Kent
Kent
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On Mono, I have the dubious privilege of running the roleplaying section.

I'd like you all to be a bit nicer about roleplaying. The standard pattern for most people is to run into roleplayers at about age 12-16, play a few games, and declare it a terminally sad pursuit. And henceforth declare it the province of sad weirdos.

Ok, so there's an element of truth in that. I was at the Student Nationals the other week, and there were a fair few people who could do with a wake-up call vis a vis dress sense, personal hygiene and general social skills. But then there's the rest of us. The happy few who could find other things to do with their time, but find exercising their imaginations once in a while, and actually creating a story a nice alternative to switching on the TV and having one forced in through your eyeballs. Roleplaying truly is as good or bad as the people playing it. If you know any roleplayers who you personally find charming, witty and generally fun to be around, why not ask to join them some evening?


Alternatively, you might want to stroll into the Roleplaying section at <RR>. Most everyone we see regularly in there are thankfully the second, superior form of roleplayer. A product of mono attracting a better class of person, I suppose.

Most of the section is discussion and chat files. But our new(ish) innovation is Play By Mono Roleplaying.
"What's that then, Kent?"
Glad you asked.

We're trying to find out what's the best way to run a game on Mono. I think we could all do with a bit of a break at work, and spodding from work, to roleplay, sounds like a fine old idea to me.

The medium has a few hurdles. Not everyone is there at the same time. It's hard to maintain a sense of the 'here and now.' But for all of it's flaws, there are persuasive reasons to use Mono. Mono has an unparalleled variety of communication methods (file edit, u2u, talker) all of which are fine stages for roleplaying. It's easy to keep secrets from each other on mono. And as long as you keep editing, you can't be shouted down by the big loud guy.

Play by Mono is now in it's third incarnation; Taliesin pioneered running games with me and him as GMs, some of them were roaring successes, some of them flopped. I tried to resurrect the idea after I took over as moderator, but Mono was going through one of it's periodic quiet periods, and we just couldn't get the players. After several requests from users, I resurrected the idea again, and everything seems to be going OK. Not the thriving hive of activity I might have hoped for, but there's time for growth.

So, veteran roleplayer, or complete newcomer, please, come and take a look.

Kent