Getting Involved

Your out there involving yourself and making RP of your own. It's like love: You give a little away, you end up getting a lot more back.

Mostly because it's just grinding at the start. Getting the cash. And I'm always starting out as the poor drifter.

You definately don't need cash to get involved. If your a bum, desperate for work, try playing one instead of just assuming your no one until you have money. The demand for disposable grunts is pretty large… and begging for work/money/food/clothing can turn into some good RP. Having to force it out of someone is even better RP.

Having said that, I've seen newbies come in and make 10,000 chyen within their first few hours just from hustling people and working the system (and by 'working the system' I definately don't mean standing around typing 'work' at SHI. These people never went near SHI.)

If anybody has any interesting storylines they want people in, tell me. I'm dying for some good roleplay. That means if you're a judge, drugrunner, anything, tell me. I have a hard time getting into things myself, so I want someone to tell me something neat and get me in on it.

That would be crossing the IC/OOC barrier. There's all of the above out there. But to learn about their existance, you need to be IC. If your really dying for some good RP, just step outside, because it's just waiting for you to make it happen.

I'll play along in any storyline you want to help develop.

So you want some advice? Don't play along with what you think other people want you to do. Play your own character; your own individual with a history from their past, an agenda driving their present, and a future that's being threatened. That is, after all, what Cyberpunk is about.

Don't let other people decide what RP you'll be involved in today… what will happen to you today... where you'll go today... instead resolve to involve other people in your RP. Decide their fates for them. Decide who's going to live today, and who isn't because they're getting in the way of your progress. Because chances are they're doing the same thing to you.

If you think there's a shortage of things to do in Sindome, it's because you've stopped trying. There's a massive world out there to explore... and part of the fun is in finding the means to explore it. Every single day a great deal of RP happens because people make it happen. If your feeling left out, try changing your own RP.

-Kevlar

On my part, I rarely see anyone around so I try to do a lot of solo stuff. And when i see someone around I'll try to take full advantage to get stuff done. I'll see, for example, that "11 people are on." Nice number, so i think, "I'll wander around/RP till I run across someone…" How many public rooms are there in MOO?... Now, how many rooms are there behind locked doors? How many people are Lurking in The Shadow Realms(tm) in order to watch others go about their RP so they can collect info on Bob the Goat Ninja�s forays in nose picking while they sit at the bar?

I guess what I'm trying to say is this:
Maybe it's a matter of letting people know that you're up for your type of RP within their RP... If that makes sense.

Assume that you're going to run into someone while you're char is out getting the milk/new bullets/whatever. Assume you have an audience at all times, because sometimes you just might.

RP your life on the streets whatever that may be. Fit it into what you think is going on around you and hope someone will be observant enough and interested enough in knowing your mortal story to play along with you and to let you play along with them. Push your char into random situations. Be flexible *pets the smartness of Xee* but stay true to the char. Visibly define your character and how they would spend their free time when they aren't talking about guns... *eyes the Moo* so that idealy, it gives something for others to bounce their RP off of... Personally, I still feel like I struggle with how to apply that last bit.

Or as Kevlar put it:
"So you want some advice? Don't play along with what you think other people want you to do. Play your own character; your own individual with a history from their past, an agenda driving their present, and a future that's being threatened. That is, after all, what Cyberpunk is about. "

He's much more "in a nutshell" type of person then I. And getting 10k in 2 hours. Entirely feasable.

To answer one of your questions: You can Icly start as a corpie, I think it�s via the char gen process. But if you�re really interested in weaving stories, maybe you could fling a few at the admins/GM�s and see what sticks. I�m sure they are always interested in inspiration. Otherwise I hope you take full advantage of your your history and @notes so that it gives GM's some fodder.
I hope that you find a hook in the game again. Give it time I guess and see you IC.

And in honor of the dwarves� a new sig.

[/ramble]

hrm… I like the sound of mentoring...

*shrugs*

(Edited by Bias at 12:21 pm on July 31, 2004)

/edit because i'm magical that way.

(Edited by Bias at 4:25 pm on July 31, 2004)

Oh and…wizards are so pie.

This is where you come in: Your that lost soul, who just learned that the RP won't come to him by asking it to, and the only way is to get out there and generate RP of your own because RP attracts other RP'ers. So you go out drinking at a local bar, and in stumbles…

Oh wait, I can't tell you the rest. It's IC.

However, that's like logging onto a MMORPG and just going questing by myself.

No, it's not. Not at all. Read my post again. I didn't say to RP by yourself. I said to involve other people in your RP.

Oh, and as for crossing the IC/OOC barrier, what I meant is, tell me a way my character can get involved in that storyline.

I did: Go RP. That's how you get involved in other's RP. That's how others get involved in YOUR RP! See the cycle at work? You want in a storyline? Go join it. Go stick your nose in someone elses business. Go make a friend, or better yet pick a fight with someone you can beat up. Go forth and make a name for yourself. Go involve other people in your RP.

Beyond that, any more specific information is STRICTLY IC.

No one will ever say, "To get involved in a plot… <insert specific advice beyond 'Go RP' here>" because to do so would be #1 breaking the OOC/IC barrier by telling you IC specific things while OOC, and #2 would be telling you how to RP. No one can tell you anything beyond that, so please stop asking. It's ALL IC. All plots are IC, so discussing them while OOC is not allowed, and takes away from the RPing experience. If no one can talk about IC plots while OOC because it takes away from the RP experience, how can you possilby expect them to tell you how get involved?

I've allready told you generally how to get involved: Make RP of your own. I repeat, It's like love: You give some away, you get back a lot more. If that means hanging out in a bar and drinking alone until someone shows up, then that's the breaks sometimes.

To get involved in a plot... to be where the people are... go out there and start making RP. That's is the only way, because no one wants to get involved with someone who's going to rely on someone else for RP. RP attracts people, and generates plots. Plots don't fall in the laps of thoes who ask for them on the OOC boards. They're reserved for people who RP.

Your other option is to ask around on the boards until you get frustrated that no one will give you a straight answer besides "Go RP" and generalized advice about how to do that, and you eventually get so frustrated that you leave. Personally I think the first option would be a lot more fun.

I feel like you didn't read my post. Perhaps you should again, because it allready covered this.

-Kevlar

� � � � � � �Kevlar knows what hes talkin about, it helped me this far, and i'm sure it wil continue.

� � � i like corn muffins

(Edited by FatDilbert at 1:45 pm on Aug. 1, 2004)

And then I realized: I need to stop waiting for people to come to me. So I went out and started to piss a couple people off while having loads of fun (and dying a couple times.)

But you have to look at where the hardships get you. My first char.. had nothing going for her.  And sadly that's the way most characters start out, unless your a super duper experienced role player who knows how to jump in to RP like *bam* and all of a sudden people start wondering if they just missed you in the crowd somewhere.

Enjoy the storyline that you're weaving.
No matter what.

If you're looking for heavily structured/steared RP, you might not have fun here.

Send out IC signals about craving RP.  The sort of signals that blind muppets would decipher.

Play.

*tips her hat to king[fu]* And you sir,  made good shit happen.

(Edited by Bias at 5:15 am on Aug. 2, 2004)

And thanks for the complete concise post, I now not only understand, I empathize with you.  Not only that I showed my teeth when I saw Kev's post, and I was smiling, not gritting them

NO! NO! KEVLAR! OUCH! *smack whack* ARGH! *BANG BANG*

*a long, dead silence fills the room, followed by a sudden sob which is choked down and silenced before it can fully arise.*

All joking asside, Kev has a writing style that makes him sound more arrogant than he actually is. I myself have been frustrated by it regularly, not so much lately because I have just decided to chock up 90% of the disgruntlement I feel sometimes when he's talking to me to his writing style. It is a good writing style, nothing wrong with it. I'd rather it didn't change than became something less him, and weaker because of that.

I think it is a general failing of the media. The Internet is digital text based, and because of that it lacks a great deal of the communication methods that we humans have developed over the last 6,000 to 3 million years (depending on who you ask.) We as humans -NEED- the see and hear people when we communicate, to see the body language, to see the facial expressions, to hear intonations in the voice.

Even in writing, as in those archaic things like posted hand written letters, you get a lot about the person in the way the letters are formed, in how the letter 'A' in one place looks different than in another place. How when someone is rushed and passionate the letters get a bit sloppy, and more agressive. How someone calm and cool has smooth, collected writing.

But in digital text we don't get that. Why else do you think those stupid ascii faces started appearing so fast. It wasn't to be cool. It was to express when you are joking. Or really mad. Or frustrated, or any of the other hundreds of states of mind that you can almost always pick up from someone just by talking in person. Online, in digital real time and semi-real time such as the BgBB, we do not have that data available to us. In fact, most of the time we mask it utterly, and sit staring at the monitor with blank, slack faces and the only indications of the passions we feel becomes the velocity and force of key strikes.

Is this healthy?

I think not. The lack of propper human connectivity can be very destructive.

Is this the way it is?

You bet. And because of it our brains are tuned hyper sensitive, over anylizing every word typed because we are searching for that body language that we are missing out on. We jump to conclusions, we search for things that are not there, and we take an agressive, or passive agressive, or hyper intelligent writing style as 'mean spirited'.

Is there something to do about it?

Sure, feel more, express more, do emoticons even if you hate them like I do. They are valuable tools in expressing your body language. Hell, pose. Use that silly little *blah blah* method to show that you are doing an action. Let people know when you are joking, when you are serious, and when you are hurt.

And don't worry, we are the only generation that will really have to deal with this. In 15 years we'll all be doing things in real time face to face over teleconferancing. In 30 years we will have fully functioning virtual worlds with avatars. In 45 years we will be plugged in through our brains and our avatars will be fully expressive entities that we control.

But in the mean time, while some of us get old and have families and kids that look at us like we are psychotic for ever having seen something as -OLD- as '8-bit graphics and 2-bit sound', in the mean time we have to let people know things about our body language. And we have to give and take a wee bit more leeway with our overly sensitive heads.

Oh, and KingFu, bite me, Elves fuckin rock.