New look website,totally up to date PHPBB and same fantastic players. We're always looking for new writers. Please feel free to contact me here or just pop by and say hello!
Two new race updates for us today! Thanks to our Developer Fairytale, we've had updates to our: Mer race, and also the Tunawa - a tiny race with big personality!
New magic out today! Graft, the magic which allows the control and shaping of living flesh (plant or animal) via manipulation of the mysterious life forces known as Enervations has been released! Check out the Wiki Article
We have a new layout to our wiki information, a new release of Hone, a runic magic and lots of awesome plots underway. New Cycle starts 1st Feb, when a whole new batch of time becomes available to tell even more stories in!
I am not Tyrant but this review is by him. He was formerly a moderator on Standing Trials and his review exemplifies the current state of it nicely.
Having just finished a Global Thread where PCs released Dragons into the world - there are currently three Dragons players can interact with (there are more, but PCs have to find em!) - each dragon has a unique personality and their own "Effigy" which is a set of powers / abilities they can convey on to pcs! An example of an Effigy is here
Full Disclosure: If you're looking for a fresh perspective from this review, look elsewhere. I've been a player to Standing Trials for about four-five years, and a staffer for two to three, with breaks here or there. So I'm bound to be at least a little biased toward the site I've sunk so much time and effort into. Take that for what it is. Review of Standing Trials: The Staff and Playerbase: As a long-time staffer and player of the site, I am pretty happy with my experience here. Are there disagreements and conflicts within the player base and staff itself? You bet. Same as any collection of human beings, you're going to get times when people are in disagreement. However, the current leadership is more inclined toward dealing with such instances with more professionalism than many other places. At worst, when a player comes to the staff with a complaint, often enough the reply will be thoughtful and measured. And so long as you're open, honest, and treat calmly with the staff and other players, the same will be done unto you. There's not a central, general discord that is moderated, but some cities do have a discord run by each moderator of that city. Overall, within these discords the moderators have been helpful to any who come with questions or concerns. Players are friendly and welcoming toward newcomers, and it's very uncommon that a new player will not be able to find a person to write a thread with. The Game Itself: The RPG of Standing Trials has a progression-based system, where you start with a certain level of skills and knowledge, each of which can be increased through the length of your time writing here in collaborative threads, solo threads, and fully moderated threads. Each thread is reviewed/graded with rewards suggested by the person submitting the review to the request queue. While this system can seem daunting to someone who is new to progression-based RPGs, the more you engage in the game, you'll find yourself even more immersed as the character you write for grows in experience and exposure to the greater world. There are relatively few open cities right now that are available to play in. But the ones that are, have an active player-base. This isn't a short-form writing site, so if you prefer your posts to contain just a few sentences on average, you may have trouble getting into it. The word count minimum for each post is 250, which while it sounds like a good bit, isn't really that much at all if you put a lot of descriptions and thought into your reply. Dragons: Yes the game has dragons. This is an endgame mechanic for the most part at the moment, but even new players and players that are at their mid-point in progression can interact with these majestic beings, usually in a modded thread. However, there are a handful of PCs who have earned a dragonling or dragonet (dragonling being a mountable companion, and dragonet being a pocket dragon), who you can meet and then interact with their dragon-kin companions that way. Ghosts and Death: There is permadeath in this game. You can die, but it's rare indeed that it would ever happen. Usually, your character has to almost try to get killed in order for that to happen. I think there have been a total of three involuntary deaths in the five-year history of the site. However, even if you should die, that's not necessarily the end of the game. Your character can return as a ghost, with all sorts of gnarly powers that they can then develop. Also, there's a succession system if you don't wish to become a ghost, which will award you a set amount of extra points toward a new character, should you wish to go that route. Overall, however, death is insanely rare in this game. Final Verdict: I wouldn't have spent several years playing persistently, and a couple on and off if I didn't enjoy this site, and want it to grow. So take my positive bias for what it is. I do know that I have absolute faith that the owner and leadership of this site are fair and kind, and more than happy to cater to and listen to the thoughts and impressions of their player base. Longevity of play isn't even required in order to do great things. Heck, we just had a global where a player with under 100 posts managed to slay a God by virtue of clever tactics, writing, and teamwork with other more established players. So would I recommend Standing Trials to a new player/writer? If you enjoy medium/long-form fiction and progression-based systems for character development, then YES. If you're looking for something a bit more twitter sized, or with more freeform RP systems, then you may want to skip it.
