Post by Black Bert on Sept 17, 2007 12:26:56 GMT -5
The Guide
Why am I making a guide to roleplaying? Because the quality of most roleplays online disgusts me. Everywhere I look, there's someone who can't roleplay. If you want to look (and roleplay) like an idiot, feel free; ignore this guide completely, pretend it doesn't exist, but it's here for your use if you want it.
Step 1: Creating a character.
Alright, so you're ready to roleplay... where do you start? Well, first of all, you'll need a name. When making a name, you'll need to take into account what kind of roleplay it is. If it's something like a Hogwarts roleplay, a name like John would be fine, but if the roleplay takes place in Japan, Mr. Doe doesn't exactly fit in as well. As for the actual name, just draw ideas from names you like, or use a name generator; they're not hard to find with a Google search. You're also probably going to need an age; go with something around what everyone else is picking.
Next you'll probably want to figure out how your character looks. This is where most people in roleplays suffer. A lot of people spend a lot of time describing their character's clothing, but how many books have you read that waste an entire paragraph on the style of shirt a character was wearing when it wasn't especially important? What you want to focus on when describing your character is their facial structure, body build, hair... things like that. Include major points describing a character, don't include everything in the world about them. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be descriptive, it just means that you shouldn't describe things in detail when they're just excess information.
As a side note to looks, a lot of people tend to make their characters perfectly beautiful or handsome. This is commonly referred to as a "Mary Sue" and is often frowned upon within the roleplaying community. You should always try your best to make your character seem real; if you can't imagine three out of the next five people you see being how you attractive describe your character, chances are you need to rethink how you've written about him/her.
After you're done deciding on a personality, your character is going to need a personality. Make sure this corresponds with their backstory, which will be covered later. If your character grew up in a rural area, would he/she use a lot of inner-city slang? Would he/she talk with a strong city accent? It's not very likely. A lot of people tend to pull a bit of a Mary Sue here too, making their characters seem nice, powerful, and everything in between. This is bad. All people have flaws and your character should too. Try to avoid cliches when creating your characters. If you've seen the personality in a million roleplays and stories, then it's obviously been done. Try to be creative.
Once all that's done, your character is going to need a backstory. Here is where you especially want to avoid cliches. Many authors want to have their character to have some form of tragic past. Notice I said "many authors," which means, obviously, IT HAS BEEN DONE. In a roleplay, originality is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle. The actual backstory is only limited by your imagination, so why would you limit yourself by using something already done to death? Even mundane backstories can be interesting when coupled with a good personality. Hermione's backstory wasn't especially different or special when compared to any other Muggle-born students at Hogwarts, but her character was interesting nonetheless.
Examples:
Bad Character:
Name: Jane Doe
Age: 16
Appearance: Long black cape with everything you could ever want in each pocket and the most beautiful, dazzling blue eyes you will ever see.
Personality: Shy at first, but warms up to people quickly.
History: Born into British royalty, but her parents died when she was very young and she joined the fantastic fighting force known as The Super-Ultra-Cool-People.
Good Character:
Name: Jane Doe
Age: 16
Appearance: Jane has a slightly plump face and a frame to match, complimented by her light green eyes that give her the appearance of a very friendly green tomato. She often wears simple clothing as she doesn't put much stock in appearance.
Personality: Jane is a very sarcastic person, often choosing humor over any form of physical confrontation. She is by no means "bubbly;" although Jane can be friendly when she wants to, she's unexplainably bitter and can be easily provoked.
History: Jane was raised with both parents in suburban California. There was nothing special about her upbringing, other than the fact that her grandmother bakes the most delicious brownies you will ever taste.
Step 2: Actually Roleplaying.
Alright, this is the real meat of the guide, as they say. Before you begin to roleplay, you need to understand what a roleplay is. When you think of roleplaying, you should think of writing a story with other people. Think of roleplaying as "multiplayer notepad," because that's what it is; it's writing a story with other people, letting your world (or someone else's) live and breathe.
Obviously, some are better at it than others. There are three different levels I'm going to cover:
Basic - Where most people start.
Intermediate - Where you should be, hopefully, after this guide...
and Literate - Where you'll be after a few million years.
So let's get crackin'.
Basic:
You've all seen it. Like it or not, a lot of people like this style. Basic roleplaying is where people tend to ignore punctuation, grammar, spelling, and capitalization. It's where people use special characters to describe their actions.
Example:
*robert walked over to the bar and asked for a drink*
Not the best in the world, but it gets the point across, right? If you and your friends just want to have a casual roleplay, this style is for you. If everyone's okay with it, then it isn't hurting anyone.
People who use this style either just type speech as regular text or include speech within quotation marks. This style is often looked down upon by avid roleplayers as it takes no real skill.
Intermediate:
This isn't really much different from basic, at it's core. All it really entails is improving your spelling and overall grammar and forming a more polished style to your writing. Get descriptive with your writing and try to make it easier for people to picture it in their heads. Consider the example from basic; we'll change that to intermediate:
Robert walked to the bar, his feet shuffling as he walked; it was hard to lift them fully after a long days' work. He sat down on the barstool, relieved to finally have a nice place to sit. He waved to the bar-man; they were on good terms, seeing as Robert had been coming straight here after work for nearly a year now.
"Barry, let me get a Colt," said Robert.
See? It's not really that much of a difference at its core. It's just that added bit of detail that really brings the story together.
Literate:
Literate roleplaying is, once again, the same as the other two at its very core. The main difference between literate roleplaying and intermediate roleplaying is that you will take a long time to write a literate roleplay and, in some cases, to read one. When you're in a literate roleplay, you'll be lucky to get away with only writing 2 or 3 paragraphs, sometimes writing upwards of 5.
Literate roleplays are often written as if they're for an actual book. The style and form of some roleplayers can be pretty astounding and you may think you could never reach their level, but don't get discouraged; every other roleplayer was like you once. Just practice s much as possible.
Example:
Robert walked to the bar, his feet shuffling as he walked; it was hard to lift them fully after a long days' work. He sat down on the barstool, relieved to finally have a nice place to sit. He waved to the bar-man; they were on good terms, seeing as Robert had been coming straight here after work for nearly a year now.
"Barry, let me get a Colt," said Robert.
Barry walked quickly down to the end of the bar, producing a Colt 45 from under the bar and putting it in front of Robert. "Meet me in back in 5," said Barry. "I have something for you."
Robert nodded and tended to his Colt. He was exhausted and all he really wanted at this point was to go home. He had been pulling in felons all day and, in his line of work, he was lucky to even be in the bar after getting off. He took a sip of the Colt and glanced around the room. Sighing, he grabbed the rest of his drink and took it with him as he shuffled off toward the back room of the bar.
As he pushed open the doors, he couldn't believe what he saw.
"Sit down," said Barry, seeing Robert's expression and gesturing to a chair.
Tips On What to Do And Not To Do In A Roleplay:
1. One of the most important parts of a roleplay is to spell properly. I'm not talking about occasional typos, as everyone makes them, but when your entire post is in "netspeak," there's a problem.
2. Proper grammar is always a plus in a roleplay. Perfect grammar isn't perfect, as not everyone can post flawlessly every time, but it definitely gives your writing a very professional edge.
3. Don't God-mod without discussing it with the other player first. God-modding is when you take control of someone's character.
4. Be realistic. Even when you're roleplaying something like fantasy, you have to be realistic, otherwise your character or description won't sound believable.
5. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE AND IS OFTEN THE MOST DISREGARDED: Don't switch tenses in the middle of a roleplay. Most people don't know what a tense is; I'm about to fix that.
tense
–noun
1. a category of verbal inflection that serves chiefly to specify the time of the action or state expressed by the verb.
2. a set of such categories or constructions in a particular language.
3. the time, as past, present, or future, expressed by such a category.
4. such categories or constructions, or their meanings collectively.
We're going to be going with definition number 3 here. Basically, it's when something happened. The past tense of happen is happened, the present is happens, and it would be annoying if you used both of them in the same roleplay.
Bad Example of Tense:
He walked over the the chair and he took a seat. He glances around nervously, looking for the person he was waiting for. She walks in a little bit later, looking flustered.
Good Example of Tense:
He walked over the the chair and he took a seat. He glanced around nervously, looking for the person he was waiting for. She walked in a little bit later, looking flustered.
Closing Statements:
Well, that's really it. If you need help with anything, don't be afraid to send me an owl or something. I hope you learned something from all this.
Why am I making a guide to roleplaying? Because the quality of most roleplays online disgusts me. Everywhere I look, there's someone who can't roleplay. If you want to look (and roleplay) like an idiot, feel free; ignore this guide completely, pretend it doesn't exist, but it's here for your use if you want it.
Step 1: Creating a character.
Alright, so you're ready to roleplay... where do you start? Well, first of all, you'll need a name. When making a name, you'll need to take into account what kind of roleplay it is. If it's something like a Hogwarts roleplay, a name like John would be fine, but if the roleplay takes place in Japan, Mr. Doe doesn't exactly fit in as well. As for the actual name, just draw ideas from names you like, or use a name generator; they're not hard to find with a Google search. You're also probably going to need an age; go with something around what everyone else is picking.
Next you'll probably want to figure out how your character looks. This is where most people in roleplays suffer. A lot of people spend a lot of time describing their character's clothing, but how many books have you read that waste an entire paragraph on the style of shirt a character was wearing when it wasn't especially important? What you want to focus on when describing your character is their facial structure, body build, hair... things like that. Include major points describing a character, don't include everything in the world about them. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be descriptive, it just means that you shouldn't describe things in detail when they're just excess information.
As a side note to looks, a lot of people tend to make their characters perfectly beautiful or handsome. This is commonly referred to as a "Mary Sue" and is often frowned upon within the roleplaying community. You should always try your best to make your character seem real; if you can't imagine three out of the next five people you see being how you attractive describe your character, chances are you need to rethink how you've written about him/her.
After you're done deciding on a personality, your character is going to need a personality. Make sure this corresponds with their backstory, which will be covered later. If your character grew up in a rural area, would he/she use a lot of inner-city slang? Would he/she talk with a strong city accent? It's not very likely. A lot of people tend to pull a bit of a Mary Sue here too, making their characters seem nice, powerful, and everything in between. This is bad. All people have flaws and your character should too. Try to avoid cliches when creating your characters. If you've seen the personality in a million roleplays and stories, then it's obviously been done. Try to be creative.
Once all that's done, your character is going to need a backstory. Here is where you especially want to avoid cliches. Many authors want to have their character to have some form of tragic past. Notice I said "many authors," which means, obviously, IT HAS BEEN DONE. In a roleplay, originality is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle. The actual backstory is only limited by your imagination, so why would you limit yourself by using something already done to death? Even mundane backstories can be interesting when coupled with a good personality. Hermione's backstory wasn't especially different or special when compared to any other Muggle-born students at Hogwarts, but her character was interesting nonetheless.
Examples:
Bad Character:
Name: Jane Doe
Age: 16
Appearance: Long black cape with everything you could ever want in each pocket and the most beautiful, dazzling blue eyes you will ever see.
Personality: Shy at first, but warms up to people quickly.
History: Born into British royalty, but her parents died when she was very young and she joined the fantastic fighting force known as The Super-Ultra-Cool-People.
Good Character:
Name: Jane Doe
Age: 16
Appearance: Jane has a slightly plump face and a frame to match, complimented by her light green eyes that give her the appearance of a very friendly green tomato. She often wears simple clothing as she doesn't put much stock in appearance.
Personality: Jane is a very sarcastic person, often choosing humor over any form of physical confrontation. She is by no means "bubbly;" although Jane can be friendly when she wants to, she's unexplainably bitter and can be easily provoked.
History: Jane was raised with both parents in suburban California. There was nothing special about her upbringing, other than the fact that her grandmother bakes the most delicious brownies you will ever taste.
Step 2: Actually Roleplaying.
Alright, this is the real meat of the guide, as they say. Before you begin to roleplay, you need to understand what a roleplay is. When you think of roleplaying, you should think of writing a story with other people. Think of roleplaying as "multiplayer notepad," because that's what it is; it's writing a story with other people, letting your world (or someone else's) live and breathe.
Obviously, some are better at it than others. There are three different levels I'm going to cover:
Basic - Where most people start.
Intermediate - Where you should be, hopefully, after this guide...
and Literate - Where you'll be after a few million years.
So let's get crackin'.
Basic:
You've all seen it. Like it or not, a lot of people like this style. Basic roleplaying is where people tend to ignore punctuation, grammar, spelling, and capitalization. It's where people use special characters to describe their actions.
Example:
*robert walked over to the bar and asked for a drink*
Not the best in the world, but it gets the point across, right? If you and your friends just want to have a casual roleplay, this style is for you. If everyone's okay with it, then it isn't hurting anyone.
People who use this style either just type speech as regular text or include speech within quotation marks. This style is often looked down upon by avid roleplayers as it takes no real skill.
Intermediate:
This isn't really much different from basic, at it's core. All it really entails is improving your spelling and overall grammar and forming a more polished style to your writing. Get descriptive with your writing and try to make it easier for people to picture it in their heads. Consider the example from basic; we'll change that to intermediate:
Robert walked to the bar, his feet shuffling as he walked; it was hard to lift them fully after a long days' work. He sat down on the barstool, relieved to finally have a nice place to sit. He waved to the bar-man; they were on good terms, seeing as Robert had been coming straight here after work for nearly a year now.
"Barry, let me get a Colt," said Robert.
See? It's not really that much of a difference at its core. It's just that added bit of detail that really brings the story together.
Literate:
Literate roleplaying is, once again, the same as the other two at its very core. The main difference between literate roleplaying and intermediate roleplaying is that you will take a long time to write a literate roleplay and, in some cases, to read one. When you're in a literate roleplay, you'll be lucky to get away with only writing 2 or 3 paragraphs, sometimes writing upwards of 5.
Literate roleplays are often written as if they're for an actual book. The style and form of some roleplayers can be pretty astounding and you may think you could never reach their level, but don't get discouraged; every other roleplayer was like you once. Just practice s much as possible.
Example:
Robert walked to the bar, his feet shuffling as he walked; it was hard to lift them fully after a long days' work. He sat down on the barstool, relieved to finally have a nice place to sit. He waved to the bar-man; they were on good terms, seeing as Robert had been coming straight here after work for nearly a year now.
"Barry, let me get a Colt," said Robert.
Barry walked quickly down to the end of the bar, producing a Colt 45 from under the bar and putting it in front of Robert. "Meet me in back in 5," said Barry. "I have something for you."
Robert nodded and tended to his Colt. He was exhausted and all he really wanted at this point was to go home. He had been pulling in felons all day and, in his line of work, he was lucky to even be in the bar after getting off. He took a sip of the Colt and glanced around the room. Sighing, he grabbed the rest of his drink and took it with him as he shuffled off toward the back room of the bar.
As he pushed open the doors, he couldn't believe what he saw.
"Sit down," said Barry, seeing Robert's expression and gesturing to a chair.
Tips On What to Do And Not To Do In A Roleplay:
1. One of the most important parts of a roleplay is to spell properly. I'm not talking about occasional typos, as everyone makes them, but when your entire post is in "netspeak," there's a problem.
2. Proper grammar is always a plus in a roleplay. Perfect grammar isn't perfect, as not everyone can post flawlessly every time, but it definitely gives your writing a very professional edge.
3. Don't God-mod without discussing it with the other player first. God-modding is when you take control of someone's character.
4. Be realistic. Even when you're roleplaying something like fantasy, you have to be realistic, otherwise your character or description won't sound believable.
5. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE AND IS OFTEN THE MOST DISREGARDED: Don't switch tenses in the middle of a roleplay. Most people don't know what a tense is; I'm about to fix that.
tense
–noun
1. a category of verbal inflection that serves chiefly to specify the time of the action or state expressed by the verb.
2. a set of such categories or constructions in a particular language.
3. the time, as past, present, or future, expressed by such a category.
4. such categories or constructions, or their meanings collectively.
We're going to be going with definition number 3 here. Basically, it's when something happened. The past tense of happen is happened, the present is happens, and it would be annoying if you used both of them in the same roleplay.
Bad Example of Tense:
He walked over the the chair and he took a seat. He glances around nervously, looking for the person he was waiting for. She walks in a little bit later, looking flustered.
Good Example of Tense:
He walked over the the chair and he took a seat. He glanced around nervously, looking for the person he was waiting for. She walked in a little bit later, looking flustered.
Closing Statements:
Well, that's really it. If you need help with anything, don't be afraid to send me an owl or something. I hope you learned something from all this.