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Old May 12th, 2017, 04:46 PM
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Adrik Ironstone: Application Review

Hi All please find below my potential application for a game. I have added the link to the bottom of the post. I have put the RP example in a spoiler as I was worried it was a bit long!

Name: Adrik Ironstone
Race: Hill Dwarf
Class: Cleric
Role: Healer / Relentless Conqueror of Evil
Description: Adrik was a dwarf of middling build with lively blue eyes and a thick mass of brown hair. Adrik had a comely face that was almost completely covered by a great bushy brown beard. He was dressed in well-worn scale mail that was but was well maintained have recently been scrubbed with sand to make it shine through the darkness.

His wiry athletic, well muscled body was covered in scars from numerous close encounters of the violent kind. The tattoo on his forearm of the serpent and the hammer was popular among the soldiers of the elite Irondrake regiment. He also wore a gold amulet round his neck with the image of the sun and the mountain to show he was a disciple of Moradin the father of the Dwarven race and the favoured deity of healers.

History: Adrik served for 10 years as a healer with the Irondrakes the elite dwarfish army until the battle of Azurbar when the unit was over-run by Orcs. Adrik was one of the few survivors but after this no longer considered himself worthy to fight in the elite armed forces of Durin the great Dwarven King and has since become an adventurer.

Goal: Adrik still holds a deep hatred of Orc's and the forces of evil and will always seek vengeance for the destruction of his unit. His career in the army has made him a dwarf who prefers the direct approach. However as a healer he will do everything in his power to help those who he is allied with.

Struggle: Adrik has never fully recovered from the defeat of his unit by the Orc’s and can become irrational in his desire to seek retribution for what he perceives as failure to perform and stand by his comrades at the crucial element. This combined with his role as a healer can lead him to being either rash or indecisive at crucial moments.


 


What I want to get out of the game: I am newbie in this game and would like to get some experience of PBP. I also like the story with the idea of adventurers going to help out the city. I like the idea of the adventure including some hard choices as well as combat.

 
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Old May 12th, 2017, 05:17 PM
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My CommentsDescription: Adrik was a dwarf of middling build with lively blue eyes and a thick mass of brown hair. Adrik had a comely face that was almost completely covered by a great bushy brown beard. He was dressed in well-worn scale mail that Was what?was but was well maintained have recently been scrubbed with sand to make it shine through the darkness.

His wiry, athleticwiry athletic, well muscled body was covered in scars from numerous close encounters of the violent kind. The tattoo on his forearm of a serpentof the serpent and the hammer was popular among the soldiers of the elite Irondrake regiment. He also wore a gold amulet round his neck with the image of the sun and the mountain to show he was a disciple of Moradin the father of the Dwarven race and the favoured deity of healers.

History: Adrik served for 10 years as a healer with the Irondrakes (the elite dwarfish army) untilIrondrakes the elite dwarfish army until the battle of Azurbar when the unit was overrunover-run by Orcs. Adrik was one of the few survivors but afterwards nobut after this no longer considered himself worthy to fight in the elite armed forces of Durin run on sentance - shortenthe great Dwarven King and has since become an adventurer.

Goal: Adrik still holds a deep hatred of Orc's and the forces of evil and will always seek vengeance for the destruction of his unit. His career in the army has made him a dwarf who prefers the direct approach. However, asHowever as a healer he will do everything in his power to help those who he is allied with.

Struggle: run on sentence. Split into 2Adrik has never fully recovered from the defeat of his unit by the Orc’s and can become irrational in his desire to seek retribution for what he perceives as failure to perform and stand by his comrades at the crucial element. This, combinedThis combined with his role as a healer can lead him to being either rash or indecisive at crucial moments.

Don't start every paragraph with "Adrik". Try "The Dwarf, "The healer", etc.

Fix link at bottom: The Star of Ehlenestra

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Last edited by Digorig; May 12th, 2017 at 05:18 PM.
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Old May 12th, 2017, 05:27 PM
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Hi Digorig

Many thanks for the feedback - I new I should have listened more in those english lessons!
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Old May 12th, 2017, 05:44 PM
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Adrik peered over the battlements from the small Dwarvendwarven hill fort of Baldur’s Neck. It was dusk and soon his watch would end with the closing of the gate for the nightIt was dusk and the fort gate would be shut for the night in but a short while which was when his watch would end. There had been rumorsrumours that the rogue Dwarf Balu Rockseeker was still raiding outposts of the Ironstone Clan over the long running dispute on the precious mining rights to the Red Hill mines.

Suddenly there was thea sound of hooves and Adrik could make out the silhouette of a horseman coming from theout of forest to the East.

Should be part of last paragraphIt was not long until the silhouette took shape as a tall older human in a long black cloak with a wizard'swizards staff.

If it's "reasonable" then it's not "very hard" - RewordAdrik noticed he seemed to be driving the horse very hard, not yet a full gallop but certainly at a reasonable canter.

Then Adrik heard the chilling howls more than one? Dire Wolvesof the direwolf. thoughts are not in quotes“What could this mean?” he thought to himself. The old wizard seemed to be urging his horse up to a gallop he was now about 300 yds clear of the forest You could see he was a "tall older human in a long black cloak" at dusk a half mile away? Those are some eyes.and about half a mile from the fort.

Adrik quickly struck the bell with continuous long notes callingcall the fort to arms

Makes no sense here - does not go with the paragraphThe fort at Baldur’s neck was small with a garrison of some 20 Dwarfs, its purpose to protect the road from raiders.

Entire paragraph is far too long1The Wizard was now flying towards the fort at an incredible gallop, nowgallop being now only 600 yards from the fort. The direwolves were much faster that the horse and the gap to the wizard had narrowed to just over 200 yards. Adrik looked at the fort captain who was clearly considering his options. Adrik had no time for this and raised his crossbowcross bow and loadedmounted the truest bolt he could find. The captain why would he scowl at him?scowled at him for his insolence but saw that all the dwarfs were itching to teach these Orcs a lesson and shouted "Fire on my command". About fourteen14 dwarfs had responded to the call to arms and all of themthese now raised a variety of wicked looking crossbows. The horseman was now a merebare 100 yards away but the Orc’s were right behind hima mere 50 yards behind him. They drew their short hunting bows and prepared toreadying bring the horseman down.
Paragraph break

The wizard responded (by) waving his Wizards staff and shimmering mage armour sprang into existence. The Captain decided that with the height advantage the Orcs were close enough to warrant using their precious crossbow bolts and shouted "Fire". Adrik cooly lined up the small metal sight on the leadingorc. He orc, he adjusted to fire slightly in front and above the orc to allow for the Orc’s movement and the bolt to drop slightly and gently pressed the trigger. There was a ragged twang of crossbows as each Dwarf had taken time to aim and fire. At the same time six arrows shot out of the Orc’s huntingbows and most bows, most missed the wizard. Onewizard, one seemed to bounce off his mage armour but one buried itself into his back and at this close range you could see the pain on his face. Four of the fourteen crossbow bolts found targets with two hitting the lead Orc who was knocked off his mountdirewolf. Adrik liked to think his bolt had been one of those. The dwarfs now all re-loaded their crossbows as the Wizard turned on the Orcs and let loose three magic golden arrows that struck another Orc killing himleaving him dead. However, fourHowever four Orcs still managed to fire arrows; most missedfire arrows of which most missed exceptbut one that seemed to strikecatch a glancing blow on the wizards leg. The range was now much shorter and the dwarfs fired another volley of14 crossbow bolts and sixbolts six hit their targetstarget, killing anothera further two orcs. Noworcs, at which point the remaining orcs turned their direwolvesdirewolfs around and beat a hasty retreat.
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Old May 12th, 2017, 05:51 PM
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Almost falling off his horse the wizard came through the gates.The wizard nearling falling of his horse came through the gates He was clearlyclearly in a bad way from the two orc arrows that had hit him. They had probably been poisoned but death was cheatedwas to cheated of this life as Adrik descended from the platformfighting step and cast a spell.said Put in a TT tag or a new line."Moradin, this human fights for the true cause against the orcs, indulge your humble servant so that he might fight another day" The wizard was healed and Adrikspoke said to him with a smile on his face. It must be your lucky day"Your lucky day Mr. Wizard, I justWizard I just saved your life twice."twice"
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Old May 12th, 2017, 06:03 PM
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As-is, I don't think I would accept this application. There are two things that you need to prove to most GMs when drafting an application:
  • You have a firm grasp on a strong character concept that is a good fit for the game.
  • You can write game-thread posts that will be both understandable and a positive reading experience.
You've not proved either to me. You have a strong, safe character concept, but I don't know whether or not you have a firm grasp on it, and you haven't established any link to the game (though given the terse ad you're applying against, this is a concern we can ignore for the most part). You also have not established that your game posts will be understandable or readable.

Digorig has opened his sack of spare commas to help you out somewhat with this last, but you'll note that most of my concerns are also sentence structure and low-level nits to pick. Obviously some GMs care about this more than others, but better writing can only help your chances.
  • Verb tense: Applications are usually written in present tense (except for RP samples and background). When you say "Adrik was a dwarf of middling build with lively blue eyes and..." the reader is naturally to conclude that this person is deceased, or that this description has been altered by intervening events. Once you get into game, it's good practice to follow the verb tense of the GM's posts.
  • Formatting: Wrapping long form text inside a spoilerbutton with a fieldset can help keep things organized, and I suggest you do so: [spoilerbutton=Foo][fieldset=Foo]bar baz[/fieldset][/spoilerbutton]
  • Description Contradiction: I think at least one of these adjectives is not doing what you think it's doing: "His wiry athletic, well muscled body was covered in..."
    • Dwarves are usually not "wiry."
    • "well-muscled" usually means more muscular than average, and it often could be used to describe martial Dwarves, but it does contradict "wiry." You probably do want the hyphen there, though the word "muscular" is probably better.
    • "athletic" can mean either light and agile or burly and strong, so it's not helping anyone figure out which you want to convey.
  • Descriptive Priorities: When you're talking about your character, write your sentences so that the character is the target of the sentence. For example, consider the following sentence: "The tattoo on his forearm of the serpent and the hammer was popular among the soldiers of the elite Irondrake regiment." This sentence's target is "The elite Irondrake regiment", not Adrik or his tattoo, so it reads out of place here. If you rephrased it to focus on the character, it would be better: "Like other Irondrake Regiment soldiers, Adrik See my first bullet pointbears a serpent-and-hammer tattoo on his forearm."
  • Orcs: should always be Orcs and not Orc's. I would also point out that if it was a battle worthy of being named, you probably should hint at the organization and purpose of the orcs being fought - were they raiders? The army of an ascendant Orcish warlord? Or just mercenaries working for someone else? Elite regiments don't get overrun by a random crowd of generic orcs fighting a pick-up battle, even when outnumbered.
  • Unexplained Contradiction: If Adric considers himself disgraced after this defeat, you should probably offer a few words as to why that is - whether it's a cultural stigma against defeated warriors, or his conduct during the battle that he believes disgraced him. You hint that it's the latter, but don't explain it properly. As it is, it seems that you have an unresolved conflict: if he wants vengeance against the orcs who destroyed his regiment, it seems the best way to get it would be to fight in the Dwarf King's army, but he personally refuses to do so. You can resolve this by adding a little bit more descriptive text rather than changing anything, but right now it's a ragged hole in the picture you're painting.
  • Lazy Proper Nouns: You use "Baldur's" and "Durin" as background detail proper nouns, but it should be noted that such things are often considered bad form, unless you are applying to a game whose setting contains the material which you are referencing. Coming up with proper nouns is hard, but if you do it this way, it is likely to annoy certain (most) GMs.
  • Abbreviations in Prose: Never abbreviate words (yds versus yards) in long-form prose, such as an RP sample. If a number can be written out in one or two words, write it out in words rather than using numerals (300 versus three hundred). It's also a good idea to use nonspecific number words when the exact distance is not narratively important.
  • Changing Narrators: Most of your RP sample is set in a limited third person narrative, which is correct, but sometimes it wavers. For example, "...and at this close range you could see the pain on his face" is second person narration, and is quite out of place.

I'm going to stop there, because there's a lot more even more detailed work that would help this application, but it looks like Digorig is a lot faster at reviewing these than I am, and he got most of the low-level improvements.
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Last edited by Aeternis; May 12th, 2017 at 07:02 PM.
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Old May 13th, 2017, 04:09 AM
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Hi Aeternis

Thank you for your feedback. I am so pleased you can get your application checked out here first. Looks like I need to do a lot more work on it.
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Old May 13th, 2017, 04:03 PM
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As everybody beat me to the grammar nitpicks, I'm going to limit my comments to the character part of this. However, to be clear, I agree with both Aeternis and Digorig about the issues they brought up.

This character has potential, but doesn't really feel three dimensional. You've touched on many surface aspects of the character, but very little that reveals deeper character. Adrik hates orcs and is a former military healer. What drove him to become a military healer in the first place? How passionately does he hate orcs? Your struggle is a bit mealy mouthed in that it isn't concrete - Adrik sometimes becomes irrational, indecisive or rash. When? Why? What drives him with a burning passion? Why would Adrik give up the military life he loved to become a lone adventurer? I'd think that a better sentiment would be - Adrik can't help himself, when orcs are about he sees red and slays them with reckless abandon. At least the GM now knows what to expect - dangle an orc in front of Adrik and he'll try to kill it.

I have an exercise that I do to get a hand on characters. Come up with a list of seven values and rank them in order. When making character decisions, consider this list.

Your roleplay sample should be a more in depth than a simple statement of events, put some inner thought into it, come up with a situation that presents a dilemma and show how Adrik resolves it.

Following these suggestions and the ones above, your application will jump off the page. Good luck and I hope to see your latest version here soon.
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Old May 17th, 2017, 01:17 PM
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I have decided to break this into smaller sections. I am working on a better RP example but here is hopefully a better background.

Revised Application and BackgroundName: Adrik Ironstone
Race: Hill Dwarf
Class: Cleric
Role: Healer / Relentless Conqueror of Evil
Description: Adrik is a dwarf of middling build with lively blue eyes and a thick mass of brown hair. He had a comely face that is almost completely covered by a great bushy brown beard. His scale mail, though well worn, is clearly well maintained and had recently been scrubbed with sand to make it shine brightly.

His muscular body is covered in scars from numerous violent and bloody battles. Like other soldiers in the Irondrake regiment he bears the snake and hammer tattoo on his forearm. He also wears a gold amulet round his neck with the image of the sun and the mountain to show he was a disciple of Moradin the father of the Dwarven race and favored deity of healers.

Background: Adrik is the third son of Brottor and Amber Ironstone. The rest of the family have all followed in the parent’s footsteps and work in the blacksmith trade, however, Adrik showed no interest in joining the family trade. He yearned to fight in the dwarven army and joined the royal cadet force as soon as he was able. There he had discovered his talents lay in healing, though he could stand a good shift in a shield wall if need be. On graduating from the cadets he successfully applied to join the elite Irondrake regiment and began his clerical studies in earnest. He was eventually posted to the fifth Legion based in the town of Riverpool, the main dwarven port. Here for five years he played his part in a number of skirmishes with the Orcs from the Blackwood forest and felt his life was going well. Then one fine spring morning the news came that Glarth the Orc king had amassed a large army and was heading towards Riverpool. The fifth legion were dispatched to hold him at Eagle pass while the main dwarven army was mobilised.

The Irondrakes took position at the head of the pass and Adrik's company was stationed on the right wing. The land was flatter here and when three thousand Orcs threw themselves at the Irondrakes, it was here that the fighting was fiercest.

Little did Adrik know at the time, but this was to be the last time he fought with the Irondrakes. The morning went well with charge after charge being repulsed by the dwarfs. However, in the afternoon the Orcs brought up the heavy combat troops. The right wing was overrun and collapsed. The Orcs charged through the gap and massacred the legion.

Only two hundred of the one thousand dwarfs survived and Adrik was one of those few. Later King Durin IV would, in turn, defeat the Orc army. Adrik never fully recovered, though all his wounds were healed in the temple. He was racked by either a paralyzing self doubt about his fighting ability or an almost suicidal thirst for vengeance. He was in the words of his commander "too unstable for frontline duty"

Adrik was offered other roles away from the front line but his dream had been crushed and he sought an honourable discharge from the army.

He decided to see the world and became a sell-sword. The road to recovery has been slow but steady progress has been made. Adrik ncan now usually manage his emotions and will often sleep through the whole night without having nightmares about the battles. He is still not able to talk about it and would not even entertain the thought of heading home.
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Last edited by Eourl Thorson; May 17th, 2017 at 01:17 PM.
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Old May 17th, 2017, 04:21 PM
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Here is my new role playing section.

Role play example"I don't like it" said Adrik to Shey, the female half-elf rogue. Shey and Adrik were currently crawling along a three foot high tunnel deep under the city of Hochburg. Shey turned to him, "You are not meant to like it, we are crawling through the sewers in the middle of the night". It was Shey who had persuaded Adrik to provide a bit of extra muscle, on another of her daft plans to help out the poor trampled citizens of Hochburg.

They were currently on a mission to rescue the land deed for a local landowner who had found them stolen not two weeks ago when he had had the temerity to challenge Duke de Merde over land ownership in the city. The city of Hochburg was run by the Duke on behalf of King Borin and he was slowly grabbing all the land for himself. The landowner had offered Shey 50 gold florins to recover his land deed. Shey had done a bit of sleuthing and was sure the deeds would be in the house of the Duke's financial advisor Father Gilbert.

Adrik did not like helping out with theft, but it was widely known that the Duke used the local orcs as his muscle when he wanted to intimidate people and as far as Adrik was concerned that made the Duke the enemy. So stupidly he had said yes when Shey had asked for his help. The twenty-five gold florins had of course also helped persuade him."I don't know what your worried about" said Shey, "all we are going to find down here are some rats" as she pushed away some dusty old cobwebs. "and spiders" added Adrik grumpily.

Shey turned and looked at the dwarf "Can we just get on with it?" Shey asked. They crawled along the tunnel using their dark vision to spot where the tunnel branched out. Suddenly Shey stopped. "Did you hear that?" she whispered. "Hear what?" said Adrik. Then he heard a skittering sound like a large bug moving around. He was just beginning to worry when he felt soft silky threads falling all over him. Then he was stuck in what he now depressingly knew was a spiders web. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Shey wriggling away and escaping the spiders web.

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Old May 17th, 2017, 08:26 PM
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You've fixed most of the grammatical errors, but still tend to capitalize unnecessarily. Orc is only capitalized when it is a proper noun or at the beginning of a sentence.

The plural of dwarf is dwarves. Spell check will tell you it's wrong, but it's not.

It is convention to put punctuation inside quote marks when it terminates a sentence. Also when a new character speaks, it's typically a new paragraph.

In regards to your roleplay sample, what is illustrated about your character? Is there a dilemma somewhere in there? Other than a brief mention of orcs, there are no internally motivated actions, only straightforward reaction.
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Old Jun 15th, 2017, 03:47 AM
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Dwarfs and Dwarves- not on topic, so in spoiler.
 


Shey turned and looked at the dwarf "Can we just get on with it?" Shey asked.

If this sentence was intended to be one as it was written, then the use of Shey twice is redundant:
Shey turned, looked at the dwarf and asked, "Can we get on with it?"

If this sentence was intended to be multiple sentences, you'll need a period in there:
Shey turned and looked at the dwarf. "Can we get on with it?", she asked.

Overuse of noun capitalization will be overlooked by many prospective GMs. Punctuation, however, is a pet peeve to many people and so will get you on the not invited list more often. English is an analytic (uninflected) language. It's more about syntax rather than morphology:

For me to kill her guardsman would be a bad idea.
It would be a bad idea for me to kill her guardsman.

The two sentences don't convey the exact same message. You should always reread your posts before sending them. If you think any of your sentences can be interpreted in multiple ways, try writing it in multiple different ways and then choose the one that best conveys what you really mean.

I'm a sloppy typist. Many of my errors should be easily correctable as they're typos or misspellings rather than usage or syntax. However, usage and syntax error will invariably creep in when I'm not fastidious about it.

Don't sweat it. Practice your grammar and try to be clear and concise. Why concise- glad you asked. Flowery and long-winded text requires more precision to get the grammar correct than concise sentences do. Seriously, would you rather labor thru reading Stephen Crane's 35 word sentences rather than Hemingway's 4 or 5 words to describe the same thing. In the Red Badge of Courage there is a whole paragraph that takes up a page that conveys the meaning: the sky was red and cloudy. Of all the travesties perpetuated on me by the educational system, I am most scarred by Crane and Melville. (Some people like them. YMMV)

In any event, have fun on the boards. That's the most important thing. <My pet peeve about myself is the over-usage of, "In any event..">

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