The Wheel of Time Turns...

[GBJackson]

To those who may be reading this who are either veterans of AWOT or
fans of both Roleplaying and Wheel of Time...

I was once a regular on AWOT several years ago, and I remember with
fondness the storylines I participated in.

I would like to see a revival of this group's roleplaying activities.
But because it has been so long since any significant RPs have been
posted I would like to propose that we pull a J. J. Abrams and reboot
AWOT.

We can start as sort of a small but tight-knit group that might grow
over time.

Proposed Time Period: One year before the events of "The Eye of the
World." to allow the group to be well seeded with participants over
the course of an actual year. This would be a year of free RP within
the scope of the WOT universe for the purpose of establishing
character and factional backgrounds before the onset of the pivotal
events in the days leading up to the Last Battle. Ideally, over the
course of the next couple of years, as the last three books are
completed and released, our nearly-anything-within-reason-goes
roleplay will cover the story-year interval and catch up with the
ending of the real story.

Proposed Roleplay Concept: This is a world of "if", like those
reachable via portal stone. People playing the roles may be different,
but the roles themselves are written in stone. For example, The Dragon
is reborn. The Dark One is breaking free. The Last Battle is coming.

Cardinal Rule: If it does not exist within the logical realm of
possibility within the world depicted in the books, it cannot exist in
this roleplay. For example, no elves, fairies, dwarves klingons
vulcans etc. This is "The Wheel of Time". If it cannot be drawn from
the building blocks of Jordan's work, then it does not exist. If it
can be drawn from those building blocks then it can exist as long as
it can be explained. For example, a group of archaeologists unearth
what seems to be some sort of container. When they manage to open it,
they find a man inside... alive... This man is from the Age of Legends
and he was put inside a Stasis Box just before the Breaking of the
World. Stasis boxes exist. Living things like Gholam have been
preserved from the Age of Legends. So it is conceivable that a person
from that era could be similarly preserved... However, Stasis Boxes,
like any relic from the Age of Legends, are extremely rare, so a
character created with such a background will need to be unique.

The Dragon Reborn and the Forsaken: With this beginning a year before
the events of The Eye of the World, the identity of the Dragon Reborn
and the Forsaken will be mysterious. Nobody will be able to claim
those roles until there is a diverse enough roleplayer population, at
which point, the timeline will move forward to where on the timeline
the books begin.

Well, that's all. If anyone is interested in doing this, please post.

[Arlia...@webtv.net]

Ah, I remember that ages ago. "laughs"

I was playing quite a few characters back then.

A reboot might be interesting,
although I suppose this all depends
on who is actually still watching the group.

Arlia Jalyn,
Kirin Vayu,
Kyren Shiani,
Erik Walker,
and probably some others I'm forgetting,
signing off.

[GBJackson]

On Oct 11, 6:33 pm, Arlia_Ja...@webtv.net wrote:

> A reboot might be interesting,
> although I suppose this all depends
> on who is actually still watching the group.

We could always draw new blood into the group.

One of the other changes I'd like to suggest is that we avoid actually
playing characters which Robet Jordan specifically created, such as
the Forsaken. Obviously these characters are integral to any Wheel of
Time theme, so the solution could be that we who decide to play
Darkfriend characters roleplay as our characters encountering the
forsaken of our choice. For example, I could roleplay as a Darkfriend
summoned by Ishamael and ordered to do his bidding. While I may be
writing dialogue for Ishamael, the scene I would be writing would be
from my character's point of view.

In this "world of 'If'", history will have unfolded exactly the same
as Jordan's work, up to the point where our RP begins (one year prior
to the events of The Eye of the World). From this point, our RPs will
roll the story forward. How close we parallel the events of Jordan's
story would be a matter of personal preference, but I wouldn't want to
see it end up as someone telling Rand, Perrin, Mat and the others'
stories exactly the same but with different names.

While all the RPs should be very much free-form, I believe there
should be a core structure to the group that results in those RPs
bringing honor to Jordan's work, and to the man himself.

[Beard Twig]

I wonder if rethinking AWOT as a writer's club rather than a fantasy
roleplay would be the road to win the veterans over. Participating in
character driven threads with considered postings would be a useful
tool for me at least. I have no interest in IC or OOC pissing
contests though, and the last few attempts I remember to jump start
AWOT devolved almost immediately into one-upping the other guy's
characters.

For what it's worth, I stopped reading the series long before this
group died. It was the creativity and imaginative collaboration that
kept my interest here. There's things I wrote for this group that to
this day I'm proud of.

The way forward is to gather a cadre of writers, old or new, and
coerce them to commit their energies to regular stories.

[opn...@aol.com]

Sorry for falling into the void for more than a decade. A lot of life has happened to me during that time. I've loved. I've lost. I've gained and then lost again, but I've grown through it all.

I am now a music composer and a game developer, and hope to focus my energy on that.

With "The Wheel of Time" novel series completed, and a TV show based upon it on the way, I see there a revival of interest in roleplay in the WOT universe coming in the not too distant future. And I would love for it to happen here, as anyone with a Google account can participate, with links from social media and personal websites helping to spread the news.

And now, allow me to reply to the subject matter.

> I wonder if rethinking AWOT as a writer's club rather than a fantasy
> roleplay would be the road to win the veterans over. Participating in
> character driven threads with considered postings would be a useful
> tool for me at least. I have no interest in IC or OOC pissing
> contests though, and the last few attempts I remember to jump start
> AWOT devolved almost immediately into one-upping the other guy's
> characters.

I think it comes down to individual attitudes. Even back in my very active days here, there were occasionally people who acted that way. The best way to deal with that sort is to opt out of participation with them. Let them post all they want, and maybe they can get someone to engage with them, but if their brand of interactive storytelling does not mesh with yours, then you are under no obligation to participate.

This is why I proposed the guidelines in the first post of this thread. For the most part, they lined up with the guidelines that we all more or less accepted when we began our AWOT journey years ago. We more or less just policed ourselves.

A general rule of thumb was that if we were going to give our characters any special abilities, then we needed to roleplay the discovery of them, and we couldn't just go, "You can't do that because my character can do this." Whenever there was a confrontation between two different players' characters, protocol was to reach out to that player and decide how the confrontation would go. Some really amazing character development came about because of that.

That would be a protocol I would want to see carried forward.

> For what it's worth, I stopped reading the series long before this
> group died. It was the creativity and imaginative collaboration that
> kept my interest here. There's things I wrote for this group that to
> this day I'm proud of.

I too look back with fondness at the stories and interactions I engaged in. AWOT was a special piece of my recreational time for a while. If it cannot be revived, at least it will be remembered.

> The way forward is to gather a cadre of writers, old or new, and
> coerce them to commit their energies to regular stories.

Well... I wouldn't want to use the word "coerce," but like I said, when the TV series drops, there will be a new interest in all things WOT. Some will come to the books for the first time, and will no doubt fall in love with the world and characters as we all did. And there will be a desire to play around in that world.