After four and a half years, I’ve decided to quit playing, GMing, and administrating for the Anime-Manga Roleplaying Network. I’ve tendered my resignation, as it were, and given the AMRN my permission to use my character concepts in non-profit ways. (I retained the rights for my own future publishing. We’ll see if that ever happens.)
I was pretty much coerced into playing by Sean and Shade, but I did grow to enjoy it. Eventually I became a Q-GM, then an A-GM, and then a Head GM. I even created and ran a game based on Sailor Moon, but it was during that experience that I really started to dislike the play-by-post format. Over the latter half of my AMRN career, I’ve come to realize that I prefer writing stories to playing and arbitrating games. My goal in quitting the AMRN is to allow myself the freedom to expand into different writing projects.
I believe that writing on the AMRN helped me with technique and with characterization. I will always remember what I learned there, but it’s time to move on.
There is a new project that has been congealing in my mind since around 2002 (or before), and I hope to get started on it sometime soon. For now, I plan to be horribly vague and mysterious about it.
Goodbye, AMRN. It’s been fun.
Original comments from Blogger
Shade said…
Coerced? I prefer to think of it as… bullied.
Kinda sucks I had to create a blogger account just to post that, though. Maybe I should post your character test as revenge. ;D
Sunday, May 23, 2004 8:16:00 PM
Heather Meadows said…
Yeah, you like hanging that over my head, don’t you?
Well, go ahead and post it, then. :)
Sunday, May 23, 2004 8:18:00 PM
Shade said…
Well, that’s no fun, now is it? *cries manly tears*
Sunday, May 23, 2004 8:20:00 PM
Anonymous said…
that sucks. the BSSM game was so damn fun, too. =P
-hai
Monday, May 24, 2004 4:26:00 AM
Heather Meadows said…
Awww…! Hai, I’m glad you enjoyed the Sailor Moon game. I really liked my concept, but I had such a hard time with keeping the story moving. In the beginning it was going great, but towards the middle and end I guess I was stalling…or something…I don’t know why. If I had just run with things the way they were naturally going, we might have actually finished a story arc!
Still, it was fun. I enjoyed roleplaying as the various senshi (due to players dropping out like flies…which I can only assume was my fault). And there were some great interactions. There were a few things that I didn’t like and that I’m not proud of, but all in all it was a rewarding experience.
But I definitely enjoyed the writing far more than I enjoyed resolving combat.
Monday, May 24, 2004 6:05:00 AM
Anonymous said…
players dropping was DEFINITELY not your fault. it’s just a fact of life when you play RPGs online.
– hai
Monday, May 24, 2004 12:14:00 PM
Heather Meadows said…
One of them was, definitely.
As for the others, I don’t know. I always felt like if the story was interesting enough, or if the updates were fast enough, people would be so interested that they would stay regardless of anything else. Maybe that’s a naive assumption to make…especially given the question of what, exactly, is interesting. I know I don’t find anything on the AMRN right now particularly interesting, but I don’t think that’s because it’s not good stuff. I think it’s because I’ve hit that point in my life where I want to do something else.
Monday, May 24, 2004 2:40:00 PM
Anonymous said…
exactly why i dropped jiro. i mean, it’s not that the people around me weren’t fun. and there were definitely still some good relationships to play out. but i’d already finished what i set out to do with jiro. and at that point, i wanted to focus elsewhere.
Tuesday, May 25, 2004 12:14:00 AM
Heather Meadows said…
So, what did you move on to? Video games?
;D
Tuesday, May 25, 2004 5:33:00 AM
Anonymous said…
Well, originally, I moved on to Sailor Moon.
But after some searching, I found a 1st edition D&D PBP that seems to be going decently well.
That, and video games.
Tuesday, May 25, 2004 12:12:00 PM