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Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 3:16 pm
~KatDrama's Guide to Better Role Playing~
Hello, and welcome to KatDrama's Guide to better Role Playing. It has come to my attention during the many hours of my precious life wasted in front of a computer (and not all of them enjoyable) here at Gaia online that there is a common belief that it doesn't matter what your skill level is, but how long you've been on Gaia that dictates your reputation in the role playing community. This is not true! I have come across many people who even though they were just starting out where excellent RPers, and I have come across countless people, who just because they've been on Gaia longer they think that they're better than me, therefore they should not have to listen to anything I have to say about their RP skills. In reality, usually one's skill does not have to do with how much time they've spent RPing. Grant it, the more you do it, the more likely you will get better, but many people are just comfortable in not changing their RP ways because its what works for them, regardless of whether it is right or wrong. What does matter is your ability to listen to the suggestion of others! That's why you're reading this right now, isn't it? You've come because you find your skills lacking and want to improve. I love people that like to listen, and therefore, I have taken time out of my busy schedule to give you a simple guide to help RPers of all skill levels to read and hopefully take to heart some of what I have to say.
-Chapters- 1. Newb vs. n00b 2. The Unwritten Rules of Gaia 3. The Basics 4. Sticking to the Plot 5. Fights
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Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 3:18 pm
Chapter 1: Newb vs. n00b
Newb: A person who is new to Gaia Online. These people may make mistakes from time to time out of innocent ignorance because they are as of yet unsure how this whole community works.
Solution: Be nice to these people. Tell them nicely they are making a mistake and how to correct it. Be patient with them for they may not understand everything you are talking about.
N00b (AKA: the RP ruiner): A person, regardless of how long they have been on Gaia, who is found to be rude, refuses to try to type legitimately or literally. These people, though when you try to be kind to them like you do newbs, refuse all offers for help because they are stubborn and stuck in their ways. These are the people whose idea of an RP post is a one liner with asterisks, and generally doesn't pay attention to the story line. They are also godmodders and auto hitters.
Solution: Try to reason with them. Politely ask them if they want help in improving their RP skills and manners so that Gaia Online will be a more enjoyable place for everyone. If they refuse, kindly ask them to take their business elsewhere. If they continue to be a nuisance try to more forcefully ask him to leave. Band together with other Gaians who he's annoying and ask him to leave you alone. Only if they become a serious problem should you report them to a mod. Remember, anger does not resolve anything.
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Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 3:21 pm
Chapter Two: The Unwritten Rules of Gaia
The big thing that I've noticed here on Gaia that separates the newbs from the n00bs, and the same thing that is the thin line between the expert and the elite, is manners. There are a few unwritten rules of courtesy that many seem to choose not to follow. Well, I'm making it easy for you. This time I'm writing those unwritten rules down. These are common things that usually should go without saying, but some people just don't seem to know about them.
1. Respect Others I don't care if you hate his guts for ruining your Role Play. Behind that computer screen is a living, breathing person, and all people have feelings. A word of wisdom to you: if a said person is being disrespectful to you, and you return the act with more rudeness and anger, that will only make the situation worse. The guy is trying to tick you off! Don't give him what he wants. If you return respect for rudeness the person will generally be dumbfounded that you didn't get ticked off and decide you're no fun and move on their way. Anger only breeds anger, so take a nice deep breath and relax before posting if someone is being rude to you. Ask them to please stop their behavior, and leave it at that. And you better not let me catch you being the person doing the aggravating!!
2. Why we're here in the first place A lot of people tend to get to uptight and serious about this site. Let me just remind you all of something very important that many people seem to have forgotten: we're all here to have fun! That's right! No matter what the reason we think is that we still return to Gaia, the true reason, and the first reason we all came here was to kill time, forget about the real world, and live in a virtual one! I know how you can become all wrapped up in this virtual world, and it almost seems to be reality! That's when you need to simmer down and stop freaking out when you can't be on the computer every minute to RP. As much as we all like active members, you should also take a chance to live in the real world a little as well. This place is only here for recreation. Let's not forget that. That's right, I said it. GAIA IS NOT LIFE!!
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Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 3:25 pm
Chapter 3: The Basics
The Basics of a good post
The first rule of thumb to Role Playing is being literate. No, this does not mean that you have to try to use the biggest words in your vocabulary; it simply means that your post should be made of complete sentences, with capitalization and punctuation, and little to no abbreviations. When you are literate, people tend to like you joining their Role Play. When you are not literate people tend to wish you'd just go away and stop ruining their nice ledgible fun.
Another point I should make across that goes hand in hand with literacy is writing in third person, meaning that you write in point of view of a person outside of your character, as though you are a spectator to what your character is doing. This tends to mean that your character's actions will be in past tense. Placing your character's actions in asterisks (*) will generally make the actions in first tense. While usually accepted in non series Role Play, such as bars, this is frowned upon in more serious Role Plays. Besides making your post sometimes hard to understand, especially in the instance of a fight, asterisks make your actions weak. Allow me to show you an example: KatDrama *flicks out daggers* I'll kill you! *slices through his arm* Confusing, isn't it? For starters, you have no idea who the attack is directed at, and the attack itself fringes upon auto hitting (see Chapter 5). Another point I should make is that it is general knowledge that your character's speech should be put in quotation marks ("..."). This makes it much easier to recognize than just changing the color of the words your character speaks. It is also generally acknowledged that your character's thoughts, should you choose to reveal them, go in italics.
Now, let's see if we can improve on that last post.
KatDrama Quickly KatDrama pulled out her daggers. "I'll kill you!" She screamed as she aimed to slice through the man's arm. This is better, but is the bare minimum of the amount of information that is required in a post. Try to flesh out your posts as much as possible. Again, you don't have to use big fancy words, just make it understandable. The reality is this: in a role play, you basically get together with other people who share a common interest, and write a story, drawing from each other's work to make the story as intertwined with emotions and actions as it would be in a real novel. A novel would be bland if all its paragraphs were like the one above, so try to make your posts interesting. Add a little more to it. Talk about the minute things, like a bead of sweat pouring down your character's face, or a stray leaf blowing across the battle field. Use all the elements possible to help write a good story!
Now, let's try that post one last time.
KatDrama A bead of sweat ran down her cheek, leaving a trail in the dust that had been stirred up from the battle on her face. KatDrama gulped, her mouth salty and dry from the exhausting fight. Her bright green eyes darted too and fro, looking for anyway she could change the outcome of this battle. By the looks of it, if she didn't do something different soon, she would be on the loosing side of the fight. A slight smirk crossed her face. I've never lost a fight, and I don't intend to start now! She thought with determination as she slowly began to circle her opponent. Her knees shook with fatigue as the sweat continued to pour down her face. Suddenly her hands tensed and moved for her duo daggers before her opponent could do anything to stop her. Her leg muscles tensed as she prepared to pounce on the man. "I'll kill you!" She shouted determinately, lunging for him as she held out one of the daggers as if to slice through his arm that held the large sword.
Now, I'm not saying every post has to be that descriptive. I know that sometimes there's lulls in the action where you can't find much to say other than a simple dialogue and head nod, but it'd be nice if you could get the most out of even the littlest action.
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Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 3:34 pm
Chapter Four: Sticking to the plot
Don't get me started about how many Role Plays I've seen go down the drain because some noodle head didn?t stick to the story plot! Don't become a noodle head! It's not that hard to follow a plot.
Generally, the person starting the Role Play posts the general plot somewhere within the first posts of the thread. It may be something simple such as "an evil duke is planning to take over the kingdom, but the king is blind to this. Protect the royal family from this man's madness to save the kingdom!" Then your job as a character under the royal family would be to point out that the duke is trying to take over the kingdom and help them escape and retake the kingdom. But this takes time! You cannot immediately jump into the Role Play as a Royal Knight and shout to the king "Hey, yo King! That der Duke is plotting to take over the kingdom doncha know?" And then slice off the Duke's head. This would pretty much end the RP, since there is nothing more plot wise the characters can do, and since the characters hadn't much time to develop, there is'?t anything more they can do.
A better way to go about this particular plot line (I'm showing you this as an example) would be to start of your character?s as if it was their average day. Princesses and Princes would go about their business, as would the rest of the royal family. The Duke might show signs of a desire to rule, but nothing very serious. The King may laugh what hints the Duke drops off and continue on with his blissful and ignorant life, maybe wage a war or two with France in the morning and then after afternoon tea go off fox hunting with the hounds and royal guard. A royal good time, as they might say. Then maybe some knight happens upon a secret meeting between the Duke and the Captain of the Guard discussing how to best poison the King, and you get the first serious whiff that the Duke is plotting something. The Knight takes his concerns to the King, but the Captain and the Duke assure him it is nothing but nonsense. So then the Knight tells the princess he has the biggest crush on, and she begins to see what the rest of her family cannot, that the Knight is telling the truth. Well, then the Duke would find this out and try to murder the Princess, but her gallant Knight saves her and takes her to safety. Out in the woods they discover a band of low lives who had been exiled from the kingdom for hideous crimes. The Knight and Princess somehow convince the ruffians to fight with them, and they storm the castle, reveal the Duke and Captain for who they really are, and save the day. Then the King gives his daughter, the Princess, to the gallant young Knight for saving the kingdom and they all live happily ever after, the end.
Isn't that much more of a story than some guy immediately killing the Duke without any said reason other than that the plot says so? See, a story has to take time to develop. Don't be jumping ahead of where you should be. Think about how you believe the other characters will respond to what your character does, this way you can form a solid storyline, a sort of plan in your mind. Think ahead before you post. Ask yourself "what will be the result to the story line if my character does this?" If it's within the general plot, then by all means, go for it. But if it were to drastically alter the course of the plot, then don't. When a person starts a Role Play they do it because they want this wonderful story to be written, and they're inviting you to take a part in helping them create it, but they'll be very much angered if you decide that the story is too boring and would be much more interesting if you put space aliens in their "Little Mermaid" story.
I should also mention that if you go outside of the character parameters for your character, you could also drastically change the story plot. For instance, if the character you're Role Playing is dark and shady without any visible emotions, and you decide to have him skipping through a field of daisies wearing a pink dress and singing "Mary Had a Little Lamb" while giggling like a love sick middle school girl, that would be very much out of character, and would change the plot line because the story dictates that that character be dark and shady. Grant it, human emotions are very susceptible to mood swings, and so there is a small cushion for emotional change, however, if the changes continue for a long period of time then you will have altered the way the owner had wished his or her story to turn out. If you're Role Playing Brock from Pokemon, for instance, I believe the owner would be devastated if you suddenly decided that Brock was more of a match for Ash than Nurse Joy. Or, if Brock decided that he would love no one altogether. The owner of the RP agreed to let you RP Brock because he was expecting the stereotypical Brock! Altering a character will almost always throw a wrench into a good plot and send it spiraling to the ground in a cloud of smoke. Please, don't let that happen!
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Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 3:38 pm
Chapter 5: The Fight Part A: Terms and things to avoid
This is the area where I see the most screw ups by even acclaimed "expert" Role Players. Allow me to show you some of the most common mistakes made in a fight, and beg you to never make them yourself.
1. Godmodding- Just what exactly is godmodding? Godmodding is when you make your character all powerful, so that none of your opponent's attacks hurt you at all, and yet all of your attacks hit. This is wrong because no one is invincible, and it's not fair fighting because unless even if your opponent is also a godmodder, there is no possible way to win since you will always find a way to escape their attacks and always find a way for yours to hit. No one wins in a godmodding fight, so don't even try it. They always fizzle out with the contestants screaming at each other that the other is not being fair. Insults and profanities usually ensue, following the general blame game, and both contestants go home unhappy campers.
Here is an example of godmodding:
KatDrama KDs amulet of invincibility deflected the spear, and then KD plunged her sword into his heart, instantly killing him. This is godmodding because KD did not provide a liable excuse of why the attack could not hit her. If she had dodged it would have been okay, but in real life there are no amulets of invincibility. Remember people, physics also apply to these fights as well. More on that under auto hitting. The worst part of this post is that KD says that she kills her opponent. First off, killing is not allowed without the opponents consent. Secondly, KD gave her opponent no chance to escape her attack and then retaliate. Now some people argue that no fight can be one without auto fighting. Not true. I've won many fights and never once godmodded (though as a newb I did once or twice make the mistake of autohitting, but then apologized for it because I didn't know what it was.) If you still don't believe me, ask me for a link to one of my previous fights, or challenge me. I'd be more than happy to show you what it means to fight a fair fight.
2. Auto Hitting- This one comes up a lot, but a lot of people don't seem to know what it is. Auto Hitting is a light form of godmodding. It either means that you are illegitimately dodging your opponent's attack (meaning, dodging or evading when there was no way your character could have done so) or automatically attacking your opponent, giving them no chance to react to defend or evade.
Example: KatDrama KD gracefully dodged the flying dagger and then threw a kunai into her opponent's shoulder. This post might have been okay had KD threw the kunai "at" her opponent's shoulder, thus giving the opponent the benefit of being able to dodge then counter the attack, rather than lodging the kunai straight into the shoulder.
3. Speed Jumping (teleportation)- This one may have multiple names, but for now we'll call it speed jumping. Speed Jumping is when your character suddenly disappears altogether from the battlefield, thus making it impossible for your opponent to attack, then suddenly reaper and attack. Some may argue that this is teleportation and should be allowed. My answer to that is yes, it may be used for defense, for it is similar to dodging an attack, but is unfair to use in the offense because it is autohitting because your opponent can not attack you at all, and neither does he have very good defense against your sudden move, and thus your attack is sure to hit. Because of this, this move is very controversial and I strongly suggest against using it.
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Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 3:40 pm
Chapter 5: The Fight Part B: Turns
A standard fight consists of two opponents who have challenged each other for a fight. When challenging someone to a fight, be sure to state your terms and conditions. For example, if your character has no supernatural abilities but the other claims he does, request a non-magic battle. If he refuses then I suggest not fighting him, or try reworking the negotiation, because natural characters, unless equipped with some snazzy technology to counter magic, will always be at a disability.
A standard fight goes in a system of turns, each turn, except the first and last of the fight consist of your character either blocking, evading, or allowing your opponent's attack to hit, and then your character attacking his, but giving room for his character to block, evade, or let it hit.
The fight ends not when one contestant is killed, but when one or the other user gives up and has their character fall, or have it end in a tie. An example of this would be in a fight I did with a character about a month ago. He wore my character down and attacked her legs, since speed was her specialty, thus cutting down her advantage. Not being able to move, he thought my character was finished, but in my final move I launched a barrage of poison darts at him, before passing out on the concrete. He blocked some of the darts, but because of the sheer numbers it was impossible for all of them to miss. He allowed his character to be hit by one of these, and thus, poisoned, his character also passed out. Viola, a tie! We later went at it again and my character accepted her defeat after his comrade killed my character's boyfriend. (Or rather, I should say, he allowed himself to be killed.)
If you are still confused about how a battle operates, ask me to show you a full example (I will send you the link to the above mentioned tie) or challenge me to spar. I'd be more than happy to teach you.
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Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 3:54 pm
Questions? Comments? Feedback?
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Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2006 11:27 pm
3nodding ALL OF THIS IS TRUE 3nodding
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Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2006 1:22 pm
[renny] 3nodding ALL OF THIS IS TRUE 3nodding Thank you.
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Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 2:59 am
Thank you, this is a wonderful thread and it must have been very time consuming to type up all that and provide helpful tips. This taught me a lot about RP-ing (though I still need a sample of a battle) and this thread is so -stickie'd-
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Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 10:07 am
Thank you Agenta. I actually created this nearly a year ago, but for the most part it still holds true. Yes indeed it did take lots of thought and typing, but I love typing. As to the links to the fight, most of my battles were deleted when the guild I originally made this for switched ownership, and the links outside of guilds that still exist are just too obselete. However, if you would let me I have a suggestion. Allow me to open a sort of Battle Dome, or Dojo if you will, and there I will accept fights from others and tutor them through battles. It is a tedius task on my part, but I enjoy the challenge. I would be more than happy to spar with you and talk you through a battle.
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Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2006 4:52 pm
That will be an excellent idea. You could link it to this thread, if you like. If it's really popular I'll stickie that too.
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Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 3:34 pm
Battle Dome operational moi capitan! *salutes*
Heh heh, I have to laugh at myself. I so used to being a mod in pretty much every guild I've been in that I'm used to sticking and announceing my own stuff xp so then I go to post and I'm looking where those stuffs are and I start to freak out then I realize "oh yeah, here I'm not a mod" xd
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Posted: Sun Sep 10, 2006 3:18 pm
i have been roleplaying for a few months but never done a fight so rp fighting is completely new to me i could use some help understading all of this.
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