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Was there anything in particular you wanted help with or just everything in general?

Without specific things to look at, I can say this is an interesting start to a storyline which could be a lot of fun to play but there is some work to be done before it's ready.

First off, you need to ask yourself "What kind of RP do I want this to become?" The answer to that question will determine how all others will be answered. You may already have an answer for this one too, it's just not obvious from what's written so far.

What do I mean by what kind of RP? Well, there are three main factors in that: size, style, and genre.

Size is fairly simple and just means how many players do you want? So do you want this to be a one-on-one RP, a small group (up to 5 players), a large group (over 5 players), or a multiple group (more than one group of players)?

Next is the style, basically what kind of players do you want? Should your players be casual and just around to have fun or do you want a more serious crowd? Would you rather them take more time and make longer posts or do you want faster, more concise posts? Will you be using a freestyle format or did you want to play with a more rigid rules and stats system? Keep in mind none of these styles are better than the rest, they are just different.

Lastly you have your genre, what kind of story do you want to tell? Is this going to be a romantic drama about the struggles of the once lovers coming back together? Or is it going to be a dark comedy about the antics the demons get their attached humans mixed up in? Or maybe it will be a grand adventure about the child returning to rescue his/her parents from the curse (ever seen Once Upon a Time?).

Try answering these questions and from there I can give you some more directed ones to help you mold this into the kind of RP you want it to be.

Last little thing. Some people don't care about this but most have trouble reading bad grammar. Watch your their/there/they're. It's their if you're talking about a thing that belongs to them, as in their thing. It's there if the thing is somewhere, as in over there. And it's they're if they are doing something, as in they're doing their thing over there.

Also, look out for your apostrophe use. That's this thing ' up here. There are two main uses for an apostrophe: to make a conjunction or show possession. Possession is when one thing owns another thing and is usually shown by adding an 's to the end of the owner, such as Mary's thing. Conjunctions are where you take two words, cut out some stuff in the middle, then cram them together to make a single, shorter word. There's lots of them and I just used one for there is. It's hard to tell the difference from a conjunction and possessive in the case of it though. The normal rule you would just tack 's to the end of it but that's already a conjunction for it is. So the possessive form of it is just its, as in its thing.

Those are the biggies but you've also got a few clipped/missing words (which are probably just typos so read over your writing to catch those), comma use (which is a much more complicated subject so I won't get into it unless you ask), and the word is till not tell, as in untill something happens.

Your plot's a good start and I'll try to help you with the grammar. Did the advice I gave on that before help some?



Happens to me all the time, I get a great idea and then suddenly there's a show or book of the same plot.

Anywho~

If you want to have a large group you'll need to make room for more characters. Right now you have the witch, the two lovers, the two demons, and possibly the child.

The witch is not a very good player character (PC) because she is too powerful and in charge. She would be better used as a mentor/god-like figure to give players direction and generally run things.

The two lovers are decent PCs as are the two demons but the power difference between the humans and demons would need to be balanced somehow. You may already have this in mind but I would suggest making the demons somehow controlled by their respective humans. This could create some interesting interplay and good reason for the demons to want to get away from their humans.

The child is a tough one and would require some time passing though you've established that people don't age on the island so that's not an issue.

Still, you've only got five playable characters in that. A large group would require at least one more.

Now then, another way to do this is to not let any of those be PCs and make the players make up their own characters from scratch. That way there would be an unlimited number of PCs. Your pre-made characters would be non-player characters (NPCs) which you would control to move along the plot.

In this case I would suggest the witch be treated the same as the other way (a mentor/god) but the lover/demon pairing would be more a possession than subservience. That way the demons would be controlling the lovers' bodies and thus they could be the 'bad guys' which the players must rescue the lovers from.

The child could possibly still be a PC but that specialness would need to be balanced by giving the other PCs something special as well. The rest of the PCs would be player created and each have some sort of special thing (like an ability or something) to make them stand out. Let your players come up with this. The more the players come up with for an RP the more invested they will be and thus more likely to stick around. Which is a good thing but it does require the person running the game (the GM) to be considerably more flexible and creative with the plot to incorporate all these various characters.

As for players having fun, any style should achieve that just not the same for every player. Some people prefer lighter stories with less thinking involved and more humor. Others don't have fun unless there is a challenge and some sort of deep dark secret to unravel. And still others would rather things be more in the middle, neither too casual nor too serious. It's just a matter of personal preference. So where do you stand on that scale? Are you more casual, serious, or in between? Whatever style you are is the style you'll want to do the RP in and the kind of players you'll want to attract.

Regardless of how casual or serious you want the RP to be you should probably expand on your setting. Even a casual game will want to know things like how big and what kind is the island (small tropical, medium evergreen, large mixed)? Are there any buildings on it? Are there any people other than the already mentioned characters? A more serious game will require more questions to be answered. In general the more serious the RP the more detail you have to put into it.

For the genres, a mix is fun but you probably want to pick a main genre to focus on, at least for direction at first. Most RPs will actually expand into other genres (especially romance) naturally if you just keep it open to them.



That's what we're here for. Just let me know if you need anything further explained. I don't always make perfect sense.

Sorry this has taken me so long to get to. I've been busy irl and trying to do several guild projects as well.



Unfortunately there's no magic solution for grammar. Oh, wait. . . grammar check. Modern word processors (Word or whatever a Mac comes with) have some form of at least rudimentary grammar checker. If you have trouble seeing your grammar mistakes I strongly suggest you use such a program to type your RP posts in. Depending on the program, it will highlight your mistakes as you type or you might have to manually run a grammar check (just like spell check and usually on the same menu). This should point out most of your mistakes and the good ones will even tell you why they are mistakes then give you suggestions on how to fix them. The programs are still just programs though so they're not always perfect and they don't catch advanced errors (like comma use) but it's a good start. If you don't have the money for an expensive program run a Google search for free grammar checker. You'll find lots of sites that will check small samples of writing for free. Yeah, you'll have to break it up into multiple checks but, hey, it's free. Usually I would recommend Open Office (a free equivalent of Microsoft's Office Suite) for this but the grammar check on that is terrible so don't trust it. There might be a plugin for Open Office though so if you find one let me know about it.

If you want to take your grammar beyond what a computer program can fix for you then you'll just have to learn the rules. Sorry, but there is simply no way around this. Unfortunately the English language is said to have some of the most complex grammar around because for every rule there is an exception but at least we don't have genders for every noun that actually change which 'the' you use in front of them and what ending to put on adjectives for them. Heck, Russian even has different endings on proper nouns depending on their place in the sentence. So there is that.

If you want good resources for grammar I'd suggest reading this fun thread that was written specifically for Gaia's RP audience. There's a lot of good advice throughout the thread (though I don't personally agree with what's said about formatting, that's a style thing) so you should probably give it a good read.

Now then, if your problem is not that you don't know the rules but more that you just don't see your mistakes, that is a different problem entirely. The only thing I can say about that problem is SLOW DOWN. People, and not just youngsters but old farts like myself as well, are in such a hurry these days that they've lost track of what's important - quality. Rather than rushing to get things done you should take time with everything you do, not just writing but everything. As my mother used to say, "There's no point in doing something if you don't do it right" and doing anything right takes time. Slow down and consider your words, actions, thoughts, even emotions. Think about what you're doing, why you're doing it, and what effect it could have on others and the world around you, not just yourself.

So what does that mean for writing? Well, the most basic is to just read over your writing several times before submitting it. I've just read over the above paragraphs five times and caught seven mistakes in doing so. That's a bit over one mistake per paragraph and I have a friggin' degree in writing. I'm pretty sure there are a few more mistakes left too, especially with commas, those wily beasts. I will probably read over each sentence of this whole post a good twenty times before I hit submit. Now then, I am OCD so that's a bit extreme. You probably don't need to compulsively read over every sentence three times before allowing yourself to type another one and then re-read over the two to be sure they flow, then re-re-read the paragraph to be sure it's cohesive, and then re-re-re-read your two paragraphs to make sure they transition, and if you change anything start back over at square one, then re-re-re-re-read. . . you get the point. And I just realized that's not actually an exaggeration but something I really do. Learn something new about yourself every day.

If you put this kind of effort into your writing it will improve. Maybe not quickly, maybe not gloriously but if you are determined enough and put in the right kind of effort it will get better. Study what is good grammar, good style, good writing. Make a point to make each new thing you write better than the last. Get help from good, patient mentors and just keep at it. Even people with learning disabilities can learn to write properly if they are willing to put in the effort. I can tell you wonderful stories about several cases of troubled students doing just that. There is very little in life that a person can not overcome with the right application of determination, effort, and support.



When you give NPCs over to other people you pretty much give over ownership of the game, that's why they're called NPCs - Non-Player Characters. The nature of an NPC is to drive along the plot, give your players something to fight against, and/or provide detail to the RP's world. These are the responsibility of the GM so they should be played by the GM.

Now, just to be clear on what an NPC is, they are not a main character. Player Characters are your main characters. Player Characters should be the ones doing all the important things while NPCs fill the supporting roles because, though an RP is a story told by the GM, that story is about the Player Characters. The whole reason we RP is so we can be the big damn heroes we aren't in real life (admit it, that is the psychology behind the appeal of role play). No one wants to play the support characters in their fantasy time, that's what real life is for. The GM's job is to play those roles so the Players can be awesome. That's the whole purpose of having a GM.

Being support characters means that NPCs are not the focus of the RP. Player Characters should be the focus of the RP. As such, the same NPCs should not be in every scene. In fact the vast majority of NPCs will exist only for a single scene and then never be heard from again - ie Bob the Bartender. More important NPCs (such as your witch and the demon possessed lovers) will play bigger roles with multiple scenes but they should still not actually have but a small percentage of the posts made in the RP. Your witch character should pop in like the Good Witch on the Wizard of Oz: at the beginning to give out the quest and at the end to wrap it up. She might have a few more appearances if the Player Characters get in a bind and need help getting out of it but for the most part she shouldn't get much 'screen' time. Your demon/lovers are the villains of the RP so they get more screen time but, like the Evil Witch of Oz, they should still not get much in comparison to your Player Characters. They should get talked about early on, smaller NPCs should warn the Players about them or even one of the PCs can know about them and tell the others, or maybe they come across some devastated village as a sign of the demon's wrath but there should be no actual posts by the demons themselves until well into the story. Think of them like a boss fight in a video game. The PCs need to work up to it before they're ready to face the big villain.

If you, as the GM, want to play one of the main characters of your story then reserve one of the player slots for yourself. Only one though and be sure that it's not the most important one. There really should not be a most important player slot anyway, but if there is, it's just bad form for the GM to fill it. Let someone else play the big hero while you act as their best friend, loyal sidekick, or wise mentor to guide them along the path your story will take them through. If this does not appeal to you then don't GM, either play as a PC in someone else's RP, write your story by yourself, or run it as a one-on-one since those are more about equal collaboration. A GM trying to play the hero of their own story will have a hard time finding players to play the supporting cast. If you do manage to find players they aren't likely to stick around once they realize their character isn't going to be allowed an equal share of the spotlight.

All that said, and if you're still interested in being a GM, having a co-GM or two play some of the NPCs is often a very helpful thing, especially with large groups. It breaks up the work load and allows for more frequent plot posting as the others can catch times when you're not on. You just have to be sure you trust your co-GMs and do some private plotting with them so you're all on the same page about where the RP is going.

As for mentors here playing your NPCs, I'm afraid we don't really have a good 'mentor' staff at the moment. We're in the process of training some but we don't have enough active, upper level staff to officially commit to something like this.

What we do have are fellow members who might be interested in helping out. Post in the chatter thread to see if anyone bites, make a search thread 'looking for RP partner(s)' or something, and if you like we can send a guild announcement once you've got your setup a bit more finished.



Yeah. . . you need to develop your world more if you want to have anything but the most casual of RP. Not that there's anything wrong with a casual RP. To be honest, from your answers so far, I'm pretty sure what you actually want is a casual RP. Casual gets a bad rap for some strange reason that is beyond my understanding but in truth most (good) players on Gaia only want to do casual RPs. A lot of the better guides written around Gaia about how to make a good RP are really giving instructions on how to make a high quality though casual RP.

So I am going to focus on how you can make a high quality Casual RP. Once you've made that, it's just a matter of adding more detail and perhaps a few game mechanics to get it up to a high quality Intermediate RP.

Here is a list of questions you should answer to help develop your world and plot. The more detail you put into answering these the less causal your RP will be.

About the cursed island:

• How big is the island?
  
• What kind of island is it: volcanic, reef, floating, chain (lots of little ones)?
  
• What is the island's climate like: jungle, desert, grassland, forest, rocky, snowy, etc?
  
• What sort of food and water sources are there on the island (FYI, you can not survive on drinking seawater)?
  
• What sort of shelter does the island offer: buildings, caves, trees, washed up shipwrecks, etc?
  
• Do any people (other than those mentioned) live on the island?
  
• What sort of plants and animals live on the island?
  
• What kind of dangers are there on the island?
  

About the world's magic:

• How common is magic outside the island?
  
• Would anyone not from/living on the island know anything about magic?
  
• Could they have magic not from the island?
  
• How does the magic work? No need to get into quantum physics here but it would be good to explain how it's done.
  
• Is there chanting, incantations, symbols written in blood on sheepskin, hand movements, eyes of newt, tails of frog, and/or other sorts of witchcraft required?
  
• Are there set spells that reliably do certain things or is it more flexible and will power oriented?
  
• Can anyone learn or do they have to be born with it?
  
• Is it something that comes from yourself or must you channel it from some other source?
  
• What are the limitations of the magic?
  
• Are there drawbacks or some other price to using this magic?
  

About the world outside the island (this is important because this is where the Player Characters will be coming from):

• What sort of time period/culture is most prevalent in your world? It's easiest to just say the 'present day' or 'real life' but you can use others, it will just require a bit of studying from both you and your players. Even if not using present day, it's good to use real world equivalents to give your players a sense of where their characters are coming from. Some options taken from history and literature: tribal/clan societies (Native Americans, vikings, celts), city-states (early Greece, early Rome), medieval feudalism (kings, lords, knights, peasants), cradle empires (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Olmec-Aztec), warlord empires (Alexander's Greece, Caesar's Rome, Genghis' Mongols, Attila's Huns), colonial empires (18-20th century Europe and associated colonies), industrial democracies (America before WWII), cold war socialists vs capitalist (USSR vs America 1950-1990), futuristic oligarchy (corporate run governments), dystopia (the seemingly perfect world has some dark secrets or has fallen apart), post-apocalyptic (the once normal world has suffered some great cataclysm to bring it to an end), and I think that's enough choices there. Pick one, do a little research on it, then describe a world that fits that.
  
• What other cultures exist in the world outside of the dominant civilization? Well developed worlds will have other cultures but you don't have to let your players be from there. Use the same list as above and pick a few but don't worry about detailing them much unless you're going to let your players come from/go to there.
  
• What sort of technology level exists in the world? Though culture and technology do tend to be related they are not necessarily the same. Take the Ivory Coast for example where tribal warlords use modern technology to ruthlessly rule over their diamond mines (yes, this is the real world I am talking about). Some options: Stone Age (stone tools, pottery, no wheels, no metal, no written language), Bronze age (soft metal tools, wheels, pictorial writing), Iron age (forged metal and steel tools, alphabetic writing), Medieval Age (better steel, more established writing, beginning of urbanization), Industrial age (steam power, radios, early combustion engines, pervasive writing, widespread urbanization, factory work), Atomic Age (nuclear power, improvement of internal combustion engines, television), Information Age (digital technology, internet, mobile devices).
  
• Is there war or peace in the world at large?
  
• Are most people happy or are they starving, oppressed, and/or disillusioned?
  
• What are some common occupations in the world?
  

About the Plot/NPCs:

• Where did the demons come from and what makes them 'demons'?
  
• Why were they going around the world gathering up power?
  
• Why did they have no choice but to swim across the ocean?
  
• Why didn't the goddess get rid of them immediately when they came to her island?
  
• What were they doing to hurt the island so that the goddess used up all her power to trap them in ice?
  
• Why did the goddess lose her memory when she turned into the witch?
  
• Why did the witch care if there were more than just the two lovers?
  
• Why didn't the woman lover tell the witch she was pregnant? Can easily be answered that she was not at the time or did not know herself.
  
• Why (and how) did the woman lover not tell her husband she was pregnant?
  
• Why did the witch put a curse on the lovers? Yes, they broke their deal but it was a baby. Why did she curse them for it?
  
• Why did the curse affect the whole island and how did it free the demons?
  
• Why would the child not age on the island or is it just that nothing ever ages on the island? Is this new since the curse or has it always been that way?
  
• Are the lovers still sort of conscious and aware they are possessed or are they asleep in their own minds?
  
• Do the demons have access to all the lovers' memories or are those gone?
  
• What did the demons do once they were in possession of the lovers' bodies?
  
• Do the demons get along with each other or do they fight?
  
• What keeps the demons and witch from killing each other?
  
• Is the child going to be one of the Player Characters?
  
• What is going to bring the Player Characters to the island?
  
• Are they going to know about the witch, demons, and lovers or will they discover this through the game?
  
• What will be the Player Characters' goal?
  

And that's a good enough start. Answer those and I'll give you more.



Your plot is more along the lines of adventure so far but dark comedy goes well with that so if you put in the right characters with the right players and handle things well you can have both. Comedy is kinda hard to pull off and even harder to force though so you probably want to focus on adventure and let the comedy happen if it will.

Ginger's a pretty good grammar check, cool you found it.

And, Mel (umbraja) told me to ask if you wanted to do tutoring. She's busy training new tutors right now but I have some time so I can help if you want it.

Sorry this took a while, April's a crazy month but summer's coming up so I really will have more time then.

Could you answer a few questions so I can set up some tutoring for ya?

What sort of role playing do you enjoy?

What are your favorite types of characters?

What do you think you need the most help on?

What do you think you've got down pretty well?

And, lastly, come up with a basic concept for the character you would like to play in the Academy. It's a school setting but a pretty special school so you can really play anything you like. Have fun with it.

I'm highlighting your grammar mistakes to help you become aware of them. Some are probably just typos cuz no one really proofs OOC posts but since ya need help with grammar this is a good way to identify those things you have problems with so you can know to look for them when you're doing RP posts. I'm not really looking at commas or slang use (cuz that would be hypocritical as hell), just the biggies.

I've got grammar suggestions at the end of the post and they're color coded so I hope you're better with color than I am (<- is colorblind).



Yeah, big RPs can be hard to keep up with and are a real challenge to run (why so many of them die). It's fun to get more than just two perspectives on things though so I think they're worth it. Not that 1x1's don't have their merits, those are the best for romance and character driven stuff, great way to develop a character.

Anyway, that Disney one looks neat. Always cool to turn that sort of thing on its head. What's your favorite Disney movie? I've got a fondness for The Sword in the Stone and Black Cauldron but then I'm a guy so the princess flicks are kinda out for me. Though Aladdin was pretty cool too.

I'll try and incorporate some of these themes into the tutoring so it's more fun. Feel free to suggest more things if there's anything else you want to play with.



Abilities just make everything more fun, don't they?

What's your favorite ability to have if you had to choose just one? I would sell my soul for the ability to teleport. I drive too damn much. It would have to be at least a 50 mile range, twice a day though or it's not worth it (yeah, that's how far I commute).

So is there anything else you like in your characters? Like being the smart one, or the strong silent type, or having someone to take care of, or having a dark past, or being innocent and naive, or any other things you can think of?



Oh, hey~ That just happens to be my specialty. I love making and playing all kinds of characters. I'm not as diabolically evil as Mel can be (she gets scary sometimes) but I can pull off a decent villain and have been known to go a little crazy with making NPCs. The good ones just make more cuz they need family and friends to round them out, ya know.



What part of RPing do you think you do ok at so I don't give you help where it's not needed? I don't wanna waste time teaching ya stuff you already know.



That's a decent start. Part of the whole Academy thing is learning how to further develop your character so you don't need to put too much into her right now. Just be sure she'll work for everything you want to learn.

I notice she's got a bit of a hero complex in not liking to see others get hurt so she isn't going be much help in teaching you how to play bad guys but if you give her a bitchy attitude it could be a good baby step towards villainy by playing an anti-hero.

Don't feel obligated to play a darker character now though. If you're worried it won't be fun then it's best to start with something you are comfortable with and enjoy. We can add a dark side later (Mel has given me so many ways to corrupt good characters) or just give you different characters to play as the bad guys.

Give adding a bit of darkness some thought and rework the profile to include or specifically deny a bad attitude.

Also, can you give me a written physical description? The image is pretty and all but RP is a text based thing so you need to work out how you're going to describe her in words, not pictures.

Grammar Stuff

Red - Wrong words

• disney tail - I think you mean Disney tales. A tail is what a dog wags, a tale is a story. You can remember tail because the L is at the end, like a tail but it's in the middle of tale where the best part of a story should be.
  
  
• then - this is a tricky one for a lot of folks. You use then when you're talking about something happening after something else: I did this then that. You use than when you're comparing things: this is better than that. A good trick is if the sentence still makes sense with 'and' in front of then, you've got it right. Otherwise it should be than: I did this and then I did that vs This is better and than that.
  
  
• to - another common problem, to, two, and too are homophones: they sound alike but are spelled differently and mean different things (like tail and tale). Two is easy, it's a number. To is for action stuff. You always need something happening for it to be right, such as being right, that's a thing that's happening. Or going to the store, you're going. Or giving something to someone, you're giving. Or when you need to do something, you're needing. To is too little to be left by itself. Too on the other hand, has too much. It's got that extra o to remind you that it means more than is needed.
  
  
• easily to not always able to - um. . . yeah. I'm guessing you were having trouble deciding how to say this and then didn't make sure to choose one before moving on. I think you probably want to drop the easily to cuz that makes most sense. Be sure to read things over for stuff like this. Reading it out loud is best but if you can't then just read it loudly in your head. Take the time to say each word in your head before moving on to the next one, like reading it out loud just without making noise. Mouth the words if you have to. If someone looks at you funny just say you're doing diction exercises, that always gets fun responses (it's really not a dirty thing, it just sounds like).
  
  
• light - this one is very tricky because it can be a noun, adjective, and an irregular verb which means the same word has multiple variations and functions within a sentence. To make matters worse, this word is also tacked onto other words to make even more words. In this case you don't want to use light by itself. You're talking about a special kind of light, that produced by stars, which is starlight (one word). But you're not using it as a noun. The noun is sky. Both your light and your night are being adjectives which tell what kind of sky. When light is an adjective it turns into the past tense of the verb form (don't ask me why, English is messed up) which is lit. So the word you were looking for is starlit.
  

Blue - Punctuation

• mean explain? - You've actually got three sentences there. A sentence should contain a single idea and if there are more you need special words and punctuation to tie them together. In this case it's best just to break them apart because they are all different types of sentences. The first is a question and ends with mean so the question mark should be after that one. Explain is not a question, it's a command and should be it's own sentence with a period at the end (yeah, one word can be a sentence when it's a command, the subject is an implied you). The last is a statement and ends properly with a period.
  
  
• work I could (are you reading that in Yoda's voice or is it just me?) - again, you've got two sentences here, a question and a statement. The question mark should go after work and there should be a period where the ? is now.
  

Green - Probably typos

• disney - Disney is a proper name (there's only one) so it should always be capitalized.
  
  
• It - the only time a pronoun (it, he, she, they, etc) should be capitalized is when it's at the beginning of a sentence or in a title. Unless it's for emphasis and then you should go ahead and capitalize the whole thing to give it a little more oomph, mostly cuz it's such a small word and easy to miss the I being in caps.
  
  
• th - dropped an e on the.
  
  
• Thought - added a t at the end of though (I do this all the time for some weird reason so it's nice to see I'm not the only one).
  
  
• it - switched it with in.
  
  
• Dose - Dyslexia~ Everybody gets it.

Name: Crystal
Race: Fox demon
Physical description:
Crystal skin is a light tan from all her being out in the sun, but there is also a slight dirty look to her skin. She has a tough look to her how she stands, but her eye's were not as tough looking most often they gave her away if she wasn't careful enough. Her outfit was old tattered and torn in spots. She keeps her hair is a braid to keep it out of her face.
Likes:
* Starlit sky
* fields of flowers
* sitting it a tree looking at the clouds
Dislikes:
* Being held down
* Seeing others get hurt