Weasel Words

[MurderWeasel]

So, from time to time I get a ramble going about a topic in SOTF that interests me. Historically, these have been sprinkled at random through Roleplaying Discussion, but what with having to move anyways, I'm taking the opportunity to 1. compile my old screeds and 2. create a home for new ones going forward.

This is an irregular thing. It'll get posts when I feel like it. Folks are welcome to reply, debate, etc. Old posts have not been edited. If you want me to ramble on something, feel free to say so and maybe I will but also maybe I won't.

An index of topics follows:

INDEX

Passive GMing

A Polite Request Regarding Formatting

Sex and Promiscuity and Pregame and Other Icky Things

How To Go Far In SOTF

Character Critiques: A (Former) Mod's Perspective

How To Write Villains

Let's Kill Private Threads!

On Winning

[MurderWeasel]

Passive GMing
From December 27, 2010

Alright, everyone. I'm taking off my mod hat here for a moment to discuss something that I've seen a lot of throughout V4, but especially recently. I'm hoping to mitigate this somewhat by bringing the subject up, explaining it, and providing examples as to why it is problematic and should generally be avoided. This isn't a mod's ruling, or a roleplaying guide, or anything like that. It's a request, handler to handler, to be aware of this issue and try to avoid it.

The issue is Passive GMing. By "Passive GMing", I mean GMing that falls outside what we normally consider GodModding. Megami addresses GMing here, defining it as follows:

First and foremost, the word "godmod" has many different meanings. Listed below are the ones relevent to our roleplay.

1. Godlike modification.
2. To control another person's roleplaying on an internet forum or chatroom.
3. To control a character who is, for all intents and purposes, invincible. That is to say, no attacks or techniques will work against said character and s/he recovers instantly from anything that happens to him or her.
4. To use your character to decimate other characters without giving them the chance to fight back. For example, "Janie shot her crossbow at Marcus who dodged the close-range shot with ease before running up to her and ripping her arm completely off."

For the purposes of this thread, I'll be focusing definitions two and four. When I talk about Passive GMing, I'm describing behaviors that do exactly what is described above, controlling other peoples' characters and limiting their responses, only in ways that achieve these results without directly wresting control from the handler. There are many ways this takes place. Here, in turn, are the most prominent ones:

1. The Overly-Long Speech

This is when a character talks for a very long time, especially during a tense scene, without leaving a chance for anyone else to react. It goes doubly if they are also taking actions while speaking. Basically, the problem here is it assumes the other characters are not reacting/interrupting/leaving/whatever. Now, if your character's the sort of blowhard who would just talk over everyone anyways, and the situation isn't going to devolve into combat, this isn't really an issue. After all, it's not that no one else is acting; it's that your character doesn't care.

And example of a problematic post follows (these are gonna be pretty exaggerated):

---

mimefan:
As Alexia opened fire, Tim dived behind a log, panting with exertion. Sweat ran down his forehead, mingling with the blood from the knife wound sustained in the earlier fight. He quickly searched his pockets for a new magazine. Time was of the essence. Every second was another chance for the girl to get a drop on him, to kill him.

Deckmaster:
Alexia's shots missed the boy as he hid behind a log. It made her angry. Very angry.

"Coward," she spat. "You think you can escape like that? Go crawling into some little hole and hide there for the rest of your time? You think you can maybe escape or something? Think you're better than the rest of us? Well, let me tell you something: you aren't. You're just another pathetic little worm, just another step on the ladder to freedom." She slammed another clip into her MAC-10. "I was like you once. I thought we could get out of this the peaceful way. I thought that only a fool would go shooting whoever they saw. I was wrong, and you are too. The only way out is to play. The only way to get anywhere in this game is to fight for it, to wrest every second of life from the Grim Reaper himself! Was it Lovecraft who said, 'and in strange eons, even death may die'? That's what we're doing here. We're killing Death, even as he takes the forms of our classmates, our friends and lovers, our siblings and cousins, our rivals and our passing acquaintances. That girl you sued to copy math answers from is gone. All that's left of her is her hollow shell, a grinning demon laughing to itself about how it, it and not you, will be able to go home and see its family again. Well, guess what? To me, you are the demons!"

With that, Alexia launched herself over the log, landing in front of the boy, who seemed to be digging for ammunition. She prepared herself to fire.

---

Now, at first glance, that doesn't look too awful (quality of writing aside). On closer inspection, though, it becomes pretty clear that Deckmaster is taking extreme liberties with Tim. That speech is quite a mouthful, yet it is assumed not only that Tim has not taken the opportunity to move, but that he hasn't even reloaded throughout this. Realistically, Tim could have been blazing away from a few seconds into that diatribe, or been running away or sneaking off or something. Deckmaster, however, is too concerned with looking cool to respect these options, and thus Tim looks like an idiot who just sat still when he could have made a dozen better decisions.

Really, it'd be awesome if folks paid more attention to dialogue as actual spoken words. It takes time to say something, despite what certain popular roleplaying games may have to say on the matter, and it's not fair to other handlers to rob their characters of the opportunities that time provides.

2. The Dialogue Remix

This is a tricky one, but is probably the most common thing on this list. It often comes about as a result of someone going overboard on their dialogue, as in the first example. Basically, this occurs when handlers incorporate the dialogue of other characters into their own posts, adding their characters' responses, without consideration for whether it makes sense or not. In most cases, quoting other people is fine. It can really help the flow of scenes. Other times, though, you get stuff like this:

---

Kongfuzi:
Alex saw the boy walking towards him. One of his friends! It truly was his lucky day. As the boy got close, Alex waved, shouting, "Hey there, Bubba! How've you been? Awful mess we've gotten ourselves into, huh? At least you're a friendly face."

Joemomma Kenobi:
Bubba stalked the trail like a junkie in search of a hit. His nostrils quivered at the scent of fresh blood. Yes. His prey was near. He could see it, could see the boy he would kill.

"Hey there, Bubba!" the prey called.

"Hey yourself, moron," Bubba snarled. "I'm gonna gut you."

"How've you been?"

"I've been better, but since I've got some fresh meat to rend from the bone, well, I guess you could say I've been worse, too," he said, twirling out his double deagles.

"Awful mess we've gotten ourselves into, huh?"

"What do you mean 'we', dead man?"

"At least you're a friendly face."

"You wanna kiss this friendly face?" Bubba said, opening fire. "'cause it's the last thing you'll ever see."

---

Kongfuzi:
Alex walked up to the group, smiling, trying to seem benign.

"Hey guys," he said. "You seen Pontius anywhere?"

Deckmaster:
Alex asked if they'd seen Pontius anywhere. Alexia paused. Pontius? He was that freak in the armor, right?

"Yeah," she said. "We saw him an hour ago, on the slope of the volcano. He said he was gonna get some sleep, so you may be able to meet him."

Joemomma Kenobi:

Alex approached the group.

"Hey guys," he said. "You seen Pontius anywhere?"

Bubba knew from the get go that this guy was trouble. he could smell it, could almost taste the stinking sweat of deception.

"No," he said. "We've been traveling together for a day, and we haven't—"

"Yeah," Alexia cut in. "We saw him an hour ago, on the slope of the volcano. He said he was gonna get some sleep, so you may be able to meet him."

Bubba reached for his double deagles, but restrained himself, settling for shooting Alexia a nasty glare instead. She had ruined his masterful bluff, and potentially doomed Pontius through her stupidity.

---

As you can see, there are situations where inserting dialogue makes things very awkward. In the first example, Alex's responses stop making any form of sense as soon as Bubba makes his violent intentions clear. In the second, Alexia is cast as unable to take a hint by disregarding Bubba's plan; however, this is clearly not Deckmaster's intent as, at the time of his post, Bubba hadn't even voiced his plan. As a rule of thumb, if your character's dialogue will change the meaning of already-written dialogue set after it, you shouldn't wedge it in without the permission of the affected handlers.

Note that this also applies to reordering actions (2.5, Action remixes, I guess). If you cram your character's actions in before those of other characters that have already been written, it is very unfair to the handlers who have already posted if it changes the scenario their characters are reacting to. Your character shouldn't start shouting for a ceasefire retroactively if the posts prior to yours detail the start of a gunfight. After all, who knows? Maybe, had your post actually been there first, the fighting characters wouldn't have started.

3. The Ninja Stealth Thread Entrance

Characters come and go in threads. It's part of how things work. Unfortunately, some characters seem to come a bit more... stealthily than others. There are many circumstances in which people can reasonably bump into each other with little to no forewarning (tunnels, night, forests, ambushes, etc). There are also many times when it is totally unreasonable for a stealthy approach to be possible. In those situations, it is very important to not post your character walking right up into striking distance of everyone else present. Of course, if there are no violent intentions on either side, and the approached character(s) seem relaxed, it may be fine. It's still more polite to give a chance to prevent a standoff from occurring in melee range.

---

Deckmaster:
Alexia was standing on the beach, over the corpse of the fallen Pontius. The tears in her eyes did nothing to distract her from the situation. The brains leaking slowly from his ears, where they had been ruptured by the hypersonic drill, the missing middle fingers, taken as grizzly trophies. She couldn't take it anymore. She scanned the beach, looking in every direction, searching for something, anything to take her attention off the corpse of her lover.

"Why, Bubba?" she screamed. "Why did you kill him?"

mimefan:
((Tim Sillery continued from wherever))

Tim happened to reach the beach fairly quickly after hearing the shots. It was a wide open, empty expanse, broken only by the screaming figure. In an instant, he recognized her: the harlot from the forest! So, her squeeze had been slain? Excellent. It was time for a little revenge.

Tim jogged across the beach, pulling his ninja sword from its scabbard. Stopping behind her, he pressed it into her back.

"Maybe he was doin' him a favor, huh? You ever think maybe getting your brains melted is better than living in a world with a freak like you? Now, hand over your guns, your own, and the one you stole from me before! Move and I'll spit you."

---

It's absolutely insane for Alexia, who is clearly being fairly vigilant, to not notice Tim coming across the beach to hold her at knifepoint. Realistically, she should have had time to run, shoot Tim, or do some combination thereof. Basically, play nice when entering threads or approaching groups.

4. The Not-So-Subtle Cue/Dig

It's easy to develop plans for things. It makes sense to want things to go your way, or to have set ideas on what is "realistic" in a scene. That does not make these ideas gospel. It is very, very easy to insert little cues into posts, things like "presumably causing him great distress" or "likely stopping them in their tracks". This should be avoided, unless it is from a character's perspective (as in, your character is making these assumptions regarding outcome, regardless of reality, as opposed to an omniscient narrative voice implying them).

Worse still is when there are little potential insults hidden in posts. "There was no way he could survive unless he was some sort of alien superhero", or "Clearly, any human being possessing even a modicum of intelligence would agree". These basically take a preemptive shot at handlers who do not conform to the poster's desires/expectations. They imply: "If you are a decent writer and your character is not a Mary Sue alien superhero, they should be dead now." This often forces handlers to invent contrived situations to explain not taking the suggested course of action, if they do not wish to undertake it or to have their characters look unrealistic.

---

Kaldskal:
Pontius looked around, searching for an escape. None was immediately present. The beach stretched in all directions, but he couldn't run faster than a bullet. He had no choice but to attack. With a roar, he charged Bubba.

Joemomma Kenobi:
Bubba danced backwards, out of reach of the flailing boy, spinning his double deagles free. He opened fire at point blank range, using the precision accuracy for which he was renowned. If Russian assassins trained for decades in the heart of Siberia couldn't dodge his bullets, it was highly unlikely this moron could, unless he was secretly a wizard. Also, the bullets were armor-piercing.

Kaldskal:
Pontius groaned as his armor was pierced. Lacking magical training, he had no hope, and fell, dead, to the ground.

JoeMomma Kenobi:
Bubba cut off Pontius' fingers and peed on his corpse.

((Bubba Dover continued elsewhere))

---

This one doesn't really come up that often, but I see it enough to want to draw attention to it.

Of course, again, this is when this stuff comes up in a narrative perspective, not a character's POV. Stuff like this: "Mary Sue said, 'Oh, yes, we should all hurl ourselves like lemmings into the sea, building a floating island of corpses that the survivors (me) can cling to, outside the danger zones, to wait for rescue/the final four!' Clearly, any human being possessing even a modicum on intelligence would agree." is probably fairy benign, as it is presumably Mary Sue thinking these things.



So, basically, I am bringing all this up and making all these examples because I've seen a good deal of this stuff going around. I honestly do not believe that people intend to be GMing each other, and I'm hoping that pointing out these issues and illustrating why they are problems will help reduce their occurrences.

If anyone has any comments/other forms of Passive GMing/whatever to discuss, feel free. I'd just request that there be absolutely no calling out of people or naming of specific handlers/characters/threads/whatever. This is to bring attention to a problem and hopefully address it, not to lash out at folks who may have done these things.

[MurderWeasel]

A Polite Request Regarding Formatting
From March 9, 2011 and March 20, 2011

So... Let me start by saying that, for this post, I'm taking my staff hat off. This has nothing to do with official policy. This has to do with me, and my preferences as a reader and a writer. This isn't aimed at any one person, either. If it was an isolated thing, it wouldn't be worth bringing up.

And here goes. Let me again say, this isn't official. Far be it from me to tell anyone how to write. I think everyone here is trying to write as well as they can. I know I am. I also have something of a broad perspective on V4 as a whole, the writing styles specific to it, and how it compares to past versions, Mini, and pregame. This is because I have read all of V4, Mini, and pregame, good parts of V3, and bits of V1 and V2.

I've noticed a trend.

Lately, it's become popular to use lots and lots of formatting in posts. By formatting, I mean BBCode tags, and, more specifically, color, strikethrough, size, and the like. I suspect the reasoning behind this is because it provides a more visual experience. Bright colors and different sizes can add huge amounts of emphasis, and can also add extra punch to scenes.

They can just as easily divert attention, destroy drama, and cripple otherwise excellent writing.

So... I suppose what I'm suggesting, here, is that everyone think really hard before they add formatting to their posts. As an example, we all know what color red is. We know that blood is red, too. The actual use of red has lost its impact due to repetition, and now it only serves as a distraction.

Similarly, improper formatting can actually severely detract from readability. Really little font doesn't help anyone out.

My rules of thumb are as follows:

-If you can create the same effect using only words, always do that instead of formatting. It takes more effort, but the payoff is so much greater (this is why I think strikethrough is incredibly boring; there are far more elegant and subtle ways to show suppressed thoughts).

-If you can't create a specific effect with words, ask yourself if it's really, really important and worthwhile.

-If it is, and you're sure it isn't possible to handle any other way, make sure the formatting is not disruptive to readability.

-If it's not, have at.

Personally, I can't think of an effect I've found worth having that I couldn't do with language alone. I'm sure there are some, though.

I've also seen many great writers actually making their posts worse through the inclusion of superfluous formatting. Most people fall back on it as a crutch, perhaps not thinking their writing is interesting enough without it. Well, it is. My favorite characters and threads almost invariably aren't full of tricks.

So... yeah, just a general appeal to the board. This has gotten really overboard, and it is, for the most part, hurting your writing.

Comments, debate, agreement, and anything else relevant is welcome in this thread, but please keep it polite and civil.

---

(Follow-up)

To be frank, the problem is that for most people it is a crutch. As I said in my initial post, I have no issues with formatting that is used when it is the only way to communicate an effect. In fact, I can present some good examples. For the most part, though, people throw formatting in needlessly. Actually, the three linked posts are some of my favorites of the version (well, pregame, in two cases). For every one of those, though, there are five threads where I read BANG! as a gunshot onomatopoeia

My goal is not for people to stop using formatting. It's for people to stop using formatting thoughtlessly or where words will suffice. The formatpost has become the songpost of V4: something that, when executed extremely well, adds great depth to a post, but, when handled poorly, bogs down threads, renders things unreadable, and otherwise actually damages the writing.

Also, to play devil's advocate myself: If the argument is that internet roleplaying is a new medium, and thus should be considered on its own merits, apart from literature, I would posit that skin changes are a part of the medium, as are things like server changes, which can lead to broken formatting. Also, the fact that something can be done does not necessarily imply that it should. For example, it is possible to do things like this in posts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-T7yPJVvXw

I think I'd flat out refuse to read a videopost, though.

So, to reiterate: I'm simply suggesting, as someone who has read every V4 post, that people exercise more discretion with regard to formatting. In a blunt manner of speaking, this is because, nine times out of ten, it doesn't work, hinders readability, and produces no beneficial effects at all.

[MurderWeasel]

Sex and Promiscuity and Pregame and Other Icky Things
From February 1, 2012

So, it seems to be time for me to take off my staff hat and unleash my annual rant about stuff that is bothering me. I swear I'm gonna just start a continuing thread for my thoughts on writing and SOTF and things like that one of these days.

So, yeah, I'm not trying to call anyone out here, as usual. This is not aimed at any particular handler or character, and no real examples, positive or negative, are gonna be used in this. This is not designed to lash a bunch of folks whose writing I hate or anything of the sort. It is designed to analyze and discuss a recurring issue that I have noted in V4, all the minis and AUs, heck, even parts of V1-3 that I've read.

Today's issue is sex and promiscuous characters.

For some reason I don't quite understand, promiscuous characters seem to be a very, very popular archetype on SOTF. Part of it could be that threads with content warnings have that little air of the forbidden, part of it could be wish fulfillment or experimentation with things we can't do in our real lives, part of it could be that folks come from BR and wanna write Mitsuko, part of it could just be that it's a really easy archetype to play around with. I don't really care. Basically, though, I've noticed that a lot of handlers, even handlers who otherwise never so much as curse in their posts, tend to take at least one dip into writing a highly promiscuous character, usually a girl, probably attractive and thin or slightly overweight in a "curvy" fashion, probably a cheerleader, probably with several other handled characters as former flings or exes.

Now, I'm not saying that that is, by definition, a bad thing. I'm pretty sure almost every handler on SOTF has been through high school or is currently in high school, and we all probably knew people (of both genders) who were considered rather promiscuous. I'm certainly not saying that high schoolers are bastions of purity and innocence, who never have dirty thoughts or masturbate or sleep around.

What I am saying is that it sure doesn't happen much like I see in SOTF.

There's a tendency to focus promiscuous characters' profiles entirely on the sex aspect. This results in characters who seem like they are walking sex scenes, or that they are in the game for sex appeal. It results, year after year, in a horde of characters willing to hop into bed with complete strangers, probably without protection since they're "on the pill due to irregular flow/cramps". It leads to characters losing their virginity in highly detailed and very explicit scenes that come across more as someone stretching their writing muscles by trying erotica than as a logical and realistic extension of the character's story.

Before we go further, I'd like to share a bit of personal stuff. I've done sex scenes before. Not in an RP, but (of all the horrible and embarrassing places to write smut) in a school assignment. The reason for that? My professor assigned everyone to write and share a story including a sex scene, a death scene, and a fight scene. He noted that they were three of the hardest things to write. I'm inclined to agree. To its credit, SOTF has a pretty rocking record when it comes to violence and death, so kudos to everyone for that. The point of this, though, is that I've seen and read a ton of sex scenes, "sexy" scenes, etc. I'm not knee-jerk reacting here; this is three years of bubbling frustration on a subject coming to a head.

The problem, as I see it, is not that there are promiscuous characters in SOTF. There are promiscuous people in real life. The issue is that the two have very little relation, most of the time. I'm hoping that maybe that can change in V5.

What I'd love to see is characters who are, first and foremost, characters. I find that a good, basic litmus test is to describe your character in three words. If one of them was "slut" or any synonym thereof, it's time to take a long, hard look at things.

People are who they are for specific reasons. Most people do not sleep with everyone randomly because "it feels good". That's the way to STDs and pregnancies and all sorts of other issues (for the record, I've never encountered a character with an STD in SOTF. Anyone know if it's ever happened? I sort of doubt it). This is especially true in high school, when people are still coming to terms with puberty, when they are not old enough to buy alcohol, when they are still living with their parents and privacy may be hard to find, when the mere perception (grounded or not) of promiscuity may be enough to cause them huge social trauma. High school is not a never-ending orgy. It is not one big party. High schoolers do not go clubbing and randomly hooking up with people every weekend; at least, normal ones don't.

What high schoolers actually do is discussed at length, and better than I can do, here, with an accompanying image. I first encountered this article and image when I was in high school. It's a really, really good resource for understanding how things work from an outsider's perspective.

Now that realism's been brushed on, I'd like to discuss profiles at greater length. The first thing is, I cringe a ton every time I see "sex" in the hobbies and interests list on a profile. Take a moment to think about your hobbies and interests in real life, and how much you engage in them, and to what degree they shape your life. I bet, for most people, sex can't be compared to, say, baseball when it comes to what you spend your time doing. Sex is a big thing, but it's rarely a life-defining one, especially at an age when most people are still having their first tentative experiences with romance (whether or not that includes a sexual element).

Now, that considered, I keep seeing profiles where the vast majority of the focus is on a character's sex life. As a reader, most of the time, I don't give about a character's sex life. If it affects their reputation, sure, I want to know that, but I don't wanna know that they slept with six footballers in the past seven months. That degree of detail is superfluous. It matters about as much as how many math tests your nerd character has aced—that is to say, not at all. More than that, it can be really, really creepy. Writing, and by extension RPing, tends to include an element of wish fulfillment, and nowhere does that come through more clearly than in romances. Often, sexual characters resemble not real people, but the more lurid rumors passed around in the boys' locker room before gym class.

What I'm driving at here is a simple thing. I'm not saying not to write sexual characters. I'm not saying to write nothing but virgins with chastity belts. I am saying to make sure your characters are people first and foremost, that they are not just walking extras in a hardcore porn flick, that their emotions and feelings and hopes and dreams are far, far more developed than their bust size and their list of kinks. What I'm asking for is realistic and respectful portrayals of people whose lifestyles may (and probably are) different from those of their writers.

We'd turn away a character who was a racist stereotype. We'd frown upon a stereotypical dumb jock or pocket-protectored nerd (at least, if that was the net sum of their character and it wasn't brilliantly justified). Why are we so willing to turn a blind eye to the depiction of promiscuous people?

My secret hope and dream is to never again read a profile where a character's bra size has been included but their eye color has been neglected. It is to never again read that someone is a "typical high school slut". It is to never again see a profile that talks at length about a character's sexual history and prowess and neglects to tell me who their friends are, how they get along with their parents, what they like doing on Thursday afternoon in the middle of summer when there's nothing good on TV.

Another quick set of questions: Do you know your character's sexual history?

Now, do you know their favorite color? That one song they just can't stand? Whether they still have their baby blanket? What food they like the most? What they do to cheer up when they're sad?

What's more important to know?

I feel like that about covers profiles. Next up: sex scenes, and why there are too many.

Often, handlers try their hands at sex scenes, seemingly just to experiment with writing outside their comfort zones. Maybe it's to drive home that a character really is promiscuous. Maybe it's the culmination of a courtship that's lasted all pregame. There are tons of reasons to do sex scenes. Some of them are pretty good.

A lot of them aren't. I've read a lot of sex scenes that basically amount to "Jim and Susie met. Then they screwed for the next eight posts."

A sex scene is something that will be read, and will be criticized. A few of you have been subject to my "That's not how anatomy works" rants. A sex scene is something that will always be remembered in relation to a character. It will haunt them until their death, and likely beyond. A bad one can make a great, deep character into a walking gag.

The thing about sex scenes is, they usually are superfluous.

You know that huge list of questions, about favorite colors and stuff? How much of that do you care to hear from each and every character you read? Sex scenes are the same. A lot of the time, what matters to the story is that Jim and Susie had sex, not that Jim shoved his throbbing, rock-hard cock seven inches into Susie and that they did it four times that night, one doggy-style, followed with a bit of oral (she swallowed).

See, that kind of detail is silly. It doesn't add depth to a character. It rarely reveals anything about them that can't be revealed in other, less absurd and discomfiting ways. Yeah, there are examples. I can think of some. Really, though, most likely you're gonna end up looking back and going "What on earth was I thinking?"

To be frank, sex scenes are rarely sexy. They rarely make much sense. If the goal is to titillate, you're still probably better off fading to black. The same's true of plot. Unless there is something that absolutely must happen during the act—like, I don't know, a murder—we probably don't need anything beyond maybe some details on the characters' feelings. Coincidentally, that's what sex scenes tend to have the least of. I can't really think of a single time in SOTF I've seen a character wonder if they've done the right thing, if they should've waited for someone more special, if they look silly naked, any of that other stuff that, you know, real people do.

Leaping off the murder tangent for a second: island sex is another little pet peeve. Remember, while a thread may be private, the island isn't unless you're the last two (or three or whatever ><), and there are kids with guns and knives who benefit directly by your death. That's not the time to be getting frisky. It's not gonna be sexy, either, 'cause there pretty much aren't showers and everyone's malnourished and stuff. It's gonna be horrible and desperate and probably a "I'm gonna die anyways" thing. I'm always shocked when characters fall over themselves at the prospect of getting laid when, you know, their lives are on the line. That's not even touching being on camera, having to set weapons aside, all that jazz.

So the real point of this little ramble is this: I'm basically begging for some more taste and respect and realism than we've seen in the past when it comes to sex, promiscuous characters, and sex scenes. This isn't a staff pronouncement, and I'm not gonna be enforcing things at ban-point. It's just a guy who reads everything wanting to air a bit and maybe help people come up with better stuff in the future.

Thanks for reading.

[MurderWeasel]

How To Go Far in SOTF
From November 29, 2012

Hi, everyone! This is something I've been considering doing for a while, and decided to whip up in my spare time, because it's something that is a goal for a lot of handlers but is equally something that many handlers don't have a clue how to approach. It seemed like a guide on the subject could be useful, and I've done a lot of learning on this very subject, through personal experience, observation over the course of V4, and reading back through the archives of past games. Therefore, without further ado, allow me to present a guide on how to go far in SOTF.

The first thing to grapple with, of course, is what "going far" means. It's pretty vague, and there are no guarantees of anything ever turning out as you hope. Basically, for me and for the purposes of this guide, "going far" means keeping your characters in play as long as possible, with a presumed goal of getting as close to the end as you can, maybe even winning. Another choice I am making for the purposes of this guide is to presume the most mercenary of motivations; that is, I'm gonna assume the worst and write as though all the reader cares about is going far. That's not how the game plays out, in reality, and it's certainly not how I played it, but I want this guide to be complete, for argument's sake.

A quick explanation of the basic theory behind getting far in SOTF:

To last, to win, to achieve your goals for your characters, you probably want to keep them alive as long as possible, or until the time is right for them to die. This is tricky, since all of the site's mechanics are geared towards the periodic elimination of characters. In effect, most of our rules make you kill your characters, which is probably not what you want to do.

This, of course, isn't being mean. It's how the game functions. If there were no rolls, if activity was not enforced, if heroes did not require a sacrifice—well, the game would never end. Lots of people go into each game gunning to win, and SOTF, as it currently functions, allows only one winner per version.

Some quick reminders: Twice each month, a bunch of characters get rolled to die. They absolutely must die unless another rule says otherwise.

The only rules that say otherwise these days involve cards. There have been other things done from time to time, but as of about V3, it's been straight rolls and cards.

A Swap Card lets you save one of your characters by sacrificing another. A Hero Card lets you save someone else's character by sacrificing one of your own. Also, and fairly vitally, it lets someone else save your character by sacrificing one of their own. A Roll Null lets its owner save any character, without sacrifice of any sort. Each card is good only once.

For the purposes of prolonging your stay in the game, Hero Cards and Roll Nulls are far more important than Swap Cards (though Swaps are actually quite useful, as I will explain later).

There are two major other ways to get your character killed. The first is far and away the most common: inactivity. You have to post at least once every fourteen days, or you get warned and/or lose your character. Similarly, if an area your character is in becomes a danger zone, you have to post to have them leave it within three days, or they are killed. It goes without saying that losing characters to inactivity is not a good way to get far in SOTF.

The other way, as of V5, is to bungle an escape attempt. It almost goes without saying that escapes are very very difficult and unlikely, and that legitimate attempts at escaping are pretty much incompatible with the goal of lasting a long time; odds are if one of your characters tries to break the game, they will die in short order, unrolled.

That's the basic mechanics. If you've got a good grasp of those, you'll hopefully see how everything else here follows logically from them. From here on out, I'm going to name behaviors, say what they are, and say how they will help you last longer in the game (or, in the case of negatives, how they will really quickly sabotage your chances). Oh, and one last tiny thing: don't ask me if I'm talking about your V4 behavior in these examples. I'm not, and I'm not going to discuss anything in the past in light of what I'm putting down here. These are general observations, not an attempt to call people out. Examples provided will be vague beyond possibility of identification, composites, and/or entirely made up. With that out of the way, I hope you enjoy the ride.

DO post frequently and maintain good activity.

This is the first and arguably the most important item on this list. Quite frankly, the only way to win SOTF is to have a character alive at the end, and the quickest way to ensure that you don't is to get your whole cast inactive killed. It's more complicated than just staying active, though.

Technically, you can skate by on the bare minimum. By the rules, if you post once every fourteen days, on the dot, and if you always post quickly enough to avoid collar detonations in danger zones, and if you follow any other specific activity rules that come up, your characters will not be inactive killed. If that's all you do, though, they will be unpopular and viewed as a burden. That's a great way to avoid getting saved when you get rolled, to annoy other handlers, and to generally make yourself unwelcome.

A bit of math (warning: this guide features math):

V4 lasted thirteen announcements. If we assume they came once every four weeks (or twenty-eight days), that means that you must post at least twice for every announcement with every character. If we add in another eight weeks to account for months that are not February, delays, etc., we can come up with a nice, even number: thirty. Thirty is the theoretical minimum number of posts a character would have to have in V4, assuming they hit Endgame.

Thirty posts may sound like a lot. It isn't. Remember that a post can be as short as a couple hundred words and still be counted for activity. Often, that's enough. Now, check out the post breakdown of a fairly average V4 thread. Notice that two members, Little Boy and ArmageddonCounselor, have nine posts apiece in this single topic. That's about a third of the minimum right there. Check out a more extreme example. MK Kilmarnock has 42 posts in this one topic alone! Now, there are extenuating circumstances here. His character, Liam Brooks, spent about half the game in this single topic. The fact remains, though, that he has more than the minimum number of posts theoretically required to reach Endgame in a single thread.

Next, remember the space of time here. At one post every two weeks, thirty posts amounts to over a year of writing (a year and four weeks, in fact). It's not hard to turn out thirty posts over a year.

The catch is, you should be posting far more often than the minimum.

Take a look at the most notable SOTF characters. How many of them have only thirty posts? Unless we're talking someone known for dying really early, I bet the answer is none. You see, posting every two weeks, on the dot, means your character is getting way less development than other characters. While you're posting once every two weeks, Handler X in the next thread over is posting once every two days. If you are otherwise equivalent in writing, Handler X's characters just have more of a chance to shine. This means that, if you and Handler X get rolled, the people with Heroes and Nulls to burn are going to see that Handler X's characters are more developed, giving Handler X a leg up when it comes to getting saved.

Beyond that, HandlerX has also proved that they will write frequently. A Hero Card is an investment. Heroing someone means that you have a vested interest in seeing the story of their character continue—so much of an interest, in fact, that you are willing to sacrifice one of your own characters, a resource you could otherwise use for your writing enjoyment and to get you closer to the end, to continue reading about the character you save.

Basically, handlers wanna get some bang for their buck. If you post every two weeks, well, that means they can expect one post from you before the next rolls. And, hey, you might get rolled again next rolls. Meanwhile, the same investment gets you seven posts from Handler X. It's pretty simple math.

As if that's not enough, slow posting makes characters hard to follow. Their stories become disjointed, since the space between readings is long.

They also share this effect with everyone in their thread. If you post infrequently, you force other handlers to conform to your schedule or to break post order. Either way, it's really annoying. Nobody likes having to rush a post to avoid going inactive because some jerk took thirteen days and twenty-three hours to cram out two hundred words of "Jim picked earwax out of his ears and ate it while the gunfight continued in the next room."

Now, you may wonder why, from a purely mercenary perspective (as this guide is being written) you'd give a hoot about ticking off other handlers. The answer is really simple: no one's gonna Hero somebody they can't stand. Personal feelings do enter into play, and nothing turns opinion of a character sour than dealing with them amidst bad etiquette. Alienating the board is the quickest way possible to knock yourself out of the game, bar going inactive.

On the other hand, posting frequently has huge benefits. It keeps your character in the public eye. It lets them develop. It lets you strut your stuff. Basically, it's a sales pitch, showing the other handlers just why, when you inevitably get rolled, they should spend their precious, limited resources on saving your character.

DO NOT take on more characters than you can handle

This is basically a corollary to the activity rule. It may seem obvious, given that characters are your resources for staying in the game, that you want as many of them as possible. After all, you are flat out guaranteed to be in the game for a number of roles equal to your total number of characters, assuming you don't kill them unrolled/Hero/go inactive.

Counterintuitive though it may seem, this is not a good strategy at all.

As mentioned above, activity is very important. Every character you handle is another character competing for your attention. If you have too many, it means you have to make cuts somewhere.

One option is to prioritize speed over quality. This is a bad idea. No one likes it when the board is flooded with a bunch of crummy posts. That's just a chore to read through. Similarly, handlers are pretty good at picking up on when someone's phoning it in. If you have mediocre characters, and Handler X has good characters, Handler X is the logical choice to Hero when you both get rolled. After all, we'd all rather read good stuff than bad stuff.

With speed out of the question, the next option is to prioritize quality. This is also a bad idea, for reasons mentioned above. Far, far better to have one good character who gets regular posts than three good ones who get posts every two weeks. If you're overworked, trust me, it will be very obvious. Then, when you get rolled, other handlers will note that you are overworked and think to themselves, "Eh, that guy has too many characters anyways. Maybe now he (I'm gonna use the masculine for the reader in this guide for ease of writing. No disrespect is intended) can actually focus on the other two characters he has. Once again, Handler X, who posts frequently, looks like the way to go.

There's always the third choice: kill characters off unrolled or Hero other people. This is also a bad idea.

Killing characters unrolled is probably the best option if you find yourself with too many, but even it is a pretty poor choice. It's wasting resources and time that could better be used elsewhere. Better to have devoted the time you spent phoning it in on whoever you tank unrolled making someone you do care about better. Better to have left the slot open in the first place, to let someone who did have time write—someone who might have had a Hero lying around down the road.

Now, I'm not trying to discourage unrolled deaths. I love them, most of the time. I believe, though, that unrolled deaths are best when they come because they are right for the story, not because someone got overworked.

Heroing is a much worse idea than killing your character unrolled. Your Hero card is a very valuable resource, and you get only one. You want to use your Hero for something important. As mentioned above, it's for when there's a character you just love reading.

In V4, lots of handlers brought too many characters and Heroed out the spares in the early parts of the game. This meant that there were very few Heroes around at the end of the game, and a lot of great characters—characters who, had there been cards around, would have almost certainly been saved—died because nobody could bail them out.

You may notice that I have not addressed making a deal at this point. That is because, as will be explained later, deals are almost always a terrible idea and should, as a rule, be avoided like the plague.

So, with prioritizing and killing out of the picture, what's left? Not registering too many characters in the first place. Pregame's a good time to figure out how many you can take. DO NOT exceed your reach for the game proper. It hurts you more than it helps.

(One final option: you can give your character away for adoption, handing them off to a less busy handler. This is very generous, and all around a pretty good choice, but it means giving up all control of your character and their story, and that can be really hard for some people [like me] to do. There's no way to reclaim them if you give them up, and other handlers may do things radically differently than you would have.

Also, you can go inactive with the people you don't like, but that ticks off everyone.)

DO be nice to everyone

Here's another big one. We've already established that annoying handlers is a great way to sabotage your chances of lasting in SOTF. The flip side is also true, though. Nice handlers, handlers who are chill and involved and respectful, tend to enjoy longer careers in games. This is because people tend to help out people they like over people they are ambivalent to (or worse, people they dislike). If you're rolled and Handler X is rolled, and someone else—call them Handler Z—has a Hero card and likes both your character and Handler X's character enough to save them, they are probably going to wait and see if anyone else steps in to save one of you, making their choice a lot easier. If that doesn't happen, though, and if there's no tiebreaker in the writing, they're probably gonna save whoever they have more warm, fuzzy feelings about.

IMPORTANT CAVEAT: I am absolutely not endorsing lying, faking, sucking up, or manipulating people. None of these things work. I've seen them tried, and I've seen the results. They are not pretty. Remember, you are probably not a mastermind, subtlety is a very difficult skill to master and a very easy one to assume you have mastery of, and people tend to react incredibly poorly when it's clear someone is clumsily attempting to butter them up.

In fact, I have personal experience here. I'm not gonna name names, but a few former members of the site who I had some experience with tried sucking up in the hopes of getting cards. It came off obviously, awkwardly, and annoyed their targets. It basically had exactly the opposite effects they intended.

What I am suggesting is being, overall, a polite and decent member of the site. Don't blow up on people in chat. Don't respond to criticism defensively. (In fact, if you feel defensive, don't respond to criticism at all. It's how the pros do it.) Basically, don't be a jerk, do be nice. Chat with newbies. Swap wrestling talk in chat. Become a part of the community, pay attention to the social norms, and try to fit in. You'll find it a rewarding endeavor on a personal level, and you'll find people are helpful in way, way more ways than cards and all that direct stuff. I have people on SOTF who provide emotional support, proofreading, Star Wars jokes, and harsh harsh harsh criticism (by request, of course). Friends on the site give you a reason to want to do well, and are there to help you along the way.

DO NOT talk up your own characters

This one's tough, because, once again, it seems counterintuitive. On SOTF, the characters who go the furthest tend to be those who are the most popular. The best way to be popular is to be talked about. From there, well, what better way to get your characters talked about than to start conversations about them? After all, they're interesting, right?

The problem is, nobody likes a braggart, and nobody likes an uneven relationship. It is true that talking about your characters a ton in chat can get them press. It can even get them popularity, at least in a transient fashion. I watched it happen again and again in V4.

The issues arise from the fact that the hype is artificial from the start. Yes, people may be reading your posts. They may be giving you positive feedback. They may also be quietly gnashing their teeth, or picking your posts apart and noting everything about them that sucks. They may not be sharing these insights. They may be stockpiling them away and hoping like crazy that you get rolled out so that they won't have to hear about your character anymore.

I do not say this to engender a sense of paranoia in you. I say it because I've seen it happen, again and again.

I tend to have tastes and opinions that run counter to the most widely vocalized views when it comes to SOTF. What I noticed, though, during V4 was that the hyped characters would get all kinds of crazy positive feedback publicly in chat, but, when I pulled individual handlers aside by PM to talk about those same characters, they often found them distasteful, dull, or over-hyped. Often, they restrained their opinions for fear of hurting their friends' feelings, because they felt they'd be jumped for daring to disagree with the general consensus, or in an effort to be nice. The fact remained, folks weren't lining up around the block to save a lot of those big names when they ended up rolled.

Now, I feel really, really strongly that hyping your own character is one of the worst choices you can make as a handler. The logic behind this is simple:

If you're hyping your character in chat, people are going to read them, know about them, etc.

If you are a good writer, with compelling, interesting characters, people are going to read them, know about them, etc. whether you hype them or not. They will hype your characters for you, because people like to share cool stuff with their friends. There's a staff chat on Mini somewhere where I go, "Hey, guys, we should do rolls, but first you've just GOT to read this awesome post. The puns are the best." Handlers talk. They complain about characters and talk characters up all on their own, without any help.

On the other hand, if your writing still has a way to go, that's fine. Maybe you struggle with character consistency or grammar. We have all been there. My first thread is a mess of typos and broken post order. Most of my work in V4 pregame flew entirely under the radar, because most of it was, to be blunt, not very special. That's fine. Part of growing as a writer is looking back and marveling at how much you've improved.

The problem is, if you hype your character, you're forcing them into the spotlight, warts and all. You are drawing a lot of attention to writing that very well may have a long way to go. This is a very bad thing to do. It's not going to earn you constructive criticism. We've got a forum for that, and asking directly is better anyways. What it will do is breed resentment. Handlers will go, "Why is that character so hyped? They aren't very good. Oh, it's because Handler X won't shut up about them."

Basically, let hype happen naturally. That way, the achievement of positive feedback is more authentic and earned, and more likely to endure.

Beyond that, talking your own characters up gives the impression that you care more about them than you do about everyone else's characters. That may even be true. It's not necessarily bad. Thing is, everyone else may care more about their characters than they do about yours. That means they don't want to hear about your character nonstop.

I want to be clear about a few things at this point. First off, I'm not saying you should never talk about your character. People all share stuff sometimes. If all of chat's talking about something, and it has relevance to your character, by all means chime in. First, though make sure it actually is relevant to your character and that you are not monopolizing the conversation or forcing it down avenues it was not headed beforehand. If no one cares, don't force it. That's how stuff goes sometimes.

Similarly, I'm not saying never talk about your character at length, as the focus of a conversation. That sort of thing is better saved for PMs, though, with people who for sure care, or for when people directly ask. I highly recommend getting a couple buddies to trade character talk with. A few handlers (you know who you are) were a huge help by being sounding boards for me throughout V4. I just hope I did a passable job returning the favor. In fact, it might be good to make a pact with another handler or two. Agree to read each other's stuff and share your opinions. Agree to chat about each other's characters. Then make sure you hold up your end. That part is, of course, really important. You've gotta give to receive, or you'll annoy your buddies, and we've already dealt with why that's a bad move.

One final thing: Absolutely do not link your posts in chat unless someone asks you to. It is so annoying. It tends to drop people into the middle of threads without context, screw up new post notifications, and alienate handlers. Please please please kill that habit now if you have it. If you've gotta link and get an opinion right away, have a buddy for that. That way you'll get more than vapid "nice post" replies anyways.

Actually, one more one more thing: contests. DO NOT under any circumstances campaign for BKA or BDA. I know that winning is nice. I know there are shiny prizes. I know that nothing's a bigger turnoff than someone going "I'd love to win BDA!" or, worse, "Gee, winning BDA would be so nice. Too bad my dream will never come true..."

That is not subtle. It is a cheap attempt at emotional manipulation, and it gets trounced almost every time, and it deserves it completely. I will, on principle, refuse to vote for any kill or death I see the writer of campaigning for in chat. I know I'm not the only one. Similarly, never ask how someone voted. If they want you to know, they'll volunteer. The contests are worth winning, but only if you win on merit.

This was written, for the record, before we yanked nulls as prizes. It is now triply true.

DO play nice and play fair at all times

The best way to deal with people is above the board and in a fair manner. If you establish a reputation for screwing handlers over on deals, no one will make deals with you. If you make a habit of causing issues in threads, no one will write in threads with you. If you are known as honorable, cool, and easy to work with, handlers will be falling over themselves to involve themselves in your plotlines and to keep your characters around.

To be more specific: SOTF does have deals. It has promises and alliances, IC and OOC. If I tell you I'm gonna Hero you, and you get rolled, and I back out, you're gonna be annoyed. It's easy to throw around stuff like "If you got rolled, I'd save you." Don't say it unless you mean it. If you mean you'd save someone unless you were worried that doing so would mess up your own chances, say that, too. That's not bad. It's not wrong or shameful. It's being honest. If everyone's honest and open from the start, there are no nasty surprises. I make it a personal policy to overdisclose my plans as opposed to underdisclosing, because that way people know what to expect.

Reputations linger, and handlers talk. They ask feedback before entering into any agreements. I say really nice things about people I've had good experiences with, and I give warnings about people I've had a difficult time working with. You want to be someone everybody recommends, because that gives you the most options.

DO work to improve

Here's one that's less obvious. I can tell you right now, whether you're the newest newbie or a V1 veteran or James Joyce or whoever, that you have room to improve as a writer. You've also got something you do well (almost certainly. Let's give that 99% odds). The same is true of me. You always want to be making your stuff better, making each post edge out the last by a bit, making your characters more interesting and compelling to read.

Now for the tough bit: how does that help you stay in the game?

The easy answer is that it makes your characters better, which draws Heroes. This is true. It also increases your odds in the contests, which get you attention, which can also help let you stick around longer.

Less obviously, handlers love seeing improvement. They hate people who are stuck up. Any good writer thinks, from time to time, that they are a bad writer. Anyone who thinks they've reached the pinnacle of craft, who acts as though there's nothing else to learn, nowhere else to go, might as well give up and go home. That's basically it, the end, game over. If I save you, it's 'cause I wanna see more cool stuff, not the same thing over and over. If handlers see you improving, they may toss you a save to see where things end up, to see how you advance and where you go. We're all here to help each other grow, and a bit of humility and work are really appreciated by a lot of us.

Basically, improvement itself, and the pursuit thereof, are positive attributes. They attract Heroes and good thread partners, and their payoff is making you a better writer which also attracts Heroes and good thread partners. You win every way.

DO be receptive to criticism

This goes hand in hand with working to improve. I often tell this anecdote about a member who asked me for advice about what they were doing wrong, then, when I candidly shared my perceptions, proceeded to argue with me, defending their choices. It was the last time I shared criticism with that handler, because they clearly had decided they knew what was best and trying to help them was a waste of time and a massive frustration for both of us.

If you ask for criticism, from a buddy or on the board or whatever, or if chat happens to pick apart one of your recent posts because somebody noticed it, you should listen to what they have to say and give it an honest consideration. I'm not saying bow to the consensus. I am saying think for a moment about whether it's right.

If it is, thank the people involved and make the changes. If it's not, that's okay. I blow off my editors pretty regularly. That's part of being pretentious having an artistic vision. If you don't take advice, be polite. Don't tell your critics they're wrong. Don't defend yourself against criticism. If you've gotta say something, explain why you made the choice you made. Generally, don't even do that. Make your post and let your writing stand or fall on its own merits. At the end of the day, you'll be pleased or you won't. You just need to be gracious while getting there. Your own feelings matter most (even towards getting far; if you hate what you're writing you'll fail at most of the other things in this article).

This is basically a subset of working to improve, of course. Take criticism, make friends, improve, get Heroed, enjoy success, you know the drill.

DO read widely

Once again, the way in which this helps you stay in the game is not super obvious at first glance. Reading, however, is one of the most underrated aspects of SOTF. By reading other handlers' characters, you are better able to converse intelligently about them. You know which characters you like. You also know whose writing you like, who would be cool to do threads with, and so on. This is where the benefit to you comes in.

If you know a handler writes well, and you see that their character has potential for interesting interactions with yours, you can simply propose a meetup or a scene of some kind. By showing that you've read another handler's character, you are far more likely to positively predispose them towards working with you, as they will know that you have some grasp of their character and style.

More than that, reading engenders out-of-character goodwill towards you. Handlers like people who read their stuff. They like people who are involved in the game. I know it pleases me greatly when I can trade impressions with somebody without getting, "Oh, I haven't gotten around to reading that character yet" as a reply to everything.

Also, this is rather big-picture, but reading encourages other handlers to read as well. It's basically peer pressure to keep up and not be left out. SOTF's culture during V4 veered away from reading, and the entire game suffered for it. There were tons of redundancies and continuity errors. More than that, Heroes were scarce at some points because characters just weren't well-known. If site culture can be turned around again, so that reading is the norm rather than the exception, everyone doing quality writing is more likely to be saved just because the number of people seeing that writing will increase. You can't make a change without being part of it, so by doing your part and reading, you can help site culture move to better places.

DO NOT assume that you are more important than anyone else

You're not. I'm not. No handler is. By acting like your character is the center of things, you come off as rude and arrogant. You make yourself unpleasant to be in threads with, and drive quality handlers away.

This sounds really obvious, but it works its way in insidiously. If you think you "deserve" to be Heroed, or to be in Endgame, or to win, you've fallen into this trap, and I can almost guarantee that it is showing in your attitude and alienating others. This can manifest as always needing your character to come out on top or look cool. It can take the form of them never taking hits. It can be them monopolizing every scene for no in-character reason (some characters try to steal the show, and that is A-Okay! Just make sure it's the character trying to do so in-character, not you doing so out-of-character).

Basically, remember that every other handler may be just as excited and committed as you, and treat them accordingly. The goodwill that this creates will make things way more pleasant and will help you last.

DO NOT play to win

Alright, this one sounds counterintuitive in the extreme, given that this is a guide on how to get far in SOTF. When it comes to actually winning, though, it's a crapshoot. I've heard a rumor that wrestling bears for Odin's favor worked for Dan, but I cannot confirm or deny this, or any assertions about arcane rituals.

What I can say, though, is that if you play to win—that is, if you focus on winning as your highest and most important aim—your writing will suffer, and with it so too will your chances of actually winning. Only one character will win. If your plotline relies on it being yours for your character to be a satisfying read, you are stacking the deck against yourself.

Write your character so that each thread, each interaction, is important. Assume that they will die and do your best anyways, so that their story is a great one that will stand the test of time. Then, if you win, that's a happy bonus.

A personal anecdote here, because this is one that I can speak to and that relatively few other people can: I did not go into V4 expecting to win. I wasn't even hoping to that much. Kimberly was the character I thought least fitting for surviving until well over halfway through the game, and that was largely in the form of joking about a few things with Tre. I only gave serious thought to her living around the final 25, and only because I had some ideas I thought could go cool places.

That aside finished: basically, make the small things count. If winning is your end goal, the urge to put it above other things—things like consistent activity and quality writing—will be strong. If you win on rolls with no popular support, it won't be a positive experience for you or the site, and may well tank your chances in all future games. It's also so statistically unlikely as to be almost laughable.

While only one character may win, anyone who has a good time in the game wins in my book. Also, people who are not rabidly gunning for the win attract cards more than those who are. It's less of a risk. At the most cynical level, handlers who also are rabidly pursuing the win will probably not lend a hand if they sense direct competition, and handlers who like a character but not as a possible winner will be less likely to bail them out if they see it as likely to make them responsible for getting a bad winner to a version. If you're really obviously trying to win, trust me when I say that half the site will probably breathe a collective sigh of relief as you are rolled out.

DO prioritize characters

By which I mean, know which characters are working for you and which aren't. Be in tune with their stories. If you've really hit a groove with one of your kids and they get rolled, by all means use your Swap Card to save them!

This is not to say you should have a flagship character. In my opinion, you should not, at least not going into the game. A predetermined flagship, or "main" character, is likely to make your other characters suffer a lack of attention as a result. Give all your kids as much attention as you can, but if you're in a pinch, toss your energy where you're feelings things most and doing your best work. As I think I've harped on too much by now, the better work you do, the better your chances.

Also, reassess your characters regularly. You may be surprised. I've often had characters who didn't work for me at all at the start come from behind to become my favorites. I've had kids I was super stoked about not work out.

DO NOT treat characters as fodder

On the other hand, don't throw your other kids away. As I mentioned above, they may surprise you by taking the lead later on. They also require care and attention, so that their stories will be worth reading. Nothing annoys many handlers faster than fodder. "Well," they think, "he made two totally pointless wastes of space to eat bullets for Flag McShip. Clearly he does not need my Hero Card."

Fodder characters make the game worse. They do a disservice to you and to other handlers. They also drag down your average writing quality, and you don't want to become known for phoning in posts or, worse, leaving other handlers hanging. Prioritize your favorite(s) if you have no other choice, but make sure everyone still gets their fair share of love. Just give that extra bit of special shiny attention to whoever will get the most good out of it.

DO think strategically

There is some strategy to SOTF. It can pay to take a long view, and it can pay to take chances. Set up some foreshadowing you may not be able to cash in on, just in case. If Endgame's coming up, put in your very best effort. There's no way to use strategy when it comes to rolls, but be prepared for them and maybe even make plans in advance to make sure any deaths you may have to write go down well. In short, be a few steps ahead. It'll pay off with smooth, well-written scenes.

DO NOT try to game the system

You would not believe the bag of largely-unethical tricks I have seen drawn from in my time on staff. There are a fantastic number of ways to try to basically cheat. They are all really bad ideas. If you game the system in an unfair way, you are not just annoying the other handlers. You are annoying the staff team as a collective, and that is a very bad place to be in. If you go against the spirit of a rule, the staff will probably point this out and may well enforce according to the spirit, not the letter.

The staff team is not a computer in a bad sci fi flick. Staffers are bound to make the site as good a place for everyone as they can, and to ensure fair play. Allowing cheating because it is technically within the letter of the rules is not ensuring fair play.

Actual cheating (say, making multiple accounts to pad your numbers of characters) will probably get you banned forever. Quasi-cheating will probably put you on the staff's bad side while at the same time gaining you nothing except the ire of the other handlers. Don't do this, seriously. It has never worked, and trust me, I've seen all kinds of attempts.

A slight tangent: this is largely why we have various new rules and changes for V5. A lot of loopholes are closed in letter as well as spirit precisely because of this stuff. Writing up a massive legalese document to basically make sure things were fair and even wasn't my favorite thing ever to do. Don't try to cheat. Everyone will find out, and it will not be pleasant.

DO take precautions when you are going Away

If you're going to be gone for a while, get your characters out of threads in a graceful manner, or give other handlers permission to GM them. Maybe even find a babysitter. Most important of all, make sure your Away notice is valid, with every t crossed and every i dotted.

Remember, you may not ever have an open-ended Away. You may not give a range of dates. If you are listed as Away, you may not hang out in chat for hours on end or post everywhere on the board but in your threads. Doing these things will upset the staff, possibly to the point of revoking your Away, and they will also upset your fellow handlers, who will be thrilled when you get rolled since it will mean less rules abuse.

In general, do not post as Away unless you will be unable to post for the span of time you are claiming.

If you know you are going Away in advance, notify everyone as soon as you can, so that they can plan around it. Make sure that you've caught up on all the posts you owe before leaving. Make things as easy on your thread partners as possible, and they will be grateful rather than resentful.

A special note on babysitters: I hate seeing characters left with babysitters. It's damaging to immersion if a character suddenly acts all wrong, or if their voice changes. Nobody understands your characters as well as you do, so having somebody else write them is a potential road to disaster. In my opinion, the best solution when you're Away for an extended period of time is to get your character gracefully out of their thread. If that is unfeasible, it's best to grant your thread partners as a whole GMing rights, and let your character fade into the background, tagging along. Only if that is unfeasible for some reason should you get a babysitter, and you should pick someone who understands your character very well and who you trust. You should also be prepared for things to go in a very different direction from what you want/expect, and for it to be impossible to get things back on track. Needless to say, poor babysitting is bad news for your long-term survivability.

A final note: Sometimes, there are reasons to post as Away when you'll be around, but you should always note that you are doing so. I'm in that situation right now, as a matter of fact. A few things to note: 1. This is better in pregame than actual game. In pregame, it does not mess up staff bookkeeping. 2. If you can while in this situation, you should post. You should realize staff will probably not give you extra time if you're hanging around.

...Actually, you know what? I'm gonna make a thread for official Aways in V5 and also a thread for soft Aways, which are basically notifications that you'll be busier, slower, etc. We'll police normal Aways very strictly, and only they will give you extra time on the timer. This is all subject to staff approval, of course, but that should solve the issue. Treat the above as applying to normal Aways.

DO NOT constrain yourself in terms of thread partners

We've probably all seen handlers who only write with certain other handlers. Often, this manifests in strings of private threads. Even if it doesn't, it'll become clear when two handlers stick to each other like glue and prioritize each other over anyone else in the thread.

This is bad because it makes you come off as arrogant and unapproachable. Yeah, you and Handler X may have a lovely working relationship, but what about the rest of the site? Writing with many handlers is key to being able to adapt to situations. Insularity tends to put blinders on you, especially if you don't communicate widely (and most handler who write with only a few people also do not read very much). It turns things into an echo chamber: your thread partner and you think on similar wavelengths, so you'll likely both love any ideas you come up with even if they are completely stupid. Everyone else, meanwhile, may be groaning.

Broaden your horizons. Don't be afraid to write with people of a different skill level. Writing with people who you don't see as up to your level can be a challenge, but in a good way. It can also leave you pleasantly surprised to learn you have underestimated someone. Writing with someone you perceive as better than you can give you a great chance to learn of their working process and pick up some tricks, and to get your character in a really well-written scene. Writing with people is also one of the easiest ways to make friends, and friends help you get far.

I'm not saying not to work with people you like. I'm not saying not to work with people you like often. I'm saying to let other people in on the fun, too, and to be open to other experiences and diversity.

DO NOT vent your poor self esteem in chat

A lot of handlers do this. With all due respect, it does you far more harm than good. In the best case scenario, people believe you and try to make you feel better. Because they are presumably your friends, they will often try to prop you up even though doing so means lying through their teeth. A compliment fished-for is a compliment which is meaningless. Even if they like your stuff, you'll never know for sure, because you've tainted your own critique pool.

Remember, that's the best case scenario.

Worst case, they lie to you and also secretly resent you. Maybe they think your writing's not so great. Normally it wouldn't be a big deal, but because they have to act otherwise (or go conspicuously silent), your not-super-great writing attains the status of major irritant. Rather than being ambivalent, you'll have people sitting around, crossing their fingers for you to get rolled every two weeks. People will be hesitant to Hero you, and if you catch pity Heroes it will just increase resentment.

Even worse, people have a tendency to internalize negative things they hear a lot. SOTF's opinions can change like the wind, and if you keep complaining that your writing's no good then eventually it is pretty likely that you will convince the site that your writing is, in fact, no good.

The whole thing can also come off looking rather egotistical, like you're fishing for compliments or are full of false modesty. If you don't feel so hot about your writing, don't complain about it. Instead, ask for help improving, in a way that does not reek of self-flagellation. Try to do better and ask for feedback. Open dialogues with people you trust. All of these things will help you get to the point where you won't have to worry about bad self-esteem anymore.

Oh, and just a quick thing: everyone hates their writing sometimes. I do. Each of the popular, respected handlers I have talked with does. Published authors do. It's part of the craft, one that everyone must learn to live with.

DO write stuff you care about

The best and easiest way to get people to care about what you write is to care about it yourself. Phoned-in posts suck, to write and to read. Phoned-in characters are horrid. If you're invested in a plotline, it will be easier for you to keep focused. You will want to write. You will want to see things continue to develop. This sort of enthusiasm is contagious. It also pushes you to do your absolute best, to turn in high quality work.

Writing stuff you care about means writing better stuff most of the time, and better stuff means better chances to go far. Besides, why keep writing a character if you aren't enjoying it?

A side-note: Not every post is perfect. You won't like everything you write. That said, if you're in a rut, try to change things so you're having fun again. I've known some handlers who got lost with their stuff and just tried to soldier on, figuring they might have fun writing after the game if they won. This produced mediocre results and generally lost fans for the characters. The handlers were also not pleased with their stuff after the game was done. Don't let that be you.

DO edit

To take that further: edit before you post. Just do a quick proofread for flow and grammar. That single added step, which usually takes less than ten minutes for a medium-size post, has done more for the quality of my writing than anything else. People do not write perfectly the first time. Just taking a look, especially through use of the preview button, lets you see where you hit the wrong keys and said something opposite what you meant. It lets you avoid becoming a bad meme. It lets you get more bang for your buck, and it takes almost no work.

I do not advocate substantial changes once something has been posted, because that can be confusing to readers (who may read your stuff only once and have no idea of edits until later stuff stops making sense, and may not figure out what happened even then) and other handlers who are in the thread (who may have started their replies before the changes were made, and be very frustrated to have work invalidated).

That said, I believe fixing typos is always a good use of time, and encourage handlers to remove them at any time.

Oh, one last thing: you can disable the edit marker by un-ticking the box that says "Show that you edited this post". For IC posts, try to do this. It makes the thread reading experience a lot smoother, and avoids distracting readers by making them wonder what changed and why.

For the record, I proofread and edited this guide before posting (unlike most of my OOC posts) and caught a ton of typos and bad phrasings. I probably missed some, but just imagine how much worse it was before.

DO link your threads

This is minor. There's a tutorial here. Not doing it makes your characters a royal pain to read. I know many handlers have dropped characters due to incomplete link chains. I know I hate fixing them for other people, so it's a pretty low priority for my staff time. Take the two minutes to keep your character readable.

DO NOT make Hero deals

I almost left this off, now that deals are deregulated, making them an even worse idea, but I'm putting it in for historical interest and also because it applies to unofficial deals too, which I know people will try. Just mentally append "Also, they can back out and screw you over" to the end.

Hero deals sound cool in theory. You Hero someone else in exchange for their Hero card at a later date, or they Hero you in exchange for yours. It's just like having two swap cards, or maybe like being able to press the snooze button on the alarm clock that is the rolls.

Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work out like that.

If you Hero someone else in exchange for a card later, you are gambling that you will get rolled before they do. This is not a safe bet. Several people in V4 got screwed over when the person who owed them a save got rolled first or at the same time as they did, leaving the person unable to hold up their end of the bargain. This means the people Heroed for nothing.

Worse, handlers sometimes go inactive without warning, or they get banned. In these situations, you are completely out of luck. You've burned a resource to save someone you care about for nothing.

Being on the end of the deal where you owe manages to be even worse.

If you owe someone a Hero, you have just committed to writing their fodder for the rest of the game. You will not win (unless you somehow both get to Endgame unrolled or something). You will not have any control over what point your character's story terminates at.

You will also never, ever catch a Hero from anyone until you've discharged your debt.

The reason for this is that your character is doomed, and everyone knows it. If you get rolled, then Heroing you just amounts to Heroing the person you owe a Hero to. If other handlers wanted to do that, they'd just do it directly, removing the risk that you get rolled again before you can pay your debt off.

Basically, you are selling your character's fate. It's bad on a practical level, and it is an extremely disheartening situation to be in. Just avoid it.

DO Hero characters you like

People who save others are more likely to be saved in turn. I try to keep my ratio about even, if not skewed in favor of helping people out. That is to say, I try to Hero people as often as I am saved (including Mini and Main in this discussion, 'cause everyone can save only one person per version in Main typically). If you Hero characters that you like, you push that back towards being a big part of site culture. You also show that you've read other handlers' writing, and that you're being a productive part of the site, a team player.

Obviously, don't Hero characters if you don't like them. Don't Hero characters because you're pressured to. A lot of handlers have never Heroed anyone, and are still awesome writers and cool people. If you'd rather write one of your kids than read someone else's, then don't play your card. Just, keep it in mind as an option. Besides, as I said above, people like to Hero people who Hero other people. It's like a big circle of sharing.

---

I'm leaving this here for now. I may write some more to add on later, but I started this back in March, and with V5 coming so soon I feel like I should post it when it can still actually do some good for folks. This is all just my opinion, based as it is upon personal experience and lengthy observations, which is why I'm not throwing it out for contention as an official RPing Guide. Still, I hope it is useful to the community.

Feel free to discuss, disagree, add your own ideas, etc. as you want. I'll gladly answer any question (except if I'm talking about you. Don't ask that. I'm not, and I won't answer if you ask since I already have).

[MurderWeasel]

Character Critiques: A Mod's Perspective
From July 9, 2012

I've been meaning to do something like this for a while. Please note that what follows is just my thoughts and impressions and ideas. I'm not speaking for the whole staff here. This is just my take.

Basically, I'm making a thread to address a few trends I've seen of late (well, since the start of V5 pregame, maybe even since before) among the SOTF community. They have to do with character critiques.

Character critiques, as I assume most handlers know, are a very important part of SOTF. Anyone who wants to handle a character of their own creation in the game must go through the critique process. If you've gone through the critique process, you've probably been denied at some point or other.

I have found a video which I think does a good job of illustrating the difference between a character denial for the handler on the receiving end and for the staffer dishing it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAHi9dDxDpc

Basically, there is this sort of feeling among the members that a denial is a really big deal and a personal thing. I've heard several members hypothesize that mods carry out vendettas or something through characters critiques. I can assure you that this is not the case. All the staff are volunteers. We're here to help make SOTF a better place because we love the site. Character critiques are just one part of a mod's job. They're the most time-consuming part in most cases. For many mods, they are the least fun part because they are a very repetitive thing. Personally, I have lost count of the number of times I have written, "Also, a lack of weapon training is not a disadvantage. It is, in fact, the assumed norm for an average high school student. Any weapon training is a serious advantage and should be noted as such."

I feel like there is something of a staff vs. handlers feeling going around among some handlers (and maybe some staff) these days. I've heard some handlers state that they attempt to sneak stuff through critiques in their profiles. They view character critiques as blocks against creativity and try to push things as far as possible and sneak as much under the radar as they can. This, in turn, leads to hyper-vigilant staffers. This is not a positive state of affairs. It is, in fact, frustrating for everyone involved.

If you will permit a personal anecdote: I chose the video above because it's really silly, but also because it rings very true to me. My first character got approved easily (after a pretty severe forced injection of taste in the concept stage in the thread for that), but my second got denied due to some odd/missing details.

I bet Crash doesn't remember this. It was a pretty minor denial, even back in V4 (note that the bio is not up to V5 standards, like the majority of V4 profiles). At the time, though, I was horrified. I thought I might have offended somebody or messed up irreparably. I considered ditching the character. I kid you not, I considered leaving the site. I told myself that I was not a good writer, that I was not up to the standards of the community. I decided to try again, though, crossed my fingers, braced for crushing denial, and made the edits to the best of my abilities.

I have this vague memory of the next five days being a tense wait, of panicking as I saw other characters below me in the queue being critiqued first, of assuming I was so shunned that nobody would even bother to reply. I see now that the turnaround was nineteen hours and I got approved with no further comment.

I relate this to explain that I really do understand that getting denied kind of sucks. I've got a lot of experience with it. What I'd like to bring up here, though, is the ways in which denials are also a good thing.

I've had three of my five V5 characters kicked back for edits. I'm sure some of you are familiar with the evil pact Ricky and I have, but, that aside, the characters who got kicked back needed to get kicked back because the profiles were not as good as they could be and/or contained humorously glaring errors (like for example implying that Hawaii is a sovereign nation instead of a state). Each of my denied characters is better for having been edited.

That brings me to the real point of this: I would like to address not how staff critiques profiles, but why.

A profile is a very important thing. It represents everything a character is. Given that characters are pretty much the only ways handlers interact with the SOTF world, and given that characters represent a large investment of time and energy, it is only natural that handlers are somewhat protective of their concepts. This is especially true since that is one of the few areas in which a handler really has much control; unlike in many other RPs, the fates of characters in SOTF are pretty close to sealed. Oh, sure, characters can get involved in escapes. They can win. The thing is, the first requires a good plan that meets staff approval, and the second only applies to a single character in every game. Even on Mini, in the smallest game ever played, that amounted to a one in twenty chance (the same odds as rolling a critical hit in Dungeons and Dragons).

It can be easy to assume a denial represents a staffer's distaste for a concept, especially if the denial is long (and some of us can be quite verbose in discussing our issues with characters). Really, though, staff are not trying to pick on handlers or to wreck anyone's fun. Our job is to make SOTF the best place it can be for everyone, within the constraints of its concept.

Characters are denied for a few main reasons, which I will elaborate upon below:

• 1. Technical Stuff:
  Character profiles serve as a barometer of a handler's ability and dedication. We do not police grammar in game. A lot of handlers have questionable grasps on grammar. So do some staffers. As someone who went to college specifically to study writing, I am constantly noticing little errors and problems in posts.
  
  That said, I understand that this is the internet, and SOTF is a site where people come to have fun in their leisure time.
  
  We enforce grammar and formatting in profiles more strictly in part as a favor to handlers for future times. If you've been here any length of time, you've probably been present for a few chuckles at some of the quirks of older versions. Things that were perfectly acceptable at the time now appear rather bizarre. We try to keep profiles pretty so that in the future they will be looked back on positively.
  
  We also know that profiles form the first impression of a character many readers and handlers will have. If a profile is clean and easy to read, it sets things off on a high note. It also makes it much easier for other handlers to get a good idea of a character and to understand the information conveyed.
  
  Finally, grammatical correctness displays a willingness to put in some effort to be a productive member of the site. SOTF requires effort. It requires time. Being active with characters represents a commitment of time and energy. Many people who will flake out in game will not make it past a critique that asks for a lot of changes. That's not to say we add tons of superfluous stuff to chase people off; rather, we do not pull punches because if someone needs to put in a lot of effort to get a profile ready to go, odds are they will need to put in a lot of effort to be a productive and comprehensible member in game as well.
• 2. Realism:
  This is the contentious one. I know that many handlers have varying views on the degree to which realism is a good or bad thing. That said, SOTF was created as a place to RP realistic high schoolers in a terrible situation. While some may argue that having an unrealistic character in the long run hurts no one except the handler doing the writing, this is untrue.
  
  SOTF, as a setting, needs verisimilitude to be a place where emotionally complex, deep stories can be told. Having a character who casts spells changes the entire genre of the game. Having a character who is completely unrealistic colors every thread they enter, and, in many cases, the entire version or the entire world. Unrealistic characters impose their handlers' view of the world on everyone else. It can be argued that the same is true in reverse, that a dependency on realism forces the values of those handlers espousing it onto everyone. This is completely true. It is an unfortunate fact that a game such as SOTF cannot exist in two modes at once. Sharing a world/scene with unrealistic characters makes the whole thing unrealistic, and the game in its current iteration has been created to be a realistic setting.
  
  Some of my very favorite characters have been of questionable realism. That said, there are tons of places on the internet aimed at allowing unrealistic characters to interact. I bet, though I could not say for sure, that there is even one that allows for similar death match style situations, because, with the advent of The Hunger Games, RP sites with our rough focus have popped up everywhere. There are even places for that sort of thing in SOTF (in case the community is the big draw), such as Other RPing or proposing an AU over on Mini.
  
  So, if a staffer denies a character for realism, they are not saying that you are a bad writer. They are not singling you out because they don't like you. You probably don't even factor into the decision. They are just following the rules of the universe so as to ensure that everyone who has come here to participate in the RP as it is advertised, described, set up, etc. gets the experience promised.
  
  For those into continuity theory and such, it may be said that SOTF's world has its own rules, just like the real world does. These rules are not the same as in the real world. This is a place where terrorists can kidnap children every year and get away with it. It is a world where nobody ever fatally ODs on the knockout gas. It is a world where the islands are not found. These things, however, are necessary conceits of the game's concept. They may not be realistic, but they are internally consistent. They are how the world works, how it has always worked, and how it has to work, therefore they are an acceptable part of the RP despite how laughable they would be in real life. They do not justify unrealism which flies in the face of the universe's internal rules, specifically the current set (which came into being partway through V3 and requires characters to be more or less reasonable for real people on earth). There is no relation between characters and setup, because their purposes in the game are entirely different.
  
  Note that even things which realistically occur may be denied for realism if they seem likely to be handled unrealistically, or if they are so rare as to be extremely unlikely. This, again, is to make sure everyone is playing with the same basic set of ground rules. One fantastic outlier in a school is interesting, but we have to give everyone an equal shot, which means that one major outlier approved would imply the acceptability of major outliers from every handler with every character. Then it would be V1 all over again.
• 3. Sensitivity:
  Some character concepts are offensive. Sometimes (most of the time, I like to think), this is entirely accidental. If a staffer catches something that may be offensive, they'll either ask for it to be removed or require edits until it is no longer problematic. This is not a staffer taking stuff out on a handler. It's not them being mean. It is them acting in the interests of the entire reader/member base (all of whom would presumably prefer to not be offended), and in the interests of the handler submitting the profile (who presumably does not want to offend people).
• 4. Detail:
  A character profile needs to actually give enough information to understand who a character is. Detail helps staff judge the prior categories as well. Basically, any profile needs to give the staff enough to have a rough idea that a handler will handle things realistically and sensitively, and that they have put some effort into preparing for the game. A handler who does the bare minimum every single time in every single facet of the game will be no fun to RP with. They will cause problems for other handlers and will be a negative influence on the site. We've seen this happen again and again.
  
  So, if a profile isn't detailed, we'll ask for more, with varying degrees of specificity. The detail required now is much higher than in V4. I can't speak to the motives of all staff, but, personally, I want more because many V4 characters were clearly created with almost no idea of who they were. Often these characters became fodder characters (which seriously drag the game down), or ended up being much weaker characters than one would expect of their handlers because of the looseness and uncertainty regarding even basic details about who they were.
• 5. Overall Health of the Site:
  As mentioned, we act for the interest of the majority, while attempting to give consideration to the minority. In the end, though, we'll make calls that help keep the site afloat and that create the best results for as many handlers as possible. Sometimes, that means some character concepts just will not fly. I can't think of any profile that has ever been denied solely on this, but this does underlie every other reason (as I've probably expounded upon too much already).

So, yeah, there you go. I'm hoping that this will help handlers understand where the staff is coming from, why we act as we do, why fighting critiques is not good and why sneaking stuff in is a really bad idea. If this isn't enough, of course, there's the fact that we'll yank, permadeny, etc. profiles made under false pretenses. In game, we'd probably kill a character off. This is, again, for the health of the site; rules have no use if they don't mean anything, and allowing dishonest profiles would negate the entire reason for critiques, excepting as a test of grammar/willingness to jump through hoops.

So, I encourage handlers to look at denials as an opportunity to allow characters to grow and find more depth, to transform such that they fit harmoniously with the game and the world. Every time I've had a character denied, they've ended up better for it. Staff do not deny to be mean. They deny to produce good results, for both individual handlers and the site as a whole.

I'm totally willing to discuss anything else relating to character critiques and such here, or to elaborate further if necessary. I feel like oftentimes dialogue between staff (or at least me) and members can get muddled, leading to confusion, and I'm hoping maybe this can help with that.

[MurderWeasel]

How To Write Villains
From June 20, 2013

So, with the coming of first rolls, I'm gonna be ranting about my favorite type of character: villains. We had a somewhat abortive attempt at writing a guide on heroism, but honestly I think passably moral characters are a whole lot easier to work with than their more nefarious counterparts.

To start with, I'd like to give a brief explanation as to my perspective here. I have almost always preferred the villains to the heroes in fiction, typically because, in the context of non-SOTF works, the villains often possess more agency. They are the smart ones, the ones who do things, while the heroes get to react to those things. Villains tend to have big goals, and complicated psyches, because these things are almost required to be a credible threat that is not also a simple monster.

SOTF gets a very different breed of villain, which is something I'll address later. In the context of SOTF, a villain is a typically a character who is acting in a way harmful to their classmates, for their own benefit or of their own volition.

I've written at least three villainous sorts between V4 and Mini. I'm going to draw examples from those experiences here, and talk about some of the choices I made and why I did so, and what I'd do differently in the future, so if you're allergic to that, you've been forewarned. Other examples, I'll draw from past versions or (in the case of truly terrible stuff) will concoct out of whole cloth to avoid bashing other handlers' work. I mention my work with villains to explain my perspective; I approach writing the bad guys as a pretty serious challenge, and tend to put a lot of thought into it. If you've hated all the villains I've written, you're probably going to disagree with the bulk of what I'm putting down here.

The villains I've written are, in chronological order by creation, Aaron Hughes (V4), Karen Ruiz (SOTF-TV V1), and Robin Pounds (The Program V2).

Now, I mentioned earlier that SOTF's villains differ from traditional villains in many ways. This is true insofar as we are discussing the characters in the game as villains. This is because, no matter how evil or successful your villain is, they will almost certainly never be one of the true villains of SOTF. The real bad guys are, of course, the terrorists, and they embody the typical villainous traits I've mentioned above. They are the only characters in the story (putting aside people at home) who really have total freedom of action; everything that happens after the prologue comes in reaction to the kidnapping, and really the whole game is about dealing with the aftermath of that cataclysm. All other villains are big fish in a little pond compared to even the most petty of the terrorists.

People write villains for different reasons. The story would not function without them, for one thing, or would at the very least take on an incredibly different form. Villains drive the action, in a small way serving to give other characters something to react to by killing or otherwise causing harm. Handlers like to be on that end of things. They also enjoy the notoriety that comes with writing a villain—villains are, often, the most talked-about characters in a version. Sometimes, handlers will write villains just to do something new, to break out of their niche.

The problem is, while SOTF is rarely at a lack for a villain, it is all too often lacking in ones that are any good. For me, I want a villain to be a character I am interested in reading about, rather than one who makes me roll my eyes and grit my teeth when opening a thread. A bad villain quickly becomes, at best, unintentionally funny, and, at worst, an active harm to the entire game.

To make a villain be a good addition to SOTF, I believe that they must first be a good character. Pregame is a great barometer for this; if your character is fun and interesting to write in a high-school setting, while blending realistically with their classmates, you're off to a great start. If, on the other hand, your character stands out as unrealistic or problematic, you're probably getting too caught up in their status as bad guys.

It is vital, and I cannot emphasize this enough, to remember that the very worst student in the game is a petty evil compared to the terrorists. If you are trying to one-up, to shock, to draw notice with the sheer scale of your villainy, it's going to fall flat and come off as overwrought and comical.

It's pretty easy to give things to avoid with villains, so I'm going to try to give some steps to follow to make a good one.

1. Know that your character is or is going to be a villain

This isn't to say make premade players. Rather, at some point, you end up deciding that your character is going to start killing/otherwise hindering their peers. That decision should be made by you, the author, before the character starts to do this. If you make your character from the ground up, envisioning them as someone who will go bad, that's not even a bad thing necessarily. Of my three, all were originally conceived as villains. Aaron underwent a number of total overhauls before he ended up where he did, while the other two functioned in-game almost exactly as I'd expected while working on their profiles.

The key is to have a character you can move into doing bad things without it coming off as random, arbitrary, or otherwise nonsensical. I am very hesitant to forgive a villain who has a bad start, because the early things, the decision to start playing or the sudden rush of emotion that leads to a rash choice or whatever, that forms the entire foundation of what comes next. It doesn't have to be a single moment or a big event, but at some point the leap is made and you need to understand that and be very cognizant of how exactly it comes to pass.

2. Know why character is or is going to be a villain

Next off, why is your kid doing these horrible and nasty things?

The answer may seem to be obvious: "Well, they don't want to die, of course!"

Okay, but is your character stupid? If not, they can probably realize that killing people left and rightis a really bad way to go about not getting killed in SOTF. The only traditional player to ever come through victorious was Riz, who benefited from the fact that the terrorists didn't even announce a massive number of his kills, allowing him to slide under the radar and take people by surprise into the late game. This is not the sort of thing most kids would be ignorant of, either.

More than that, there's another question that's important: Okay, but why doesn't your character want to die?

Now, death is really scary for most people! It's unknown. If your character is afraid of that, and most will be, then it stands to reason that they could take extreme measures to avoid it, but I don't think it's a good enough answer unless you've really delved into their psyche. If your character is religious, how does that intersect with their choices? Most religions condemn killing for convenience rather harshly, often bringing afterlife consequences into the mix. Is it worth risking eternal damnation to gain a temporary extension of time spent in the physical world? If your character is supposed to be even semi-notably devout and you don't answer that question, it's gonna break my immersion in a real hurry.

Similarly, if your character just wants to live, it makes me want to know why. Are they simply afraid of possible oblivion? Do they want to say goodbye to a loved one? Do they just want to see their future? This doesn't have to be tragic or overwrought (it probably shouldn't be) but you need an answer or your character will have the approximate depth of a Captain Planet villain.

Know this, know it well, and never let it leave your mind as you write the bad things your character does. You must have a firm grasp on why they are doing them, or they are meaningless.

Next up, another popular one: "(S)He's crazy!"

The island is stressful. It stands to reason that people will go crazy. Crazy does not mean murderous, though. Crazy is not a magic wand you can wave at your character to make everyone okay with the irrational stuff they do. You need to figure out the logic behind your character's craziness (which is really a stress reaction to a terrible situation). You need to know how they are crazy, how it feels to them, why doing bad things seems logical to them in their damaged state.

This can be really tough. You need to do it to make sense.

And of course, there are tons of other reasons to do awful things. Lenny (it's not a villain rant by me if it doesn't involve Lenny) was ostensibly doing everything awful in order to save his sister. SOTF-TV had characters doing bad things because they'd grown up desensitized; thrown into a crazy situation, they aped what they'd seen others do before for lack of any other way to react to the insanity.

For mine, I always had reasons. Aaron initially believed that he was a Hard Man Making Hard Choices, taking a utilitarian approach to the island. His overly-inflated confidence led him to believe that he was the class' best bet at getting a better ending, and thus his negative actions were taken in pursuit of a greater good, sacrificing individuals for the benefit of the collective. Then, once that self-image was torn apart, he was self-aware enough to realize it and began escalating his actions so as to avoid the fallout of his initial wrongdoing.

Karen was simply scared to be hurt and die, thought things through, and decided that avoiding that fate was worth any sacrifice, including murdering a boatload of people. Everything sprung from an initial choice to pursue one end, and while she often brought that decision to the forefront again and reexamined it, she did not waver.

Robin realized that she stood no realistic chance of surviving. Reacting to that, she started lashing out, venting frustration by antagonizing others. At the same time, she realized that these actions would drive away her companion, who she cared about, and thus worked very hard to frame herself as being in the right, while at the same time escalating the atrocities so as to prevent anyone from interfering with their relationship.

A good villain, I want to be able to trace out logic like that for. To grab Lenny again, I'd sum him up like so:

Lenny decided that he would save his sister. He used this to power an ends-justify-the-means philosophy, while at the same time using means that did not help him towards his ends at all. This is because it was largely an excuse; in truth, Lenny, used to powerlessness, scrambled for whatever control he could get, finding solace in that since he did not have enough confidence to truly believe he could survive.

Note that this can change over time too, but you should be very careful about changing it and should do so because it is natural, not for narrative convenience and never to keep your character killing when they logically shouldn't be.

3. Know the ways in which your character is going to do villainous things

In other words, if your character only cares about surviving, don't have them torture people unless it helps them survive. Keep your character's actions consistent with their motivations. A lot of kids fail really hard at this step; it's here where an otherwise solid concept can be easily broken by a handler who is overenthusiastic about getting kills.

Never have your character do something for narrative convenience. I've turned down a lot of kills in my time on SOTF, because they were things which my character would not logically do.

If your character is trying to survive, they should not pick fights they don't think they can easily win, because doing so makes them likely to get hurt, which in turn makes them more likely to die. If your character is taking out their frustration over being taken, they shouldn't suddenly start being really efficient and intelligent in their kills. If your character is having others do their dirty work, they shouldn't suddenly take matters into their own hands.

Characters can change up their methods, but it shouldn't be willingly, unless they've got a great reason for that.

A great example here is V4's Liam Brooks. Brook would kill people slowly and painfully, then arrange their corpses in his garden. Sometimes, the people would resist or try to run away, so he'd have to kill them quickly and cleanly instead, which usually caused him a lot of frustration. Either way, once they stopped wiggling, it was back to the arranging-corpses plan.

So, the long and short of this is, your character's motivation and abilities will influence how they act, and they should generally stay true to this unless there's a reason to change it.

For the examples from my cast, Aaron was hands-off. Because he saw remaining trustworthy as key to his cause, he had his allies do bad things whenever possible, and only took matters into his own hands when he thought he could do so without repercussions (attacking a know player with a bunch of kills to his name) or when he had no other options (out of allies and someone's threatening to expose what he'd done) or when it seemed appropriately logical (final twenty kids, so suddenly being active isn't much more dangerous than just being there).

Karen shot people from behind whenever possible. She killed people she felt were threats or easy targets, and fled anything approaching a fair fight for fear of being hurt. Her game had a special rule allowing anyone who killed ten people to leave alive, so she quietly and quickly attempted to get that. Any actual fights tended to be the result of bungling ambushes.

Robin hurt people in the context of making snap, emotional decisions. Her actions were generally spur-of-the-moment, unplanned, and undertaken without a very good understanding of their consequences.

In V4, kids tended to kill however the victim wanted, usually because their handlers thought more kills made for more notoriety. Jim-Bob might, in one thread, torture someone to death, then in the next strafe a group from a distance, then immediately gloat while engaging someone in a fencing match. The result would be, Jim-Bob came off as some sort of villainy robot, programmed to take the most reprehensible action possible at any time with no rhyme or reason.

Torture and other unnecessary stuff gets special mention here, because it's almost never in line with the most common motivation (I don't wanna die!) and is all too easily conflated with the second most common (I'm crazy!) when it doesn't always follow. Really think about why your kid would do the extra-awful stuff, or it'll come off as kinda random and stupid.

4. Know how smart your villain is

Intelligence is a key thing. Is your villain supposed to have any sort of long-term reasoning abilities? If so, it's tough to justify most sorts of active villainy. Is your character good at judging people? Then it makes no sense for them to get into bad situations willingly. Is your character kind of dumb? Then they shouldn't be making complex (workable) plans or being really clever in getting out of trouble.

And yet, all too often, kids are all over the place. Jim-Bob may be supposed to be a smart guy who aces all his classes and has his whole life worked out, yet he'll go "Oh man, SOTF, gotta kill every one of my classmates now." and then will do it. And this is super disruptive to my conception of Jim-Bob as at all smart or good at planning. Maybe, maybe I can buy this in a momentary breakdown if he's someone who deals poorly with stress, but then at some point he's gonna have to deal with the fallout and do some reassessing of his plans (and "Aw shucks, might as well keep going 'cause I started" is a stupid reason and again breaks my belief).

There's not a ton to add here. Know your character's capacity and then stick to it. Oh, and a good rule of thumb is, don't write characters smarter than you are unless you're really sure you can pull it off. Same rule goes for characters less intelligent than you. If you're gonna write a character of a different intelligence level, I've found it helps to change only certain kinds of intelligence, for instance, maybe their not as good as you are at reading other people, but are a lot better at long-term planning.

The key is to avoid cartoonish stuff or embarrassing slip-ups. I find handlers often will have allegedly-smart characters not act any smarter than normal, except for using (or misusing) big words or being good at math. Stupid characters will come off as mentally challenged to the point the reader is left marveling at the fact they can chew without killing themselves.

A special note here on manipulation: If you're gonna write a manipulator, spend some time watching people interact. Get a good understanding of how people play each other. It is very rarely direct, and very rarely obvious. A good con is one where the victim has no idea they are being conned until it's over, if they ever figure things out.

With my kids, Aaron was pretty smart in most ways, and thus was able to keep his hands clean and get people to do what he wanted. When he made terrible choices, it was usually in areas where he overestimated his intelligence or simply did not have a good grounding and thus could not make an informed choice.

Karen was very, very clever in an immediate way, but struggled a little with long-term planning and had serious issues with dealing with people. She assumed other people, by and large, would react roughly how she did, and so was taken by surprise, again and again, when people threw their own interests away in favor of pursuing revenge or causing pain.

Robin was not so smart. She tended to rely on pretty obvious tricks and lies, and would get herself into trouble without a clear idea how to get out. She fell for tricks and traps, but at the same time, she was pretty good with people.

I'm gonna grab Lenny again for another example. Lenny was passably smart, but was no genius. He'd do stuff because he felt like it, and then would be a bit taken aback when it came crashing down on him. At the same time, he was pretty aware of where he stood morally, and was able to hold his own in a cogent ethical debate with Bobby Jacks.

A thing that came out while I was working on these examples: Intelligence is not high or low. It's a bunch of different, related traits, and characters will be smart in some ways and dumb in others. Know where they are in which categories, and realize that it will shape their options and actions in pursuing their agendas.

5. Know why you're accepting any kill you accept

And now for some specifics. As a villain you will be pursuing kills. There's another guide to be written on getting those, but that's for another day. If you ask for a kill, or are offered one, know why. Know what it will do for your character's story, and if it will not move the plot along or give you a chance for characterization, run screaming for the hills and never look back.

There is no quicker way to alienate SOTF than with bad kills, and if your kill serves no purpose it is a bad kill. The biggest killers catch the most attention, and it turns really negative in a hurry.

Rattlesnake has a really good theory of kills, that basically says that every time a character kills someone, they become malleable, like warm silly putty. With proper molding, they can be turned into something cool and amazing, and without they will melt into a puddle of featureless goo.

This is an issue at all times, but especially at the start and the end of the game. In the first few days, it's a race to have the most (or any) kills, and usually whoever wins loses in the long run. If you get a kill, make sure it is a situation where your character would kill. If you have to derail or reach to make them do it, it's not worth it. You're harming your character and the story, and the whole site will be better off if you say "Thanks, but sorry, doesn't work."

Late in games, there just aren't that many killers left, usually, so people will offer kills to anyone left who'll do it. Do not help people out. Be selfish, because your character's integrity is not worth someone else's convenience.

Look at the most respected players in any version, and then look at those with the most kills. Notice how very rarely those lists line up smoothly. This is because quantity and quality, while not mutually exclusive, don't flourish together if the quantity is indiscriminate. Make each kill a scene that fits for all involved characters, that advance the story and characterization, and I'll love your work if you double Maxwell's score. Make a kill for convenience, and I'll think you're being lazy and are pandering to the audience.

There's really less to go on in examples here, so I'll just comment that I turned down quite a number of kills for Aaron during V4 because even though everyone knew he was a bad guy, he wasn't the sort who killed people until about Day Nine, and having him cross that line would have made no sense and would have damaged the entire way his character was set up. Then, if your kid decides to kill just a few people and then wait until the end, unless there's a reason for them to not do that they should kill just a few people and then wait for the end.

This is where people screw up all the time, and I really think it bears repeating: kills are not what makes a worthwhile character. Scenes are. Consistency and logic are. Prioritize those over a number nobody gives a hoot about.

6. Know your limits

Sometimes, there are things you cannot write. This can be for many reasons. Maybe you screwed up and booked your kid to kill, like, two thirds of the kids rolled this month (it's happened before). Maybe you just cannot get into the head of someone who likes to torture. It's cool. Stuff happens.

Know where your limits are, and as you approach them, take actions to avoid ending up in a wreck. If you booked too many kills, apologize and cut loose the ones that fit the worst. If your character is heading down a path that makes you uncomfortable, start making changes before it goes bad.

Take some time to think ahead and decide if you really want to do what you're on course for. Also, take time to consider if you can do it well. As, for example, an upper-middle-class straight white guy, you may struggle to portray an economically disadvantaged African-American lesbian dealing with classmates who gave her crap in school, now in an SOTF situation. If you're dealing with cultures or situations you know nothing abut, do some research. If you're dealing with icky subjects, you should by now have given them enough thought in the proceeding sections to know if you want to abort the plotline before it starts (or as it's going). If you've got too much lined up, in kills or interactions or whatever, you should take some time to perform a triage and cut loose whatever is least vital.

I dropped tons of planned stuff with all three of my villains, just due to time constraints and what opportunities presented themselves. I really wanted Aaron to run a kangaroo court and force one of his allies to execute a captured player, but I don't think I ever even really broached this idea with anyone because the logistics behind it made it nearly impossible.

Another example here, which may be anecdotal (and I apologize if any details are wrong), comes from V3. Originally, Dan was approached to have Riz rape a character. He initially agreed, but then, upon reflection, decided that was not a line he felt comfortable narratively crossing. He communicated this, the scene got reworked, and it all came out a whole lot better for that.

Know what you can and cannot do, and what you will and will not do, and don't compromise. If you're sailing into bad waters, jump ship quickly. A little awkwardness there beats the heck out of riding a sinking ship all the way down, especially since you run a big chance of creating an undignified mess or alienating other handlers along the way.

7. Keep the narrative logical

Never, ever, leave a thread to rush off and kill someone unless it makes sense for your character to leave the thread. I've seen some really awkward thread abandonments already in V5, and V4 was way worse about this. This one is extra special in that it can really offend handlers you're writing with, as well as damaging your character's narrative, by making them feel like you'd rather do other stuff rather than write with them.

This goes for more than just ditching threads, though. Make sure your character just generally follows a path that makes sense. If they leave an area, only to come back two threads later, have a reason they return. If they see one of their friends, and decide to try to kill them anyways, know why and deal with the emotional repercussions. Don't leave hanging questions unintentionally; if you keep people guessing, decide to do so and makes sure you know the answers, even if you never reveal them. I mean, I love leaving stuff up to interpretation. In V4, I kept a lot of stuff under the surface, and I think a lot of it has still not been unearthed. I always had a reason for everything, though.

A good example here is, once again, Brook. Brook stayed in the garden, because that was what made sense. He left for a single post, and it was totally logical in the context of the events going on there. Did that limit his options for kills and stuff? Absolutely! But Ricky took those limits instead of sacrificing the logic of Brook's story.

Another big offender here is characters running randomly and ending up in places to kill (or get killed, but this is a thread about writing villains). Please never do this. Like, try sometime, for kicks and giggles, running two miles in the woods while wearing a backpack full of clothes and books. Or your camping gear, if you go camping. I may be weird here in that I spent a lot of time outdoors as a kid, up in mountainous terrain kinda like what we see in SOTF a lot of the time. Let me tell you, it is not easy to move quickly. It's easy to get lost, but not to get separated from your group unless you're doing a terrible job of staying near each other.

Personally, I like to map out my characters' journeys (including rough locations at the time of each thread and announcement), using Photoshop and a copy of the map, so I'm sure they make some semblance of sense. Even if you don't go that far, though, just take some time to make sure everything makes sense, and don't take narrative shortcuts just to expedite kills.

8. Keep your options open

A thing I hear complained about a lot is that, once a kid starts killing, it's impossible to have any sort of thread besides them killing people. To this I respond, if that's the case for you, it's entirely your fault.

Villains are people too. They probably have people they don't want to kill or hurt, and there are certainly situations in which it is not viable to do terrible, evil things. Find these situations, use them, and cherish them. Nothing's as boring as reading the same thread again and again, and following a big killer can feel a lot like that if they're not handled well.

Give your villain new things to do. Let them grow. Even if they are doing awful stuff, see if it makes sense for them to vary the specific sort of stuff they do. Now, I'm not saying suddenly torture people (I think I've explained enough why that's an awful idea). Sometimes, though, a character might not want to kill more people. In this situation, they can still try to further their own goals. It can be interesting reading them try to avoid further conflict. Maybe they try to steal supplies, thus harming their competition and improving their own circumstances without making themselves a bigger target. Maybe they even meet an old friend, someone they can talk with, if just for a little while.

Give your characters room to grow. Walling yourself into a corner makes your character get really boring really quickly.

9. Make your character a character first and a villain second

This is one of the biggest things on this list, and it is tragically rare. Many SOTF villains take cues from Mitsuko or Kiriyama from Battle Royale. In basically every version of BR, those two function as plot devices first and characters second (if at all). SOTF sees that too.

What I want to see is villains who would still be interesting if they were not doing villainous things. Pregame's a good test for this again, but isn't the end-all be-all.

Basically, if your character suddenly stopped getting opportunities to kill, but otherwise remained the same, would they still be interesting to tell stories about? To write? To read? Is there internal stuff, underpinnings that make the character alone compelling? Could you write a 4000 word oneshot without it being boring or redundant? Would there be a reason for anyone to read it?

Villains tend to become all about the villainy. Sometimes, that can even maintain them pretty well. There's this sort of twisted glee in going, "Man, what will they do next?" The thing is, though, pushing beyond that is what separates the good villains from the great ones.

More than that, I, and most of the site, are way more forgiving on kids who have compelling stories. If you don't have more to your kid than villainy, any interest will dry up if you can't constantly keep escalating. If you do, you're still gonna get compared to the other kids who do have more going on, and the villainy-for-villainy kids of the past.

In V4, two of the characters who most benefited from having more going on for them were Raidon and Ily. They tend to be viewed very fondly now, and even if not traditional villains, they definitely fit the definition used here. Raidon had personal struggles, questions of whether he truly wanted to continue on the path he started down, and all the while struggled with his inner demons. Ily had a bundle of neuroses rooted in things wholly disengaged from the island, which informed his choices but also tormented him. He was a great study in a character's psychology.

People sometimes ask me why I'm down on Aaron, and this is the reason. Aaron's appeal, at almost every point in his story, was based on what he was doing or what he represented rather than who he was. There was nothing really internal, no core of a character that could change in really interesting ways. He moved and created plot, and it was a sort of plot SOTF had not really seen before, and that was tons of fun, but at the end of the day that's really kind of where stuff ended. There weren't, at least for me, too many surprises, which is pretty unique among the characters I've written. (In the interest of full disclosure, I also took a lot of sort of negative aspects of my own psyche and self-image and such and rolled them into Aaron, which I think colors my perception a ton, but that is less relevant to this thread.)

I'm reading your villain because I care about who they are, or else I'm reading them because I'm obsessive enough to slog through everything no matter how much I dislike it. I'd really prefer it to be the first reason.

10. Know when to ignore everyone else (and also when to listen)

People will give you feedback. SOTF is very fickle, though. A few loud voices can sway the site, and people can still be hesitant to share criticism. I try not to be, and I'll always share a brief set of thoughts if you catch me in chat. That said, folks will tell you lots of stuff, and give suggestions, and there's a lot of noise to be found along with any signal.

Listen to everything people say, especially if you didn't start the conversation. Don't jump in and defend yourself, don't justify. Think about if they're right or wrong, and think about where you're going and who your character is.

If you agree with what people say, change things accordingly. But if you disagree? Full steam ahead, and who gives a hoot what anybody thinks?

This is really tough if you're new or if you're writing to be liked. I'm lucky enough to generally not care beyond a really basic level what the vast majority of people think about my stuff. I write what I wanna write, and people like it or they don't. I encourage folks to adopt similar stances if at all possible, because if you're writing a villain, you'll catch flak. Someone will not care for what you're doing, and they'll make it known. I know, of my three villains, there are people with serious serious issues with Aaron and Karen at the least. It's just how it goes. I listened to those issues when they were aired during the game, and occasionally I adjusted stuff if someone had some insight I lacked, but mostly I kept up with what I felt was right for the story.

If your perception of success is based on what others think, you're setting yourself up for failure. If you're only seeking to please yourself, it's a lot easier.

That said, if you ever wanna get some criticism to filter re: villains, give me a shout. As you can see, I quite enjoy expounding upon the topic.

---

That's the bulk of how to write decent villains, but I've got a few more little specific notes to share. They're generally less important, but may still prove useful/amusing.

(Bonus!) 11. Be wary of redemption

Often, villains catch flak, and their handlers decide that the best way to regain popularity, or deal with the fact that nobody is feeding them kills, or whatever else may be going on, is to give their villain a redemption arc. This is a really risky move and tends to have terrible results for all involved.

It makes sense for characters to sometimes realize they've done wrong and want to be redeemed, and if that's the logical path for your kid, then follow it by all means! It does not, however, mean they will achieve their ends, and if it's you, the handler, who wants to see them redeemed, you're probably going to be terribly disappointed.

You, see, the thing is, you don't get to decide what constitutes redemption for anyone but yourself. Maybe to you, stopping killing folks and wanting to do better is all it takes. Maybe hunting other killers can win your forgiveness. Each audience member may have a different idea, though, and nothing's more alienating than a character's narrative telling us to feel a way that feels wrong. Redemption arcs are often the point at which some really heavy-handed narration comes around and tells us that it's okay, Jim-Bob is good now, 'cause he killed Billy-Joe who'd killed even more people than he had! When Jim-Bob dies, we'll probably be treated to him reflecting that, at least he could die with some peace since he did his best.

That's all softballing your character. If there's redemption, it's earned, not given, and I think to really sell it you've got to leave it up to the reader in the end. Otherwise, it's just a special type of deus ex machina, and that's really frustrating to read.

(Bonus #2!) 12. On anti-villains

Anti-villain is a tough term. I'm not sure how much use their is separating it from regular villains, and generally i don't do so. I think, however, that in SOTF an anti-villain is usually someone who is more relatable than the average villain. Ilario and Raidon are good examples here, characters who do bad things, though possibly for noble reasons, who the audience is sympathetic towards.

Like redemption, this is not a thing you get to decide, and if you try to force this sort of status on your kid it will make me hate them with the flaming passion of a thousand suns.

Follow the other tips, and you should be in good shape for a villain, sympathetic or not. Remember that most people like to see themselves as the good guys, even if they aren't, but similarly realize that some things are not so easily pushed to the side (murder's one of these). Remember that if you say sorry every time you kill someone, but keep killing more people, you aren't sorry at all.

Just let your villains be themselves, and I think you'll find some people will be rooting for them.

---

That's it for now. I may polish this eventually, but I'm gonna post it now while it's kinda topical. Any thoughts folks wanna share are cool, and I'll gladly answer any questions folks have. Remember, this is all based on my preferences, and I realize they are not universal.

[MurderWeasel]

Let's Kill Private Threads!
From April 28, 2012

Hey, everyone! This is not exactly one of my occasional Roleplaying Discussion rants. This time, I've got a bit of a rant and a solution.

One of the biggest problems to me, in V4, was that private threads ended up everywhere. There was some pretty serious bloat, as some characters hopped from private thread to private thread, never really interacting with the island on the whole. This bugged a bunch of handlers, and I can honestly say I see why. SOTF is a collaborative roleplaying/writing site, and it's fun to work with everyone. When you see awesome characters, it's cool to be able to interact with them.

Now, I just want to be clear: I'm not demonizing private threads, despite this post's title. I completely understand that there are often scenes we want to go down in specific ways. I understand that private threads are a great way to accomplish that. That said, I think private threads were massively overused in V4. I've heard some folks talking about V5, and already planning extensively, and honestly, from all I've heard, it sounds like at best it's gonna be holding to the same pattern. That makes me kinda sad. An overabundance of private threads hurts the game's dynamic nature. It removes spontaneity and chance from the equation. It robs characters of the chance to get some amazing moments.

In V4, some handler from way back (I can't recall who) heard me say roughly this and suggested that maybe crashing some private threads could be in order, since, technically, they are suggestions, not rules. Technically, you can waltz into private threads. It's just really rude.

I don't like that solution. I think those of us who want to change stuff can do it really easily and politely, with action only from our end. I hope I can prove that private threads are fine, when used in moderation, but aren't at all necessary to the game or a good character. V1 had almost no private threads. Some of the most famous scenes in SOTF history came about through random chance, in open threads.

Let's recreate that!

To prove my point, I'm going to take an extreme position. I'm saying, right now, in public, where I will be held to it, that I will not start a single private thread in V5 proper. Yes, that includes death threads. The only exception is if I have to act in a staff capacity, like, say, writing terrorists where it is required for some reason.

More than that, if anyone thinks this is an interesting prospect, I'd love to have you onboard too. I'm putting this in my sig. You're welcome to as well.

Let's show that private threads aren't necessary! I pledge not to start any private threads on island in V5. If I started a thread, you are welcome to join it.

I'm not saying I won't join private threads, as that would mean limiting my writing options and partners, which is exactly the opposite of what I want to see happen. I'm not saying I won't do one-shots, which aren't the same as private threads. I'm not asking anyone else to, either. This applies only to V5 proper, as well; pregame, being backstory and setup for the game, has a lot more room for private threads. But, yeah, every thread I start is gonna be public, and it'd be cool to get some other folks doing the same, just to show that you can have awesome characters and stories without falling back on private threads.

Just to be clear once more: I'm not taking a shot at private threads. In moderation, they're great tools. I'm not expecting much in the way of other folks joining on here, 'cause, honestly, it is quite a big commitment to make and will be limiting in some ways.

I just hate seeing private threads, like any tool, overused. I'd like to show that other options exist, because honestly I think some handlers are afraid that they'll have problems or their characters will be worse somehow without private threads. I want to disprove that.

[MurderWeasel]

On Winning

This has been percolating a while, but I figure with V7's start close but not quite here yet, now's the best time to trot it out in a situation where it can't possibly come off as aimed too seriously at anybody, as the game has yet to actually begin. I want to take a moment to discuss the concept of "winning" as it relates to SOTF, good and bad reasons to want or try to win, and why I'm not very keen on the idea of repeat winners in most contexts.

One of the big reasons behind this discussion, of course, is that I think there's actually something of a misunderstanding of what winning even is in SOTF. This is partially a terminology thing—the word "winning" implies triumph and victory of some sort, which in turn usually carries connotations of some form of skill. In SOTF, however, the form of winning seen on an out-of-character level is more akin to winning a raffle, or perhaps a rock/paper/scissors contest. There are two things you can do to further your chances at winning: 1. write a character who people like enough to save if/when they get rolled and 2. don't go inactive.

The latter is pretty easy and pretty clear and works the same for everyone. It's less an expression of skill, and more a very basic participation check. If we're going with the raffle metaphor, staying active is buying a ticket. Without one, you can't win, but getting one puts you in no better a position than anyone else.

Writing characters people like and want to save may at first seem more skillful, and it kind of is. The truth, however, is that there are still an incredible and incalculable amount of factors that play into things. Do the people who like your character have cards left? Do they get rolled at the same time you do? Do they have someone else they want to save more who's rolled at the same time? Do they go inactive? Certainly, having someone save you is the only way to win if you get rolled with your last character, but in most cases winners are pushed over the hump by luck, and it's rare for them to be the most-rolled character in their version, especially in modern times. For context, Dodd was rolled twice (tied for most in V1), Calvert was rolled four times (tied for second in V2), Riz was never rolled, Kimberly was rolled twice (tied with thirty-one others for third in V4), and Mara and Min-Jae were rolled once apiece.

Things get slightly more complicated in that regard if you actually do reach Endgame, of course, as at that stage further rolls can be averted through securing the consensus of the other handlers involved, something fairly unlikely to occur if they're not at all down with your character. To even reach that point, however, requires winning enough coin tosses as to be noteworthy, and at that stage the reactions and opinions of the community at large become meaningless—your chances rest in the hands of the specific three to five handlers there with you, and if one of them happens to be literally the only person to hate your character, or to be hellbent on winning themselves, that's enough to take it to rolls.

So, then, if "winning" is not a victory in a contest of skill, what is it? It's also not a prize for work or dedication, that's certain. Plenty of handlers have been around for a decade or more without winning, or even reaching Endgame, while others have won their very first versions—even, on Mini, with their first and only character.

Perhaps a better turn of phrase (though one I expect will never take hold due to its clunkiness) is "writing the winner." See, "winner" is a natural term because in the in-character context of the game, the final survivor has actually won a contest, and while this has not necessarily been through intelligence or skill or combat prowess, those factors may well have played a role. In the context of the universe, the results are not arbitrary at all, but the results of a complicated string of cause and effect. I think this leads to a measure of confusion and conflation with the out-of-character opportunity of writing the final survivor.

On that level, what writing the winner is boils down to a mixture of opportunity and responsibility. SOTF is a story of tragically conclusive endings, for the most part. Every character but one, bar something like the V3 and V4 exceptions, will perish over the course of the game. Writing that one is, then, a privilege, even if an arbitrarily-assigned one. To do so represents a major opportunity to do something outside the standard course of SOTF, to shake off the collaborative environment and create a solo work both concluding your character's story and putting a capstone on the version as a whole.

This, I think, is a good time to talk about prestige. There's this idea I've seen floating around that writing a winner is in some fashion an automatically prestigious thing, and I think that's a dangerous and inaccurate assumption. The truth of the matter is, writing a winner ensures a certain level of publicity and relevance, and the site has so far been lucky enough to only feature winners generally agreed to hold up to the scrutiny. Writing a solid character is prestigious, and if that character happens to win they will be much more widely-known and read than they otherwise might, resulting in an increased visibility and lingering awareness of the character. This can very easily backfire, however, with a character who just doesn't hold up to scrutiny or doesn't age well. There have been periods where certain winners on Main were out of favor, and they attracted much more criticism, fair and unfair, than other characters at those times. The same has been true on Mini—while all the results currently seem fairly accepted, there have been rough periods for a number of the winners, and there are definitely results that the community as a whole was divided upon.

This segues well into good and bad reasons to want to win. By this point, you will probably not be surprised when I state that wanting to win for prestige is a bad thing. First off, it's misguided in the extreme—a good character will be remembered fondly and carry acclaim regardless of where they place (hello, Hawley Faust), while winning won't clear the cloud surrounding a poor one, and will likely darken it. More than that, there's just nothing that special about winning a raffle. If the winners have anything to be proud of, it's what they did (or are doing) with their opportunities, not that they were given them to begin with.

Wanting to win just to check it off your SOTF bucket list also isn't good. The thing people often don't realize about winning is that it is a lot of work and reflects on the whole version. There is, to a real degree, a responsibility to do your best and to finish what will turn out to be a difficult writing project entirely different in tone and style from everything that came before, a project with limited collaboration and no deadlines and no clearly defined arc or plot beyond the most basic early stages of meeting the terrorists and recuperating. Embarking on such a venture just to do it is likely to result in catastrophe or lost interest, which is a shame for everyone invested in the character and the version.

Finally, while tempting in the extreme, wanting to win solely because you're heavily invested in or attached to your character is probably not a good thing. It's really worth taking the time to consider whether you're ready to take on such a large project, whether you think your character will serve effectively in it, and whether it will be the right ending for their arc.

So, then, the other side: a great reason to want to win is because you believe that you're ready and able to finish things well and that it's the right way for your character's story to go. I encourage everyone to muse a bit on the work involved, but if you think you're up to the challenge, then go for it! If you have something cool to do with your character outside the context of the game, something you're itching to explore, that's an amazing reason to take a shot. Ideally, going into the Epilogue, you should be excited. The project will be significantly difficult and frustrating at stages, but if all is well I hope it will also be some of the most fun, interesting, unique work you ever do for SOTF. It's an opportunity to do something totally different, something that will challenge you but also let you play with aspects of character and story normally outside the scope of the game we all play.

This leads into my feelings on repeat winners. The idea that a handler winning multiple versions would be a bad thing has been such a widely-acknowledged part of SOTF consensus that I think it's actually managed to fall into that spot where it's often not really analyzed or challenged. I hope to briefly do both, though ultimately my stance mirrors conventional wisdom: in basically any normal situation, a repeat winner would be unfortunate and feel like a disservice to the site.

We've established that winning doesn't carry any innate prestige or implication of competence, so a repeat winner wouldn't be a problem from that angle—it's nothing to brag about and in no way suggests greater or excessive talent or popularity. Rather, writing the winner is an opportunity to do something cool and new and unique, and to have the spotlight while doing so. It is also a very, very limited opportunity.

Main has, between roughly 2005 and 2017, had six versions played to completion. That comes more or less to a version every two years. Meanwhile, games tend to see between thirty and a hundred handlers participating. Even if we saw the same core cast of around thirty-three V2 handlers holding steady across a theoretically infinite number of versions, it would take until 2071 for each of them to win at current pace with no repetitions. If you add Mini, things get a little bit speedier, but not much—Mini was founded in 2010, and its last traditional game conclusion was in 2016, and in that time seven versions finished, producing a roughly one-per-year theoretical winner rate (Mini, of course, has other possibilities for character survival, which will be briefly touched upon later, and one of those versions failed to produce a winner in the normal sense). This offers a theoretical pace of one winner per year, meaning that to share a win among each player of Mini's smallest ever game (the incomplete BRAU, featuring sixteen handlers) would take until 2026. Combining the sites yields a pace of roughly one and a half winners per year, spread among an ever-revolving cast of dozens of handlers.

It should be simple to see that at this pace, most handlers will never win a version. It's just a fact of math, but I think it's a bit of a shame. There's no way around it, given SOTF's scope and concept, but I wish everyone with the desire and inspiration to do so could get a crack at wrapping up a version. In fact, Mini has played with this a bit through the handler-sourced lore of SOTF-TV (which allowed handlers to create summaries of entire past seasons of the game and detail their winners) and the Prologue version of Program V3 (which removed rolls and ended with a predestined rescue, allowing handlers to write characters knowing they would survive and then develop them further in the aftermath of the game). While neither of these is quite the same as actually writing a winner, they did offer a certain measure of replication of the experience.

So, then, the problem I have with repeat winners is that the amount of winner slots is extremely finite, and I feel like it's best for the site and for handlers if those opportunities are spread around as much as possible, so that the greatest number of handlers get a chance to try their hand at it. In a world where a winner was chosen every week, say, I would have absolutely no problem with handlers winning as often as they felt like, as within a year or two almost everyone would get an opportunity. Similarly, if in some crazy set of circumstances a handler could win while also not removing that option from others, I see no problem with taking it—this was ultimately what played into my own decisions in TV2 over on Mini, the angst over which I'm sure some recall.

This does, of course, sit a bit oddly next to handlers who have been around a long time, or who have been on Main but are new to Mini, and so on. I think if someone won Main decades ago but were to take a shot at a win on Mini, that'd be totally their choice and a valid one to make—it's hard to hold events half a decade prior to the founding of the site as overly relevant to what transpires on it, and Mini and Main are pretty distinct entities (and, among other things, Mini has both a faster pace and a smaller handler base, making winning slightly lower-stakes). I think, though, that no matter the distance, a repeat winner within the context of a single site would be some shade of unfortunate simply due to the implicit denial of opportunities to other handlers to whom they'd be new. I think the reception from the community would be markedly negative, as well. The only situation I could see it happening in is one in which, due to quirks of fate, only previous winners remain come Endgame, and I think most would take steps to avoid such an occurrence.

Finally, two little things I'd like to touch on that fall outside the primary scope of this piece: forcing rolls, and staff winners.

A lot of people are a little vague on the mechanisms of winner determination, in part because they're not relevant to the site the vast majority of the time. They are, however, spelled out quite clearly, and worth a look if the possibility of winning has even loosely crossed your mind. I'm linking the Mini rules due to isolated presentation, but Main works exactly the same way.

Basically, if there is not universal agreement among Endgamers, determination of the winner goes to rolls until such time as any dissenters have been eliminated. This can lead to weird situations where the first choice is rolled first and the dissenter second, leaving someone unexpected to win. This has actually happened on Mini, and it's an intentional part of the design; forcing rolls is a risk, and SOTF is by nature a prickly game full of unexpected twists.

That said, I want to rail briefly against the stigma that seems to have fallen over taking the decision to rolls on Main (on Mini, about half the games have gone to rolls at least in part). If you really want to win, and think your character is a good fit and all that, then you should feel absolutely free to push for it. Yeah, there's a ton to be said for compromise, and I'd encourage everyone to think really carefully, be open to agreeing with the group, and be polite and pleasant, but at the end of the day if you want it enough that you'll regret not rolling the dice, then let them roll. The rules are how they are for a reason, and that reason is specifically to empower handlers to make exactly that decision.

Next off, staff winners. It comes up most often as a joke on Main, but every Main winner to date has at some point been staff. It is, however, important to note that the handler of V2's winner was not staff at the time he won, but was hired afterwards. Also of note: V1-3 had very large staff teams, encompassing a pretty staggering array of handlers, and SOTF staff sees enough turnover that the pool of one-time staffers is pretty significant. In fact, at thirty-seven current and former staffers, more people have been on staff than played in V2. Theoretically, even a modern version could be majority populated by staff and former staff, which makes the situation a bit less statistically improbable than it might otherwise seem. This is furthered by that whole activity thing I mentioned way back at the start—activity absolutely plays a role in staff selection, so generally speaking staffers are going to be in the game until rolled out with all their characters.

And, of course, then there's Mini, where out of the six traditional winners, four were written by handlers who have never been staff on either site.

I know few or no people take the "only staff wins" joke particularly seriously, but I do think it's worth poking at, since it's fairly easily disproven/explained.

Of course, I'd love it if the next winner was a non-staff handler, if for no other reason than to finally put the joke to bed for good. Or get them hired to the team. Either works.