[Stalliongrad] The Inaugural Lecture/Debate (OOC Discussion)

[BrainedBySaucepans]

Right, so I figure I've been lurking long enough, and it's well past time for me to actually jump into the RP hooves first by actually starting my own thread; no half-measures for saucy. My only active experience in the Mane RP this far has been in riverhippo's 100 Country Kisses thread, and I've not really done any forum-based RPing before Canterlot, so this may be a colossally bad idea. I have done plenty of tabletop and live action role-playing, I'm just unsure of how it's supposed to work in a forum context. Still, I want to give it a try, and hopefully people will be willing to help me out a bit.

Since my OC (Professor Ashen Smirk) is a lecturer who has just made the move from Canterlot to Stalliongrad, I thought a good way of introducing my character and having some fun would be to have his new superiors arrange for him to hold an inaugural lecture, open to students, faculty and members of the public. Unfortunately, they didn't give him any warning, so the first he heard about this was when he arrived in Stalliongrad the night before, after a long hike (walking from Canterlot to Stalliongrad seemed like such a good idea too), and saw a student handing out flyers.

My intention for this thread is to have Prof. Smirk trying to keep up his new happy & friendly façade while getting increasingly stressed, resisting the temptation to revert to his old lecture style (ie short-tempered diatribes against any topic that catches his attention, and Celestia help anyone trying to argue). However, RPing is a collaborative process, so this may end up going in a completely different direction (and I have no objections if this happens, sometimes that's the most fun part of RP).

Some questions:

• Does this RP sound like something you'd like to be part of?
  
• Does anyone have any handy forum-specific RP tips that I may not have picked up from the guides already available on the site?
  
• Is anyone currently RPing any Stalliongrad University affiliated characters, either student or lecturer? If so, would you be willing to give me advice on how much the setting has been developed?
  
• Are there any issues with this that don't appeared to have occurred to me?
  
• Is this a terrible idea which I should feel ashamed for having had?
  

If you have an answer to any of these questions, please reply here. I expect to have the first post ready to go up tomorrow (it's past midnight for me, and the only reason I'm posting this now is so I can't back out without losing face), unless any major issues become apparent.

Thanks for your time, and I look forward to role-playing with you.

[Bellosh]

HEY HEY!!!!!!!!!

The thing about RPing a lecture is that unless it's in a Q&A format, the only real way that other characters can participate is by interrupting the lecturer. I imagine that most RPers don't want to have their characters be impolite and ask questions in the middle of a speech, unless there's very good reason to do so. Just something to keep in mind.

With that out of the way, I can either have Spin Tale show up or maybe I can create an excuse for my new griffon OC, Falco Krestelson, to attend the lecture.

[RarityDash]

Yeah, I kinda agree with Bellosh. I'm not really sure how a lecture would work in RP as it doesn't seem particularly interactive.

That said, it does at least sound interesting, and if you find a way to proceed with it, I'd definitely consider throwing one of my Stalliongrad based characters that way if I can find cause to.

[BrainedBySaucepans]

HEY HEY!!!!!!!!!

The thing about RPing a lecture is that unless it's in a Q&A format, the only real way that other characters can participate is by interrupting the lecturer. I imagine that most RPers don't want to have their characters be impolite and ask questions in the middle of a speech, unless there's very good reason to do so. Just something to keep in mind.

With that out of the way, I can either have Spin Tale show up or maybe I can create an excuse for my new griffon OC, Falco Krestelson, to attend the lecture.

Yeah, I kinda agree with Bellosh. I'm not really sure how a lecture would work in RP as it doesn't seem particularly interactive.

That said, it does at least sound interesting, and if you find a way to proceed with it, I'd definitely consider throwing one of my Stalliongrad based characters that way if I can find cause to.

You make a good point; I had pictured it as more of a seminar/Q&A than a lecture, especially as the good professor hasn't really had opportunity to prepare any notes. Perhaps I should change the title to reflect this.

Your point stands however, I do need to think some more on how to make this more interactive. I'll mull it over with my spare grey matter while I'm at work (data entry and receptionist duty leaves me with plenty of surplus cerebral runtime) and update this once I get home.

In the meantime, any suggestions would be much appreciated.

EDIT: Okay, it's lunch time and here are my current thoughts:

Instead of a lecture/seminar, how about an IC unstructured debate, very loosely moderated by Prof. Smirk (who will of course be participating himself, so plenty of opportunity for blatant bias).

Here's my idea for a topic: "Hereditary thaumocracy is the best form of government." Ashen will be arguing in favour of this, purely for the sake of irony, and deliberately subverting his own points to boot. Main problem with this (as far as I can see right now) is that I'm unsure whether the Equestrian government is hereditary or deiocentric (is that even a word? it is now) in Mane RP. Will have to check with helpstaff, but if I'm wrong this can easily be changed.

Does this sound like it could work?

[Bellosh]

Hmmm.... given how little we fans know of how Equestria's current government operates, it might be hard for RPers to effectively participate in a debate about it. Personally, I'd recommend something like "What happened before Equestria was founded?" or something on those lines. Since both the MLP characters and us fans don't really have definitive answers, it would allow anypony (and by extension their RPers) to come up with all sorts of baloney answers.

Of course, it'd be a good idea to get advice from help-staff first to determine the limits of what such a debate RP can do or not do.