Some interesting points written up in this thread....
Kudos to Sovereign and Dreygon, you guys summed up essentially most of what i think.
I'm actually one of the players who does write these little "novels"... my main ones "Outsider - The chronicles of Ben Laowai" and "Adam Greerson - The Unstoppable Truth" are both quite long. I'm sure the length of them steers potential readers away!
That being said, i didn't start writing until after i had been here for quite a while. I started just posting in some message dumps and on the Corsairs VIP bar, and found i enjoyed it. I started writing posts in my own story threads because i felt it seemed to flesh out my characters, gave them more depth - and it was fun. I definitely write in spurts - ill go for a couple of weeks with very little then write up a bunch.
I read a lot of other people's stories as well - consider this: You RP with these people in game, which is fine. You dont NEED to read their stories, you can learn about them from their in game behavior of course, but once you have read their story, you then know so much more about that character, who they are, what motivates them.... and more importantly, it can and does open many more in game RP opportunities.
Actually i dont think stories should be used as a benchmark for in game RP though - it cant be universally applied as many people here have stated, they dont enjoy it, or dont believe they can do it. I dont think that people should have to write novels to justify a battleship, or any ship for that matter. However, if someone does, then there is no reason why that work and effort should not be counted towards their RP record - after all, everyone here concedes that the forum is a vital part of the Discovery community, we refer new people here all the time, there has been a recent upsurge in the importance of "Faction rules" which can only be read on the forum anyway. Players who choose to write stories are simply using the forum as a RP tool.
I do, as always, believe that should be a players choice - Don't want to write a story? dont feel like you can or couldn't be bothered? That's fine, then exersize your RP in game, do your thing there. That's how you will be judged as a Role Player - but as i said, Disco isn't just in game, things on the forums do have an impact.
Another few things that stories do - which isn't why people write them - but it's a practical upshot of a story nevertheless - is that it proves a few key facts about a player:
First, you can string a sentence together. Sounds obvious enough, but actually its not - If you cant write a few lines of storyline in a forum, how are you going to respond to the ample and varied RP of an in-game situation? "2 Mil or die?". Again, a story is not a prerequisite for this, but having one that people have read means people in game can assume you know how to talk.
Secondly, it shows you have a knowledge of server history, faction history and the freelancer storyline. Again, you might have this anyway and not write stories, but a written story viewable by the public merely announces this fact before you even get in game. Knowing Disco's little stories and nuances WILL get you respected by older players, factions and yes even admins. Good RP in game, a screen shot or two in a message dump by the way, will earn you the same thing - stories are just another way of doing it.
Thirdly - not as important but still worth mentioning; it shows you can use English. Many of our players here, Good Role Players too - are not native English speakers, but they still get respect anyway because they have worked through it in game and made it happen. However... You write a story or post in the RP message dumps when you're not a native English speaker? - Wow... Kudos to you! and it will come much faster from a publicly posted story or Message dump then it will from chats in game that perhaps only a few people see. The end result will be the same one would hope, but the net result will be gained faster from a forum post.
Fourthly and lastly, in some situations, the community demands it - admins will want to see something on the forums. The Terrorist ID is a classic example of this. I dont claim to know all the standards admins apply to granting one - but i do have one, and im sure my stories played no small part in bringing that about. The RP for the character in question is still playing out now, but it was already relatively extensive before i even applied for the ID.
In short - You dont need a story, definitely dont need a "novel". But having one does allow people to form judgments of the player and their characters before ever meeting them in game.
