Tips and Tricks for General Role-Playing

[CaptainTapole]

One of your Crew-Members here--hallo!

To help out writers who desire more experience--or experienced writers who desire different perspectives--I decided to place this thread up. Posts below this one are specific topics that will help you expand your horizons into writing and interactions of characters.

PLEASE NOTE! This is more for general Role-Playing rather than Game of Thrones specific.

I hope you enjoy and possibly become better writers!

PS Please do not hesitate to PM me if you have any issues or questions.  

[CaptainTapole]

Settings

Having issues explaining a scenery? Babbling too much about every nook and cranny? Do not worry. Here are some tips along with Dos-and-Don'ts to help you out get your vision of whatever land your characters are to be walking--or flying--upon.

► Pictures is normally the best start for inspiration. Construct a Google (or Bing, if that is your preference) Image search on your choice of scenery. For example, if you want to have the setting in a town on the outskirts of a castle, type in "town near castle" and see what inspires you. Pictures are worth a thousand words; but all those words might not be the same to each person.

► You do not have to explain every single building and the construction of the layout--unless you want to. Create the exterior of the establishment and see if your writing partners could fill-in-the-blanks as they type. Unless you want a detailed layout of the locations where the characters will be interacting; generic descriptions are normally the best. That way, as you or your writing partners write; more words could be said while having actions or thoughts done.

► Be mindful of other writers. Not everyone has the thesaurus memorized; but it does not hurt to use other ways to state what you want to point out.

► Do be interactive with your fellow writers; sometimes their description of a generic area might be the best of what you are imagining.

► Don't be a micro-manager and create a perfect world. Nothing is perfect to everyone. Ever.

► Finally, enjoy the writings of your setting. You have the opportunity to change it prior to placing the characters there to interact. If you don't like what you typed; just change it. Be careful to do so PRIOR to character interactions. It would be odd for the area to go all Interception on them.  

[CaptainTapole]

Profile Techniques

Have an idea of what you want in a character but stumped on how to place all that is in your head into words that make sense? The following are helpful hints and tips to get your point across!

► First. Do you have an image of your character? You do? Good. That may help you out. Have your character's age mostly reflect how they look. Example, don't have a prepubescent child be 16 or a female with a well-developed chest be only 13.

► What are the goals you desire of your character to achieve throughout this storyline? Finding out goals--no matter how small, big, epic or inane--do help out a lot in the long run since one of the purposes of developing this character is to see these goals achieved.

► Trying to figure out your character's history? Having Mary-Sue or Larry-Stu are a bit overrated; but at the same time so are parents being killed by some freak accident. It's rare in today's RPing worlds--especially in Gaia--to have the character come from happy-still-alive parents. Yes, not everything will be very Leave it to Beaver but not everything is Jane Erye either.

► Personality! Something better than a brick wall is good. Metaphorically speaking.

► Don't think after all of that the image you chose fits him or her? Doesn't hurt to Google Image around. Sometimes you may find another image better.