Roleplay tips

So I had the idea of having either a sticky thread or a section where people can post their own roleplay tips to help new role players. So in that case, the newcomers didn't have to rely on one source.

Here's just some of mine. I may not be the best, but this is what I've used to help me roleplay.

1. Don't type just minor details. Go into what happened as the OC did that action.

What not to do: "Sarah jumped on a log. Then she broke her ankle. Then she died."

What TO do: "Sarah's feet crumpled the leaves laying sprawled across the ground. The log in front of her had been intimidating her and had caused her to pace on whether she should actually jump or not. Her thoughts raced, but she decided to take the risk of jumping anyways. Bad mistake. She felt and heard her leg snap into peices. Screams echoed through the forest as she fell, and it only ended with her piercing her head on a sharp rock that had been protruding out of the ground. Stupid intimidating log. Always murdering people and stuff."

2. What would YOU do in that situation? Don't just say what you think may happen. What would you actually do in that situation? What if you snapped your leg? What if you were being intimidated by a log?

3. Your OC has feelings. Even if they are just imaginary, they are considered living during roleplay. If your pet got hit by a car how would you feel?

4. Type so the reader can read it correctly. I write in script form. Basically, you write the character's actions in one paragraph, write the dialog another space down, then write the next actions a space underneath it.

Example from one of my own roleplays:

--Spencer had been adjusting the towel around his waist when he heard it too. Turning around, he looks at Kataro who looked like he'd just seen a ghost. And where had the moaning been coming from?

".....the hell are you doing?"

Then he saw him point to one of the showers. The water was running inside, and there was obviously somebody in there. But when he went to go look he just about pissed himself. Here?! In the public showers? Bewildered, he looks over at Kataro. He really didn't know what to say. Everything just went really awkward.

"Hahahahayeahweshouldbeleaving."

Taking light steps away from the shower, he makes his way over to the door.--

5. Come up with your own way of doing things! I've seen people use colors to depict which character was speaking. I've seen quoting. Just be creative! You're welcome to use these ideas as well.~

I think this is a good idea. Some things I would throw in:

- Don't over or under do a post. Some people just like writing one-liners and that's fine every now and then, but I don't want to write 4-8 lines and just get ["Yeah, that's a good idea" Tom said]. But keep things somewhat reasonable, few people can really sit through a 20 line wall or something. I try to get out at least 3 lines on average so there's at least some meat there.

- Don't force characters together. If they just don't work, they don't work. I get that it's good to have a partner or a character in a relationship, but trust me when I say that if they're just always OK with eahother without really having matching personallities, it really holds your characters back. If they start falling apart, then why not just RP them becoming unintrested and see where things go?

- Some things just shouldn't be set up offscreen. This really doesn't require much of an explemation. Traps are cool, but there's only so much someone can plan ahead. I see this happening ALL the time in RPs and media, so just understand that things aren't always going to work out exactly as planned and go with it.

- Have a little fun with things. Yeah, you should avoid BSing and there's some moments more serious than others, but not every moment has to be super serious...... Ok, this one doesn't really have as much of a point, just know that not everyone's going to take 'Death Murderus' and his black robed stuff seriously. It's fine to point out cliches every now and then for fun.

Ehh, on second thought, it's 100% fine to ignore that last one....... But still! I can see this being a pretty fun thing for people to add to.

Advice, tips, and tricks

#1 Use protection.

#2 Seriously dude, use it.

#3 I'm not playing here! This ain't no game!

#4 If you honestly can't think of ANYTHING else to put in a post, but you really want it to have more meat on it, use sensory details. ex) Sight, taste, touch, etc.

#5 Don't over-dramatize. It's fine if a situation warrants it, but if every action you do is described as the single most epic action undertaken by mankind, it's gonna be annoying (unless it's intentionally being used for humor). I don't care how good that fart just felt coming out, it wasn't that amazing.

#6 Develop your character!! You can never go to deep (that's what she said), you can never get to crazy or twisted (also what she said), and you can never develop a character to much! Get his every action, his every like and dislike, his friends, his opinions, his past, all of it! Get to know the way your oc thinks so well, that his posts practically write themselves. Sometimes I catch myself thinking like Nebun... Okay, maybe I did get a little TO into it.

#7 Don't get so attached to your character that you are unwilling to see anything bad or unexpected ever happen to them. If you do this, chances are that you have created a marry sue.

1. Be good!

2. Be good!

3. Don't be as crappy as me!

4. Listen to those guys!

5. Type stuff!

6. Be a good typer!

7. Don't be bad!

8. Make babies!

1) When making a character, make them have some similarity to yourself. It makes it easier to relate to, and therefore, use the character.

2) Use punctuation.

3) Develop your own style! Having your own post style is important when rolplaying. My personal posts usually contain lots of thoughts or questions from the character, spoken by the narrator.

4) HAVE FUN! The most important thing when keeping a drive to post is that you enjoy the thread you're in! I find it's harder to post if I don't like the thread.

5) Quality, not quantity! If you have someone who posts a paragraph, and someone who posts three paragraphs but the three paragraphs are repeditive, the first post is better in my opinion. I can say "Yata looked at the bread hungerly, his eyes lighting up with hunger. He was starving." but that's a bad post. If I say "Yata hungerly livked his lips, staring at the bread. It had been awhile since he'd eaten." That's much better. See what I mean?

1. Don't be clichéd. Or rather, don't be RIDICULOUSLY clichéd. Some clichés are nessesary, but too much, and it gets unoriginal

2. Don't be perfect. No one likes mary sues. Give em FLAWS. And not 'psuedoflaws', like clumsiness. Make em an egomaniac, give them a crippling allergy, make AFRAID of something

3. MAKE SURE THEIR BACKSTORY MAKES SENSE. Same goes with their motivation, unless they be insane. 'DURR DE MILITARY KILED ME PARENTZ SO MAH CHAR WANTS RVENGE!'. Usually not a problem on this site, but the last one I visited.... Yeah.

4. See my sig.

5. Disregard what my sig says regarding spelling. SPELLING BE IMPORTANT, YO.

6. Make sure your char is not ridiculously strong when compared to other peoples chars. Roleplaying is about writing a collaborative story, not 'OH LOOKIT ME, MY TOTES AWESOME KATANA WEILDING SUPER MEISTER WITH WITCH BLOOD IS SO AMAZING'. Don't be that guy. HITLER was that guy. #GodwinsLaw

7. Some resources from an old site I used, that are pretty good RP aides:


http://www.helloquizzy.com/tests/the-how-bad-is-your-rp-character-test-1

Please note that quiz is actually PRETTY generous, so if you managed to get anything other than 'decent character', you dun fluxed up.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SUNLGFX5JNhRyWfHBs6T5ngWiOpuk7TIRU35MPIxMUM/edit?pli=1

A guide to making a good character. Both of these were written by a chick named Dagny on Kongregate. Adding that because when I asked her if I could post those links to other sites, she said 'only if you credit me'.

http://www.springhole.net/writing/marysue.htm

An AWESOME website for writing tips. I recommend every person who RP's visits the place once.