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 Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 6:47 pm
Okay, as people join and even for us that have been at this for a while it is always good to give and receive tips. Here I am going to list some basic things and links for you to take a look at that I am sure will help us all out.
I am going to list a few things of my own, talk to a couple people, I want to hear from all of you so feel free to post in here and ask questions as well. A few things I am going to post directly from threads and so i will have a post with links as I stated previously.
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Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 6:57 pm
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Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 7:12 pm
Tips
* Use descriptive words and not always the same thing over and over.
Ex: Blue- you could use azure, cobalt, navy, sapphire, teal, or turquiose
* Use detail but you don't have to be repetitive. It isn't about length as much as content and details help bring up the level of understand.
* You hear the term God-modding a lot. God-modding is controling another person's character. You can say that you take their hand and lead them but you wouldn't want to jump to the place where you led them. What if they wanted to pull away?
* Use humor. Not everything has to be super serious the entire time. Treat it like life, almost. There are dramatic times, there are fun times.
* Offer new ideas and characters. Don't be shy to put in yoru two cents.
* Meet people, get involved, follow on the action. Things change and you go with the flow.
* When you get near other characters be sure to have it so they can interact with you and not that you are simply in the background.
* Be courteous and let others know when you are leaving or if you are going to be gone for an extended period of time.
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Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 7:26 pm
God-Modding in a bit more Detail
This is a conversation between two friends of mine concerning god-modding, and how to avoid it.
Zacki: Right... I kind of wonder about that though
Psycho: It all depends if the simmers
follow the general rules of attacking and
defending. If they are followed then the better
RPer usually wins out.
Zacki: I don't know those
psycho: allow me to explain then
Zacki: I'm ready to listen
Psycho: Well first and formost.
Scenery.
Psycho: Scenery is to be written out in
a story type form. I mean Paragraphs being
very descriptive, also describing your chars
look and why they are there.
Psycho: Decriptive has in everything
concerning the battleground in question.
Psycho: If you don't describe it well
enough then the opponent is free to assume
what is there.
Zacki: Understood
Psycho: Now if you don't do the
scenery then you have the first attack, which
in my eyes is harder. Not only do you
describe your character, but you must also
say what your doing there and give a reason
for the battle even taking place.
Psycho: Now onto the actual attacking
and defending.
Psycho: An attack has to give every
reason why it hits, but never say that it does.
God Modding is to say the attack
Automatically hits. If you describe in every
detail why it should hit, then the person
defending has to type up a logical reason on
how they would block or dodge it. If they
have one cheap way of dodging or not taking
damage that is used for everything then it is
god modding. *ie. Impenetrable Force field (I
beat a guy using one of those before)*
Psycho: You defend and then strike
back in the same post. Then the battle
continues. A third party, familiar with the style
of battle can be called in to act has a ref if
needed.
Zacki: right
Psycho: Victory comes when one
person accepts death. It takes people with
little to no ego to sim right.
Zacki: I see
Zacki: Was that all?
Psycho: More or less
Psycho: The basics
Zacki: I see
These rules were agreed apon by some of the older RPer's in Cloud, and I'm sure most of the veteran RPer's know this, these are just the guidelines that are used to base God-modding or not.
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Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 6:03 pm
Tips from Frac
(yoinked from her page) New Arrivals:Looking at the RP thread on a busy night is kind of scary, you go to post and it has moved to another page already. The best any one can expect is for you to make a decent entrance post roughly. With such minor things as battles and whatever else going on at the moment in consideration.Read over the character bios. You still have to meet the characters, however it is important to know what they look like. For instance, if you are not used to seeing elves, creature-people, and the like, your character might have an initial reaction to their looks.
Making an exit post or 'pausing out' is a nice gesture. When making your exit posts, either make it clear by going away from those you're engaged with, saying you wish to be alone, or putting an OOC at the end of your post. OOC's in the RP thread should be made in double parenthesis like this: ((exit)). Please keep these to a minimum in the RP, however there is an OOC thread entitled FlimFlam where talk is welcomed and encouraged.Older members:For those of you who are no longer cute, fluffy, little new members, you now have certain requirements to stay in the guild and keep everyone off your back. Do not groan, they are not that bad.
At the very least you must be on the RP and involved one night a week. Involved is kind of a relative term and depends on how many other characters are on versus whether there was a situation going on or the RP was dead. Just try and be online, posting and interacting with other characters for a few hours one night a week and you should be fine.Posting:Do not ignore other characters in the room, be considerate and acknowledge them using internal thought if that is all you wish to do. Ignoring is not nice unless the character wishes not to be noticed.
Read a few of the previous posts to find out exactly where everyone is so you do not look stupid.
It has been noticed that the two window method is useful. Have two browsers up for the RP. One for posting on, one for just watching the RP. This way you can edit accordingly before you post and also keep up with what is going on.
Quoting is not necessary. If we all read, at least skim, then we should know where everyone is, what they are doing, and who is being addressed. Whatever you do, main characters should follow the initial rules:
1. No god-modding.
2. Out of character in parenthesis ((ooc))
3. Limited one liners.
4. Posting done in story/paragraph form.
5. Fighting and romance allowed, but stay within the rules of Gaia.
6. No stealng ideas from characters without prior permission.
7. Read information stickies/announcements. They are useful!
This rules are elaborated upon on the Guild Homepage.God-modding and such:Main characters:Do not freak if someone puppeteers you slightly. No one can pick you up and throw you through a wall stating your death, but that is not slight hit however.
They can not be auto-hit, but they should not be God-powerful taking absolutely no hits at all while mutilating everyone else. That is not cool, it makes a situation seem impossible.NPCs:NPCs are non-player characters, or in this case, not your main character, but the name stays anyway. There are many of them in the guild, let us face it, we just like talking to ourselves sometimes.
They can be auto-hit and can auto-hit, but they can not explain the characters reaction to a hit. They can be difficult to fight, but should not be all powerful either. Basically there rules are slightly different, and sometimes case specific.
Of course these rules concerning player interaction go out the window and down the street if both players consent to puppeteering and the like. Any questions about a situation can be worked out between people, or crew may intervene.Reusing Characters:We encourage that you create a different character for each RP you are in. Variety is the spice of life after all. However there are 'transfers' made. This is where you want to transfer one character to another RP (because say the RP is closing but you don't want to retire the character yet). You may transfer a character over, but please have a valid story as to how they got switched (planes crossing, moved, that kind of fun).
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Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 10:51 pm
Just another tip
*You role play in past tense; not present tense.
Example:
(Present)
I walk through the door and say hello to the girl standing there. Slowly I run my fingers through my hair and smile hoping she sees me.
(Present 2)
David walks through the door and smiles. "Hello." To make sure the girl notices him David runs his fingers through his hair.
(Past)
David walked throught the door and smiled. "Hello." He wanted to make sure the girl noticed him and slowly he ran his fingers through his hair, just to make sure she saw him.
**This will be modified later.**
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Posted: Mon Jun 19, 2006 10:43 am
Okay, Midsie will probably take this and pull it into her own and that's fine but I wanted to get it out before I forgot everything. There's a few things that will upset any literate roleplayer in a matter of moments and I'm going to attempt to outline what these things are as well as ways to avoid them.
1. God-modding. Please don't do it. It annoys us all to no end and kills the rp mood. I don't think anything more than that needs to be said. For more information read the other posts on the page.
2. Not reading. I can't tell you how many times I've had people skim my posts, miss some vital piece of information and then post something idiotic in response. This doesn't annoy us so much as make you look stupid and along with that comes the human urge to point and giggle. To keep yourself from making a fool out of yourself read everything! They didn't type it for their health (although some did to make the post longer...) there was a reason for what they put.
3. Not using logic. Roleplaying is really a written version of a created life. Based on the rules and regulations of the rp itself, things change buy basic principles remain the same. There must be a reason for doing what you do! I cannot stress enough and along with this goes internal monologue but we'll get to that later. If you want to go kick some character in the face, you need to have a reason. Please don't randomly move about doing things with no rhyme or reason, even if you don't state the reason from the character's mouth. Have some concept of logic within the rules of the rp itself.
4. Not using internal monologue. This will annoy someone so fast they will scream. Internal monologue, kiddies, is perfect for the above situation as well as fillers in a post. You see, if someone understands why you're coming after them, they're less likely to jump down your throat about something. A character's thoughts feelings and emotions are important to understand so the other players can get to know your character and plot *cough* I mean interact accordingly.
5. Not using correct spelling, grammar, punctuation, story format, third person, and other various English things. Bottom line, no one wants to read a jumbled mess that we have to spend ten minutes deciphering because you choose not to follow simple rules that have been hammered into your head since kindergarten. Some are more strict on this than others and everyone makes mistakes. For those of you who don't type well or have trouble spelling, spell checker is your friend, download this one here:
The secret way to make all literates love you!
But imagine if you go into a thread and it looks like this:example 1 SHE mvd down the lines 2 say hi and we walk forward goin "Yo, bkca 4 more?" he grind with a cuel smile.
To expand on a few points in there:
Story format: You are writing a story. Congratulations. That is basically what you're doing when you are rping. Manipulating characters and their words and actions to get to a desired goal. You can even call yourself a writer if you wish. *pets egos* Stories, dear kiddies, are usually (and I stress the word usually) written in third person. Unless otherwise specified, assume roleplays will be in third person. That means there should be no "I" unless the character is speaking directly. Use names and the pronouns, 'he' or 'she' respectively.
Also in a literate forum we don't use action symbols to show movement. Is it really that many more words to type a name in front of the action and put some linking verbs in there? No, it's really not. Therefore use sentence format. I'm not going to say that a sentence has to have a subject and a verb and it has to be a complete thought because (English majors cover your ears) it doesn't! Shock of all shocks, we don't talk in complete sentences half the time.
Third person omniscient: Yes we're bringing in an English term once again. Remember what omniscient means? "All knowing." The easiest way to explain this is to say that you as the writer know all. You know every character and whatever information you have been exposed to. YOUR CHARACTER DOES NOT! If you were not in on a meeting where a top secret formula was discussed and distributed, then you know nothing about it until someone tells you or you come up with a cleverly LOGICAL way to find out about it. Your character cannot read other characters minds unless you have a specific power set up at the beginning of the rp to do so. You have to remember that your character is the one who you are playing through, so while you can tweak situations based on things you learn, you cannot know everything without having a really good excuse why you do.
6. Arguing. If you're doing something wrong and someone tells you about it, don't' argue. Especially if you're in the wrong. Arguing needlessly only gives people the feeling they are banging their heads against an unyielding brick wall. Not a fun feeling. If you have questions, ask. We would rather you ask than make a fool of yourself and get mad at us when we point things out. We are not out to make you miserable or upset you, or make you look stupid. Really...we're not. sweatdrop We're all human, we all make mistakes, but to not ask is just foolish. We're not going to laugh at you and if we do, what do you care it's behind a computer screen anyway! And don't whine. I fully believe that Moses lost the 11th commandment: Thou shall not whine!
7. Rping in the present tense/ giving nothing of use in your posts. Midsie touched on this earlier and I'm sure it's in the guides but let me just say it again. Rping much like storytelling takes place in the PAST! It's not natural to speak of yourself in the present, why write it that way? Instead of 'says' it should be 'said' 'does' should be 'did' and 'jumps' should be 'jumped.' Okay enough of that.
Giving nothing of use in your posts. The main thing with this is pretty simple. Most literate people abhor small posts. We will write them but we don't like to. And a whole page of small posts? *gasp* Kill me now. When I say small, I mean like two lines. It is understandable that posts can shorten when in conversation, that's fine and sometimes there's just not that much to do but if at all possible try to give a little internal monologue or shift your weight. Blink a few times and stare stupidly! Hey look there's an extra line for you to use. You can even replace stupidly if you wish. A freebie just from me 'cause I love you. It just gets very frustrating trying to respond to you when we have nothing to go on. In other words: Description is your friend.
And sadly, there's going to be someone who's going to read this and start screaming and hollering about being forced to write a seven page post. NO! If you write seven pages and expect me to read it I'm going to laugh in your face and ignore you. Don't tell me a story, rp with me. I hate these people who feel they need to kill my poor outdated scroll button and give me a finger cramp. Do us a favor and write the great American novel. At least you'll get paid for that. 3nodding
And on that note, I must be ending this here. I'll probably be editing this at some point and changing things so check back. Got any questions? Be happy to answer them for you, just post 'em here and I'll get to them when I get a chance.
Stars heart
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Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 4:21 pm
Two brief things come to mind:
1. Gender. If you can't play the opposite gender...don't. Some people can play either gender (meaning opposite of their own) and do it just well, and can hold the mindset. Other people...well just can't. If you know you can't...don't. Please. It looks horrible. If you can, congrats. If you don't know...ask someone to do a quickie with you so you can find out.
2. History. This applies to pre-existing world history. Please do not bluff it. If you aren't savvy on it...you might not want to use it. If you're a buff on it, use it but don't be condescending with it. Nothing looks worse than botched history and nonhistorical acurateness.
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