Turning an RP into a comic -- interesting?

[CytricAcid]

Hi all! I'm Cy, new here!!

I am a part of an RP group with some friends, we have a bunch of OCs who just kinda dick around in 1975 Venice Beach area and do uh, 70s things. After telling a few other friends about it, they all seemed interested in the goings on of the RP and the weird things that happen. So, as an artist, I decided to illustrate some of the RP.

The problem is, RP happens a lot quicker than say, drawing a panel does. Making a comic just for one condensed scene might take weeks/months, whereas the RP itself progresses in semi-real time. (As in, we're doing new years RPs right now) How should I handle with the fact the RP advances much quicker than my hand can keep up?

I want to illustrate the more fun RPs, but I realize people won't have the background details for all the characters. Some establishing RPs happened a long time before I have decided to start the comic at. For this type of thing, would it be applicable to have a character list established before starting the bulk of the comic? Would people be interested? What should I do about the RPs that I don't choose to illustrate, how should I best get people up to date on things that happen "off screen"?

I mostly want to focus on the RPs my characters have been in. Did I mention he's the antagonist of the RP? Would people be interested in a villain antagonist?

This is a really long topic. Basically, would it be interesting? Would it be okay to have character sheets in this case, because we are basically jumping into an established universe? How would you best like I sum up things that I don't choose to illustrate?

[arbiterswake]

I think RPs are a great foundation for making interesting stories because you get such organic interactions with the "other characters" through RPing.

Go for it.

[darthmongoose]

Using an RP as basis for a comic can be good, but also bad. I've been in this situation before, and also help edit my partner's novel "Bard Romance" which is based on their character in our D&D campaign (but largely her backstory and between session exploits).

The Good:

• Stuff will happen in the RP by people's actions or random dice rolls/card draws that you'd maybe never think to put in a story, so it can break you out of tropes, archetypes or plot structures you might rely on, or expected patterns and clichés you've absorbed from other media.
• It's an easy way to generate new content that could continue to generate story and joke ideas for years.
• There's already a small fanbase who will be excited to experience it and spread the word; the other players.

The Bad:

• A lot of people's RP characters are very samey and...uh.... kinda boring to everyone who isn't them. Hopefully your RP isn't like this and that's why it feels like it'll make a good comic, but in my experience, when people say "we could make comics of our RP!" I'm there sweating, thinking "all of you are playing 'kind of cool but occasionally silly people who go with the flow', none of you have strong enough unique personalities from each other to create interesting cast dynamics that an outsider would read about, and you're only so invested in these characters because one of them is your personal creation and avatar."

• You will have to be selective about what you put in because otherwise it'll get really rambly. This may mean reducing the amount of screentime certain characters get (or more probably all of them), which their player may feel annoyed about, especially if removing certain scenes simplifies their character into a bit of a caricature. Everyone is generally excited to see more of their own character.

• People may feel like their character is being misrepresented, or be very invested in how the audience feels about them, even if you are writing exactly how they behaved in the sessions. Somebody's character can act like a complete goofball and be seen by the other players as exactly that, but their player thinks they're playing a wisecracking cool guy and feel frustrated that they're drawn like a buffoon.

• The trickiest outcome: The series gets popular and outgrows the RP and starts making money and people start making claims to their characters because they want a slice of the pie. It's good to have a written agreement before making something like this for exactly this reason.

Basically, be clear with the other RPers that you may need to cut down the content and occasionally simplify events or characters, or even exaggerate certain character traits to make people more distinct, or alter events to make them funnier or more dramatic, and make sure they're 100% okay with that. If anyone isn't on board, you can always take out scenes they're in, or give their story roles to either another character who might act that way OR to a new original character created to fill that story or humour role.

[Llyrel]

RPs can definitely be a good foundation for a story! My own comic characters were originally made for a roleplaying game and a good chunk of the story is actually based on ideas I developed as I was playing... with some adjustments, though, 'cos I lost contact with most of the people I used to play with and I didn't want to use characters that weren't mine, so I reorganized the whole thing using only my own characters and plot ideas. I found it to be the easiest way to deal with it, because as @darthmongoose said, dealing with other people's characters can be tricky. Also, friendships may not last and you may end up in trouble, having to remove characters from the story because the original creator doesn't want them in the comic anymore. Or you may be the one who doesn't want to have anything to do with a certain person anymore, let alone write/draw their character.

Based on my own personal experience, there are two things you could do to make things easier:

1. Focus on short comics rather than a full story. Small, self-contained episodes that only require a page or two. That way, you wouldn't have to worry about following a huge plot of some sort and/or characters disappearing all of a sudden. They would also be easier/faster to draw... and you would still be able to collect all of them in a book as a series of short stories
2. Write a full plot. You can re-use some of the RP scenes you already had, but make sure they fit into a story. This would of course take longer and require a lot more planning. If your RP friends are willing to cooperate, you can work on the script together. The comic wouldn't follow the roleplaying game exactly as it is, then, but you could definitely incorporate some scenes from it. Heck, you could even roleplay the rest of the plot with your friends if you want to: work on an outline together, decide what the main events are gonna be, then roleplay accordingly (this is basically how our old RP would work, actually: we didn't have a dice system or anything like that, we would usually plan an outline together and then roleplay it... which is why I had so much material of my own to work with). Of course, if you decide to include what your friends wrote in your script, make sure to give credit where credit is due. Communication in these cases is key: the project wouldn't be solely your own, but more of a collaborative thing. If not everybody is on board and/or if you feel like working together could be a problem... might be a good idea to consider replacing events/characters/locations with something else that would be only yours.

[DualDragons]

Some people (including myself) roleplay with characters from our comics or novels that haven't been released publicly yet. So if a rp were to be turned into a comic, you'd have to make sure everyone is ok with it or leave out certain characters and stuff if it contains spoilers for someone's WIP work