History of P2TM (Discussion/Sign-Up Thread)

[Esselman]

Hello dear role-players, I had the idea to organize a history of the multiverse and specifically that of P2TM. Being that there are very interesting RP's both past and present and even more interesting players in our games of fun and fantasy. As of now there is no official archive that details these things into categories of longest running, most active, and my personal favorite idea a Hall of Fame. If you're a writer, historian, or just like the idea, your help is appreciated immensely. For our history it will include a variety of things such as trends in role-playing, types of role-plays that have most populated NS, and famous to legendary role-players who are still active or inactive. I, along with a committee of talented individuals whoa re still dedicated to NS after a substantial amount of internet time, will decide this. Not everyone who is a curator will be apart of the committee and some players I will reach out to just due to their status here on NS. This, as of now, is not an officially sanctioned thread by NationStates, the mods are not involved as of yet. As for formatting, release times, and the future of this; that is all to come. Through your interest, and my own volition, I believe the impending thread this discussion thread spawns from will provide a lasting resource for role-playing in the future. Help me, you're my only hope.

Ideas for Organization Longest-Running RP Most Replied RP Trends - Rise of High School RP's / Academy RP's - Super Powered RP's - Rules: From Unlisted, Listed, to Common Sense ... Archivists Galnius Astrolinium Cerillium Rupudska If you're interested in aiding me on this journey please apply by filling out the following: Code: Select all [b]Nation Name:[/b] [b]Favorite NS Roleplay:[/b] [b]Which Roleplay(s) MUST we cover:[/b] [b]Roleplay example / writing example[/b] [b]Average Activity Level:[/b] (How often do you come to NS)

A more comprehensive designation will go here, but in conjunction with the past "Best of P2TM _______" thread, we will create a hall of fame of past nations who are current or former nations. Ample evidence will need to be brought about and every year we will induct three members, though this is subject to change if the committee deems it necessary. DO NOT SUBMIT AT THIS TIME. Hall of Fame Nomination

[Esselman]

RESERVED

[Galnius]

Nation Name: Galnius
Favorite NS Roleplay: Of all time? CYOS series, as that's what I started really getting active with
Which Roleplay(s) MUST we cover: Elfen High, indubitably
Roleplay example / writing example https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=401269&p=30964604&hilit=Radio+Noise#p30964604 May as well use one of the most recent posts
Average Activity Level: About 3 times a minimum, with occasional breaks

[Esselman]

Welcome aboard! will update curator list soon

[Astrolinium]

Nation Name: Astrolinium
Favorite NS Roleplay: A World Beyond
Which Roleplay(s) MUST we cover: Elfen High, A World Beyond, Elfen High 2, American Paranormal Society, Elementals, some of the things run by Norvenia/Reverend Norv, Super Teens Stuff, and (not to toot my own horn) Doctor Who. Essentially all the old things -- some of which are pre-P2TM, but are nonetheless a valid part of its history -- that Nightkill and that group was involved in. Oh, and Personification Life, which is apparently still running, somehow.
Roleplay example / writing example viewtopic.php?p=29566301#p29566301
Average Activity Level: Fairly active, though not so active here in P2TM anymore.

[Esselman]

Welcome, yes, Personification Life is still beating along. I am compiling the suggestions that are in apps btw, along with others, I will continue a running list.

[Esselman]

Just as a status update on our efforts here, I am creating a sort of timeline and found the first initial posts that were purposely placed on P2TM. For now I believe we should include F7 by talking about the most active RP's from there before the creation of P2TM.

Any ideas to the contrary, or a list of those RP's from F7?


Also, the most active RP's will have to be separated from the longest running RP's (Which I believe is Personification Life)

[Astrolinium]

Just as a status update on our efforts here, I am creating a sort of timeline and found the first initial posts that were purposely placed on P2TM. For now I believe we should include F7 by talking about the most active RP's from there before the creation of P2TM.

Any ideas to the contrary, or a list of those RP's from F7?


Also, the most active RP's will have to be separated from the longest running RP's (Which I believe is Personification Life)

We'll want to try and interview long-time players, I think. That'd be really interesting -- see about getting some of them to talk about the creation of P2TM and how it's changed, as well as maybe Old F7, which predates even me. I'm still in touch with Nightkill, Nationstatelandsville, and Nude East Ireland and all them, I might see if I can get them to send me anything. Because of the nature of how F7 works, with the exception of some truly incredible roleplays like Elfen High that made it into the archives, we'll have to rely heavily on oral history for most of that.

[Esselman]

Just as a status update on our efforts here, I am creating a sort of timeline and found the first initial posts that were purposely placed on P2TM. For now I believe we should include F7 by talking about the most active RP's from there before the creation of P2TM.

Any ideas to the contrary, or a list of those RP's from F7?


Also, the most active RP's will have to be separated from the longest running RP's (Which I believe is Personification Life)

We'll want to try and interview long-time players, I think. That'd be really interesting -- see about getting some of them to talk about the creation of P2TM and how it's changed, as well as maybe Old F7, which predates even me. I'm still in touch with Nightkill, Nationstatelandsville, and Nude East Ireland and all them, I might see if I can get them to send me anything. Because of the nature of how F7 works, with the exception of some truly incredible roleplays like Elfen High that made it into the archives, we'll have to rely heavily on oral history for most of that.

That is a similar angle to what I was thinking, I have reached out to some players that were a part of the role plays, lots of nations of the big ones no longer exist so if you can get any quotes from them we can compile the actual RP wording with their memory of events. Some of them maybe HoF noms as well but I want to wait a while for that anyway.

[Cerillium]

Nation Name: Cerillium
Favorite NS Roleplay: other than my own? It would be impossible to choose.
Which Roleplay(s) MUST we cover: I really don't think there's any we can't cover, but we should focus first on the oldest ones. Elfen High and Personification Life, the early anime RP, superhero RP. Focus on games that made the jump from F7. I can dig up a few greybeards and see if they're willing to lend their memories.
Roleplay example / writing example viewtopic.php?p=26064534#p26064534
Average Activity Level: Daily though my time will be limited the next two weeks.

[Cerillium]

We'll want to try and interview long-time players, I think. That'd be really interesting -- see about getting some of them to talk about the creation of P2TM and how it's changed, as well as maybe Old F7, which predates even me. I'm still in touch with Nightkill, Nationstatelandsville, and Nude East Ireland and all them, I might see if I can get them to send me anything. Because of the nature of how F7 works, with the exception of some truly incredible roleplays like Elfen High that made it into the archives, we'll have to rely heavily on oral history for most of that.

Swith and I were talking about Night the other night. He's greatly missed.

[Esternial]

I think I got some summaries of the story of Elfen High saved somewhere if that's something you'd be looking for.

Mind you, they were made by the participants, so they may not make a lot of sense.

I can offer some info about my time in F7, pre-P2TM. Back when Nightkill still used an Indian flag with Deadpool on it. Can't promise I'll completely/accurately recall all of it, though.

[Esselman]

I think I got some summaries of the story of Elfen High saved somewhere if that's something you'd be looking for.

Mind you, they were made by the participants, so they may not make a lot of sense.

I can offer some info about my time in F7, pre-P2TM. Back when Nightkill still used an Indian flag with Deadpool on it. Can't promise I'll completely/accurately recall all of it, though.

Thank you both for offering to help, I'll TG you in a moment. Thanks again!

EDIT: the summaries will be helpful if you can send those to me via TG or if in an actual post, just link them here.

[Esternial]

Well it's quite a lot for just one facet in your project, but here it is:

Basically, in the year 2012, The Masquerade (ie, the supernatural world being hidden) was broken by demons arriving and breaking shit. The world is basically told to send people with magical/otherworldly capabilities to Elfen High, a school founded by Valarian Fixban in the 1800s, now run by Headmaster Aleister Crowley. The first notable event of the RP begins with Lewis crashing his plane into the school grounds, because Lewis is bad at making proper entrances.

You don't have to read the paragraph directly below, as it isn't really important to the plot.

The characters interact and various stuff such as Laz and Pierre meeting, Lewis and James fighting (which is broken up by Minh), Rayne and Sarina meeting, Ivy rooming with them, and people just doing random stuff. This happens until Page 9, which is when classes start. Basically, all the classes are absolutely insane, except Minh, who actually teaches a normal class. After his class is Lewis's, in which he sends like, 4 people to detention, and spends most of his time yelling at people. He also freezes Laz's crotch after he burns down a wall. Next is Yuzuki's class, which is fairly uneventful except for a clash between Pierre and Yuzuki in which Pierre shows that he's kind of an asshole. After that is Nyarla's class, in which nothing happens except for her singing an eldritch song which mainly just creeps the shit out of all the students. Sarina and Rayne skip Nyarla's class and go make out in a hallway for some reason, and then Lewis gets drunk and interrupts them. After that is Malal's class, where he cuts somebody up because Malal is a wonderful person, obviously.

Suddenly, gladiator matches. Since Crowley is a wonderful person, he teleports Pierre, James, Damien, and Sarina into an arena to fight Nyarla and a robot. Pierre attempts to give a rousing speech which turns out in "You guys are all fucked.", Damien asks Crowley for a sword, Sarina breaks down and starts crying, and James claims that he's going to protect her (which, believe it or not, he does). James attempts to organize a team effort, but Pierre and Damien are both pretty hostile to the idea. The first few minutes of the match are the Warbot fighting James and Damien, while Nyarla beats the crap out of Pierre. Sarina mostly just cries on the ground for the first part. War-Bot ends up getting eliminated by a combined sequence of Damien slashing at it with a sword, James drop-kicking it, and Sarina whacking it with a hammer, which pushes it to the edge of the arena. It gets off the cliff by Nyarla's giant diamond-spear thing, which she fired at James. Unluckily, since James drop-kicked a robot (note, drop-kicking robots is not a good idea), he busts his leg. Pierre decides to sit off to the side and watch, and when Nyarla fires lightning at Sarina, James jumps in the way of a lightning bolt. Pierre decides to attack Nyarla, but he ends up getting hurled off the stage. Sarina ends up being the last to fight Nyarla, but the fight runs out of time before Nyarla can take her out (she just skewers her instead).

Then, there's a month of timeskip.

The RP started with the first day in a new year of school. The players, consisting of teachers and students, played through the first day, going through the classes of History and Mythology, Botany, Chemistry, Wood Shop, and Philosophy. Not a whole lot really happened, and it all became obsolete later, anyways. Then, during lunch, a massive, all-powerful dragon imprisoned beneath the school sent out a telepathic call for help to whoever care to listen. After that, there was an assembly where the Vice Principal, Aleister Crowley, made a rather long-winded speech ending in the introduction of the new teachers. However, one of said teachers, Victoria, didn't bother showing up for the assembly, being more interested in the message. So, she used her psionic powers to rip a hole in the basement wall, finding a cave, and, subsequently, finding the dragon. She began talking to it before one of the students, Damien, showed up, having followed her down. The dragon said he give the two of them ancient and powerful magic if they would rescue him, but neither of them accepted the offer and left. During this, another student, Pari, went to tell the Vice Principal that someone had broken into the basement. Her familiar, Whiskers, had spoken to a mouse that witnessed the event and then proceeded to inform Pari. This prompted Mr. Crowley to check it out. Before he got down there, Desmond showed up at the school with the intention of freeing the dragon, however Mr. Crowley interrupted the attempt and the two began to fight. Outside, Damien and his roommate, the angel Calliel, went to tell Archangel Michael about the dragon. Damien then went to the computer lab and started having weird visions about the angel Malakh. Then, the Metatron, who'd been released from imprisonment in Hell, possessed the body of a student, James, and set fire to the dorms, intent on destroying the entire school for whatever reason, killing, in total, about 25% of the students, including Damien who was then instantly reborn as Malakh. The Metatron was confronted by Calliel while James fought him in his mind. In the end, James used sheer ball-tastic willpower to somehow beat the Metatron into submission, but not before blowing up a chunk of his own brain making him permanently paralyzed. After that, the Archangel Raphael descended from Heaven to retrieve the Metatron, though James attacked the archangel, which didn't end well for him. Then, James was carried out of the fire by Calliel while everyone else escaped, as well. Malakh healed James' paralysis, but when James attacked both him and Calliel, he banished James to Hell. Through all of this, the conflict between Mr. Crowley and Desmond was settled with Desmond compromising by converting the dragon's prison into a chain, receiving an ancient spell of some kind. Though, Mr. Crowley did lose a hand from the fight. Then, Malakh and Calliel went up to Heaven, had a chat with Archangel Michael, and went down to Hell to look for the angel Gabriel, who'd been kidnapped "off-screen," as it were, at the beginning of the RP. While there, they conveniently encountered both Damien and James, the two of them deciding to tag along with nothing better to do. Victoria, with delusions of grandeur, headed off to Egypt to the hidden sanctuary of the Élan in order to massacre them all and absorb their psionic powers and turn herself into a god, encountering Archangel Raphael on the way. Desmond went off to Iraq to find an ancient Babylonian artifact with his newly acquired magic and also turn himself into a god. And that's where we are now: Calliel, Malakh, James, and Damien are in Hell, Victoria and Raphael are in Egypt, and Desmond is in Iraq. Everyone else is sitting around the ruins of Elfen High with nothing to do.

Calliel, Malakh, James, and Damien battled the Metatron, causing it and another angel to enter Calliel's mind where they now currently reside. Calliel also accessed the Metatron's memories finding out that Gabriel is in Sydney, Australia. The four of them are now there and have just met up with Nature's three characters. Victoria successfully became a god, had a brief conversation with Raphael, and is now interrogating Leviathan. Desmond had a battle with a Victorian-era witch hunter which he resoundingly won and then stepped through the Gate of Babylon. We haven't heard from him since. Finally, Elfen High is under attack by the founder of the school who's come back as a ghost to murder everyone for letting the school get burned down.

Calliel, Malakh, James, and Damien find Gabriel trapped in a sort of pocket dimension between the space of the opera house. However, before they can make the rescue operation, Archangel Uriel and Demon Lord Azazel show up. The expectations for an epic battle are subverted, though, and Malakh, James, Damien, Gabriel, and Michael (who also showed up at some point) are teleported out to Cario while Calliel, Uriel, and Azazel get squished together. Victoria gets the information she wants from Leviathan (which is everything he knows), creates a pocket dimension of her own on the Astral Plane, and begins sorting through everything she now knows. The founder of Elfen High, Valaran, is quickly dispatched of by Aleister Crowley, Alastor, and Desmond who decided to pop in after becoming a god. Desmond then declares that he wants to be a teacher...for whatever reason. In Cairo, the group runs into Raphael before Calliel shows up again. However, now possessing the power of Uriel and Azazel, in addition to Metatron and the other angel, has gone drunk with power and declared himself the god, ruler of everything. The group escapes back to Elfen High and explain the situation to the people there. Victoria, curious, watches the exchange from within her dimension. After that, they all decide (not entirely willingly) to help take down Calliel. So, that's where we are now: Archangels Michael and Raphael, Gabriel, Malakh, James, Damien, Victoria, Desmond, Aleister Crowley, Alastor, L'Enfer, Pari, and Lazrian are all going to go off on a most-likely-suicidal mission (for some, at least) to take down the mad Calliel.

Elfen High was attacked by demons, so Victoria teleported everyone to her dimension. Once there, she explained her plan to exorcise Calliel to Heaven then create a black hole, whereupon she'll teleport it to Heaven, killing Calliel along with everyone else there. Before they could act, however, Calliel launched an attack on the entire world, utterly destroying Chicago. The good guys teleport in and begin fighting Calliel, but he teleports away once more, this time Islamabad. The good guys follow and reengage Calliel, eventually succeeding in exorcising him, but not before Islamabad is also destroyed. Once Calliel's in Heaven, Victoria teleports the black hole. Michael and Gabriel sacrifice themselves to teleport a good chunk, 200 million, of the angels away, but the majority are still swallowed up. Then the epilogue happened. You can read that for yourself.

So, the story starts out with a bunch of meaningless bullshit that you really don't need to pay attention to since it'll inevitably serve no purpose in the end, proving for the second time that the "school" part of Elfen High School might as well not even exist. Pretty much, the first two dozen pages or so are filled with various characters going about their school activities such as having classes no one cares and a lunch hour that serves no point, etc. The only important thing that happens here is that many of the characters are just outright forgotten about, mostly because their players decided to stop caring or were forcefully kicked for being stupid.

Then, some interesting shit actually started happening. James shot himself in the head because he's a pussy like that. Then Calliel popped in for a cameo, just so that he could dance around and show everyone that he isn't completely obsolete yet, even though he totally is. Then Malakh showed up because he's one of the only cool characters in the RP, and that's really stretching the definition of "cool" quite far. After that, vampires attacked the school because this thing needed a fucking plot. Sometime during this, James died again because he's still a pussy like that. During the fighting, it turned out that Anna was really just an evil bitch the entire time. Then the school disappeared because why the fuck not?

So, it turns out that the school was transported to an alternate dimension, or something, that was pretty much a chronologically anachronistic Camelot with guns and shit. This was supposed to make everything all weird and mysterious, but no one really gave a shit, so it was an utter failure. Then, a few of the characters went to go meet with King Lancelot to ask some questions about why they were here, but Damien was a total dumbass and asked Lancelot questions that were, all in all, fucking useless and didn't reveal anything. So, Pari went off to see if she could find out some information that was actually relevant to anything and ended up learning the entire fucking plot.

Elsewhere, more meaningless shit happened, and characters were still acting as useless as a wet tissue. Then, some other shit happened, and the characters started fighting a True Vampire and the Metatron because apparently he has some connection to the True Fae, or something, even though that doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you think about it. Really, it just seems like a flimsy excuse to bring him back from the first RP, but really, who fucking cares about consistency anymore? Anyways, James dies yet again because he's still a pussy like that, and Damien dies because he's a complete badass.
Then, the vampire is killed, and the Metatron runs away since he's a fucking coward. Really, you'd think it would have been a tactical retreat, and he'd come back later in the story with some reinforcements, but no. That's the last time we see him. What a pathetic final scene.

In any event, Lancelot gets pissed off and attacks Malakh and Timothy, even though they didn't really have anything to do with anything, but whatever. So, Lancelot is killed because he had a dragon thrown at him, or something. It was kind of stupid. Then Crowley picks up Excalibur because why not? Unfortunately, it turns out that Excalibur is totally evil for no apparent reason. So, Crowley drops it. Afterwards, the group is inexplicably teleported back to the castle so that they can be attacked by the most retarded guards in the history of retarded guards. Naturally, the guards are fucking slaughtered.

After that, Morgan La Fey shows up and essentially says, "Hey! Look at me! I'm the big bad this time!" because why not? At least it's not as pointlessly convoluted as the first story. Then, in what is probably the saddest boss fight ever, the good guys pound her True Fae ass into the fucking ground with ease. Seriously, no one even died during that fight, not even James. At least some nameless NPCs died fighting Calliel in the first story. On the plus side, no one genocided any angels this time, so that's good.

Finally, the story ended on a funeral, a goddamn funeral. Talk about a depressing ending. Seriously, that shit is fucked up.

Just copy-pasted that from the text documents. That's all I have in regards to EH.

[Astrolinium]

We'll want to try and interview long-time players, I think. That'd be really interesting -- see about getting some of them to talk about the creation of P2TM and how it's changed, as well as maybe Old F7, which predates even me. I'm still in touch with Nightkill, Nationstatelandsville, and Nude East Ireland and all them, I might see if I can get them to send me anything. Because of the nature of how F7 works, with the exception of some truly incredible roleplays like Elfen High that made it into the archives, we'll have to rely heavily on oral history for most of that.

Swith and I were talking about Night the other night. He's greatly missed.

I'll be sure to pass that on to him.

[G-Tech Corporation]

Now this, this is an excellent idea.

[Astrolinium]

Nationstatelandsville told me to pass this on to you: "APS [American Paranormal Society] was about Trump the whole time. Trust me."

[Esselman]

Thanks G-tech, please advise/help us!

Also, I will keep that in mind Astro

[Tiltjuice]

It'd be amiss not to mention Sentinel XV and his Walking Dead series, and Cylarn's cryptid RPs.

[Esternial]

It'd be amiss not to mention Sentinel XV and his Walking Dead series, and Cylarn's cryptid RPs.

Sentinel also wrote one of the first P2TM info threads.

[Esternial]

Here are my answers to the questions. If anyone wants to correct me on these, feel free to. My memory of the F7 days is fuzzy.

What was it like in the role-playing during F7? Was it confusing due to the amount of activity on role-plays mixed in with random threads?

From what I recall it *could* be rather basic, but often there were OOC and IC threads. I'll refer to Elfen High for this ( viewtopic.php?f=21&t=117943; and viewtopic.php?f=21&t=118121) ) Back then F7 was pretty much what it is now + P2TM - (minus) all the player-hosted chat threads.

Might have been a bit confusing, but we managed. In chat thread we RP'ed as our "character" (e.g. Esty) while for RP's we signed up in the OOC and posted in the IC. Maybe you could say there was a lot more interaction because of it, in a way, because you'd talk with people outside of your RPs in the many chat threads. I might just be recalling things through rose-tinted glasses, though. Things could get bad.

Was there any push back to the creation of another forum for just role-playing?

As far as I know, not that much. Some people, presumably also Mods/Admins, just thought there was no point to doing it. I think it took a lot of whining and begging.

Some players who RP in P2TM find that they only post in the forums there or rarely post elsewhere, is this a good thing for NationStates that activity is developing a gap? Is there a gap?

It all depends on what you're interested in. If you don't care for debate, you don't go into NSG. If people are solely into RP'ing, it's understandable they don't post elsewhere, so I don't immediately consider that an issue.

As for the state of role-playing, how is it different from when you began here to now? Can RP's become as successful as they use to, or is it always a random spark that creates a long lasting RP?

To its core it remains the same. Some variation will always take place depending on taste, though. Maybe things were more loose in F7, judging by Elfen High. Maybe nowadays, in P2TM, newcomers might be more likely to feel like they're expected to immediately want to be writers and want to improve their writing to "play with the big boys". Maybe that's just my imagination. However I still think the mentality to "have fun" still lives on, which I'm glad about.

Whether an RP hits it off or not really depends on the people participating, and the OP, to keep it alive. Success is a relative term. Elfen High was often too confusing for newcomers to really get into - I had trouble myself getting back into it after a long absence. So many characters, so many sidearcs. It was a success for the people in it, though, because they had fun RP'ing in it 'till the end. If you feel your RP becomes a drag and you have to struggle to keep going, it might be that that light has already gone out.

If the participants are dedicated to the RP, such as
- the unfolding of the plot
- developing the lore
- integrating their own characters into the plot as elements rather than just having them be "participants" to a story.

then I believe you've got a potentially successful RP. It's also why I'm weary of RPs where the world and the plot is already completely worked out. It's hard for other people to put their own bricks in a wall that's already built. As an OP, building it together with your participants engages them into your story. As a participant, it makes you feel that the story is yours as well, and not just the OP's who's just inviting you along for the ride.

[Esselman]

It'd be amiss not to mention Sentinel XV and his Walking Dead series, and Cylarn's cryptid RPs.

Sentinel also wrote one of the first P2TM info threads.

oh no worries, already added this and your followup multiverse book, even found his first draft of it as well. RP'd with him a few times I believe, though there was another Sentinel running around...

Anyhow, thanks for answering those questions.

[Nature-Spirits]

Not sure right now what I have to offer, if anything, but I'll be keeping an eye on this.

[Esselman]

Not sure right now what I have to offer, if anything, but I'll be keeping an eye on this.

Thank you for any consideration!

And to all else, I am going through past RP's going through timelines and official reboots is interesting. You find some fun posts here and there.

[Astrolinium]

Not sure right now what I have to offer, if anything, but I'll be keeping an eye on this.

Thank you for any consideration!

And to all else, I am going through past RP's going through timelines and official reboots is interesting. You find some fun posts here and there.

If you can find the weeks you'd need to do it, you should go through Elfen High 2's OOCs sometime. There is some crazy shit in there, not all of it stuff we really should have, strictly speaking, been allowed to get away with in what was ostensibly an OOC thread for a roleplay.