[GRIT] {Meta} How to GRIT! Author: tzubi Date: 1999/03/09 Forum: rec.arts.anime.misc In the nature of "How to write fight scenes" and "How to annoy Blade on a dollar a day" I now present the first comprehensive post that gives advice about -How to GRIT-! Firstly, some explanations: GRIT is an interactive multi-author script format dynamic writing/roleplaying medium. I think it's pretty unique on the internet... but probably not. The basics of GRITing are as follows: 1) Each "Player" has a character (or a number of characters) which they use as a sort of "avatar" (not to be confused with Andy) in the GRIT world. The player has total control over this character, called a PC. 2) Once the Player has a PC the player then works with other GRIT members to produce a dynamic story by inserting their PC into "threads" and using them to control the flow of the story to some extent. 3) You write the story in script format. When you do a post you write a brief story, preferably open ended. During your post you take control not only of your own characters but all the other PCs and NPCs in the thread. By writing about the interaction between the various characters and your own PCs you continue the story. Once you are finished someone else will post a follow-up to your post (ideally) and take control of your characters for the duration of their segment. 4) You avoid writing people OOC by refering to the character guides, combat guides and by discussing things with the RL of other PCs. If you do something -major- to a character in the story that does not belong to you without the permission of the RL that is called Powerplaying. Major events include crippling injury, torture, death, changes in persoanlity, changes in relationships and so on. Now that the basics are out of the way, let's get down to te specifics. The first thing you want to do when GRITing is -read-. Before you join you lurk, you read all the available guides and ask questions of other GRITers. After you join you should take the time to read as much GRIT material as you can, even if it does not directly effect your character because you never know what will happen down the road. Reading posts and seeing how others handle themselves and their characters is the best way to learn how to GRIT. When you decide to start GRITing you must first create a character. When creating a character there are three things you must do: make your character unique, make your character interesting and make your character felxible and able to change. Making your character UNIQUE is perhaps the most important thing. Every GRIT veteran has a succesful character concept because when the first introduced the idea it was -unique-, in that it hadn't been done before. This is harder for newbies to do now that time has gone on and their have been many character concepts to grace GRIT continuity, but not impossible. In order to make your character unique look through the GRIT guides and see what has been done and (perhaps more importantly) what has not been done. Also it is a good idea to have the personality and powers of your character in some way related. Notes: While martial arts is a big basis for most of GRIT because it draws heavily from the Ranma 1/2 manga, it is getting old. Frankly nearly -every- form, style or vairation of martial arts has been introduced and dealt with. Chi powers and abilities have been defined to a great extent and the flexibility of adding new powers is growing lower each day. Do NOT just make your character a martial artist, that will not get you anything! There are vet PCs who use lots of big ki blasts, and do it better than any newbie PC ever will. There are vet PCs (and NPCs) who are better at purely physical stuff and will stay better than most newbie PCs. If you decide to play a martial artist make your characters style extremely unique! Every character and their dog has a sword now-a-days. Don't just put a different name on the effetively interchangeable ki blast and so on. Do not copy characters out of dual fandom wholesale. Come up with a unique character, maybe incorporating dual fandom elements but never play a character from another series. This process simply does not work. Making your character interesting is almost the same as making them unique. To make a character interesting you must be able to do two things, attract peoples attention, and keep it. Here is how you do that. First and foremost start with ONE character. Every, and I mean -every- veteran player started with just ONE character! Do not think to get around this by intorducing one character and then intorducing a second a month later, it doens't work that way. The reason you should only have one character is because then it is easier for other players to keep track of who your character is. If you have more than one character you just add more people for us to keep track of and we are more likely to ignore you as we have better things to deal with than trying to keep track of a bunch of newbie players PCs. If your character -needs- other characters to make him interesting... then scrap the idea because if a character can not stand up on its own two feet than it isn't going to go anywhere. Be interesting as an individual first, not as part of a group. DO NOT have a dark and angsty past! I know that some of the more interesting vets have dark past... but not nearly so many as you would think. Mist, Blade and perhaps a handful of others have dark pasts. Characters with a noticable lack of dark pasts include such people as Jo, Scott, Steve... well you get the idea. Having a dark past does NOT mean you are interesting, in fact, when everyone has one it becomes trite. Virutally all of the vets did not start out with dark pasts, or even -pasts- at all. If your character relies heavily on an "interesting" past than prepare to be dissapointed. Characters with a lot of baggage when they are first introduced have less going for them than character with virtually no baggage. It takes a lot to keep track of so much info in GRIT that is happening -now- without having to also keep track of the elaborate pasts of every single PC. Witness Kappa versus Rave. INTERACT with the other players. This doesn't just mean post meaningless "me too" posts or insert your character into threads without rhyme or reason. Also find a -purpose- for your character to serve in the thread, something that you can add to make the thread more enjoyable for -others- to read. If you can't find anything for your character to do in a thread, and no logical reason for them to be there (coincidentally just happening to show up is not a logical reason) then don't put them in! Some threads become hopelessly hard to follow when there are too many people in them and many players then tend to ignore them. Which means you lose valuable exposure for your character. Do NOT copy the verterans. While it may be fun to have your PCs develop powers similar to a popular veteran PC or Ranma NPC this will be counterproductive in the long term. Since there are already characters with that kind of skillset and disposition and they are more popular than your character now, they will always remain so and you will always seem to be a pale shadow. Have your characters be their own people. Flexibility is easy to achiece if you follow the basic rule of no (dark, complex, "interesting" or other kinds of) pasts. To be flexible merely define your character in a lose and vague way and then have the personality of your character, as well their powers and abilities, infleunced by the input of others over the course of the story. The personalities of many of the veteran PCs are not the sole results of their RL's efforts. Many people did small things that contributed to the personalities of such notables as Amy, Jo, Steve, Wing, Mist, U-chan, Al-X and on and on. Be willing to adapt your idea so that it can easily fit into GRIT, the best way to do this is by having a loosely defined past where you -add- (as opposed to -reveal-) bits and pieces to their backstory as neccesary. Once you have an interesting, unique and flexible character concept their comes the matter of getting yourself to be noticed by GRIT proper. To do this follow three simple guidelines. Insert your character into an appropriate thread. Like above make sure that the first appearance of your character will be somewhat meaningful to the thread you introduce them in. Just having your character appear out of nowhere and say "Hi I'm how are you?" or having them appear out of nowhere with no explanation is a bad way to intorduce a character. A good way to introduce your character is to have them show up at a time when they would show up for a good reason. For instance say you control a man who can teleport anywhere and who has an interest in all dimensional travellers. It might be nice to have him show up around when a bunch of people are teleporting a lot or when they are using Hammerspace for an extended period or so on and so forth. DO NOT have a plot which the character is tied to follow your character. If your character shows up and is being followed by pursuers or so on that is a bad thing. Your character should show up with no strings attached (visible strings anyway) and remain that way for a long time. If you try to bring your plot in right away you break one of the cardinal rules of GRITing (see Adaption below). Once inside post frequently and often. Don't post meaningless "me too" stuff, have your character do things wihtin their personality in intersting ways, often. The more you do this the more others will enjoy reading about your character, and thus involving them in their threads. Now you simply must follow the Cardinal Rules to Good GRITing to become a prodcutive member of the community. First: Adapt to GRIT, do not try to make GRIT adapt to you. This is simple to understand. Do NOT try to make things happen -your- way in GRIT, be willing to work within what the majority wants. Second: Don't powerplay. This means don't do anything major to a PC without the permission of the RL of said PC. NPCs are easier to deal with but it is suggested you get the permission of the most frequent user of that NPC before you do anything. Third: Patience and timing in all things. GRIT storyarcs take -years- not months to resolve. GRIT takes a great deal of time to work through even simple arcs and threads. If you expect to get a storyline finished weeks after first introducing your character think again. You should spend a year building up characters, plots and interest in your story before it can become major and finish on a pleasant note. Fourth: Contribute often and consistently. This means you should post to any thread involving your characters at least once a week if not more often. Post as many times as you can but avoid the annoying "me too" post. Fifth: Always accomplish something in a post. This means avoid the "me too" syndrome. Every time you post make sure that you make a point, do an important thing or have something happen that effects the thread in some way. Sixth: Follow the stories of others. Even if a thread does not directly effect you now, know that it can have serius repurcusions on your future. It's just common sense to read as much GRIT material as you can. For one it means you can be prepared to deal with the future, for two it means that you will not mistakingly obviate anyone elses stories. Seventh: Have fun! Self explanatory. Lexicon of important terms in GRIT Nantan: The uber-RL. The nantan is the founder and "president" of GRIT. He has final say on any meta discussions but only so long as he represents the interest of all of GRIT. Player: Refers to a person who writes GRIT posts, has an active PC and contributes to threads. (see also RL) Vet or Veteran: Refers to a player with a great deal of experience in writing GRIT post, ussually has multiple active PCs gained over time as well as complex histories also gained through playtime. Newbie: Refers to a recent addition to GRIT, a player who has yet to grasp the basic methods to GRITing. Newbies are allowed to make more mistakes than vets on general but are expected to learn from them. RL: Stands for Real Life. This is used in two ways. One RL is used instead of Player on occasion, and the use of RL (insert character name) means the player of said character. RL also refers to the "avatars" of certain players that sometimes interact with characters or other RLs. Character: Any fictional personality and power construct represented by a being in PC: Short for Player Character, a term borrowed from roleplaying games. A PC is a character over which one specific Player has absolute final say on what happens to them. NPC: Short for Non-player character, a term borrowed from roleplaying games. A NPC does not have a final arbitrater in the form of a Player but often has a Consultant (see Consultant) who knows a lot about the characters and has almost final say on them. Consultant: A Player who adopts an NPC as a defacto PC. They use them the most extensively so they should be asked before you do anything to the NPC. Otherwise they may retcon your post. Retcon: To remove a post from continuity retroactively. Also to change the past so it better fits with the present or at least what we want to past to be. All Players have the right to Retcon stuff they don't like happening to their characters. Post: To place a story segment onto the newsgroup. Thread: A word which also means "storyarc". A thread has a title and everything which happens in the thread occurs (theoritically) as part of the same storyarc. Follow-up: To post a continuation to a thread. Continuity: The accepted timeline of GRIT, detailing what happened when. Continuity is soemtimes hard to keep track of. Plot: A series of threads which form together into an overall story. Each leading logically to the next. Sub-plot: A storyarc which occurs within a thread, ussually involving less people than the thread as a whole. Sub-plots take place over a long series of threads and may or may not be connected to the Plot. (see Plot) Powerplaying: Doing something to a PC without the RLs permission. -------------- Epsilon