Sagewort
OHWOULDYOULOOKATTHETIME
a roleplay by BΓΊho
GM
Buho
Tags
small town big secrets, pnw, ensemble cast, Twin Peaks, Alice is Missing, Pretty Little Liars
Blue Ridge Mountains
Fleet Foxes
Premise
Dearborn, Washington -- a classic, picturesque little town in the woods that feels like it's frozen in time, with its historical buildings, preserved wildlife, soda fountain, and tight-knit community. Maybe you were born here, maybe you vacationed here as a kid, maybe you just moved here last week. But you know this: things like this just don't happen here.
On the eve of the town's 150th anniversary, six members of its community disappeared. No one knows where they went, or why. But there are whispers. And for one reason or another, you've decided to find out.
Hello, hello! My name is BΓΊho and I will be your GM.This is an RP I technically started a month ago, but it quickly lost steam before it began. Due to renewed interest, I decided to post a new interest check and see if it can pick back up!
I love all of the media I tagged in this post and have always wanted to write or run something in that vein. Because of my love for the genre and my love of TTRPGs, this RP in particular will have some special aspects to it that I haven't seen anyone else do. The main hook is: The mystery does have an answer, and it is properly up to you as players to solve it. I will give information to each of you in character discussions, so you will each have pieces of the puzzle, which you can choose to reveal at your own discretion. There's layers and lore to be discovered so if that kind of roleplay interests you, welcome aboard.
Character Ideas
The Journalist
Maybe you're new in town, just looking for a paper to work for to get some experience for your resume, or maybe you've been a dedicated writer or photographer at the Herald for many years. Either way, this is the biggest story you've ever seen, and you'll be damned if you let someone else get to it first.
The Loved One
You couldn't believe it when you heard. All those news stories and documentaries are one thing; having someone you love go missing in real life is quite another. What are you supposed to do? Put up fliers like you do for a lost pet? Sit around and wait for the police to return your calls while your neighbors bring over casseroles? No, no way. You're going out there and you're going to bring them home.
The Town Gossip
Everyone has someone that they go to when they just have to talk. Some people go to their mom, or their best friend, or their priest. Most people? They come to you. Whether you're a bartender, a hairdresser, a diner waitress, or some other pillar of the community, you've heard it all, and the whispers have never flown so fast as they are now. You don't know what happened to those poor people, but you know who knows, and you never could pass up a chance to learn a secret.
RP Details
Post Length and Frequency
I'm pretty lax with how much and how often I expect people to post. Life happens, and I get that. A good rule of thumb in my book is a good chunk of text (couple paragraphs at least, no one-liners, something that helps move the plot along, etc.) once a week. If for whatever reason you get real busy and have to take a break or miss a week or whatever, let me know and we'll work out how you can still participate without getting left behind.
Content Rating
I would say this RP should sit in the PG-13 and R range of sensitive content. Coarse language, violence, drama, etc is totally fine. Spicy scenes will fade to black. More in-depth planning about sensitive content will happen once the ball gets rolling. (I like to use the Lines and Veils model as written by Ron Edwards, as well as the X-card mechanic.)
Non-traditional Aspects
There's a few things I'm doing differently from how RPs usually get run. For one, along with a character, I will also be writing for NPCs and cutscenes, creating in-world media (such as the newspaper clipping on the first post of the main thread), and providing lore documents like maps.
For another, I'm going to be just a touch more hands-on, like helping each of you understand what your character knows about what's going on, as well as putting into place a lot of safety mechanics. I want this to be as fully accessible as possible, as someone who has had trouble RPing in the past because of disabilities, and I want to be fully available to everyone and receptive to access needs that people have.
Finally, I will be prioritizing a certain level of equity when it comes to the demographics of the cast of this RP. I know this might be controversial and it's a sensitive topic, but it matters to me. I don't know if a survey like this has been conducted on this site but if it were, I feel comfortable guesstimating that most RPers in the Realistic/Modern genre are white women, just based on my own experience. Because of this, very many realistic RPs are oversaturated with white characters.
In-part because of this and because of lack of diversity in media in general, I didn't play characters of my own ethnicity and race until I was in my late teens (I started RPing at 14, for context). It just felt like I would stick out? Once I was even told by a 1x1 partner upon their finding out my ethnicity, "Just don't make your character latino or my character won't like them." (Looking back I definitely should have reported that person, but I probably just blocked them.)
This isn't to say I'm a fan of "forced diversity". I'm not gonna require equal numbers of male, female, and nonbinary characters, or straight and queer characters, or an equal division of racial makeup -- and I definitely won't make you write a character that you don't feel comfortable writing.
What I do ask is that you, as players, feel free and feel invited to make characters that aren't between the ages of 16 and 25, that don't look like supermodels, that don't have a WASP faceclaim. Make characters that are very young, or middle aged, or very old, that are black, indigenous, or a person of color, that are disabled, that learned English as a second language, that are plus size, that are not what is seen very often on this site. More than anything, I invite you to write sincerely and authentically.
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β‘coded by uxieβ‘
