So I was asked to put this up here. I'm not quite sure where it goes so if it's in the wrong board someone please move it for me.

Anyway this just started as a small thing for my sister and her friends who were just starting to get into roleplay some years back but it's good for anyone starting out, i guess! ^_^

Most of the roleplaying I've done is chatroom based roleplay so some of my posts dealing with rp will be relating to that. I've tried to expand on other forms but aside from chatroom and forum based roleplay, I haven't had much experience elsewhere.

On my blog I posted things as they came to me and then put a menu on the side to categories, here I'll just divide up each subsequent reply as a category so you don't have to scroll around too much ^_^

Original blog here: http://how-to-roleplay.blogspot.com

As always, any mistakes or issues you want address, feel free to message me. I'll do my best to fix or answer whatever it is ^_^

General Information

Roleplaying Terms
Role Play:(aka. rp; roleplay) this is taking on a part, much like you would in a play but instead a chatroom replaces the formal stage; you don't have a script of lines to memorize; there isn't a director telling you where to stand and what to do. In essence, you've stepped into another person's shoes and you're pretending to be that person/being/creature/whatever. Play out childhood fantasies, dreams of flying, etc., etc.

Typist: this is -you- the person behind the character. This is the real live person that is typing the words on the computer.

Character: this is the being/creature/person you've made up. Base it off a comic book character, your own imagination, whatever. This is seperate from the Typist.

Avatar: (aka av) this is the picture someone uses to give their character a face; some sort of identity. It's how the typist identifies the character; imagines the character to look like. You don't necessarily need it to roleplay. It's just something nice to look at while you scroll down the page.

In Character: (aka ic) this means to be in the role of the being/creature/person you've made up. You -are- the character when you are ic.

Out of Character: (aka ooc) this is a term used when the typist wants to say something or do something but not through their character. This is used to present the Typist's ideas and speech. When In Character the typical ooc format is with double bracket ((as such)).

Real Time: (aka r/t; rt) used when the typist is referring to real life situation.

Virtual Time: (aka v/t; vt) used when the typist is referring to the virtual character life situation.

Moder; Godmoder: a character that is invincible. This is a bad thing.

Rulebook vs. Freeform Roleplaying
roleplay online has two main branches: free form and rule books (ranges from white wolf to dungeons and dragons). Both are great systems, both have their ups and downs. Personally, I have tried WW briefly but I found it not to my liking but you may find that it suits your style better.

Prewritten rules are good in that it's a set standard that many people follow, so it makes it a bit simpler in the flow of rp because you don't need to explain what this or that ability allows you to do.

On the other hand...

Free form is exactly that - you make up your own abilities, your own strengths and weaknesses and such. You can be as creative as you want to be. Invent your own creatures/beings, make up new abilities and whatnot.

But there's always a downside...

Prewritten rules and character concepts can be -really- hard to learn and understand. I've taken a peek at a few of the books and they might as well have been written in Russian for all I understood in it. Granted not -all- are hard to understand, there's still the learning your character and 'playing it by the book' deal.

Free form has no rules, no guidelines in creating your character and while that is a good thing, there's always the not so good side. Without any boundaries, it is tempting to give your characters all these super god-like abilities as well as changing or adding abilities when it suits your situation.

There isn't a good side or a bad side to this. Both free form and prewritten guidelines are good to use. Like I stated previously, it just depends on your preference. But there are always a few things to consider when you make your character.

If you're going to follow the guidelines then try to follow it as much as possible. There's no point in creating a ww/d&d character if you're just going to write up your own abilities and such. Might as well go free form. Adding/changing a thing or two slightly, as long as it makes sense is alright; so long as you don't rewrite everything so that you are at the uppermost level, etc.

If you're going to go free form then keep in mind that you should make your abilities as realistic as possible. By realistic I mean that every ability has a weakness, every character has at -least- one weakness the enemy could exploit. These weaknesses don't have to be so blatantly obvious that a half-wit could figure them out (but then again, you might want to play that way) but they shouldn't be so obscure that it's nearly impossible to harm your character. Now, I'm not asking that you write out -every single- weakness your character might have or how to defeat your character and his/her's abilities; simply, I am suggesting that you keep in mind what weaknesses your character will have in its personality or its abilities. If that's a lot to think about it might be helpful to write it down on a personal page or a pad of paper.

In either case, whichever you choose to use, it would work to improve your rp if you had "a good grip on how the character acts, thinks, speaks. They have a "life" all their own, they're convincingly another person if it's done right," ('Ric).

The Goal of Roleplaying
Let me remind all of you that roleplaying is a game that it has no "winners" and no "losers" and, well, no "ending" in that 'live happily ever after' sense. The purpose of roleplay is so that you, the typist, have a way of 'losing' yourself in another world that you can interact in instead of sitting back and watching it (eg. movies, tv, etc.). It is meant to be fun, if you are not having fun when you are rping then the purpose of rping is defeated.

There is no point in creating an invincible character for roleplay because in every situation, (s)he will win and that gets rather routine after several encounters. Roleplaying is the taking on the part of being another person living out their life. There is not greater being marking off points on a paper; there is no end where said points will be tallied up; there is no trophy to win. You roleplay to play, not to win.

Watching Others Roleplay is Helpful
When you are beginning roleplay, there are some players who can be crude, insensitive, impatient people who aren't willing to give you the time of day just because you don't know the rules. Ignore those people. They forget that they were new at roleplaying once and if they met people like themselves when they first started, they probably wouldn't have continued to roleplay. Everyone has to start out as a "newbie," everyone does not roleplay like a pro when they begin. People still don't roleplay well even after years of doing it. It depends on how much effort you put into learning the game.

Another issue I found helpful when learning to roleplay was watching other player's posts. I still do this and this can be a very useful tool in improving your roleplaying. Again, it depends on who you pick up tips from and it doesn't help you to simply watch and not ask questions when you don't understand. Almost all advanced rpers that I have encountered are more than willing to explain and clarify things to anyone who doesn't understand. However, if someone is unwilling to help you, just move on and ask someone else. Don't let a few bad comments stop you from improving yourself.

Roleplaying Mediums
I thought I'd introduce the different type of mediums that are used for roleplaying on the internet. There are several mediums to roleplay with. I'll try to cover all the ones I have been involved in and ones that I have some knowledge about.

The medium I am most familiar with is chatroom roleplay. I believe this is the most common form of roleplay. What happens is that, in the chatroom, one person will post their own post whilst the rest of the persons involved in that roleplay wait their turns. Usually, if there are more than two people involved in a roleplay, an order is established so that posting doesn’t get mixed up. The advantages to this sort of roleplay is that it is posted in real time so, potentially, a lot can get done in a short amount of time. It also allows for more players to get involved since, often, many people (not already involved in the roleplay scene) are also in the room and may jump in and have their characters react with something that has happened with your own roleplay. The disadvantages for this roleplay medium is that while it is possible to get a lot done in a short amount of time, depending on how fast the other parties in your roleplay type and get a post done, it can actually take a few hours to get a short scene finished. Also, if a character has to leave the roleplay, due to some r/t reasons, then the roleplay may be halted indefinately, or the direction of the roleplay was heading in may shift (which may or may not be a good thing). You may also feel the pressure (although you shouldn’t let it try to get to you so bad) to respond quickly, and as such, you may not post as good a quality as you might have were you not feeling the need to respond quickly.

The next medium that I am familiar with is message board roleplay. This is another popular one. Instead of posting in a chatroom, participants are posting in a message board. The advantages of this medium are that each post can be incredibly detailed, as much as you want and can contain more actions/interactions than in a chatroom post. There is also not the pressure to reply immediately and replying can easily fit into your r/t schedule; which means that, even if you are unable to find a huge block of time to roleplay in a chatroom, you are still able to roleplay through the message boards. The history (depending on how the board you roleplay on is set up) is saved so anyone who wants to know what has been going on has the option of going back and reading up. The disadvantages are that it doesn’t always get as much traffic as chatroom so trying to get other people involved is always a little more difficult. Responses won’t happen immediately. It may even take weeks for some people to respond due to difficulties in r/t interruptions. This means that despite being able to write a lot in each post, it may not progress as quickly as a roleplay conducted in a chatroom.

Another medium with roleplay is email based roleplay. This is essentially the same as a message board roleplay except posts are written as responses to emails rather than in a message board. The advantages are it’s very private. Only those who are on the emailing list will be included in the roleplay. It, like message board roleplay, can work with your r/t schedule and can also be very detailed. The disadvntages are that unlike message board or chatroom, it often doesn’t allow for players to jump right in unless they know of the roleplay already. Also, like the message board roleplay, it can take some time to get a scene done. I haven’t done any sort of roleplay with email so I don’t know how the actual format goes but I think it is generally a “reply all” situation so I would imagine your inbox could, potentially, get quite cluttered.

The last sort of medium I will be talking about is messenger roleplays. This is, essentially, a combination of chatroom roleplay and email based roleplay. It’s conducted over messengers like MSN or AIM in a chatroom like format. The advantages are, like the email based roleplay, that it is very private so only those who you invite into the chat conversation will be allowed to join in. And like the chatroom roleplay, a lot in the scene can get done, potentially. The disadvantages are that again, if one has to leave, then the scene may be stopped indefinately and it make take some time for other players to type up a post so there may be a long waiting period.

Action vs. Speaking
In roleplay, whether it is conducted through a chatroom, email, or any other number of roleplay mediums there will most usually, action/description and speech in each post. This means that part of your post will be descriptive, detailing what your character looks like, their thoughts, or their surroundings, etc. And the other part of your post would consist of your character speaking.

What needs to happen then is a way for people to distinguish what part of the post is action/descriptive and what part of the post is the character's speech. An example of that would be:

::Avemano bursted through the rear entrance to the restaurant, having not seen her 'family' in a long time. She was excited to see them, to tell them what she has seen on her travels and, of course, to eat that delicious home cooked-style meal the restaurant was prized for.:: Mama! Guoguo! I'm home! ::She called out, regardless of whether there were customers in the restaurant or not. Most of the regulars were used to that sort of racket anyway.::

The use of double colons (::) brackted the description, clearly segregated that post into their descriptive and speech parts. To be able to make the distinction between the spoken and descriptive parts of a post is incredibly important because it reduces the ambiguity of what a person is doing, saying or thinking. A post such as this:

::Avemano wrinkled her nose at the man who clearly hadn't had a shower in at least a week. She then turned to the woman.:: She thought he was some crazy guy or something.

Now, in this post, we know that Avemano is saying "She thought he was some crazy guy or something" to the woman. But if the post was written as such:

Avemano wrinkled her nose at the man who clearly hadn't had a shower in at least a week. She then turned to the woman. She thought he was some crazy guy or something.

In that same post, without the double colons, we are unsure whether she is speaking to the woman, or it was just a thought Avemano had. So you can understand and see how important it is to have those sort of distinctions.

There are many, many ways to make this distinction. Typically, for my characters, what I put in the double colons would be action unless surrounded by quotation marks (") which would signify thought. And speach would be outside the double colons. Here is a list of a few symbols that are often used:

::
'
" - for speech, usually
*
~
||
[ - ]
{ - }
//
\=
`

Note: the common brackets [ ( - ) ] are not often used because when used as doubles [ (( - )) ] it signifies that the player is speaking OOC

Character Development: Personalities and Abilities

General Personality and Abilities
Okay, now you've got your character. Great, woot! ^^ First, a few things to consider when you're playing them.

like 'Ric said, you need to keep in mind how the character acts, speaks, thinks, their personality, their quirks, strengths and weaknesses. You need to be consistent with your character; if you wrote your character to be cool and aloof, then don't have them buddy buddying up with a complete stranger. Find some other way for your character to get to know another person. Also keep in mind, if you are using prewritten rules, what the book has described for the type of character you've chosen to take on. For example: if you play a pooka, 99.9% of the time, whatever comes out of its mouth will be lies, half truths or anything else that would obscure what the pooka is trying to say.

Again, if this is a lot to remember, especially if you are just starting out, write it down somewhere and you can refer to it when you find yourself slipping.

I know some of you might be asking 'what about character evolution?' There's nothing stopping you from evolving your character as you play. However, change doesn't always happen in an instant. It's hardly possible that a once powerless creature would, suddenly, the next day achieve super abilities that would allow them to do this or that. Like in real life, you cannot learn to play the piano beautifully without first going through a least a few years of practice. You would need to play your character practicing and attempting to gain this new ability you want before you can actually call it your own. And I'm not saying practice for a few days either.

'And what about dormant abilities?' you might ask. Sure, they'll appear, seemingly, out of nowhere; that doesn't simply mean that they've already mastered it. Dormant abilities means they haven't been used either ever or for a while; this means that if your character has learned to use the abilities at one time, they should be rusty when it appears again. Of course, this doesn't mean you have to start from the bottom rung again; your character might just have to do a bit of tweaking and fine tuning to regain their skills completely. It's like playing a sport - you learn and you become great at it but then you don't play for several years and when you finally do try again, you aren't as good as you used to be.

The main thing here is to keep things realistic; don't try to do things too fast or too much at once, like you wouldn't in real life.

Personality Part 2
Alright, let me just do a reminder post about playing your character right. I know I've already talked about this one time before, so this I'll be brief, but I -cannot- stress this enough.

Basically you can choose: to create a character that easily could've been another person you met on the street Or to simply type words on a screen and not really expand yourself. Since you're reading this, I'm assuming you'd rather not end up as the latter.

Okay. Once you've gotten your character set up: name, history, personality, abilities, strengths and faults. It's time to play! ^^

When playing your character, you need to keep in mind the qualities that your character posesses. Try to keep consistant with your character, if your character changes personalities at times, like in a specific situation, then that's fine. My character, Kuri, changes her personality with each role she takes on. Avemano's mostly childish but she does have a darker, more serious side. What I'm saying is that you do not have to keep just one personality for one character, but you do have to keep it constant. Don't write up one way then suddenly change to another simply because it suits -your- mood at the moment. Example: When I played Razelik, he was a very serious, very cold character. He would not suddenly, say, jump up and start doing the jig with a pooka...Ever. It's also hard for him to get close to people so he would not immediately become buddies with the first person that approached him and while he may protect those that he feel needs it, he may or may not call them friends. Just because I was feeling happy on a specific day does not mean I will have played Razelik in a happy mood. He's hardly in a happy mood; in fact, his main moods are: neutral and angry.

Again, character evolution. That happens, yes. Personality can change but rarely will it bounce around from 'a' to 'j' back to 'b' to 'd' and then back to 'a' not unless your character has multiple personalities, that usually doesn't happen in real life. But, like I said, personality can change; say if your character was a happy-go-lucky, laid back guy who worried about nothing and then one day suddenly saw their best friend killed in front of them. I would imagine they'd become a bit more paranoid, scared and withdrawn.

Nothing is impossible in the world of roleplay, that's true but on the whole...to get from point 'a' to point 'd' you have to go through the logical steps that precede point 'd'.

Abilities Limitations
I found that sometimes people do not realize and keep in mind the limitations of their characters in a real world setting.

Say, for example, a disrespectful theif sneaks into a party.

It is understandable that, were someone looking right at the entrance at that time, and happened to know the guests invited to the party to notice that the theif wasn’t on the guest list and to alert an guard or the host/hostess. However, if there isn’t anyone looking at the doorway or everyone is engaged in their own conversations, it wouldn’t be realistic for Everyone to suddenly notice that an uninvited guest had entered.

Or for the entrance of the theif to be ignored but as soon as the theif makes any act of disrespect towards the host, etc. the whole room turns upon the offender as if they had their attention on this one person the entire time.

I’ve seen characters having conversations with five or six people at once, and on top of that suddenly noticing that a stranger has entered the room. I’ve seen characters doing something on one side of the room and being able to spot anothers character show some sort of disrespect for another member and immediately responding despite the distance between them. I’ve seen characters who have abilities that they shouldn’t have.

Granted that some creatures will have great abilities that would allow them to do all of the above but, what I am trying to say here is that people do not seem to be able to keep in mind the limitations of their character.

For example, even having five or six conversations at once is a momentuous task. While you can easily type the conversations to people on the screen, you should keep in mind that the character is ‘real’ and you need to think realistically what that character is able to do or not.

Just play your character as it is. Don't give it abilities suddenly just because you want to be superior. Don't do what you can't do, excluding abilities, in real life.

Presentation
Okay, let me stray off topic a little bit now. The subject is still related to roleplaying, albeit not directly like the other topics I've touched upon.
Presentation.

That's right. The presentation of your posts. Now, before you tell me that "what's inside the post is what counts" .. I know that. I know that this isn't one of the most important points of roleplaying. But here's a question: What if no one can understand your posts?

I have read posts that are so hideously deformed in presentation that I had to guess at what the typist was trying to say. At times I even had to ask the typist what they meant. Needless to say, that was a lot more work than some other rps I've been in with much more complicated plots.

The point of fact is that roleplaying is not only about the individual -- there are very few things in this world that are only about the individual -- and one should be somewhat mindful to the comfort of others. And I do not mean using a bigger font either.

It is fine if the chatting is OOC among friends to use abbreviations and "net-speak" .. I am quite confident that everyone in that group is able to understand everyone else but in RP there are many people that may want to read and join in in an RP but if the posts are hard to understand (eg: TyPiNg LiKe ThIs or using the same font colour as the background, etc.) then it would be much more simple for people to skip over the bothersome posts and move onto someone else's rp that is easier to read.

Again, it's what the message inside the posts that count. Someone may have a great idea but if their posts are so hard to read, no one is going to pay attention to them and their idea will be wasted.

Let me just say that I am not targeting people who've made the occasional typos or gramatical accidents. I do them all the time when I'm typing. I'm pretty sure you can find a couple in this post even. Who I am targeting are people who pay absolutely no regard to the presentation of their posts. Spelling/grammatical errors that a five year old makes; typing in the background colour so people have to highlight your post to read it; ambiguous messages caused by poor thought to the message .. etc. etc. etc.

A little spelling/grammar lesson and some attention to their posts goes a long way .. especially when posts are over three or four lines long each.

A little suggestion because I know some people may come to me saying it is hard to see the whole post in that little text line they give us: Open up a document program like word and type your post in there then cut and paste it onto the text line. You'll get to see your complete post at once and, depending on which program you use, you can check your spelling and grammar at the same time. This will free up some typing time in your rp so you can ask questions that may come up while you're writing your post, chat, etc. It gets a little getting used to, but I think it is worth it to at least try it for a while.

Presentation Part 2
This section deals with formatting of html chatroom based sites, so I didn't include it here. I'll try to write up one for the bbcode forum side later but to get to the actual post, here's the direct link:

http://how-to-roleplay.blogspot.com/2003/12/presentation-part-2.html

Communication

What would an inhuman character be without their abilities? ^^ Unfortunately with the mix of free form and pre-written characters, so are the abilities that each character possesses. This is where most fights break from IC fun to RT fights.

Best way to avoid this (aside from being descriptive in your moves) would be to keep conversation open in PM or some messenger program. This way, it will allow you to have an extra level of communication to sort out problems that may arise.

Being descriptive comes pretty much as a necessity when it's in a fight, especially one that deals with abilities. Not only would it make it easier (and save some time) on your opponent to describe your abilites in your post (instead of having them look it up in their books or on a website) it would reduce the amount of confusion done by simply listing out the abilites you've used. An ideal post would involve the same principles that I've listed previously. 'how hard is your character hitting?' 'where are they standing?' 'what are their weapons/powers?' etc. etc.

Again, key points: Communcation and Description.

Posting

Being Descriptive in Your Posts
Next point.

Playing a character is not simply typing out words onto a screen. One should be descriptive in their actions/posts. Anyone could slap on a name and type in any sort of actions such as:

::appears suddenly::

to me this simply conjurs up the image of 'poOf' the character apears fairy-god-motheresque though without the glamour and sparkles. It leaves the post empy and lacking as well as making the typist (the person behind the character) seem unimaginative, when this could be the opposite. When you make a post, you should consider as many angles as possible. "How" is the main question. Working on the previous example, we should ask 'how did they appear? by what method?' 'was there any effect that those around them may have felt or seen/heard if they were looking/listening?' etc. For example, with Avemano a similar post would be:

::The doll sat in the window of an old antique store, staring silently out at those that passed by the large glass panes. The single streetlamp in front illuminated her like a spot light would on a stage; the smile draw upon her lips seemed to let those knows how she revelled in the attention - that is, of course, the reason why Avemano chose this particular antique shop to gain her rest. And so, she sat there...though, in one instance the doll existed behind the glass and in the next moment a man's shadow passed over her and then it was gone; dissolved into the shadows like sugar in water. From a nearby darkened alleyway Avemano formed, stepping out of the rippling shadows as one would from behind a satin curtain. The shadows slid from her mortal form, like silk upon skin, as she stepped into the flood of artificial light created by the street lamp.::

The latter example answers the two questions listed earlier.

- how did she get onto the street?
-- by dissolving into the shadows and moving from that to the shadows in the alley

- would one notice if they were paying attention?
-- perhaps: the shadows were rippling but perhaps not since it was dark...I left the mention of it being empty or not open so that anyone who would like to join in (ie: 'spotting' her emerge from a wall) would be able to.

While you don't have to be descriptive in -every- single action your character commits, it's not a bad idea to get some practice because it comes in -great- use during fights. By describing, how, where, when, etc, in your fight posts, you help your opponent know -exactly- what sort of injuries they should sustain or how they should block it with little to no confusion. This also will help with reducing many of those ooc arguments that break out during a fight based on misinterpretation of the opponent's actions. An action such as:

::strikes at you::

contains quite a bit of ambiguity - in fact it would cause a -great- deal of confusion. 'Where are you striking at?' 'How?' 'Which direction?' 'How hard are you hitting?' 'Are you using a weapon?'

A post from Avemano would go along the lines of:

::Swiftly Avemano moved towards your left side at a hard run, claws at that moment sheathed into herself; as she neared you, her left arm raked upwards, claws extending out at the same moment and digging into your soft flesh rapidly. Idealy there would be contact, her claws would rip through your torso, ribcage and all; rupturing all the vital organs you needed to survive - job done. That was the ideal scenario but nothing works out to be as planned; any amount of injury you suffer from will work to her advantage; at this point, it was all she could've hoped for. The attack brought her several feet behind you; the momentum of the run forcing her to do so though the contact slowed her down slightly. Quickly she pivoted on the balls of her feet to face you once again, crouched down and alert.::

Again this explains the questions I listed earlier:

- where was she striking at?
-- she was aiming at tearing up through the torso of her target

- how?
-- a running attack. As she closed in on her opponent, her claws raked upwards.

- how hard was she hitting?
-- hard enough to rip through the flesh and bone

- was she using a weapon?
-- her claws, built into her body, were her weapons

Of course, the above example could be worded differently, in a much shorter and condensed way such as:

::She ran at you, claws raking upwards and tearing at your body as she closed in before coming to a halt behind you.::

It's shorter, and takes much less time to read of course but while the longer post takes a fair bit of time to read and write, it provides a clear image of what Avemano attempted to do to her opponent while in the shorter, condensed post, there are a few items of confusion left:

1: it tells the opponent what they should have happened. Most of the time people like it better when you suggest what the damage is instead of telling them what you just did to your character. But it is not completely wrong when you do it that way.

2: it doesn't tell you what distance Avemano is from her opponent. A foot?, right up against the opponent? It's hard to make a proper counter attack when you don't know all the facts.

3: claws? where did they come from? did they extend while she was in the air or while she was on the ground?

4: when she landed, is her back still towards her opponent or did she turn? (we would automatically assume that her back is still to her opponent)

This last example is a fairly simple attack as it involved absolutely no abilities; this attack is completely physical which makes it easier to interpret. But once you want to and -do- involve abilities and powers then it gets a tad more complicated. Now, if everyone knew, every power written by WW, AD&D and all FF abilities as well, then it wouldn't be any problem to just do something say [celerity 1] and everyone would understand what you were trying to do. But things don't work that way. The problems that start to occur here are usually the conflicts between free form abilities and pre-written abilities.

Paying Attention to Others's Posts
Pay attention to other people's posts even if they aren't directing it to you. You don't have to read them thoroughly but you should skim them over. Reason being that while they may not be addressing events directly to you, what they do may affect your character. How much is mostly left up to you. Because in real life you are often aware of your surroundings and you would be aware of events that would affect you. The same applies to your character. In the RP world, your character is a Real Person/Being and should act as such.

Example 1: A loud explosion in the street. Now you may decide that your character is just a street or two over and this will certainly draw your attention; or you may decide that your character is quite far from the explosion and they're standing outside a nightclub so they may not hear it or just attribute it to something mundane like tires bursting, etc.

Example 2: In New York at the moment, there is an RP going on where a chaos mist blankets the city (sidenote: I am not too sure if this is still on or not and the RP going on around this. If you're interested, you'll have to check out for yourself). Now, this is something only supernatural beings or beings that could sense chaos can notice. If your character isn't one of those then they won't be able to notice it; but if your character is, depending on the sensitivity, your character could sense it to varying degrees. Avemano, for example, in her human form would only notice a constant stink wherever she went. While in her shadow form she would be able to define it as a supernatural "smell". It is, again, up to you and what type of character you have.

Not only does this put you more realistically into the scene by making you and your character more aware of what is happening in their surroundings but if you are a new player starting to RP, it presents an opening for your characters to enter an ongoing RP more naturally.

RP Taboos

Mixing RT and VT
Now onto a big point: mixing r/t with v/t (ooc with ic). This is probably one of the biggest problems that exist in the world of roleplay. Most seasoned roleplayers are able to seperate themselves from their characters, but I also know that when you're just starting out roleplay that it could be pretty difficult. When I started out roleplay I managed to mix the two up at some points (which I will explain a little later in this post).

Basically the key to keeping your real life out of your online roleplaying life is to remember that they're seperate lives. You are not your character. When you go to turn off your computer, your character is turned off with it. You do not go around living a life with the mindset of your character. And when you go to put on your codes and your av and slip into the role of your character, you do not exist in that fabricated world that your character lives in.

I do realize that you cannot play your character completely objectively, else you'd have no passion for interaction but you have to remember that your character is not you.

What your character feels may not be what you feel and vice versa. Example: when I started roleplaying, 7-8 years ago, my character got involved with another character and we were happy. I was happy. But when his character went off with someone else, my character was hurt; I was hurt and I shouldn't have been. Why? Because this was roleplay; this wasn't real life. I wasn't being cheated on, my character was. I may have "felt" something for the typist but he probably didn't fee the same way. At that point in time, I hadn't fully realized and grasped the idea that this was a game. It wasn't real life. While I do acknowledge that online relationship are possible and do happen, because your character is attracted to another character does not necessarily mean you and the other typist are a couple outside of roleplay.

Another point. What you, as the typist, knows about another may not be what your character knows. Now this can be a little difficult to seperate, because, say, you, the typist, found out that some hunter is going after you and is hiding out in your home to stab you to death the moment you fall asleep, your character may decide to spend the next several nights at a friend's house or camping, whatever. This is not exactly what I'm talking about because such information is hard to forget; not many of us make characters just so they can be killed by the next bob on the street. What I am talking about is when you're ooc and you find out some information, like a weakness, of a character; you cannot use that information about that character. When you obtain information ooc, you cannot and should not let this information leak into your character's knowledge. There is no magical link that connects your brain to your character's brain like that. This is not how it works in real life either. If your character needs information, they have to do their own homework: research, spying, asking people, whatever. Your character does not know what you, the typist, are thinking.

Multi-Posting
Try not to multi-post. This is when you post more than one post in your turn. For example:

Mary: she emerges from her building wearing a nice soft pink jacket, skirt and a cute hat. She heads down the street towards the coffee shop.
Joe: He caught sight of the girl, his mouth watered.
Joe: He silently moved towards her, sneaking up behind.
Joe: He grabs her from behind and pulls her into the alley. Intent to have his dinner.
Joe: Quickly he sinks his fangs into her neck and drains her of all her blood.
Mary: She screams as the man grabs her and pulls her back, she struggles and kicks in an attempt to free herself from his grasp.

Now you see that because of the rapid posting of Joe that Mary's post, while completely valid, is out of sequence. This makes it confusing for both Joe, Mary and anyone else that is involved or wanted to join in because now they do not know whose post they should respond to. Mary will think that Joe has ignored her post and get fustrated and Joe may feel that Mary had interrupted his actions when he wasn't finished yet.

Because of all that it is better to put continuous actions in one post and let the other player respond before you continue on. Usually two or three actions are in one post, sometimes there are more, depending on how you like to write.

Cool! That was actually one of the first blogs I read for advice when I started!

Playing a Character of the Opposite Sex

I'm going to touch on a topic that is still relatively new to me: playing a character of the opposite sex.

Most of the time now, many people are alright with playing characters of the opposite sex but for those of you who aren't .. read on.

Let me start by saying I definately recommend each and everyone of you to try creating a character of the opposite sex. If you don't want to play them, that's alright but think about the character, how they would act in different situations. Not only will it give you a completely different perspective but it will give you a sort of gaudge at how well you are developing depth in your characters.

If you are completely new to roleplaying, you might want to hold back on this project until you get comfortable with the whole idea of roleplaying. Now, creating a character of the opposite sex is just like making any other character. You build up their look, their abilities and then their personality.

The major mistake I see when people try to play a character of the opposite sex is people taking the common stereotypes and using that as a base for the personality and actions of their character. This usually does not work out too well. If you take a look at your friends and strangers and even yourself you will notice that not everyone follows all the stereotypes exclusively. When a character is based soley off of stereotypes it makes the character seem comical and lacking in depth of personality. I have yet to see a character played exclusively on stereotypes that is anything but .. even novels .. the only time I have read a book where a character is composed of such is only for humour or exaggeration value. Each person in this world has a unique combination of personality traits and, because your character is a real being in the rp world, that character needs to have that same quality. This "rule" applies to all and any characters that you create.

If you find creating a character of the opposite sex difficult at first, you might want to try creating a character of the same sex first. Write up everything you want then when you are finished, adjust the character to the appropriate sex. Maybe even get a friend to look it over and see if they are able to tell whether the character is male or female. I also suggest watching how people act whenever you are around someone.

Actually playing the character is a different matter. Again you could do more practice. Write out a scene, or a post your character would make. Read it and see if you could tell whether it was a post made by a female or male typist. Let a friend read and see if they could tell either. Another good practice is to make a character of the same sex (you are) and give it characteristics that are opposite to the physical sex. Eg: If you have a male character, they would be very effeminate. etc. It takes a bit of practice to it right (not to mention to get over the habit of typing "his" when you mean "hers" etc.) but the more practce you get and the better handle you get of your character will make it more believable.

If you want to see a good example, go to dwbn and look for Sacrifice Valshea.

This can also apply to other characters. Eg: if you only play vampires, you might want to try playing a werewolf or a mage. Or if you've only played powerful characters, you might want to try playing a weak character or a mortal. Not that you have to, of course, but it is a good experience to try different types of characters.

sorry, just realized I forgot the playing a character of the opposite sex post

Clyodna wrote:Cool! That was actually one of the first blogs I read for advice when I started!

thank you ^_^ I hope it was of some help for you.