How to RP: for beginners

Subject: How to RP: for beginners Sun Nov 26, 2006 10:26 am

((Came from Maximumride.com/forum))

Maybe you are just getting into roleplaying or maybe you want to improve your skills, either way we are here to help you out. This topic is here to help you if you have no idea what RPGing is!

The only kind of RPing we do here at EF is Text Based Roleplaying. Someone, or maybe you, will create the initial environment then will expand by adding their own character to the setting. Other people will join the thread (the section where you reply) and they will create their own characters and put themselves into the plot. In Text Based Roleplaying anything goes. There is no DM you can do whatever you desire because you just move the plot along, which means you can do anything to keep the story moving. Here is an example of Text Based Roleplaying...

CODEPerson #1 writes: Ilian got on his horse and began to ride to the great city of Air'Edia. He shook the reigns, and the horse broke into a great gallop.

Person #2 replies: The ranger Lok stood on the mountain, kneeling in the dirt, studying the day old tracks. He followed them out of the forest, and he saw a man getting on a horse. The man took off, and Lok called out, "Wait!"

Person #1 writes: Ilian hadn't been riding for five seconds when someone called out to him. He turned the horse and drew his sword. He thrwe the hood on his cloak back, revealing a warriors face.

Person #2 replies: "Wait, I am a friend, and I mean you no harm! Who are you?"

That is a simple Text Based Roleplay, you can expand on it a lot more in detail, but that is a simple roleplay. A few good sentences will start you off on the right foot. Once you get good, a few good paragraphs will get your roleplaying moving along good. Some things to consider before Text Roleplaying are…

Type as much as possible: You want people to get mad at you for typing too much, not because you’re a bad role player.

Don’t worry about sentences: Typing complete sentences isn’t a big deal. If you get your point across it is ok, if you just say, Fallen. People can take it many different ways, so put in LOTS of detail. That is the beauty of Text Based Roleplaying; the players get their own unique visual image of the story. Stunned can be taken differently by different people, making the plot seem more interesting.

Also, if you need to talk while playing as your character, say "IC:", and if you need to talk outside of you character, say "OOC:" Heres an example...

CODEIC: Little Sanria jumped up and down like a big baby, crying for her bottle!!!

OOC: Ooookay, maybe I need to stop being a big baby? LOLOLOLOL!

Thats a good example. in "IC:", act like you character, and only post stuff that your CHARACTER would know! Also, when in "OOC:", act like yourself, and tell anyone what you want!

Another important rule is to post in third person... it's hard to explain, so heres a good example...

Never post like this....

CODEI drew my sword and used my magic to kill my foe!

You SHOULD post like this,

CODEIlian drew his sword used his magic and killed his foe!

The Basics of Roleplaying

Roleplaying has many rules that should not be broken. We will list some of the Text Based Roleplay rules.

1. Don’t type one sentence then say your done. One sentence will not make the plot more exciting.

2. You can only have control over your character. if you make another Character jump off a cliff, or you make them talk, that is controling other characters. Controling other characters can deeply offend the player, and coould get you banned.

3. Roleplaying is all about the plot. Expand it by making the setting larger, or having more battle scenes, or something more exciting. When your entire story is dialogue, its boring. Have a war, or something that will hold the interest of the players and attract new faces to expand your world.

4. Patience. That is the ultimate struggle with role players. When someone new joins or someone inexperienced, most people freak out. Just remember this, the more people you get to join your story the more fun it will be, the longer it will stay alive, and the more power you have. Even if you don’t want someone inexperienced to join, just think, you were once just as bad as he, and since he is new you have control over him, you have power, and isn’t that what we all desire. Power? LOL, don't abuse this power... make them become master RPGers!

5. One of the most important rules is to NEVER god-mode! God-mode means you make your character impossible to beat, or give him special powers that no one else can compete with. Heres something you may like. If you give your character a god-mode ability, make sure you give him a HUGE drawback on that ability as well! But, in my opinion, don't god-mode at all, IT ANNOYS PEOPLE!!!!

Helpful Hints & Tips

Here are some helpful things to keep in mind. The skill of roleplay is not inherited. You can’t get good at it because you have a creative parent or something. You make have better ideas but skill is decided on experience and time. The longer you do it the faster you catch on to all the rules and how you can bend them in your favor but still stay within the boundary. Experience is the key to becoming a great role player.

Just because you have a few bad beginning stories or you don’t just understand the concept or the rules, it will all change. You have to stick with it. Once you get past the bumpy first steps you will be flooring it through open space. You will have great ideas and it will also better your perception of nature. I first started roleplaying Text Based at the beginning of 2000.

Your vocabulary will also increase because you are surrounded by a large variety of people, and each person has a few neat words that they stick in here or there.
Roleplaying, though it is fun, isn’t all just fun and games for some people. It is a lifestyle. They emerge themselves into roleplaying so much it seems real to them, their life revolves around it. That is, of course, being obsessive about roleplay but it is true. Once you get into it and it seems so real, you wish it was real because it engulfs you.

An Introduction to Text RP

_ There are many differant types of Role Playing, also known as RP'ing. The three main types are Video RP, Action RP, and Text RP. I will be teaching text RP, but first to clarify things I will explain briefly the three main types of RP. Hopefully it will help you get a better understanding of the RP World.

_ Video RP is similar to a video game. The only differance is that there are not seperate levels, etc. Runescape is a perfect example. Your character can grow levels, but you are always in the same basic areas working on similar tasks, where as in most video games, every level is differant.

_ Action RP is very simple and I can guarantee everyone has at some point participated in it. Action RP is when you make up villians, and etc. in your head, you go outside and grab a baseball bat, hockey stick, etc, and you pretend to defeat whatevr villian it was you created in you mind. it is a very immature, but very fun form of RP'ing.

_ Text RP is by far the most fun and difficult form of RP'ing. Text RP is when you create a plot or join someone else's plot. Usually you are asked to fill out a template that describes your character. The information on the template should differ depending on the RP. I will cover the guidlines to posting, templates, and plot creation later. This is an introduction. To become a better RP'er I suggest you read this whole thing not just the introduction.

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__ Thinking up a Good Plot

_ The plot is the most important part of a RP. Most people will not join an RP if the plot does not appeal to them. A bad suggestion of a plot is to create a plot of a book or movie. These plots usually turn out boring and with few members unless you create the RP in a website dedicated to what-ever book or movie your plot is about. The worst thing you can do when creating a unique RP is being selfish. Do not create an RP that appeals to you and you find fun, others may not. You do still want your RP to appeal to you though. The best way to solve this is not to rush yourself to make an RP. Spend sometime, maybe an hour examaning the RP's of others and the plots, and the type of RP. Then mix different types of RP's to make a new more appealing one. For example, if you like Sci Fi RP's but every one around you is interested in Fantasy than create an RP that connsists of Aliens, and Magic. The Plot must also be special to you though, your RP will not turn out good if you create an RP other's love but you hate.

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__ Creating a plot

_ Before creating a plot, I deeply suggest that you spend some time, posting in other people's RP's so that you can get the hang of it. You want your first RP to be good don't you. Once you have gotten the hang of RP'ing you can start you plot. The first step is too think of a plot idea. (in previous section) Once that is done you need to organize it. Don't start off the plot with the problem, start off with a little background info.

For Example:
_ Ghein was the king of Delpha. his people loved him for he was fair and kind. The lands surrounding him were beutiful. Emerald hills, crystal clear lakes, and forests, but beyond this beuty, in the lands over the hills raged a war, and soon the war would enter Ghein's land. When this happens .... etc.

_ It is alwayse good to start off the RP with the way things were before there was a problem so the RP can get a good picture at how bad the problem is. The second part is you do not want to make your character the leader of the RP everyone should be equal. So in the RP above you would not be Ghein, you should be someone else. Most immprtantly a RP should not end with a hook like, "But then there were seven heroes." Instead end it like this. "When all was thought to be lost, seven men an women, a mixture of peasent, knights, and merchants, rose up from the ruble, they had become enchanted with magic. Together they would attempt to conquer the evil that plagued the land." It is very good to be as descriptive as possible in your plot and posts.

_ It is usually a good idea to set some basic rules for you RP, such as OOC rules, and God-Moding rules
* * * God-Modeing: The action of controlling someone else's character against their will. * * *

_ Most RP's usually have a template, but not all, if you are going to have RP'ers that are not descriptive joining your RP I suggest you make a template.

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__ Creating a template

_ If you do wish to create a template it is not that hard. Any template, no matter what RP it is in, should contain the following.

Name:
Age:
***:
Appearance:
Personality:
History: (( also good to add ))

Once you add those you can progress to part 2 the stuff that depends on your RP. If you have a fantasy RP, you might add

Powers:
WoC: (( weapon(s) of choice ))

for a school RP maybe

Classes:
Grade:
Group:
Sports:
etc.

I think I explaned enough for you to get the idea.

__ Your Character

Your character that you create is completly up to you, but you want your character to fit in with the rp as much as possible, for example, you do not want your character to be an elf in a RP that is basically a school RP or something. i also tend to try and relate my character to myself. and i have a name that i use for almost all my characters.

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__ Posting

_ Posting is the most important part of Role Playing. A post should never be a one liner. a good post should be at least a paragraph or 4-5 sentances. It is even better if it is more than that. Adjectives or describing words make your posts better and will make you a better RP'er for example instead of "John jumped onto th box." put something like "John swiftly jumbed onto the box, almost losing his foting as he landed and ..." That alwayse makes an RP more interesting. Make sure you are alwayse using third person never use I or you unless you are using it in " " to represent that you are talking. The most annoying thing you can do is representing your actions using symbols.

For Example: Instead of

*jumps up high* or ~jumps up high~ or anything like that, you want to type ou your action, Jim jumped up high, would be the correct form.

_ And remember one of the most important things, NO GOD MODEING or controlling other peoples characters. And last but not least when speaking out of character, there are two parts. If your whole post is dedicated to just out of character information, then do the following. "OOC: blah blah blah" If you are switching from out of character to in character in the same post, use "(( ))" or double parenthesies to indicate the out of character text.

No SPAMing. What is SPAM, you ask? Stupid Pointless Annoying Messages. SPAM clutters up the board and makes it harder for people to understand what is going on. Any 1 or 2 line sentences are also considered as SPAM

No godmoding. If you have a character that you are playing as, don't go into a powerplay. Ex.: Vaylorian blast Valcor with a giant blast of ice and shatters him into a million pieces!!
That is a big no no. No one hit kills or anything like that. Not cool.

Don't RP for anyone other than yourself. Only do this if that person is away and has specifically asked you to do it for him/her. Again, not cool.

No flaming. Please keep any flaming of any sort down to minimum. Flaming is considered as SPAM, and if SPAM happens, this part of the forum is being jeopardized. If you and a certain person have some sort of argument going on in real life, then flame each other over PM, not on the board. If it happens again, you will be locked out of the forum you spammed for three(3) days.

[OOC] & [/OOC] OOC and BIC are where you are talking out of the roleplaying and in a way need to discribe what is going on that you can't really put into the roleplaying, and also if you have some information to tell the other people who are also roleplaying as well. OOC = Out Of Character & /OOC = is when your ending your message that is not suppose to be in the roleplaying. A note, with these messages please keep it in line with topic of RPGing.

HAVE FUN!! If no one has fun in here, then what's the point!?

LONG, YES. HELPFUL? YES. BUT HEY, I'M JUST TELLING OYU HOW THINGS SHOULD BE IN AN RP FORUM! I HOPE THIS HAS MADE YOU A BETTER RPer!