Introduction To Role Play
Part 1: What is role playing? This is a valid question. What is Role Playing? Roleplaying: Participants adopt and act out the role of character, or parts, that may have personalities, motivations, and backgrounds different from their own. As defined by Wikipedia. In other words: You create a character, or use an existing character. You act as that character in a scenario or story and you decide what happens, it's like sort of writing a novel with multiple people.
Part 2: Four common beginning mistakes when roleplaying.
1.)One Liners This is when a player types only one line which does not move the story or plot. Or it is a response to a large post in which another member spent a lot of time crafting. Too much of this can cause annoyance in other RPers. It also means you run the risk of people not wanting to role play with you.
2.) Power-PlayingThis is when a player controls another player's character into doing something without their permission (i.e. You controling another person's character that isn't your own without their permission). This is almost always frowned upon and can quite often create problems and result in disciplinary actions taken by the staff.
3.)Misconception When a beginning roleplayer believes that the story revolves around their character.
Also that there character is automatically more important then another one belonging to another player.
4.)God-Modding Making your character so powerful that there are no weaknesses (i.e. immortality, unable to bleed, super-fast, super-strong, extra pretty or beautiful like a nymph, etc.). In other words, making your character god-like. No one but you will like this if your character is anything like this.
Part three: Labels and Terms.
There are many different labels for people at different skill levels, they aren’t really meant to put them down but they generally distinguish different kind of roleplayers so that people with higher standards can get more out of what they want to roleplay.
Illiterate: Usually beginners, illiterates are known to use very generic list descriptions like such—
Name: mister so and so
Gender: male
Eyes: Green
Clothes: jeans and a green day shirt
Etc.
There are usually no depth or substance to these characters and the remainder of the roleplay is played out in one-liners. Usually illiterates have no regards for capitalization or ooc or grammar or spelling or basic roleplaying rules.
Semi-literate: Usually have longer and more descriptive lists that really get into the character, sometimes a semi-literate might type out a paragraph or two about their character but it’s usually not very intriguing or well written information about their character. Grammar is more sharpened.
Literate: Longer introductions and posts that have depth and description and are more like writing than basic information. Literates create more relatable and in-depth characters that a reader is interested in reading about, not just interacting with. The writing is more developed and the grammar is intact.
Advanced: This is when someone writes a long, interesting, in-depth, creative introduction. The grammar is nearly perfect and the writing is well thought out and descriptive. The quality of the writing is just more developed.
There are different terms known to roleplayers, these are some of the more common ones:
BIC: back in character, or in character. When the writer is writing in his or her persona, and interacting with other characters.
OOC: out of character, when you are talking to other players as yourself not your character.
Mary / Gary Sue: perfect characters. These are generally not permitted because it’s boring and doesn’t make for an interesting roleplay. Flaws and personalities are what make a better roleplaying and Mary / Gary’s are more common in illiterate and semi literate roleplays.
Powerplay: controlling someone else’s character. This is not permitted—you are only allowed to control the actions of your own character
Godmode: creating unrealistic situations, or characters that can do anything. Example: a character that is a lightening fast super intelligent elf that can defeat anyone in combat.
Despie: an illiterate that is desperate for romance.
Slash: romantic relationships in a fanfictional roleplay between to already made characters that is not of norm. I.E. dracoxharry
MxM or FxF: homosexual relationship between two characters
MxF: heterosexual relationship between two characters
Prommie: A well known roleplayer that has earned the respect of the other roleplayers by their example of literacy.
N00b: Someone who is considered illiterate and generally new to Roleplaying without a mentor.
Newbie: Someone who is new to roleplaying, but is well on their way to becoming literate but still needs practice. They are often found in semi- literate roleplays.
Section 4:Standard rules for Roleplay
These change from board to board, depending on what the creator of the board wishes to institute into his or her roleplay, but these are the standard rules.
1. Spell check—no one wants to read your typos, it puts them off. Typos are fine, of course, but make an effort to spell check your posts.
2. This is related but, no chatspeak in IC. Everyone hates it. You can’t read it. Please don’t do if the creator of the board doesn’t want you too.
3. Post length—quality over quantity obviously, but you should describe your character at length so people get a feeling of who your character is. Not only current appearance but things like personality, history, flaws, the stuff that makes a human interesting.
4. Use proper grammar in IC—that means capitalization, quotation marks, etc.
5. Make your best effort to write intriguing and interesting posts—everyone gets better at writing and roleplaying and until then ask questions so you can learn.
6. Please be original, not only does it get boring to see the same characters over and over again, but there are so many of the same genre RP circling around. If you see an RP of a genre you like, don't start a thread with the same thing, join the original one. Also, try to be creative with what you RP, make up some new ideas about what to roleplay. TRY NOT TO BE REDUNDANT IN THE THREADS THAT ALREADY HAVE BEEN POSTED.
OTHER POINTERS
1. Structure the sentences so they all flow together
2. Do not use words repeatedly. For example: He got up and got dressed. He walked into the washroom. He picked up a brush and he brushed his teeth. He walked into his room once again. He pushed open his door. He left his house. See? it gets annoying. 4. Make sure you have more than just a sentence. A truely gifted roleplayer can stretch one sentance into atleast three paragraphs.
3. Pay attention and read about what is going on around you. Try and effectively jump into situations where you would otherwise be left out of the general flow. Not that that is a bad thing alot of people enjoy just roleplaying on their own. Doing thier own nuts.
Section 5: Introducing your character to a roleplay
Start off with describing the character then have them walk in, talk, and if there's another character there that's related to the character (like a sibling or long-time friend), they can introduce your character to the rest of the RPers. Make sure that when describing the character, you know the setting that they're walking in.
Point 4a: Describing the characterWhen describing your character, it is vital, for the sanity of your audience, that you show, not tell.
Telling: Cindy entered the room, she walked over to the table and picked up the purse she had left behind. She had long brown hair and brown eyes to match, she wore a white t-shirt and jeans.
Showing Cindy slowly opened the door to the class room, it was empty and the desks were in an erratic pattern, evidence that the class had rushed out after the bell had rung. Quickly she walked over to the table she had set her purse down on earlier and sighed as her long brown hair bounced with each step. There was a small mirror set up next to her purse and she could see her soft murky brown eyes, which she hated so much because she thought they were plain. Opening the purse she sighed softly with relief as her money which she intended to use to purchase new clothes to replace her current boring plain white T-shirt and faded torn jeans was there where she had left it. She turned to leave the room, but not before looking to the mirror again to make sure her face was alright, she had a small nose and a petite smile, her pale skin made her look sort of ghostly but despite her dislike of her own looks she nodded to her self and turned to leave the room, the clicking of her high heel shoes the only evidence that she had been there at all. As Cindy opened the door to leave she sighed softly and shut off the lights that someone must have forgotten to turn off when they left for the day. With that the young lady was gone.
Can you tell the difference besides in length? One tells you what he does and what he looks like, the other elaborates on things that he did and trying to subtly show what the character was like without telling you "He's a quiet kind of guy". Learning to do this does take time and experience and can often be like writing a novel, which cause the misconception in Point 2.
Point 4b: Making your character move. When moving your character, you don't want to just move them, you want to have them move.
Again, let's use our dear Cindy:
Just move them
"Cindy went into the shop and bought a new outfit"
Have them move
"Cindy took a quick walk to the local JcPenny, she had her hand in her purse and she was counting the number of ten dollar bills she had. She had her outfit already picked up and on lay away, she just needed to make the final payment and this time she would make sure she had enough unlike last time. Smirking to herself when she pictured how jealous the girls at school would be over her new outfit she couldn't help but laugh out loud, which caused a passing mother with a small five year old son to stare at her. Cindy entered the store and navigated her way to the back, where she quickly handed over the money to the waiting store clerk. Cindy then turned around on one foot and began to make her way home..
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Credits and sources to various places all over the internet .
