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I understand that not everyone is going to be awesome at role playing. I know that those of you who are not so great would still like to get in on the action. So for those of you who need a bit of help, I'm willing to help you.
Role-Playing Guide by Trevlac Part 1
The first order of business is to know that most RP's on Furious Angels are structured role-playing. The creator of the RP (usually Trevlac) will allow each character to have freedom but if the plot deviates I might steer it back on course. Structured RP's usually allow the OP (Original Poster) to do a bit of God-Modding (using powers outside of the game) in order to ensure the story is followed. Although, Ops need to remember that everyone needs their freedoms to role-play and controlling them too much will take out all the fun.
Etiquette
Twinking. It's important and absolutely essential to maintain proper role-playing etiquette. The biggest part of that is respect for other people's characters. There is something called twinking which is when you try to minimize the amount of flaws your character has while maximizing the number of merits he has. If your character has no flaws, then you're no fun to role-play with.
Meta-Gaming. It refers to the act of taking much too liberal use of NPC's (Non-Playable Characters), especially ones that are crucial to other's story. Or using out-of-game information that your character couldn't possibly know. Make sure to always ask yourself "Hmm, I know this but does my character?" or "How would my character act?" not how you would. Never use any information about the "future" of the game with your character. There have been many times that I, as the Op, know my character will get shot if he opens the door, but my character doesn't know that, and he would open the door. So I just do it and accept that he gets shot.
Playing God. This is the thing that every decent Role-Player hates to see. To God-Mod is to using another person's character without their consent. This can range anywhere from putting words in their mouth to killing them. I'll demonstrate by going from good to bad.
Good. Elladora knocked the head off one of the advancing Ra'Zac, shouting to her comrade Ronin, "We can't keep this up! There are simply too many of them!" It was then that she noticed that behind the tidal wave of Ra'Zac stood a single High-Priest, the one they had seen before called Durza. He was holding his hand up high and shouting an incantation. She quickly slashed through the mass of Ra'Zac, hoping she could interrupt him in time.
Critique: This establishes what is happening and does not take control of other's characters at all, assuming that Durza had already posted that he was beginning to cast something.
Bad. Elladora knocked the head off one of the advancing Ra'Zac, shouting to her comrade Ronin, who was barely conscious after the severe injuries he had sustained, "We can't keep this up! There are simply too many of them!" Ronin could only scream as yet another blade entered his side. It was then that she noticed that behind the tidal wave of Ra'Zac stood a single High-Priest, the one they had seen before called Durza. He was holding his hand up high and shouting an incantation. She quickly slashed through the mass of Ra'Zac, smashing her mallet into his side, interrupting his spell. He lay on the floor, nearly dead and drained of all his power. "You can kill me, but my spirit and power will linger on, Light blinded Paladin!" Ella just sneered and brought her mallet down on his skull crushing it. The Ra'Zac behind her fell apart, saving Ronin from an assured death.
Critique: This is just bad as far as God-Moding goes. She portrays Ronin as an almost incompetent fighter, obviously with much less skill than her. She then not only interrupts Durza, puts a lot of words in his mouth, but also kills him. And to top it off, she just ended the battle before any of the others had a chance to do anything. This kind of thing is unacceptable.
Ridiculous. Ella lit into the advancing Ra'Zac army, taking out dozens of them with every swipe. Ronin, however, fell without even taking out a single one. She sighed, raising him from the dead while keeping the tide of Ra'Zac away with one hand. "Must I always save your ass, Ronin?" "I be sorry, miss Ella. I be incompetent," he replied. She laughed and proceeded to destroy the rest of the Ra'Zac army with a few swipes. She noticed The High-Priest Durza trying to cast a spell, but his obvious fear of her kept his hands shaking and kept him from concentrating. She walked up to him as he begged, "Please! Please don't kill me! I just wanted to be a real boy!" She destroyed him with a single flick of her finger, his body exploding. "Well, Ronin, my clumsy sidekick, I think all is well in Asteroth again." And with that, they all lived happily ever after.
Critique: ...
If I ever see shit like this I will not only ban you from the RP but also from the Forum. I won't even tell you. I'll just do it. God-Mod that. (The above is an actual post that I copied from an RP I played on <undisclosed website>. The Good and Bad examples were actually edits of <undisclosed person's> post.)
Remember kids, God-Modding is for banned people.
Aesthetics
Grammar. This does not come naturally to many people and can take a while to get used to. My best suggestion for finding the proper grammar of a sentence is to read it out loud and see if it sounds right. If it doesn't, rearrange the words until it sounds right.
Dave ate the muffin, hesitant. -Wrong
Dave hesitantly ate the muffin. -Right
Even though it might not seem like a big thing, it can make all the difference that your sentences flow together, otherwise people will need to stop and re-read you post and suddenly they find that the immersion is broken just because something doesn't sound right. To get better at recognizing the structure of sentences you should read other novels or even pick up a book on grammar. It'll increase your reading skill by 2.
Spelling. Another tough area for people. The thing with spelling is to look at the word and ask yourself if it looks right. honestly the best thing is to download FireFox 2.0. It's a web-browser with a built-in spell-checker. Many people make the argument, "I didn't come here to spell good!" No, but it is important that the person you are trying to communicate to understand you. A little spelling error every now and again is nothing to fret about, but five in every sentence? Again, reading novels will help correct this problem. If all else fails or you're too pussy to use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, just go to http://www.spellcheck.net You have no excuses.
Length. The length of a post can be subjective to the situation. The ideal post is one that is around two to five paragraphs in length. Any more and people will start to feel their eyeballs drying out from staring at the screen that long. If you are having a back and forth conversation, short posts are fine, but at least try to put in a whole paragraph to keep interest up. There are few key things in a post that should always be covered.
Setting: If it hasn't been established, establish it. Nothing makes it harder to imagine what is going on than if the characters are just floating in a 'white space.' Give them a world to interact with. Describing a new setting should probably take up a full paragraph.
Action: What is happening in this post that makes us want to read it? Action does not have to mean that fighting is going on, action simply means that something is happening. It could be internal conflict, it could be Baltac found a seat at the bar, Raymond might have picked some lint out of his belly-button. It doesn't matter the specifics of the action, just that something happened and you made us interested enough to read it.
Resolution|Suspense: Your post must contain a logical end to it. You can use these to hint at what you would like to happen next. Such as, "Frank fired his shotgun at Garland, hoping that it would hit him. If it did, then his plan would begin." Naturaly Garland is going to be curious to see what Frank's plan is, so he's now more likely to let the bullet hit him. The ending of your post is crucial in that you finish your step and wait for someone else to start theirs. Give them something to work with.
Description. This is the meat of your post. Describe, describe, describe. You are painting a picture for people to look at, so you should make it good. What ever you do, do it with description. Don't just say that you ran from the enemy, say you ran like a deer away from a fire. Say that the table wasn't only green, but that it had elvish runes carved into it. Did you kill something? Well then say how you killed it.
Now too much detail can be a problem sometimes, but if you are having that problem, just back off a little bit and you'll be fine. The point of description is just so that people reading it can get a mental picture of what is going on. Remember 'white space?' You don't want your character to just stand there with his hands straight down at his sides while he talks.
Miscellaneous Closing Notes
OOC. OOC stands for "Out of Character". Never ever in a million sun rotations use this. What you do is place OOC in double brackets and say something that doesn't pertain to the RP. Example:
[[OOC: Jimmy, are you coming to my house for dinner tonight?]]
[[OOC: Yeah, but my character is going to get herpes first.]]
I have, no shit, seen actual full conversations carried out using the OOC. If you do this on Furious Angels, I will just delete your post. It interrupts the immersion and makes it less pleasing to read.
Perfection. Let your fucking character get hit once in a while. I mean shit. You are not perfect. Fucking reflect this in your posts. Stop dodging everything. Stop being smarter than everyone. Stop jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Stop having a perfect body with perfect curves and perfect breasts. No one likes you. Get the fuck out of my internets!
If you ever need help deciding if you are doing any of these things, PM your post to me and I'll help you with it. I promise, it won't kill you to ask for help. I mean hell, you already read this right?
Role-Playing Guide by Trevlac Part 1
The first order of business is to know that most RP's on Furious Angels are structured role-playing. The creator of the RP (usually Trevlac) will allow each character to have freedom but if the plot deviates I might steer it back on course. Structured RP's usually allow the OP (Original Poster) to do a bit of God-Modding (using powers outside of the game) in order to ensure the story is followed. Although, Ops need to remember that everyone needs their freedoms to role-play and controlling them too much will take out all the fun.
Etiquette
Twinking. It's important and absolutely essential to maintain proper role-playing etiquette. The biggest part of that is respect for other people's characters. There is something called twinking which is when you try to minimize the amount of flaws your character has while maximizing the number of merits he has. If your character has no flaws, then you're no fun to role-play with.
Meta-Gaming. It refers to the act of taking much too liberal use of NPC's (Non-Playable Characters), especially ones that are crucial to other's story. Or using out-of-game information that your character couldn't possibly know. Make sure to always ask yourself "Hmm, I know this but does my character?" or "How would my character act?" not how you would. Never use any information about the "future" of the game with your character. There have been many times that I, as the Op, know my character will get shot if he opens the door, but my character doesn't know that, and he would open the door. So I just do it and accept that he gets shot.
Playing God. This is the thing that every decent Role-Player hates to see. To God-Mod is to using another person's character without their consent. This can range anywhere from putting words in their mouth to killing them. I'll demonstrate by going from good to bad.
Good. Elladora knocked the head off one of the advancing Ra'Zac, shouting to her comrade Ronin, "We can't keep this up! There are simply too many of them!" It was then that she noticed that behind the tidal wave of Ra'Zac stood a single High-Priest, the one they had seen before called Durza. He was holding his hand up high and shouting an incantation. She quickly slashed through the mass of Ra'Zac, hoping she could interrupt him in time.
Critique: This establishes what is happening and does not take control of other's characters at all, assuming that Durza had already posted that he was beginning to cast something.
Bad. Elladora knocked the head off one of the advancing Ra'Zac, shouting to her comrade Ronin, who was barely conscious after the severe injuries he had sustained, "We can't keep this up! There are simply too many of them!" Ronin could only scream as yet another blade entered his side. It was then that she noticed that behind the tidal wave of Ra'Zac stood a single High-Priest, the one they had seen before called Durza. He was holding his hand up high and shouting an incantation. She quickly slashed through the mass of Ra'Zac, smashing her mallet into his side, interrupting his spell. He lay on the floor, nearly dead and drained of all his power. "You can kill me, but my spirit and power will linger on, Light blinded Paladin!" Ella just sneered and brought her mallet down on his skull crushing it. The Ra'Zac behind her fell apart, saving Ronin from an assured death.
Critique: This is just bad as far as God-Moding goes. She portrays Ronin as an almost incompetent fighter, obviously with much less skill than her. She then not only interrupts Durza, puts a lot of words in his mouth, but also kills him. And to top it off, she just ended the battle before any of the others had a chance to do anything. This kind of thing is unacceptable.
Ridiculous. Ella lit into the advancing Ra'Zac army, taking out dozens of them with every swipe. Ronin, however, fell without even taking out a single one. She sighed, raising him from the dead while keeping the tide of Ra'Zac away with one hand. "Must I always save your ass, Ronin?" "I be sorry, miss Ella. I be incompetent," he replied. She laughed and proceeded to destroy the rest of the Ra'Zac army with a few swipes. She noticed The High-Priest Durza trying to cast a spell, but his obvious fear of her kept his hands shaking and kept him from concentrating. She walked up to him as he begged, "Please! Please don't kill me! I just wanted to be a real boy!" She destroyed him with a single flick of her finger, his body exploding. "Well, Ronin, my clumsy sidekick, I think all is well in Asteroth again." And with that, they all lived happily ever after.
Critique: ...
If I ever see shit like this I will not only ban you from the RP but also from the Forum. I won't even tell you. I'll just do it. God-Mod that. (The above is an actual post that I copied from an RP I played on <undisclosed website>. The Good and Bad examples were actually edits of <undisclosed person's> post.)
Remember kids, God-Modding is for banned people.
Aesthetics
Grammar. This does not come naturally to many people and can take a while to get used to. My best suggestion for finding the proper grammar of a sentence is to read it out loud and see if it sounds right. If it doesn't, rearrange the words until it sounds right.
Dave ate the muffin, hesitant. -Wrong
Dave hesitantly ate the muffin. -Right
Even though it might not seem like a big thing, it can make all the difference that your sentences flow together, otherwise people will need to stop and re-read you post and suddenly they find that the immersion is broken just because something doesn't sound right. To get better at recognizing the structure of sentences you should read other novels or even pick up a book on grammar. It'll increase your reading skill by 2.
Spelling. Another tough area for people. The thing with spelling is to look at the word and ask yourself if it looks right. honestly the best thing is to download FireFox 2.0. It's a web-browser with a built-in spell-checker. Many people make the argument, "I didn't come here to spell good!" No, but it is important that the person you are trying to communicate to understand you. A little spelling error every now and again is nothing to fret about, but five in every sentence? Again, reading novels will help correct this problem. If all else fails or you're too pussy to use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, just go to http://www.spellcheck.net You have no excuses.
Length. The length of a post can be subjective to the situation. The ideal post is one that is around two to five paragraphs in length. Any more and people will start to feel their eyeballs drying out from staring at the screen that long. If you are having a back and forth conversation, short posts are fine, but at least try to put in a whole paragraph to keep interest up. There are few key things in a post that should always be covered.
Setting: If it hasn't been established, establish it. Nothing makes it harder to imagine what is going on than if the characters are just floating in a 'white space.' Give them a world to interact with. Describing a new setting should probably take up a full paragraph.
Action: What is happening in this post that makes us want to read it? Action does not have to mean that fighting is going on, action simply means that something is happening. It could be internal conflict, it could be Baltac found a seat at the bar, Raymond might have picked some lint out of his belly-button. It doesn't matter the specifics of the action, just that something happened and you made us interested enough to read it.
Resolution|Suspense: Your post must contain a logical end to it. You can use these to hint at what you would like to happen next. Such as, "Frank fired his shotgun at Garland, hoping that it would hit him. If it did, then his plan would begin." Naturaly Garland is going to be curious to see what Frank's plan is, so he's now more likely to let the bullet hit him. The ending of your post is crucial in that you finish your step and wait for someone else to start theirs. Give them something to work with.
Description. This is the meat of your post. Describe, describe, describe. You are painting a picture for people to look at, so you should make it good. What ever you do, do it with description. Don't just say that you ran from the enemy, say you ran like a deer away from a fire. Say that the table wasn't only green, but that it had elvish runes carved into it. Did you kill something? Well then say how you killed it.
Now too much detail can be a problem sometimes, but if you are having that problem, just back off a little bit and you'll be fine. The point of description is just so that people reading it can get a mental picture of what is going on. Remember 'white space?' You don't want your character to just stand there with his hands straight down at his sides while he talks.
Miscellaneous Closing Notes
OOC. OOC stands for "Out of Character". Never ever in a million sun rotations use this. What you do is place OOC in double brackets and say something that doesn't pertain to the RP. Example:
[[OOC: Jimmy, are you coming to my house for dinner tonight?]]
[[OOC: Yeah, but my character is going to get herpes first.]]
I have, no shit, seen actual full conversations carried out using the OOC. If you do this on Furious Angels, I will just delete your post. It interrupts the immersion and makes it less pleasing to read.
Perfection. Let your fucking character get hit once in a while. I mean shit. You are not perfect. Fucking reflect this in your posts. Stop dodging everything. Stop being smarter than everyone. Stop jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Stop having a perfect body with perfect curves and perfect breasts. No one likes you. Get the fuck out of my internets!
If you ever need help deciding if you are doing any of these things, PM your post to me and I'll help you with it. I promise, it won't kill you to ask for help. I mean hell, you already read this right?
