The RPer's Feedback Thread

[gotMLK7]

I'm going into NaNoWriMo now, and reading my past writing, it REALLY sucks. So I'm opening myself up to criticism, however harsh you want to go. I don't care so long as it doesn't degenerate into flaming or trolling. I'll leave it open for as long as you want, so go ahead and say whatever you want, even if someone has already responded.

I'd like criticism on:

Character Development (Good development, bad development, too rushed, too slow, not enough etc.)
Character Creation (E.g. Best and Worst aspects of my characters)
Descriptions (Of locations, characters, actions, etc.)
Characters (Originality, likability, appeal, dislikes)
Plot Development (How well I move along stories)
Dialogue (Good, bad, ugly, etc.)

Just give me a little time. I'll whip something up for you soon.

[GuardianDreamer]

I'm not a GM, so I skipped over the Plot Development section. I felt like I couldn't accurately give criticism about that. My apologies if this comes across as negative, Sleuth. This is probably your first time receiving criticism like this, so I tried to be gentle, but let me know if I wasn't gentle enough. I typed as I went along, so I might have been a bit too rough... My apologies if that's the case. I do believe you're a better writer than I am.

Spoiler : For Sleuf :

Dreaming Guardian Productions presents: The Shadowsleuth Review

Section 1. Character Development

I feel like Character Development is one of your weak points, Sleuth. And to be frank, I have the feeling that you already know that. Let's take a look at, say, Akira. I don't like being blunt, but his character development keeps going in random directions, to the extent that I'm not sure where you're trying to take his character. Akira started off as an Izaya expy. Even I could tell that, and I haven't even read the Light Novels he's from, or watched the anime based on the Light Novels. I note this because it emphasizes how much of an Izaya expy he is.

After a while, I feel like you realized that he was way too close to Izaya for your own comfort. However, you then took Akira's character development in what seemed like the completely opposite direction. He was supposed to be intentionally immature, and someone who enjoyed annoying other people. Then suddenly, he got deeply depressed, and I feel like you tried to make him act much more serious. Now, don't get me wrong. Plenty of crazy stuff has happened in Requiem, so acting in strange ways is not unjustified. However, the shift was just too jarring. Character shifts can be done in both good ways and bad ways, and I feel like Akira's wasn't pulled off very well. It would have been better if he tried to continue his Trickster-like persona, only to slowly transition into his "newer" personality, so that the shift is a lot more believable.

I think you might already know that, though. I've noticed that you've tried to reconcile these two different versions of Akira by going for a sort of "middle-ground" in Requiem recently. Honestly, that's probably the best move you could make. It's up to you where to take his character from here, but I would advise against any more sudden shifts unless it has a very good justification. As for your other characters (Who I know less well)... Honestly, a lot of them don't stand out too much, character-development wise. I won't judge Saburo, since I'm no longer in FW, but I will say that he's far too similar to Akira as well. And honestly, a lot of your characters are far too similar. But that's another story.

Sorry to say this, but I think you need to work on your character development skills. It doesn't have to be sudden, of course. But when I look at a lot of your characters, I notice no changes to their personalities or ideals since the beginning of their RP's to where they are now. Of course, some characters have personalities that are harder to change in general, but I feel like even your characters who have a lot of potential to change greatly... Just don't. This may be the point, but I find it odd. Please don't find this discouraging. There are some characters who seemed to be going in great directions, but you ended up not posting as them much for one reason or another.

Section 2. Character Creation and Originality

I feel like it was justified to make these two topics into one section. My apologies if you feel any different. I think I covered quite a bit of this in the previous section, so please forgive me if I repeat myself. So saying that, I will now repeat myself: Akira is a pretty blatant Izaya expy, and I only needed to do a bit of research to find that out. Saburo also seems like an expy of Akira himself... So you have an expy of an expy. Or maybe Saburo was written first. In either case, you still have an expy of an expy. Which can still be pulled off well if there are enough changes, but here... I just don't see enough changes. Saburo honestly comes across to me as what Akira would be like if he was older. While it's not a bad thing to reference your other characters in this way, it's very jarring to look at. I think this was especially obvious in the Tourney, where they interacted directly.

On the other hand, you do have some original characters. Even if you didn't post as her much, Lucia was very interesting while you did as her, which is why it was such a shame to see her go. Honestly, other than Saburo and Akira, I feel like most of your characters are "half-expies", in that they're CLEARLY inspired by something else, but you try to add a few things (Or remove a few things) to make them different... Which sometimes works out, and sometimes doesn't. (Note: I'm not counting Nero when I say this. Since he's SUPPOSED to be a parody of DMC in general, it'd be weirder if he wasn't an expy.)

I feel like some practice is all you need to improve yourself. As time goes on, I feel like your characters are becoming more and more original, and less of them scream "Blatant Expy" to me. I feel like you're trying to avoid repeating the same character type again and again in order to make your characters feel more unique, and I believe it's working. Keep up what you're doing now.

Section 3. Dialogue

... Don't know how to review this, honestly. I suppose I should start off by saying that I find your dialogue good. It doesn't particularly stand out, but it's good, and the characters clearly have a lot of personality (Unless they're NPC's, in which case they usually have less). I don't know what more to say, so this section will be embarrassingly short. I don't find your Dialogue to be a problem, or something that specifically needs your attention. It's very solid where it is right now, and that's a good thing. So yeah. Moving along...

Section 4. Descriptions

Your descriptions tend to cover what's needed in most posts. If that's what you want, then this isn't an issue that you need to address. If you wish to improve your skills further still (Perhaps for very important posts), well... I find that you tend to ignore the sense of smell when posting. To be fair, a lot of people do, and I usually forget about it as well. And this will likely sound rather strange. But actually, describing how something smells like can deeply immerse the reader into what's going on. Describing how blood smells, for example, adds to how the reader reacts to its description, whereas just describing what it looks like doesn't quite get the same reaction. It's a subtle difference, but I believe it's important. Of course, there are times when describing smell is appropriate and not appropriate. Unless you want your characters to seem creepy, there are quite a few situations where describing smell just doesn't make much sense. I'll leave it up to your judgement as to when that is.

Other than that, I find your descriptions rather adequate. If you ever miss a key detail, then it's usually quite rare. So yeah. Good job on that.

[gotMLK7]

Spoiler : :

Character Development
+Your characters generally feel very well developed
+Characters are kept closely tied with the plot to keep them relevant and therefore remain interesting
+Your NPC army is good at developing your characters' backstories at times, as well as giving very well-controlled interaction
+Character interaction with other players seems pretty good for the most part
+Never seem to stream too far away from IC
-You occasionally seem to get bored of a character to the point of making their dialogue dull down a little
-When you make quirky characters, their quirks tend to keep them from changng too much (as much as I like Nero, he hasn't felt very develloped)
Overall your character development is pretty good. I can't really think of many cons with the development itself, tbh.

Character Creation (E.g. Best and Worst aspects of my characters)
+You're good at making smart, in-control characters
+Quirkiness is fun and well-done
+Generally well-done designs
-Designs can occasionally seem very similar (Atlantis, Kazuya, and Akira all seem to share a lot of design elements)
-Certain quirks seem to end up getting on your nerves (see Inquisitor) and end up making the characters suffer a little later on
-It seems to be a running trend with you to have nonconformists (the neutral Kazuya, the kill-all-the-leaders Saburo, the dodge-and-walk-away Kanya, the conquer-all-the-worlds Atlantis, and I'm probably forgetting a few) which isn't necessarily BAD but it can make things get a little difficult in some scenarios
-There's expies like Akira and then there's rip-offs :T Nero and Enzo's weapon are practically treading on copyright grounds
Overall well made characters, as long as you keep them interesting for yourself from the start.

Descriptions (Of locations, characters, actions, etc.)
+Fight scenes are nice and detailed
+Characters seem very clear in one's mind
+Locations are very well-defined and occasionally memorable
-Small details seem to need a little work sometimes (I'm totally guessing what teleportation to the Otherside feels like)
Overall...not really much t say here. Pretty good job, just make sure you establish the small stuff.

Characters (Originality, likability, appeal, dislikes)
+Very fun personalities
+Interesting story arcs
+Stylish~
+Incredibly fun to interact with
+Saburo is best pony
-Tend to fall into "non-comformist serious" or "quirky" categories
-Joke characters are fun, but you tend to get bored of them a lot
-Aforementioned rip-offs and expies
-Your NPC armies might distract from the actual characters at times (the FW Assassin Squad got more posts than Saburo OR Yuri in their battle)
Overall, you have my FAVORITE character pool on this whole site, but the originallity factors tend to be hit or miss at times.

Plot Development (How well I move along stories)
+You hug the plot so closely that half of your characters are pracitcally protagonists
+you keep everything interesting
+You practically are the center of FW's plot at the moment
-You get tied to the plot and then NEVER POST
-Tendency to stall RPs a lot
Overall, you are the center of a lot of great plots...now you just need to make srue you do something with it.

Dialogue (Good, bad, ugly, etc.)
+Um...pretty good?
-...Sometimes less than good?
Overall...yeah I have no idea what to say here really. Kinda tough to judge for some reason. Seems generally well-done, with the occasional oddities that haunts all RPers (such as your recent unease with Kanya), but pretty much good foor the most part.

...Yeah this probably isn't as well-done or as helpful as GD's post, but it's just my two cents on your writing. And I felt the need to make sure you realized you aren't absolutely terrible like you seem to think you are. So yeah, hope this helps you out.

[Sleuth]

Thanks guys. Glad to hear some legit criticism.

I see that my originality can be off at times, which is a problem I've had for a while but never addressed. I'll get to working on that. Might as well fix up what I have with the characters I already have.

[LunchPolice]

Just a reminder that this thread exists.

[GuardianDreamer]

I don't believe you.

[enigma]

Okay, reviving this to ask you all a question:

Why isn't enough people joining Karasu? I don't think it could be a lack of people who like Umineko, we are AAO after all. Is it the premise? The style? The gameplay?

Whodunnit did well and this is heavily influenced by that in terms of style... I'm not sure what's wrong with it or how I could make it more attractive to join...

Please help.

[Master Of Chaos]

Think it's just the result of the current RP drought and school.

[deHughes]

Enigma, I can say concretely what killed any interest I may have had in it.

That. I don't want to make screenshots which are overly big and clunky when I RP. I want to write. If I ever RP, it's mainly to practice the prose I can't work on in whatever game I'm making in AAO. Ain't no prose in screenshots. It's also much more work, and I'm sure you know we can all be very lazy when we want to be. Also, and I can't speak for all of AAO, but I'm not attracted to the idea of RPing a character who I don't know at all. Most Umineko fans aren't RPers and most RPers aren't Umineko fans. Thus, the idea of playing Shannon or George is... unappealing. The characters mean nothing to us, so why would we ever want to RP them? . The idea of there being a set "protagonist" also sounds extremely unappealing, probably being my biggest complaint with the game. You're devaluing the remainder of the cast into minor character roles instead of each of them being their own protagonist, one of the most interesting aspect to RPs in general.

I'd be more willing to play the game, and I'm sure many others would be to, if it would be in traditional prose and with original characters at least being an option.

[enigma]

Well, this is kind of a tough topic here. You see, your argument comes from the idea that I'm making this, well, for the RP community in general. My main issue with a few of your arguments is that it's more aimed at the umineko community. Kind of like an interactive version of the games, see? So it's only natural that people who aren't part of the umineko side are turned away. The characters issue is the main thing with that assumption. Umineko fans shouldn't find that a problem I don't think.

Also, I should clarify something, while this is an RP feedback thread Karasu is a kind of blend like Whodunnit was. So, while there are elements of RP's, it's also kind of a forum game too. Object! at the last post and other forum games where the players are supposed to do something extra have worked in the past so I don't think that it should be too much of a problem. However, if I get more people really having trouble with that I guess I could offer a service to make the screens for them provided they write up their posts in the style of the screen with a "sprite: BG:" tag at the start or something. As for the protagonist thing... Yeah. That's a genuine problem. However, I think it works best this way. One main villain, one main protagonist. Though, I guess I could do something similar to what the WhoDunnit games do with dead characters and let the other players have a go with blues and reds if the main character fails...

In any case, thank you very much for your feedback. Though my response may seem like I'm not doing anything about your issues, your feedback really did help me and I am doing something about your issues. Sadly, a lot of your issues are with core "mechanics" I guess. So, I'm going to have to really compromise to get it just right. Again, thank you very much. Your feedback was extremely helpful.

PS. Since, as you said, there might nit be enough overlap I'll try advertising to the Umineko crowd of the forum since they are the intended audience.

[Master Of Chaos]

Hope no one minds if I just bring this back...

Hit me, hit me as hard as you can. Make me break down and cry in the corner. Slam my hopes and dreams into the wall. Just don't bring up any of my earlier work (CC, ROTS, Tournament, ETC) because I know all too well how terrible it was and remembering it makes me sob. So yeah, just measure me up with my current work.

Copying Slueth because laziness:

I'd like criticism on:

Character Development (Good development, bad development, too rushed, too slow, not enough etc.)
Character Creation (E.g. Best and Worst aspects of my characters)
Descriptions (Of locations, characters, actions, etc.)
Characters (Originality, likability, appeal, dislikes)
Dialogue (Good, bad, ugly, etc.)