Statue Minus the ‘Tat’
As most of you know, Varendil and I moved in together and our little apartment is in dire need of decorations that aren’t pizza boxes or his Pink Floyd posters. Dark Side of the Moon was a classic album you unculutr–slams door and continues to sip her coffee.- I casually mentioned a statue to liven up the place but Varendil shrugged it off because statues aren’t evil enough for his apartment.
Thanks to a reader, we may have found a way to get our statue and our doom all in one serving!
On second thought, I’ll stick to the Pink Floyd posters…
Meanwhile in FernGully
New, from the Roleplayer’s Lament: what you get when you get all your character concepts from “Newest Deviations.”
I’d say she got the idea from the store-brand costumes at Wal-Mart, but that’s probably a better explanation for the millions of sexy pirates on every RP server.
Overheard from a Citizen of Silvermoon
Hey, man, did you see this chick?
Oh, she'll embiggen you, if you know what I mean.
Just wow, man! A real knockout!
Are’lia! Wouldn’t Wanna Be Ya!
Varen here. Lan should be here in my secret lair deep beneath the earth’s crust in Wisconsin later tonight, and we’re probably going to have things we want to do more than make fun of bad descriptions.
Oooh hoo hoo!
So I hope that you all will forgive us if we take a couple days off from hardcore mockery. In the meantime, however, we’ve cobbled together a quick little RSP for your reading enjoyment.
- – - – - – - -
We’ve seen a lot of odd titles before for characters, but this one is new.
The Cliche. *looks directly at the camera for a moment*
Quickie: She’s Not
Oh, she’s exceptional, all right.
For a short RSP, this tells us a ton. Let’s examine it.
All In The Family
Cataclysm is coming and you know what that means – people jumping on the ‘I want to be a part of the bad guy’s storyline!’ bandwagon!
Oh, draconic pupils and a mezzosoprano singing voice! Two things that go worse together!
Me Not That Kind of Ork (With Bonus Free-For-All Goodness!)
Keep in mind, while reading this RSP, that it is a Blood Elf in Silvermoon City, in the Eastern Kingdoms, the world of Azeroth, set in the universe of Warcraft, a popular franchise from Blizzard Entertainment. Got that?
Click to embiggen.
Wall of Text! Don’t worry if you didn’t read it all, I couldn’t do it either on my first attempt.
She Didn’t Say She was Powerful
Japan. It’s obvious that they’re crazy, so I don’t know how they ever got around to making great cars.
Needs moar desu. No exceptions.
Silversight Letdowns
“Where do you find these things, Lan?”
“Oh, they just kinda..appear, paying no mind to time and space. “
Half breeds are fun. Two races for the price of one! I’ve touched on half breeds before, and yes, some are playable by lore standards. Half elf, half orc, those things work within the timeline we follow.
Artistic Experimentation
Fill a highball glass with ice cubes. Huge ones aren’t ideal, but little ones do have that tendency to fuse together into a glass-shaped mess. Go for something bigger than crushed, smaller than a Wal-Mart tray.
Some days, coping’s hard. There’s just so much fail, whether it’s a half-dragon or a Secret Past type thing. Today it’s trying to figure out the logic of an elven hunter calling herself a Blood master. Wasn’t David Tennant’s first Doctor Who episode about blood control? Blood control, blooood control, you walk walk walk my winners…
You Are Horribly Wrong
Well, after all the drama and goings-on around here of late, we figured it’d be best to get back into the groove with a nice, easy, low-hanging fruit.
See? Don’t you feel better already? (more…)
I Shoot Malice Into the Marrowdarkness
Sometimes I hope you readers are grateful. Some days we get RSPs that make it hard to make any joke other than LOLOLOL 16 YEAR OLD BOY. Today is one of those, but durn it, we’ve done our best and we’re not sinking to that level.
Today we have a nice wall of text by Marrowdark Voldrune who is, in fact, “The Messiah.” But a Messiah of what? Is Marrowdark here to save us from our transgressions? Is Marrowdark here to lead us to the Promised Lands?
She & Hymn
(Alternate title: Celldawn Game Corner)
There haven’t been enough people whining at me to leave Britney alone lately, so it must be time for another purple prose post.
Remember, kids, you’re allowed to mock people that rape in their RP, but not those that rape the English language.
We’ve a temple to invade, so grab your ocarina and your Master Sword and let’s do this.
Syriolstrasz, Sit Boy!
You ever sit there reading an RSP and feel like you can hear the other shoe dropping on what was once a perfectly cromulent description?
Yat-da-da-da FOX EARS. Oh, Lord.
WWWWIAFTMD?
Anyone else feel like they’re being watched?
Okay, this is the worst Choose Your Own Adventure book I’ve ever read. Oh, wait, it’s just a player telling me how I react to her. I’ma check off the box labeled “Godmoder” next to this WYSIWYG editor and move on to the rest of this little one-woman-show.
Please Tell Me This Is Fake
Step one. Read this definition and apply to RSPs.
Step two. Read this RSP:
Step three. Fill out this poll.
Step four. Leave comments, and thank you.
To All the White Knights
There’re a bunch of you out there that hate when I make fun of what I deem purple prose. “It’s not bad,” you say. “It’s poetic and full of imagery,” you say. “Your attitude has a negative effect on server RP and you smell bad,” you say.
Well, no. Not true. Well, mostly. Your attitude is having a negative effect on RP. And I have proof.
This is the most blatant and severe instance of thesaurus rape I have ever seen. Start at the beginning of the third paragraph. The most common armour she bears is contrived of the flesh, carapaces… Contrived. Contrived. To contrive is to invent or ‘make up’ something to justify an action. Merriam-Webster calls it “artificial” and “labored.” This sentence originally read, “…armour she bears is made up of the flesh, carapaces…” and this individual went to a thesaurus, looked up ‘made up’ or ‘make up,’ and found contrived. Like maybe this one, where it’s right toward the top!
“But Varendil,” you say. “Maybe they meant that the armor is haphazard, ersatz, bits and pieces of hide.” That’s fine. Let’s look at another example.
Your Eyes are a Bird; Your Argument is Invalid
For those of you that didn’t notice our (other) most recent post, or don’t know us in real life, or haven’t heard Lanuria’s random shouting from any high public place she can find, she and I are, like, so in love and getting married someday. As such, we’ve agreed that an RSP in love is a fitting match. So, today we present you with the most in-love-with-itself RSP we have.
Ahh. So she stalks rime? Like, the icy frost stuff?
Either that or she’s stalking Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
“…that sleek and brutish carapace of mail and leather… bereft of the faintest dull gleam.” What does that even mean?
Obviously that she uses a flat black primer. I’m more worried about the “curling tongues… encas[ing] her body,” because if you curl a tongue around your body, you’re being curled by every tongue that tongue has ever curled with. Or… something?
If you keep straining for jokes like that, you’re going to pull a muscle.
“Beneath it she moves with dreadful grace, terrible poise; beneath it she is vulnerable, but those plates render her immortal.” The armor renders her immortal?
Valentina Pyre built this in a cave from scraps.
“Laughter lingers in the sly twist of her mouth, the coquettish cant of her head,” the way she cackles as she falls onto the carpet after a night of heavy drinking. “This song is about me!” “Eyes the potent green of felfire, the glowing verdancy of stolen emeralds…” the wet lime gleam of baby poop, “eyes the savage, beautiful, primal jade of avarice.” The unnatural apple color of a wicked witch. It’s obnoxious, it’s obscene! Like a froggy, ferny cabbage, her eyes, they are unnaturally –
Varen! Stop! Do you want Stephen Schwartz to sue us?
…fine.
“Those eyes focus and study, appraise with a falcon’s intensity;” “Thanks for coming to Antique’s Roadshow today, but I’m afraid this Tiffany piece is a reproduction. CAAAWWWW!”
“[T]hose eyes strip mercilessly away their victim’s defenses…” VALENTINA used LEER! PIDGEY’s defense fell!
“Her voice is a rasping purr, her Thalassian tempered with unshed traces of an inelegant Ghostlands drawl.” Since when did the Ghostlands become a hick town? Most every place with quel’dorei in it is classy to a fault. Just because you have to travel south from the capital to get to Tranquilien doesn’t mean that it’s BFE. “Yeah, your “lazy and intimate mockery of a smile” is a real purty mouf.”
“Like a predator, she carries herself: some strange marriage –” See? She’s married. Lan, you’re not allowed to be passive aggressive when I’ve already proposed. “…of nobility and savagery, of genteel diplomacy and trenchant tactlessness.“ Of chocolate and peanut butter. Yes, we used that joke format earlier in this post, but any time there’s a list with two items, it’s begging for a third to be a punchline.
“She hears no hymns but the clink of coin.” Money! Get away. Get a good job with more pay and you’re okay. Hymns of money for nothing and her clinks for free.
“a mincing minuet that spins her ever closer to her own uncompromising ambitions.” Hunters! On ice! Thrill as she ROTATES!
We have a buncha paragraphs here that end up not describing a lot of content. However, I’ve seen (and made fun of) much purpler prose. Truth be told, some of this stuff is good poetry. My poetry professor would swoon for “She wears the earth and the darkness.” The problem is that some people will look at this RSP and pee themselves a bit because they don’t know half of these words.
That’s our second bodily function joke.
Well, we have been potty training your nephew.
An RSP should be approachable if it’s going to fulfill its function of facilitating and informing RP. Right now the message we’re getting from this is that you (the player) love you (the character) a bit too much. If you’re a lazy schmuck like me or an ADD-ridden ferret like me you’re not going to want to put on waders and, well, wade through the glowing praise in these paragraphs, let alone the adjective- and metaphor-rich emotes we might expect from actual roleplay after reading a description like this. This is in general, mind you, it may not apply to you yourself. We’re just poking at a larger lesson here. EDIT: Turns out we have RP’d with Valentina before – we just didn’t recall it at the time of writing this, and the paragraph above has no relation to her actual RP skill. See the comments for more info.
If you want to describe your character in great detail, it might be a good idea to put all this on a page on the Moon Guard Wiki. You get more room to write all you want about your character without flooding our games with a wall of text. Then you can keep the RSP for just the facts, which in this RSP amount to “She wears mail, she has green eyes, and she likes to spin.” Let people get to know you through your roleplay, don’t drop a poetry class in their lap until they’re ready.
And though you protest your disinterest, I know clandest-inely…
You’re gonna grin and bear it, when I ball tap you with my knee.
No Mystery Here
Remember elementary school? Heading to the library to grab a book because you needed something to pass the time because we all didn’t have video games back in the day. You wanted adventure, excitement and you wanted to think, be actively challenged, and you wanted it all at one time. So, you picked up a choose your own adventure book. And don’t lie, you always flipped ahead to see if you were going to die in the end. It’s okay, we all did it.
Those books were good. This RSP, however, is not.
Today we have ArrØdis Ðeathstrike, a character so badass, he has to have a special character for his last name as well. I also wonder if he has had a lovely høliday in Sweden, where he saw the løveli lakes and encountered the majestic møøse. Ya know, a møøse once bit my sister!
We apologize for the fault in the blog entry. Those responsible have been sacked.
First off, we have a quote that sounds like someone has been trying to make improvements to one of Robert Frost’s poems, Fire and Ice. Whilst it is true that fire will turn you to ash, the element shows its mercy in its speed to end you. Yes, because the burning and the searing pain of your flesh melting from your body isn’t as painful as the cold that comes about from hypothermia. I dunno, about you, but I would take the cold death in a heartbeat. Very peaceful. Let me show you a pain so slow and intense, that you had wished not to have been created let alone cross my path. I’ll take it over the fire, kthnx!
Remember those books I mentioned before? This RSP reads like one! As your bias and judgmental eyes gaze upon this elf, you feel a sudden and violent drop in body temperature. I’m only biased and judgmental against RSPs like this. And while I’m being judgmental and biased, you’re going to have my core temperature drop. We haven’t even raised a weapon to you and you’re getting ready to give us a taste of the arctic north lands. This guy could make a killin’ at a resort, putting little ice cubes in drinks and cooling everyone off with his body. I hope he comes to Florida for the summer! His armor – scourge like and menacing – demands the fear of all who inspect it. Pro tip: The expansion is Wrath of the Lich King. We are currently raiding Icecrown. EVERYTHING is scourge like and menacing. I also hate demanding armor. Nag nag nag, it’s all it does!
A menacing mask hides the bottom half of his face. Why does he hide himself or better still, Whom is he hiding from? Hiding from our judgmental and biased eyes, I assume. Though he only hides the lower portion of his face, so we can see his eyes, which are usually the most noticeable thing on a persons face. Why do you think so many super heroes only covered their eyes with a strip of cloth. You remove or add something near or around your eyes, you are a completely new person! Just look at Superman. Those glasses were all he needed. Covering up the bottom part of your face doesn’t hide much, unless you’re Jay Leno, of course.
If you are done gazing at the man, please continue reading below.
You have decided that you can come to only one, frightful conclusion. The undead man, who seems to taint the very space you both share, can be no other than one of Lich King’s, once unholy champions – a Death Knight. OH CRAP GUYS, A SCARY DEATH KNIGHT. SO EVIL, SO POWERFUL, WE HAVEN’T GOTTEN USED TO WORKING WITH THEM FOR THE PAST YEAR AND A HALF RUN AWAY!
The harder you stare at the man and try to piece together a plausible tale, the more apparent the fact becomes. Why does he wear a mask? Why does his RSP read like a choose your own adventure book? This man is nothing more than an enigma; an enigma the eyes and thought alone cannot possibly crack. We will need to touch him. And smell him. And possibly taste him if we to crack the enigma that he is.
He exudes such a twisted and dark energy. It seems to pulse and infect everything surrounding; what price did he pay for such unnatural power? I hate it when people’s exude dark energy and infect me. Reminds me of the drunk people I deal with at work. The price he paid? At first, I was going to say that he died to the Lich King/Scourge and was raised up as a death knight to do his master’s bidding, but I figured he only paid about a buck fifty for it.
Could he be a Knight of the Ebon Blade? Maybe he’s a Death Knight, loyal to the Forsaken or could this elf serve a sinister, more evil purpose? Well, any death knight is a Knight of the Ebon Blade and most people who are part of the Horde are somewhat loyal to the Forsaken, since they are a part of the Horde as well. But, it could be darker. More mysterious! He does have a mask on, you know he means dark and dangerous! The many questions that fill your head will simply not leave you be. Why is this character so cliche? Why doesn’t he lay of the dark and dangerous bit? Did I leave the oven on?
The familiar voice that lies in the back of your mind begins to speak. “You need to go to the store and get milk!” That voice that has always guided you to reason screams and begs your attention once more. “Beware curiosity! Combat these leading thoughts!” it cries. I don’t think that is how everyone’s inner monologue goes. Mine is usually showtunes. “Loathing. Unadulterated loathing.”
You come to two, final questions “Will I give into curiosity, approach him and seek my answers out, or will I leave and simply let him be?”
If you give into curiosity, approach the man and seek out your answers, please turn to page twenty seven. If you leave and simply let the dark, enigmatic man smirk behind his mask while he broods about dark and mysterious things, please keep reading. Remember, though. It is the answer to those two questions that will determine what happens next. It all lies in your hands.
You’ve deiced not to confront the man before you. You leave the man atop his death charger, brooding as you pass him by, ignoring the fact he has god modded his way into everyone’s mind and made himself look like a kid with far too much of his mom’s makeup under his eyes and squeezed into his sister’s pants. The one you see standing outside the local Hot Topic. You win the game. Congrats.
How can we fix this? It’s going to be hard, but right now, I think it can be saved. When you take out all the hypothetical questions, all the dark, brooding text and what we call “Shadowfap”, we know that he is a death knight with blue eyes with a mask on, all of which we can tell from looking at the character model. Instead of giving the readers questions to ask, you should make the reader ask their own questions about your character. There is mystery in telling the readers that your character is wearing a pendant that doesn’t seem to have a certain meaning, why a hand is covered with a glove but the other isn’t. There isn’t any mystery in “Whom is he hiding from?” “Why is he so dark?”, to be honest, the questions seem like a cry for attention. “Look at me!”, the death knight yells, “Look at how dark and creepy I am! You should be very afraid of me!” Make the reader question you and think for themselves.
In closing, RSPs like this do not leave much to the imagination. One of the most interesting parts of role play is getting under your character’s skin and figuring out what questions they would ask and why they would ask them. Going into someone’s mind and saying “THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE THINKING!” takes away from that mystery. If you want to be dark and mysterious, I suggest figuring out what part of your character’s personality is dark and mysterious and find a way to make people question him…without asking the questions for the reader. Your RSP is not a choose your own adventure book, but your RP should be like one. Instead of letting the reader flip ahead and see what will happen in the end, make it so that the reader will want to play along and see what happens.
Final thought: Møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti…
We apologize again for the fault in the blog. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.
What Face and Palm Were Made For
Sometimes I feel guilt about this blog. It’s not often, since my heart is two sizes too small, but it does happen. Today is not one of those times. I’m going to savor every ounce of rage I vent today.
See what I mean?
“Quinnt is actually… Smart, hard to notice, but he acts crude and disorderly to eveyone but people who are Mages aswell or friends.” Really? Acting like a gibbering cockwit to everyone that isn’t a finger-wiggler or a buddy seems like a smart thing to do. That’s the first word I’d use to describe it. This behavior, though, makes me wonder how you made those buddies. Are they all fourteen years old too?
“Quinnt’s voice doesnt match up with his appearance at all… it has a slight hint of taunting superiority at times.” Really? Because of the line I quoted above, I’m basically imagining you as Roger Klotz, so the idea of taunting superiority fits right in. “For any of you that has played…” I hasn’t. Although that’s the third Richter Belmont reference for those of us keeping score at home.
“Quinnt always wears robes that are at least 2 sizes larger than his normal size.” But if he always wears those, then they are normal for him, which means he has to go up another two sizes, and then those are normal… with this guy running around, I don’t know how frostweave prices keep falling.
So. You’re swimming in your robes… you’re a Ralts with Roger Klotz’s face and Richter Belmont’s… I dunno, smugness and heels?
“Hypermode… Drawbacks: Major Fatigue, Memory Loss, Cripples, Possible Death.” Psh. That’s no worse than the risk from watching any Coleman Francis movie.
“Mirror Image: (This idea started before Wotlk was even announced, and now that the spell is actually ingame…) Failed and Aborted.” Let me get this straight. You’re working on a mirror image spell and some trainer or Kirin Tor group or worse, both the Alliance and Horde independently at the same time beat you to the punch. Do you a) man up, admit ‘defeat,’ and get good at (read: glyph) the spell? Hell no.
“Hey, Quinnt, you were always interested in Mirror Image. Pop it quick.”
“Uh… no.”
“Why not?”
“Uhh… um… I can’t! I failed. Like… it doesn’t work! If I try to cast it, my, um, like my arm will fall off and start casting Frostbolt at things. Or they’ll all come out retarded.”
Can you guess which is the real Quinnt and which are the mirror images?
And yet we’re to believe that this guy’s a ‘Dalaran Archmage.’ “Then Rhonin’s gonna tell me about the rabbits again.”
Now that we’ve gone through the actual character description part of the RSP, we can get down to the meat of it: Quinnt’s whiny little tirade against seemingly everyone. Quinnt’s rant makes me think fondly of the reasonable shouting of Glenn Beck.
“And thanks flamers, you’ve finally got your wish by getting 6 or more guilds to completely ignore me.” No, I suspect that with diplomatic language like this, you got all these people to ignore you. “But I dun really give a fuck, cause if you are reading this you probably already are on ignore list, and the cops are on the way to your house.” Joke’s on you, I live in an alleyway and am stealing McDonald’s wifi to post this, I don’t have a house. But beyond that, what the hell is this? Are you trying to threaten us or just faux-threaten us? If it’s the former, you’re a complete and utter idiot. If it’s the latter, you’re… well, a complete and utter idiot, but you’re also trying to look manly by calling the police, which is what little old ladies do when kids are on their lawn and the most ungangsta thing possible. It’s like if Eminem tried to make it big by writing a strongly worded letter to the local newspaper’s Blossoms and Barbs section.
How can we make this RSP better? Truth be told, the character description stuff isn’t all that bad. I could tell you to stop with the Belmont character worship, but everyone emulates a little, that’s okay. And yes, I am going to make a fuss about the experimental spells. They do make you a godmoder, but the simple fact is that you don’t need them. They provide no net gain. There are lots of ways to demonstrate a near-fanatical devotion to magic or a disregard for personal safety that don’t involve you polymorphing yourself into a Sue, because let’s face it, these potentially fatal spells are never going to kill you, at least in any way that’s meaningful.
No, the best way to improve this RSP would be for its writer to GROW THE FUCK UP. I came to this conclusion right about the time that he asks me to flame him (gladly), tells me he called the cops on me (qua?) and then states that everyone with FlagRSP that’s reading this the RSP is a prick (NO U).
I have two rules that I attempt to follow when being critical of other people: one, don’t call people a kid. Everyone’s been there, there are many kids more mature and reasonable than adults, et cetera. Two, and this is really the biggie, I always try to insult the character and the writing instead of the writer. We’ve all written things we’re not proud of, it doesn’t make us bad people. Quinnt’s RSP makes me throw both rules out the window and not feel bad about it. Either this guy’s age or his blood alcohol level is one-five. Either way: Friends, don’t let friends be Quinnt.
Gold Star
It took some digging, but after going through my ridiculously huge screenshot folder, I finally found a good RSP worth mentioning here.
Ladies and gentlemen, a good rsp.
Why is this a good RSP? Well, for starters, this block of text doesn’t go into the backstory of Syael. All it does is give the reader a little information on the physical traits of the Blood Knight.We don’t see the personality of the Blood Knight, but we can tell by looking at him that he is very neat and orderly. His armor is cleaned, his face is unmarked with scars (which is a surprise in itself!) He isn’t a bulky Big McLargehuge, but he holds some definition in his arms and legs, most likely from running around in plate armor.
His eyes don’t hold emotions, they are simply green. His body isn’t lean and bulky or some other contradicting terms, but lean and lanky. He isn’t a demon, a god, a son of a lore figure. He is simply what he rolled. A Blood Elf Blood Knight. He is an average Blood Elf with a great and fantastic RSP. We applaud you, Syael Sunkeeper, please keep giving Blood Elves a good name!
You get a gold star.
In other news, the blog now has it’s own Twitter, so you can follow along for updates and daily laments from the both of us when we are working on posts or just being generally lazy. Don’t forget we are looking for submissions for the blog as well, both good and bad, horde and alliance, regardless of server, and if you haven’t taken our survey yet (one post down!) please do! It’ll help make the blog better!
Lan out!
Lanuria Dawnblade, a.k.a. Courtney Adler, aspires. She's an aspiring DM, aspiring photographer, and aspiring wife. She lives in Monroe, Wisconsin and complains about the weather far too much. She enjoys The Big Bang Theory and singing the songs from Glee.
Varendil Dawnblade, a.k.a. Taylor Vincent, is a 22-year old writer, student, World of Warcraft player, and 4th Edition DM. He lives in Monroe, Wisconsin with his fiancé and their jade plant, Esmeralda. He likes Douglas Adams and The Venture Bros. He hates Toni Morrison. Don't even ask. 
