Guide to Roleplay
(As is done by those in those in the Organizations/Military Subforum, a place where the brave, intelligent, and generally annoyingly technical trod, and praise the almightly laws of physics... usually.)
(As is done by those in those in the Organizations/Military Subforum, a place where the brave, intelligent, and generally annoyingly technical trod, and praise the almightly laws of physics... usually.)
What is Roleplaying?
Sorry of that question makes any of you feel belittled, but some people really don't.
Roleplaying, in a nutshell, is acting through a character for entertainment. It's like writing your own piece of a story, then waiting for someone else to put in their part, then another, and another, until it comes back to you.
What is important in Roleplaying?
Warning, this might as well be an English lesson. However, it does teach the proper format for roleplaying.
Grammar, for one. Meaning, brush up on what your English teachers taught you. Nothing too complicated - if you can't spell very well, Microsoft Word had an excellent (or not so excellent for the larger words) spell-check system. (If you still don't know which one it is if it gives you multiple, use the thesaurus option when you right-click in MWord, you can check for words that are similar to it).
Punctuation goes in with that. Once again, you don't have to get into the colons ( smile or semi-colons ( wink or astericks (*), or parentheses ( ( ) ) when actually writing it as a book. Question marks for questions are important, periods at the end of your sentences, commas for when you want to splice two sentences together (plus a linking word, like and, or, but), and exclamation marks at the ends of yelling or for extra emphasis.
--- Astericks. I'm going to put special emphasis on these. They are used on "so called" (no pun intended, that's actually a proper usage) nouns, adjectives, or whathaveyou. Saying something relating to the actual thing, or substituting in a word for it. That's when you do the little thing where you bend your middle and index fingers while holding your hand up, saying the world slowly and hinting at a hidden meaning.
The biggest use of quotationss comes with speech. It is usually, but not always, trailed by a 's/he said/exlaimed/whispered' and whatnot. EX: "I'm going to the beach," he said, "to play some volleyball." Note the positioning of commas and periods.
Astericks should not be used
--OOC and IC
This is imperative!
There is a difference between your Avatar/Username and the character you are roleplaying as, if you intend to roplay in any seriousness.
Firstly, OOC, or Out Of Character Chat. People normally mark this with the following: (()), [[]], or OOC: [Insert Text Here, no brackets]
--This is used when talking from one person to the other, not character to character. For instance, if I wanted to talk to my sister, Master_of_Jello, and didn't want to bother getting on an instant messenger or walking over to her room, I'd say: ((Hey sis, blah, blah, blah.))
[Note: Jokingly, people may use OOC roleplay like, "-poke-" and whatnot. If you use violent roleplaying here, or idle threats like "I'm going to beat you up" threatening violence, you just look like a retarded sack of crap.]
IC: In Character
Character to character chat, action, et cetera. The heart of roleplaying. You should know the basics, but here is an example:
As Jimmy walked down the street, he noticed his friend, Bobby, "Hey, Bobby, what's up?"
Modding
God-modding. Autohitting. Everything all of us experienced Roleplayers hate.
God-modding- This usually covers a wide barrage of terms that I will list below, but on a more specific level, this means to be able to take a lot of hits in combat and feel an unrealistically low amount of effects, or being able to get out of any situation. (I.E. You're strapped to a Naval Cannon by 300 pounds of chain, and somehow ignore it all to get off and out of being killed.)
Bullets, for instance, are not dodgable by any unenhanced human.
Autohitting- This only really applies in combat. Basically, it's saying that what you do hits your opponent. Bullets are not dodgable, but it is not up to the one who posted firing the trigger to decide where it hits or what it does. Granted, you can imply what you want to happen by saying where you aimed, how carefully you aimed (yes, there instances where non-careful aiming is required, in other words, you don't have too much time to line up a shot) , what the bullet can and will do if it hits and what happens if it hits where.
You don't decide what your attacks do to your opponents, but you can describe what would happen. However, this requires a level of honor on both sides.
Spawning- Some people allow this, but sometimes it goes too far.
Basically, being able to somehow have whatever you need when you need it. Like a lockpick hidden in some pocket in your cheek that you never posted that you had before. That's another thing. A lot of people like it when you say what you have somewhere. Not everyone is always prepared for everything.
Speedhacking- Going over too much time when someone else can interfere.
EX: A: I find a lockpick and take off my handcuffs then get out of my cage and run away
B: ((I was standing right in front of you with a shotgun!))
- In this case, do what is called a Combo Breaker
A: I find a lockpick and take off my handcuffs then get out of my cage and run away
B: I blast away four shells from my shotgun straight at your immobile body as soon as I see you picking the locks on your handcuffs (which is nearly impossible.)
Person A, in this case, you yell, scream, and throw temper tantrums trying to find a way to accuse you of god-modding. Just call them an idiot and argue with them until you win. It's fun to argue with people who are so obviously wrong, and think they are right.
Ms. Cleoing
Your character is not psychic, unless they indeed are a psychic. If someone dies in China, you wouldn't instantly know about it in England. If they are a psychic, somehow limit yourself.
If you don't have means to know it, you don't know it.
McFlying
Saying you did something before wheny you never posted it:
A: I open the door by the handle
B: Ha! I rigged that door to a car battery an hour ago. The electric shock throws you across the room:
A: ((No you didn't! You never posted it!))
B: ((I still did it.))
Overkill- Many people confuse this with god-modding. It's not. In fact, it's perfectly fine. Like, if I were a soldier and happened to have a load of explosives to kill you with, or if I were a commander in charge of a thousand soldiers, and you still were stupid enough to attack me on your own in a full frontal assault, don't yell at me because I've got a thousand rifles surrounding you and firing at you.
But some people go too far. Be reasonable in your overkill. That means, get the means of your overkill to be reasonable. Mexico will not have ten naval fleets. A hobo will not own a tank. A tank commander can use a tank, and the President of the United States can use ten naval fleets on whatever small country he so chooses.
Non-Player Characters- People who you or your character controls. Not usually named. Most common when used as a guards, soldiers, whatever, in large numbers. You can directly control them by saying such as: "The Guard lifted his flashlight." Make these reasonable as well. You will not control a billion people at once unless you are in a futuristic Roleplay and you control many planets.
No. You may not godmod, autohit, whatever, against NPCs. That's just not cool.
Special Uses of Things:
Bold: Headings of things... it has no real purpose in literary style, but some people like to make speech bold.
Italics: Names of ships, aircraft, buildings. Some people like to make thoughts italicized, but they should really have an apostrophy on either side, which is actually more of a half-quotation. (That is also used for a quote of a quote)
Underline: Titles of Literary Work
Color: Absolutely not necessary, but some people like to be pretty. Not a problem at all. Perfectly fine. Sometimes it helps if they do it right with the right colors. The darker ones are easiest on the eyes, like darkblue and darkred.
Roleplaying Levels
If you want to be a good RPer, be detailed. Explain your post fully so there is no confusion.
Issues with some people
Physics
Despite their actual simply concept, some people don't like the Laws of Physics. While this may be fine for some RPs, I like Physics because it gives you something to hold onto and use as a basis should you get into an arguement. It forces you to be creative instead of finding who can come up with a better god-mod.
Character Death
Seriously, I know the attachment one can have with the character they made.
Get over it if they get into a situation where they must die that you can not get them out of.
Your character is not the greatest. 'Nuff said.
Magic
I don't like it. Some people do. Magic does not solve everything! Don't make me say it again!. I once had someone tell me I was god-modding because I countered something they were doing, and they couldn't use magic to fix it. However, a simple pair of knives, creativity, and a gentle touch would have worked just fine.
Don't rely on magic or technology, in an RP, as a crutch. Learn to survive with out it and you'll be all the better when you do use tech or magic.
Sometimes all it takes is a gentle touch and a creative mind to solve a problem.
-When you are a magic character, be reasonable. I've seen demons do any of the following. Only a few are reasonable:
Breath fire/shoot fireballs
Survive temperatures of the sun
Survive thousands bullets as if they were paper
"Melt Bullets" This wouldn't do much. You'd just get molten slag coming at you
Use a fire with "force" Fire does not have a kinetic force. It is not a wall that you can use as a shield unless you are being attacked by tree-people. It cannot stop a bullet
Wield many swords at a time.
Make objects hover
Fly
Teleport
Read minds.
"Sense" things that they'd have no knowledge of knowing about.
Conjuring creatures/friends/the dead/food.
Use pretty much any element.
Jump onto a plane in flight. Not a good idea. A dozen things can go wrong, specifically, you hitting the plane/the plane hitting you will hurt. Badly. As in "wow, so that's what my brain looks like!"
Have the strength of Superman.
And pretty much anything else you want to think of. They've done it.
Just another reason I'm not to fond of magic users.
