Hi, I am new to the forum, and due to this, I was wondering if it would be all right to ask questions about the role play here. I can see you all are a fairly new forum and the first Bleach forum, in my personal opinion, that looks nice and is not sketchy looking or awkwardly set up plot wise. You all on here I feel have put a good amount of work on this so I shall cut to the chase.

I want to begin by presenting you a laundry list of information about myself and maybe forum experiences.

1. I think I began role playing online about three years ago. It has mostly been fun and I enjoy the activity. Yet I do have have some issues, which will be addressed starting in Point 2.

2. A lot of forums say they are AU or have original characters all the time, and yet both kinds of role plays say, "Your character can direct the storyline and become an honest to goodness part of our written work here." I have to ask though, is this really a truth that can be expected of your forum? I get a strong sense that your AU universe has a strong plot based on how you all have changed the history to make it quite interesting with no Yamamoto, the way in which Aizen never rose, to power, etc. As he was a central character to the plot with Yamamoto and Barragan I feel by killing the first two and increasing Barragan's powers you all have gone and made it so that many canon characters can exist, but in existing in this new world their existence is not entirely illogical.

Many of the plots from the manga I feel could be adapted to your forum's plot if you so chose and you have already begun with one strong concept I've found strange, but apparently canon to the events of Bleach. That thing, the wonderful creatures called Blanks and supporting them as new villains are Barragan's new army of Arracanars. That's a good start for providing the forum with two solid threats, and helped in me deciding to join. There may be other things I've wished to say, but you all can respond to this as you see fit.

3. In reviewing the plot, I feel there is an open end in it, Character Creation. Character Creation is an important part of a forum like this I understand because it allows one to make a character for a plot and role play them as fit. In truth, this statement is 100% wrong. In my times of exploring other forums, one cannot simply waltz in and make a character to start role playing.

I hate to say this, but I believe the aspect of character creation makes me fearful of role play. I make a character and then realize I never understood the charater's position in the role play once I made it. For example, let's say I make a Shinigami. These guys are the protectors of justice and go out and stop souls from devouring people. Now the issue with this is, well, one, where would I really start out with such a character, and two, who do I really serve in this role? I want to put very strong emphasis on who do I serve in this role play because Shinigami serve to protect other spirits and because of this, despite their unique forms, have a very powerful hierarchy.

In other words, if I were to join any division, let's say Division 10, for example. Who would be my captain, what would he regularly have us do, and how would I go conducting business for him or myself without getting reprimanded by him or someone else? What I'm maybe asking at heart is where is the depth and meat of character development, where can I go to find it on here "without" getting in someone else's way and interrupting their story line by initiating mine within there's by accident. There are some people who really hate others who jump into stories like that and I feel I do that a lot.

4. I ask this because if I can build a character based on the some of the principles above, well, I then have a character right? Maybe not entirely, I've taken a look at the word count system that is used for technique training and skill building and I've realized a huge issue. I shall be spending many hours just to get the basic skills or ranks I need I fear.

One thing I do not like about role play is the grind fest that these kinds of written role plays are. The reward being a single nice technique after X number of hundreds of words. That kind of role playing is fine to a degree, but I have often seen many role plays where writing training threads is all I feel people do to get powerful and then beat each other up. It's kind of typical when you think about it, this being based on a Shounen manga and all.

Yet what I want to be able to see is fun things happen in training. Not just me in a single thread by myself looking around and wondering "Why am I writing this for myself? That is, when I have no here who can commit to a respond, a response that would keep me interested because I have an opponent other than myself. An opponent who can nag my character by saying their breathe stinks or something." I maybe getting at the issue of, do player training threads occur on here, do battles make your character's blood pump, etc.

5. All in all... I apologize for wasting my own time and yours writing this long, probably strange post. All I want to make sure of is that I commit to a forum where I can actually feel like I have fun, so I have written this to check and make sure this forum can be very fun.

I honestly do not want to step on any toes here and it's been a long while since I've attempted to even try to play a Bleach role play. I just find them hard to get into, but there's so many of them out there that one of them ought to have what I'm looking for. This one I think may be it, but I am taking it slow here so that I don't end up not coming back if it goes badly. I'm a kind of picky person when it comes to story line and how one's characters and their flaws and such affect something, and I'd rather see a nice flowing story come from myself when I write rather than some garbage I feel like I've attempted to put together like on other sites I have been on.

I do not believe I am a bad writer, but I really have no confidence for this kind of thing half the time. So if you all are willing to help, I'd like to enter this world of Bleach.

I apologise if this reply misses the point or goes in a wrong direction at any point as I found it difficult to pin down exactly what you were asking in points.

#1: If i'm not mistaken, the point of this question was inquiring as to if it were true that players can define the universe around them and mould the narrative via their actions.

The answer is yes. We are using an arc model, wherein the forum has a strong central narrative following certain themes divided into arcs. While these arcs will be a level of set pacing, as is required to craft a narrative with unique characters, plot twists and the like, we are attempting to maximise player involvement with this process. As arcs progress, certain sides may get unique missions which earn them SP, and depending on a sides involvement or lack thereof the events will vary. In addition, while most of the cast of say, Shinigami, are NPCs, as time goes on and the player base gets to a point where it can handle filling those slots, the npcs will be, for the most part, phased out, leaving a cast of mostly PCs in positions of power. These positions would give them more of a chance to mould the story as it proceeds. Equally, if you have no interest in the main narrative you can simply ignore it altogether [though that wouldn't exactly be a stance worthy of a captain position]. Ultimately, it's impossible to get a system that is both a guided narrative and is incredibly fluid to player manipulation but we're doing our best to make it work.

#2: You were asking about the "meat of character development" as it were. The finer details of say, squad life. Interactions with hierarchy, etc.

To address your concern of stepping on the toes of others, threads have a tagging system. If someone does not want people beyond the ones they've selected to join their thread they can put a tag on the title indicating as such, essentially closing it to all but the people they invite. The tagging ensures no one is stepping on someone elses toes, and as such it solves that issue. As for interactions and the like, this site has only just launched less than a week ago so we don't have a fully established set of people to help me manage the NPC accounts so I don't have the ability to provide the level of interaction I’d like with them at present, but the player character captains and the like each have their own personality and I can't really speak for how they'd lead. When I find the time I plan on establishing a set of "laws" to give people a more structured feel. Each organisation would have their own laws, and potential punishments could be delved out for them. For example, as the Vandenreich is quite Xenophobic when it comes to the Shinigami, being acquainted with them would be a crime worthy of exile.

#3: You were asking about the dynamics of training, and if it functions beyond merely 10,000 words of you typing about hitting a dummy by yourself.

Training can, as you said, be done solo where essentially you write a doomsday block of text. However, you can also do training threads with others, either by sparring or some other way you've thought of. As long as there is some form of training involved [eg. not drinking tea with your friend to get your Zanjutsu up] it'll be fine. Training has always been an awkward zone. We don't want to make it easy for someone to reach a god tier level of power but we don't want it to turn into a grind fest either. Hopefully by allowing you to train with others you can find a way to socially interact while training, removing some of the "Grind fest" feel.

I respect your dedication to a solid narrative. I, personally am concerned with writing an interesting tale with the arcs over the next few months/years. I find that far too often people get too obsessed with being the strongest or winning fights, instead of actually focusing about crafting an interesting narrative. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Well, uh, I sure do have a problem sometimes getting to the point I feel. But, um, anyway, what happens if say I have a character highly involved in a plot and another character in the plot ends up not showing up on the site anymore due to any number of reasons like:

"I'm too busy to role play anymore."

"I've entirely lost my muse."

"I don't like this character I'm role playing anymore."

What happens to their character and my character? Do they go completely inactive and said storyline is then 100% archived because that plot cannot go anywhere anymore?

I ask because I know I have done ended up having done this to people and vice versa where a story starts up and then never reaches a good point simply because the role play stops. If say, for example, that plot were someone's only plot involvement in the whole role play and how they defined their character then it would ruin their experience on the role play. So how does one deal with this kind of issue if they want to continue here?

Anyway, I wanted to address these kinds of issues because I've felt like I've done exactly what you've spoken of and only made a strong character just to have one.

Unfortunately that's a personal issue that there really is no way to regulate. There is no possible efficient way for us as a facilitator of RPing to regulate when one person in a non-official plotline goes inactive. That would be something you'd have to work out within the person you were RPing with. I suppose if they fall off the face of the planet you can try and make up some sort of conclusion allowing you to move beyond that point but beyond that there really isn't much you can do with that. Still, just because one plotline your character is in dies because the guy you were RPing with quits doesn't mean your character is bricked, it can move on.