So, Qvait posted in their newpaper thread that they've been planning the future of Valkyria.
This got me thinking... How much do you plan your RP future? Do you precisely plan out every detail? Do you have some ideas, but not in detail? Have no idea what youre doing? Something in between?
For me, I've planned some events in great detail - like my past Presidential election. But, really, for the most part, I have no idea what Im going to do next. When it comes to me, I might make a mental plan, but nothing too serious.
We can thank the Marvel Cinematic Universe for what is about to unfold.
Well, there are fixed points in time like elections, where I know the outcome I might want to have - but I still overthing that outcome several times until I decide on one.
For the RPs with others, I go with the flow. Also IRL influences stuff happening in my RP too. Sometimes I don't think about certain topics, suddenly it's on the agenda IRL and I think to myself "Well, why not bringing something on that topic into the IRP world too?"
Most of the time I need to admit though, that I'm more of a world-builder. Building the present and past stages of my lands and history, not looking too much into the future. This might change though, as I'm not too happy with the current approach on Gianlucian politics either. Way too little drama and stuff
When I was doing Hammerstar, I honestly didn't know what the hell I was doing. Because the country was large, yet such a pushover. So I just rolled with it, since I had everything, I can go through however I want. Which is why it's an anarchy. But then I got to a point where I didn't know how to go through with Hammerstar, and after the election of High Paladin Raquelle Vallotton, I don't what to do next.
Then I made the Peocraccy.
Well the only thing that I plan is the foundation of the Peocracy, and its political spectrum. Which would be similar to Sino-Islamic community, mixing with great community traditions. It was supposed to be a really small country where the environment and health are heavily focused, its capital city was actually designed like a small town. It was supposed to be a reverse of Hammerstar, which is why IC-ly, Huawan has such a cold relationship with Hammerstar.
It was then I realized that I couldn't construct a meaningful impact in RP if I was a bit too small, so I grew Huawan slowly until it became a great influencer in TSP. But mostly there are two things focused in my roleplay, the nation of Huawan, and The Peony herself. I developed The Peony as a person that is still in conflict with herself, and the position she is forced into. As such her character is one of the most developed in The South Pacific.
There are many plans that I could do. Especially starting in Knowhere or Nationstates Forum. There are many things to build and many things to emphasize. However, there isn't as much people in these forums, so sometimes it feels that the things I wrote are just for a very small amount of people that I don't even know. It seems like a waste of time, I would to be honest prefer playing a round of Grand Strategy Games, or even playing PUBG mobile rather than this.
So I try to not spend too much time in it, so that the enjoyment overlaps the guilt.
Of course, like Gi-Land, IRL is one of the largest difficulties in roleplaying. I found out that roleplaying took such a large time in my life. Writing posts in threads in TSP is quite difficult to plan, and quite long to check.
I have a general idea of what I want Sedunn to be like and what history it should have, but there is no grand plan, so I guess I "just go with the flow", within certain boundary conditions. I also want to connect to older RP posts, so I try hard to find old, relevant posts.
This is also true for the sci-fi RPs involving the Treecuu Star Empire.