What is Roleplaying?
Roleplaying is when you assume the role of a character you make up, with his/her own personality, looks, and skills. Write a paragraph that introduces your character. With your character you can interact with other users' characters and the surroundings as you would a story. Your character performs an action or says something, then others respond. Basically, you're writing a story with other Gaians, each writing for your own individual characters.
The Right Way to Roleplay
- Create a believable character; you can't have a million awesome powers, devastating good looks, and stellar test scores all rolled into one. Sorry. Life's not fair.
- Give others time to react; you can't automatically slay a dragon. Let your other dragon-hunting buddies help you. You also can't slap your dragon-hunting buddies without their consent. You can say your character makes a motion to slap them, and then the other user will say if it was a hit or not.
- Don't be a loner; as interesting as a side-story with a lone cowboy is, it's really better for the experience if you make the effort to interact with others.
- Don't be a n00b; typing in 1337, writing run-on sentences, not using quotations, etc. just confuses everyone. Grammatically correct English please.
- Don't be a jerk; unless that's your character's role at least. Don't harass other users. If you have an issue with a user or their character, state it in OOC (meaning "out of character", just you talking) in a calm, clear manner, and hopefully it will sort itself out. If not, us friendly Crew Members will be there to... settle the situation.
- Read everything carefully; the thread maker often puts notes in the profile skeleton for their roleplay, or puts requirements in their rules. Don't put anime pictures for your appearance if the thread maker wants real life pictures. It makes the roleplay more complicated, and you may not be accepted. Make sure you understand the plot and follow all instructions given to you.
Commonly Used Roleplaying Terminology (RP slang)
- RP; short for "roleplay".
- OOC; short for "out of character". Use parentheses (), brackets{}[], or something else so we know it's not your character talking.
- MarySue; perfect female character, usually an insult.
- Profile Skeleton; some roleplays may ask you to fill one of these out. It may ask you your Gaian username and information about your character before you can begin the roleplay.
- GodModing; killing characters at will, being an almighty powerful jerk. Is not strictly limited to killing.
- GodModer; someone who is involved in GodModing. This does not include the creator of the roleplay.
- Auto-Hitting; a form of GodModing, when the character posts that an attack landed without giving the other a chance to react to the attack.
- Auto-Dodging; a form of GodModing, when the character can dodge anything in an unrealistic fashion. This is usually much less severe than most forms of GodModing.
- Neko; half cat, half human.
- Kitsune; half fox, half human.
- Literate; using proper English with little to no spelling or grammatical errors. An Advanced Literate RPer is similar, but usually writes longer posts with a good vocabulary and impeccable spelling and grammar.
- SemiLiterate; someone who uses proper English with a few spelling and grammatical errors. A semi-literate roleplay is usually more lenient than a Literate roleplay. Advanced semi-literates have a nice vocabulary, better spelling and grammar, and write more.
- Profile Skele(ton); this is an application form that most roleplay threads will ask you to fill out and send to the thread maker. It's basically important information about your character, such as their name, age, appearance, personality, etc.
- Double; playing two characters. Usually used in a roleplay with few other people or a one on one roleplay. Doubling can be tricky if you're not used to it. Make sure that it is clear which character you are playing at a time. Tips: include your character names in each paragraph, make a dashed line or use different colored fonts between characters, and it is easiest to double if one character is female and the other is male.
Frequently Asked Questions
None yet.
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