This is sort of the source of my objections - we have no defined "GM" for this RP, so people have greater liberties with pretty much anything. None of us really know anything about each others' characters or traits, so even the smallest interjection of a name or an action can completely decimate the general idea of one's own character before they even get a chance to develop it.
We need the setting and the current major players defined well before we can go any further with the RP idea, especially if there are to be "rewards" given for best RP, etc etc.
Case in point - my whole schtick was that my character was going to be mute.
(emphasis mine)
Nope. We need
authority structure defined well, not setting or whatever.
MikeEB knows, he tried to make Clan Nomic. Have you ever played a role-playing game without the traditional authority structure of "GM has absolute veto over anything, plays all but N characters (one for each player), each player plays his character and nothing else"? It would be too time consuming and not really workable to go ask everyone "okay is your character a mute? how about yours?" before doing anything. The correct answer is something like (note: I'm writing this on the fly, modifying the existing 4 guidelines):
1) Role playing is about interaction between characters.
1a) Whatever is said in-character remains in-character.
1b) Each PLAYER has a certain implicit control over a corresponding CHARACTER.
1c) Confusing the CHARACTER with the PLAYER is not kosher talking out-of-character either.
2) Remember this is just for fun and try not to take things personally.
2a) Don't be an ass.
2b) In particular, you have a responsibility to attempt to not piss off other PLAYERs, and you have a responsibility to not get pissed off by other PLAYERs unduly, and you have a responsibility to communicate cordially as a PLAYER to other PLAYERs who seem to routinely piss you off to resolve whatever the misconception might be. e.g. if you think a CHARACTER is mute and other PLAYERs keep making him talk, it is part of the rules that you must ask why other PLAYERs keep making the CHARACTER talk when he is mute, and if you do not you are breaking rule 2a.
3) Personal attacks against other PLAYERS will not be tolerated. Friendly trash-talking and bravado are welcome, but insults and invective are not. See rules 2a and 2b. (Serious personal attacks will result in a warning, and anything beyond a warning will result in suspension from the league or the forums.)
4) Although you can write whatever you want, remember you cannot necessarily control the decision making process of other PLAYER's CHARACTERs.
4a) You can involve other CHARACTERs only in ways that are reasonable, where "reasonable" is defined over time by 2b.
4b) The default "reasonable" is the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Then see 2a.
5) There is no "I control everything else that exists" PLAYER.
5a) Any PLAYER may lay claim to certain aspects of the world and gain the same implicit control over them as they do their CHARACTER, subject of course to 2a. You may do this only for things which have existed (out-of-character) for quite a while that it seems no one cares about, or things which you just made up. e.g. perhaps Slartucker has a Cathedral.
5b) This control gives you narrative authority over that aspect, but no more than you have over your CHARACTER, so other PLAYERs can still e.g. go in the Cathedral, say it has a giant statue of a troll, etc. as long as 4a is respected. Furthermore, it does not imply that everything about that aspect will serve to showcase your CHARACTER's awesomeness or whatever. It is for telling a
story, not some sort of feat or power or bonus to a CHARACTER, and is more than anything else a device to say "Hey other PLAYERs, I want to tell a story involving this Cathedral, can you refrain from blowing it up or turning it into a fortress or whatnot until I'm done?".
5c) If another PLAYER wants to claim control over an aspect you have control over, the two should talk over their intent in PM and apply 2a liberally.
5d) If you have no reason to claim narrative control over something, don't. This is not meant to partition the world into PLAYER-controlled bits, there's no point to that.
5e) By default Slartucker gets control over overarching fictional constraints like "No you can't make the hell plane
actually be a dream of some other thing" or "
Xade... sorry, no jeans". In perhaps this very thread we will hash out the very overarching structure and then go from there.
In other words, you did make some comments outside the RP, about how you weren't going to participate, and more recently complaining about my post. That's fine, but had you actually communicated (human being to human being) what you were upset about it, it would have been quickly and easily fixed.
Bah - that wouldn't have been as much fun, now would it? Wasn't it you that designated me the "Fly In The Ointment"?
But the real reason why I made just a round-about way of it was to point out some potential and real flaws with the way this RP thing was starting out. Point made, I think.
Fun
for you? Maybe so. See rule 2a, and 1c. Your character is drunk and sometimes you slur your out-of-character writing? Funny, maybe, sure. Your character is mute and you use that as an excuse to not communicate to other players? That would violate rule 2a. It might
also make a point, but it is a bad way of making it for all involved in the conversation except you. Even in real life people fail at communication all the time, and the internet is well known to make that worse. Signal-to-noise, people! Keep it high.