Welcome to Gaia! ::

First and foremost, this by no means you MUST roleplay as shown in the examples. It is merely just a guide to help you along in forming your own style.
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The most basic advice any one person can give a newbie to roleplaying is this: Type in PROPER grammar for the primary language of the particular board you are roleplaying in. For example, this board is meant for English speakers, and a proper knowledge of the language is needed to accurately convey your thoughts. Punctuation and capitalization, for example, can completely change the way an entry is seen.




The first entry is merely a basic question, asking what the listener was trying to say. The second entry, however, can be taken in a completely different way. The initial "What?" is like an involuntary interjection, similar to "Oh!" or "Wow," said almost on instinct based on the situation. The following "Do you mean?!" is showing an understanding of what the listener said, but is still asking for a confirmation. With the added exclamation point, it can be assumed the speaker is excited even.

See, punctuation can completely change the context of 4 simple words. So before having a character speak, play it out in your mind and try to find out exactly how it is said.
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Furthermore, you can allude to an important person or place without actually stating just who it is.




The former states that the speaker knows who the other character is. It's a very basic announcement of a character, leaving no suspense. The latter, on the other hand, creates a sense of suspense. By capitalizing "Him" you know that the speaker recognizes the other person at the very least, without directly giving it away who it is. You will also note instead of "Oh," I used "Oh!" It creates a stronger sense of surprise, with the addition of helping to prevent the resentment often heard when "Oh" is followed by a comma, and then a pronoun in place of a proper noun.
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You may have noticed how basic the examples are, and now we will discuss how to spice up posts. As a roleplayer, another key factor is how large your vocabulary is. Now, do not go to dictionary.com and start looking up words with definition X, but instead try to let your vocabulary increase naturally. When someone uses a word you do not know, you can look that up and pocket it personally, because you held enough interest to find the definition on your own and not because you wanted to impress your fellow roleplayers.

Now then, let us look at a few basic posts and how to spice them up!



Bleh. Be honest, would you not be a little peeved if an author tried to rip you off with a pathetic entry like that? Your partners in a roleplay feel the same way. So with a few extra words inserted, we can completely spice this entry up.



Now we know what the room was like, how the others were effecting Matty, and why she spoke up. That brings into question another issue, just WHAT are others doing?
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When roleplaying, it is tempting to make others bend to your will. It makes it MUCH easier to get what you want done, but that is considered a big roleplaying faux pas. At most, only a leader of a roleplay should have that power, and even then the limit to that should be directly stated so the players do not get upset by it. But then on the other hand, we have those who never play along with others.

When roleplaying, you need to play along every so often. If you have a grand adventure going on, take the path someone else suggests and not what your character says to take. A murder? Get yourself killed! High school taunting? Start a fight! Every action causes an equal and opposite reaction, and knowing how to read those reactions is what propels a roleplay forward and gets others to do what you want, but still allows them to do what they want. It is roleplaying, so do not take things personally, and let your character get destroyed every so often. You can always introduce another one if you have one get killed.
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But what about leading a roleplay? That is always the hardest job, and can be taken many ways.

You could let the other roleplayers be the heros and you do all of the villains they create, be a hero yourself and have others be villains, the ways to handle it are endless. Above all else you need to guide them, not take control. It is no fun if the leader just pops in and says:

“I can take you directly to Magic Land!”
“I can get you into the Hall of the Elders!”
“I'm the main villain, roar!”

Point is, you need to guide and hint, not make everything so direct. So, let's look at how to go about that.

“The two continued the argue about where to go, as an old woman inched up to them. “Excuse me,” she started, “but I here you two are looking for a way into the Hall of Elders? Why not try asking the Prelate for an audience. He's a good man and likes to help citizens when he can.””

You have now given the characters an opening without making it too simple, because now they have to meet another high ranking official to convince HIM into letting them into another meeting with more officials. They have to earn the right into meeting the council, and don't feel cheated by everything handed to them on a silver platter.

Now, for the villains you may create as a leader. Though some roleplays call for an exception, in general it is not fun to have an all-powerful villain who can snap his fingers and make you into pudding. Villains are characters too and as such need weakness and strengths as everyone else should have. Can he honestly turn a character into pudding? Then he needs a weakness to counter-balance it. How about at the cost of one of his body parts is how it is done?

Though, as stated before, an all powerful character MAY be what's needed, take into consideration the story. Do the characters have a set goal? It's probably best to have beatable villains. Are they stuck in a cycle of death? The villain is probably best left not invincible, but extremely clever so as to avoid harm. Or is the story just a do what you want when you want kind of thing? An invincible villain might be fun there, to start huge battle scenes.

Roleplays come in many shapes and sizes, but the key to them all is knowing how to type fluently and fully. Everything else in this guide is merely tips to keep in mind as you start to form your own unique style, and only through experience and practice may one truly learn how to roleplay to an impressive extent.