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Nevareh's Super-Handy Roleplaying Tips Volume One!

WARNING: Nevareh subscribes to the "Roleplaying is Acting" school of thought! He worries less about the creative artistry involved and more about being interesting and entertaining!

"Make it about the other person." - J. W. Morisette.

I remember being told this when I was in a play. The guy mentioned was the director (ironically the second cousin of Alanis Morisette), and the tip was about keeping things interesting. Fun fact: He's right. When acting onstage, you can only be so interesting before you start detracting from the level of entertainment you're generating for everyone involved. However, if you make what you're doing about the other person, either someone else onstage or other people in general, you're taking the attention you're being given and funneling it around, creating a cycle of energy.

When roleplaying, remember that it isn't a solo activity. The other people around you will be examining your posts for hooks to get them not only into the scene itself but also into your character. Sealing yourself out as the absolute most important person there kind of discourages people from taking an interest after a very short period of time. Similarly, bristling yourself with hooks and covering every single one of them with deadly poison (in this case, making certain every lead you provide other people into your character results in some kind of rampant death or violence) also discourages involvement. To be truly interesting, you have to make it so people can take an interest.

The next level of this is tying into that quote at the top of my post. If you REALLY want to catch people's interest, read for THEIR hooks and try to get into them. Other people appreciate it when you make the effort to interact on more than a superficial level and prove you read their posts by actively including information from them in your own. By tossing the focus around cooperatively and in tandem as opposed to fighting for it, you not only create a nice fellow-feeling in the RP itself but also make it more interesting for a third party to read.

EXTRA SPECIAL TIP FOR TODAY:

Proofread.

I know, I sound like an English teacher, but reread everything you're going to post to make sure you make sense. You may find yourself catching some serious mistakes you didn't know you made on a second read through; I know I once wrote "Malcontent" when I meant to write "Magnificent," which seriously altered what I meant to say. See if you can follow your train of thought. If you have any problems understanding what you wrote, then you should consider some editing.

Nevareh's Super-Handy Roleplaying Tips Volume Two!

On "Time"

If you roleplay, you will almost definitely find yourself in a situation where time is of the essence (such as in combat), and so here's a little overview of "time."

Rule one about time: In a roleplaying scene, chronicle, or series, time is consensual. Everyone agrees on how it passes, when it passes, and what happens while it passes. If there's a disagreement, there is confusion and/or complete derailment of the scene, since different people are on different pages. Time isn't necessarily sequential, nor is it continuous, however. One post can be several months before an earlier post, either in terms of flashbacks or whatnot. Keeping good track of the passage of time lets everyone act in more or less the same frame of reference.

Time travel and manipulation is especially rocky; everyone has to have no problem with you re-writing time to your own whim.

Rule two: Time must affect everyone the same way. By this I don't mean in terms of aging or whatnot (since that kind of precludes the idea of things that aren't humans existing), I mean in terms of what is doable in a period of time. A prolonged magical ritual can't take place in the same period of time as a sword slash without ceasing to be a prolonged magical ritual. Don't say "We're both doing something" since something that would take three seconds (Like sipping a glass of water) wouldn't also take an hour unless someone is manipulating time itself. Keep parity for time or note how you're spending it, since even if you enter a period of "downtime" in which you aren't micromanaging your character's actions you're still using time just as fast as everyone else.

When in highly time-sensitive situation (such as combat), don't expect to be able to do extremely complicated things in quick succession. Building a bomb or raising a tiger to be your pet and bodyguard takes longer than climbing a staircase unless these stairs happen to be the oft-touted stairway to heaven. Even Dragonball Z, a show whose concept of time is so fragmented it's incomprehensible (One show covers a period of months during a space journey, three shows in sequence cover a period of thirty seconds during which two people glow and shout at one another continuously, having far more than thirty seconds of dialogue), has limits as to what characters can accomplish given a certain period of time. Adhere to at least somewhat realistic expectations as to what you can and cannot do during the time you're allotted to act.

I have seen a lot of threads in Gaia, but this is officially the BEST THREAD EVER. I can honestly say that I got smarter just reading this. I went in here hoping that I could improve my roleplay beyond what it currently is, but I didn't have any high hopes of that... I was so dead wrong it's makin' me cry crying

i cant thank you enough for making this thread! I am a total beginner at RP, but i love to invent characters and names. The links at the beginning really helped me. Though i must point out that the "japanese names" link does not work. I'm not sure if its just my computer, but you may want to check it out. Thanks again!

Akya

This cleared a lot of things up for me, but I want to add, Firefox has a spell check built in, and I know its not an add on since i got this computer yesterday and did not add it *I see errors atm*

Roleplaying the evil undead. Vampires


So then, vampires tend to be a popular character to roleplay. Not just here, but all over the place. I'll admit I love roleplaying vampires myself. And I have ever since I tread the dark paths of the World of Darkness so long ago. However I have also seen many many people roleplay vampires badly. So here are some hints.


1. Vampires tend to be evil. I don't know why, but everyone seems to want to play the brooding dark vampire who goes out and hunts all other vampires. One or two is OK. But if everyone is a vampire hunting vampire, then who are you going to hunt? You are a vampire. You live off the blood of humans. And it tastes good. You are malicious, self serving, and just plain mean. With your power what's to stop you from doing what ever you want? Which brings me to number 2.

2. The rules. I don't care what setting you have your vampire in, there are going to be rules. Some kind of vampire hierarchy that you will have to follow. Maybe there will even be a dozen hierarchies, but you are a member of them. And they have rules. Generally the rules consist of: Don't expose yourself to humans. That is usually the only common rule and it is the one rule you CANNOT break, but others include: Don't sire other vampires without permission, don't kill other vampires without permission, don't do back flips while driving a car of a bridge without permission, etc. Essentially all other rules are different according to setting. But the reason behind the common rule leads me to point number 3.

3. You have weaknesses. You may be the immortal terror of the night, but in the day time you are dead. Now once again weaknesses tend to vary, but there is one weakness that every vampire has in common, sunlight (Anyone mentions daywalkers and I kill you with a spoon). That is why humans aren't all groveling to you right now. That's why there are rules. Once humans know you, well you're soon going to find yourself sunbathing tied to a post. Of course there are other weaknesses such as holy water, silver, stakes, but usually these tend to vary.

4. You are thirsty for the blood of men. I mean sure you can live off animals or blood banks, but nothing tastes like fresh killed human. And trying to stop feeding all together is a very bad idea. You can't beat the thirst.

5. Those pesky hunters/lycans/elves/etc. Being a vampire means you have enemies, be they hunters, werewolves, or something else. They will stop at nothing to see you dead. And that feeling is mutual.

6. Immortality is boring. Yes, it’s nice and all but after a thousand years of unlife you are bored. Very bored. In fact if you don't have some kind of obsession to focus on, you will most likely be insane too. A vampire tends to fade if they don't have something to focus on. Maybe it’s to become ruler of you're personal empire. Maybe it’s to collect all the rubber duckies in the world. If you don't have one you are either very young, or running around slaughtering everything.

7. Age is power. This one is simple. The older you are the more power you have had time to get. Of course the older you are the more estranged you become

8. You aren't human. You were once, but now you are a vampire. A young vampire can still relate to humanity, and may even think the same way. And old vampire sees humans as nothing but food or pawns in its plans to gain whatever obsession it has fixated on to keep itself same. Plus human morals no longer apply. Murder, well humans are just cattle.

9. Clans. Vampires usually have different sects and clans that have different powers and weaknesses. Please roleplay the weaknesses as well as the strengths of your clan.




Well that’s it for me for now. If I think up anything else, I'll be sure to post it
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