Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-5424581-20160316234646/@comment-5824038-20160320171451

Hope I'm not too late to the party.

For me, the best RPs are ones where an entire world is created. The basic settng is Elder Scrolls, obviously, but everything is built up around that, until by the end you have something new and amazing.

The characters make up the world, or at the very least a large part of it, so they must be well-written and developed. I am fine with archetypes, eg. the mystic, the brave warrior, the charming rogue etc. but I am not a fan of characters that are onnly this. There should always be some kind of depth to them, so that when something happens to them, it makes everyone think/feel something about what just happened.

Lore should always be changed in some way, I am not a fan of stories that are just copies of something we already know. By all means make something based on it, but add some of your own flair. Which is why I prefer to take part in/write stories set in a different time from the games, eg. Age, Epoch etc.

The setting, I believe, should start out small but throughout the roleplay get built up. It's fine to just arbitrarily make up a whole new faction/area, as long as everyone knows about it, and definitely include it in the story. This is exactly what I did with the Knights of Azura in the Age mythos. Also, if the roleplay is quite long or is set over multiple arcs, explore new places but also revisit old ones. Age I was almost entirely set in Brightwall, and then Age II was mostly set in Daggerfall but the characters returned to Brightwall on at least one occasion.

GMs are not gods, they are not judges, and they are not storytellers. They are a mix of all these things, but should never let any one aspect become significently greater than the other. When I GM I usually have a basic idea for the story, and follow it, but always let the players take control of certain aspects, even large chunks. The whole way through Age I and II, I was consulting Alador and Data about what they wanted to happen, what would fit in with the story sections they had created, and what they thought the story should consist of.

As for all the other questions (tense, conetent, themes etc.), I don't really care enough about them to write anything major. They can be whatever you want, as long as it never gets out of hand, Use them as tools to create your world, so that everyone can enjoy living in it.