A random question

[Cyrus the virus]

It wasn't a mistake. It really is considered poor form to do it, hence why you never see good, established professional writers doing it. But even aside from that, your team got 4 out of 5 points in that category, and there were other things mentioned besides that. So I'd say you weren't penalized much, if at all, for it.

Feel free to show me the established, professional writers who come to Althanas to roleplay like dorks.

In RP, we write from an omniscient perspective. To say 'Luc observed Steve with interest,' when Luc does not know Steve's name is not something a judge should dock a point for. I understand that it's proper to do otherwise, but it's not improper to do it in this medium.

The rules and norms are not the same when you're roleplaying.

[NightCast]

In RP, we write from an omniscient perspective.

Negative. Unless you're doing a solo, you SHOULD NOT be writing in an omniscient point of view. By doing so is metagaming in roleplaying. By definition, as you are probably well aware, omniscient points of view are centered around a narrator who, for reasons of simplicity, is the equivalent of God. He is everywhere, knows everything, and you CANNOT do that. How are you, not being the creator of your opponent's character, going to know what he is thinking? You cannot be omniscient and just know his name. Limited omniscience is when an author is telling the story from the point of view that every FAMILIAR character, as in the main characters, are open for him to read and tell of their feelings. You cannot even do that in this tournament, because then it's suggesting that you know what your friend is thinking too.

You cannot be selectively omniscient. Either you are or you aren't. None of this, I'm omniscient enough to know his name, but nothing else about him. It just doesn't work, whether it be form, professionalism, or just good manners.

[Shadowed]

Professional writers are also taught to develop their characters. Like Yari said, they don't have to collaborate with multiple writers to establish that character, either. I'm no professional writer, but in a solo quest I'd likely just write a situation where the character is introduced, is amongst other familiar characters, or write in his perspective to allow proper noun use rather than write "the strange man" and every possible euphemism of the term 100 times.

Refer to my examples. It's acceptable once the other character's name has been established, either in the narrative or in the dialogue. Collaboration means nothing in regard to this specific aspect of writing; when you roleplay, you only write your own post. You don't have to use the same style as the other guy, nor recognize everything that he recognizes. Yes, there are minor variations in how you write something out, but that's only a magnification of what professional writers do. We might say "Dave aimed his rifle at the distant shape of his enemy; as the crosshairs rested upon the man's head, Dave squeezed the trigger." That's entirely permissible within roleplaying, and normal writers do it. The difference is simply that we put more emphasis on the actions leading up to and including the final action; professional writers will say the exact same thing, then follow with what happened.

"Dave aimed his rifle at the distant shape of his enemy; as the crosshairs rested upon the man's head, Dave squeezed the trigger. The bullet flew through the air, striking the soldier between the eyes, leaving the man's head looking as a jagged stump."

The last part of that would be written by the other person, yes, but it's still the exact same thing. What it really comes down to is readability; if your narrator introduces the other character, there's no confusion because the reader knows who's being referred to, even if your character doesn't know the name. But if you simply refer to the character by name as if it's basic fact, then you stand a good chance of confusing people. If the reader doesn't know that person X is named John, referring to him as such would be bad. If another person in the thread already referred to his character's name, your narrator would technically be able to do likewise, but it would still be considered bad form without at least a brief narrative introduction.

When scoring comprehension, mechanics, etc, there is one principle that should always be used: You should read one person's posts straight through, skipping all the others. Yes, you'll miss some specifics, but a good writer will contain everything that's relevant in his own posts. A brief narrative recap of what his opponent did in the previous post is vital for clarity, so long as it isn't too long or expansive. But when using that method, if out of nowhere you begin calling the other character by name, well, that's a problem. Your posts should be able to stand completely on their own. The best way to think of it is as a series of books; a good author will briefly recap any relevant events from the previous book(s) as needed, letting each installment stand on its own. Is it better reading them all in order? Of course. But each book can still stand on its own. That's the entire point of not using people's names in the narratives until it's properly allowable.

Feel free to show me the established, professional writers who come to Althanas to roleplay like dorks.

In RP, we write from an omniscient perspective. To say 'Luc observed Steve with interest,' when Luc does not know Steve's name is not something a judge should dock a point for. I understand that it's proper to do otherwise, but it's not improper to do it in this medium.

The rules and norms are not the same when you're roleplaying.

Limited omniscience. I covered this. You can only know what's either known, or self-evident. The only way around this is making it specific that the character doesn't know. For example, you'll often see "Though he didn't know it, the bomb was already set." Referring to another character by name without introduction lends too much to narrative voicing. Your narrator is generally supposed to be invisible, unless the style specifically intends to give the narrator a distinctive voice. Film noir, for example, or even Tolkien's "tale around a fireplace" approach. It's always improper to take something as given fact without proper explanation or introduction.

Also, as NC said, this is a writing tournament. Why wouldn't you try to write professionally?

[Max Dirks]

Professionally a writer, writing in third or first person, no omniscience, cannot feasibly know the name of the new character.

Most folks that come through Althanas usually write in what I dub "third person personal" or "third person narrative," Nightcast. Aside from naming in prose, there are only a few other noticeable differences between the two. Those differences affect description the most. To give you an idea of what I mean, personal would focus on the character's interpretation of what the scene was whereas narrative would focus on what the scene was. For example, here is a blurb in personal: "The sky threatened rain, a fitting welcome for Althanas' most revered criminal." Here is one in narrative: "The sky threatened rain. Dirks found it to be a fitting welcome for Althanas' most revered criminal." Did you notice the difference? Personal incorporated Dirks' feelings into the prose whereas narrative separated the description from Dirks' feelings, actions, dialogue, etc. To say the latter (which allows unknown names to be said in prose) isn't an acceptable form of writing in an RP setting is just ridiculous.

[NightCast]

I'm slightly confused by your post Dirks. Perhaps I am merely missing your point, but it feels like your post is also missing relevancy to my post, perhaps, again, a misunderstanding of the point of my posts.

Could you please quote specific parts you're referring to so that I can better understand where the relevancy lay?

And while what you mentioned is correct, I was referring to the omniscience. Omniscience, regardless of the way you look at it, is a narrator who is privy to everything, every thought, every emotion, everything about the familiar characters. Whether it be limited omniscience which Shadowed and I have been trying to convey, which, in reiteration, is the narrator knowing everything going on with each character that is familiar. And I use familiar and not important, or main, because it cannot be disputed by any that each character in these threads is important and relevant. This nullifies the use of omniscience. By only having one character that your narrator can feasibly understand limited omniscience, in essence, becomes third person narrative. Full omniscience cannot be achieved because you cannot know what your opponent is or thinks.

By saying something such as this: "As Dirks went about his business in the town below, DarkStrike floated high overhead, observing his target," you do exactly as Shadowed says; you lend to much to the narrative voicing. What you end up with is a convoluted, not to mention distorted, cross between omniscience and narrative. It's not good technique unless the character is already familiar one that has been explored by the author. There are FOUR authors per thread. You cannot exercise this kind of narration because it results in a bastard child of the third person narrative and omniscient points of view.

[Cyrus the virus]

Negative. Unless you're doing a solo, you SHOULD NOT be writing in an omniscient point of view. By doing so is metagaming in roleplaying. By definition, as you are probably well aware, omniscient points of view are centered around a narrator who, for reasons of simplicity, is the equivalent of God. He is everywhere, knows everything, and you CANNOT do that. How are you, not being the creator of your opponent's character, going to know what he is thinking? You cannot be omniscient and just know his name. Limited omniscience is when an author is telling the story from the point of view that every FAMILIAR character, as in the main characters, are open for him to read and tell of their feelings. You cannot even do that in this tournament, because then it's suggesting that you know what your friend is thinking too.

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. Metagaming is using OOC knowledge of someone's character to have an advantage. Moreover, not writing from an omniscient perspective is limiting your spectrum.

How else could you write a comparison of emotions or thoughts? Including a comparison of how my character approaches battle differently than yours adds depth and spice to my post without your character having to include some ridiculous, stupid monologue about his life. Every great non-action, non-dialogue/monologue post ever made includes some kind of omniscience to it.

When you're roleplaying, you are mixing narration with your character's perspective. Otherwise, you are writing purely action and dialogue. And that is dull as shit.

I could take what your character thinks and put a new spin to it as an omniscient narrator, improving our thread in general. Being an omniscient narrator doesn't mean I'm going to have Luc know your guy is thinking "Hey, it's a good thing Luc does not know I'm weak against the color yellow and my alter-ego is Steve Johnson."

[Karuka]

With multiple authors per thread, I'd think that would make it even more important to use each others' names in narrative, but out of dialogue and internal thought. You can't just say "she" or "he" because you get your pronouns all jumbled and who knows who you're talking about?

[Max Dirks]

I'm slightly confused by your post Dirks. Perhaps I am merely missing your point, but it feels like your post is also missing relevancy to my post, perhaps, again, a misunderstanding of the point of my posts.

Sorry, I was referring to your reply to me, not Cyrus. I've edited the above post. I don't much care for being omnipresent, it just leads to rather dull writing. Third person narrative, however, is a much different story.

[Shadowed]

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. Metagaming is using OOC knowledge of someone's character to have an advantage. Moreover, not writing from an omniscient perspective is limiting your spectrum.

How else could you write a comparison of emotions or thoughts? Including a comparison of how my character approaches battle differently than yours adds depth and spice to my post without your character having to include some ridiculous, stupid monologue about his life. Every great non-action, non-dialogue/monologue post ever made includes some kind of omniscience to it.

Erm, you shouldn't be writing a comparison between thoughts, unless it's in direct reference to what the other narrator said. Even then, it really depends on how you do it. You can write the same comparison with limited omniscience; remember, limited omniscience includes what would reasonably be discovered, not what your character can specifically reasonably discover. So if I'm x and you're y, and you write that y is charging in for a fast strike, I can, as the narrator, say that while y preferred fast attacks, x was one to take it slow and work defensively until he found an opening. That's entirely legit, because, even though the character wouldn't know this, you can reasonably determine this by seeing and examining what y is doing. It's the difference between actions and knowledge; you have to know the line. I can say that y is planning to feint to the left, because of the tenseness of his muscles and his minute tendency to put his weight on his left leg in preparation of moving to the right. Granted, that's only if the character's owner says as much, so that you're not bunnying. And unless your character can see and examine that, you can't use it IC. But I can't say that y was planning to shout an obscenity as he ran, because that's only knowable in y's mind. By that token, if no one in the scene has said y's name, and x doesn't know it, I cannot as a narrator know y's name.

When you're roleplaying, you are mixing narration with your character's perspective. Otherwise, you are writing purely action and dialogue. And that is dull as shit.

Yes, that's true. But I don't see how that fits in here.

I could take what your character thinks and put a new spin to it as an omniscient narrator, improving our thread in general. Being an omniscient narrator doesn't mean I'm going to have Luc know your guy is thinking "Hey, it's a good thing Luc does not know I'm weak against the color yellow and my alter-ego is Steve Johnson."

No one is saying that having the narrator know means the character knows.

[Cyrus the virus]

I'm arguing for an omniscient narration perspective, which is what NightCast appeared to be arguing against. He tied it in with metagaming, which it isn't. I'm really only responding to him.