Posts tagged roleplayers 
Storyboard: Why I rejected your guild application
Explaining guilds to people who don't play MMOs is always odd. You have to explain the process of applying, getting interviewed, and generally being brought on some trial runs in a way that doesn't make the whole thing sound like an unpleasant second job. This is even worse when it comes to ...
Storyboard: The second anniversary of Storyboard
Last year, I had planned to change up the focus of Storyboard a little. The "high and wide" format had been working, but I was worried that the column just wouldn't have legs if I didn't start going for more focused and narrow applications. So I spent several months working on just the right way ...
Storyboard: Why roleplaying is worth the trouble
Why bother roleplaying? I've covered a lot of topics in this column that circle around that topic. I've talked about why roleplaying is important and how you can roleplay without tears, but I've never touched the central question, something that was brought to mind recently by a fellow ...
Storyboard: Problem players
I don't tend to talk about the players behind the characters in this column because more often than not it doesn't matter. A good roleplayer is a good roleplayer, and if your characters can interact well, you don't really need to be close friends behind the scenes. Sure, I promote communication ...
Storyboard: The growth of a plot tumor
Everyone has had that friend. Heck, almost everyone has been that friend at one point or another. It's the guy who just found himself in a relationship, and suddenly every single topic of conversation jerks right back to that relationship. It starts out subtle, but eventually your friend will ...
Storyboard: One hundred moments and done
All good things must come to an end. Roleplaying is all about creating a shared space for your character to inhabit with other characters. It's about crafting trials and challenges that can be overcome through narrative means; it's about building a set of experiences together. And all of the ...
Storyboard: To say nothing of cute shoes
Just as in real life, player characters in MMOs have more than one set of clothing for different situations. Sure, I don't divide my actual clothes up in usual MMO categories ("well, those are my PvP pants"), but I have things I wear around the house that I wouldn't wear out in public or when ...
Storyboard: Police state
Sometimes, column topics get away from you. When I sat down to write last week's Storyboard, I realized at the halfway mark that I had spent a lot of time not really hitting the core of the issue, and the overall article wound up being much weaker as a result. So I went back, started fresh, and ...
Storyboard: Flag a server
A couple of weeks ago, Matt Daniel, Elisabeth Cardy, and I were talking amongst ourselves about the dearth of official roleplaying servers in Guild Wars 2. Lis was contending that the primary defense from ArenaNet was the idea that the GMs wouldn't be able to properly police these servers, so as ...
Storyboard: Talk this way
One of the great problems presented to roleplayers is the challenge of presenting audio via text. We don't think about it all the time because most of the time it's easy to construct the sound of something from context. Sure, simply saying that your character sighs could mean any number of ...
