Red Glacier
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- Posted: Tue, 04 Jan 2011 07:50:08 +0000
I’m going to tell you now, there’s going to be a lot of cursing and stuff along those lines and I can also tell you now that people are going to get pissed about this. But hey, for the lulz right? At any rate, you’ve been warned.
I’m going to divide these into chapters to give the illusion that this is organized. Well, at least it will be generally organized
Oh, and no I didn’t read the other guides to RPing so if there are similarities it’s a coincidence and no I don’t intend to read the other guides.
Chapter 1. The conflict between the East and West. (Or Japan vs. everyone else)
Alright, for the longest time we’ve been exposed to writing in many forms, on Gaia it’s mostly eastern writing you’ll see and we’ll come back to that in a second. What do you think of when you hear ‘Western Story Telling’? Well, you probably think of cowboys and crap because of the western part of that phrase but when you think further you probably think of characters like Master Chief and the Gears of War people and pretty much anything else that involves the military and super powered space marines and stuff like that
Now when ‘Eastern Story Telling’ comes up you are most likely thinking Anime and stuff along those lines. On places like Gaia which are just Anime appreciation sites that hate to admit it most of the time, Eastern story writing takes a big hold of how storylines take place in the RP world. That really is a good part of the problem with RPs these days is that if you’ve watched the animes you’ve already played in 80% of the RPs you’re going to find. Now I’m not saying that one is better than the other or anything like that, each one covers one aspect that the other most likely neglects. With western writing you see more situational things going on and less emotion and it’s all pretty realistic with fights mainly consisting of lots of gun play and high powered weapons. Easter writing in the anime department is mainly emotional things among the characters and somewhat of a over reaction to situations at times, I’m looking at you Eureka 7, but at any rate in the fighting side of things you see more supernatural powers and sword play.
Now here will be my first anger provoking statement in this guide, Eastern writing has really, REALLY crappy plot lines. Now, these facts are mostly stereotypes and stereotypes exist because 85% of the time they’re correct. But before some stupid Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy 7 fanboy/girl starts itching to post how much they love the storyline and start claiming it’s the best thing that’s happened since the walking of Christ I’m going to tell you now that 1) no it isn’t and 2) just because they did have good writing doesn’t make all eastern writing good. Because if you look at most animes, or at least nowadays, and anime based games and stuff like that the actual plotlines aren’t very good at all, they’re cliché, they’re predictable, and mostly tedious. But the thing they excel at is the character depth and relationships as opposed to the western counterparts.
The western writing on the other side of the spectrum is really good for finding plots and good story telling, the actual plot behind Halo was actually pretty good and the Master Chief didn’t even exist and really nothing happened on the halo rings. Master chief was not a product of the writer he was the product of Bungie, the worst video game producer since 3D-O who owe their success to complete luck and fanboy/girl ignorance. Other good storylines are District 9, Shutter Island, and hell even Farcry 2 if you looked for it and thought on it. Bioshock is also a good example. But Western writing fails HARD on character emotions and relationships with the audience and the other characters. Too much do we have bland, testosterone driven, single minded, one dimensional bricks for characters who bring trashy one liners, looking at you again Master Chief, and solve most of their problems by shooting or blowing it up spectacularly in a bout of rage. Oh yeah, and if somebody reads that line and mentions Kratos from God of War than I can tell you now you have no idea what you’re talking about and obviously you haven’t read too much into Greek tragedy.
Now that I’ve given the goods and bads about both styles I can now finally give a good example of both working together, Silent Hill 2. For people who have talked to me you will hear me talk about this game a lot and honestly I’d say it’s one of the best games I’ve ever played and if I had to become a prostitute to video games I’d immediately seek this game out as a client. This game may have horrible voice acting but it did everything else right, the atmosphere was the best I’ve seen in a game, the soundtrack, the psychological horror that plagued the character, and the game mechanics as well as the story itself all come together to make a haunting, enriching experience that is a wonder to behold. There is a beautiful thing to be made by both styles working together but for the most part I wouldn’t get my hopes up. For the meantime we’ll have to wait for Bioware games.
Well, that pretty much wraps it up for this chapter which mainly served as an opening to the guide
Chapter 2 Characters
Oh boy, If you people haven’t gotten mad about me trashing your favorite games and storylines now you can get mad at me about to trash the popular majority of characters in RP’ing.
Now, the thing is, is that it’s human nature to absorb the things around us and unconsciously we take ideas from the people around us
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o167/Viral_C/Posters/conformity.jpg
So, originality is something that is very hard to come by due to this fact. Some of us are original because we can separate these things and others are like me spent most of our lives without watching a lot of TV, movies, reading, and not really playing video games either so we had no choice but to be original. But hey, one of the best baroque musicians of all time was like that. For some writing and making characters comes naturally and to others it can be kind of troublesome. Hopefully this guide will give everyone a new outlook on things passed their anger at trashing lots of things.
Chapter 2.1 Inspiration
Now, have you ever had that time you wanted or had to make something for art class or music class or more likely your English class and you just couldn’t come up with something? Don’t fret, it happens to everybody. Really, when it comes to writing your own stories or making RP characters you really just have to wait for something to come up and reach out to you. This can come in ANY form, some entire video games that take years of work are founded by little things, like an art form, a style, a random object most pass by everyday, or just somebody thinking and they happen to stumble upon it. Inspiration comes in many forms and if you have appreciation for yourself you’ll act on it no matter what it is, I made a character for an RP based off a pool table ball and he became a complex, lovable character that everyone in that RP enjoyed. When something reaches out to you and you feel drawn to it because it’s cool or neat to you, dive in and see what you can do with it and make it as awesome as you can. Do it for yourself, do it for the RPs or your writing, and for ******** sakes do it for me so I don’t have to stare at more generic catgirls every time I go into an RP!
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o167/Viral_C/insanity_wolfgirl.jpg
Chapter 2.2 How do I make a memorable character?
So, you want to make a character that people remember? Well, the best way to do this is being different from the character stereotypes or at least adding a good amount of depth to your character. First we’ll name off as many character stereotypes there are. After we have found this out we know what we can stay away from, or even more interestingly, what we have to mess with.
Leader Guy (LG): This is the character that is usually cold in nature, always has the plan, and puts the mission over everything else. More often then not this character dies so the main character can assume this position. This character also will make more drastic decisions that will be unpopular with the more humanitarian characters in the group.
Dark Mysterious Moron (DMM): This character is often the most abused stereotype in the RP realm. Everyone tries to pull off this stereotype and 99.9% of the time they suck at it. This character gives off the ‘to cool for school’ attitude and tries to act as if they’re on top of situations when in reality they aren’t. Examples for this kind of character are Vincent from FF7, Sasuke from Naruto, and pretty much many other eastern writings. Do yourself a favor now and avoid trying this stereotype because it was meant for the sake of writing, not RPing. Oh, and before you post a comment about how you or a friend are good at this stereotype, no you aren’t and neither are they and the fact you wanted to say that means you should really pay attention to this guide.
Big Lovable Guy (BLG) Big Lovable Guy is an often role that many don’t try out, I personally love this role. Now, BLG is often very strong physically, big heart, very humanitarian, but this character isn’t very smart. Usually this character acts as a supporting piece in fights or as the more main battery of defense or offense. This character can also be looked to as the character people learn the simple joys of life from due to their simple thoughts and way of thinking. This character usually fights to protect the people they care about or because they don’t know any better.
Generic Female Character (GFC) Alright, this one you can’t deny seeing because it is the one that is probably abused the most. This character is pretty frail and relies on their friends, insert BLG here, to pretty much protect them and fight the battles while they tend to wounds and/or fix things. That or they CAN fight and they just leave it to the men anyway
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o167/Viral_C/Posters/SAkura.jpg
and then they eventually end up falling for one of the male characters, Insert DMM here, while pretty much just existing to bring drama into the story, sounds sexist but it’s true.
Tomboy Soldier b***h (TSB) Tomboy soldier b***h is the counterpart to GFC in which the character now has short spiky hair, wears a tank top with baggy jeans, carries a large gun like the men in the group, and probably is covered in sweat and dirt most of the time and constantly asserts herself to prove she’s just as good as the men in the group and most of the time they either die, or they find enough heart in them to brutally make out with one of the male roles, insert LG here.
Generic Hero Character (GHC) The. Most. Abused. Character. Stereotype. This character role is abused due to the fact that everybody wants to be the dude that saves the damn world. This character usually has mommy and daddy issues, they were killed when demons butt ******** the village, and usually have a naïve personality or they are
dark and scarred and all that other crap, insert Cloud Strife knock off here, when really they are just being a little b***h about it. That and this character will always be the eventual powerhouse of the group, which makes RPs a giant ******** up when everyone is going for this role.
The Black Guy (TBG) Usually the badass who kills lots of things. Makes the memorable one liners. Then eventually dies.
Now that we’ve named a good bit of the storyline stereotypes now we can talk about how to make your character memorable. Now that you know what the stereotypes are you can now try avoiding them as much as you can or you can put an interesting twist on a stereotype to make them appealing in their own way. Try messing with the stereotypes and see what you can make to bring that interesting twist into the character roles. But I can tell you now that despite what you do with the stereotypes I can tell you now that the personality of the character is what counts. I can tell you now; nobody will remember you or I will be able to take you seriously when your character profile looks like this:
Name: Tsuki Utami
Age: 16
Race: Catgirl
Bio: Holy Jesus’ balls! My family was killed when demons raided my village and my magic level wasn’t high enough to stop them so it’s all my fault!
Appearance: http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o167/Viral_C/CatGirl.jpg
Personality: Cheerful, very outgoing, humanitarian to a fault, tries to save all the little babies in the world
This kind of profile is littered EVERYWHERE in the RP guilds and forums and such. No, I’m not saying you can’t be a catgirl or anything like that but at least add something to the character to make the catgirl interesting. A character like that isn’t interesting, it’s generic and one dimensional and it can already be assumed as to how the character will react when the s**t hits the fan. When you make a profile you have to sell your character to the GM, and if your character is too plain and generic then it won’t be accepted or if it is nobody will really care for your character, nonetheless remember it
Something you should do above all else is to make a character relatable, no person is somebody who is one way all the time and carries themselves in one light. People laugh, make jokes, make mistakes, and get depressed and have fun. Don’t make a character have a monotone personality where they are constantly trying to be a badass, you’ll only end up looking like those annoying middle school kids who tries to act like they’re higher and more mature then everyone else when in reality they look like an idiot who annoys the people around them. Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2 was a great example of how a character should be, she was smart, helpful, funny, had a heart, and was cheerful even in the darkness of the game but when things got rough it did effect her, she was aware of the things around her and when others felt pain she did as well. Alyx was a badass because it was her nature, not her personality. Alyx didn’t have to convince anyone she was anything because she was like that naturally and it made her a very relatable and likeable character. It’s kind of a ‘Be yourself’ kind of a thing because that’s what the readers and other RPers want to see is a character they can feel connection with, not an emotionless brick who tries to solve their problems with light and heavy attacks.
Another thing that people never like to go to is weakness. There’s a reason why Spider-Man is more likeable than superman, because Spiderman wasn’t invincible and had actual problems. He had a set amount of skills and nothing more so he had to make due with the things around him like the environment and even other people to help him solve problems. Superman or Goku are just people who beat up all the problematic characters by just being stronger and more powerful than them, that’s a 13 year olds idea of what’s cool. The coolest characters that existed were ones that had weaknesses, problems, disabilities, and suffered from the same troubles that we do but still managed to do amazing things despite so much being held against them. Another example is Batman, the guy is just somebody with the right tools and a severe amount of skills, same with the punisher and they are both WAY more interesting than superman. So swallow your pride and start giving your characters limits that define who they are. Maybe they are crippled but can control gravity so they can make their wheel chair fly through the air and run people down in fantastic speeds, actually that sounds kind of awesome, but at any rate it’s the problems, weaknesses, and other limits that make a character much more likeable, much more interesting, and much more memorable when despite all odds they win the battle and accomplish the mission. A guy who shoots big lasers out of his hands is as interesting as a quarter pounder is tasty, in the most conventional, forgettable way but when you read about a crippled guy in a wheel chair who manipulates gravity flying through the air and slams into people at fantastic speeds, that is something that will stick with people because it’s rare, it’s funny, and it’s effective as well.
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o167/Viral_C/Posters/GordonFreeman.jpg
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o167/Viral_C/Posters/1221346827173.jpg
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o167/Viral_C/Posters/poster67795889.jpg
Another thing that I barely touched on in the last paragraph but was summed up by the Gordon Freeman picture is that a character doesn’t need a fantastic super power to be extremely awesome. The best characters are the ones that can do as much as possible with as little as possible. They can do everything the big guys can do just by wit, resourcefulness, and creativity and that adds to depth of the character when they show how capable they actually are. Jackie Chan beating 6 guys up with guns with only his fists is way more interesting than seeing Goku punch at the same guy and throw big lasers at them for 30 minutes in a contest of who can be more obnoxious.
Another way to thicken your characters personality is to have internal issues within the characters personality. When a character has other issues then just what goes on in the plotline it makes the character more relatable and more interesting because they aren’t single minded as to what is going on. No, this doesn’t mean beg the GM to go on a side quest for your character and if you can’t do that without begging for a side quest than don’t bother. Be interesting, but don’t interfere with what’s going on, it’s common courtesy. Another thing, if your character has an opinion, fight for it. When somebody argues about ethics in a situation be prepared to fight for your characters point of view like you would in a debate club. Do not roll over and take it in the face just because somebody said so, if your character doesn’t believe in something then have them fight against doing it. This will make your characters interesting and respectable as well as relatable
Oh yeah, and everyone. Please do me one favor, don’t use an anime picture for the appearance of EVERY character you make. It doesn’t hurt to draw, I’m not a great artist myself but I draw my characters out or something like that to give at least the general idea of what my characters look like. Don’t confine yourself to what pictures you can find on photobucket. Get yourself out of the cage and have your characters be your own from the personality, to the looks, and heck even the toe nail size if you want to. This is your character, this is your profile, this is your story so own every part you can.
Chapter 2.2.1 Nicknames/code names
Alright, think of the people in your life who have nicknames. Think of every one and then think of why they are called that. I guarantee nobody calls your friend ‘The End’ or ‘Death’ or ‘Grave’, and I can tell you now those are the crappiest nicknames there can be for a character because they aren’t menacing or cool and nobody will be able to respect your character and take them seriously when you have such an idiotic nickname.
Nicknames usually exist because of something humorous or something the person is or has done. I had a friend whose cheeks were always red so we called him ‘sweet cheeks’ because it was humorous. I get called ‘9’ because it’s my numerology number, the nickname is always personal and based on something about the person and most of the time it’s supposed to be funny. I guarantee the person who goes by ‘Muffins’ will get WAY more respect than the person whose called ‘Death’
Think of something your character does, or takes a liking to no matter how random it may be. Or maybe a physical feature, and no ‘Scar’ goes in the same category as ‘Death’ and that kind of crap. Maybe your character has large eyes or so it seems they do and so people call them “Owl” or maybe they have a thick beard so they’re called “lumber jack” or “Lincoln” or something like that. It adds to the characters personality and makes them a bit more open and welcoming, sometimes even more relatable when the other characters ask “Hey, how did you get that name?’ and the character tells the story behind it and it makes them seem a bit more human. There is a lot of fun to be had by making these nicknames and once you get behind the stupid ones you’ll start making really fun and interesting ones
Chapter 2.3 Back stories
When writing a back story for your character please, please avoid the cliché ‘My parents were killed by demons when they destroyed my village and I had to raise myself at age 7 in the dark woeful life that is me’. This kind of back story is so overdone that it can almost be copy pasted from wikipedia. There are a lot of different kinds back stories;
The tragedy- this is the most popular back story there is and yeah it’s not a bad thing. This storyline comes in two different forms, where the destruction of something dear to the character is taken by something of an outside source, or they or it is taken by a mistake from the character themselves. This kind of thing is done all the time and most likely takes up 90% of the back stories you’re going to see. I would say to try avoiding it but I’m preaching to the choir on this regard. Most of the characters back stories I have the family of the character aren’t even mentioned or they are just fine and I still manage to make memorable characters. The tragedy isn’t the only way to make a character interesting, and it has become the average among the RP realm. So if you want to be above average, don’t do the tragedy back story
Social position- This back story is usually done where the character lives a mostly average life but is hated or loved because of the economic wealth of their family or they are love/hated because of the persons occupation or personality traits. This is one of the more interesting ones because of how average it is compared to real life and how it makes the character more relatable, where most of the problems they face are with the people around them in social situations or in mental disturbances. This kind of a back story is more of a set up for the character for the rest of the RP and how they act instead of actually being a real story.
Those are just a few examples of the different kind of back stories that can be used to make your character interesting and fun to get to know. It helps to go the extra mile on the creativity and bring something to the table that most don’t expect. If you’re character is a murderer, have them murder in a unique way that feels more personal and less conventional.
Chapter 2.4 Emotion
This is probably one of the bigger problems with RPing, people not showing enough emotion or showing not many varieties of emotions. Honestly, swallow your pride and show every emotion whether it be good or bad. If something is meant to be scary then get scared. Don’t be the douchebag who only expresses happiness or anger because they are too proud to show weakness, I’ve already gone over the reasons why weakness is a good thing in a character and it makes your character have more depth as well as make the other characters look good as well. Show every emotion you can for the betterment of the RP, because nobody will benefit from somebody being so prideful about their character that they just become a brick. It’ll make you look bad, it’ll make the other characters look bad, and it’ll make the RP that much more boring and uninteresting.
Chapter 3RP Etiquette
Ok this is going to be the usual rant about people and being literate. Please, be as literate as you can in an RP, people have to read this s**t and if you look like as if you vomited all over your keyboard when typing it makes you and your character look like an idiot that needs to be purged and brings me one step closer to being a nazi sympathizer! Honestly, nobody should have to read your character profile or your posts several times just to know who or what you’re talking about, and if you have the firefox web browser then there is absolutely NO reason for this to happen and I look in shame at the Gm who didn’t boot you for this offense. That and it doesn’t only effect you, it effects the entire RP. It’s hard to get into a horror genre Rp when someone types like they have no fingers and I spend more time wishing to smash you across the head then paying attention to what is going on.
Another thing to avoid doing is hijacking RP storylines from the creator. People joined to see what their storyline is, not yours. Now I know that sometimes the GM runs off and leaves the RP to die and somebody has to keep it alive but that isn’t always the case. This kind of thing can be referenced to the last chapter when I mentioned a character serving side quest. Don’t whittle down other peoples storylines into a fap to your character.
Alright, I think the last thing I’ll make note on in this chapter is something obvious. The cool guy in the RP isn’t the one who breaks every rule the GM puts up. There are plenty of cool RPers who make wonderful stories and characters and they all do it within boundaries. Don’t go around destroying cities to compensate for bad writing, it’s most likely against the rules and it just annoys everyone in the RP. Don’t try being the exception to every rule, all it does is degrade you and everyone else.
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o167/Viral_C/Posters/exceptions-1.jpg
I’ve kinda rushed through this chapter due to the fact you’ll be hearing this a lot when you talk to other RPers so you don’t need me to add to it.
Chapter 4 Realism in an RP
Alright, this is where I really kind of cut off from RPers and go into a more extreme measure on what I consider Godmodding. In my view the more realistic something is the better it gets. I honestly consider blocking bullets with swords an act of God modding in its purest form. The reasons being;
1) Bullets travel faster than the speed of sound, meaning that when you hear a gun fire, the bullet has already landed and hit its mark. So that would require someone who can control time and read the future.
2) Even if someone could move their blade in time to block the bullet it wouldn’t matter because bullets pass through metal pretty easily, it’s why we don’t wear metal armor in war, it doesn’t serve you any good against a bullet and in the same logic the sword would snap in half. Your sword would have to be 3 inches thick and then at that point you wouldn’t be wielding a sword you’d be wielding an iron slab with a handle on it. That and the weapon would then be around 70 pounds in weight making difficult to even move thing. Oh, and before somebody says that the density of their blade would make up for it, no it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t have enough mass to block the projectile still and really the sword would completely shatter from it.
3) Even if your sword was sharp enough to cut a bullet it wouldn’t matter because the bullet would be cut in half, which would mean you now have 2 projectiles coming for you and the angle of the blade wouldn’t separate the two halves enough the keep them from hitting you.
So yeah, 3 reasons why blocking a bullet is physically impossible. The reason why I’m a realism junky is because it’s the only fair way to do things. Really, people will say “If you can’t block bullets with swords it renders swords useless so it’s unfair” and really that’s why they were made! That and nobody, I repeat, NOBODY is fair about blocking bullets with swords. If you allow blocking bullets with swords then everybody just does that and it renders the guns useless. No matter how much you argue that very thing happens EVERY time and I have never seen somebody do it fairly and even if you read this and try proving me wrong I will not budge.
But aside from the provoking argument there, the main reason realism is good to have is because too often in eastern writing do things get mixed up. The giant robots act like humans, the demons act like humans, and so does pretty much everything else. Really, having the limits to realism gives everything a limit and makes weaknesses available so nothing becomes too horrendous. How does a giant robot with only pedals and joysticks in the cockpit do back flips and round house kicks and all of that nonsense? It doesn’t make sense mechanically and it pretty much makes that character the end game because there’s no outstanding flaw to it so pretty much the only way to fight is with trickery or an enormous amount of power so it turns into a ‘who can have the most obnoxious amount of power’ contest and just ends up making things dull and aggravating.
Anyway, these are my views on realism and I won’t go into full detail.
Chapter 5 Writing storylines
Ok, this will be the big one next to the character chapter. The fact of the matter is, is that people are only half making storylines and the forums get littered with generic, bland, and boring storylines. Too often people litter the black and white RPs where just some small group of people run in and everything goes boom then the bad guys fall and yay the world is happy now. We need to change up our storylines a bit if we want good, attentive RPers to want to stay in the game and so we don’t all get bored by the third page in. honestly, stop making such predictable storylines and such to where there’s no real point in playing in the first place. If you have followed me enough to see how characters can be better than please for the love of good writing make sure to place this hand-in-hand so we don’t have to go through the tedious plotlines, the bland characters, and can have a good time and maybe even enrich our own lives through writing.
As a writer, don’t tip-toe around things like they’re made of china. Ask those difficult questions that’ll stall the player for a bit and make them really think. Put them all in a difficult situation where they have to pick one thing over another, don’t let there be a right answer but the one the player -thinks- is the right one. Make people think about things that they wouldn’t regularly think about, ******** with some peoples heads! I personally believe a good storyline is when there is no black and white but nothing but a large pallet of gray, where there is no ‘good’ side to things and even the decisions the players may think don’t matter will haunt them later as the story goes. I usually make my RPs to where if I played them multiple times I’d get a different result each time. Don’t settle for mediocre storylines where the players are just there for the ride and to occasionally punch things, make us care about what’s going on with NPCs we care about and can relate with along with bad guys who aren’t “I’m doing this because I hate babies” and more understandable as to why they would think of such things, make the good guy parts more shady and make your players wonder if they are even on the right side! By that I mean, make them shady through the whole thing, don’t pull out the generic “Roswald has inevitably betrayed you! Switch sides and defeat him!” make your storylines to where the players finally say ‘to hell with it’ and change sides because they believe one side is darker than the other and believe they are doing the right thing. Farcry 2 was a great example because both factions in the game gave off the illusion that they were for the people and the other side was the bad guys but when you were on the missions it was made clear that no side was better than the other one and frankly the player was just as much of a p***k. The character in the story is sent to Africa and tries to hunt a gun dealer and so he has to win the trust of both factions to get the connections necessary to find the dealer but in the process you end up destroying the cure to Malaria, destroy the food supply, and even poison the clean water supply as well. By the time I thought about this I could hardly bring myself to care about my character or even want to kill the dealer because in the end there was no good side to the battle. Even your character is just as dark, if not more so, than the person he’s trying to kill and has brought the suffering of many innocent people just to do it! At first people don’t think about this and think they’re perfectly fine but in the end they realize that they’re just as dark, just as the evil as the thing they’re trying to destroy.
That, is the kind of storyline I am talking about, the one that makes you think about your actions and even what one might think about themselves and the people around them. A story that has decisions that test someone’s morals vs. their objectives, the right thing to do vs. the things that need to be done. These kinds of storylines are the ones that enrich lives, make people find out who they really are, and are the ones many will remember in times to come. Some would say I’m asking too much, some say I am hard to please, but some people need to step up and realize what can be done with the thing that is in front of them and stop half-assing everything and creating bland story bullshit that is a desecration of the authors own potential. If we want good storylines the RPers have to ask for them and stop settling for basic, cheesy, 13 year old storylines that make RPing one of those things that people are ashamed to admit to taking part in! We have to show that we are writers, actors in their most basic form, people who want to touch the lives of the people around us and not just a bunch of man children who spend our lives in a basement trying to run away from the real world. Please, if you’re not going to take anything into consideration from this guide at least hear this out. I as a writer am tired of seeing people waste good potential to just bring in a jumbled mess of writing that make me wonder where it all went wrong.
By: Viral C
I’m going to divide these into chapters to give the illusion that this is organized. Well, at least it will be generally organized
Oh, and no I didn’t read the other guides to RPing so if there are similarities it’s a coincidence and no I don’t intend to read the other guides.
Chapter 1. The conflict between the East and West. (Or Japan vs. everyone else)
Alright, for the longest time we’ve been exposed to writing in many forms, on Gaia it’s mostly eastern writing you’ll see and we’ll come back to that in a second. What do you think of when you hear ‘Western Story Telling’? Well, you probably think of cowboys and crap because of the western part of that phrase but when you think further you probably think of characters like Master Chief and the Gears of War people and pretty much anything else that involves the military and super powered space marines and stuff like that
Now when ‘Eastern Story Telling’ comes up you are most likely thinking Anime and stuff along those lines. On places like Gaia which are just Anime appreciation sites that hate to admit it most of the time, Eastern story writing takes a big hold of how storylines take place in the RP world. That really is a good part of the problem with RPs these days is that if you’ve watched the animes you’ve already played in 80% of the RPs you’re going to find. Now I’m not saying that one is better than the other or anything like that, each one covers one aspect that the other most likely neglects. With western writing you see more situational things going on and less emotion and it’s all pretty realistic with fights mainly consisting of lots of gun play and high powered weapons. Easter writing in the anime department is mainly emotional things among the characters and somewhat of a over reaction to situations at times, I’m looking at you Eureka 7, but at any rate in the fighting side of things you see more supernatural powers and sword play.
Now here will be my first anger provoking statement in this guide, Eastern writing has really, REALLY crappy plot lines. Now, these facts are mostly stereotypes and stereotypes exist because 85% of the time they’re correct. But before some stupid Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy 7 fanboy/girl starts itching to post how much they love the storyline and start claiming it’s the best thing that’s happened since the walking of Christ I’m going to tell you now that 1) no it isn’t and 2) just because they did have good writing doesn’t make all eastern writing good. Because if you look at most animes, or at least nowadays, and anime based games and stuff like that the actual plotlines aren’t very good at all, they’re cliché, they’re predictable, and mostly tedious. But the thing they excel at is the character depth and relationships as opposed to the western counterparts.
The western writing on the other side of the spectrum is really good for finding plots and good story telling, the actual plot behind Halo was actually pretty good and the Master Chief didn’t even exist and really nothing happened on the halo rings. Master chief was not a product of the writer he was the product of Bungie, the worst video game producer since 3D-O who owe their success to complete luck and fanboy/girl ignorance. Other good storylines are District 9, Shutter Island, and hell even Farcry 2 if you looked for it and thought on it. Bioshock is also a good example. But Western writing fails HARD on character emotions and relationships with the audience and the other characters. Too much do we have bland, testosterone driven, single minded, one dimensional bricks for characters who bring trashy one liners, looking at you again Master Chief, and solve most of their problems by shooting or blowing it up spectacularly in a bout of rage. Oh yeah, and if somebody reads that line and mentions Kratos from God of War than I can tell you now you have no idea what you’re talking about and obviously you haven’t read too much into Greek tragedy.
Now that I’ve given the goods and bads about both styles I can now finally give a good example of both working together, Silent Hill 2. For people who have talked to me you will hear me talk about this game a lot and honestly I’d say it’s one of the best games I’ve ever played and if I had to become a prostitute to video games I’d immediately seek this game out as a client. This game may have horrible voice acting but it did everything else right, the atmosphere was the best I’ve seen in a game, the soundtrack, the psychological horror that plagued the character, and the game mechanics as well as the story itself all come together to make a haunting, enriching experience that is a wonder to behold. There is a beautiful thing to be made by both styles working together but for the most part I wouldn’t get my hopes up. For the meantime we’ll have to wait for Bioware games.
Well, that pretty much wraps it up for this chapter which mainly served as an opening to the guide
Chapter 2 Characters
Oh boy, If you people haven’t gotten mad about me trashing your favorite games and storylines now you can get mad at me about to trash the popular majority of characters in RP’ing.
Now, the thing is, is that it’s human nature to absorb the things around us and unconsciously we take ideas from the people around us
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So, originality is something that is very hard to come by due to this fact. Some of us are original because we can separate these things and others are like me spent most of our lives without watching a lot of TV, movies, reading, and not really playing video games either so we had no choice but to be original. But hey, one of the best baroque musicians of all time was like that. For some writing and making characters comes naturally and to others it can be kind of troublesome. Hopefully this guide will give everyone a new outlook on things passed their anger at trashing lots of things.
Chapter 2.1 Inspiration
Now, have you ever had that time you wanted or had to make something for art class or music class or more likely your English class and you just couldn’t come up with something? Don’t fret, it happens to everybody. Really, when it comes to writing your own stories or making RP characters you really just have to wait for something to come up and reach out to you. This can come in ANY form, some entire video games that take years of work are founded by little things, like an art form, a style, a random object most pass by everyday, or just somebody thinking and they happen to stumble upon it. Inspiration comes in many forms and if you have appreciation for yourself you’ll act on it no matter what it is, I made a character for an RP based off a pool table ball and he became a complex, lovable character that everyone in that RP enjoyed. When something reaches out to you and you feel drawn to it because it’s cool or neat to you, dive in and see what you can do with it and make it as awesome as you can. Do it for yourself, do it for the RPs or your writing, and for ******** sakes do it for me so I don’t have to stare at more generic catgirls every time I go into an RP!
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Chapter 2.2 How do I make a memorable character?
So, you want to make a character that people remember? Well, the best way to do this is being different from the character stereotypes or at least adding a good amount of depth to your character. First we’ll name off as many character stereotypes there are. After we have found this out we know what we can stay away from, or even more interestingly, what we have to mess with.
Leader Guy (LG): This is the character that is usually cold in nature, always has the plan, and puts the mission over everything else. More often then not this character dies so the main character can assume this position. This character also will make more drastic decisions that will be unpopular with the more humanitarian characters in the group.
Dark Mysterious Moron (DMM): This character is often the most abused stereotype in the RP realm. Everyone tries to pull off this stereotype and 99.9% of the time they suck at it. This character gives off the ‘to cool for school’ attitude and tries to act as if they’re on top of situations when in reality they aren’t. Examples for this kind of character are Vincent from FF7, Sasuke from Naruto, and pretty much many other eastern writings. Do yourself a favor now and avoid trying this stereotype because it was meant for the sake of writing, not RPing. Oh, and before you post a comment about how you or a friend are good at this stereotype, no you aren’t and neither are they and the fact you wanted to say that means you should really pay attention to this guide.
Big Lovable Guy (BLG) Big Lovable Guy is an often role that many don’t try out, I personally love this role. Now, BLG is often very strong physically, big heart, very humanitarian, but this character isn’t very smart. Usually this character acts as a supporting piece in fights or as the more main battery of defense or offense. This character can also be looked to as the character people learn the simple joys of life from due to their simple thoughts and way of thinking. This character usually fights to protect the people they care about or because they don’t know any better.
Generic Female Character (GFC) Alright, this one you can’t deny seeing because it is the one that is probably abused the most. This character is pretty frail and relies on their friends, insert BLG here, to pretty much protect them and fight the battles while they tend to wounds and/or fix things. That or they CAN fight and they just leave it to the men anyway
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and then they eventually end up falling for one of the male characters, Insert DMM here, while pretty much just existing to bring drama into the story, sounds sexist but it’s true.
Tomboy Soldier b***h (TSB) Tomboy soldier b***h is the counterpart to GFC in which the character now has short spiky hair, wears a tank top with baggy jeans, carries a large gun like the men in the group, and probably is covered in sweat and dirt most of the time and constantly asserts herself to prove she’s just as good as the men in the group and most of the time they either die, or they find enough heart in them to brutally make out with one of the male roles, insert LG here.
Generic Hero Character (GHC) The. Most. Abused. Character. Stereotype. This character role is abused due to the fact that everybody wants to be the dude that saves the damn world. This character usually has mommy and daddy issues, they were killed when demons butt ******** the village, and usually have a naïve personality or they are
dark and scarred and all that other crap, insert Cloud Strife knock off here, when really they are just being a little b***h about it. That and this character will always be the eventual powerhouse of the group, which makes RPs a giant ******** up when everyone is going for this role.
The Black Guy (TBG) Usually the badass who kills lots of things. Makes the memorable one liners. Then eventually dies.
Now that we’ve named a good bit of the storyline stereotypes now we can talk about how to make your character memorable. Now that you know what the stereotypes are you can now try avoiding them as much as you can or you can put an interesting twist on a stereotype to make them appealing in their own way. Try messing with the stereotypes and see what you can make to bring that interesting twist into the character roles. But I can tell you now that despite what you do with the stereotypes I can tell you now that the personality of the character is what counts. I can tell you now; nobody will remember you or I will be able to take you seriously when your character profile looks like this:
Name: Tsuki Utami
Age: 16
Race: Catgirl
Bio: Holy Jesus’ balls! My family was killed when demons raided my village and my magic level wasn’t high enough to stop them so it’s all my fault!
Appearance: http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o167/Viral_C/CatGirl.jpg
Personality: Cheerful, very outgoing, humanitarian to a fault, tries to save all the little babies in the world
This kind of profile is littered EVERYWHERE in the RP guilds and forums and such. No, I’m not saying you can’t be a catgirl or anything like that but at least add something to the character to make the catgirl interesting. A character like that isn’t interesting, it’s generic and one dimensional and it can already be assumed as to how the character will react when the s**t hits the fan. When you make a profile you have to sell your character to the GM, and if your character is too plain and generic then it won’t be accepted or if it is nobody will really care for your character, nonetheless remember it
Something you should do above all else is to make a character relatable, no person is somebody who is one way all the time and carries themselves in one light. People laugh, make jokes, make mistakes, and get depressed and have fun. Don’t make a character have a monotone personality where they are constantly trying to be a badass, you’ll only end up looking like those annoying middle school kids who tries to act like they’re higher and more mature then everyone else when in reality they look like an idiot who annoys the people around them. Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2 was a great example of how a character should be, she was smart, helpful, funny, had a heart, and was cheerful even in the darkness of the game but when things got rough it did effect her, she was aware of the things around her and when others felt pain she did as well. Alyx was a badass because it was her nature, not her personality. Alyx didn’t have to convince anyone she was anything because she was like that naturally and it made her a very relatable and likeable character. It’s kind of a ‘Be yourself’ kind of a thing because that’s what the readers and other RPers want to see is a character they can feel connection with, not an emotionless brick who tries to solve their problems with light and heavy attacks.
Another thing that people never like to go to is weakness. There’s a reason why Spider-Man is more likeable than superman, because Spiderman wasn’t invincible and had actual problems. He had a set amount of skills and nothing more so he had to make due with the things around him like the environment and even other people to help him solve problems. Superman or Goku are just people who beat up all the problematic characters by just being stronger and more powerful than them, that’s a 13 year olds idea of what’s cool. The coolest characters that existed were ones that had weaknesses, problems, disabilities, and suffered from the same troubles that we do but still managed to do amazing things despite so much being held against them. Another example is Batman, the guy is just somebody with the right tools and a severe amount of skills, same with the punisher and they are both WAY more interesting than superman. So swallow your pride and start giving your characters limits that define who they are. Maybe they are crippled but can control gravity so they can make their wheel chair fly through the air and run people down in fantastic speeds, actually that sounds kind of awesome, but at any rate it’s the problems, weaknesses, and other limits that make a character much more likeable, much more interesting, and much more memorable when despite all odds they win the battle and accomplish the mission. A guy who shoots big lasers out of his hands is as interesting as a quarter pounder is tasty, in the most conventional, forgettable way but when you read about a crippled guy in a wheel chair who manipulates gravity flying through the air and slams into people at fantastic speeds, that is something that will stick with people because it’s rare, it’s funny, and it’s effective as well.
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Another thing that I barely touched on in the last paragraph but was summed up by the Gordon Freeman picture is that a character doesn’t need a fantastic super power to be extremely awesome. The best characters are the ones that can do as much as possible with as little as possible. They can do everything the big guys can do just by wit, resourcefulness, and creativity and that adds to depth of the character when they show how capable they actually are. Jackie Chan beating 6 guys up with guns with only his fists is way more interesting than seeing Goku punch at the same guy and throw big lasers at them for 30 minutes in a contest of who can be more obnoxious.
Another way to thicken your characters personality is to have internal issues within the characters personality. When a character has other issues then just what goes on in the plotline it makes the character more relatable and more interesting because they aren’t single minded as to what is going on. No, this doesn’t mean beg the GM to go on a side quest for your character and if you can’t do that without begging for a side quest than don’t bother. Be interesting, but don’t interfere with what’s going on, it’s common courtesy. Another thing, if your character has an opinion, fight for it. When somebody argues about ethics in a situation be prepared to fight for your characters point of view like you would in a debate club. Do not roll over and take it in the face just because somebody said so, if your character doesn’t believe in something then have them fight against doing it. This will make your characters interesting and respectable as well as relatable
Oh yeah, and everyone. Please do me one favor, don’t use an anime picture for the appearance of EVERY character you make. It doesn’t hurt to draw, I’m not a great artist myself but I draw my characters out or something like that to give at least the general idea of what my characters look like. Don’t confine yourself to what pictures you can find on photobucket. Get yourself out of the cage and have your characters be your own from the personality, to the looks, and heck even the toe nail size if you want to. This is your character, this is your profile, this is your story so own every part you can.
Chapter 2.2.1 Nicknames/code names
Alright, think of the people in your life who have nicknames. Think of every one and then think of why they are called that. I guarantee nobody calls your friend ‘The End’ or ‘Death’ or ‘Grave’, and I can tell you now those are the crappiest nicknames there can be for a character because they aren’t menacing or cool and nobody will be able to respect your character and take them seriously when you have such an idiotic nickname.
Nicknames usually exist because of something humorous or something the person is or has done. I had a friend whose cheeks were always red so we called him ‘sweet cheeks’ because it was humorous. I get called ‘9’ because it’s my numerology number, the nickname is always personal and based on something about the person and most of the time it’s supposed to be funny. I guarantee the person who goes by ‘Muffins’ will get WAY more respect than the person whose called ‘Death’
Think of something your character does, or takes a liking to no matter how random it may be. Or maybe a physical feature, and no ‘Scar’ goes in the same category as ‘Death’ and that kind of crap. Maybe your character has large eyes or so it seems they do and so people call them “Owl” or maybe they have a thick beard so they’re called “lumber jack” or “Lincoln” or something like that. It adds to the characters personality and makes them a bit more open and welcoming, sometimes even more relatable when the other characters ask “Hey, how did you get that name?’ and the character tells the story behind it and it makes them seem a bit more human. There is a lot of fun to be had by making these nicknames and once you get behind the stupid ones you’ll start making really fun and interesting ones
Chapter 2.3 Back stories
When writing a back story for your character please, please avoid the cliché ‘My parents were killed by demons when they destroyed my village and I had to raise myself at age 7 in the dark woeful life that is me’. This kind of back story is so overdone that it can almost be copy pasted from wikipedia. There are a lot of different kinds back stories;
The tragedy- this is the most popular back story there is and yeah it’s not a bad thing. This storyline comes in two different forms, where the destruction of something dear to the character is taken by something of an outside source, or they or it is taken by a mistake from the character themselves. This kind of thing is done all the time and most likely takes up 90% of the back stories you’re going to see. I would say to try avoiding it but I’m preaching to the choir on this regard. Most of the characters back stories I have the family of the character aren’t even mentioned or they are just fine and I still manage to make memorable characters. The tragedy isn’t the only way to make a character interesting, and it has become the average among the RP realm. So if you want to be above average, don’t do the tragedy back story
Social position- This back story is usually done where the character lives a mostly average life but is hated or loved because of the economic wealth of their family or they are love/hated because of the persons occupation or personality traits. This is one of the more interesting ones because of how average it is compared to real life and how it makes the character more relatable, where most of the problems they face are with the people around them in social situations or in mental disturbances. This kind of a back story is more of a set up for the character for the rest of the RP and how they act instead of actually being a real story.
Those are just a few examples of the different kind of back stories that can be used to make your character interesting and fun to get to know. It helps to go the extra mile on the creativity and bring something to the table that most don’t expect. If you’re character is a murderer, have them murder in a unique way that feels more personal and less conventional.
Chapter 2.4 Emotion
This is probably one of the bigger problems with RPing, people not showing enough emotion or showing not many varieties of emotions. Honestly, swallow your pride and show every emotion whether it be good or bad. If something is meant to be scary then get scared. Don’t be the douchebag who only expresses happiness or anger because they are too proud to show weakness, I’ve already gone over the reasons why weakness is a good thing in a character and it makes your character have more depth as well as make the other characters look good as well. Show every emotion you can for the betterment of the RP, because nobody will benefit from somebody being so prideful about their character that they just become a brick. It’ll make you look bad, it’ll make the other characters look bad, and it’ll make the RP that much more boring and uninteresting.
Chapter 3RP Etiquette
Ok this is going to be the usual rant about people and being literate. Please, be as literate as you can in an RP, people have to read this s**t and if you look like as if you vomited all over your keyboard when typing it makes you and your character look like an idiot that needs to be purged and brings me one step closer to being a nazi sympathizer! Honestly, nobody should have to read your character profile or your posts several times just to know who or what you’re talking about, and if you have the firefox web browser then there is absolutely NO reason for this to happen and I look in shame at the Gm who didn’t boot you for this offense. That and it doesn’t only effect you, it effects the entire RP. It’s hard to get into a horror genre Rp when someone types like they have no fingers and I spend more time wishing to smash you across the head then paying attention to what is going on.
Another thing to avoid doing is hijacking RP storylines from the creator. People joined to see what their storyline is, not yours. Now I know that sometimes the GM runs off and leaves the RP to die and somebody has to keep it alive but that isn’t always the case. This kind of thing can be referenced to the last chapter when I mentioned a character serving side quest. Don’t whittle down other peoples storylines into a fap to your character.
Alright, I think the last thing I’ll make note on in this chapter is something obvious. The cool guy in the RP isn’t the one who breaks every rule the GM puts up. There are plenty of cool RPers who make wonderful stories and characters and they all do it within boundaries. Don’t go around destroying cities to compensate for bad writing, it’s most likely against the rules and it just annoys everyone in the RP. Don’t try being the exception to every rule, all it does is degrade you and everyone else.
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I’ve kinda rushed through this chapter due to the fact you’ll be hearing this a lot when you talk to other RPers so you don’t need me to add to it.
Chapter 4 Realism in an RP
Alright, this is where I really kind of cut off from RPers and go into a more extreme measure on what I consider Godmodding. In my view the more realistic something is the better it gets. I honestly consider blocking bullets with swords an act of God modding in its purest form. The reasons being;
1) Bullets travel faster than the speed of sound, meaning that when you hear a gun fire, the bullet has already landed and hit its mark. So that would require someone who can control time and read the future.
2) Even if someone could move their blade in time to block the bullet it wouldn’t matter because bullets pass through metal pretty easily, it’s why we don’t wear metal armor in war, it doesn’t serve you any good against a bullet and in the same logic the sword would snap in half. Your sword would have to be 3 inches thick and then at that point you wouldn’t be wielding a sword you’d be wielding an iron slab with a handle on it. That and the weapon would then be around 70 pounds in weight making difficult to even move thing. Oh, and before somebody says that the density of their blade would make up for it, no it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t have enough mass to block the projectile still and really the sword would completely shatter from it.
3) Even if your sword was sharp enough to cut a bullet it wouldn’t matter because the bullet would be cut in half, which would mean you now have 2 projectiles coming for you and the angle of the blade wouldn’t separate the two halves enough the keep them from hitting you.
So yeah, 3 reasons why blocking a bullet is physically impossible. The reason why I’m a realism junky is because it’s the only fair way to do things. Really, people will say “If you can’t block bullets with swords it renders swords useless so it’s unfair” and really that’s why they were made! That and nobody, I repeat, NOBODY is fair about blocking bullets with swords. If you allow blocking bullets with swords then everybody just does that and it renders the guns useless. No matter how much you argue that very thing happens EVERY time and I have never seen somebody do it fairly and even if you read this and try proving me wrong I will not budge.
But aside from the provoking argument there, the main reason realism is good to have is because too often in eastern writing do things get mixed up. The giant robots act like humans, the demons act like humans, and so does pretty much everything else. Really, having the limits to realism gives everything a limit and makes weaknesses available so nothing becomes too horrendous. How does a giant robot with only pedals and joysticks in the cockpit do back flips and round house kicks and all of that nonsense? It doesn’t make sense mechanically and it pretty much makes that character the end game because there’s no outstanding flaw to it so pretty much the only way to fight is with trickery or an enormous amount of power so it turns into a ‘who can have the most obnoxious amount of power’ contest and just ends up making things dull and aggravating.
Anyway, these are my views on realism and I won’t go into full detail.
Chapter 5 Writing storylines
Ok, this will be the big one next to the character chapter. The fact of the matter is, is that people are only half making storylines and the forums get littered with generic, bland, and boring storylines. Too often people litter the black and white RPs where just some small group of people run in and everything goes boom then the bad guys fall and yay the world is happy now. We need to change up our storylines a bit if we want good, attentive RPers to want to stay in the game and so we don’t all get bored by the third page in. honestly, stop making such predictable storylines and such to where there’s no real point in playing in the first place. If you have followed me enough to see how characters can be better than please for the love of good writing make sure to place this hand-in-hand so we don’t have to go through the tedious plotlines, the bland characters, and can have a good time and maybe even enrich our own lives through writing.
As a writer, don’t tip-toe around things like they’re made of china. Ask those difficult questions that’ll stall the player for a bit and make them really think. Put them all in a difficult situation where they have to pick one thing over another, don’t let there be a right answer but the one the player -thinks- is the right one. Make people think about things that they wouldn’t regularly think about, ******** with some peoples heads! I personally believe a good storyline is when there is no black and white but nothing but a large pallet of gray, where there is no ‘good’ side to things and even the decisions the players may think don’t matter will haunt them later as the story goes. I usually make my RPs to where if I played them multiple times I’d get a different result each time. Don’t settle for mediocre storylines where the players are just there for the ride and to occasionally punch things, make us care about what’s going on with NPCs we care about and can relate with along with bad guys who aren’t “I’m doing this because I hate babies” and more understandable as to why they would think of such things, make the good guy parts more shady and make your players wonder if they are even on the right side! By that I mean, make them shady through the whole thing, don’t pull out the generic “Roswald has inevitably betrayed you! Switch sides and defeat him!” make your storylines to where the players finally say ‘to hell with it’ and change sides because they believe one side is darker than the other and believe they are doing the right thing. Farcry 2 was a great example because both factions in the game gave off the illusion that they were for the people and the other side was the bad guys but when you were on the missions it was made clear that no side was better than the other one and frankly the player was just as much of a p***k. The character in the story is sent to Africa and tries to hunt a gun dealer and so he has to win the trust of both factions to get the connections necessary to find the dealer but in the process you end up destroying the cure to Malaria, destroy the food supply, and even poison the clean water supply as well. By the time I thought about this I could hardly bring myself to care about my character or even want to kill the dealer because in the end there was no good side to the battle. Even your character is just as dark, if not more so, than the person he’s trying to kill and has brought the suffering of many innocent people just to do it! At first people don’t think about this and think they’re perfectly fine but in the end they realize that they’re just as dark, just as the evil as the thing they’re trying to destroy.
That, is the kind of storyline I am talking about, the one that makes you think about your actions and even what one might think about themselves and the people around them. A story that has decisions that test someone’s morals vs. their objectives, the right thing to do vs. the things that need to be done. These kinds of storylines are the ones that enrich lives, make people find out who they really are, and are the ones many will remember in times to come. Some would say I’m asking too much, some say I am hard to please, but some people need to step up and realize what can be done with the thing that is in front of them and stop half-assing everything and creating bland story bullshit that is a desecration of the authors own potential. If we want good storylines the RPers have to ask for them and stop settling for basic, cheesy, 13 year old storylines that make RPing one of those things that people are ashamed to admit to taking part in! We have to show that we are writers, actors in their most basic form, people who want to touch the lives of the people around us and not just a bunch of man children who spend our lives in a basement trying to run away from the real world. Please, if you’re not going to take anything into consideration from this guide at least hear this out. I as a writer am tired of seeing people waste good potential to just bring in a jumbled mess of writing that make me wonder where it all went wrong.
By: Viral C
