I think most people are, or should be, understanding if you explain to them that if they end up making a lot of characters, those characters may be less prioritized for review and new applicants, or more active characters, will be first considered. I find putting something like this in my rules helps.

I’ve come to regard the ‘you can make more characters for posting’ to be an interesting restriction--I question how useful it actually is from an exclusive-member perspective.

Having more characters means splitting attention between all of them, someone being able to handle one or four characters’ activity doesn’t mean they can handle one more. That became my personal issue a few times to the point that I set a hard limit on how many characters I can have /across every site I’m on/.

I do find myself liking exceptions for say, Wanteds, or reduced other-character activity requirements if fulfilling a Wanted. This encourages people to push others’ plots more, hopefully, but there’s imaginable issues with this...

...there’s imaginable issues with everything, I don’t think there is a ‘perfect’ solution to this, just manners of running a site an admin prefers over others.

Of course, the whole ‘face claim hoarding’ issue is out of my mind. Let me be the devil or angle on your shoulder going ‘what if it didn’t exist’ ‘what if FC reserves weren’t a thing at all’ ‘what if-’

...jokes aside: there is no singular ‘right way’ to run an RP, or to RP, of course. It’s interesting how I keep learning about different RP practises, even after all these years.

I love open source software.

Started reading Hiraeth: The End of the Journey and I'm loving it so far

obligatory "I am too tired and stressed constantly" post I haven't made here for a while

Tired so bear with me here...but...

Thea: The Awakening and Thea: The Shattering — These are strange strategy games based on Slavic mythology that is both a village management sim, a visual novel, a card game, a roguelike...and more! Also, the editor is so robust and makes it easy to add your /own/ random events, stories, characters, and so on...And your main character, in The Shattering, can be a genderless rat. One of my favourite ways to play the game is this way

Kingsway — an RPG that you play on a fake windows OS, it’s a roguelike as well, with lots of customization and so on. It’s been updated ever since it came out and I adore it

Townscaper — relaxing game where you build a town. Not much more to it, but I do play it to unwind. Also, you can export the towns you generate and use them for stuff

The Age of Decadence — post apocalypse text-heavy RPG inspired by Fallout 1 and 2. It’s profoundly difficult. You start the game joinning one of the factions, and every character start is uniquely different and has a different story + story opportunities (think Dragon Age Origins but EVEN more content and specific paths for you based on what you pick). It’s a bit janky and all that, def not for everyone as it is a bit dated...

You can play as an entirely non-combat character, using your speech to get through things. And honestly... I recommend cheating using console and save scumming if you find the game hard. It’s worth it if you end up enjoying the setting and what the game is trying to offer.

Caves of Qud – Where do I start... I’ll just copy and paste the desc “Caves of Qud is a science fantasy roguelike epic steeped in retrofuturism, deep simulation, and swathes of sentient plants. Come inhabit an exotic world and chisel through layers of thousand-year-old civilizations.” Think Dwarf Fortress with the sheer scope of this game and its stimulation. It has a lot of options that make the game more forgiving (even a “roleplay” mode), a dynamic faction system, and you can make your character into a mutant monstrosity. It’s one of the best roguelikes I’ve ever played.

I could go on and on x.x But I won’t! For now.
I appreciate all the suggestions in this thread, I love learning of more games to check out

mreow (๑ↀᆺↀ๑)✧

“It depends”, honestly!! The Dungeon Meshi mangacaps I have been using on PP since I joined have almost no alternations besides cropping, and I like to keep it simple like that. Sometimes I make gif slideshows when say, I’m on Discord and I cannot decide between one avatar so I just go “all of them”, or edit avatars somewhat for a joke or because it’d fit my theme better. I have a heavy preference for mangacaps whenever using art that’s not my own, or cat pictures or video game screenshots...

But that’s not RP and I’m rambling on like usual!!

I can sometimes edit my art a lot, especially ones I crop from larger pieces that I didn’t draw specifically to be some kind of avatar. Some edits similar to ones mentioned here, also mess around with gradient maps (sometimes I draw in monotones and then just colour my art using maps), and sometimes I do some finishing touches/edits to resized images. A lot of detail can be lost on a resized image, but it’s also a lot easier to edit small images, so some of my avatars are a bit different than my og art.

I don’t know how to beat it really, other than taking a break, focusing on other things, and remembering to rest when I can. It’s very easy for me to go hard on something, and then get burnt out for years. Sometimes it takes asking myself questions such as... “why did I burn out in the first place?” And dealing with those specific things. Sometimes the reasons aren’t that obvious, or are things I have to work around instead of defeat.

But another measure I try to do nowadays is preventing it as much as possible. I set limits for how long I focus on a hobby and how much time I decide to dedicate to it. I set times where say, I’m writing a post, and where I’m not. I’m someone who forgets to eat or drink water on free time days even when I’m doing nothing, so I especially make sure to tend to my health, get up and walk around if it’s a hobby I’m sitting a lot for.

It’s so easy for me to focus on one thing, and this is useful in getting things done fast, but it’s also a fast way for me to just burn out. So, I feel like it’s important to increase the variety, either switch it up with said hobby, or do another hobby, maybe pick up something new, or even mildly related.

If you can’t prevent it, just know that your hobbies will always be waiting for you when you come back. Taking care of yourself and separating yourself from things that burn you is a fair decision. You can take a break for a while, or even quit entirely, and can pick things back up again.

Before account switching was added to jcink, I was so annoyed having to do ‘account juggling’ that I preferred OOC account-only sites if they were on a software without a switcher

...also, I really miss RP. I need to join a site soon, or I might revisit one I had to leave because I got so busy or...do the secret thing I was working on in 2021...

The gutpunches really don’t stop. I learnt that someone in my life only has 2 weeks left to live.