(02-16-2018, 07:57 AM)King Vincent Said: Erik -

I weighed in on judging your match this week, and I really enjoyed your stuff. I was particularly into the story in the second one. I think for me it was kind of a drawback that the story just sort of stopped and didn't really progress into your third roleplay, which was focused just on banter with Drew (which is fine, that's important too).

For me, I like to see stories come to a logical endpoint. Not necessarily a conclusion, because some really good stories have gone on for months or even years before reaching anything you'd call a conclusion. Check out Doc D'Ville's entire 2014/2015 catalog for an example of that. But if you are going to give me a story I enjoy seeing it come to a point where something gets resolved or something new gets developed, etc. Like a chapter in a good book, it itself would explain a detail, create intrigue for the next step, and progress the overall arc of the storyline.

My takeaway of this cycle was that the story of RP 1 didn't really relate much to RP 2. And they don't necessarily have to, by the way, each RP can be its own story unto itself. But I left RP 1 thinking "okay what's going to happen because of what Erik just did right there" and I didn't get any of that in RP 2. I got another really good story, and another moment of "okay awesome now what happens?" which also didn't get addressed in RP 3. So I got blueballed by two different stories with good beginnings and no endings.

Does that make sense? I think I am being harsher than I intended, because like I said I did genuinely enjoy it all.

I am also curious about Erik's background. I know he like dropped out of school to go train MMA with the Gracies, I know he is like a killing machine trained to murder, and I know he ended up running a big business... but I don't know how all of those things came together, you know? Like, how did he become a mercenary after learning BJJ? The Gracies wouldn't train him to do that, so where did it come up? And then, if he dedicated his life to fighting and killing, how did he get into the business world? I want to see those gaps fleshed out so I understand what makes Erik tick, you know?

I tend to ramble when I do these, my bad.

Anyway, it's good stuff. Thanks for all the work you do.

(02-18-2018, 06:02 AM)Dr. Milton Matthews Said: And here I was going to chime in with the feedback I meant to give a week ago but saw that Vincent already did that. I would echo a lot of what he said above. I really enjoyed your trash talk, he seemed to have an answer for just about everything. His arrogance is clear in the writing and I think that goes a long way towards establishing how Erik views himself both as a wrestler and as a person. I think your stories are very well written and entertaining but like Vince said, there wasn't a whole lot of connection. As a judge I would want to see the stories connected in someway throughout the week and even if the stories don't end within that cycle, and say they carry into the next week then making sure to briefly summarize what has happened previously would help. Just because someone judged your work this week doesn't mean the same person will next week, and if your story next week picks up from what you started this week the judge is likely to be confused by reading. Like jumping into a movie halfway through. Just something to keep in mind but all in all I've enjoyed your work and you have steadily improved with each passing match. I also very much enjoyed your RP for Turning Point.