Question about rituals and sermons

Something I always struggle with in either performing a ritual or giving a speech is timing.  Obviously, I have everything prepared in advance, ready to copy/past as necessary - but I can never get the amount of time between messages right.

I've tried reading the text aloud, but it always seems to go too quickly.  If I make a conscious effort to slow down, it feels like I'm standing there not doing anything for ages, and dragging it out unnecessarily.  Even if I go at what I think is a reasonable speed, I always look back and find that it was over in about five minutes.

Basically, I stress about it for weeks, then rush it at the time, finish too early, and the result is a disappointing anticlimax for everyone.  Any tips? 

I've tried breathing exercises and thinking of Margaret Thatcher, but Oh wait, that's my other problem.

Comments

  • Have a mentor or someone in your org known for rituals help you out. Ask them for tips, perform it for them in private and have them critique it. Practice, practice, practice. Ideally, you'll begin to find your flow and voice the more you do it.

    Perhaps you could even act it out when you're alone. You'll look like a bloody lunatic probably, but it might help you get a feel for how much time there would be between actions and words. Finally, there's the fact that s#!% happens, whatever it may be, and you'll need to adapt to meet that obstacle.

  • edited February 2013
    Yeah, before you perform it, try it out on someone else and get their input.  One thing you can do is maybe set some timers in your client to perform the next part of the ritual after a certain amount of time rather then copy/pasting it in.  Knowing that it's loaded in and ready to go might cut down on the apprehension of getting it wrong during the event, or if you need participation from others, alias the parts you need to perform  That's not to say things won't go wrong.  I did a ritual where I forgot to open my channels before hand and so I couldn't cast any of the illusions I'd written for the ritual.  But it lessons the likelihood of copying the wrong section at the wrong time.  Plus, if you have a quick script, it's easy to adjust the timers and details of the ritual for any new rituals you perform.
    Janeway: Tuvok! *clapclap* Release my hounds!
    Krenim: Hounds? How cliche.
    Janeway: Tuvok! *clapclap* Release my rape gorilla!
    Krenim: ...We'll show ourselves out.
  • JonathinJonathin Retired in a hole.
    I prefer to make up rituals and ceremonies on the fly. While you're typing out your next action or bit of a speech, it usually gives the right amount of a break between your actions, if a little bit long. I've found that when doing stuff like this, having an extended break is better than being premature.

    Delphinus is spot on. Especially about the typos bit. I've seen so many people send a typo in an emote and then say "shrine, rather". It's very distracting, more so than the typo itself. I've learned to automatically replace typos with the correct word without noticing and pointing it out is just bad.

    One other thing that may be lending to your need for immense amounts of prep time is nerves. You might be worried about how others will receive your ritual. The big thing is don't let a flop bother you. Some rituals flop. It takes practice to get the hang of the emote/illusion system nuances. 

    Since I do rituals and ceremonies on the fly, if you want, find me some time in game and I can do something for you. I need to do some stuff for the *crystalline too, anyways.
    I am retired and log into the forums maybe once every 2 months. It was a good 20 years, live your best lives, friends.
  • LiancaLianca Fire and Spice
    When giving a pre-prepared speech or ritual, I always post, read what I sent aloud, then count to ten at a reasonable pace. This is mostly because I work a lot with novices and want them to have time to process what I've said.

    As an extra tip, try to avoid giant blocks of text. Three or four lines is probably the max you want to send at a time otherwise your audience will simply lose interest.
    The sweltering heat of the forge spills out across the land as the rumbling voice of Phaestus booms, "I want you to know, the Garden reaction to that one is: What?"
    The voice of Melantha, Goddess of the Seasons, echoes amid the rustle of leaves, "That's the censored version."
  • Lianca said:
    When giving a pre-prepared speech or ritual, I always post, read what I sent aloud, then count to ten at a reasonable pace. This is mostly because I work a lot with novices and want them to have time to process what I've said.

    As an extra tip, try to avoid giant blocks of text. Three or four lines is probably the max you want to send at a time otherwise your audience will simply lose interest.
    Very much agreed with both of this. Inexperienced people almost always do it too fast and use too huge blocks of text, which not only makes it very hard to take in, but gives the immediate impression of a "scripted event".

    When people talk and emote naturally in the game, they don't usually type out huge paragraphs. They write a single sentence, sometimes even only a partial sentence, then hit enter.

    I very much recommend never using more than a single sentence in a one emote or say, and even keeping that single sentence somewhat brief.
  • edited February 2013
    Rituals and sermons are very much like performances. For every emote or chunk of paragraph I do, I usually read them in my head about three times and then move on. Relying on client wait scripts will not give a very consistent effect.

    Oh, and if you want to rope in participants in your rituals, make sure they know what they're doing at which part. Might want to run through with them a couple of times.

    Also, I tend to make aliases for every emote or say I do so I don't have to copy/paste all the time. Sometimes you can make mistakes in copy/pasting.
      image
    image
  • edited February 2013
    the rule of thumb I learned was to read it to yourself twice. Certainly all the above advice is far better and comprehensive, but in my (incredibly limited) experience, it's worked well enough


    (credit for it, good or bad, goes to Ty Beirdd)

  • Iocun said:
    When people talk and emote naturally in the game, they don't usually type out huge paragraphs. They write a single sentence, sometimes even only a partial sentence, then hit enter.
    Speak for yourself, man. Not that I don't think I'd be better off not speaking in huge paragraphs, but I swear half the serious conversations I have in game probably see the other person sitting there wondering if I've randomly gone afk in the middle.
  • If you need to slow it down, or create a pause for "effect". Set in some emotes/tmotes/illusions or something in between parts of the ritual.

    Like on Rangor I will always start off by setting a campfire, lighting it, doing some small talk with everyone present. Creates the right mood for the sentinels, and puts my head in the correct setting.

    Between parts I'll stop to let people devour things by stretching a bit, getting "distracted" (rangor is very old), ask the audience where I was and talk some with the people to make sure it doesn't get too monotone. (it's boring sitting there and listening to someone talk and talk and talk and talk and talk.)
    image
  • I count heartbeats. Read the line, eight heartbeats, next line.

    Otherwise, all the advice above is excellent.
  • NizarisNizaris The Holy City of Mhaldor
    I can agree with Tael quite a bit. When doing rituals and sermons, I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and like to go through a couple of drafts ahead of time to get the tone, grammar, spelling, etc. just right.

    One thing that I personally do is to prepare the sermon ahead of time, and then store it inside of a lua table or somewhere else in the mud client, so that I don't have to copy it back and forth. Then, I just have an alias doritual #, where # is the step number to do. Then, it sends the command, and waits until it's likely read, a la the algorithm I posted above.

    The way I use this, I have everything scripted ahead of time, can skip if need be, and am not too busy copying/pasting back and forth to improvise when I need to. I found copy/pasting to be extremely frustrating, and to do more to make me more nervous than I was before. Totally took the joy out of it. But, with the table solution, it's quite a bit more relaxing.
    image
  • My old setup was scripted, but manually triggered.

    Lua tables for rituals with a list of actions/things to say.

    SETRITUAL (name) to set the ritual.

    RR - did the next ritual action in the step, echos the step (and its number) after that so I can decide if I want to personalize it.
    R# to do the ritual action specifically. (for say, practice, or if I decide to 'personalize' a step I'd use it to skip steps)
    Current scripts: GoldTracker 1.2, mData 1.1
    Site: https://github.com/trevize-achaea/scripts/releases
    Thread: http://forums.achaea.com/discussion/4064/trevizes-scripts
    Latest update: 9/26/2015 better character name handling in GoldTracker, separation of script and settings, addition of gold report and gold distribute aliases.
  • Tael said:
    One nice way to straddle the line though is to have interaction that requires very specific actions. If you tell people to kneel or approach or whatever, you can have the interact, but it'll be in a predictable enough way that you can keep to a script.
    Sure, that's pretty much what I meant. Have them scream, chant, drawsalute, whatever -- as long as it keeps them from thinking, "I could've just read this in a log."
  • I practice in a cave or somewhere alone and try it out, when I emote it through, I read it myself as if I was the one watching, then I'd move on to the next step.

    If you're doing illusions, make sure to definitely practice it and also have it echo back to you so you know what you sent and if it fits character limit. Make sure not to have any defences that will drop when you cast one (ie reflections will drop so it's obvious you cast an illusion and breaks the ambiance).

    There's a ritual I'm thinking of doing but it's just going to be a watch and judge kinda thing. Not really interactive but sometimes having the younger ones there instead of reading it will help them learn about timing anyway. No harm done so long as it doesn't go on and on etc.
    "Faded away like the stars in the morning,
     Losing their light in the glorious sun,
     Thus would we pass from this earth and its toiling,
     Only remembered for what we have done."

  • Nizaris said:
    I can agree with Tael quite a bit. When doing rituals and sermons, I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and like to go through a couple of drafts ahead of time to get the tone, grammar, spelling, etc. just right.

    One thing that I personally do is to prepare the sermon ahead of time, and then store it inside of a lua table or somewhere else in the mud client, so that I don't have to copy it back and forth. Then, I just have an alias doritual #, where # is the step number to do. Then, it sends the command, and waits until it's likely read, a la the algorithm I posted above.

    The way I use this, I have everything scripted ahead of time, can skip if need be, and am not too busy copying/pasting back and forth to improvise when I need to. I found copy/pasting to be extremely frustrating, and to do more to make me more nervous than I was before. Totally took the joy out of it. But, with the table solution, it's quite a bit more relaxing.
    I do this too, I have SERMON PREACH (iterates or you can specify line number), SERMON VIEW (whole thing or particular line number), and SERMON RESET (to first line or particular line number).

    Setting that up was a really good decision. Highly recommended to anyone who does performances of any kind.
  • Eld said:
    Iocun said:
    When people talk and emote naturally in the game, they don't usually type out huge paragraphs. They write a single sentence, sometimes even only a partial sentence, then hit enter.
    Speak for yourself, man. Not that I don't think I'd be better off not speaking in huge paragraphs, but I swear half the serious conversations I have in game probably see the other person sitting there wondering if I've randomly gone afk in the middle.
    Still waiting for you to come back to that Tyro exam, man.
Sign In or Register to comment.