Athear's Roleplay Tutorial.
This thread is for those of you who either don't know how to roleplay, or know a little and want to know more. As I get more pages and more information on the subject, I will index the pages here so that complete beginners can begin at the beginning and those of you who maybe just need a little refreshing can head to the more advanced sections. Now, let me introduce you to a some of the terms you may come across during roleplay.
Common Terms and Abbreviations
Roleplay - Fictional interaction between characters, places and items, almost as if telling a story.
RP - A shortened way of saying roleplay.
OOC - A shortened way of saying out of character, meaning speech and behaviour that is from you and not your character.
IC - A shortened way of saying in character, meaning speech and behaviour that is from your character, not yourself.
Post - A word meaning a paragraph or more of in character description, speech, and action, or out of character chatter.
Intro - A shortened way of saying introduction. An introduction is what occurs when a character appears in a roleplay for the first time, or the first time in a new scene/area. Usually their character is described, as well as any aspects of their appearance that reveal particular character traits. (ie: A long stride could indicate a traveller. Short, furtive movements could indicate nervousness or dishonesty.)
Para RP - Paragraph roleplay, meaning 'posts' that are more than a few lines long. The generally agreed length for this is five well-crafted sentences.
One Liners - Posts that are one or possibly two sentences long.
Auto - A name for when someone posts that someone else has done something without their consent. (ie: John rushes up and kicks Keith in the leg then runs off laughing. Note, Keith has not given his consent for that gesture - he might have blocked it if he were allowed to decide - and thus it will not be counted as a valid post. More on this subject later on.)
NPC - A shortened form of non-player character, meaning a character that is not owned by a user. It is okay to auto (in this case known as NPC) most NPCs as they don't have an owner.
Godding / God-modeing / God-modding - A name for when someone acts like their character is completely invincible and untouchable. This is not accepted anywhere so it is a wise idea to not do it.
Lesson One
Now that we have the basic terms under our belt, let us crack on with a bit more information on some of the common rules of roleplay.
When posting, try as hard as you can to be descriptive about what it is that your character is doing. The players can't physically see their characters so we have to imagine it, and to do this, we need plenty of description about character appearance, movements, and so on. Even though there are character sheets on the forums some people dislike them - it might be an idea to post a description in your introduction.
Below, I list two examples. One would be a good intro post and the other would be unacceptable.
Good post: Walking with a measured but slightly frantic pace, a figure's head turns side to side as she checks the numbers and names printed on the doorways she passes. Her deep green eyes sparkle softly in the muted light filtering in through windows in doors and the great windows in the hall at the far end of the corridoor. Her long lustrous black hair cascades down her back, bobbing slightly as she walks. Finally she stops at a door near the end of the hallway and nervously taps at it door before pushing it gently open: "Hello?" she calls out in soft tones, "I'm here for my lesson."
Bad post: **she walks up the hall and in the door** "hi i'm here for my lesson"
Try to remember to use punctuation, capitalize names, and use a capital 'I' when using it as a first-person pronoun. (ie: I like cheese.) Proper spelling is also appreciated and things like 'i woz so egscited dat i nerly fel ova' will most certainlly not be accepted - IC posts written like this will probably be deleted.
