, and gained more techs. But all your power was determined wholly by POST COUNT. And post count only went up in RP areas. So, even people who were bad at RP, but did it a lot would end up getting strong characters... eventually. There were rules to keep spamming from becoming an issue, of course, but for the most part, it was moderation free (minus special events) when it came to characters.
So, basically, everyone was in charge of keeping track of their own shit, but everyone got the same shit at the same levels, with very regimented classes (Mage/Wht. Mage,), a more free-form class with a set of limitations (Alchemy), and "Elite" classes (Paladin, Dark Mage, Adv. Alchemy) which you unlocked the right to use at certain post levels.
The Mages/Paladin/other classes I can't remember all got spells at certain levels, with sub-classes getting a different list of spells/levels you get them at.
Alchemists could choose between four elements (Earth, Water, Fire) and could manipulate them to certain extents and certain amounts depending on level.
Elite classes were like the normal classes, but with more utility/flair.
Simple and elegant... but also inherently flawed... and the only way I had played RPs for the better part of a decade before joining up at FTG and being woefully unprepared for the kind of systems that were in place there...
But that was a different time... and a different place... and I'm now realizing... it was very balanced, simply by virtue of not allowing people to choose any of their abilities, other than the appearance of them (basically, "cure" for one person might be green sparkles, while another might manifest as a red beam) but at the same time... it made every character very similar, which didn't suit everyone...
last edited Oct 2, 2019 9:24:56 GMT by fairchild.txt