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RP Guidelines
Topic Started: Jun 18 2007, 01:39 AM (205 Views)
Sargon
Administrator
[ *  *  * ]
[size=7]Basic Guidlines of RP - Original by Balius, Redone by Kag.[/size]

What is a Role Play (AKA, a RP)?
A RP, is effectively a co-operative story. All people in the RP work together to progress and eventually end the story. A RP is NOT an one person effort, that would be a story.

Also with RP's you have characters. Typically, a character is different from the person playing it. This is known to make RP'ing a challenge, especially for new RP'ers. When just starting, it's best to start with a character somewhat close to your personality, so you know how your character would act in situations. With every RP post you are building on your character's personality. Remember that when RP'ing, you aren't posting what you'd do, but what your character would do (which is sometimes different). Also, your character only knows what they know, not what you know. Though you may have read a post where a character did this or that, your character may not know they did that unless they were there or heard about it.

Formatting
Typically, most RP posts are done from a third person perspective. In other words, when you read the post, you aren't reading, "I looked to my left and . . ." but instead, "He looked to his left and . . ." or "She looked to her left and . . ."

Also, most RP's are done in past tense. For example, it'd be "He/She was . . ." not "He/She is . . ." or "He/She is going to. . ." Keeping up with these two basic formats allows the RP to easily move from post to post without losing the feel of the story (in other words, it helps keep it all together).

Advanced Formatting
Most of this is either an all or nothing situation. Either you use almost all of it, or none of it at all. This formatting typically just makes things easier to read, but if you feel no need to use it, then don't.

Bold - Boldening text, is used for character speech.
Code:
 
[b]Bold[/b]

Colored Bold - Emboldened Colored text (or just colored text) is used for other character speech. This is usually optional.
Code:
 
[b][color=blue]Colored Bold[/b][/color]

Italics - Italicized text is used when describing what's going on or describing the setting.
Code:
 
[i]Italics[/i]

Bold Italics - Italicized Boldened lettering is used for character thoughts. This is also optional, as it can be just as easily done in the description of the character and their actions.
Code:
 
[i][b]Bold Italics[/i][/b]


God-Modding
Perhaps this should be farther up the list, but regardless of its position, it is still very important. Under no circumstance should you "god mod". To god mod, is to make decisions for other peoples' characters without their permission. The only person in an RP that has any sort of unsaid permission to do this, is the RP's creator, or whoever is in control of the RP, except for of course the forum's moderator (but this is usually frowned upon unless he has permission).

If you want to do something that involves the actions of another person's character, send them a message describing what you want to do, and get their permission before doing it. If you don't, the RP's creator, and the player of the character you controlled have permission to disregard (or pretend it didn't exist) your post.

Over-used RP Settings
There are some settings that you do not want to place your RP in, due to the fact it either limits the RP too much, or is heavily over-used. Those settings to avoid are typically based off of popular books and games. While some good RP's can come of these settings, they are typically very rare.

Non-Playable Characters (NPCs)
NPCs are all those other characters your character interacts with that are not controlled by another RP'er. While there are far fewer limits on NPC's, if someone asks you not to kill them, or even if they don't ask, it's better not to kill an NPC that someone has had around for a long time. If they want them gone, they'll let you know, or they'll kill the NPC off themself.

Before Joining a RP Notes
So, you've read all of this and you think you've got a grasp on RP'ing, huh? Well, there are a couple last things you should know. In most RP's, there will be rules outlined by the RP creator. These guidelines are rules in every RP unless stated otherwise, as they are the generally accepted guidelines for any RP. Also, you'll want to read the first post, and as many posts before the most recent that you need to read in order to get a grip of where the story is. Lastly, the generally accepted shortest post is one paragraph in length, or six to eight sentences.



Sidenote: It's possible I missed a basic guideline, but I typed most of that from memory. Some minor help from HeavymanSD.
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