Chicago, IL 2018. Neither of Chris's parents had shown, but that didn't mean he didn't have his family around them the day they were buried. The ceremony had been brief and irreligious, as they would have wanted. You'd chosen the readings together - an eclectic mix of classic rock, modernist verse and Neitzche. Watching the coffin make its descent into the excavated space, you only wished that you could have said that final goodbye in person before they had disappeared.
You play one of a group of friends - what sort of group is up to you. Whatever the case yous have known each other for years. Like all groups of friends, you have your differences, ups and downs, tightness varies. But they're still the best friends you have ever had. The RP is set in the immediate aftermath of the death of one of yous - Chris, the life of the group, the reason many of yous know each other. While no details have been released, police say it was a murder. You don't have to look into this. You might prefer to dive into work, or studies, or a wine bottle. The narrator doesn't judge. But he would be surprised if it wasn't on your mind.
While set in Chicago, this RP will not require any special knowledge about the city. Just understand the basics and you're set.
Posting - General
One of the measures through which RP differs from the typical in what it demands from you.
Firstly I want to see initiative. This is not a straightforward, linearly plotted narrative. What the characters do will be entirely up to you. There is a plot. A puzzle which, upon being solved, will bring about the conclusion of the RP. I hope you solve it - I think it's neat. But you might choose not to. You might prefer to reject such bounds on your creative energies as the will of an illegitimate tyrant and go play crepes in Vegas, or join a death-cult, or run for president, or spend all your time on a weird elder scrolls roleplaying sub. This is a story about your characters - it's set-up to be yours, not mine.
Secondly, I would rather see you spend a week on a post which engages your environment and meaningfully moves the plot forward than post daily filler. Character interaction and development are the central ethos underpinning this RP and the more engaged with your envoirment your post is, the more engaged we can be with you. So engage your environment, use all your senses. And if you find yourself writing a couple of lines, you probably need to stop and think about how that's moving the plot forward. Of course write quality over quantity. But note that this is intended to read more like collaborative fiction than your usual RP here.
Sometimes you might find yourself contained in rapid fire conversation with another player. This happens. And normally when I'm engaged in conversation with a person I am not simultaneously absorbing the sweet scent of the surrounding petunias while the crisp Sping air cools my brow and I feel the morning sun glide through my fingertips. At least that I am paying any notice to. To this end, I suggest collaborative posting. That means, if you feel like you're about to engage in lengthy dialogue with one or more characters, don't be afraid to jump in private messaging and conduct the interaction there, and then submit the entire interaction as one post. This keeps the contents of the conversation restricted to one post - as opposed to split up over several pages - and also allows for the production of a crisper final product. You can find an almost four year old example between MARS and myself, here.
This isn't necessary but I would prefer it.
Posting - You and Your Envoirment
The most important difference between this RP and most RPs from the perspective of play is that you, the player, have a substantial role when it comes to narration and control over your environment. Fundamentally this is an RP about character development - not a mission objective - and the environment very much exists to service this. In this RP you will find you have wide-ranging powers to use the environment to tell a story.
The vast majority of interactions are going to take place in generic locations: public parks, cafes, train stations and other places we typically frequent on a day-to-day basis. In these environments, players can control the outcomes of mundane interactions. So don't wait for me to dice roll as to whether you have managed to successfully purchase a soft drink from the vending machine. The hope here is that players will be able to connect the outcomes to their personality: adding to the above, don't wait for me to have your klutz-of-a-character spill their coffees all over themselves either. This also extends to you being able to invent objects that would be plausibly found in the environment: if you're in a cafe, you don't need to check for sugar, just grab it.
One further extension of this is allowing players to control supporting characters. In other words 1) introduce supporting characters were plausible, 2) write their dialogue. So, if you're in a cafe, it's fine to sketch in a barista and have your character briefly flirt with them while they order coffee. Just don't be a Mary-Sue, your character's jokes probably aren't as funny as they think they are. You can also introduce supporting characters which move along a scene. If you want to write in your character's ex-boyfriend as sitting in the back of the cafe in the motivation of some narrative goal, do it. There's no iron-clad rule here but with the supporting characters you create, it's best not to let them linger more than one or two posts in dialogue-mode. Their purpose is to service your character (or, eh, contribute to their development), they're not supposed to be a second character.
There are two further rules. If you're engaging in combat, I have to roll dice, so in that instance, you don't have a right to control. If someone else has created a supporting character, you cannot control that character without their permission.
Posting - An Example
Below is an example post:
Hidden:
Chris awoke with a low, drawn-out groaning. The dull ringing behind her ears was an immediate reminder of the night's events. Her hands had instinctively stretched out. Searching for Gregory’s warm embrace she found instead upturned blankets and an unnerving stickiness. The odour of raspberries, with an undercurrent of synthetic, greeted her. One eye peaked open, a crusty lid almost buckling under the weight of her exhaustion. It scanned the empty space beside her before reaching out toward her alarm clock. 11:30am, it read. That meant five hours sleep, her usual. They must have drank a lot for her to be feeling so [&@%!].
The whine of her electric shower reminder her she had guests. That meant--. With a half-lunge she shifted over the the edge of her bed, reaching beneath until she found the familiar softness. The plush was pulled into the centre of her chest. “I’m so sorry Gregory.” She rolled onto her back and sat the teddy bear onto her chest. The bear smiled back, seemingly unperturbed by his night below deck. “So sorry.” Gregory always slept before deck when she had guests over. Explaining to someone she had over that, at twenty-five, she kept a teddy bear was not something she relished. That he was a he made it even weirder. For as long she could remember, she had never the inclination to sleep with a boy. But, for some reason she no longer recalled, four-year-old her had decided it was a great name--and, so, she did.
The shower came to an abrupt halt and Gregory quickly burrowed himself beneath the sheets. Chris felt underneath her pillow for her phone and quickly withdrew it, clicking into the first news article she found: something about securitized autoloans and financial stability. When Tara emerged from her bathroom, she didn’t allow a glance up. She’d be engrossed in her article. Entirely. It didn’t--no, never--bothered her how quickly the other woman was up, that she never wanted to spend the morning with her. Never.
Tara interrupted her reading with a small cough, shifting uncomfortably on her feet at Chris’s gaze rose to meet her. She was dressed in the loose-fitting shimmer top and high-waist navy jeans she had worn the night before. Her black hair remained damp from the shower and it hung in loose curls. Her eye’s never met Chris’s. It found, rather, a spot some distance above her head. They’d gone out for drinks four times now, had sex three times. All those time’s it had been at her own place. Tara never wanted to disturb her neighbours--or let them know she was gay more likely. A anthropology grad student, with inevitably terrible opinions about economics, she was nevertheless kind and caring and a rocket in bed. But also the most reluctant lesbian Chris had ever met. So she knew Tara was never going to speak first:
“Y’all leaving so soon?” Her Southern drawl creeped into her voice.
Tara nodded: “I, eh, I have--”
“--stuff to do,” Chris finished, smiling knowingly and hoping Tara wouldn't see the tinge of sadness behind it. While she couldn’t make it out through her dark skin, she knew she had made the other woman blush. Tara had taken at least two steps back in response.
“I had fun,” she eventually managed.
“We should do it again,” Chris agreed.
Neither said another word as Tara shuffled awkwardly out, leaving a small smile by way of a goodbye. The moment the door was closed, Chris tossed her phone to the other side of the bed. Her hand reached under the covers to retrieve Gregory. “We don’t need her anyways, do we.” It was whispered to the bear, who nodded furiously in agreement.
Most obviously we see that this post introduces the supporting character, Tara. Note that she's removed at the end of the post. Note further that she's manipulated in such a manner as to develop our idea of my character. Less obviously is that my character doesn't need to wait on the DM to locate Gregory for them, he can just be found. This post will be a good guide as to how far you can go.
Character Sheets
If you would like to join this RP, please fill out and submit in-thread the following character sheet. I included recommended sizes for each section, being as detailed as possible is appreciated.
Name: Christina Ingram Nickname(s): Chris Age: 25 Gender: F Reason for being in Chicago: Student, enrolled at UChicago. Occupation: Chris is currently enrolled in an economics graduate programme at University of Chicago, fully funded. Her research is focused around historical trade networks in Latin America, or well that’s what she happens to tell her friends. It’s really substantially more specific than that, and is mostly about efficient railroad design. Appearance [2 paragraphs]:
By no measure overweight--though the long hours thesis-writing enforced had her at the heaviest since her mid-teens--Chris has always possessed a certain squishiness, generally. Her tight-cropped black hair was parted to drift rightwards across her temples, otherwise framing a set of soft features. Round cheeks only served to emphasise the roundness of her face. Her eyes, a stunning cobalt blue, are her sole distinction. Large and expressive, but nevertheless of greater decorative than functional use. Near-sighted, she was never caught without a pair of thick-framed lenses defending them. These sat above her button-like nose, the frames forever sliding down to perch at the edge when she peers in at an object. Each eye would glow when she smiled, what could only be described as a happy, toothy thing.
Her general dress style made it difficult to determine the true proportions of her body. Typically Chris is wrapped in layers which conceal the extent of her own curviness, a loose-fitting sweater or shirt or cardigan destroying any suggestion of shape on her upper person. The natural shapliness of her hips or the fullness of her buttocks will be brought on in one of her many pairs of denim high-waist jeans, but a preference for tops that trail low typically conceals it. Nevertheless, the strength located in her thighs is difficult to miss, a product of her time with her college undergraduate cycling team. On occasion, she manages to suppress these insecurities and embrace her body: striking to impress, a tight fitting dress and a belt adjusted to fit across her waist can emphasise her assets, and have her friends wondering why she doesn’t adopt the style more. Three likes:
Cycling. Having adopted the sport in high school, and gotten involved competitively in her undergraduate, Chris has dialed down her involvement to a cycle or two a month. While she’s always found cycling into the countryside to be a therapeutic exercise, commitment to her PhD has eliminated the bulk of the free time she has once devoted to it. Every January she resolves to cycle more.
Red Wine. Chris ensures that enough of her stipend is leftover at the end of the month to support her wine habit. A cheap red a week keeps the doctor away from your heart or something like that.
Nietzsche Studies. Chris always claimed that if she hadn’t wanted a job, she would have enrolled in a PhD in the intellectual history with an emphasis on the writings of Nietzsche and his influence. While never pursued, she has still managed to read her ragged, dog-eared copy of the Genealogy of Morality at least a dozen times.
Three dislikes:
NIMBYism. A self-styled anti-NIMBY or YIMBY, Chris is a member of Chicago’s largest activist group opposed to current land zoning practices and other restrictions on expanding the stock of housing. She makes a point to clear time in her schedule to attend town meetings on housing policy.
Warm weather. Perhaps a surprise given she was raised in the sun belt, but for Chris the best afternoons were those with a light chill. Get too cold, you can throw on an extra layer and hey-presto, it’s fine. Get too warm and, well, eventually you reach a point where you’re out of layers to take off. Plus, sweat is itchy and disgusting.
Being late. Chris has always been a stickler for time, and detests the idea of keeping someone waiting. Preferring to take a bus which will have her at an appointment 30 minutes early than potentially 5 minutes behind time.
Personality [2-3 paragraphs]:
Excitable to the point of being overbearing at times, Chris loves to involve herself across all range of conversation. Whether it’s sharing the latest current affairs, engaging points about Kafka (whether she’ll ever get around to finishing Metamorphosis or not), or debating her own field in transport policy and economic history, she can jump into conversations with little care for seeming rude or intrusive. She keeps track of all these topics through the maintenance of a very active reading habit: engaged with three or four books at once (and across three or four fields at that), she endeavours to keep on top of as much as possible. Otherwise jovial, and always looking for an angle to enter any scene from, it is no surprise that Chris typically exists at the centre of any social situation.
This is likely to present an aura of confidence. And Chris does the best to ensure that illusion is as complete as possible. However, beneath this, she has always struggled with support a strong self esteem or a positive self-image. Several very failed relationships later has thought her question her capabilities to sustain anything in that department. Beyond this lurks a constant fear that any pretentions of intellectual competence will be shown-up as fraudulent - or, worse still, her peers already suspect such and only suffer her as a tired joke. Add long-running issues with body confidence, and one would be surprised she managed to escape from bed in the morning. Bio [2-3 paragraphs]:
Having grown up gay in rural Arkansas, Chris was fairly certain that she was an abomination before she had quite gotten around to learning to spell the word. Introduce the conflict-prone nature of her parents relationship, and it didn’t make for an environment very conductive toward positive reinforcement. Too busy slinging insults, and sometimes furniture, to comment on their daughters academic excellence, role models were largely drawn from her underfunded, country school and textbooks--very very mostly textbooks. Her accidental outing at age fourteen didn’t help matters, though four older brother’s ensured that she avoided the worst of it and she soon learned to develop a personality cool to the attention. Never too popular, her natural gregariousness ensured she always had a solid social circle, even if some life-long friends detached themselves during middle school.
Being accepted into the very prestigious UChicago, she was granted the space to grow into her interests. Joining everything that even shook an interest, she set out to embed herself as deeply into the new culture as she could. But keeping up was difficult. She never quite managed to shake the feeling that a country bumpkin like her didn’t quite belong alongside the children of CEOs, professors and corporate directors, regardless of how many As her classes returned. University also introduced her to her very first romantic experiences, uniform disasters the lot of them. As it turned out, watching mom and pops beat on each other for two decades hadn’t inculcated in her the greatest relationship management skills.
Graduating a double major in mathematics and economics, she took a year out as a research assistant for famous urban economist before applying for--and being accepted into--Chicago’s PhD program. Her research focused on the intersection of transport, trade and economic history.
On January 17 2018 Chris was reported missing and February 14, 2018, she was found dead. The cause of death, and the events surrounding it, have not been released by police.
Character Relation Sheet
Please submit one of these sheets for each other player-character in the RP, including Chris.
Name: Ramona Rosemary Lovelace Nicknames: "Love" only to close friends, "Mona" from her family much to her chagrin, "Lacey" is sometimes acceptable (she can be picky). Age: 23 Sex: F Gender: F Reason for being in Chicago: Investigative Journalism Undergraduate Student at U-Chicago (5th year, switched majors as a sophomore) Occupation: Intern at Chicago Tribunal, Part Time Manager/Barista at Lovelace Cafe. Ramona's final semester at U-Chicago consists of a monitored internship at the Chicago Tribunal paper, where she assists in investigative journalism. In the meantime she has been a barista at her family's cafe for over 8 years now, and has been a manager since she moved in to the top floor of the building; she is in fact on the clock more often than her parents. Appearance:Ramona strikes an impeccably bookish-hipster demeanor as early as first glance. Straight dark hair frames her round face down to just below the chin level, splaying outwards in small waves. Her face is further accentuated by her round, thick glasses, necessary to remedy her exhausted eyesight brought on by years of eye strain. She is 5'6" (167 cm), slightly plump, and stands with an undeniable air of sass; she is sometimes described as "pixie-like". Her eyes are pale grey. Ramona is a D cup.
Before Chris' murder, Ramona's appearance was typically well maintained and meticulously detailed. However, in the past few days, it is clear that she applies her daily routine out of necessity to look presentable at work, not to look good for looking good's sake; small details normally paid attention to are missed, and her eyes are oft puffy.
Three likes:
Music, especially her favorite band the Arctic Monkeys. She keeps a rather sizable vinyl collection accompanied with a high-end record player, used often enough to wear many of her records down. The prizes of her collection are her mint-condition original 1977 print of Steely Dan's Aja, and her first record; AM by the Arctic Monkeys, an item that holds sentimental value both for being an 18th birthday present and for being the record she lost her virginity listening to.
Occultism: Ramona is an avid observer of the occult and the esoteric. She usually doesn't disclose this to people other than close friends, but those who know her well enough know that she has certain odd tendencies owing to her fascination with the supernatural. She leaves spare food and clean clothes out at times to appease the 'house spirit' of the cafe, keeps up with the astrological signs of her friends, and wears crystals on necklaces or bracelets for their supposed positive energies. Possibly related is her near constant burning of incense, scented candles, or essential oils.
Coffee, not just the act of drinking but brewing. As the youngest daughter of a pair of cafe owners, Ramona grew up surrounded by the smell of espresso, and when she was old enough she took her first shift as a part time barista to help out at the family business. Unlike her siblings, Ramona adored working as a barista, and learned all about brewing coffee. She has a fairly comprehensive knowledge of drink make-ups and different kinds of coffee beans. She is sort of a snob about coffee and hates drinking coffee prepared by anyone but herself.
Three dislikes:
Lack of Organization: Ramona's writing notes are filed and stored by a detailed sorting system of her own design, incomprehensible to most others. The coffee grinds in the Lovelace cafe are sorted like different treats in a candy store, both alphabetically and by taste. Her outfits are typically symmetrical in nature, and her room is clean and straightened out. Even when doing stressful homework assignments, Ramona's papers and pens are orderly arranged in neat lines and stacks. Being around messy rooms and places can make her uncomfortable, and she sometimes gives in to her nervous tic of adjusting things when people aren't looking.
Mornings, ironically given her inclination for coffee. Waking up before 9 AM is a monumental task for Ramona, and she needs about an hour to 'wake up' and get ready for the day after getting out of bed. She is a night owl because of this, and rarely goes to sleep before 2 AM.
Quiet: Ramona is very uncomfortable in silence. She likes to have something playing at all times in her living space; music, TV, or even a podcast over her laptop. Ramona can't fall asleep without the TV on, and has headphones on her almost at all times.
Personality:Lawful Good - Ramona's disposition is very serene and tranquil. She is consistently in the pursuit of calm and ease of living. She has a bad habit of being rather controlling of aspects of her life, seeking to take charge and arrange things to her liking so that they are easy to deal with. Ramona deals with stress with force, seeking to beat down problems in her life with raw tenacity until they cease being problems. Diligence is often its own reward, but Ramona can become frustrated if her hard work ethic isn't enough to complete a task.
A strong desire for structure drives Ramona. She likes to have a consistent schedule, not down to particular activity but rather to particular sets of activities; work in the morning, homework in the afternoon, coffee at sundown, and leisure until sleep. If she is invited to something, it often disrupts her chosen routine and throws her off her groove, and she will often be silently anxious until she can get back to normal. This isn't to say she is incapable of going out and having fun, but she prefers it to happen when she doesn't have time set aside for other things. She is rather independent, a trait which is sometimes mistaken for being averse to socialization.
Ramona is, above all else, driven. To her, the best ways to a happy life are productivity, conviction, and tenacity. She is strong of will and even bullheaded at times when it comes to getting what she wants, making her rather selfish at the worst of times. Her determination leads her to put on a strong face no matter the situation, and she does not easily divulge her true feelings to others due to her preference to hide her insecurities and misgivings beneath a mask of confidence. What she wants more than anything is to live at peace with those she loves, sustaining herself in a life that makes her happy and helps others.
Bio:
Ramona was born in Aurora, Illinois on Christmas Day of 1994. Her parents Cassandra and Wayne met in the mid 80's through their mutual line of work in public access broadcasting. Wayne was a lifelong resident of Aurora, while Cassandra was a British immigrant who moved away from a difficult family life. Preceded by her older sister Roxanna ("Roxy", b. 1989) and older brother Roland ("Roll", b. 1991), Ramona was the 'quiet' one of her eccentric and boisterous family. By age 3 she was reading simple books, and by age 6 she was writing her own 'news reports' based on the activities of her beloved cat Muffin, inspired by the newscasters her parents would often work with.
In 2003, Ramona's estranged maternal grandfather passed away in Manchester, England following a massive heart attack. To the surprise of the Lovelace family, Ramona's mother was named the sole heir of her father's assets; built up after years in the UK aerospace industry. Wayne and Cassandra decided to follow their young adult dream of opening up a cafe just on the edge of the University of Chicago, providing a comfortable place for the college youth to grab a cup of coffee between classes. Ramona naturally grew up surrounded by the environment of the cafe, spending long days upstairs in the storage area playing on an old Nintendo Entertainment System and writing stories to pass the time. In time she was old enough to put on an apron and learn the barista trade, happily dishing out shots of espresso in exchange for tips and spending money. In High School Ramona was a successful student and was one of her classes' valedictorians, distinguished for her talent at writing and her role as president of the school newspapers.
The Lovelace Cafe made enough money to comfortably provide the three Lovelace children with affordable college educations at the nearby University. Roxanne majored in Accounting and became an accountant (fittingly), while Roland majored in Kinesiology and became a personal trainer for professional athletes. Ramona began her college career studying economics, but the recommendation of an older student and friend of hers prompted her to follow her talents and swap to investigative journalism. Upon attending college, Ramona moved out of her parents' home in Aurora to the upstairs storage area of the Lovelace Cafe, which was converted into a young hipster's paradisaical bedroom. There she conducts most of her activities; studying, writing, or tending to customers during her vaguely defined shifts.
Ramona met Chris during her last semester of economics, and at Chris' insistence she left her deeply unsatisfying major to pursue journalism instead. Ramona kept in contact with Chris throughout her further years in college, sharing stories of anxiety-inducing assignments and her bad luck with dating men and women alike. After several years of knowing each other, the two entered something of an open off-and-on relationship, Ramona's infatuation and feeling being notably the stronger (at least, to her own perception). At the time of Chris' death, the two had been together for about 6 or 7 months, and despite a few rough patches the relationship was fairly healthy.
Miscellaneous Information
Is a smoker. Usually keeping herself to 2 or 3 cigarettes a day, her usage has increased in the days since Chris' death.
Favorite food is egg drop soup; her favorite drink is a personally-prepared cinnamon mocha with just a dash of peppermint and an extra shot (or three) of espresso.
Was born on Christmas Day, and is a Capricorn. Her parents usually compensated for her birthdate by celebrating on New Years Day, so that she wasn't shorted on presents but also didn't receive more than everyone else on Christmas.
Is a stickler for grammar and proper syntax. On all social media she types with this in mind and utterly refuses to use emojis or acronyms.
Oddly, usually sneezes when she blushes.
Is a ranidaphobe and is terrified of any animal even remotely resembling a frog.
Has three cats living at the Lovelace cafe; Muffin II is a female calico cat, age 5, 2D is a male tuxedo cat, age 2, and Noodle is is a female white maine coon kitten, age 5 months. All three are allowed to leave the house and roam the nearby area, but usually stay inside to hunt for mice.
Is highly allergic to shellfish.
Believes that every home or place of business has a 'house spirit'. She named the Lovelace Cafe's supposed spirit "Winston".
Has a strange hint of a British accent from her mother. This is exacerbated when she is angry.
Has a small tattoo on her left thigh, depicting the tarot card of the Empress. She has a birthmark near this resembling a heart; her close friends sometimes tease her about this.
Considering retconning her name to "Reina R. Lovelace" but I haven't decided yet.
