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Depending on the type of roleplay that you are taking part in (futuristic, present, medieval etc) there will be different rules. Most roleplay threads will outline any rules that they in particular wish you to abide by, but the majority of roleplaying rules are common sense.

1. DONT CHEAT.
This is arguably the most important rule. There are many different ways to cheat whilst roleplaying (sometimes referred to as 'munching' or 'Godmoding'), too many for me to go into here, but I recommend that you read the Anti-Munch Project. If you're new to roleplay then it outlines several things that you should avoid. Think of the AMP as a list of roleplaying guidelines. In certain situations it's ok to break them, but I wouldn't recommend it until you've been roleplaying for a while and know how to recognize these situations.

As well as being a term interchangeable with munching, Godmoding also refers to a particular type of munching. Godmoders are arguably the worst form of munchers, because their characters have powers akin to Gods. They can dodge bullets, fly, run incredibly fast, do martial arts... Basically, a Godmoder can do anything. It should be easy to see why this can get annoying.

2. BE REALISTIC.
In some roleplays you might be able to get away with bending the laws of physics, but in 'realistic' roleplays in particular you will have to bear what can and can't be done in mind.

3. STICK TO YOUR STORY.
It can get increasingly annoying if somebody that you are roleplaying with keeps changing their character, saying that they grew up with their parents on a farm one day, then claiming that they watched their parents die at the age of 1. Once you've got a story going in a roleplay, stick to it.

4. ONLY CONTROL YOURSELF.
There's nothing wrong with interacting with another user's character when roleplaying (in fact, it's encouraged xd ) but don't control them. For example, it's fine to say that you offer another character a beer or that you throw a knife at them, but it is not ok to assume that the character takes the beer or that the knife hits him. I'll go into battles themselves in more detail later on, but the basic idea is that you let people control their own characters. After all, you wouldn't like it if somebody was controlling your character, would you?

5. OFFLINE? LEAVE THEM ALONE!
If somebody says that they are going offline but you wish to continue roleplaying, then the best way to do it is to pretend that the character started to ignore you or went off to do something else. Just because somebody has gone offline without making excuses IC(In Character) does not mean that you can attack them, kill them, draw funny faces on them with pen, or anything like that. xd

Taking your roleplay to the next 'level' involves nothing more than increasing the amount of description in your posts, perhaps separating them into paragraphs. It may seem at first as though adding extra details to your posts may be unnecessary -- especially if you can get the basic idea across using one or two words -- but building up your posts in such a fashion can actually lead to much more involving roleplay and storylines.

Rather than just saying that your character said something, describe how they said it, or perhaps give some insight into why they might have said it. Instead of just saying that your character sat down, say why they sat down, whether or not the chair made a noise...

By means of example, I will take the simple situation of a man ordering a beer and write two roleplaying posts describing the situation; one written using the ideas set out in the 'basic' post, the second using those set out in this one.





That's a terrible example, but I think it's safe to say that a little description can go a long, long way. The more description that you add in, the more interesting the post becomes to read. The more interesting your post becomes to read, the more likely it is that somebody is going to enjoy roleplaying with you. It's really that simple. 3nodding

For some reason or another, roleplay battles are one thing that people often find to be quite hard. They take a little bit of getting used to, but once you've roleplayed a fight a couple of times and you've gotten used to the way that they work, you'll learn that roleplay battles are often the most fun part of roleplay that there is! As with roleplay itself, the best way to learn is to experience it first hand. However, I'll try my best to explain how it works.

As with roleplay of any kind, users take it in turns to described their action and speech. The only difference with battles, really, is that users are describing their attacks. The more that you can elaborate upon your attacks, the easier it is for people to roleplay with you; if you say that you shoot them, it's hard for them to respond. If you said that you shot them but indicated what gun you used, where you were aiming the gun and gave a brief idea of what might happen if the bullet hit them (in case the user is not familiar with guns), then obviously it becomes easier for the user to reply properly.

Never assume that your attacks hit the target. If everybody assumed that all of their attacks went through, then roleplay would be incredibly boring and a lot of characters would die. A good roleplayer will always leave some way for their opponent to counter the attack, or at least give them a chance to do so; unstoppable attacks are seen as 'godmoding' and people will not want to roleplay with you if you never let them do anything.

Take a few punches. This is exactly the same as assuming that all of your attacks hit the target, really; if you avoid all of a user's attacks then they're not going to want to roleplay with you. Just because you think that your character should be able to do a backflip or dodge bullets, or that you think that they would be good ways to get out of attacks, bear your character in mind, again trying to remember to be realistic. Just because dodging bullets would get you out of a sticky situation doesn't mean that you should do it. Rather than trying to avoid everything, accept the fact that once or twice your character might get their a** kicked.

Accept defeat. If your character gets shot in the head at point blank range, or gets a knife through their heart, accept that your character is dead. Depending on the type of roleplay it may be possible for your character to be revived later on, but you shouldn't count on it. Coming back from the dead can be done well in certain situations, say in a roleplay centering around the use of magic, but just because you know that your character would be revived eventually is no need to do it too quickly. What I mean by this is that if your character dies, don't bring them back to life instantly if at all. If your character dies, then you've officially lost the fight, too. xd

This post contains links to all threads that I personally think will be useful to roleplayers. If you have a thread that you think belongs here, feel free to submit it and I might just add it to the list.

Alternate Colour Codes - http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7472495

This post is more or less an amalgamation of everything that I couldn't find space for elsewhere.

Character Rotation:
The most common form of roleplay is one-on-one. In this case the turns are pretty simple to work out; Character A -> Character B -> Character A -> Character B etc. This method works well for situations where many people may all be roleplaying a situation where they are all having a discussion, or something similar; Character A -> Character B -> Character C -> Character D -> Character A -> Character B -> Character C-> Character D, adjusted for however many characters may be involved. It is also quite likely that several roleplays are running alongside one another in the same thread, in which case the character rotations would just work independent of one another.

Unfortunately, not everything is always this simple. Sometimes situations may arise where many users are all talking to one user in particular, or are all ganging up on him. In this situation there are two ways to deal with the character rotations. The first is probably easiest to deal with and sees the user who is being focused on replying to each of the replies before another person roleplays. In this example rotation, Character B is the user that is being focused on. Character A -> Character B -> Character C -> Character B -> Character A -> Character B etc. Another solution allows for all of the users except the one being focused on to have a turn first, the focused character then responding to all of the other posts at once. Again, in the example, Character B is being focused on. Character A -> Character C -> Character D -> Character B.

There are many other ways to deal with various different situations involving multiple characters and multiple users. It doesn't really matter how the turns are shared out as long as everybody involved in the roleplay deems it to be fair and understands where their place is. In smaller roleplays, character rotation is not normally a big issue and the character rotation tends to just fall into place naturally, dependent upon the way in which the users respond to one another. However, in much larger situations involving 6 or 7 characters, it's important that a character rotation is set out before things get tricky and confusing.