Role Playing Guide

Role Playing Guide: Tips, Do’s and Don’ts

Being Descriptive:

Being able to describe a situation, mood, actions, and environment are key to good role playing. Take into account role playing is a form of narration. When you read a book you don't get this:

*The boy walked in*
*He sat in a chair*
Boy: "Hey!"

In order to make an interesting and adequate post you must be abundant in descriptions from the gestures the character makes, his actions and surroundings. Let’s use the example above and modify it:

*The young black haired boy walked into the room quietly and pulled himself a chair. His eyes wandered around the room observing all the books and scrolls that were scattered on the tables, before turning his brown gaze back to his host*

Boy: "Hey there, you wanted to see me?" *he stated in simple relaxed manner*

Now compare the two? Big difference right? When playing, posts can be even more extense and complicated than this, or maybe be simpler, but always keep in mind the main idea which is to write as if your narrating a story.


Eloquence:

Role playing is often more interesting when your narrations are made with eloquence, using a wide vocabulary, similes and metaphors. It gives what could be a regular sounding situation a bit of zest. Instead of saying:

He tried to catch her/ He attempted to capture her.

This is just a small detail but it makes a big difference. When you're writing dialogue, the character doesn't need to talk with such eloquence unless that its a personality trait. But during narrations it’s good to take this detail in mind.

Grammar:

We don't always spell perfectly, we tend to slip on the keyboard or simply forget punctuation, comas etc. Yet these small errors can change the meaning of a sentence completely or cause it to become confusing for the reader. Therefore always check your spelling before submitting a post, and if threes an error after you've posted you can modify it to correct it. This is not such a big deal, if it’s a small error, it’s not necessary.

Battles:

Power playing or God moding seem to be some of the greatest problems in role playing. This refers to doing things like controlling the actions of the other persons character, or making yourself out to be invincible and overly powerful.

Example:

"Goki directs a powerful kick at Riku's face, sending him flying."

This is a clear example; you notice the person is forcing his move to hit, thus trying to control the other characters action.

Try use a sentence like:

"Goki directs a powerful kick at Riku's face, ATTEMPTING to send him flying."

The second version is correct because you are just saying what your attempting to do. Not forcing it to hit. It should be the others decision what move his character will make, wether to dodge, counter or receive the attack and how much damage it has.

These are some useful key words:

Tries
Attempts
Intending
Aiming
Expecting

"Attempts to send him flying...."
"Aiming for the leg...."
"Trying to trip...."

This way you’re suggesting to your opponent what you’re planning, what type of attack and so on. It also makes it easier for the opponent to determine how easy/hard it is for him/her to dodge and come up with his responses.

Being all mighty does not make for an interesting fight. It’s much more exciting when you have to struggle, and occasionally get hit if both characters are at the same level. Sometimes even if your character is at a higher level its interesting if you're caught of guard or surprised barely being able to dodge or attack. However, analyze, when you want to dodge an attack, think. Is it possible for me to dodge it?

Some people just write out: “**** dodges the punch...”
But if you’re nailed to the ground and still dodges... something is wrong.

Visual:

Using screen shots, or other pics from the series in order to help out with the description of the situation, a characters actions, or emotions is a very nice touch, people who will be playing characters from the series can take advantage of this. Though this is not a necessary thing to follow, I find it adds a little something extra, however keep in mind that the pics should be an appropriate size, if they are too big resize them to a proper width and length, so they don't take up half the page.

Time and Space

Waiting to finish one whole thread in order to participate in another one can be tedious. It’s ok to be in more than one place at the same time, so long as it’s suggested that it was at different times. When describing your actions you can give hints of time and day in order to make it seem like your character isn’t at all these places at once but that it has been at different times.

Example:

*After the hard work out at the training grounds earlier that day, it was nice to come down to the bath house and relax.*

The above statement gives a hint on time, so that you can imagine in what order events happened (even if the previous thread has not yet been finished). Of course this is not at all necessary, it’s mostly to avoid confusion.

However you cannot be in two completely different worlds at the same time, let’s say be doing something in Soul Society and at the same time battling in Hueco Mundo unless you clearly describe it is not at the same time line.