Post by Lance McClain on Jan 1, 2007 5:02:48 GMT -5
ROLEPLAY GUIDE
The main objective of role-playing for is to develop your "persona" or to match wits with your opponents. Role-playing is judged by such a large plethora of criteria that there is no single way to be successful. However, the following guidelines should aide anyone in developing their Role-playing skills.
Opener: Settings, scene and surroundings. Introduction to main characters.
You have roughly 10-20 seconds to get someone into your roleplay. This is the part that will make or break you. So make it very interesting and make sure your reader can picture everything clearly.
Set up: Introduction to supporting characters and set up for the main events of the roleplay.
Now that your reader is still reading you can use this time to set up what is going to be happening in the roleplay.
Event: Main event of the roleplay whether it be a promo or activity.
This is where you install the "meat" of the roleplay. The "body" if this were a letter. The main actions. You can lose your readers if this part is not interesting.
Wrap Up: Start ending your roleplay.
Don't drag your roleplay on and on until someone falls asleep. Start wrapping it up.
Pay Off: Happy ending? Sad Ending? Make sure you end it.
Make sure your roleplay has some closure and an ending of some kind. "To be continued" comes across as lazy. You should consider using "Part 2 coming soon." instead. The ending should be a pay off for your reader, they should be rewarded with a good ending like any story.
The final words in a typical roleplay are: "The scene fades", "Fin", "The picture fades to black", etc.
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1. SPELLING AND PUNCTUATION:
Make sure you spell all of the words you use right. Go back and double check if needed, but just try to catch the spelling errors and typos as you write. Make sure you leave spaces between words, so DON'T write like these examples... Bad Examples.
"youre dead!ill bete you in the ring!big dammy!"
"Your dead, I'll beat you in the ring on monday"
In The first example, the main problem was someone who is obviously illiterate wrote it. No capital letters, no spaces, it was pathetic. In the second, it was good except for two things. They spelled "Your" wrong, it should've been "You're" in that use of it. And at the end, there was no period. (IMO, it's alright if you screw up sometimes, just not all the time. Then it just becomes annoying.)
2. DON'T PUSH THE LENGTH OF THE ROLE PLAY:
Don't feel like you need to write an 11K roleplay every time. It will get boring for you and the reader and it will be obvious that you were just trying to get it to be really long. Just make your roleplays interesting and make sure they have quality, that's more important. But don't write 1K flashes either, because those are about 3 sentences and you can't get anything good done in three sentences. The average flash is about 3-5K with good quality. Don't make 11K or 1K flashes that are boring or pointless, it's just a waste of time. If you write the flash and it ends up to be 11K in the end, then it's okay because you weren't just trying to make it really long. (I don't get the 11k, 1k thing either, but I'm sure you get the general point.)
3. BE DESCRIPTIVE:
(Obviously, the more descriptive the better. Just don't go and hum-- Uh, love on your thesaurus too much. Using a mega load of huge words that require a dictionary to understand makes the post look incredibly bad, in my opinion.)
4. DON'T USE ENDLESS PAUSING:
Don't use a ton of ..........ing just to make your RP longer.
Bad Examples:
I......................am................. ..........coming............................. .................for......................... you.
Five words that took up two lines and looked really stupid. I always use 3 periods when indicating a pause. That's how Hollywood script writers do it...and so do I.
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T1 Guide!
This is a mock lesson of T1 Fighting that I didn't create to help guide those who don't know what T1 Fighting is. This is a recreation scene of Buffy from BtVS fighting a vampire in the graveyard of Sunnydale. If you need further instruction, i'm sure people will be willing to help.
1. The first step to T1 fighting is to have a sort of introductory paragraph stating the location of your character. This T1 fight will take place between Buffy and a vampire.
Buffy sat on top of a grave marker in the Sunnydale cemetery. The night had been quiet with little action from the un-dead. Buffy rolled the wooden stake she had been carrying between her hands and looked around the graveyard.
2. T1 Fighting is very similar to basic role-playing in paragraph form. You must write out the actions of every movie leaving room for your opponent to anticipate, block, or counter your attack. Here is a example of a small attack by the second person in the fight, a vampire:
A freshly turned vampire broke through the soil of the grave below Buffy's feet. He could smell the Slayer from inside his confining casket. Half way out of the ground, he grabbed onto the unsuspecting Slayer's ankle, his sharpened fingernails scrapping against her pant leg.
3. Usually the second post in a T1 fight is a combination of introductory and the first action. The golden rule of T1 fighting is you can never decide your opponent's fate in your post. You must always leave it to you opponent to make the result.
Buffy was slightly alarmed by the vampire's sudden appearance. Its tight grasp around her ankle was nothing compared to the cheap tactics they've played on her before. Buffy quickly jolted her leg up attempting to break the grasp of the vampire's hold.
4. See how Buffy's post didn't decide whether or not the vampire let go? That is the only basic fact of T1 role-playing. Here is an example of how to throw a proper T1 punch.
Buffy balled her fingers into a fist and raise her arm up. Extending her arm outwards, Buffy threw her fist in the direction of the vampire's face. Her aim was for the bridge of the nose and rarely did she ever miss.
The vampire reeled back as the Slayer's fist smashed into his face. His legs flipped out from under him as he toppled over a gravestone. Blood trickled from his nostrils, as he lay flattened out on his back. The Slayer would pay for that.
5. Those are the basics of T1 role-playing.
T2 Guide!
The method in T2 fighting was simply to get your posts in the fastest. For example:
Demona slashes at you with her sword.
Demona slices into your arm.
Kerrick blocks with his shield.
The character Kerrick would lose this particular strike, and supposedly be sliced in the arm. Attacks were not usually even this specific, however, and most posts gave no clarification as to where the strikes were aimed. This caused problems. Slow connection speeds and copy/paste maneuvers bred complaints and, for the most part, the results of the battles were completely ignored.
(We believe you need at least five words for a valid hit, and seven words for a valid dodge. Which would make the examples wrong. But, anyways, this is the lesser used fighting style of the two and will probably never happen on this forum.)