Red is the Game Master (GM) for this RPG. This is her first post of the new restart. The existing game was lost when our server crashed and although Red had saved the old posts the team decided, after a discussion in the Out of Character (OOC) thread, to start anew from an agreed point. This post is made in the character of Hunter.
This is Red again re-introducing her second character Maia. See the character sheets (post entitled 'Getting in Character') for more information on individual characters. Notice how hard Red works to set the scene in her first to posts and to include enough context to allow the other players to feel safe to join in.
Melas the the second player on the scene with her character Nimah. Here she simply locates herself in the story without feeling the need to re-contexualise or provide too much exposition as Red has done this for her. Red and Melas are real life friends and have been RPing together for several years. Notice how the first 3 posts were made on the same day.
The following day Jessica posts from the point of view of her character Seryina. Notice that her character is the first to speak, addressing one of the cooks. She won't get a response unless she integrates it herself as no-one is playing a cook. This is a minor non-playing character (NPC) that she has brought in for her own purposes, presumably to remind us she has a tiger. Often the GM will introduce several NPC's to populate the story and keep it flowing. Jess has chosen to use a different colour font to indicate speech There are many different conventions for representing speech action or thoughts in RPG and each player tends to pick one and stick with it, unless the GM expresses a preference.
On the second post of the second day Vyxen re-introduces Fayne. She integrates her post into the story linking it neatly with the feeding of Seryina's tiger. She also provides a lot of extra information, her titles and rank, her army and commander Conri and a hint of something ominous to come. [edit: just found out from another thread that the General IS Hunter! oops :-D ]
After a break of 7 days, Red returns to make the second post for her starting character Hunter. The story has not advanced much but RP stories have a steady pace and lots of detail like a fantasy novel rather than the pace of a pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons game. In this post Red introduces a tantaslising glimpse of something special in the relationship between Hunter and Fayne. This is the first time characters have related to each other emotionally in this session.
Here in post #7 a PC (playing character) addresses another playing character. Red also leaves a hint of tension in the 'cold fear' her character experiences. A new reader has no idea where this fear comes from, but as when reading any work of fiction we can hope the origin of this sense of foreboding will be revealed to us. However it is possible that the players are referring back to existing plot knowledge that was made explicit in previous postings on the old board.
This is the 3rd post of the day, and from a new (at least new to this sequence) player Gwaelyn who introduces her character Eirian. This is quite confusing to the reader as rather than locating herself in the current events she starts by describing a dream sequence that relates to unknown characters (Erice) and a past we do not know. However like in the previous post this may be shared knowledge by the players. RPG's are definitely written for the players first and the audience an often rather distant second. It isn't until the final paragraph that Gwaelyn lets us know that she is indeed in the same location as the other players, by linking to the arrival of Fayne's crow visitor.
Another new (to us the audience) character Rehael, introduced rather mysteriously by Oreta. Again fully understanding this post relies on some knowledge of the back story, but it is nonetheless a very compelling and interesting entrance. Reading the character sheets (when available) often helps the audience make sense of some of the more arcane character aspects. Please see the Character Sheet Conventions post for an example of a Character Sheet.
A second character is introduced by Vyxen, Jerrin. This is a spare post, with little excess detail - but very powerful even though we learn very little about Jerrin other than he is one of the party and he can travel outside his physical body, apparently. Vyxen also uses this very economical post to remind us of what is going on with all the other characters. Notice the contrast between the previous post (Rahael is aware of everything) and this (Jerrin is aware of nothing).
In her second post of the day Vyxen returns to her first character Fayne and in so doing she builds on the tension between Hunter and Fayne which Red introduced in her second Hunter post.
Jessica introduces her second character, Kenai with another economical post quickly locating her in context and giving a hint to her personality without too much use of detail.
Melas continues her narration of Nimah's story taking up the conversation with Red's character Maia. Although the hints were there I hadn't realised until this post that Nimah was a child. I, like Nimah will now be eagerly waiting to hear the story unfold.
