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How To
The Basic 411 on Role-playing

Some of you might already be familiar with what roleplaying is. For those of you that are new to this form on entertainment, forum, or text-based roleplaying can best be compared to a group of people coming together, throwing their characters together and writing out what happens in the lives of their characters in a novel-like style. Seems simple enough, right?

Well, weather you be a beginner or seasoned vet, it's always good to take a nice look at some of the basics.

So let's start at the very beginning (please hold Sound of Music chorus).

The first thing you need is a character to play. Information on character creation can be found in a later post. For now, let's say you already have your character, he/she has been approved and you are ready to roleplay!

Make sure you have read both the FAQ's and Vistor's guide to familiarize yourself with the RPG and the world. Now you are ready to post. But how? If you've gone through the other rpg's in this guild, you will have noticed that they all have a single thread where all the roleplaying takes place. If you look around here, things are a little different.

Instead of one huge thread for roleplaying, Bordertown RPG features small , independent threads. This is not to say one form is better than the other (both have their strengths and weaknesses), but just so you are aware there is a difference.

In the other rpgs there is a plot line that runs through the rp threads. In Bordertown:the RPG, there is no centralized plot. That is to say there is no single mission all the characters will be involved in and not really any heroes or villains. Just ordinary people, playing out their ordinary lives. Well, as ordinary as a place like Bordertown, can be, anyway XD.

So how to get started. Well, first off, now that you have your character, it's time to stick him or her somewhere. Let's say my character, human girl Ashlin Hawthorne has just been approved. After looking through the Visitor's guide, I decide that Ashlin would probably like to hang out at Godmom's, the pizza place. So, I start a new thread and I label it something like this:



See the bracketed information? That let's other roleplayers know 1) Where the thread is taking place and B) who is welcome to join.

If a thread is marked "open" it means that any character is welcome to join in. This means ANY character. You never know who you might meet!

But lets say I and another role-player (or driver) want to have a thread just for my character and her character to have a play-date. Then I might make a thread labeled something like this:



Now I have indicated that the thread is just for me and the driver of the Kazuhiko character. You can also indicated a closed thread with the words closed or PM (interested parties will PM you to ask if they are allowed to join in)

Also, you may have noticed that the park is not listed in the Visitor's Guide. That's okay. The Visitor's guide is meant to be a springboard, not a rigid criteria. Bordertown is a big city where you can find just about anything you need or want. If you can't find a place you want to go to in Bordertown, feel free to make one up a location that would be found in a large city.

If the characters in any given thread decide to hop locations you can start a brand new thread in that spot. Threads that have been inactive for more then two weeks will be locked by me.

And if you see open threads, feel free to hop right in! I only ask that you refrain from having both your characters in the same thread, and, if it is really unavoidable to either make a separate post for each character, or give each of the characters a different color text to differentiate them from each other.

There is a four thread limit! Each individual character can only be in up to four active threads at a time. This is to help make things easier to mange, both on my part and yours (less threads means more time and energy to devote to each thread)

That's what she said
Character Interaction

Alright. You know the 411 on Role-playing and you even got a good character made up and ready to go. Now it's time to thrust them out into the world to play with others. Here's a few things to keep in mind.

Taking turns: In smaller, more focused threads like the one at Bordertown RPG, it's important that everyone gets a turn. If there are four characters in a thread and two of the four go on and have a huge conversation between each other without waiting for the drivers of the other two to post, then those drivers and characters are left out of the thread.

Character A
Character B
Character C
Character D
Character A
Character B
Character C
Character D

A nice posting order makes sure everyone has an opportunity to respond and reace to things going on around them. This style of RPG is at a much slower pace than others in this guild, so if a thread is inactive for a day or two waiting for someone to post, that's okay. It is also okay to send a driver a gentle PM to remind them about the thread, or to skip that person if several days of inactivity have past or a driver has given other players permission to skip their turn. I'm not going to be a**l about this, but try and make sure everyone gets a turn wink

Each character is allowed to be in four threads at any given time. So, if you are waiting for one thread to be posted in, go ahead and play in another one, or two, or three. There are plenty of opportunities to keep yourself busy.

Give and Take: Every character in the thread has two jobs.

1) Take the information provided in previous posts to use in your response

2) Give a little something in your post for other characters to respond to.

Even if your character just picks there nose, or hums under their breath, give other people something to use when it becomes their turn to post again. If a person is only Taking, but not Giving or visa versa, it's not as fun. Everyone has to do a little bit of both.

Keepin' it Real

This touches a little bit on the idea of believability that I stressed so strongly in the last post. When your character acts and reacts, make sure it is true to who they are. A klutz isn't going to be able to walk a tightrope perfectly, and 15-year-old high school dropout isn't likely to have perfect grammer.

On that, f your character ever gets into a scuffle or becomes the victim of a prank, keep yourself open to idea of your character being hurt. Not hurt because you think it's time for them to have a dramatic wound so they can be bedridden for a week and play out s dramatic and angsty side of them. Have them hurt because it would be realistic for them to be hurt. Have them get egg on their face if for no other reason because you know that there's no way they could have avoided it happening.

Keep your hands to yourself, please

Roleplaying is fun. And it is really easy to get caught up in the moment. Just remember that the only character you have control of is your own. You can say our character took a swing at someone, but it is up to the driver of the other character if the blow landed. Similarly, unless your character has telpathic abilites, they cannot know what another character is thinking.

If Jack smiles and cracks jokes to Polly, but inside really wished she'd leave because her laugh irritates him, Polly has no way of knowing Jack doesn't like her if all she knows is what he is doing right now (laughing and joking). Keep character and driver knowledge separate.