Hello all. Your friendly neighborhood cat Lady Kelly here. With a few late coming but surely welcomed rules and guidelines for our Role-play section!
What is an RP?
The easiest way to describe a roleplay, or as many members refer to it, RP, is basically a story or tale written by many people. However, that is only the blueprints of our hypothetical RP-house; there is much more to a roleplay than simply people banding together and writing a story. One of the key differences between a roleplay and a collabaration, which is a story written by many people, is that with a roleplay you will never know what is coming next. A RP can be with many people, while a collaboration is with two. Perhaps, in your Roleplay, you are just wanting a simple journey story. Someone could come along and join, and you start posting, with simple things such as:
"Ellie drew up her backpack and took in the view from her bedroom window. She smiled, today was the day was going to start her long awaited journey, the journey she had been dreaming about since she was a little girl. It was going to be grand, she had to all planned out in her head. The routes she was going to take, the towns she was going to stop at, etc. Almost forgetting the most important things she needed, she made a quick grab for them and set out the door, quickly pausing and yelling back in to tell her mother she was leaving. She stepped out of the door, the humid air of *insert town name here* brushing the thread of hair that had fallen over her eye out of her face. With a smile she set off, hoisting her backpack over one arm only."
Now, that's all good and dandy, it's not very original, is it? Now, say the person who joined your roleplay made that same sort of post, it would be kind of dull, even with all the description and decent post size. However, one of the brilliant aspects of a roleplay is that Person B, our joiner, can make a post like this:
"Johnny came dashing out of the door, everything he needed barely packed and a piece of egg tuck against his left cheek. A split-lip smile was pasted on his face, looking odd with his large nose and devilish red eyes. As he ran, he shut his eyes, letting the warm air brush against his own face, when suddenly he felt himself bump into something and fall over, screaming out by instinct. He opened his eyes to find himself on top of a girl, chest-to-chest, and her face coated in steaming rage. Feeling his cheeks tinting red, he stood up slowly, trying to back away."
See there? Now, Person A, the topic creator, most probably wasn't expecting said event to occur, which adds a whole other element rather than a story. Plot expanding is so simple with RP that it can become anything and far more fun than just writing stories, as it opens up a whole new world; more improved roleplayers will choose to bring in twists like this every other post, or even every post, to keep the RP flooding with ideas and everyone going. However, one point to remember with RPs is:
You can always use description.
Now, a point to make about description is Purple Prose. Go look it up on Google. Go ahead, I'll wait five minutes, or ten for you slow broadband people.
So, did you find anything out? If you were too lazy and just carried on reading - Purple Prose is the term for someone who is overly-descriptive. Now, yes, it's always good to have description, but not to over-do it. Describing every little detail of every little detail of every little detail is not necessary. Now, I would give an example of this, but I can't, considering my writing style is perhaps close but still far off from Purple Prose. But go look it up, as said, and I'm sure you'll find some examples.
Rules
1)All General Rules apply in this section as well. Please refrain from any infraction of the rules/guidelines.
2) No Flaming or Bashing in your RP, if there’s a problem contact a mod. Fighting or flaming in a thread will result in thread closure.
3) Please watch your overall content, remember this is a PG-13 forum. If you are going to have 'mature' content in your role play, please say so in the beginning of it. Warn members.
4) No replying to a thread with “Is anybody gunna join?” or “Why aren’t you guys, joining?” or anything of the sort. It’s silly useless, and off topic. Be patient, dears. Eventually someone will come in your RP.
5) RPs created solely for the intention of violence will not be tolerated. This is including the sort: “HEY, LET’S GO KILL ____” It’s a big no, no guys. Such threads will be closed immediately. I will issue warnings.
Roleplay Guidelines~
Basic Terms
RP: Roleplay/Roleplaying
OOC: Out of Character
IC: In Character
Goddmodder: An RP'er that makes his/her character invincible or too strong.
GOD-MODING, META-GAMING, AND POWER-PLAYING
These are three things that every RPer should avoid, for not only the flow of the RP but also to respect any other RPers in the thread. It’s a must to make sure you don’t do these.
God-Moding – This means giving you and your character invulnerability and not giving the other players fair chance over the course of battle. Instances of god-moding include dodging every attack, using an attack that never misses no matter what, giving yourself an unplanned power up halfway through a battle, not properly responding to an attack’s strength, etcetera etcetera etcetera. Just don’t do this; it’s rude and unfair.
Meta-Gaming – This means using information that your character would have no way of knowing in character. For example, if Alice’s father recently died and hasn’t told anyone about it or let information slip, then Bob, who she just met on the street, isn’t going to console her about the loss of her father. Why? He would have no way of physically knowing. Doing this is disrespectful to a character’s intentions and plotting.
Power-Playing – Probably the worst of them, this means taking control over another character or their actions. Like in the previous example, if Alice is going to throw a tomato at Bob, your post with her shouldn’t involve her throwing it and watching it splatter over Bob’s face, because that’s taking away Bob’s controller’s opportunity to dodge it. A better alternative is to have the tomato leave her hand and fly toward Bob, but not mention hitting him.
That is all for how. I will be updating this thread from time to time if/when this section gets active.
Thanks,
KH-Mediaflare Staff.
