Seven Surefire Ways to Improve Your Roleplays

[Shreddinisia]

Seven Surefire Ways to Improve Your Roleplays
- By the Handler of the Honourable Republic of New Azura on June 29th, 2010.

4. The Story....Don’t try to mold your characters in with your background, but rather, let the two flow together. It’s okay to experiment with unusual concepts like a Brooklyn-style thug in a tropical setting. Far too often, story ideas are so generic, that most roleplays feel sanitized and unimaginative. Don’t be afraid to come up with a character who has flaws!

Before I start, I must make a confession to you all. It will be painful to hear, and likely more common an issue than I believe. It is not a venereal disease. No, I have never role-played in my life.

Not once.

To a "noob" role-player, reading through the marvelously laid out tales of global upmanship is frightening and uplifting at the same time. I wonder if my RP's will reach the epic levels of an never-ending war. Of course, I would like them to, so I'd appreciate critique from all for the following story idea I thought up:

War news reaches the world by way of journalists. Often, these men and women are clean-cut and eloquent, but what if the reporter possessed neither of these qualities? My RP reporter represents a losing, impoverished nation. Without the proper chops for the job, he should not have a first-rate opportunity, but due to persistent claims of soldier misconduct and the international community threatening sanctions, the invading government allows a local reporter to shadow a platoon. At this point, I'm not sure if the invaders really would be sanctioning violence. It would be naive to believe isolated incidents do not occur, but sanctioned? I don't know. Anyways, these soldiers have had nothing to do with the allegations and are a bit confused, perhaps mistrusting of the reporter. Due to the liability of having an enemy reporter on the team, this platoon is sent to do menial assignments.

What do you guys think?

[The Black Plains]

Grammar. Grammar. GRAMMAAAAAAR!

[The Black Plains]

Seven Surefire Ways to Improve Your Roleplays
- By the Handler of the Honourable Republic of New Azura on June 29th, 2010.

4. The Story....Don’t try to mold your characters in with your background, but rather, let the two flow together. It’s okay to experiment with unusual concepts like a Brooklyn-style thug in a tropical setting. Far too often, story ideas are so generic, that most roleplays feel sanitized and unimaginative. Don’t be afraid to come up with a character who has flaws!

Before I start, I must make a confession to you all. It will be painful to hear, and likely more common an issue than I believe. It is not a venereal disease. No, I have never role-played in my life.

Not once.

To a "noob" role-player, reading through the marvelously laid out tales of global upmanship is frightening and uplifting at the same time. I wonder if my RP's will reach the epic levels of an never-ending war. Of course, I would like them to, so I'd appreciate critique from all for the following story idea I thought up:

War news reaches the world by way of journalists. Often, these men and women are clean-cut and eloquent, but what if the reporter possessed neither of these qualities? My RP reporter represents a losing, impoverished nation. Without the proper chops for the job, he should not have a first-rate opportunity, but due to persistent claims of soldier misconduct and the international community threatening sanctions, the invading government allows a local reporter to shadow a platoon. At this point, I'm not sure if the invaders really would be sanctioning violence. It would be naive to believe isolated incidents do not occur, but sanctioned? I don't know. Anyways, these soldiers have had nothing to do with the allegations and are a bit confused, perhaps mistrusting of the reporter. Due to the liability of having an enemy reporter on the team, this platoon is sent to do menial assignments.

What do you guys think?

If anyone ever ever rags you for the type of nation/character/strategy you RP and say that that is indicative of your RP-ing you are given license to take your shoe and hide it as far up their ass as you possibly can, preferably until they can taste shoelace. Examples:

"What your government just did was stoopid!"
Response: "Yes, I know. That is the kind of government I am RP-ing."

"Dude your nation sucks, mine is way better than yours."
Response: "Doesn't take any imagination to RP a perfect nation where everything goes right. Don't blame me for your lack of creativity."

"Haha, you lost the war! I beat you! Haha!"
Response: "The better RP-er is not always the one who wins, in fact it is more often the reverse."

"I have this and this weapon and if you do this it does this and you try and do this in response it does THIS and... [blah blah blah] my friend is an engineer and... [blah blah blah] your entire army dies!"
Response: "You're a goddamn Sun Tsu, but you ain't fightin' *my* army. Cya."

[UCDF]

Why do eyebleeders want more eyebleeders?



Cause they suck!
No offence, just sharing my opinion.
Ugh.

[Central World Alliance]

what does stickie mean?

[Cybernetic Replicants]

Example of what I thought was an excellent roleplay. It opened the way for many sequels and was fun, exciting, and ended with no deaths.

The Luna

(It's a bit Stargate SG-1 meet Star Trek, though.)

[Jenrak]

what does stickie mean?

They're tapered, pinned or bulletin threads.

Stickies are always at the top of a forums and can't be bumped down by new posts, as constant reminders and easy references.

[Central World Alliance]

what does stickie mean?

They're tapered, pinned or bulletin threads.

Stickies are always at the top of a forums and can't be bumped down by new posts, as constant reminders and easy references.

oh okay thanks

[Soyuz 11]

Why do eyebleeders want more eyebleeders?



Cause they suck!
No offence, just sharing my opinion.
Ugh.

What the hell is an "eyebleeder"?

[UCDF]

Why do eyebleeders want more eyebleeders?



Cause they suck!
No offence, just sharing my opinion.
Ugh.

What the hell is an "eyebleeder"?

Super long posts and posters.

[Hornopolis]

Why do eyebleeders want more eyebleeders?



Cause they suck!
No offence, just sharing my opinion.
Ugh.

What the hell is an "eyebleeder"?

Super long posts and posters.

Those are the best kind.

[Polish Worlds]

Why do eyebleeders want more eyebleeders?



Cause they suck!
No offence, just sharing my opinion.
Ugh.

What the hell is an "eyebleeder"?

Super long posts and posters.

Those are the best kind.

http://www.rdrop.com/~hutch/argon

Read this and think again about what you just claimed. tl;dr + purple prose != quality.

[Qatarab]

Tag...

[UCDF]

Those are the best kind.

http://www.rdrop.com/~hutch/argon

Read this and think again about what you just claimed. tl;dr + purple prose != quality.

IT BURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SO... MUCH... BLOOD... FROM... EYES!!!!

[The Grand World Order]

http://www.rdrop.com/~hutch/argon

Read this and think again about what you just claimed. tl;dr + purple prose != quality.

IT BURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SO... MUCH... BLOOD... FROM... EYES!!!!

Seeing one-liners like the ones you litter the forum with makes me feel like putting a dress on you and hurting you. And everyone else.

[The Rich Port]

IT BURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SO... MUCH... BLOOD... FROM... EYES!!!!

...putting a dress on you and hurting you. And everyone else.

Whu?

[UCDF]

IT BURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SO... MUCH... BLOOD... FROM... EYES!!!!

Seeing one-liners like the ones you litter the forum with makes me feel like putting a dress on you and hurting you. And everyone else.

That makes no sense.

[The Rich Port]

Seeing one-liners like the ones you litter the forum with makes me feel like putting a dress on you and hurting you. And everyone else.

That makes no sense.

I think it goes without saying that one-liners do not good roleplaying make.

I just didn't get the whole "dress" thing.

[Layarteb]

If it helps towards Length vs. Brevity I've always found this to sort of be a guide for myself in most [definitely not all] situations. There are also some other tips for improvement.

+ Your OP should be the longest and most detailed post. Why?
>> Think of your RP like any story. You want to grab the reader's interests and, at the same time, set up your RP's flow. Nothing is worse than a terse OP that gives few details as to what is ahead and certainly a lack of detail can make it boring. Some will say that an OP should be short and not contain so much detail or you'll shy away people from the very beginning. This is true if you are looking for inexperienced players. If you want experienced players who are great at story writing, give them something that will put stars in their eyes and make them want to play along.

+ Your normal [serious] post should be less than 2,000 words. Why?
>> Two thousand words are about two to three typed pages. It's short, relatively speaking. If you are writing a serious RP that is a story or character RP then this will have enough space to give you ~5 paragraphs [paragraphs shouldn't be more than 200 words a piece]. In 5 paragraphs you can have the introduction, the building, the climax, the waning, and the conclusion. You don't have to have exactly 5 and your paragraphs don't all have to be the same amount of words, this is by no means a strict limit but +/- 200 words is a good buffer with 500 being the maximum. Obviously if you are engaging in bang-and-bang [such as dialogue posting with another player] this should not apply.

+ Proofread everything you write. Why?
>> Nothing is worse than trying to read abysmal grammar and spelling mistakes. By all means, an RP post doesn't have to be a final draft but neither should it be the first draft. Write it out in Microsoft Word [or equivalent] and run your grammar & spell check. This will catch 75% of the errors. Then take the time just to read through what you wrote once. From that point on you should be alright.

+ Space between paragraphs! Why?
>> If you do not space between paragraphs you're going to have a giant wall of text. Nothing is more straining to the eyes than this. Spacing allows the reader to physically separate everything in an RP. This includes dialogue too because remember, every time the speaker changes it is a new paragraph.

+ Do basic level planning, at the very least. Why?
>> Clearly you have to have a direction you want to go in when you start an RP. By no means should you have a set structure though. You want fluidity with your RPs, especially interactive ones. Stories with one poster are less dynamic but then again they don't always have to be if you don't want them to be as such. Make a list in a program [Microsoft OneNote is excellent] of where you want to go and it never hurts to keep track of your characters and special events that occur as well.