The School of Role Play [Class is now in session]

[Chief Sankofa]

-Runs in late for the first day of school- How embarrassing for the teacher to be late for her own class! -jumps over a random barrel, while hoping over the small duck pond- Please tell me I didn't just kill a duck *facepalm* -Rushes for the door to room 602- I can't make it , I CAN MAKE IT. -trips on unseen banana peel and crashes on the floor of the class room-

*First days are a b***h....*

-Pushes glasses farther up nose and clears throat-

Good morning girls and boys, and welcome to the school of role playing, never thought of role playing before, or just don't understand how. Well you've come to the right place, because I'm going to show you all the tricks, turns and twist there are to role playing. We're going to go over each step by step. From:Character Creations, Speech and Posting Styles, Courtesies and Conduct,
Staring your own Role Play. Then you my young padawans will rule the universe *shakes fist madding in the air* .......or not.

 

[Chief Sankofa]

Character Creations:

First off, there are tons of different ways to create a profile or "skeleton" for your character(s) Here is a basic set up:

Username:
Character name:
Gender:
Race:
Age:
Personality:
Appearance:
Bio:

Now lets break it down to what each entry wants.

Username: This is where you put your Gaia name.

Character name: The name of your character will go here. Be creative, and brows the web, depending on the settings of the role play, you want your name to reflect accordingly.

Gender: What's the characters' sex.

Race: Are they human, part animal, or a mythical creature.

Age: This is for the age they appear to everyone else. If your character is older then they seem you can added it here as well.

Personality: How do they interact with others.

Appearance: There are a few ways you can do this.

1] Describe: Molly has big fluffy mouse ears, short black hair that constantly falls on her face, and a big red ribbon at the crown of her head.

2]Link: Using the url

[Molly]

3]Show: Using Img tags



Bio:This is the history of your character. Where they came from, what happen to them, what caused this or that to occur in their lives. Once again, depending on the Rp, it will determined how long or short in detail this part of your profile is.

Extra: If there's anything that you'd like to share with the other characters in the story and you didn't see it in the provided spaces, most owners will add and extra place for you to put it. Also, this provides thread owners to add different enteritis such as, sexual orientation, job description, or anything that fits that Rp.

Here's what it looks like all together:

Username: Chief Sankofa
Character name: Molly
Gender: female
Race: mouse
Age: 16
Personality: Shy and quite. Likes to keep to herself.
Motto:"If it's not broken, don't fix it"
Appearance:[x]
Bio: Molly was lost and abandon at the age of six, she's lived on the streets ever since. But now that there's a new restaurant in the neighbor, she might get a second chance at the life she never had.


*Here are a few from the lovely people of Sanctuary*

Username: XStarlight_DustX
Character Name: Kira
Age: 17
Gender: Female
Race/Creature: White Wolf
Likes: Music, cooking, the daylight, friends, freedom
Dislikes: Violence, the rain, people being hurt, her past
Appearance:
Bio: Kira has lived by herself for 5 years after her mother and fathers death. She doesnt really care much, as her dream was to be free. Her mother and father was very cruel to her, so she dislikes them very much.
Member of: None, probably on the ChibiCupcakes side
Other: She can hear the cries of the unholy creatures (Vampires, werewolves, etc.)


Username: Mayuri_Zenjin
RPC Name: Zenjin
Heartless, Nobody, Keyblade User, Other: Nobody
Likes: Pizza, and Horror
Dislikes: Heartless, and Black Licorice
Weapons: A Katana with a slight curve and a nobody symbol engraved in the blade.
((nobody symbol))
[x]
Special attack/ability: He can walk through walls.
Appearance [Image Optional]:

 

[Chief Sankofa]

Speech and Posting/Writing Styles

"Speech: How you converse with those around you"

Your characters' speech is one of the most important aspects of them. By reading and listening to the Rp rules, you'll most often come across one that says be literate. Now if you don't know what that means, I suggest you log off your computer right now and crack open a book. Basically the author doesn't want any chat speak like tzhe and *%^$. Its pointless and most of the people around you can't understand it anyways. Now that doesn't mean you can't use slang or put a little culture in the way your character talks, just keep it to a level of compression.

"Posting and writing styles are simply how your character appear in the thread"

This can be done by writing in color, posting a picture with your writing, using quotation marks or dashes. Some members even like to add emoticons or >_> faces to distinguished themselves from others.

Chief Sankofa

A

set felt the ground beneath her began to quake, the sky turned a dark and purple hellish black as sinister clouds rolled in on the wind. Lighting clashed and rain drops fall, "it has begun" Aset's looked into the eyes of the young male before her. Her hair was now a milky white, as her eyes turn to there true color of liquid mercury. Even her cloths had changed to a long thin laced black silk skirt that was heavily set on the hem with onyx intertwined to ride low on her hips, the top left nothing much to the imagination as it stretched out over her shoulders while creating a low V neckline. A swirl snake traveled from left shoulder, down her chest and rested on the right side of ribs. Aset allowed her powers to surge with the on coming storm's, while ritual marking began to forum all over her body. Standing, she made slow and carefully placed designs around Etz Chaim, chanting in the language of old as she laid the marks down. Everything was given a choice, a wile of its own, Aset dared not intervene in the decisions of others, least it cause more damage in the end. But this one thing she could do. As the marking connected together in harmony, a low glow vibrated from them, it would grow brighter as evil drew closer. Looking up at the sky, she waited for them to show their true nature.

Nick_austin90

Artisia immediately had her hand around Scarlet's throat and she tightened her hold. A smirk was on her face. "Oh well, I was enjoying you becoming invinsible. I would have enjoyed a chase," Artisia chuckled.

"Lord Rylle of the Dark, it is I your heir," I announced my presence. A dark shadow stirred in front of me.

You have returned , my son. I welcome you back...

"I am honored, father," I bowed my head to the dark shadow.

It seems as if you have brought company...is it for my killing pleasure? Amentet, I am shocked that you would grace me with your presence...

hetukiri

*hetu looked over at chief and then said sarcastically*

"should we lead them to the castle!?" *she looked down and saw that she only had a twig in her hand* stare "it wouldve been great, if some one brought an extra weapon on them!!!" *sigh* "The twig will have to do!" *she said as she lunged towards an orc, that was glaring at her...she swiftly moved with her twig that was clasped firmly in her hands and plunged it into the monsters right eye*

"if you look at me like that again ill take out the next one!!!" scream

Goddess Nefertiti

*Atmund faught along with his people. Few of them had fallen and he wanted to make sure that Malric was alright and he wanted to ask his Second what the hell he had done to bring the Gods into this mess. As Atmund turned to help a vampire that was being overwealed, a sudden pain in his back brought Atmund crashing to the ground**Malric ducked as an arrow flew over his head. He was on his way out of the fight when he tripped on some ones limb. Looking back at the body, Malric gasped. It was his beloved Commander* "Atmund! What has happened to you?" *Malric lifted Atmund to his feet and helped him off the battlefeild where he turned Atmund over to those who where careing for the wounded. There was an ugly mark on Atmunds' back, caused by an enemy blade* *The Archangels where still casting their spells, but they where running out of strenght. When the Heavens burst open, they stood back and watched the Gods distroy the enemy. They where in awe. Never in their thousands of years had they seen the Gods themselves rise to the call of battle* *Goddess looked around for Chief to ask her where Nick was, but, as per usual, Chief was nowhere to be seen* "Do you boys know where Nick is? We're too far away from each other. He will have fet the poison spreading throughout our bodies. Please, help me find him."

Nhikxter

A young teenager stood outside the castle under the growing storm. As the rain soaked him, he continues to observe the increasing number of people entering the mansion. He felt a sense of tension and excitement at the same time as his mellow face turned into a grin. "There's something in that building.." he whispered as an eerie red glow emitted from his bandaged left eye, "..and I want it." The thunder claps and he dissappears into thin air.

 

[Chief Sankofa]

Courtesies and Conduct

The first courtesy is simple; don't God mode your fellow RPers. God modding is when you take over another person's character. This could mean making that character have a reaction to something you did, not allowing their character a chance to dodge in a fight, and just making your character invincible because you are reading the thoughts of the person through their posts. Having large bulks of power or just making things up in your favor as you go alone.

Another form of god-modding involves Making your character know something that they shouldn't. Removing tracked clothing without having knowledge of being tracked, or using unreasonable things to notice a staking enemy. Trust me, God mode and one one will ever want to Rp with you.

The second courtesy is no one line posts. Most RPers agree that there is no reason to post several one-liners. Even when talking, you can describe the emotions the character is feeling.

This rule once again comes back to limiting what the other people in the RP can do. They don't have a lot to react to, and then it leads to them having a one-liner as well. This doesn't mean you have to write out a paragraph, but just giving someone one line to work with is frustrating.

Once again, text talk. That means that you don't skip punctuation, you don't shorten words, and you just overall be literate. I have seen things such as using "ur" instead of "your," and people just don't realize how frustrating that is.

Please treat the RP like you would an English paper. Be grammatically correct, use proper spelling, and use punctuation correctly.


Finally, and this should be common knowledge by now, do not cyber. Not only is it of poor taste, but it causes those around you to become uncomfortable as well. This is not to say you can't show affection, kissing and cuddling I'm sure are fine with most people. Now there are exceptions to this, depending on the Rp, on the level of affection you can show, but at all times there is to be no direct sex involved between two characters, boys or girls.

 

[Chief Sankofa]

Staring your own Role Play

Now that you've followed those simple steps, your finally ready to start your own Thread. There are several things that go into making your own Role play, and organization is key: Story line/backstory/plot, Character Skeletons, Rules, Miscellaneous.

Story line/backstory/plot

The story line is the MOST IMPORTANT part of any role play. Without the story line there is nothing to go on. With a well set up backstory the members that join your RP will know better what type of character they would like to use, what sort of environment to introduce their character in, and what they should have their characters do.

There are key elements to any story that make this especially important. These are as follows:

Setting: You need to make it clear what time period the story is from along with the area the main portions of the story will take place. If the story is medieval, you're not going to see refrigerators, televisions, etc. If its on a different planet or on has separate planes, you need to describe the environments so that everyone can understand what's going on.

Plot: The meat of the story. Is there an evil dictator? Is there a demon/angel war ensuing? Is the world coming to an end? You decide this. I could go on and on for hours on lessons to lengthen your writing, but honestly, I'd rather you learn your own style as what I have put into the post topics have told more than enough.

Characters: If there are any specific characters that must be included in the RP, they should be mentioned somewhere in the plot. Other than that, refer to the Character skeleton section for more information.



Character Skeletons

Like previously stated, create a character skeleton based off what is needed for your Rp. For instance if your Rp is a battle field, you may want to have a entry for weapons, and weaknesses.

Rules

This is a simple section. Rules are an important part of any RP. There are a couple rules that should be included in every RP(Gaia Tos, no cybering or god modding), but other than that, you decide what is required


Miscellaneous
Everyone has their own specific structures for their Role plays. Some people want no post on the first page having to do with the actual game. Some people want it it be purely battle, some people are confused as to what the heck they want.

This section doesn't really have any real importance as you make any extra portions to your Role play according to your own wishes. I'm just going to make this a little easier on you by explaining things you can do to organize the RP.

Separate thread for characters: Some people believe adding characters to an RP thread makes the first page too cluttered. You can create a separate thread to post the characters in if you so choose. I prefer if you post the separate thread in the Spam section. If I get requests for it, I may create a new sub-forum specifically dedicated to posting characters in separate threads, but for now, enough people are happy with posting them in the original thread. Just make the link easy to find in your RP so that your members can find the other characters.

No Posts for the Story in the 1st Page: This one is simple. Reserve a few posts in the start of the Rp, just in case you want to add announcements or just extra things like contests for the future.

Plagiarism

Under no circumstance should you every steal anther person's work. At all times you need to give credit where its due, if for some reason you don't know the source of your ideas then you need to state that. This is not to say you need to identify the authors of every picture or posting style. But if you copied and pasted any information for a specif person, you need to give them credit for their work.






*Many thanks to Demascion Lycan: The Lycan Tribe of Role Players, your help was greatly appreciated for the creation of this thread.*

 

[Chief Sankofa]

-Looks around the silent classroom-

Any questions?

 

[XxPraveena the FlutistxX]

-Violet sits down in her chair-  

[Chief Sankofa]

Sweetie this isn't a role play, this is a place to learn how to properly Rp, sorry if that was unclear.  

[cleoz]

You have worked hard on this *pat on shoulder*

so technically, rp is like telling a story ,right?

is it like put yourself in a situation where you have to act ,right?

I just want to confirm, i have small problem with rp. i'm still not good at it whee  

[Xx_MooNLighT_X]

Rping is just like using your own character to play a role. A role is that you are a someone who is doing what kind of character they are, but anyway, do you get what I mean?? XD
Also, you use your own character not using someone elses character.  

[cleoz]

i know that xp anyway, i'm not opening my own rp. too much work whee so i'll join others  

[Nick_austin90]

Ah well, as long as the rp forum maintains its merriness then no need to get too many threads! whee

Keep posting people!

And, oh the joy of creating stories.

Be sure to check always though. Some RPs can die just-like-that.  

[cleoz]

like mine before..there's no life to it.. anyway let's have fun 3nodding  

[Nick_austin90]

Do lets!