How should I start roleplaying?

[Vakri]

Me and my friend are planning to start a roleplay here, but we are wondering how we should make one.

[Lunas Legion]

Me and my friend are planning to start a roleplay here, but we are wondering how we should make one.

What type of RP do you want to make?

[The-Third-Panzermmee]

Choose something of your greatest interest, i.e. Small Conflicts, Large-Scale Wars, etc. Choose a plot-line that's interesting and can be built upon. Create a thread for your roleplay that thoroughly describes what it's about, and the objective trying to be accomplished. Open it to other nations, or restrict it to a region/set of nations. Begin your adventure. It's also a good idea to open a separate thread for OOC discussion if it's open to the public.

[Haydn]

It depends on the type of RP. For advice for starting, see here. Or if you have questions you can ask them here.

[Hostillia]

Well I'm no expert myself, however, there are a number of procedures I can suggest.

Firstly you should probably decide if you're looking to do a "closed" RP, that is one between only yourself and your friend or an "open" RP, that is one in which any interested parties on the site may participate. If you're looking for an open RP I may suggest making an "out of character thread" or "OOC" where you can inform potential partners of what you intend for the RP to be about and can keep an open diologue for the duration of the RP thread.

Hopefully you have a general idea of what you would like to RP though there are, to my knowledge, two main types and three main technological settings. The tech settings are fortunately, largely self explanitory and are PT, MT, FT that is to say, Past Technology, Modern Technology, and Future Technology and this will largely dictate the kind of settings and technology available for use during the RP, there is also FanT which fantasy technology which would feature magic, mythical creatures and so forth. Out of the four techs, the most common is Modern and the least common is Past. The two main types of RPs I have encountered are national RPs in which you can lead your nation into wars or diplomatic summits and everything in between, though these often revolve around the actions of select individuals (Prime Minister, Secretary of State, ect.) you maintain control over the actions of your greater nation and this seems, in my experience, largely unique to NationStates. The alternative is "character driven" RPs which feature a character, typically of your making though FanFiction may also exist, and you go gallivanting on an adventure with the other characters to progress the story which is typically determined to varying degrees by the OP or original poster who acts a sort of guide and authority (understandable as they created the thread and therefore the RP), these are fairly common and largely traditional in my, limited, experience.

The links posted above are excellent of course, and if you would like you're always free to browse Nationstates and International Incidents for an RP to read to help improve your general understanding of the process. As a word of warning I would caution you against every controlling the actions of another player or determining the successfulness of attacks and such due to the near-universal disapproval of "god-modding" that is controlling another's characters or nations. If you still need help with the process or have more specific questions I would encourage you to approach the Mentors who represent some of the greatest and most capable writers present on NationStates.

Enjoy your RPing experience and welcome to NationStates RP!

[Vakri]

Well I'm no expert myself, however, there are a number of procedures I can suggest.

Firstly you should probably decide if you're looking to do a "closed" RP, that is one between only yourself and your friend or an "open" RP, that is one in which any interested parties on the site may participate. If you're looking for an open RP I may suggest making an "out of character thread" or "OOC" where you can inform potential partners of what you intend for the RP to be about and can keep an open diologue for the duration of the RP thread.

Hopefully you have a general idea of what you would like to RP though there are, to my knowledge, two main types and three main technological settings. The tech settings are fortunately, largely self explanitory and are PT, MT, FT that is to say, Past Technology, Modern Technology, and Future Technology and this will largely dictate the kind of settings and technology available for use during the RP, there is also FanT which fantasy technology which would feature magic, mythical creatures and so forth. Out of the four techs, the most common is Modern and the least common is Past. The two main types of RPs I have encountered are national RPs in which you can lead your nation into wars or diplomatic summits and everything in between, though these often revolve around the actions of select individuals (Prime Minister, Secretary of State, ect.) you maintain control over the actions of your greater nation and this seems, in my experience, largely unique to NationStates. The alternative is "character driven" RPs which feature a character, typically of your making though FanFiction may also exist, and you go gallivanting on an adventure with the other characters to progress the story which is typically determined to varying degrees by the OP or original poster who acts a sort of guide and authority (understandable as they created the thread and therefore the RP), these are fairly common and largely traditional in my, limited, experience.

The links posted above are excellent of course, and if you would like you're always free to browse Nationstates and International Incidents for an RP to read to help improve your general understanding of the process. As a word of warning I would caution you against every controlling the actions of another player or determining the successfulness of attacks and such due to the near-universal disapproval of "god-modding" that is controlling another's characters or nations. If you still need help with the process or have more specific questions I would encourage you to approach the Mentors who represent some of the greatest and most capable writers present on NationStates.

Enjoy your RPing experience and welcome to NationStates RP!

(Can we use Parenthesis for OOC? My friend does that, and so do I.)

[Lunas Legion]

(Can we use Parenthesis for OOC? My friend does that, and so do I.)

Yes, but having a OOC allows for extended debates.

[Krytak]

If you use an OOC thread, you reduce the amount of clutter in the IC thread. I know that when I see a thread with a lot of useless chatter thats OOC, I tend to just avoid it. Too much extra to sift through when trying to get caught up with what has been posted. Much easier to just keep the OOC in one thread, and the IC in another. And a big help is if in the OP you put a link to the other thread in case people want to quickly jump from one to the other.

[Lunas Legion]

If you use an OOC thread, you reduce the amount of clutter in the IC thread. I know that when I see a thread with a lot of useless chatter thats OOC, I tend to just avoid it. Too much extra to sift through when trying to get caught up with what has been posted. Much easier to just keep the OOC in one thread, and the IC in another. And a big help is if in the OP you put a link to the other thread in case people want to quickly jump from one to the other.

One of the best RPs I was in had one of these jumbled IC/OOC threads. Then OP went and made a IC thread, and it got even better.

[Vakri]

Which subforum of Diplomacy should I post in for a roleplay about a major scale war?

[Krytak]

Which subforum of Diplomacy should I post in for a roleplay about a major scale war?

International Incidents. The descriptions should tell you where to post.