Serious roleplaying finalisations

[Pikachu3828]

Hello all,

I'm glad to announce that the serious roleplaying forums are nearly read . I'm working hard on getting this roleplaying system up and would like to brief you all in on how it will work, plus hear any suggestions you may have.

There is a new usergroup known as 'Serious roleplayers'. This is a hidden group so, unlike the 'Roleplayers' usergroup, members cannot apply for membership simply. Instead there shall be a topic in Roleplaying Café or somewhere where you can submit applications to join the 'Serious roleplayers' usergroup via PM to the usergroup moderator (pikapower06) This is to help make sure those who do join are: a) Already roleplayers as they must be part of the roleplayers usergroup to access Roleplaying Café and b) less likely to join serious roleplayers and spam the place up/not take it seriously.

The main forum (not up yet) is called 'Serious roleplaying'. It's visible on the index page to members of the 'Roleplayers' usergroup to let them know it's there but only members of the 'Serious roleplayers' usergroup can access it and post etc. Since the 'Serious roleplayers' forum will be allowing subjects and issues normally not allowed in the other forums, when users access the forum for the first time they will be greeted with a message warning them of the potential content within and they must click a 'confirm' button to proceed. The confirm button is timed to not appear until 20 seconds after the page has loaded to make sure the user has properly read and agrees to the rules.

Short messages were one of the major complaints of the other roleplaying forums. Rather than set a minimum word count limit for posts, which was agreed as a bad idea, there will rather be a small bar below the textbox which rates your 'Message strength' depending on how long your post is. It will be up to the creator of the roleplay as to how short/long messages should be.

There's also a rating system. The forum icons you can choose from when creating a topic will be different for the 'Serious roleplaying' forum. There will be 3 new buttons with numbers on them: 12, 15 and 18. These will be the 3 tiers of content and they need rules for them. The numbers correspond to what content would be suitable for that age.When creating a roleplay, the creator must choose one of those ratings as a warning for the kind of content that will be in their roleplay. Content related to illegal activities such as terrorism/paedophilia etc is obviously not allowed at all, but stuff like gore, death etc should be rated. Gruesome stuff should be higher up; I'm guessing death is a subject that will be touched on a lot so perhaps something like:

12
Accidental/simplistic death. Little gore or graphic content to it.
15
Self-harm/suicide
18
Graphic/gory death

Those are suggestions; pikapower06 has posted her suggestions below but the staff agreed the users should get a say in the ratings too as you'll be the ones using them! I don't know what other sort of content the serious roleplayers intend to touch on, so be sure to tell us!

12-

• Death - Hints towards it/comes out and says the character's died. Does not describe a bloody death, nor go into more detail then where the fatal attacks where made at.
• Sexuality - Nothing more than kissing/hugging. Very minor level.
• Language[should it be a choice] - VERY little-no cursing, more or less uses other words instead [I.E. Dangg] [Words describing 'wrong' actions or parts not allowed]

15-

• Death - Description of blood, I.E. how much has been lost, and a brief description into the goriness[or w/e] of a wound that's been inflicted upon one, or anything of the short. [A sentence or two at best to describe...say a n arm's damage outlook after being removed from the body...]
• Sexuality - Strong hints towards sexual actions, but nothing sheer out saying so, nor any real description of sexual actions.
• Language[should it be a choice] - Low level of cursing, more or less without it in general. [Though words describing 'wrong' parts or actions not allowed]

18-

• Death - Deep gory content allowed, and allows one to describe in full detail the full total damage another takes upon their body, covering every bloody inch of it. [Paragraphs long allowed just to describe it out]
• Sexuality - Strong sexual content is allowed, but however does not result in being the only thing happening in the thread. [I.E. the thread still keeps on topic, though the occasional 'blue moon' of such an event being allowed]
• Language[should it be a choice] - Strong level of cursing allowed, with [maybe] a low level of 'wrong' actions being made out to a point...

Profanity is pretty much frowned upon on all levels, but if it's a major request I may consider lifting the word filter for Serious roleplaying. Your opinions on the system are very welcomed.

[WhoKnows_WhoCares]

I have to dissagree with my fellow staff member on some of those descriptions.

I feel that swearing should be allowed in some of the more adult rps. Across the rest of the board, I agree that no profanity should be used, as this is for everybody of every age to enjoy. However since this serious roleplaying is a speciallist enviroment, with noties that the themes contained within are of a more adult content (especially with ratings) - younger people who we dont want to be reading swear words, shouldnt be going into these topics and reading them.

Not only that, but if your in an 18 rated rp, you've got blood, guts and gore all around you and somebody/thing is hunting you down to add you to the collection of crimson liquid, the odd profanity word would be highly apropriate.

That said, We obviously dont want a senario where everybody swears so much that sailors blush. So while I think swearing in the more mature rps would be good, and there is a valid reason for lifting the word filters we have in place for that board, I also think we'd need to be careful about the amount our users start to use.

I also want to point out that since nobody under the age of 18 should be roleplaying in a rp that is set at 18, there shouldnt be too many players/rps around set at this level... or that's my theory anyway

[miradapurple]

Well, perhaps it's just me, but I tend to be more descriptive towards deaths and the like. (And ah, no, I am NOT mentally disturbed.)

My suggestion is that there could be a seperate rating for each section, for example:

Death Rating: 18
Sexuality Rating: 12
Language Rating: 15

Just because I'm a special person with a mild obsession with gory/horror movies, although any other content would be kept PG-13.

If the ratings were more detailed, then younger roleplayers would be able to roleplay if only the 'Death' rating was high.

And yes, I have proof that children that are twelve can handle more mature content (and by this I mean deaths) without screaming their heads off or at the computer/tv. *points to self* Of course, I'm guessing that there will be NO images posted for more graphic descriptions.

And if the roleplay were vampire related, chances at least one person would be killed/injured badly every five pages.

[WhoKnows_WhoCares]

I agree that if it were a vampire rp, someone's getting killed or injured every so often, but there's a level of descriptiveness that would allow it to be either 12 or 18 (or 15, if its in the middle) - it's like the difference between vamps killing in Buffy the Vampire Slayer or the Movie version of Bram Stokers Dracula...

The Idea of rating each section is a good idea, we're adding new icons to show along side the post when you look at the list (you know, those message icons you see abouve the typing box you make messages in) - you can only display one of these icons per topic, so you would still have to display the highest rated section as the rating for the rp.

[seavicky95]

yes, this is definitely a good idea. i like the way it's organized.

though, i would like to point out that some households have their own thoughts on swear words. one person may think that [insert random word here] is swearing, while another person might not. i used to know a few people who thought "stupid" was profanity.