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Setup Structure:

Multiple Posts, A Must!
It just is not possible for an RP to reach it's full potential if it's all crammed in one post, and you should know that there is in fact a limit to how big a single post can be. Having three posts is still mostly inadequate, I've seen people do nine and still seem cramped.

Add to that our sticky system, if you expect your RP to be above Level 1 than you expect it to be in a protected environment, we sticky all the threads that are supposed to be there, and if you edit your first post you loose the sticky, this will get fixed but it sticks you to the bottom of the page.

Your first post should be something that doesn't need to change much or at all, an intro or something similar.

You should always have different posts for the main description, the character list, which should be the last or near the end most of the time, character classes if you have them, history if needed, any major topics from the story, and any extra information.

My RP, Abandon, has 6 structure posts, index as the first, rarely needs to change, story description, environment description, rules, character list, and in|out of game news.

A word from my job as Crew of this guild, when I go out to check RPs for what Level I think they should go it, the first thing I do before even reading a word of it is analyze the structure, it is the first and most visible aspect of an RP.

Good Formatting
This is easy to overlook, you're writing a story not a web page, but you still need to add formatting.

This does not mean make everything green, just like everywhere else bright colors are hard to read, bright colors and small fonts impossible. Rule number one of making an RP, If they can't read it, they wont try.

Images are good if you can use them well, learn to use Name Not Comment
The absolute first thing anybody ever sees of your RP is it's name, it doesn't have to be great but putting something like 'my RP' is an almost certain death blow to a possibly long lived RP.

Never Ever Ever Stop Error Checking
Errors are a wily beast, they can avoid notice countless times, to be on your toes you should be on the lookout any time you reread any part of your RP, and a good RPer will do the same with their posts.

Never Make Reserves
Having posts marked "Reserved" is a blemish on a good RP, you should know just about everything you'll ever need when you start the thread. Now, if you believe that you might need to add to the thread, maybe you have a very open world, or plan on a long RP that could evolve out of the current plot elements and groups, etc, there are some ways to hide extra posts in your setup.

An easy way I've used multiple times is to follow your setup with some superfluous announcements, posts, and bump like posts, nobody will think anything of them, and it is quite common for the creator of an RP to have to do some bumping before people get involved, then when you need them just edit the post, nobody will miss it. If you put RP posts and there's nobody responding till a few posts later just condense it into one of the following posts.

The second method I know of is to spread your layout a little thin, over more area than is really needed, generally rules doesn't really need to be by itself, it works just fine when lumped with announcements if you have them, or the character skeleton, another thing that generally doesn't need it's own post, but can be given one to take up space.

Do remember that a bloated and thin setup can make an RP look weak and amateur, you can put in a little air without sacrificing quality, something you can not do with "Reserved" posts

Avoid Empty Threads
This pretty much applies exclusively to large RPs with multiple threads, subforums or guilds essentially. More often than not when somebody gets a space to make a big RP they make everything they think they'll need immediately, this is wrong, you should make a thread When you need it. Now obviously there are a number of threads you'll want up front, rules, history, characters, occ (and if you have a large space to run your game you should have an OCC), but for the most part you should start with the bare minimum threads you can start with, or slightly more. This is with the same logic of not having reserved posts in a thread, you've got a thread sitting there doing nothing and filling space.

Say for instance you plan to run a world and will have different areas separated into different threads, or subforums even, but to begin with you're only going to have enough characters to run one town in one country on one planet. If you go and make all the locations, A) a lot of it will be unused and since it's last post date will eventually be a long time ago, and that will make your RP appear dead, and B) having a lot of places open at the start subliminally encourages your members to start their character in whichever location seems to most benefit Their Character, instead of all in one place where they can play off each other, then split off later once the world is taking off.

Now initially, and I'm not going to name names, this rant was inspired by me looking at an RP and seeing a thread dedicated to the storage of dead or abandoned characters, and I know this RP hasn't been running for very long, I didn't look to see if they have used it but I doubt they have, so the thread would be unnecessary, and who knows how long until they get used. Do make note though, the different between a thread that's not supposed to be posted in by the members, and a thread that is unneeded.

Don't Attach Signature
This applies more to guild RPs, or if you get a subforum to host it in, RPs where you will likely have a number of threads that other people are not supposed to post in, if you have only one or a few threads chances are your signature will be needed else on the page.

When you do have threads as such that will have a limited number of posts that are largely official, and some of those posts are followed by your signature, it looks unprofessional, most people will never notice it, but you worked hard to make the thread look like it does, and your sig could throw that all off. Plus if the RP ages a bit and you no longer feature it in your signature, it could make potential members think you have lost interest.

___lists
It's an unfortunate fact of the world that there are dicks out there, so it's completely feasible you will need a black list at some point, and white lists are a fun way to show recognition; and yet they've always seemed immature to me. At the start of any RP you really shouldn't have a black list post/thread, if you do have an empty black list it portrays you as a pessimistic person who will be looking to make an example of someone(s) and fill up that list. On the other hand there's nothing wrong with a white list from the start, but as I said, I just don't like them. Instead I would advise going the way Venom of 27, and I think most of the subforum RPs of the moment have, Awesome Points. Awesome Points are basically points given in recognition of things done well, or awesomely; the points in themselves are mostly pointless, you could just keep them and make them actually pointless, but the fact that they're earned through the game helps the players believe they can earn points by being loyal to the RP and improving themselves (which is good for everybody), instead of by being your friend or whatever inane reasoning you have. You could also go the Venom path and use these points to buy luck in game, justify unreasonable feats or whatever;



This example scale is based off a fairly structured game mechanic, so maybe you have to be a little more vague, but just because it's an inane reward for loyalty and quality play doesn't mean it has to be worthless.

RPs Cannot Be a One Man Show
When a single author writes a story it almost always comes down to one, two, maybe three characters that matter significantly more than the other characters; Generally I break it down into Main Characters, Secondary Characters, and Supporting Characters (then of course the people who don't even count as characters like the random people that exist only to die or the people who just happen to be walking by). This dynamic does not function in the average RP, one on one or with very small groups you could probably pull it off but in general a good RP will have between five and ten characters, most of which will need to fit into the Main category. Say you're working on a concept where most of the story revolves around ether one dude's quest to save the world, or one couple's romantic orbit. A likely outcome is that the RP will start up and the individual character's drives will pull away from ether one of those being the actual outcome, in which case you probably don't have a plan to keep things going, or the fact that most of the players are playing secondary characters or worse will damage those players drive, making them less likely to post reliably, post well written posts (by the standards of the RP), or post at all.

In short, RPs are a group effort, so you need a group oriented plot, and that doesn't mean you need to do like most of the Final Fantasy games and force players to make characters that all have almost the same goals in mind, in fact that's terrible. Would you read final fantasy if it were a book? I wouldn't (I'm sure one of you will tell me there is a book, and I will laugh loudly).

Group oriented means you need to recognize that different characters will have different goals, different tactics, different styles and different paces, and you as the GM need to figure out some way all of these character's can play out Their Own Story within the group story. this will lead to happy players, deeper characters, and in general, more fun.
(And isn't that the most important thing in the end?)

Facts

The Three Musts
In any RP you must have three details for things to make sense, they don't need to be listed and usually it's better to work them into the text.

• Where
  people need to know what their surroundings look like or there's no telling how they will view it, and there is a good chance they wont see it the same way, and eventually it will come out that people are playing in different places, this can cause the RP to disintegrate and die. Generally the more detailed the better but there is a point where people just don't want to read anymore.
  
  
• When
  the era is very important to what the characters would be like, what they will encounter, how they will act. With out this detail you can end up with samurai and cyborg doing battle, you might want this but most of the time you don't.
  
  
• Why
  lets say you do want samurai and cyborg, and they are doing battle; Why, why are they both here, why are they fighting, why hasn't the cyborg pwned the samurai with his lasers yet, why hasn't the samurai chopped the cyborg in half, there are a million whys and you cant hope to answer them all, but you have to answer the big ones or people wont understand what's going on.

The Past, and What You Shouldn't Expect People To Know





Fit In, But Don't

Just added more stuff to a few section, and the section directly above this post.

Added another section, capitalization. In anybody is wondering I get inspired to write most of these sections by seeing people do it wrong, or exceptionally right, in RPs we have here.

This really depends of who you are and who you RP with, you have to find your own equilibrium, not follow some other person's rule on it.

added a bit more to setup, just a minor thing that has been annoying me for months, no really, the weirdest things occupy my thoughts. Also I've been thinking, this concept should be stickied, though it doesn't seem to me that there is yet enough here.

A tip I think you should pass out:

If your gonna detail things, talk about events that are in the past, but were not done IN hte RPing itself, and do it often, a backstory to your RP is gonna be needed, because then people will then be able to understand the who's, what's, when's, and how's your talking about. If you don't do it often, don't bog down your RP with a lengthy backstory.

Also, if your basing your RP on a already established 'universe', I'm going to use FFVII as an example, then you already have a backstory built in, however, to those who may have never seen or known that 'universe' existed until they joined in, may not understand how the world works, where things are located, or some of the history that your building off of. Say your doing an AU of Advent Children. If someone who's never even heard of FFVII were to join, they would not know that magic and many skills require the insertion of Materia into weapons and armors, or that Midgar was destoryed during the Meteor Crisis, leaving a husk of a city, and that the super-power ShinRa had fought a war against Wutai, and won due to their technology and superior numbers, and had been torn apart and broken down from all hte fighting during the Meteor Crisis, leaving a power-gap in the world, recently taken up by the WRO, World Regenisis Organization. However, to someone who's been in the midst of hte Compliation of FFVII, they know these things, and don't need to read the backstory post, because they've played/watched it.

So, Backstory can expand the RP into making it seem like having a life of it's own, making it seem like something better then a slapped together idea. However, a poorly done Backstory can actually turn people away, because it either is A) unclear and hard to understand, B) too complex to understand, or C) had no care taken into it, and seems more like a summary of the RP then a history before the RP.