I've been feeling like I should write a blog entry for some time now, if for no other reason that it's been a while since I wrote one last time. I generally only write these when I have inspiration for what to write. This one's different, so I may just ramble into territories unknown.

I've been watching my way through some really horrendous fantasy movies lately, yes, they exist, and they are horrendous. I would not recommend Fire & Ice to anyone who still has the will to live left in their bodies. Well, that's unfair. It's not really that horrible a movie it's just... boring.

So. Skay recently pointed out some of what she sees as faults with the play by post system, it's difficult to carry any kind of reputation as a character from thread to thread being the most important one. The difference to video game rpgs where NPCs eventually come to hail you as the saviour of the world and such. So, I thought it might be worth a little thought to ruminate on the whys and wherefores.

First, let's look at the differences between the two.

I'm suffering a little from writer's block currently. As per usual, I find the only way to get through it is to power through, but I'm a discerning writer. I don't like writing if I'm not satisfied with what I post. It annoys me that it takes me a couple of hours to wrangle together a pair of paragraphs which I'm only really kind of satisfied with. My apologies to those I'm in threads with.

So I try to write other things, like this blog here, to take my mind off things and to get my writing juices going.

I often see new pbps open with 15 open forums. I always feel that is a mistake, not only does it spread too few posts over too many forums, I feel it's the wrong approach to take. To me, a location is ultimately there for flavour.

The thing is, each location needs to be different. If it's just a tavern that could be found in any other town, what's the point of making a note of it? It's a throwaway location, it could be found anywhere. It doesn't really add anything to the story that you wouldn't get if you were elsewhere.

Being a roleplayer, and especially when you're someone who has to make sure the right bolts plug into the right holes in the fictional world, it's easy to bandy about words like realism, character motivation, good writing, rules, etc etc etc. I'm sure you've all seen me use them at one point or another. I fully defend using them. I think they're important to keep in mind and that they're there for a reason.

The thing is though, there's one thing we always need to take with us when we post. Having fun. There's not a single more central aspect than that.