How To Roleplay Guide

[The Chronicler]

How-To Role-Play Guide

Writers will come to us at various stages of role-play development. Knowing this, we thought it would be handy to show some basic do's and don't of role-play. This guide is meant to be informative for those who are newer to role-play, as well as showing those who have done more role-play what they might expect on our site.

What is Role-Playing?

If Acting and Creative Writing had a baby...that's what forum role-playing would be. The writer (that's you!) creates a character and gets to pretend to be someone other than themselves for a little while.
 

How do I write my Role-Plays?

The only style related rule for writing that the site requires is a post written in third person, past tense.

Bad Example: I walk into the room and sit at the bar.

This is a bad example because they used both first person and present tense. They broke the requirements.

Good Example: Rosalyn walked into the bar. As she looked around the room she noticed a friend, Gina. Walking up to the girl, Rosalyn said "Hello".

This example is written in third person, past tense and consists of enough information to reply to. It is a perfect example of role-play.

You may have noticed that this last example had a bolded word as well as quotation marks. These are other "requirements" of Roleplaying on this site. Nobody is going to ban you for not doing this, but it makes it a lot easier for people to know when your character is talking if things are in quotations. Other suggestions include using a separate color for the spoken part to make it stand out even more.

As for bolding, if you bold the character names of the people you are talking to it is easier for them to see that you are attempting to Roleplay with them at that moment. Otherwise they may just scroll past and not see it.

Italicizing thoughts is another key "requirement". By italicizing your character's thoughts, you separate them from the other parts of your writing more noticeably. Again, none of these are actually required, but you'll see them often enough that you may start believing they are!

Good Example: Do I really belong here? Rosalyn thought to herself. Could I really be as brave as the rest of them? The thought had been troubling her since the sorting ceremony. It wasn't that she didn't think she could be if she needed to be. It was just that the opportunity had never presented itself, and now that the sorting was over, she felt like there was an expectation placed upon her. One that she was not sure she could live up to. Rosalyn was always an early riser. She had been sitting in the window seat of the common room when the first light of morning had stretched out over the castle grounds. That is when she first really saw the Whomping Willow. She had heard stories from her parents about it. A tree that shakes violently, often hitting anyone that comes near it and knocking them unconscious. It seemed to only be moving slightly this morning. Shortly after she heard someone, Vera, walking around the common room. She appeared to be looking for something. But when Rosalyn stopped to really look she saw that Vera was actually hanging up a flyer. After Vera left the common room, Rosalyn looked at it. She giggled a little to herself when she realized that the flyer was for an adventure of sorts. Touching the Whomping Willow.

That's it! Rosalyn thought to herself. It's my chance to prove to myself that I can be brave. She quickly threw on her shoes and ran down the corridors to the lawn. When she caught up with Vera she was a little winded. But she turned to her and said, "Mind if I join?"


Last rule? Absolutely no god-modding! While interacting with others is a large portion of the fun while role-playing, god-modding isn't fun for anyone. Which leads us to our next topic...

What is God-Modding?

{credit to Urban Dictionary for the initial definition we used and tweaked}

Godmodding is where a character in an RP (roleplay) has the ability to do almost anything without the permission of another character. If this were allowed, someone could kill off another person's character without their permission! To control another character without their permission is Godmodding, so always ask permission first if you absolutely need something to occur to their character or just act it out like the correct example below in your RP posts.

Examples:

• It can be doing something to a character without the other character’s express permission.
• It can be when they simply can’t be hit and dodge all attacks or anything for this matter aimed at them.
• The worst is making out another character to be what they’re not, just to make your own character seem superior.

 

Example of Godmodding:

Wrong Thing to do
Character A: Shoots arrow at Character B
Character B: Dodges arrow, shoots another arrow at Character A and the arrow hits making
Character A fall down bleeding.

Right Thing to do
Character A: Shoots an arrow at Character B but isn't sure if it hit.
Character B: Dodges the arrow, returns fire at Character A and thinks it might have hit.
Character A: Hit by arrow and falls down.

Each character chooses themselves what happens to their character when something is thrown at/cast on/or otherwise done to them unless the other writer has been given permission to do this by the character being targeted.

What other rules of RP etiquette should I know?

1) It’s best not to interrupt an RP. Ask for permission first before you can join others who are actively posting in a topic. You can do this by PMing one of the people who have posted in the topic. On the other hand, don’t nag or bother people to post back to you. Be considerate of other people’s real-life/offline/out-of-character situations.

2) Making mistakes is great character development. Your character is a human being, so it is expected that he/she will not be perfect. Modesty is the best policy.

3) If you’re in an RP with someone, try to post back as soon as you can. If you leave the thread for more than 3-5 days, someone else might come along and start a new RP in that thread. If you’re having real-life complications or you’re suffering from a lack of muse, just PM the person you’re RPing with and let them know. This is common courtesy. At the same time, we ask that our Writers please wait at least 10 days after inactivity in a forum to start a new RP unless the RP is stated as closed.