Hello, new member! You are almost ready to rp but we will have to break down some of the basics to you. My friend shall also help you on your journey to becoming a trainer. He is a Expert at being a trainer. If you ever heard of Pokemon before then you must know who he is. Alot of people know my friend because of him being so popular. He even decided to bring Pikachu with him. I will now introduce him to you.
Well that was a word from Pikachu and Ash. Even tho Pikachu doesn't talk much lol. Lets get to the basic of Rpg. I'm doing this because some Rpers might have forgot about the definitions and other like that.
What is Role Play Exactly
A role-playing game is a game in which the participants assume the roles of characters and collaboratively create stories. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterisation, and the actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines. Within the rules, they may improvise freely; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the games.
Role-playing can also be done online in the form of group story creation, involving anywhere from two to several hundred people, utilizing public forums, private message-boards, mailing lists, chat-rooms, and instant-messaging chat clients (e.g. MSN, Yahoo!, ICQ) to build worlds and characters that may last a few hours, or several years. Message boards such as ProBoards and InvisionFree are popularly used for role-playing. For some, romance and sex (though more often the former) are key elements to publicly-viewable role-plays, with the majority of such play taking place in chat-rooms or so-called "1×1" (one-on-ones) and very small groups, with other elements taking a back-seat in terms of importance. Typically, for medium and large groups of role-players, and large role-plays, the reverse is true, with romantic sub-plots taking a back-seat to story and setting development and action scenes, yet when it does occur, it is often (and in some cases expected to be) of a far less blatant nature.
There are different genres of which one can choose while role-playing, including, but not limited to, fantasy, modern, medieval, steam punk, historical, etc. Books, movies or games can be, and often are, used as a basis for role-plays (which in such cases may be deemed "collaborative fan-fiction"), with players either assuming the roles of established canon characters or using those the players themselves create ("Original Characters") to replace—or exist along side—characters from the book, movie or game, playing through well-trodden plots as alternative characters, or expanding upon the setting and story outside of its established canon.
Another type of role-playing game is done on Bebo. People create account's with Scene Kings or Queens (Dani Gore, Alex Evans, etc.). They then go onto other role-player accounts and role-play with each other until relationships and friendships are created through the stories.
MUDs and MU*s
Precursor to the now-more popular MMORPGs of today are the branch of text-based games known as MUD, MOO, MUCK, MUSH, MUX, DUM and MUSE, a set of games on similar platforms collectively termed as MU*s within the community by players and aficionados. The main difference in the various platforms lies in their purpose; some, like the myriad codebases for MUDs, are employed in combat-intensive games (either player versus player or against mobs), while MUSH and MUCK are seen in games that focus more on player interaction and role-play. Although interest in these games has suffered from the popularity of MMORPGs, a large number of them still operate. For a more complete history of these games refer to the entry on MUDs.
Real-time human-moderated
Some games rely entirely upon human moderators to dictate events, and physical print books for rules sets. Such games may use code dice-rollers, to generate random results, and may include databases for the purposes of maintaining character records. Interaction between characters is controlled by communication between individual players (with each other) and with moderators (who portray non-player characters). Communication software and database options vary, from the DigiChat front-end / character database back-end pairing pioneered by Conrad Hubbard at White Wolf Publishing, to the numerous AOL and Yahoo chats with hosted character databases. Free-form games may even do away with database integration or dice-rollers entirely and rely upon individual players to keep their own records, with online community reputation dictating how other players react.
There are multiple things that Every Good Role-Player should have. There is something that every person should do within every post that they create. Why? Because this is just logical. This creates character development, and better writing not only for yourself, but as well as the other people you are interacting with. Listed below is a little more of an in-depth of what every Good Role-Player Should Have
A Beginning - There needs to be a beginning, can't start in the middle. You must take the interaction from the beginning as best as one can possibly can. Most state this by what a character is thinking, or by mimicking a small brief portion of what another character is doing. If you are first starting the post, then you must make the beginning by making the scenery. What is around? What is there? What time of Day is it? These are all must be known. Unless there is a Game Master (Listed later on in the Tutorial) and you are the first one entering a room, you should take the time to explain the way the room looks as well. This however of course does not happen if you have a lead Roleplayer, someone that will take the time to do this himself.
A Middle - The Middle is usually the interaction of the post between your character and another, or really the body of the post. This is where you state what your character is doing in a simplistic, or detail like form. Within here, your character usually is doing some sort of action, picking up a book, looking off into the distance, picking flowers, picking his nose. Something.
An Ending - The ending is usually ended by the action of the middle, the effect of the middle. Something like this is ended is where you allow something for the other people to interact with. This is also where actions take place from what you were doing in the middle, like you are reading the book that you picked, you see some trees off in the distance, your flowers die as you pick them, you found buried treasure from your nose.
Good Spelling and Grammar - Good Spelling and Grammar. Yes this matters most of the time. Reasons why is because speaking in Text form takes the feel away of Roleplaying. Now this does not mean you should be an English Major, just write decently well, with correct punctuation.
Relevance - There are three different types of Relevance. One the Post needs to make sense in general. It can not be a bunch of weirdness where it just does not make sense. This type of thing means you are in one place, and two hundred yards away you are at another place. Or you are at two places at once. This type of thing confuses other Roleplayers, and they would not be able to interact very well. Two you have to be in character. Remember if it does not happen in character it does not happen. You can not say Out of character, stating that your character did something but the problem is, it does not happen if it does not happen in character. Another Character can not have something if your character did not give it to him. The Third thing that it would need is, it needs to have a point. A point can be anything, to make interaction, to make humor, or anything else such as that. This type of thing is always needed, there needs to be a point in the post.
Role-Playing is a very weird activity to get used to, it is not easy so please do not get discouraged. Remember once you get the hang of it, everything will begin to start rolling in and you are past the rookie level of Roleplaying which is known as the newbies (New People). If it is your first time in in the art of Roleplaying, do your best to try and work it out for at least a week and see how things go. It takes a few times to get the hang of it, so don't get frustrated. Everyone Starts from the beginning, and it takes time to get better. Even the veterans had a beginning even if they don't want to admit it. It just takes a matter of practice. With time comes wisdom, so don't get discouraged, because that will make you upset, and that is the first rule of the Internet, don't take it serious, and don't let anyone else try to tell you anything different. Veterans like to pick on the newbies (New People) but really they have to prove themselves to you as well just like you got to prove to them. No one is above you no matter what they say.
IC Also known as In Character is a term used widely without spelling out the wording In Character. In Character is the action of which someone acts within their Character. This means in a simpler term that they make their character move within the Character Realm.
OOC Also known as Out of Character is a term used widely without spelling out the wording Out of Character. Out of Character is the action that does not deal with anything In Character. This is a statement where a person may talk to another user without their character interacting. This is usually used during a chat form, discussion form that does not deal with the actual RP.
IIC A new term called Inactive In Character. This will be discussed better later on but Inactive In character is used to keep a thread alive. It is used so that when a person is unable to post within an amount of time that is state at the beginning of the thread, that person is capable of being skipped to allow other people to post ahead.
GM - DM are two different types. Reasons why is because of the name difference. The meaning however is the same. GM is known as Game Master, while DM is known as Dungeon Master. A GM, or DM, are those who create interactive Roleplays. They put the other players before themselves. They create situations where other players may interact by creating a common problem. The player who guides the other players through adventures, describes the game world and plays all of the NPCs. GMs - DMs are used to create events for the site to better create story indepth and character interaction.
NPC Non-Player Character. In general, any character (human or otherwise) in a role-playing game that is not controlled by someone playing the game.
In a tabletop RPG, the game master or equivalent (the person running the game) will generally act/speak the parts of all NPCs. These NPCs can range anywhere from an innkeeper the players talk to in order to rent a room to the mysterious woman who follows your party along for her own unknown reasons only to backstab you right when you were starting to trust her. It's up to the GM.
In LARP, the people running the game will again play the NPC parts, and may enlist others to be NPCs. In an ongoing game, LARP NPCs tend to be the characters who are either too temporary or too important to be done by a given player.
In single-player video game RPGs, NPCs are anyone who isn't your party. They generally aren't referred to as such in this context because "the guy next to the weapon shop" works just as well. These NPCs have a set dialog, and most will repeat the same thing they say every time you try to talk to them. Several webcomics have poked fun at this.
And in a MMORPG, the NPCs are the characters controlled by the server. They often have some kind of distinguishing feature, such as listing their trade in their status window or their name being displayed in a different color of text. As with single-player RPGs, these NPCs will tend to have set patterns of behavior and often must be interacted with to achieve some objective or another.
PC Also known as Playable Character. Not really alot to explain other then, this is who your character is. This is who you play as.
Firewalling A Term hardly ever used, whether it is used in character, or out of character. This is a term that not to many people know, and actually practice. It is when a user is seperating a character's knowledge from the poster's knowledge. This should be practiced a lot more, but since every character, or every person who Roleplays wishes to be god, and have nothing happen to them, they don't practice this at all. Hence why it is rare. Every person has a character that can tell everything, what is going to happen to them, what will happen to them, what they can do, they can always defeat, and etc. This term is so rare, it is a godsend to actually see it being played. Every person wishes to magically know when something is going to happen, and that type of thing is frowned upon. So remember what Firewalling is and practice it, because you will be respected as a RPer, as well as a person.
Flaming An online argument that becomes nasty or derisive, where insulting a party to the discussion takes precedence over the objective merits of one side or another.
Baiting Flaming without using actual nasty or derisive language. Baiting is when someone posts speaking out trying to get someone to flame. An excuse a troll uses upon posting an idiotic thread or reply to a messageboard. Usually said after said troll is flamed and shown of ones idiocy.
Trolling Being a prick on the internet because you can. Typically unleashing one or more cynical or sarcastic remarks on an innocent by-stander, because it's the internet and, hey, you can. Trolling is the act of purposefully antagonizing other people on the internet, generally on message boards.
Sat Mar 19, 2011 10:31 pm
