Ultimate Roleplay Beginner's guide

[Admin]

--- SOME COMMON RP TERMS ---

Role Play:(aka. rp; roleplay) this is taking on a part, much like you would in a play but instead a chatroom replaces the formal stage; you don't have a script of lines to memorize; there isn't a director telling you where to stand and what to do. In essence, you've stepped into another person's shoes and you're pretending to be that person/being/creature/whatever. Play out childhood fantasies, dreams of flying, etc., etc.

Typist: this is -you- the person behind the character. This is the real live person that is typing the words on the computer.

Character: this is the being/creature/person you are playing. Base it off a TV character, your own imagination, whatever. This is seperate from the Typist.

Avatar: (aka av) this is the picture someone uses to give their character a face; some sort of identity. It's how the typist identifies the character; imagines the character to look like. You don't necessarily need it to roleplay. It's just something nice to look at while you scroll down the page.

In Character: (aka ic) this means to be in the role of the being/creature/person you've made up. You -are- the character when you are ic.

Out of Character: (aka ooc) this is a term used when the typist wants to say something or do something but not through their character. This is used to present the Typist's ideas and speech. When In Character the typical ooc format is with double bracket ((as such)).

Real Time: (aka r/t; rt) used when the typist is referring to real life situation.

Virtual Time: (aka v/t; vt) used when the typist is referring to the virtual character life situation.

Moder; Godmoder: This is the head a character that is invincible. This is a bad thing.

Moderator; Admin; Staff: This is the head of the roleplay. There are usually more than one member in the staff to keep a balance in decisions concerning the roleplay. If you need any questions answered these are the people to talk to.

[Admin]

--- CHARACTER PERSONALITIES/ ABILITIES ---

You need to keep in mind how the character acts, speaks, thinks, their personality, their quirks, strengths and weaknesses. You need to be consistent with your character; if you wrote your character to be cool and aloof, then don't have them buddy buddying up with a complete stranger. Find some other way for your character to get to know another person. Also keep in mind, if you are using prewritten rules, what the book has described for the type of character you've chosen to take on. For example: if you play Adam, 99.9% of the time, you would have him be the third wheel type.

This is a lot to remember, especially if you are just starting out, write it down somewhere and you can refer to it when you find yourself slipping.

I know some of you might be asking 'what about character evolution?' There's nothing stopping you from evolving your character as you play. However, change doesn't always happen in an instant. It's hardly possible that a once powerless creature would, suddenly, the next day achieve super abilities that would allow them to do this or that. Like in real life, you cannot learn to play the piano beautifully without first going through a least a few years of practice. You would need to play your character practicing and attempting to gain this new ability you want before you can actually call it your own. And I'm not saying practice for a few days either.

'And what about dormant abilities?' you might ask. Sure, they'll appear, seemingly, out of nowhere; that doesn't simply mean that they've already mastered it. Dormant abilities means they haven't been used either ever or for a while; this means that if your character has learned to use the abilities at one time, they should be rusty when it appears again. Of course, this doesn't mean you have to start from the bottom rung again; your character might just have to do a bit of tweaking and fine tuning to regain their skills completely. It's like playing a sport - you learn and you become great at it but then you don't play for several years and when you finally do try again, you aren't as good as you used to be.

The main thing here is to keep things realistic; don't try to do things too fast or too much at once, like you wouldn't in real life.

[Admin]

--- BEING DESCRIPTIVE IN YOUR POSTS ---

Playing a character is not simply typing out words onto a screen. One should be descriptive in their actions/posts. Anyone could slap on a name and type in any sort of actions such as:

::appears suddenly::

To me this simply conjures up the image of 'poOf' the character appears fairy-god-motheresque though without the glamor and sparkles. It leaves the post empty and lacking as well as making the typist (the person behind the character) seen unimaginative, when this could be the opposite. When you make a post, you should consider as many angles as possible. "How" is the main question. Working on the previous example, we should ask 'how did they appear? by what method?' 'was there any effect that those around them may have felt or seen/heard if they were looking/listening?' etc.

While you don't have to be descriptive in -every- single action your character commits, it's not a bad idea to get some practice because it comes in -great- use during fights. By describing, how, where, when, etc, in your fight posts, you help your opponent know -exactly- what sort of injuries they should sustain or how they should block it with little to no confusion. This also will help with reducing many of those ooc arguments that break out during a fight based on misinterpretation of the opponent's actions. An action such as:

::strikes at you::

contains quite a bit of ambiguity - in fact it would cause a -great- deal of confusion. 'Where are you striking at?' 'How?' 'Which direction?' 'How hard are you hitting?' 'Are you using a weapon?'

A descriptive post would go along the lines of:

::Swiftly Alli moved towards Bianca's left side at a hard run, claws retracted, she attacked head forward at the woman who gave her such a hard time in the past. As she grabbed hold oh Bianca's hair she let out a scream and budged her head to the side with a small crack. Bianca wreathed in pain and reacted to her attacker in a violent and quick motion as she took hold of Alli's hands and twisted them over her head to break free. Bianca moved forward but the momentum was too much and both girls fell to the ground.::

Again this explains the questions I listed earlier:

- where was she striking at?
-- she was aiming at tearing up Bianca's hair.

- how?
-- a running attack. As she closed in on her opponent, her nails ranked forwads head on

- how hard was she hitting?
-- hard enough to crack the joints of Bianca's neck.

- was she using a weapon?
-- her nails were her weapons

Of course, the above example could be worded differently, in a much shorter and condensed way such as:

::She ran at Bianca, claws raking head on and tearing at her hair as she closed in before Bianca made her comeback move that lead then to fall to the ground.::

It's shorter, and takes much less time to read of course but it while the longer post takes a fair bit of time to read and write, it provides a clear image of what Alli attempted to do to her opponent while in the shorter, condensed post, there are a few items of confusion left.

[Admin]

--- CHARACTER LIMITATIONS ---

I found that sometimes people do not realize and keep in mind the limitations of their characters in a real world setting.

Say, for example, a disrespectful thief sneaks into a party.

It is understandable that, were someone looking right at the entrance at that time, and happened to know the guests invited to the party to notice that the thief wasn’t on the guest list and to alert an guard or the host/hostess. However, if there isn’t anyone looking at the doorway or everyone is engaged in their own conversations, it wouldn’t be realistic for Everyone to suddenly notice that an uninvited guest had entered.

Or for the entrance of the thief to be ignored but as soon as the thief makes any act of disrespect towards the host, etc. the whole room turns upon the offender as if they had their attention on this one person the entire time.

I’ve seen characters having conversations with five or six people at once, and on top of that suddenly noticing that a stranger has entered the room. I’ve seen characters doing something on one side of the room and being able to spot another's character show some sort of disrespect for another member and immediately responding despite the distance between them. I’ve seen characters who have abilities that they shouldn’t have.

Granted that some creatures will have great abilities that would allow them to do all of the above but, what I am trying to say here is that people do not seem to be able to keep in mind the limitations of their character.

Just play your character as it is. Don't give it abilities suddenly just because you want to be superior. Don't do what you can't do, excluding abilities, in real life.

[Admin]

--- PRESENTATION ---

Okay, let me stray off topic a little bit now. The subject is still related to roleplaying, albeit not directly like the other topics I've touched upon.
Presentation.

That's right. The presentation of your posts. Now, before you tell me that "what's inside the post is what counts" .. I know that. I know that this isn't one of the most important points of roleplaying. But here's a question: What if no one can understand your posts?

I have read posts that are so hideously deformed in presentation that I had to guess at what the typist was trying to say. At times I even had to ask the typist what they meant. Needless to say, that was a lot more work than some other rps I've been in with much more complicated plots.

The point of fact is that roleplaying is not only about the individual -- there are very few things in this world that are only about the individual -- and one should be somewhat mindful to the comfort of others. And I do not mean using a bigger font either.

It is fine if the chatting is OOC among friends to use abbreviations and "net-speak" .. I am quite confident that everyone in that group is able to understand everyone else but in RP there are many people that may want to read and join in in an RP but if the posts are hard to understand (eg: TyPiNg LiKe ThIs or using the same font colour as the background, etc.) then it would be much more simple for people to skip over the bothersome posts and move onto someone else's rp that is easier to read.

Again, it's what the message inside the posts that count. Someone may have a great idea but if their posts are so hard to read, no one is going to pay attention to them and their idea will be wasted.

Let me just say that I am not targeting people who've made the occasional typos or gramatical accidents. I do them all the time when I'm typing. I'm pretty sure you can find a couple in this post even. Who I am targeting are people who pay absolutely no regard to the presentation of their posts. Spelling/grammatical errors that a five year old makes; typing in the background colour so people have to highlight your post to read it; ambiguous messages caused by poor thought to the message .. etc. etc. etc.

A little spelling/grammar lesson and some attention to their posts goes a long way .. especially when posts are over three or four lines long each.

A little suggestion is to open up a document program like word and type your post in there then cut and paste it onto the text line. You'll get to see your complete post at once and, depending on which program you use, you can check your spelling and grammar at the same time.

[Admin]

--- THE GOAL OF ROLEPLAYING ---

Let me remind all of you that roleplaying is a game that it has no "winners" and no "losers" and, well, no "ending" in that 'live happily ever after' sense. The purpose of roleplay is so that you, the typist, have a way of 'losing' yourself in another world that you can interact in instead of sitting back and watching it (eg. movies, tv, etc.). It is meant to be fun, if you are not having fun when you are rping then the purpose of rping is defeated.

There is no point in creating an invincible character for roleplay because in every situation, (s)he will win and that gets rather routine after several encounters. Roleplaying is the taking on the part of being another person living out their life. There is not greater being marking off points on a paper; there is no end where said points will be tallied up; there is no trophy to win. You roleplay to play, not to win.

--- WATCHING OTHERS ROLEPLAY HELPS ---

When you are beginning roleplay, there are some players who can be crude, insensitive, impatient people who aren't willing to give you the time of day just because you don't know the rules. Ignore those people. They forget that they were new at roleplaying once and if they met people like themselves when they first started, they probably wouldn't have continued to roleplay. Everyone has to start out as a "newbie," everyone does not roleplay like a pro when they begin. People still don't roleplay well even after years of doing it. It depends on how much effort you put into learning the game.

Another issue I found helpful when learning to roleplay was watching other player's posts. I still do this and this can be a very useful tool in improving your roleplaying. Again, it depends on who you pick up tips from and it doesn't help you to simply watch and not ask questions when you don't understand. Almost all advanced rpers that I have encountered are more than willing to explain and clarify things to anyone who doesn't understand. However, if someone is unwilling to help you, just move on and ask someone else. Don't let a few bad comments stop you from improving yourself.

--- PAYING ATTENTION TO OTHER POSTS ---

Pay attention to other people's posts even if they aren't directing it to you. You don't have to read them thoroughly but you should skim them over. Reason being that while they may not be addressing events directly to you, what they do may affect your character. How much is mostly left up to you. Because in real life you are often aware of your surroundings and you would be aware of events that would affect you. The same applies to your character. In the RP world, your character is a Real Person/Being and should act as such.

Example: A loud explosion in the street. Now you may decide that your character is just a street or two over and this will certainly draw your attention; or you may decide that your character is quite far from the explosion and they're standing outside a nightclub so they may not hear it or just attribute it to something mundane like tires bursting, etc.

Not only does this put you more realistically into the scene by making you and your character more aware of what is happening in their surroundings but if you are a new player starting to RP, it presents an opening for your characters to enter an ongoing RP more naturally.

[Admin]

--- ROLEPLAYING THE OPPOSITE SEX ---

I'm going to touch on a topic that is I personally come across often: playing a character of the opposite sex.

Most of the time now, many people are alright with playing characters of the opposite sex but for those of you who aren't .. read on.

Let me start by saying I definately recommend each and everyone of you to try creating a character of the opposite sex. If you don't want to play them, that's alright but think about the character, how they would act in different situations. Not only will it give you a completely different perspective but it will give you a sort of gaudge at how well you are developing depth in your characters.

If you are completely new to roleplaying, you might want to hold back on this project until you get comfortable with the whole idea of roleplaying. Now, creating a character of the opposite sex is just like making any other character. You build up their look, their abilities and then their personality.

The major mistake I see when people try to play a character of the opposite sex is people taking the common stereotypes and using that as a base for the personality and actions of their character. This usually does not work out too well. If you take a look at your friends and strangers and even yourself you will notice that not everyone follows all the stereotypes exclusively. When a character is based soley off of stereotypes it makes the character seem comical and lacking in depth of personality. I have yet to see a character played exclusively on stereotypes that is anything but .. even novels .. the only time I have read a book where a character is composed of such is only for humour or exaggeration value. Each person in this world has a unique combination of personality traits and, because your character is a real being in the rp world, that character needs to have that same quality. This "rule" applies to all and any characters that you create.

If you find creating a character of the opposite sex difficult at first, you might want to try creating a character of the same sex first. Write up everything you want then when you are finished, adjust the character to the appropriate sex. Maybe even get a friend to look it over and see if they are able to tell whether the character is male or female. I also suggest watching how people act whenever you are around someone.

Actually playing the character is a different matter. Again you could do more practice. Write out a scene, or a post your character would make. Read it and see if you could tell whether it was a post made by a female or male typist. Let a friend read and see if they could tell either. Another good practice is to make a character of the same sex (you are) and give it characteristics that are opposite to the physical sex. Eg: If you have a male character, they would be very effeminate. etc. It takes a bit of practice to it right (not to mention to get over the habit of typing "his" when you mean "hers" etc.) but the more practce you get and the better handle you get of your character will make it more believable.

If you want to see good examples, go to inscription.saperlie.com where there are a mess of females playing male characters.

This can also apply to other characters. Eg: if you only play vampires, you might want to try playing a werewolf or a mage. Or if you've only played powerful characters, you might want to try playing a weak character or a mortal. Not that you have to, of course, but it is a good experience to try different types of characters.

[Admin]

--- ACTIONS VS. SPEAKING ---

In roleplay, whether it is conducted through a chatroom, email, or any other number of roleplay mediums there will most usually, action/description and speech in each post. This means that part of your post will be descriptive, detailing what your character looks like, their thoughts, or their surroundings, etc. And the other part of your post would consist of your character speaking.

When you are in a para (paragraph roleplay where are have a minimum word count that ranged from 100 words or more) you would write your posts line by line and use ("") to distinguish quotations but if you are in a script roleplay you are writing short little sentences In script form, what needs to happen then is a way for people to distinguish what part of the post is action/descriptive and what part of the post is the character's speech. An example of that would be:

::*Darcy bursted through the rear entrance to the restaurant, having not seen her 'family' in a long time. She was excited to see them, to tell them what she has seen on her travels and, of course, to eat that delicious home cooked-style meal the restaurant was prized for.* I'm back! *She called out, regardless of whether there were customers in the restaurant or not. Most of the regulars were used to that sort of racket anyway.*::

The use of (**) bracketed the description, clearly segregated that post into their descriptive and speech parts. To be able to make the distinction between the spoken and descriptive parts of a post is incredibly important because it reduces the ambiguity of what a person is doing, saying or thinking. A post such as this:

::*Jenna wrinkled her nose at the man who clearly hadn't had a shower in at least a week. She then turned to the woman.* She thought he was some crazy guy or something.::

Now, in this post, we know that Darcy is saying "She thought he was some crazy guy or something" to the woman. But if the post was written as such:

::Jenna wrinkled her nose at the man who clearly hadn't had a shower in at least a week. She then turned to the woman. She thought he was some crazy guy or something.::

In that same post, without the double colons, we are unsure whether she is speaking to the woman, or it was just a thought Darcy had. So you can understand and see how important it is to have those sort of distinctions.

There are many, many ways to make this distinction. Typically, for my characters, (**) would be action unless surrounded by quotation marks (") which would signify thought. Here is a list of a few symbols that are often used:

'
" - for speech, usually
*
~
||
[ - ]
{ - }
//
\=
`

Note: the common brackets [ ( - ) ] are not often used because when used as doubles [ (( - )) ] it signifies that the player is speaking OOC