A RP guide by -AJ-

The Role Play Forum Handbook: Do's, Don'ts, Plots, etiquette and yes, Romance
By
-AJ-

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Table of contents

Introduction
Chapter 1: What is a Role Play and how do you do it?
Chapter 2: Common do's and don'ts
Chapter 3: Role Play ideas and some that just don't make it
Chapter 4: When is it to late to join – reading in-between the lines
Chapter 5: Language – "Don't you know its bleeping rude to bleeping
curse?"
Chapter 6: The 'Romance' thing
Chapter 7: Etiquette with the forums
Afterward

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Introduction

Many of you are probably wondering "Why in the world did some one make a RP guide and what qualifies -AJ- to write this?" Well in answer to the first question, the main RP thread on how-to's always filled with the same exact questions in different wording. That and a lot of people make the same mistakes or embarrassing blunders that could be preventable.

My answer to the second question? Probably nothing. I, -AJ-, am just a very observant person. I was in 4 of the some of the more successful RP's in RP history; The School RP (12 threads), The Pirates RP (13 threads), The Bad Guys Evil NaNoWriMo Army (14 threads), and The Paladins vs. Blackguards (12 threads). I have read through RP's that I'm not even in and for no good reason studied what the most popular and working thread ideas on the RP forum are.

That qualify me? Probably not… but please give me a chance and read through this (hopefully funny yet enlightening) short guide to RP success.

Nothing I write here is meant to offend anyone, it's just some of my observations of the RPing world that I would love to share with all of you. My hope for this is that it gives some RPing veterans a good laugh and it helps the newbie's fit in and have fun.

-AJ-

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Chapter 1: What is a RP and how do you do it?

The best way to improve your writing. Fun. A way to make new friends and grow characters. A stretch of the imagination.

What do all those things have in common? Throw the words "A RP is" to all 4 of those sentences and you have it. First of if you just asked "What does RP or RPG stand for?" the answer is Role Play or Role Play Game. Glad we have that cleared up.

Moving on.

Role playing is most basically described as a shared story between people. What happens is some one comes up with an idea for a story, time in history they know something about or word count prompt.

We'll use a Pirate RP for example. (That and I'm listening to the Pirates of the Caribbean sound track right now so it's fitting.)

One day, you, the author, decide "Hey I want to write about pirates and put my history knowledge to use for something exciting!" So you make a thread (more about that in a moment). Then you make up a character, or two, or five, or however many you want. You may use novel characters or a character you made up on the spot. Either is perfectly acceptable.

Next other people join. This is critical to the RP actually working. Once you, the thread creator, think that there are enough people to join, you may give the ok to starting. I know you might be giddy and ready to start this story right away, but please have patience and let people join first so that no one is left out. This rule is especially important if you start the thread while most people are at school. You'll get more joiners that way.

After that write away matey! Arg I be giving you some do's and don'ts in the next chapter so don't yee go and star a RP thread just yet matey.

To really fast close up this chapter, I'd like to leave you with the YWP rules for RP forums: (with my comments in [boxes like this!])

"Naturally, all rules of the YWP must be abided by: no sex , no cursing[more on this
later], etc. For the roleplaying forum, we have a few simple requests:

1. Only roleplays or shared worlds may be posted here, or their corresponding chat threads. [don't post a thread here JUST because you don't want to switch between the RP forums and any other forum grouping. It's called a TAB. Look into it.]

2. You may not exclude anyone. This is an open forum, and telling anyone they aren't allowed to join in isn't in the spirit of NaNoWriMo or its forums. [So saying 'this is a me and __ only RP thread!' is not nice. Nor is saying '3 people only can join!' or even 'if you're not a blond you can't join' No discrimination makes the RP world go round.]

3. Respect your fellow roleplayers/writers. It's not polite to "godmod" or "bunny" (that is, take control of someone else's character without their permission.) If they have posted guidelines for their roleplay threads, please respect them. If you don't like their guidelines... start a thread of your own! There is no limit to how many you may start, participate in, or whatever. Please note, that moderators will not be responsible for making sure people stick to the rules of individual threads. That's up to you. [More on this in the dos and don'ts.]

4. If you're not sure where to jump in, ask (usually the person who posted the thread is a good person to ask)! [more on this in the 'when is it too late to join' and dos/don'ts chapters]

5. HAVE FUN! (This should probably be rule number one. If you're not having fun, what's the point? So it's not really a rule. But it should be!) [Best rule ever!]

If you see any bad behavior, just hit the "report to moderator" button at the bottom of the offending post, and we'll review it. Also note that posts that have more than 500 comments will be closed. This isn't to bug you, it's to keep the site stable. Just go ahead and continue the thread on a new thread, and you can keep going! It might help when posting your continuation threads to include links to your old thread(s) so that people can check out what happened before. [500 means 500 people. Not 680, not 1,090 and not 803. It means 500 and make a new thread at 500 please. We all hate site crashes and together we can avoid them!]"

Here ends Chapter 1.

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Chapter 2: Common do's and don'ts

Ok so this is a basic do and don't list. I hope you find it helpful.

Don't-

1. Go against the YWP rules. No cursing (chapter 5), no gore, etc. (refer back up to the end of chapter 1 if needed.)

2. Write in 2nd person. Ever. (Example: "You are walking through the forest. You trip on a branch. You fall down and scrape your knee." Bad bad bad… and you will be shunned by most publishers if you write like that in general.)

3. Don't godmod or bunny – (I'm guilty of breaking this rule early on in my RPing endeavors)This is probably one of the more important rules. An example of godmoding is if, I have a character named Marry and you have a character Bob. Marry and Bob get into a fight and "Bob punched Mary in the Face and made her fall unconscious." Bad. Very bad. Go sit in the corner. You just made it so that Marry had no way to dodge the punch or get out of the situation and you just controlled another  character's reactions. Same goes for making another person's character do anything at all without the other Author's permission. (an exception is if the other author asked you to godmod or bunny their character. That's ok then as long as they gave you that privilege)

4. Please, please, please don't one line. One line is "Bob yawned." "Bob was bored." "Bob punched a tree." A one liner is a sentence or post that only lasts one line of the RP post. It is boring, rude and doesn't move the plot on at all. You're all writers for heavens sakes so write! You're only implying to others that you don't have enough imagination to make up a post even when your character's not in the main action at the moment.

5. Don't ever make a RP with a title like this "I'm bored, please join!" or "I have no title for this but join it anyways!" Once again, you're a writer and you should be creative. Don't make a thread until you've got a decent name. Also, a quick note don not have a RP thread that has "Oh my God!"
in the title. Some people find this very offensive. 'Gosh' is a good substitute.

6. Don't post non RP related threads. This means if you need plot help on your novel, it goes in the Plot Hospital forums NOT the RP forums just because you don't want to go in between two forums. As I said earlier, its called a TAB people. Please look into it. (Chat boats are exempt from rule 6 for some amazing reason that I cannot fathom. (A warning, the chat boaters are awesome, creative and mildly insane. It might not be a good idea to bug them unless you are one just because of their  awesomeness.))

7. Don't write in 1st person, past tense please. Unless everyone in the thread writes like that. (Exp. "I had sat down on the floor. I was having tea with the queen of England.") It's hard to tell who is talking here and it's incredibly boring. Regular 1st person ("I shot the bow and heard the thud of the arrow as it hit the tree. It felt good to know I could still hit a target") Is acceptable if the other writers don't mind you writing like that. I know a few nanoers that RP successfully in that type of 1st person and they just list the character before their post.  Most people write in a 3rd person, present tense style, (Exp. Bob walked into the room and sat down on a chair. He looked around him and sighed miserably. It was boring being a non magical person.) and not in a past tense. (Exp: "Bob had walked into the room and sat down. He had been looking around the room as he sighed miserably.")

9. Don't just randomly join RPs. A good rule of thumb is if it has 200+ posts already OR is on it's 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc thread, don't ask to join it. By then the characters have gotten to know each other and the plot is going. It makes everyone uncomfortable because the owner can't say no because of ywp rules and your character may get shunned.

10. Don't just pop into a thread for a few posts because you were bored. It's quite annoying in the middle of an intense battle to have "And Bob walked in and started singing merrily." And then never go into that thread again.

11. Do not join a RP unless you are willing to keep up. You are a writer and second most a reader. If you're not willing to re-read 5-200 posts then why are you bothering? (I have personally had to catch up on 350+ missed posts in 3 different threads after being gone at camp.)  Also, nothing is more annoying than posting a re-cap for some one… only to have another person 5 posts later ask for a recap as well. If you don't have time to keep up with posts or at least re-read the ones you missed… then please don't join a fast moving RP.

12. Do not keep making thread after thread after thread. If your idea does not take off in the first thread then wait a month and try again. After the 2nd or 3rd try of the thread just give up. No one liked the idea and it just spam up the RP thread Forum. Last year it had 90 pages of RP's and 2/3 of them were failed, re-posted over and over or "I'm bored please post" RPs. Those types don't make it and it just makes too many pages.

13. -Don't do things or leave a character behind while their author is offline or away. Sometimes an author may ok just dragging a char along if they're gone for a few days. Otherwise leave the character alone or just pause the RP until later if that works better.

Do-

1. Make a good title describing the RP thread idea you are trying to put across.

2. Make a set of rules for you RP. A good example of good some rules are found in one of the many Pirate RP threads:

(Rules:
-No magic
-No non-humans
-No overly mystic or overly odd characters.
-No offensive swearing, keep it at about 'blast' or 'darn' or 'gosh'. Don't **** or b**** so that we
could guess what it is... Pirates did swear but these pirates don't.
-No graphic or gory combat
-Keep violence to about G
-Keep romance to G (hand holding, light kissing, silly giggly comments etc.)
-No bunnying/godmoding (aka controlling, moving, making other characters react or hear something or not be able to react to anything without another authors permission.)
-No killing other's characters without permission
-No sinking, damaging, or otherwise harming other people's ships without permission. Ships are
owned by their characters so its a form of bunnying and bunnying if frowned upon
-No ironclads or steamers
-Keep it as realistic and historically accurate as possible.
-1-4 characters max please.)

These rules applied to that particular thread. The rules on types of ships and references to pirates obviously aren't relatable to all RPs. Also, if it's a murder RP or a modern RP the rules would defiantly be different. So use common sense when making your rules and always include the main YWP rules in yours.

3. Use character profiles. It's annoying and hard to keep track of characters if you just throw them in. A basic profile is:

Name:
Age:
Race: (for fantasy mostly RP's exp. Elf, dwarf, human etc.)
Apperance:
Gender:
Bio(optoional):
Peronality:
Other:

Mixing, matching and deleting parts out of this character profile are fine. Just please use one.

4. Do follow all rules, ywp or rules that are native to the thread you're joining.

5. Do be creative and fun. Add details to your post aka use all 5 senses, taste, touch, hearing, seeing and smell- well, maybe not smell but still. Character thoughts are a good way to be creative. (The code for italics on nano is <*em>word<*/em> the / is important or everything after the last <*em> will be italic. (take out the * for the code.))

6. Do use common sense. Enough said.

7. Do use (word), ((word)),{word}, {{word}}, [word] or [[word]] for out of character chat or OCC. If you, the author, needs to say something do it (inside one of the listed brackets.) Thanks!

8. Do use proper English, spelling and punctuation. Please. It makes you look smart, seem like a good writer and more readable to other authors. Most people, if they have to decipher through text talk, bad spelling and grammar or no punctuation don't even bother to read the post.

9. Write in a good format. For example:

Word word word word word word word. Word word word word word. Word
word. Word word. Word word word word word word word.

Word word word word word word word. Word word word word word. Word
word word. Word word. Word word word word word word word. Word word
word word word word word. Word word word word word. Word word word.
Word word. Word word word word word word word.

Word word word word word word word. Word word word word word. Word
word word. Word word. Word word word word word word word.

And not in a big old text block like this:

Word word word word word word word. Word word word word word. Word
word word. Word word. Word word word word word word. Word word word
word word word word. Word word word word word. Word word word. Word
word. Word word word word word word word. Word word word word word
word word. Word word word word word. Word word word. Word word.
Word word word word word word word. Word word word word word word.
Word word word word word. Word word word. Word word. Word word
word word word word word.

The first way is much easier to read and good on dyslexic minds and
headaches.

10. Keep a list of characters and the authors that play them in RP's you're in. Anything from coping the profiles they post into a document to just writing it down in a note book. It'll help you if you're bad with remembering names. Just delete or cross out anyone who drops out of the RP.

11. Have lots of fun. Role Playing is made to be a good break from the hard work of noveling in November and a great way to make friends, build characters and improve writing skills!

None of these dos or don'ts are made to be offensive. They don't have to be followed (I recommended that you do) and most of them have exceptions. So please don't take them harshly or personally. They apply to everyone in general.

Here ends the 2nd chapter.

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Chapter 3: Role Play ideas and some that just don't make it

Alright, if there are any of you from last year you know that there are a lot of ideas that are great and a lot that aren't. There were some amazingly successful plots/RP ideas out there and there were reasons for that. I will list some of the ideas that did really well and some that didn't with explanations.

Basic Ideas:

1. RP based of a book or series. Anything from the book Graceling to Percy Jackson to Peter Pan and beyond. There's a debate about using characters from the book or using characters that you made up to fit the books ideas. Either is fine as long as everyone agrees.

2. A novel idea. The Paladins vrs. Blackguard RP's were based of a novel idea I had but never used. It was about 2 groups of superheroes (that was somehow simularish to x-men EVEN though I've never seen those movies or read the comics in my life let alone a basic plot summary…) and it was quite successful.

3. Historical RP's. Use a time period in history such as pirates, medieval, Vikings, 1800's, civil war etc. You can even add a fantasy twist to all of these.

4. Characters at school. This can be fantasy, modern, realistic, romance, clichés, and everything in between.

5. Fantasy RP's in general. Anything from mermaids to dragons to fairies to elves and things like that. Just make sure you describe which type of the fantasy your RP has. Some stories have elves as 7 foot tall, pointy eared wise people. Others have them as 4 inch tall trouble makers. Be specific. This genre is unlimited.

6. Mystery. This fits almost anywhere.

7. RP with novel characters. These are for pre-made characters from your novels/stories.

8. Ideas or prompts. These include a post apocalyptic world, an underwater spy base RP, a world were everyone can see into the future etc.

9. Adventure. James Bond, Spies, find the secret crystal pieces before the world explodes, follow the clues, treasure hunts and action all go into here.

10. Real life. Owning a horse, going to school, ballet recitals, trying to make it through a recession etc. Anything that's a real life situation.

11. RP's based of a TV show. Anything from Stargate to Dr. Who and onwards and any other random TV show world that could make a great RP.

These are just 11 basic ideas that can be mixed, matched, thrown out and tweaked. Have fun making a RP thread.

3 of the most popular ideas were superheroes/powers, bounty hunters, and mad science. Some other successful ideas were historical RPs, a few based off book rps and a few romance ones. The  school rp that went to 12 threads? It still baffles me to why it went that far other than a lot of sadistic
ideas that were stretched to the breaking point. Same with the Bad Guys Evil Army thread.

Some bad ideas or warning threads:

1. Any RP that doesn't have a good title or that was made out of boredom. If you're bored go for a walk, read a book, draw a picture or heaven forbid working on your novel or talk to real life friends.

2. RP's based of novels with the characters listed out in a 'grab a character and play this person'  format. I've almost never seen this type of RP work.

3. A badly described idea, no profiles, rules or anything. The biggest key to success in a RP thread is that it has good writing, gripping explanation and a compelling plot already there. If you can't write a great idea out clearly and have a profile/rules in there the RP might not take off very well or at all.

That just about covers it.

So basically don't spam up the forums and use good, well developed ideas. It'll save time, forum
pages, hurt feelings and other nasty things that people don't like.

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Chapter 4: When is it to late to join – reading in-between the lines

This should be a short chapter.

The rules of thumb here are 200+ posts or no longer on the first thread anymore. By that point the characters have bonded, the plot is going and everything is good in that RP world. New thread and low posts on # 2 or higher does not = "Please join!" It equals "We're good NaNoer making a new thread after 500 posts so the site doesn't crash."

Here's what happens when it's past 200 posts or on a new thread:

NaNoer 1: Oh look! An interesting RP I didn't see last week! It has 250 posts but I want to try to join anyways! *goes into thread* Can I join?

Nanoer 2: Uh… sure… I mean… there's this one plot going… and these characters know each other well… and I mean there's an even number of characters… So I guess you can join…

Nanoer 1: Yay I can join!

What NaNoer 2 was really trying to say is "I can't say no because the rules state no excluding people BUT this RP will be hurt if more people join. I, nor the other RP's want any new people to join at this time. Try again in 5 threads. Maybe."

Then awkward half shunning of new characters and the new author issue usually leading to the death of a perfectly good RP or someone's feelings being hurt because they are left out.

I'm not a saint here and I've broken this rule myself in the past but this is just plain being nice and courteous to others. If you REALLY liked the idea ask if you can make a spin off of the idea. (Warning: this could result in the death of one or both RPs depending on the idea.)

There's my short little chapter on this subject.

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Chapter 5: Language – "Don't you know its bleeping rude to bleeping curse?"

Imagine this: Your little RP is going smoothly. Everyone is happy and then, "@)!#%(!!! ****!!! B*****!!! S---!!!" interrupt the RP. I know a lot of people don't mind language and use it all the time. An equal or larger number of people are offended by it.

I know there are times when my characters would love to swear up a storm but I don't let them. Even if it's against their character in general, I use some substitute.

Also, a good rule of thumb, if you wouldn't under a good temper use the word in front of a preacher then don't use it on NaNo… ever. See it was once said that 'People that use foul language are only showing that they cannot think for themselves. It is also rude, crude and a complete disgrace to that person's reputation.' – Unknown. That's a pretty good reason not to swear on NaNo.

Just for fun (and the sanity of some) I am purposing some substitution words for you all to use:

S words: Shoot, shnikeys, salamanders, schist (they're a type of rock) and Scotts (as in Great Scotts!).
F words: : Freaking, effing, fudge, and flaming flamingos. Perfectly good words
D words: Darn, drat, and dang.
G words: Gosh, gillymanders,
C words: Crud, crikey, and crap(if you have to. Some people don't like that word.)
Exclamations(no 'Oh My God!'): Oh my gosh, Oh my word, Oh my atmos, Atmos, Atmosis, D'arvit, Moster's rocks, Great Scotts, and once again Atmos (go stormhawks! *cricket chirp*)

Any other exclamations, swear words or things that aren't listed here (unless they're in another language, go with a book (like 'D'arvit' from Artemis Fowl)) Or that is acceptable that I missed, shouldn't be used on NaNo.

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Chapter 6: The 'Romance' thing

Ok guys, boys, dudes in general… I feel your pain on this subject, really I do. I don't like romance one bit. (I mean, what's so cool about swapping saliva and sappy comments? Nothing really…) But as a girl I'm pretty good at writing it if need be. The thing is, it's a natural way of life.

It always Boy meets girl, boy/girl fall in love, boy/girl are sappy and boy/girl get married and live happily ever after with about a million variables in that situation. So honestly, get used to it because it's part of everything. Being used to it doesn't mean you have to like it though.

On ywp there's some rules about it though. So… if you have a married couple and they go to bed, FADETOBLACKFADETOBLACK (aka time skip) please and don't write about that.

Kissing… well everyone does it eventually for the most part… and characters can to. Just… don't go into explicit detail about it. (like where the tongues are going. EW…too much info!) You could maybe even time skip 15 minutes into the future, (if they're even going to kiss that long. Double Ew.) or even better, have some one interrupt them creating an epically awkward situation for everyone involved!

Having kids… well I really don't want to cover this. Just be nice about this since some guys (and girls) are squirmy even thinking about it.

Everything else? Well just remember, there are 7-17 year olds on here... if you have a little sibling would you want them to read that? Let alone your parents? And even if it's not your littler sibling it is someone else's.

There, I hit the terribly awkward subject of romance and I hopefully didn't offend anyone.

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Chapter 7: Etiquette with the forums

Alright, the finally chapter. A lot of you are going "Phew! This really dumb and antagonizing guide is almost over! Yes!" Or at least I hope you're not thinking like that.

Anyways, there are some other NaNo rules we need to cover. One of the most important is the threads and 500 rule.

First, a basic terminology: A thread is the main post to a RP idea. A thread is to last 500 posts and no more. When your thread hits 500 there's a simple solution: Make a new thread.
For example… 'Random RP' just hit 499 posts. While the other posters make it hit 500 you, the thread creator or you, the person with permission to make the new thread, make it. So then it would be 'Random RP 2' or something like that. Easy right? Also, if you keep it at 500 posts the site shouldn't crash.

The biggest nightmare for a RPer is when the site crashed for 15 mins - 2 days from threads that were at 800 some posts. If we all work together to only hit 500 there will hopefully be less crashes and down time, making everyone happy!

Another thing that's really polite is to reply to the main thread, aka the first big post, and not reply to people's posts. If you reply to other author's posts then they won't be able to edit their posts at all. This leaves typos, spellos, grammos and worst of all, wrong character nameos! I personally love to go back and edit anything I've messed up spelling wise even 2 months later. I'll re-read RP's and edit stuff. So it's honestly not hard to reply to just the main thread. If you can't remember what the person posted that you need to reply to? Copy/Paste their post into your new one and then delete it out when you're done re-reading it for posting reasons.

Also, on another note there is a wonderful set of people on NaNo called 'Forum moderators' These are the wonderful people that lock threads at 500 in case some one forgets and they keep RPing. These people also keep the ywp a nice, safe place for everyone. They lock up threads that look like they're turning into a nasty fight, help stop the rare but annoying thread spammers and kindly remind us not to use bad words, or break ywp  rules.

Send these nice people a thank you note for all the work they do and help make their job easier by being a respectful, courteous RPer.

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After word

Ok people. I hope this guide has been a great help to you all, old timers and newbie's alike. Remember, I'm not trying to offend anyone or single people out, this is just a book of my observations in a hope to make the RP world a little smoother and friendlier.

To sum it all up, be nice, use common sense and don't be rude. Consider other's feelings and follow the rules. Not that hard.

You can nanomail or PM me any time you want with question, comments or concerns (not complaints please) and I'll be happy to help you. Also, feel free to use the "Help" forums on NaNo or to nanomail/PM the moderators. They're nice people who will answer your questions.

Thank you to MynaOpheila, PenMaster, AlohaAuthor7, TBstorycrafter and all the NaNo RP people for your ideas, support and for creating threads to observe.

Happy RPing to everyone!

-AJ-