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Post by Vas Niltere on Sept 19, 2006 12:36:36 GMT -5
Welcom to the RPG Guidebook, made by the Brain.
Here I hope to give you a lot of tips on how to be a good role player and more importantly how to set up your own top grade role play.
I will set this up on a post by post basis, each post covering a different subject. Here in this first post is the index.
Post #1: The Index: You're looking at it. Post #2: Role Play in general: What is a Role Play: a brief description. Post #3: Ask Yourself: Why are you role playing? Post #4: Role Playing specifics: How to be a good role player. Post #5: An interesting Character Post #6: Interaction within the environment. Post #7: Good Stories Post #8: Participating in stories Post #9: Submitting good advice.
Post #10: How To Set Up A Good Role Play Board Post #11: The Rules say... Post #12: Admin Problems
Post #13: The Ever present Miscelenious information
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Post by Vas Niltere on Sept 19, 2006 12:37:38 GMT -5
What is an online text based Role Play You see these things all over the net. Some are really busy, some aren't very active, some are crazy, some are moderate. But they are all Role Plays of one form or another. If you are a parent and you child is on one of these and you are worried, let me tell you what a role play should be. *Drum roll* An Online Text Based Role Play Should Be People Getting Together To Write Ongoing Stories! That is it in a nutshell. A rp is at it's orrigins is a bunch of people getting together and sharing cool ideas that coalate into stories. If the role play you are on is something else then you should probably help it get on the right track. On this same note I guess I should list a few examples of things as close to non rpgs as you can get. Powermoding. (A Text role play whose purpose is to get more power for your characters so that you can beat off all the little noobs who come along.) Admin dictatorships. (You really have little or no influence on what is going on unless you are an admin or the admins like you. you can't help write the stories or make your own.) Smutboards (We are here to F each other.) I am sure you recognize these and have most likely been on a few of them. These are the lowest form of role play there is. Which leads me into the next post.
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Post by Vas Niltere on Sept 19, 2006 17:51:58 GMT -5
Why Are You In This? I want you to answer to yourself honestly, Why are you text based role playing? If your answer is, Well I have this cool guy who can kick the crap out of your guy. Then you are sadly not in the right place. I advise you to join something like runescape or some other roleplay because We are not about whose character is better/stronger/faster/whatever. If your answer is, I dunno, I was bored. Well you should stay and see if we can help you with that boredom. Maybe we can even teach you something. Boredom is evil and should die.. If your answer is, Well I have an interesting story and I would like to share it. To you I say, I hope that you are going to put this story into the appropriet world. For this world of earth sea sky you should probably not have nukes or dragons in your story. But I am sure there are other boards where people will find these intriguing. If your answer is, I saw the world and It looked like a fun place I would like to play, share ideas, and make stories. Then you can play on any place you would like. You are an awesom Role player and any role play would be happy to have you and let you help out. You should be able to make a lot of good stories.
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Post by Vas Niltere on Sept 19, 2006 20:11:34 GMT -5
What Makes A good Role Player? This question has often been asked but unfortunately there has not been a suficent answer. I do not claim to have the perfect answer but I do have one that I feel is suficient. A good role Player should have a few qualities. 1. The characters they make are interesting. 2. The characters they play recognize things about other characters and mention them. 3. they come up with interesting stories. 4. they participate in other peoples stories effectively. 5. they understand they system under which they play but they make usefull sugjestions on fixing it. I will be the first to admit that I struggle a lot with point #2. This does not mean that I am a bad role player but it does mean that I have an area to improve in. On the flip side: a Bad role player will exibit these signs. 1. They make characters and then try to to make them uber powerful. 2. They do not view the scenario with a new point of view. 3. Their stories and plots are unoriginal and are only ment to give them more power. 4. They try to focus so much on their own story that it is hard for anyone to get this role player involved in any other stories. 5. They constantly insult the system without providing sugjestment for improvements. The next five posts will expound on how to improve in each of these points and how to spot bad behaviors in each of these points.
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Post by Vas Niltere on Sept 19, 2006 20:31:25 GMT -5
An Interesting Character Follow this equation carefully. Power does not Equal interesting. Perfection does not equal good. Role Players who build a lot of Power or Perfection into their characters will often be laughed at and scorned by the manny and loved by the few. "But How Do I Make My Character Interesting If Power Isn't?" You now ask in complete stupor. History, Complexity, and holding to it, make a character interesting. The more History your character has, no matter how dull it seems, the more you will have to draw personality from. Explain why your person is angry at such and such or why he draws away from people, or why your character is happy/ insane. whatever. Complexity. this is the hardest one to explain. Your character should have multiple reasons behind each action they make. If they only have one then they are a pretty predictable and stagnant character. Say we were sitting in a cafe and we are having a plesent conversation then you mention something that isn't so offensive and I get angry and refuse to talk to you any more. Why didn't I hit you, Why did I get angry. More then one reason for what I am doing? yes. ok not a verry good example but try to explain why you do the things you do. Holding To It. Your Character should seem real. If they keep changing their opinions or if their past keeps changing or seems unreal then you seem less interesting and more filipent. Make your character come alive by never breaking character. One last thing that I didn't mention before. There are Flat Characters and there are interesting characters. Flat characters are completly absorbed in the present and never ever draw from their past and never in any way explain their reasons for doing what their doing. Round characters keep bringing up their past often and use it to explain why they are doing what they are doing. On the Flip Side, Avoiding the Bad Habbits. I have seen, in fact in my earliest played, characters who just kept getting more and more powerful. An example of this was a character I met on a role play, lets call him Bob. Bob seemed to mimic whatever the other players were doing. One player would get on and suddenly Bob would be a master at the skill that the new player would be training in. Another Player would get on and suddenly Bob would be a master at the skill that this other new player was training in too. And No matter what problem would come up, Bob would have some crazy solution to it right on the spot. And then there was me. I had a problem with alwase avoiding getting hit. this was not a good thing either. Onto the next post.
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Post by Vas Niltere on Sept 19, 2006 20:40:59 GMT -5
Interaction with the environment This is probably the hardest skill to get trained in. there is this quote from a famous actor, "A good actor is someone who mimes the opening of a door, steps in, and closes the door." Often times the bad actors will leave the door open. Don't read into this too much. All I am saying is that people don't mention or react to a lot of good details. I have met one role player who has this skill down, ofcourse he has a good life and he cannot post as often as I wish he would, but still. He was one of the first to mention the odd color of my character's eyes in his first post replying to mine. I never mentioned the color of my eyes. He reacted to things that I wrote and the things that I hadn't written. It was amazing. On the Flip Side. Avoiding bad habbits. People who exibit the bad side of this trait will simply repeat what has happened in the last peoples posts. they don't react a whole lot. most of their post is devoted to recalling what was going on.
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Post by Vas Niltere on Sept 20, 2006 17:31:44 GMT -5
Interesting Stories I know it is all fine and dandy to save the nation/world/universe/(insert something larger) however this is not alwase a good choice. When you make a plot where if X hero Fails then the whole world gets plunged into darkness/destruction(whatever) it limits the fun of a lot of other people, because 1. only the X named heroes can handle the problem 2. They are going to succeed, and there is no question about it. 3. It has been done tons of times before. A good story/plot/situation should include most of these points. 1. Something Dear to the heart of the heros or other characters is at stake. 2. The Protagonists and the Antagonists are both good characters. (see above post.) 3. It has twists and turns. 4. The Scenes are well planned out in some way. 5. More then one character can get involved. 6. The plot is generally orriginal and has a lot of information on what is going on. On the Flip Side. Bad plots have. 1. Everything is at stake all the time. 2. one or both characters have little motive for what their doing other than the Grab for power. 3. It is strait forward battle after battle and the good guy wins most of them. 4. There was no thought even to purpose of a thread/scene and so you just keep swinging or shooting your weapon. 5. It is generally a really powerfull good guy and a really powerfull bad guy and if the bad guy wins then everyone looses. 6. It contains all the other five bad points and so has been done too manny times before on TV shows.
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Post by Vas Niltere on Sept 20, 2006 17:41:28 GMT -5
But How do I participate in other peoples Stories? Two Words. Brain Storm. The PM system is alwase up, but if you can get together on IM it works a little better, Face To Face works best. But what I am getting at is that you should talk to your fellow players in OOC: (for you who are new to the role play community this means Out of Character) and see if you can add to people stories or get more information on what is going on. It also helps other people getting involved in YOUR plots if you post somewhere out of character what is going on in the plot or the scene and the scenery. It makes it so that people don't have to infer what is going on. I can not tell you how manny times I have seen (sometimes even led, to my shame) Plots where there is verry little information given, it is the "big mystery plot" and so we follow one character and he gives out everything that is happening and lets all the other people react to it. (or pretty much just repeat what is happening. "And suddenly a Bear jumped out of the woods." "AHH She screams as the bear jumps out of the woods." "As he saw the Bear Jump out of the woods, So and So Pulled out his sword." Everyone just keeps mentioning the stupid bear jumping out of the woods.") If your plot information is up somewhere then other people can refer to that, and if it is good enough they might start their own threads for your plot. It is a fun Idea. I hope we can make it happen.
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Post by Vas Niltere on Sept 20, 2006 17:48:02 GMT -5
What Is Good Advice This is an example of bad advice, "This site sucks, you suck, you should suck yourself haha, and eat turtds." This is an example of good advice "I have noticed a lot of people have been posting in X main board and saying they are in X place, I think there should be a subboard for X place in X main board to cut down on some of the sugjestion." Or, "There is a lot of old threads, Is there someone who is supposed to clear those out? If not I could do so or my friend could do so." there is a lot of good advice that can be given to any site you just need to find a way to improve it and sugjest it. Next Up. Building your own Role Play.
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Post by Vas Niltere on Sept 22, 2006 7:39:42 GMT -5
Well The System is Cool But I want to put it to a Different World? So you don't like the world I've Created for you. I don't mind. Everyone has their own world and most of them are pretty good. But I didn't entirly design this site because I thought my world was cool. My Friend Drake Soul and I made this site because of the Cool Ideas and the System that it is built on. We hope you will take the system and apply it to different worlds. (unless you just like pumping up your characters.. then don't ruin our system by taking it.) Well I will go over the basic Ideals that this system was made on and how I fixed the problems in the next few posts. The Problems were thus. The Rules of other Role Plays limited creativity in the effort to restrain from the making of godlike characters. The Admin's were the only ones running the Show. The Admin's characters were too strong, almost like godmoded characters. Or the Admins didn't follow the rules. The "No Godmoding" rule was carried to such amazing extreems that any person could just say they keep dodging. Orriginality is hard to come by on role plays.
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Post by Vas Niltere on Sept 27, 2006 12:16:14 GMT -5
The Rules Say... This is the biggest problem I have with most role plays. The Rules say don't do this don't do that.. But they never encourage people to do the other. Most role play sites build their rules so that no character can become way more powerful then the other, or the're made to not offend people. Well this poses quite a problem. How does one make the rules so that Godmoding is impossible but you can still use almost any idea you want. The Answer is Loopholes. It took me about 3 hours to think up the appropriet rules in such that the really bad stuff like profanities and permiscuity and blowing holes in people are already cut back but also make it so that you have to earn the right to do crazy things like take on two benifits at once, (Two secret societies.) I call it a delicate art of writing rules that both cover nothing and cover everything at once. If you want a good example of a set of decent rules look at the rules on this site. These rules were designed specifically for encouraging orriginality among members, and promote the idea of writing stories not comming to power.
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Post by Vas Niltere on Sept 27, 2006 21:41:30 GMT -5
Admin Problems Admins should be kept to a minimum. Admins should have very few responsibilities. 1. Design site and world for people to play in. 2. Designate the moderation system and people. 3. Help out in major disputes. 4. Handle major requests from members. That is all they need to do. Their characters really need to be prety nomral run of the mill characters. They should not get any special powers as characters. They should not be the only one's running plots. I will not let any one become an admin with ambition extending upon these responsibilities. Otherwise they are just supposed to be good Role Players (see above posts.)
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Post by Vas Niltere on Oct 4, 2006 20:51:50 GMT -5
The Ever Present Miscelanious Stuff Ok There is a lot of this Misc stuff and It will take me time to remember each one.. So we will start with what I can think of at the moment. Killing off characters Killing off characters really isnt a bad thing and the practice of doing so is definitely lower then should be. People die in real life and so People should be able to Die on a Role Play. And if they don't go out dying then they should go out some other way such as leaving the confines of the world given to the characters or simply fading from existence. Killing a character off can be a powerful event in which a lesson can be taught to the rest of the characters. I am too distracted right now to think of any of those lessons but if you can think of them then good for you. Also I know of plenty of people who enjoy making characters more then they enjoy playing characters. For them loosing characters is a good thing because then they can keep in a constant state of exploring and developing new characters.
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