#adding in confusing book lore while claiming it’s not canon then making some of it canon and not elaborating in game

[luisleyyaoi]

Seething at the mouth over fnaf lore and it’s wasted potential

[jacktherph]

Hi, Jack! We are a new murder mystery roleplay inspired by A Series of Unfortunate Events with new plot twists and characters. We would love some feedback. May we please have an opinion? Please, feel free to take as much time as you need. Thank you so much! We really appreciate it!

hi there @unfortunate-rp​! i’m happy to give you an opinion. since you didn’t specify private, i will post this on my blog. feel free to ask me to take it down if that was a mistake.

NOTE: all opinions expressed here are mine, jack’s, belonging to jack. i make no claims to knowing what is best for every group – i only offer advice based on my experiences, what i’ve seen in the community, and my personal knowledge. no one person knows what is best for you or any group other than yourself; because you were the one who put all of this together in the first place. so take everything i say as a suggestion, and remember that you have accomplished so much!!

and if you have any questions, want feedback on something specific, or want elaborations on anything said in this opinion, don’t hesitate to message me!!

this isn’t just an opinion, it’s a shoutout and a rec!! any fans of the asoue book series &/or recent netflix adaptation will adore this rpg. it perfectly captures everything snicket was about from beginning to end and the skeletons are frankly fucking amazing. what a creative admin team!! 

start: 2.30 | pause: none | end: 2.58TOTAL: HERE 28 minutes to read all pages (please don’t take this as a measure of anything, I simply time myself and am a speed reader)

*spelling error on /uptown: Mureau Cinema -- Christmas

So the first thing I’m going to say before I go into the full details of each page and contents and such is that I have one big recommendation: finding a way to adjust your line height in your code. The common theme I ran into while reading all of your pages is that after a while my eyes would gloss over certain sentences because I thought I was reading each line but they were too bunched together. Because you have such beautiful pages with so much information to give to your members, this is super important. If you’d like me to see if I can find that part of your code for you, feel free to IM me at any time and I’ll be happy to help.

My first impression of everything is a big fat fucking WOW. From the pages to the graphics to even the way you word things I feel like I’ve been transported back to that dreadfully delightful macabre world Snicket created for me as a child. I don’t know if you’ve been given proper praise for that yet but if you haven’t you certainly deserve it. You have a functional and helpful theme that works for what you need from it and your design of everything is both simple and artistic at the same time. When you have a new acceptance posted the dual ember gifs make it feel like there’s a lot going on but it’s not consistent, with too many repeated or flashing gifs, and so there’s not anything you need to do to change that in my opinion. It just tends to happen with graphics that use the same images. Really though, please feel extremely accomplished about the tone and theme you set on your main. I’ve never gotten more of an impression of what an rpg is about by one glance than I do here.

Your Plot is astounding. Disregarding the fact that you wrote it just like Snicket, I think this is one of the most original fandom concepts I’ve seen in some time. This was the perfect story to be able to take away from the canon and still keep it within the realm of possibility. I’m actually really glad you did this so well because this way people can still have all of the fun of the storyline and plots and not have to worry about the possibility of “playing a canon character wrong” or trying to fit it into the canon of the books/show.

I’ll sort of go into all of your lore pages as a whole rather than go through every single page? Because the love and dedication you’ve taken to ensure potential members and your members have everything they need in order to work within the worldbuilding of your group. I can seriously appreciate that as an admin of a group with a ton of lore, myself. That you go into so much detail on the locations pages and everything about VFD, you make it so your main is the one-stop shop for information rather than asking people to go elsewhere like a wikia page and I’m gonna shout my praises to you for that!

So your Guidelines are something I’m a little iffy on -- and I’m gonna say this is honestly the only thing I really find debatable about your rpg. The very nature of the ASOUE series was about children being involved in all of the gruesome stuff that comes with being an adult; so in that I can see why you allow writers of any age. But you also have content warnings such as smut, violence, drugs, and etc. and state that the roleplay itself will have mature themes and contents. So that being said, I have two moral issues: allowing members under 18 and the playing of characters who are minors. Generally I’m against playing characters who are minors of any kind. That results in using FCs who are minors and yes, while they are celebrities, it gives the potential for undue associations with the child star. Have you considered possibly keeping children out of the RPG except for in the case of mentioned NPCs? Regarding the “members under 18” bit, honestly that one isn’t as much of a big deal so long as your members are tagging and using read-mores where and when needed, but i’ll include that it will deter a certain number of people from joining your group. I’m not telling you to change anything -- but these are things I think you should maybe think about and consider adding changes to?

Your Skeletons and Faceclaims are so widely wonderful and diverse. You have such a wide range of trans characters and I always look for that in RPGs. But you’re also extremely body positive and age positive as well. This is what the faceclaim page of every rpg should look like, so applause for you. I only looked at a few of your skeletons to get a feel for them, but from what I did look at each one is unique in their own way and you have done an impressive job weaving them in with not only one another but the story. Each one has an important role to play and none feel like they’re just there for any sort of token points. You must have put a lot of work into this and you admin/s need to recognize that this immense amount of creativity is brilliantly impressive.

Personally, I think all you need to do is link to your skeleton page with the filters, rather than having a whole page with links that bring people to the tags the filters divide by, but that is more of a suggestion and if you find what you have works for you then there’s nothing more to be said. As for the images on the skeleton page: you obviously make them fit better with the psd/texture, which I like, but some of them still stick out in their brightness. Maybe go back and look at them and dim some of them individually or try to get them with a matching color hue to make them seem a little more uniform?? But the distinction between npcs and skeletons with the monochrome is great.

Overall your graphics match very well!! Your character template is perfect for the vibe and the psd you have on your images ensures they all look very uniform and put-together. The sidebar gif on the homepage feels a little left out compared to the rest, though? I don’t know if you have a lot of history working with gif editing but either changing the size, adding the psd, or adding a little SOMETHING to it might make it seem a little less “floating on it’s own in a void” in your sidebar.

Your Applications, both of them, are very well thought out and you definitely ask for everything that I can see being necessary in this group. Some in the community are against fully fleshed out apps like this but those who see your group and see the effort in your applications should feel inspired with everything that they answer!! You even provide links for them in helping find occupations and such, and that’s going above and beyond. My one thing is…. Why are both applications on bright white backgrounds and not set as pages of your main? It’s just confusing to me, nothing big. And the white sort of startles me after looking at your darker-colored pages for such a long time.

My FAVORITE THING about your rpg: the complete-ness of it all. I genuinely cannot think of one thing I would like to see here, information or rpg-wise, that would help me as a potential member understand your rpg better. You obviously put so much work into everything here and I could not be more thrilled. As the story goes on you might add more pages or such but for an rpg that hasn’t opened yet (at the time I’m writing this) there is NOTHING that needs adding, in my opinion.

My LEAST FAVORITE THING about your rpg: I’m… struggling to find something, but I guess if I had to pick it would be the layout of your applications -- how they exist on a white page rather than within a page on your main. It’s just slightly jarring to go from all that darkness to a bright white page. Think about putting them as pages on your theme and honestly you’re good to go??

OVERALL this is probably one of the best examples of a put-together skeleton and bio rpg I’ve ever seen. Like, I don’t even know anything about the series beyond the show and I had to stop myself from joining while writing this opinion. Even if someone knows nothing about the fandom they could be coaxed to join after just taking a few minutes to look at everything you’ve put together and provided for people. You didn’t leave anything I could think of out and included more than I would have thought if I were the one putting this rpg together. The fact that you may have done this solo stuns me even more. This is an rpg everyone should check out because it has everything people are looking for: diversity, depth, a well-formed plot, and the potential to last for some time with the right cast and crew behind it.

Well fucking done.

Sincerely,Jack

[jacktherph]

Actually, instead of a shoutout, could we get your opinion on the rp please? Thank you!

hi there @kismetrpg! i’m happy to give you an opinion. since you didn’t specify private, i will post this on my blog. feel free to ask me to take it down if that was a mistake.

NOTE: all opinions expressed here are mine, jack’s, belonging to jack. i make no claims to knowing what is best for every group – i only offer advice based on my experiences, what i’ve seen in the community, and my personal knowledge. no one person knows what is best for you or any group other than yourself; because you were the one who put all of this together in the first place. so take everything i say as a suggestion, and remember that you have accomplished so much!!

and if you have any questions, want feedback on something specific, or want elaborations on anything said in this opinion, don’t hesitate to message me!!

this isn’t just an opinion, it’s a shoutout and a rec! @kismetrpg looks like a really cool new supernatural-themed rpg set in new orleans, y’all!! with a unique lore, awesome factions, and tons of different species to take on, this is an rpg worth checking out!! they open on january 5th!

start: 1.20 | pause: 1.21 - 1.25 | end: 1.36TOTAL: 12 minutes to read all pages (please don’t take this as a measure of anything, I simply time myself and am a speed reader)

Before I say anything about the group and pages, this is a blanket recommendation: Read up on Apostrophe Rules and go through your pages with an editing eye. I’m definitely guilty of mixing up my apostrophe rules sometimes but I definitely noticed a lot of mistakes in pages like your plot. Fixing these can improve the overall professional atmosphere of your group!

My first impression was this: this is definitely a group I would have considered joining when I was looking for rpgs to check out!! You have a lot of lore, great details and descriptions provided, and the blanket plot seems really interesting. This is a fascinating looking roleplay, so I want to give you my kudos. Well done! The main is very clean, minimalist, if that’s what you were going for. All attention is definitely diverted to the heading image. Unfortunately without seeing the advertised “supernatural rpg” font, I wouldn’t know this group has supernatural intentions based solely on looks. I don’t know if you planned/wanted that, but I wanted to include that in case you were so inclined. Your sidebars are clean-cut and to the point and will, no doubt, fill up with things once you open I’m sure. I do like the blanket trigger warning on the top of the About–I don’t know if some might deem it entirely necessary, but you want potential members to know what they’ll be looking at before they delve into your info, and I respect that.

A word on your Navigation: I don’t know if, in your theme, you can divide the navigation up more than by two headings, but if you can I would recommend it. Personally, I would divide it into: “Before Application,” including plot, rules, app, forms, etc / “Lore,” (or similar title) including your info on the Council, Silence, bestiary, locations, etc / & “After Applying,” with what you have. If that doesn’t appeal to you, I would say just try and reorganize the links? Why I say this: because jumping around from lore, lore, to app info, to lore, to form info, all in the top was kind of confusing for me. I get having the most important things first but it did seem a bit mish-moshed.

Your Plot is spot-on. You gave me background, you gave me current happenings, you gave me how things went down, and that’s excellent. One thing: think about including a paragraph on when/how/why the Council was formed? I think that would wrap it all up nicely and send a potential member into the “Chapter One” section seamlessly. Because I was suddenly like “wait who are these guys?? Where did they come from??” when I saw their name. Just a thought. As a writer I adored how you put it in as a “Chapter.” Something about the word choice really made me feel like I was entering at the beginning of a story by applying.

Your Rules are standard and fill every criteria for base lsrpgs that I, personally, am aware of. Your last bullet-point in “God Modding” however brought up a curiosity that you might want to think about putting somewhere in your lore: the rock-paper-scissors effect of the supernaturals. Who beats who? Who has a natural weakness to who? Etc etc. Just something to think about? I like that your Activity Check window is 48 hours. Very appealing to people who want to join but also worry about Check limits. QUESTION: At the top of your Rules, you say this is a “canon and original character roleplay.” What canon? I couldn’t find a fandom influence–not a blatant one. If you don’t mean from a fandom, you might want to rephrase to avoid people applying with fandom canon characters. If you mean YOUR canon, might I suggest “an original canon and original character roleplay” instead?

I don’t really feel like I can give an opinion on your Lore pages – after all, the Lore is yours. But it all reads very simply, cleanly, and to-the-point. I feel like if I have any questions they are easily answered by hitting up the main, too. (And as an admin of an rpg with a lot of lore, just be prepared to answer questions that are answered already, semi-often. It happens, am I right? ;) ) Something that would be cool: snippets from the Holy Book of the False Silence. HERE a popular video game, Dragon Age, wrote actual verses from their in-world “scripture,” maybe you could too. It would be very immersive and exciting for people who are Followers!

I love your Location page – plain and simple. There’s pictures, info, territory info, even economy info! You really did your research on the Big Easy, huh? That is great because it can mean potential members will feel immersed. I also like that you included a form for new locations to be added; it makes the members feel more included for sure.

And your Bestiary makes me melt. Firstly, I love the theme. You provide a great deal of information and also the essentials needed; a good balance for people who have a species in mind and people who are species-shopping! Great images, great aesthetic too. But one thing: the Bestiary is very dark compared to the main and all other pages. That struck me. Would you consider going lighter with it, or going darker with the main? Something to give it a balance.

Your app is smart and clean – asks for the necessary info on the character but that’s it. I don’t really understand what you mean when you say “Be calm!” at the top but if you like it, it doesn’t change anything. Simple apps have their benefits for sure, especially on the person reading and reviewing them. Personally, I’d recommend adding a question or two unique to your group, but that’s just a suggestion. It works well either way.

So about your Follow List… it confused the hell out of me, I’m going to be honest. Some characters had blogs, some links were dead, who are these people? As I understand it you haven’t opened yet? I’m a little lost at what to say here because I don’t want to make assumptions, ramble, and be wrong. So if you want to talk that one out together, feel free to message me! Otherwise, that confusion is an outsider’s opinion and might extend to potential members as well. Your Events Blog showed information from 4-5 years ago though, and I’d recommend either archiving it or deleting those posts because it does make a knee-jerk implication that you’ve already begun things.

My FAVOURITE THING about this rpg: your plot and lore. While supernatural-themed rpgs are still pretty common in the rpc, you took your idea with a fresh heart and great twists and the vitality of it is definitely something that I can see giving you a good membership, as well as great stories to thrill those members with. Main plots, side plots, factions; all things that make a great lsrpg in Jack’s book™.

My LEAST FAVOURITE THING about this rpg: you have a lot going on–a good thing–but somehow when I return to the main it feels a bit… hollow. Maybe that’s because you’re still prepping and not-yet open. Maybe that will change when you get events and plots going. Unfortunately I can’t quite describe it, and please feel free to disregard this as rambling, but I feel like something needs to solidify this group in my mind and heart. Something in the story, perhaps, that leaves me craving to know what will happen. But you’re probably working on that with your plots, I’m sure.

Overall, this is a group with potential brimming from the proverbial cauldron. You have a lot going on and a lot to finish up and already some great generated interest. I think anyone who looks at this group can feel like they have a new world to play in, but also the comforts of the supernatural rpg genre to form a community within. I wish you the best of luck, admin!!

Sincerely,Jack