RolePlayGateway™

You enter the classroom to find it is a small room with long tables. Each table has two chairs at it, and the chairs look surprisingly comfortable. The walls are bare except for a large (and well-used) chalkboard. The woman standing in front of the classroom is just barely over 5 feet, with a slight frame and thick black-rimmed glasses. She looks young, with a warm smile and a cheerful demeanor. Her dark hair is tied up in a careless bun, hair falling out from the hairband holding it back and wisps forming a halo of frizz around her face. She looks as if she's nervous as her eyes dart around the room, but she seems to be holding that nervousness in check, at least for the time being. She wears no makeup, and is pretty in a plain sort of way. Her clothes look as if she shopped at a thrift store to get them, the ankle-length skirt some maroon and black mess made to look like the wrinkles that it obviously has are a part of the design, and the black sweater so thin that it looks like it will fall apart at any given moment. Her chalk dust-covered hands are clasped tightly at her waist. Despite this obvious lack of concern when it comes to her looks, her bare feet grip the floor tightly, as if she wants you to look upon her with approval. All in all, the effect is one that you as a student might be in more control than she as the professor.

She passes out syllabuses to each of you and gives you a chance to read over it before introducing herself. When she begins speaking, her voice carries a confidence that makes you wonder if her physical mannerisms are planned out to give a certain sense of learned helplessness that is merely an act.



Hi everyone. I'm Billie, and you can call me that or, well, just about anything else. I'm just not big on using anything other than first names. After all, we'll be in here together until December 3, and well, I tend to try to get on a first-name basis with people as soon as possible.

To begin with, let me give you a bit of a run-down of what I'll be looking for from all of you, and what you can expect from me in return. From you all I expect honesty, willingness to try new things, and a sense of decency toward both myself and your fellow students. In exchange, you'll get honesty, integrity, and decency from me. I am more than willing to help people on a one–on–one basis, but need you to understand that I may not answer your PMs within 15 minutes. I will answer PMs in the order in which I receive them, and expect you to understand that this class is not my entire life.

Now, because you are expecting me to teach you things, I will let you know a bit about myself. I am a huge fan of both reading and writing. I have read at least one book from every genre, and while not all of them were necessarily good (particularly the self-published one I bought from some old guy in a bar a few years ago), I do my best to find merit in all things written. I have also attempted (and I say attempted because often the ideas are only half-formed when I begin and then change into something completely different when I am finished) writing something in almost every fiction genre - fantasy, science fiction, mystery, horror, suspense, etc. I have a soft spot for people who want to better themselves, and I am pleased that all of you have come here to do just that.

I am a role player, not just online, but also in real life. I may on occasion refer to tabletop games during my discussion of detail and description, but please understand. It's all the same. Whether you're typing words or speaking them, you are still attempting to communicate effectively. And the greatest part of communicating effectively is description - detailed description. They go hand in hand. As for tabletops, I am currently running a White Wolf World of Darkness game, as well as playing a Dungeons and Dragons version 3.5 game. People who play D&D get laughed at quite a bit, but be aware - we are all, at our base, the same. We are participating in a fantasy world and creating said world with our very own minds.



All assignments should be written in black color, normal font and labeled like this -

Student's Name
Due Date
Assignment Number

Assignment Title

Assignment Body

What you worked to do in this assignment.

I will be giving you a number of assignments throughout our time together. I expect you to DO them. If nothing else, I will at least accept that you have taken a chance and at least completed the assignment. If I can tell that you not only tried, but also stretched yourself out of your comfort zone, I assure you that you will not receive an F on anything you do for me. That does not mean that I will hand out As willy nilly, though. So don't get upset if you expected something higher than I give you. Make SURE that you proofread your assignments before you turn them in. Each assignment will have a due date that I think is acceptable. If you have issues with said due date, then please contact me as quickly as possible. This does NOT mean wait until the due date to tell me your work won't be finished, this means contact me IMMEDIATELY so we can figure out how to fix any scheduling conflicts.

If at any time you think I have graded you unfairly or that I have not given you what you feel you deserve, please feel free to PM me. We can discuss anything you feel needs discussion in private. I will NOT tolerate outbursts here. Also, please note - I will NOT be comparing your work to that of others in this class. Everyone learns at a different pace and begins in a different place. Do not be discouraged if you do not believe your work is as good as someone else's. Any one who does not want to publicly show their work can feel free to PM it to me.





I will be giving you each grades on your assignments based on the following criteria -

10 pts. - Turning the Assignment in on time. I think that this is of utmost importance and want to reward those who do so.

10 pts. - Effort. Once again, if you make the effort and the effort is apparent, I will be willing to be more lenient on you. If you do NOT do so, then I will judge your work accordingly.

5 pts. - Energy. You should enjoy what you're doing. If you're not, you're probably doing it wrong. I understand that some things may be more exciting than others, but Do your best to always make your writing reflect a sense of enjoyment - when one enjoys what they are doing, it makes their work much better.

5 pts. - Improvement. Make an effort to improve week to week. This does not mean start out writing poorly so that you can get these points. It means start out at your current level, ruminate on what you learn, then put it into action.

25 pts. - The use of what you've learned so far to do the assignment.

25 pts. - Creativity/Originality. Remember - you need to make your work your own. Think outside the box.

10 pts. - Mechanics. Your control over the use of language, and its rules.

10pts. - Voice. All work should have a voice, be it teasing, silly, serious, dramatic, awed, etc. Let your voice show through in your work - this is a creative work, not a history paper.

Assignment Scores will be posted as such -

100 - 91 points - 4.0
90 - 81 points - 3.0
80 - 71 points - 2.0
70 - 61 points - 1.0
60 points and below - 0.0

I will always work to provide you with assignment grades and private responses to assignments within 3 days of receiving your work, though on occasion it may take up to 5 days to do so. You will have 5 days after receiving grades to discuss your score with me, then it will be made permanent. Late assignments will be accepted for 48 hours after the due date with a loss of 25 points for lateness, unless arrangements have been made ahead of time.


*As a warning, I will be incommunicado on the weekend of October 16 – 18. If you have any issues that need resolving, please contact me before or after those days, and we'll work together to solve whatever issues may come up. It is also not a good idea to contact me with questions Friday evenings as I am usually tied up with other engagements on that evening.

**I look forward to getting to know you all and I look forward to enjoying my time with you. Please note - this will be a learning experience for me as well as you. This is my first time teaching in the Role Play Academy, and so I will be fine-tuning my teaching as I go through this. So remember - any constructive comments you have will be greatly appreciated.

After reading this post, please PM me with a brief list of your experience with role playing, and what you wish to learn in this class. This will not be graded, it is simply for me to understand where you are coming from, and what you want out of this class.

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Wooh. Now that's out of the way, let's begin this week's lesson.

Detail and description are probably two of the most important parts of any sort of communication, and they go hand in hand. Think about it. If you call someone for directions, it will not help at all to have them say, “I live in the house on the corner of the two roads.” BUT, having someone say, “I live in the big white house at the corner of Woods Road and Deer Road” will (as long as you know where Woods Road and Deer Road are). Asking a friend about their new girlfriend (or boyfriend) will not be nearly as much fun if all they say in response is, “Well, they have a head, and two arms, a torso, and two legs.” Certainly this is a description of their new significant other, but it is not a detailed one. It's also not a helpful one, as the majority of the population fits this category.

The actual definition according to Webster's Dictionary of the word Detail is this - “1 : extended treatment of or attention to particular items
2 : a part of a whole: as a : a small and subordinate part : particular; also : a reproduction of such a part of a work of art b : a part considered or requiring to be considered separately from the whole c : the small elements that collectively constitute a work of art d : the small elements of a photographic image corresponding to those of the subject
3 a : selection of a person or group for a particular task (as in military service) b (1) : the person or group selected (2) : the task to be performed “

Now, for our purposes, we'll be looking at just a small portion of this definition. Most important are the following sections - “Extended... attention to particular items,” and “the small elements that collectively constitute a work of art.” Why? Because detail is important. Whether you see it or not, role playing is truly a work of art in the simplest of terms. It is, in its barest sense, an extention of a group of people's creativity put to work to create something that is greater than the sum of its parts. Sometimes it succeeds at that, and sometimes it fails. Sometimes, it even fails dramatically. But the success or failure of a role play does not necessarily mean that this role play was great, or this role play was awful. If it failed, there was just something in it that did not work. And what was that something? Probably attention to detail. A work simply CAN NOT survive if details are not remembered and paid attention.

For example, one time, I was running a World of Darkness game in which one character had a merit called, “A Little Knowledge.” For those of you who don't know, World of Darkness is a mature role playing game based on our world, only the world your characters live in is a bit darker. Humans are a bit more ignorant of the “truth” of the world around them, and that world is full of monsters – vampires, faeries, werewolves, and just about anything else you can think of. It's a good time, and often when you play as humans (as we were) you spend a lot of time in game dealing with the idea that your world has been destroyed by the fact that you just saw someone turn into a deer in the middle of the street and run off, or your sister was killed and all her blood was drained.

“A Little Knowledge,” the merit one character had, simply meant that he had seen weird stuff before, so he could run off of what he saw, not try to justify it. (For example, a paramedic in a very urbanized area who has seen weird stuff before, so he can treat a wolf bite as a wolf bite, not spend a bunch of time trying to figure out what could have possibly caused the damage besides a wolf bite. It's still strange, but it doesn't hinder you in your responses.) Instead of following the details that were in his character description, he decided that this “A Little Knowledge” meant that he was not only completely unfazed by ANYTHING I threw at him, he also “knew” what everything they encountered was. Needless to say, this took a lot of the fun out of the game – sometimes the fun is actually being lost and confused and scared and most importantly, WRONG – and eventually, after numerous suggestions that he play his character correctly, I had to ask him to leave the group. He was ruining my other players' fun and ruining my fun, as well. The role play was failing because something wasn't working – attention to particular details. Once that was taken care of, the game became much more fun (and is still going on on Thursday evenings in my garage).

Now, let's look at Description. Description is the act of DESCRIBING. What does it mean to describe something? Webster's tell us it means this - “1 : to represent or give an account of in words <describe a picture>
2 : to represent by a figure, model, or picture : delineate
3 obsolete : distribute
4 : to trace or traverse the outline of <describe a circle>
5 archaic : observe, perceive”

Once again, we're looking at a small portion of this definition. Namely, part one and to a lesser extent, part two. I say to a lesser extent, because it is a personal pet-peeve of mine to have someone sign up for a role play and under description throw in a picture. Particularly if under said picture they write, “S/he looks like this, except...” and then begins to explain the differences between the picture and their character. I mean, I get it. Pictures are a huge help when describing someone. BUT. And please note this BUT. A picture is NOT worth a thousand words. Particularly when those thousand words are spent explaining why the picture is not a good representation of a person's character. Adding a picture in WITH a detailed description (there are those two words together! Isn't it beautiful!) can be a huge asset. Having a picture by itself? Not so much.

Now, I know you guys are busy with other classes and getting acclimated to the new school, so I won't go into much more detail. But I will end this by giving you all your first TWO (count them – TWO) assignments. Both are simple and should not take much more than 30 minutes to do.


Find a picture of a person you have never seen before and describe it to me in as much detail as possible. It can be a photo, a drawing, a computer screen shot, I don't care. Provide a LINK to the picture, but do not put the picture up in your post. If you're a technical kind of person, I can live with measurements, such as, “His mouth is about 3 inches long and about ½ inch wide,” but I'd much rather you stretch your creativity here, and go for something like this - “His mouth looks like he could shove a whole cheeseburger in it in one bite.” It can really be that silly if you want.


Write a description of a type of animal. Get creative here! Don't go for a dog or a cat, go for a Clumber Spaniel or a Norweigan Forest Cat. Not a wolf, a Mackenzie Valley Wolf. You get what I'm saying here. Two rules – it has to be a REAL animal (no dragons or unicorns), and you have to provide the FULL name of the animal, so I can look at the picture of said animal when I am grading your work.

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I'd like these to be turned in by Wednesday, October 7. Like I said, if you have issues with that date, contact me NOW. I will be posting a new lecture and assignment by Tuesday of next week, and after this first week, we'll deal with assignments being due (in general) on Mondays by midnight. Anyway, questions? Comments? Please feel free to contact me and I'll take care of whatever it is you ask me – at least if it's possible.

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Next week we'll be talking about 2 very important things – limits and PC information. (And no, PC does NOT mean Politically Correct).

Assignment One;
A lean figure, which the first thing that came to my attention was, his eyes. Yes, be it the camera or reality, he has green eye and one red, or brown as I am uncertain to which, coloured eye. Going on from that, he has red-ish blonde hair, gelled in the front to stick up, though not very neatly, and he has light, light brow eyebrows. He has sideburns, and his hair is cut fairly short, but not quite to the general military cut level. His head is tilted upwards slightly and has an almost rectangular shaped head. He has fairly small, light pink lips and three freckles on the left side of his face, our right, just in front of his side burns. He has a slouched, not quite perfect intellectual posture, to me it appears as a fake pose, holding his chin up with his left hand and a plastic cup in his left hand still sitting on the table, it appears to either be empty or containing water, possibly a clear pop such as sprite or 7up. He is wearing a thin, purple, collared shirt with long sleeves. It could be an office shirt if it were white with a tie. The shirt is loosely fitted and completely buttoned up in the front. In this picture he seems to be at a blue restaurant table at night time, a white wall behind him with close windows contained in metal frames. He has a Caucasian complexion.
http://img378.imageshack.us/i/jeff0va.jpg/#q=random%20person

Assignment Two;
The Dugong, a strange animal, it has pale smooth skin, shaped almost like a dolphin, the tail starting more narrow and growing gradually thicker as it reaches the body. It has rolls of skin built around its fins, and the fins themselves seem to be used somewhat like feet when they sit in place of the sea floor, which tends to be quite often as they are bottom feeders. It has very shallow scratches all along the body, though more like indents as they do not penetrate flesh in a single scratch, unless it was caused by another source. Other then the indents it has very smooth skin, and its mouth consists of two circular flaps that I have only ever seen open while feeding on the sea floor. Its head has two beady black eyes, tiny in comparison to the rest of it, located in behind the center of each side of its head. Two small holes, its nostrils, are on the top of the very front of its head, the shape of it makes it lack what would normally be considered a nose. There appears to be a small amount of excess skin on the mouth as it seems a bit wavy, like how an elbow wrinkles up when your arm is fully outstretched, though not quite as much as that. It looks as though it has a small, content smile from the side, but from below you would only see its two circular flaps that would quickly open to grab a bite to eat.
The animals full name is in fact, Dugong.

I hope this is okay ^^;

Grade - 4.0 Assignment 1; 4.0 Assignment 2 - Private Message holds grade breakdown. Any questions, PM me, please

First Week grades will be PMed to each of you as soon as I can get to them.

Student's Name Jade-x (I forgot to give her a surname XD)
Due Date 7th October
Assignment Number #1 & #2

Assignment Title Assignment #1
Link to Image: (Used Google.) http://i3.bebo.com/051a/2/large/2009/08 ... 11411l.jpg
Assignment Body: The photo is in black and white. It is a photo of a young girl from the shoulders up. The girl in it has her head tilted slightly to the right. Her presumably black wavey hair falls just past her shoulders to the front. There are a few stray strands over her forehead and her left eye is quite difficult to see. Her right eye is looking to the right, as in wasn't looking directly at the camera when this photograph was taken. Her nose is small and seems quite rounded from the photo. She has her lips pouted slightly. Her hand is by the right side of her face, covering some of her chin and right cheek. Her fingers are slightly curled towards her palm. She has a bracelet on. It resembles somewhat buttons. She has no spots or dimples showing in this photo.

What you worked to do in this assignment: Describe the above photo is detail.


Assignment Title Assignment #2

Assignment Body:
Quote Wikipedia:: "The Siberian tiger (Panthera tigris altaica) is also known as the Amur, Manchurian, Altaic, Korean, North China or Ussuri tiger.
Though it once ranged throughout Western and Central Asia and eastern Russia, it is now completely confined to the Amur-Ussuri region of Primorsky Krai and Khabarovsk Krai in far eastern Siberia, where it is now protected."


The Siberian Tiger, resembles a large Tabby cat to put it simply. It comes in an orangey-bronze colour or white. It is covered in a series of thin black stripes, they are long on it's back and they decrese in length as they descend along the legs. In the case of a white Siberian tiger it is fully white (excluding the black stripes), but in the case of the orangey-bronze coloured Siberian Tiger, it is not fully that colour, on it's underbelly and chest at the front under the head, it is white, also around its mouth and whiskers. The insides of the ears usually are white too. The Siberian Tiger, has an amazing set of teeth, they consist of a series of small teeth, inbetween two fang-like teeth, both on the upper and lower jaw, though the fang-like teeth are considerably smaller on the lower jaw.
They are quite large creatures at adult stage, when on their hind legs, the reach and sometimes bypass the height of an adult human.

What you worked to do in this assignment: Describe as best I could a Siberian Tiger.



Hope this is ok

Grades: 3.5 Assignment 1; 4.0 Assignment 2. Private Message contains grade breakdown. PM me with any questions, please.

When you enter the room, you notice that it is as bare as it was the last time you entered. Bille is standing at the front of the room, glancing at a small stack of papers in front of her. She glances up as you enter with her bright green eyes flashing behind her glasses and gives you a tight-lipped smile before looking back at the papers. Today, she wears a well-worn t-shirt that looks like it was originally black but has now been faded by numerous washings to an awkward grey. It fits her slim figure well, and she seems to be most comfortable in it. Her jeans rest at her hips, the legs covering most of her still-bare feet, as if she is too short for the cut of the fabric. Her hair is pulled back tightly into a pony tail. Lyle Lovett and his Large Band drifts softly from the open laptop beside her. When all students are seated, she clicks the music off on the laptop and stands straight to begin the lesson, adjusting her glasses as she does so.

Well. Hi everyone. It's Tuesday, and you know what that means – a new lesson! Woo hoo! So far, my inability to get ANYTHING done on time is being held at bay! This week, we're going to discuss a few things, 2 of which I mentioned in last week's lesson – limits and PC information.

Firstly, has anyone heard of PC information before? It stands for Player Character information and it's a huge deal. While it's probably more oriented toward your character creation classes or your storyline development classes, let's be serious. They all intertwine. I'm sure you've heard the words describe and detail in those classes as well. So. PC information is something that is used more in table-top games and is on occasion completely ignored in online RPGs. BUT. It makes the game SO MUCH BETTER.

Sorry I'm talking in my all caps voice, but I feel really strongly about PC information. Here's how it works – you keep separate what you as the player know, and what your character knows. Sounds really simple, right? But it isn't. Sometimes it's a simple mistake, sometimes it's done by what people call meta-gamers, or min/maxers, or Mary Sues, or power gamers. In order to enjoy an entire story, even an RP, one has a LOT of information to process, and unless you're running a one-on-one, your character can't possibly be in all places at all times. You will read things your character isn't aware of. It happens. But it is YOUR responsibility as a player to register what you know and what you don't know.

For example, I played a game once on a forum website much like RPGateway. In it, one of the characters was in a gang. I knew this because it was listed in the character writeup, but my character DIDN'T know this fact. My character didn't get to read the character write-ups. You know? And because I'm REALLY big on PC information, I played as if I had no idea. Another guy in the group began IMMEDIATELY to talk about her being in a gang. And I wanted to shake him. The entire reality of the world in which we were playing was gone because he didn't understand the difference between player and character information.

Now, this is important in another way, as well. Say you find this awesome RP that you want to take part in that's all about secrecy. There's this crazy secret war brewing, but no one knows, apart from these few people who are being brought into play. Their job is to go out and secretly begin “collecting” people to create these huge armies that will be fighting in the war. Well, you need to understand. Until your character is TOLD about this war, you have NO idea that it's happening. You can't act antagonistic toward a character that will be recruited to the other side just because you know eventually you will be at war with one another. Now, if your character already doesn't like that other character – say they wear their clothes too tight, or they have a bad haircut, or they kill animals out of sadistic glee – sure, be antagonistic. Your character has a REASON to dislike them. But in RPs moreso than any other form of artwork, the game relies on interaction between characters. If you can't have that, if you don't give that, then you are not helping the RP succeed, you're hindering it. Ensure that your details are accurate for the character you are playing. If you ever can't remember whether or not your character knows something, guess what! You can actually go back and read through the other posts to find out! It can take anywhere from a minute to 30 minutes to do so, but it's worth it.

I could keep ranting about this, but think perhaps I am getting off-topic. So right now, we'll move on to limits, because they are a big deal, as well. Everyone has two limits – one is how much detail they can feasibly insert into a single post, and the other is how much they can feasibly take in from one post. If you just spent a good 15 minutes writing a 500 word post describing your character's apartment, don't repost that information just because someone enters it. Now, you CAN draw attention to things, and you can do it carefully. Listen to this example -

Lonni has just written a very large post about her character's immaculate apartment – everything is exactly where it is supposed to be, not a single speck of dust or clutter anywhere. Lonni's character has very utilitarian taste. Her character is now sitting at her desk in her living room, going over some paperwork she stole from her boss's desk because she believes he is doing something illegal.

Ben's character, Lonni's boss, comes to her apartment to go over some financial information. He has done this a number of times in the past, as he and Lonni are friends as well as coworkers. He knocks on the door and Lonni jumps up to answer it, not expecting anyone to come over, particularly not Ben's character, who is supposed to be out of town on a business trip. He is prepared to give her a big hug and remove his shoes at the door – Lonni can't abide messiness.

Not even bothering to look at who it is, she simply opens the door and is shocked to see Ben standing there. There are a number of things Lonni's character is experiencing at this moment, all of which can be added into the post to make it longer and more interesting, but not repetitive. Her heart is obviously pounding and she breaks out in a cold sweat – why is Ben here? Does he know she has the papers? Does he think she knows whatever it is he's doing? Is he here to threaten her? Hurt her? Fire her? Kill her? Lonni chooses to try to play it cool, talking to Ben as she high-tails it back over to her desk where a bunch of papers – BEN'S papers - lay strewn about. Without looking at him, and still babbling something inane about thinking he was out of town, Lonni grabs them all up and shoves them haphazardly into a desk drawer.

Now. We've drawn attention to certain aspects of Lonni's typically neat personality. She is already being seen as someone who is a bit anal-retentive. Everything is as it should be, and it can probably be deduced that she doesn't necessarily lose her cool very easily – she just opens the door without asking who is there. She isn't a nervous woman. Instantly, that changes, though. Ben, THE Ben, who may or may not be doing something behind his friend's back, is here – and she has evidence of her suspicions laying out in the open. So, Lonni does something she would probably never do – she shoves the papers into a junky pile and tosses them into the drawer before Ben can see what they are. Now, this doesn't mean Ben would necessarily be suspicious – he may just notice it (or not, perhaps Ben is not the kind of guy who pays much attention to such things), or he may think it's odd. Particularly if Lonni has been giving off other signs that something is amiss. If given the opportunity, Ben may look in the desk to see what those papers are, or he may trust his friend and coworker and ignore them. Either way, you have given enough details to show that something is wrong due to Lonni's behavior.

Any time you are adding a post, particularly if you are looking to make your post long and more detailed, there is a list of questions you can ask yourself to do so. Here it is -
Where is your character? Are they at home? Work? Out? If they're out, are they out on pleasure or business?
Who else is around your character? Are they alone? With friends? Co-workers? Family? Strangers?
How is your character feeling?
What is your character thinking about?
Why is your character doing what they're doing?
What can your character see? Hear? Taste? Smell? Feel?

As I write this lecture, I'm sitting on my back porch, tapping at my laptop. Fun, huh? But check out what happens when I add in my responses to the above questions -

She sat by herself on her back porch, listening to her favorite mix cd of blues music and thinking about role playing. While she was comfortable in her skill as a player, she had never tried to teach others how to play before this semester. It left a strange sense of nervousness in her stomach, but she would be okay – she hoped. She smiled as somewhere a few streets over she heard the familiar sound of the ice cream man. He showed up every afternoon from May to November at the same time every day. Perhaps tomorrow she would stand on her street corner and pick up one of those big cookie sandwiches with ice cream in the middle – she'd loved those things since childhood.

Turning back to the task at hand, she thought over previous role plays she had done – were any of the incidents she had experienced worth discussion? Perhaps a few, but they were all long, drawn out stories and she was trying to make things as clear and as concise as she could. She would simply give a different kind of example. Her legs were stretched out across the bench of the wooden picnic table she sat on, and she kept glancing up, as if the weather could change at any moment. Not knowing what else to write for the moment (or, more realistically, not knowing how to say what she was trying to say), she leaned back, cracking her back and neck and sang a few bars of the song playing on her computer. “What makes a woman start to beat her breast when her children start to cry?” she sang under her breath, waiting for the right words to come to her. When they didn't, she stood and walked inside her back door, heading down the hallway past the laundry room to the kitchen to pick up the can of still chilly RC Cola she had begun drinking when she started the lecture. Her throat properly wetted, she returned to the porch, fingers poised over the keys of her old refurnished laptop, and began again to type.

There we go, guys. 342 words worth of useless information for you. But, there's a lot of detail in those 342 words. Not enough to make you want to shake me (I hope) but enough to give you some idea. I could have gone into more detail, but there's no need to give all the detail in one post. Should my best friend come over, I can talk about how when she walks out the back door, I stand up and reach down to pull up my jeans – I've been losing weight and they just don't fit as well as they used to, or how I pull my hair down from the sloppy pony tail I am wearing, run my hands through it, and then retie the hair ties.

Granted, sometimes it works better than others. Five seconds from now, I'll still be in the same place, probably doing the same thing. But, like I said above, I've given myself more leeway. I still have more questions I can answer. Perhaps in my next post, someone will knock on my door. Perhaps the phone will ring, perhaps my obnoxious dogs will start rolling around in the dirt and I'll have to check to make sure they're not rolling in something dead, perhaps I'll fall off the picnic table bench – don't play, it happens often. One of the big things people say that too few people listen to is, “Fake it till you make it.” Sure, we don't want to do this if we are trying to be a surgeon, but in role playing? Sure. Ask yourself the questions above until they don't work for you any more. Until you are doing it naturally. Because it truly will become natural after a time. Eventually, your characters will be so real that seeing things from their eyes will be as easy as seeing things out of your own. Everyone has an inner monologue going through their minds constantly. Tap into that and you have a wealth of detail to add.

The same can be said for places. Want some location questions?
What does it look like? What's it's architectural style?
What sort of people come here? Happy ones? Sad ones? Depressed ones? Desperate ones?
What would you FEEL if you stopped to take a moment in this sort of place. Is it oppressive? Enriching?
All buildings seem to “say” things. What is this one saying?
What does it smell like? Stale? Clean? Crisp? Home?

All of these can add flavor to those location-related posts.

Now, why is detail difficult to add to posts? Well, that's what we're going to talk about next week, and it's going to tie into everyone's favorite theme, “Realism.” I know. A lot of people hear that word and twinge. “Realism? Seriously? WHY?” But I promise. The realism we'll be talking about is VERY interesting.

And now, for assignments. For those of you who have turned in your first week assignments already, thanks. I'll get your grades to you soon, I promise. For those of you who haven't, they're due tomorrow! Get them in!

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This week, I want an essay. Not really. Just a few questions, some of which you can find answers to above, and some of which you have to come up with your own thoughts for. No length requirements, just write until you think you've answered the questions fully.

1.Why are details and description important to a role play?
2.What are some ways to add detail to a post?
3.Why do you think it's difficult to add detail to posts?
4.What are your weaknesses when it comes to adding detail?
5.Why should you use words as opposed to pictures when adding in detail?
6.Should pictures ever be used? When?
7.Take a few minutes, and come up with just a regular joe, doing a regular boring task. Then, add details to that task to make it more interesting to the reader.
8.What do I mean when I say, “Fake it till you make it” in a role playing sense?
9.I have a DM who asks us each to do “soliloquies” for our characters at random points during our game. Why is this a good idea? What does doing such a thing enforce? [Hint: Look up the word soliloquy]



Write an intro to a person or place. Come up with it in your head, and ask yourself questions and answer them. I want this to be at least 300 words long, but would prefer up to 600. NO POSTS over 600, or you lose 1 point per word.

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These will be due Monday October 12th. Any concerns can be brought straight to me via PM, and
anything that I spoke about today that you need clarified, please bring it up here in the thread.

Alec Grossman
Oct. 6 (today, oops)
Assignment 1


http://susancoffey.deviantart.com/art/OLD-139517370

A very pretty young woman with a choppy, brown haircut. Straight accross bangs cut just along her brow line. Her blue eyes, ski-jump nose and full lips have a very commercial beauty. She has a serene expression on her face. She is pulling down her grey tank-top so to have some modesty.

Assignment 2

Animal: The North American Beaver.

A brown-furred, buck-toothed mammal. Small and slimy looking when wet. It creates dams for its home and can stay underwater for incredible lenghts of time.

Assignment 1 - 3.8; Assignment 2 - 3.8. Grade breakdown delivered via PM. Please PM me with any questions or concerns.

Guys - assignments were due on Monday. Anyone still in this class? If I don't get any responses by Friday, I'll assume everyone has dropped.

Taka Caden
Oct.14
Assignment 3
1.Why are details and description important to a role play?
It because if we dont have details it wont even be a roleplay.. it would just be a Jumble mess

2.What are some ways to add detail to a post?
By Adding the feeling,Expressions,What they are doing verbs,Nouns,Ajective

3.Why do you think it's difficult to add detail to posts?
It because sometimes you get Overwhelme with the stuff you get confused and messed up
4.What are your weaknesses when it comes to adding detail?

My weakness are the details.. IM bad at those kinda of stuff
5.Why should you use words as opposed to pictures when adding in detail?

(UH....Idk, Im gonna skip it till you explain it to me)

6.Should pictures ever be used? When?Sometimes,Like introducing a chractor like yugi some people never heard of yugioh so you take a picture of him and post it

7.Take a few minutes, and come up with just a regular joe, doing a regular boring task. Then, add details to that task to make it more interesting to the reader.(Uh help me with this one)

8.What do I mean when I say, “Fake it till you make it” in a role playing sense?
It like Try your best till you make it
9.I have a DM who asks us each to do “soliloquies” for our characters at random points during our game. Why is this a good idea? What does doing such a thing enforce? [Hint: Look up the word soliloquy]
yes,Beacuse we can show the expression like romo and juilet

Assigment 4
I think i should introduce myself,Taka Caden
My family was born in asia,I like the customway of someplaces
and I have fun meeting other people around the world
And it so much fun meeting you,Your a great teacher
and I think i dont even deserve you...,Im bad at roleplaying

1.Without details and description, a roleplay would consist of only dialogue and roleplayers would probably be imagining entirely different scenes. The roleplay would lose exitement and would lack depth.
2. Describe the setting, your characters body language, their tone, their thoughts and opinions. Go over the post again to make sure there isn't anything you left out or anything confusing before pressing 'submit'.
3. Usually, I just don't know what else to add.
4.Everything I write is very short. I put all the details I think I need in one or two sentances, only to find out I left something out, important or otherwise.
5. Using words gives the reader room to imagine and other roleplayers room to add details of their own. Pictures, on the otherhand, are static and leave no room for collaberation.
6.Personally, I don't like using pictures ever, but a lot of people use them in place of describing their character, so I guess thats okay.

7. At the Laundromat.

He dumps the basket full of dirty clothes into the machine and watches. He watches the shirts and pants swirling into a mix of different colours. They spun together until it was undistinguishable which was what. He watched the blues and reds and greens and... whites? Crap. He stopped the machine and pulled out as many white articles of clothing he could find before sitting back down, releived.

8. I've never heard that expression before.
9. This could be useful to develop the characters and to get inside their heads.

Good morning everyone! As I said before, I was out of commission this weekend - went camping with my youth group. And now I'm back, and so I can start the next lecture, which I'll go ahead and try to do tomorrow.

You arrive to find the classroom empty, yet you decide to sit and wait the necessary 15 minutes after class start to see if your teacher will arrive. The minutes pass agonizingly slow, and as you gather up your stuff to leave, Billie rushes in. Her hair is loose and looks as if it hasn't been combed in days and there is dried mud caked on her jeans. She is wearing a heavy old army jacket and you notice that for the first time, she is wearing shoes – brown tennis shoes that are also covered in mud. She grins at you and fumbles in the satchel she has over her shoulder before pulling out what looks to be napkins with lecture notes written on them. You worry that she may have gone insane.

Hey guys. So sorry about being late in getting this lesson out to you but as you can tell by my attire, I was camping. And it was not the most pleasant of experiences. It was so cold that I thought I was going to die. Not literally, but seriously. I thought that I might never be warm again.

This week we're discussing why it's difficult to add both detail and description into a post, and I promise to keep it short and to the point – both so that I can thaw out and take a much needed shower and so that you can rest easy and know that that's that much less work you have to do.

There is one reason and one reason above all else why it is difficult to add detail and description to your post – You do not see your character as real. And well, you're correct. In all honesty, your character is someone you made up – perhaps for one of the many high school role plays that float around nowadays, perhaps for something a bit more in-depth. It doesn't matter. You can not add that detail because you are picturing your character as a thing, and not a person.

How do you get past that? Well, that's difficult to explain. You can begin by asking yourself all those questions I posed to you last week, but you can also begin at the very beginning. And, if you ask me, the beginning is always the best place to start for obvious reasons.

When filling out a character sheet, you're often asked the basic questions – name, age, looks, personality, character history. And that's great. Fine and dandy. BUT. What are your characters motivations? What are their beliefs? And most importantly, how will those motivations and beliefs CHANGE as the storyline progresses? I'm going to talk about some characters on fairly popular television shows, and if you've never seen them, PM me. I'll keep giving examples until we find something that works for you.

You ever seen NBC's television show Heroes? If you have, you have met one of the biggest paladin-wannabes on television nowadays – Peter Petrelli. I call Peter Petrelli a paladin-wannabe because I see his D&D alignment as lawful good. He is concerned with the morals laws he believes people should live by and he works hard to always do the right thing. Now, this is interesting sometimes, and is interesting for a while. But, I'm sorry to say, Peter is WAY too flat to me to be continuously interesting. His entire moral standpoint is always, “No, I won't do this because it's wrong,” or “Yes, I'll do this because it's right.” For Peter, most bad guys will always be bad guys, and no number of good acts will change that fact. Playing Peter Petrelli's character in a role play wouldn't be difficult, but it would become a bit stale after a while. His outlook on life doesn't change despite the fact that he has been constantly encountering different people, different events, different outlooks, etc. He still sees the world in black and white. This does NOT make for good role playing, guys.

Now, let's look at Sylar from the same show. Sylar's character is terribly dynamic. We see constantly his struggles to overcome the obstacles he faces (his hunger, his anger, those around him, etc). He is constantly trying to rewrite himself into someone MORE than what he is at the moment, and he is constantly being vilified again and again by those around him. Certainly, Sylar is a monster. But is he a monster by choice or because despite his strength as a “hero” he is incapable of being seen as anything but a beast? That's not really something I can answer myself, but I view him as one of the more interesting characters on the show, and not just because I'm mesmerized by his eyebrows. He is constantly rewriting his beliefs, his hopes, his needs. His details, his situations, even his description are all changing constantly. That makes him a fantastic role playing choice. Every action he takes, every time he interacts with another character on the show, Sylar walks away changed. The same way we as individuals do. Sylar is REAL. Peter is a character on a TV show.

Fox's show Bones works the same way. Doctor Temperance Brennan is probably one of the least interesting characters on a television show nowadays. She is constantly confronting new beliefs and having life-altering experiences. What does she do? She responds with the same scientific bull sugar that has been coming out of her mouth for the last 5 years. Even when this belief makes absolutely no sense. She is constantly forcing the world to fit into the mold she offers and those things that don't fit into that mold are simply ignored. It's actually quite uncharacteristic of her to accept anything that can't be fit into a scientific box, neat and tidy. And sure, that's cool for a while. But you'd think that after Sweets (the psychologist) has been right in his assessment of potential suspects 100% of the time, that by now she'd stop saying that Sweets has no idea what he's talking abut because psychology isn't real. Even if she doesn't believe that psychology works all the time, she could at least have a little faith in him, right? But she doesn't. Because psychology doesn't fit into the world she insists is the only real thing out there. And while what I'm saying makes her sound super-interesting (looking back, even I'm thinking, 'wow, great idea there!'), she is weak in that she never once questions herself as to why she makes these decisions – she's right, and that's that.

Sealey Booth, the FBI agent who works with Brennan makes the show enjoyable. He is as dynamic as Brennan is static. He, like Sylar, walks away from each situation, each interaction a changed man and he is SO much more real for that reason.

So why do we have issues, then? Because like Peter and Dr. Brennan, we place our characters in a “box.” Sally is a good person. She's perky, she's always trying to see the bright side of things, she's impulsive. She's pretty, she's smart, she's a great dresser. Now, this would mean that at any given time, we're thinking, “This is what Sally is. So Sally has to be this way always.” But that's not so. Just because Sally's a good person doesn't mean she can't make a rude comment to someone who just cut in front of her. Now, maybe she'll feel bad about the comment later, but that doesn't change the fact that Sally could do something bad. Just because she's impulsive does not mean that she can't also think things through. She could be ready to jump on a plane to head to Vegas with the guy she just met at the bar. But maybe when she gets home to pack, she realizes that her sister is counting on her to babysit on Friday night. Does this mean that she won't follow her impulses and go to Vegas? Maybe. Or maybe she will go to Vegas after calling their mom to see if she'll take over the babysitting duties. If someone has hurt Sally, maybe she decides to hate them forever. Or maybe she has a long, internal monologue with herself and decides that she can forgive them in time.

BUT. Sally will ALWAYS be affected by both the things that happen around her and the things that she chooses to do. If Sally's mom dies in a terrible accident, she probably will have a much harder time being happy than if her mom wins the lottery. If Sally gets mugged, she'll probably walk a little faster on the street, clutch her purse a little tighter, fidgit, pay more attention to the crowd around her, etc. Sally will change.

How can you put in more details? Remember that change is real and it's happening constantly.


Homework -

Tell me about a time when one of your characters in a story, and RP, a daydream, whatever, experienced something that changed their actual details and/or physical description.