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Hey there, folks. Just thought I'd set up a thread for a little Q&A/advice. Not trying to be pretentious, here. After all, anyone can post any advice they think is helpful. My stuff will be based off of my preferences in game, storyline, and character creation as well as the technical side of playing a literate game. After all, what good is a role playing guild that doesn't help you become a better player? I hope to find some good advice from you folks as well.


Anyway, here I go.

Creating a story...

The story is essential to any literate game, even if it's only a small background of your setting and a basic situation. The story and the setting give the mood of the game. The way I normally go about creating a story is to get either my setting or situation in mind, then just let the mind flow as I think about what kind of things would cause that situation, what could make that happen? Once you've got your situation, setting, and backstory, you have enough to start. Next would come plot points, but those aren't essential for a free-form game so I'll move on and maybe hit that aspect of storytelling later.

Creating a Character...

Your character is the most important part of your gaming experience. This is the avatar you live through in the universe of the game so make it good. A good character should be original and unique, although it's acceptable to follow certain archetypes. Your character, depending on the setting of the game, can be very different from a character in another game or strikingly similar. If you stumble across one character that you particularly like and that you've developed a good feel for, it is acceptable to reuse the basic personality and backstory, providing you edit to fit the situation. No one likes an overpowered character, and it's no fun to play with a cookie-cutter character, either, so originality can be key. Again, I'll expound upon character creation a lot more, so much so that we may end up getting a subforum devoted simply to characters. I'm seriously thinking about it.

Playing in a Literate Game...

Most literate players will agree on a number of things when it comes to playing: word choice can make a difference, past tense is easier to read, and more information is better than less, so long as there's a point to it all. I say literate and not "advanced" because I don't play to advanced standards. I'm not one of those people that can put a five-paragraph exposition into every post for any given game and my punctuation may not always be prefect. As long as I'm using Mozilla my spelling will be good, but that's another story. The main objective of Literate role playing is, so far as I've learned, to make the story flow more like a novel so it's easier to read and comprehend. It also helps push a player's skill in writing further and brings the player in for a deeper gaming experience. I know, I didn't really do a good job of explaining what I set out to explain in that section, but I'll get to that later, too.


Now, I open the floor to all of you! Advice can range anywhere, from where to find good character pictures (I recommend photobucket, but DeviantArt can be perfect so long as you credit) to what to do if you find yourself stuck in a game with people who are going in totally different directions as far as gameplay goes.

Share your experience, your insight, your knowledge! Make us all better for the experience!

Godmodding

Godmodding is a biiiiig no-no. Not only will it make most players mad, but it could quite possibly take the story in a direction that it was not meant to go.

Godmodding is taking control of the environment around you and doing things that would change the flow of the story completely. For example, changing the weather from the post just before yours. It doesn't make sense for the weather to change in a matter of milliseconds. Things don't work like that in real life.

Powerplaying

Powerplaying, just like godmodding, is a biiiiig no-no. Doing this will most definitely tick off the players around you.

Powerplaying is taking control of another person's character without their permission. (I suggest not controlling another person's character very much even with permission. Also, don't drastically change that character as it may ruin the story line.) For example, saying that your character, Billy, and Alan's character, Frank, got into a fight where Billy beat Frank's face in. Saying this would be not only mean, but it would be playing another person's character to the realm of severe injury and possibly death. Killing another person's character without permission from the owner of the character (and I suggest the roleplay as well) is a number one no-no in my opinion.

Please guys, this guild is here for improving everyone's skills, even my own. *le gasp* Read all of the suggestions written and, if you don't already, try taking their points to heart. We're here to help each other.