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 Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 12:18 pm
This lesson will be on role playing. I will likely take me a few days to finish and be broken up into chapters to make it easier for people to find exactly what they need. For this reason, please do not post here until the lesson is complete.
Part 1- What is Role Playing?
We're starting with the very basics of basics. Role Playing (often known as rping, pronounced: are-pee-ing) is like collaberative writing, only each person controls one (or sometimes more) characters. They have control only over their own characters and create a story by interacting with the other characters and following the plot outlined by the creator of the rp.
Part 2- How Do I Get a Character of My Own?
Excellent question! The rp creator will inform you somewhere in the informational posts at the beginning how they want the characters to work. Occasionally characters are pre-made by the rp owner, but more often than not, you'll be asked to create your own character and asked to fill out a skeleton (sometimes known as a profile). The skeleton has to be approved by the owner most of the time, unless otherwise indicated. The owner will tell you whether they want you to pm them the filled out skeleton or post it in the thread.
If asked to pm the skeleton, considerate rp owners will inform with a return pm you that you have been accepted or they will ask you to change something in your skeleton and re-submit it. Some owners, though, will simply add your skeleton to a character profiles post, which will be on the first page of the rp. Once you have been informed of your acceptance, or you profile has been added to the character profiles post, you can join the rp!
If asked to post your skeleton in the thread, do so and wait for the owner to let you know you are accepted. If you recieve no acceptance or denial, ask the owner in an OOC (out of character) post if you have been accepted and await a response.
Part3-Creating A Character
Perhaps the most time-consuming part of any rp is making your character just right. If there are a limited number of spaces, or if there's a certain position you want for your character, before you start filling out the profile, pm the thread owner and ask them to hold the position for you. More often than not they'll be fine with that. This prevents other people from taking the spot you want.
When creating characters, there are several things you should know.
1- Character name: You should try to make your name interesting, but don't make it impossible to spell and/or remember. This makes it so your fellow rpers have to repeatedly check back to make sure they have your characters name right.
2- Biography: many character skeletons will require a biography. There are many biography cliches that you will learn over time (ie- character's father killed character's mother infront of character's eyes is a really common one). You should avoid using these generally, though who is to judge if you use a cliche now and then.
3-Personality: again, many character skeletons require you to outline your characters personality. One thing seasoned rpers detest is Plain Janes. Give your character a twist, something that makes them not your average bear. Don't let your character be two dimensional. For example, instead of making a girl who is quiet, timid, shy, docile and girly, throw a twist into it. Make a girl who is quiet, timid, shy, and girly, but make their thoughts be everything they truely want to say. She can put on a smile for the whole world, but inside she's burning to speak her mind. She just doesn't have the guts too.
4- Skills and Abilities- One things that could very well get you kicked out of an rp is making your character super-human and giving them more skills, ablities, and powers than any one character should rightly have. The only acception to this rule is if you're rping as the main villian of the rp. This character should often be stronger than all the rest, though still be careful to reign yourself in and don't go overboard.
Part 4- I've been accepted into an RP! But how do I get started?
Glad you asked! Some thread owners like to accept multiple profiles before getting started, at which point they will post 'Open' in the thread and you may begin. But say you're entering an rp several pages in? Perhaps the plot is already rolling, people are in the middle of converstions, and you're not entirely sure what's going on. One thing you MUST do to prevent your fellow rpers from getting annoyed at you is to read the last several pages. I cannot stress this enough. Read back as many pages as you need to figure out where everyone is. If you have to go back more than ten pages, then you can put an OOC post asking what's going on, but be sure to say that you read many pages and that your still lost. This prevents the rpers from feeling like you're wasting their time. If you don't do this, ususally people will think you're being lazy and inconciderate.
Far more important than all this, though, is when trying to get your character involved in an rp that's already pages in, BE AGGRESSIVE! Just putting an intro post for your character will not be enough. Nine out of ten times no one will come to your character and help draw them into the story. You have to work your own way in. Don't be too abrupt, but don't let your attempt to join your character into the plot to drag on either. Basically, you need to find the happy medium between: Suddenly Sally was standing behind the converseing duo, smiling. "What are you up to?" she asked. Versus a twenty post proccess of slowly moving closer to other characters before striking up a conversation with them.
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Posted: Sun Feb 28, 2010 1:19 pm
How To RP Properly
Just like any other form of writing, there are rules that role players must follow to be able to rp properly.
Actions
A mistake many new rpers make is using asterisk for actions.
I.e.- *Moves to chair and sits down* versus: He moved towards the chair and sat down in it, placing his right arm on the wooden arm rest.
The advantages of the latter are many. Firstly, it makes it more interesting to read for the other rpers. Secondly, it allows you to put in more detail and action. Using ** you only get to put the action in and don't describe anything. Description helps create setting which helps add to the overall role playing experience. If you use ** it may take a while to start rping the full sentence way, but learning to do so will open up a whole new group of people you can rp with, and it allows your rping skills to improve.
Thoughts
One thing you should remember is that, unless your in a superhero or magic rp and your character has the ability to do so, you cannot read other people's minds. What another character thinks, your character does not automatically know. Generally, if another character puts on a happy facade but is tortured inside, unless your character knows them well or your character is good at understanding people, your character has no idea that the other character is upset.
Also, when your character is thinking, generally the thoughts should be in italics. This differentiates between narration and thought.
Doing Your Part
Rps can only be successful if everyone works together to keep things rolling. Make sure you do your part and follow these simple steps:
1- Do not abandon the rp. If you find yourself getting bored with it, let the thread owner know you will be leaving.
2- Do not vanish for days in the middle of a conversation. If you know you're going to be gone for a while, make sure your character isn't doing something with someone else's character. Otherwise, the other person's character becomes stuck as they wait for you to return and can't rp. If you know ahead of time, let whoever your character is with know, and give them permission to skip whatever you were doing with them or to take control over your character.
3- Give others something to work with. If you don't give the other characters something they can respond to, then it makes it hard for them to write anything.
Names
Remember that it's hard sometimes for people to remember the names of all the other characters. You should try to incorporate your characters name into every post, to help refresh the memories of your fellow rpers. Try putting your characters name in the first sentence instead of using he or she every time you post. This may seem repetitive, but it's helpful to others, especially when there are a lot of characters.
Punctuation
Punctuate. Punctuate! PUNCTUATE!!! Use periods, use quotation marks and use capitals. I also must stress the use of a much-neglected friend, the comma. The comma is a beautiful thing. It breaks long up sentences, allows you to join multiple sentences together, helps make lists, and much, much more! So please don't forget to punctuate. Even if you're not the best at grammar, just do what you can to make it easy for others to read. Reading a post with little to no punctuation takes two to three times longer than it should. This is one of the ultimate role playing rules that is all too neglected.
Notice the difference between the two following sentences:
1- WRONG: "Let's eat John!"
2- RIGHT: "Let's eat, John!"
In number one, you just accidentally told everyone that you want to consum the flesh and blood of one of your fellow rp characters, in the latter, you asked him to come eat something with you, like a piece of pizza or possibly the flesh and blood of another character (though in the latter case, it'll be the flesh and blood of a character you actually WANT to consume on purpose).
The Law of Equal Returns
While not an actual rule, a much appreciated tactic is returning what you get. If a fellow rper gives you a paragraph, you should do your best to write a paragraph back. It assures that you return as much material to work with writing a post as you got. This is a good habit to get into, especially if you're trying to improve your rping skills.
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Posted: Sat Mar 06, 2010 11:16 am
Rping- What Not to Do.
God Modding- Often in rules you'll read one that say's "Don't God Mod." What does this mean? you ask yourself. God modding in rping means acting as God and controling other people's players. Even if you assume someone will respond to you in some way, you can't act on it. Just because you stick your hand out, you can't assume the other person will shake it. There's a fine line between god modding and advancing the plot line. You will certainly accidentally cross this line as you lean, and people will yell at you. But eventually you'll understand and not have to worry about god modding.
Bad:Quote: Bumblemuffin smiled at the girl, who returned the grin.
If the girl is not your character, but belongs to someone else, you CANNOT assume hat they will smile back at you.
Good: Quote: Bumblemuffin smiled at the girl, hoping she'd return the grin.
This is the right way to do it. Yes, sometimes it makes things a little slower, but you have to do it or you will get kicked out of rps.
Judgement: God Modding isn't always so cut and dry. Sometimes you have to know another person's character and understand how they'd react.
Say your character is a male and someone else's character is a female. If they're the kind to do as they're told, don't have any reservations about it, or there aren't any other options, then the following sentence is acceptable:
"He gestured for the girl to follow, turning on his heel as he began to walk. He began speaking as they walked, explaining the answer to her previously asked question."
See? That was God Modding, BUT, it was acceptable God Modding. You assumed the character would follow you, but if you know the character would follow, then it's okay. If the girl character is nervous, scared of you, angry, or doesn't like taking orders, then that sentence would not be okay, because the person controling the girl might not have had her follow you.
Free Riding- Okay, so that's not the real term for it, but I don't know if it actually has a name, so we'll call it free riding. This is when someone writes a post, and you respond without giving them anything to work with.
Say someone wrote this:Quote: "It wasn't as simple as that, there's so much that we didn't understand. We thought we knew everything, but... clearly we didn't." Bumblemuffin looked up finally, staring straight at her face. "And it just came out of nowhere! We were completely unprepared, what were we supposed to do? I'm not a god. I can't keep freak accidents from happening." He shook his head slightly, brows knitted together in desperation.
And you responded with this:Quote: She frowned, scuffing her shoe against the ground. She didn't respond to him, remaining silent. That was his excuse? That he had made a mistake? This wasn't just a simple mistake, it was a miscalculation that had carried serious and irreversable consequences.
Can you imagine having to respond to that last post? You didn't give the person your rping with anything to work with! A good *general* rule, though not one that is always true, is that if you didn't write any dialogue or powerful/dramatic/emotional actions, you didn't give the other person anything to work with.
Power Plays/Auto Hits: Two biiiig no-no's of the rping world. Power plays are when you make your character reeeallly strong, so strong that no one has an iota of a chance against them, even if they all team up. Generally this is bad, though if you have the main antagonist of the game, it's often acceptable. Villans can be stronger than the good guys, because that makes the plot more interesting. Ways to make sure your character isn't too strong include having an Akilies heel, (a weekness that others can exploit), letting your character get hit now and then, and letting those injuries disadvantage you in some way.
Now onto auto hits. This is when you're in a fight scene of some sort, physical, magical, or anything else, and you write something like:
Quote: Bumblemuffin slashed his sword at the enemy, cutting him in the arm and causing him to bleed.
You can't assume that you'll hit the person! It's just like god moding, only with fighting. In that last sentence, Bumblemuffin should have made the assumption that his enemy couldn't dodge. It should read like this:Quote: Bublemuffin slashed his sword at the enemy, aiming for his arm, then followed with an upward slash accross the torso.
This way, someone can respond by saying that they dodge the first attack, but got hit by the second or whatever they want to do.
These are VERY important. Also, as I've previously mentioned, remember that you CANNOT HEAR OTHER PEOPLES THOUGHTS, and therefore cannot act on them.
Remember: Bumblemuffin says NO to god-modding!
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Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2010 1:14 pm
How to Create a Successful RP
Now you now the rping basics (of course, it'll take practice to become good, just like anything else), and now it's time to move on to making your own rp!
Post 1- Intro and Title-Okay, when you first start making your rp, you need to think up a catchy title, that says what the rp is about and will draw people in. If you want, you can put the genre in parenthasies, like so:
Quote: Do You Know The Muffin Man? (A fantasy rp)
This is the also the intro post. Everyone likes to set up their rp a little differently, and the number of posts it takes is ultimately up to you, but here's a general outline:
Post 1- Table of Contents: this one is very much optional. Some people use them, other people don't. If you want to use one, make sure it's clear and understandable.
Post 2- Plot
Post 3- Character Options: if your rp has different races, positions, or jobs, this is where you should put them and explain them. If there is a limit to how many profiles you'll accept for each one (for example, if one of our positions is a prince, and you're only accepting one prince) then after you receive and accept that profile, make sure to strike it out using the strikethrough option, which looks like this: [strike]The position/race/job that's been taken goes here[/strike]
Post 4- Rules
Post 5- Character skeleton: lay out what you want included in your character skeleton. Here's an exampleQuote: Username: remember to ask for this, or you'll forget who is who! Cha name: stands for character name. Cha age: character age Race: if applicable Job/Rank/Positions: choose whatever is applicable. Picture: or if you want a description of the characters looks instead of a picture, put 'description' instead. Bio: a history of your character. Personality: some people ask for this and some don't, because it's hard to describe a character in a few sentences, and this forces you to do that.
Add or take away whatever you want, but that's the most basic cha skel. Most people want character skeletons sent to them through PM, and a few like the skeletons posted. Having them sent to you through PM allows you to organize them into one cohesive post, which is coming up next.
Post 6- Character Profiles- if you chose to have posts sent to you, you should post the accepted profiles here, for everyone to see. This helps keep things organized, having all the profiles in one place.
Post 7- Open- declare your rp open using a post that says "Now Open" or something of that variation.
Remember, if you have profiles sent to you through PM, return the message to the person letting them know if their profile has been accepted or not, and let them know if they can start rping.
To help you out, here are a few examples of different ways to set up your rp:
http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/barton-town/torn-clueless-days-post-apocalyptic-open-need-pirates/t.54680191/
http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/barton-town/i-am-not-an-animal/t.59579569/
http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/barton-town/the-g-r-l-onderland-lit-adv-o-a/t.59579257/?_gaia_t_=616
All of these are pretty extravagant, and yours can be much more simple. Now you're ready to make your rp! The lesson is almost done!
(to be continued...)
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