A Beginner's Guide to Roleplaying

by **Crona The Critic** Sat Nov 26, 2011 10:06 pm

I have been an avid role player for many years, so I have seen all kinds of role players, experienced and non-experienced. Since a lot of new members have no idea how to do it and end up leaving in frustration, I made this topic to teach them seeing as I have done it before.

In my examples, I will be using my character named Daisy.

Here is an example of what NOT to do:
I saw someone and walked up to them. Hi, how are you doing. I mean, uh. Damn, why did I say that.

Here is an example of what you SHOULD do.
Daisy walked up to the pony in the corner.
"Hi, how are you doing. I saw you were in the corner by yourself and thought you could use some company."
Daisy sat down beside the pony.
*I hope we can become friends.*

Which leads me to the next way to correctly role play.
Actions, speaking, and thinking.

When you do an action, it is best to space out what you do, as to not cause confusion. If you noticed the difference between the two I did, you can see the spacing.

Notice how the spacing makes the post easy to read and easy to respond to, as apposed to the incorrect version. Bolded is what I want you to pay attention to.

We will first talk about speaking.

To show that you are speaking, you need to make it clear to the reader. Two simple quotation marks around the speech will do.

Daisy walked up to the pony in the corner.
"Hi, how are you doing. I saw you were in the corner by yourself, and thought you could use some company."
Daisy sat down beside the pony.
*I hope we can become friends.*

Notice how the quotaion clearly shows that the pony is speaking and spaces it out from the rest of the post so it is clear to the reader and the response will have a better outcome.

We will now move on to thoughts.

There are a lot of ways to expose thoughts in a role play. One example could be to use the star found on the number 8 key on your keyboard. Another example could also be to use italic to show thoughts or both if you so choose.

Daisy walked up to the pony in the corner.
"Hi, how are you doing. I saw you were in the corner by yourself, and thought you could use some company."
Daisy sat down beside the pony.
*I hope we can become friends.*

Notice how easy it shows that you are speaking and spaces it out from the rest of the post so it is easily shown.

Extra things that can go along with a role-play.

If you are a busy pony like me and own more than one character, you can use the COLOR SCHEME to show more than one character speaking at once.

Example:

Daisy walked up to Shy Flower who was against the wall.
"What is wrong shy? Is something troubling you?"
Shy looked down at tried not to make eye contact.
"It... it is none of your concern, Daisy."

Notice how you can change the color to show which character is talking, and sometimes you do not even need to show who is talking if the person you are role playing with has seen the color before.

For those who don't know, (like I didn't when I got started) a ninja post is when you are trying to post something but someone else beats you to it and their post is ahead of yours. This usually happens when there are a lot of members trying to post at the same time. What should you do?
It really depends on the posts themselves. Personally, if a ninja post contradicts my own post, I will quickly try to edit my post and salvage what I can. If it is unsalvageable, I will delete my post and try to make a new one.

General rules for the role play:
Each role play can have their own rules and such. These are some general rules:

1. You may not control another characters actions unless you have permissions.
2. Do not use the thread as a chat function. It just clutters things up.
3. If you wish to ask a question in the thread regarding another player, use out of character (OOC) speech:
What is OOC: You can say whatever you want when you are doing it, and you should use parenthesis to show it and put it before or after all action/speech/thoughts.

Now if any ponies need help with any role playing needs, feel free to use this thread to recieve help from me. Don't feel shy either as you are not the only ones who need help.

Edited by Linguz