JSL2: Hello there, my name is Joe, and I'm... a roleplayer.

rpol.net: Hello, Joe!

Anyway, I originally got into PnP roleplaying through Baldur's Gate. It was a game I borrowed from a friend of mine back in high school or college (I can't remember when exactly). It was quite different from the JRPGs and action RPGs I had been used to playing. First, I could choose my character's gender, race, class, alignment, etc. The one thing I really liked was that I could be an evil male healer (lawful evil male human cleric, IIRC), not some kind-hearted, staff-wielding young woman with a heart of gold. I also liked how I didn't have to kill everything (and was actually punished for doing so), and also how enemies followed the same rules that I had to (Fireball is Fireball whether cast by Joe the Wizard vs. the dungeon final boss).

The Infinity Engine games were my gateway drug to roleplaying games, and I soon found myself playing a wide variety of RPGs. Eventually, I moved away from my friends, and found it difficult to find a face-to-face group to play with. I tried various forms of online roleplaying, only to encounter numerous problems across the board. I'll not bore you with the details for now.

I've been avoiding rpol.net because it has a (probably undeserved) reputation as a cybersex roleplaying site among my friends. However, I spent a few days lurking before creating an account, and it seems like the adult games (which I assume are the cybersex ones) seem to be completely barren, while the non-adult ones have much more posts.

I've been to other sites that I'd rather forget about where I had to come up with a fleshed out character only for the other players to shun me (IC and OOC) because I was more interested in advancing the plot than cybering. In one game, my character tried to help a newly-awakened vampire adjust to the modern world, but she quickly complained, in-character, mind you, about my character talking about what happened while she was in torpor instead of making her "feel like a woman," never mind that her character's apparent age was 15 and mine was late 20s/early 30s.

So I think I'm going to jump in and try to join a game. See ya!

I just noticed. There doesn't seem to be a way to change my character name from JSL2. The registration form said that it would simply be for logging in, so I chose my initials plus the number 2. However, it turned out to be my name in the forums.

How can I change my name from JSL2 to Honest Joe or Honest Joe's Dealership?

You'll have to contact a mod I believe. It is probably listed in the FAQ section.

Welcome, Joe.

Keep in mind that adult here doesn't always mean bedroom activities. I run Adult games because I don't want to play with Minors (rightly or wrongly) and my content can be questionable for any other audience. Mature is like Rated R and everything else is self explanatory. Remember to ask lots of questions of your future GMs before signing on and most importantly, have a blast!

I kept trying to click on FAQs but it wouldn't open, so I unblocked rpol.net from ScriptBlock. Whoa! No ads? I expected to be bombarded with ads since this is a free site. Nice!

Just read through the FAQ and checked out the games I was lurking in, and it turns out that JSL2 is my name for these general forums, while the DM in each game can change my name for that game.

So I applied to a Vampire: The Requiem 2e game and I guess I have to wait for the DM to add me to the party.

Yup, that's how it works. Good luck!

Hi Joe, and welcome! Let me just assure you of one very important thing: that 15 year old jail-bait vamp in the other game? On here that would get her banned from the adult section. We take a very dim view of pederasts and child molesters and the mods are NOT hesitant to bring down the ban hammer. So if you were looking for a site where there might be some ELEMENTS of the 'adult' but none of the squicky stuff you have found the right place, and if you don't want any XXX in your game there is more than enough of that to go around too.

Anyway, catch you later K?

Welcome to the site!

I feel the need to point out that 'adult' games aren't always cybersex games.  Basically an adult rating just means that the game can include sexual content, among other more 'adult' themes such as explicit violence, and all players need to provide an age statement in order to join.  I, like you, am much more interested in plot than writing sex scenes, but I rarely join games that are not marked adult simply because I like to work with as little censorship as possible and I also have no desire to be in a game with children.  I generally like darker themes too, which often can't really be explored in general or mature games.

The two games I've applied to seem to be dead. I haven't gotten a reply from either DM yet.

Just to be clear, it's okay to submit the same character concept to different games, right? And I can play in multiple games at the same time?

Yes and yes, but don't be too hasty, some games are slower than others, I have been involved in games where the post rate was once a week, then at other times in games where you were supposed to post a minimum of 3 times a DAY, it's very variable, so don't count those games dead just yet.

In reply to JSL2 (msg # 9):

Also many games don't use the 0 group setting for all of their IC threads and some even hide their OOC thread from public view, meaning that you might not see many recent posts until you are accepted from your RTJ.

Also, most GMs take some time to assess RTJs, especially in an established game, so several days can easily pass before they contact a new player.

Is it better to apply to a new game or an older one? I've applied to four games, two of them with thousands of posts, with the other two having much fewer posts (one game has literally one post). It seems to me that it might be harder to get into the older games unless they have a vacancy, but the fact that they've lasted so long means that there's less risk of the game sputtering out and dying from inactivity. Am I right in this assumption?

In reply to JSL2 (msg # 12):

Games seeking players appear with a red asterisk beside the game name and a blurb on the game page to that effect. If the GM isn't seeking players, the RTJ option is usually turned off, which means you couldn't have applied, except some GM's are careless about that status.

A game with only one post is pretty unusual, because the GM has to place a post in each thread to open them. It may indicate the GM is just starting to set up the game for a future opening.

Also it's probably a good idea to look at the Wanted: Players forum since most games actively looking for players will be advertised there, regardless of whether they're just starting up or have been running for a long time.

In reply to JSL2 (msg # 12):

Unfortunately you are not correct in assuming that games with even 10K+ posts are unlikely to end soon. Sometimes games with thousands of posts are simply nearing the end of their metaplot and will shortly shut down, sometimes games with only 1-2 hundred posts have been going on for years and will be for years to come. If there is one fault in this site's make up it is that with so many games and so many GMs the quality and longevity of games is very unpredictable.