RPing Guide (Please Rate)

[Protégé (Gone)]

Okay, everyone, I've decided that in order to help the RPing world, I'd post some RPing guides that I wrote for old avaren. These are actually two separate guides (although one was actually a rant), and its clear where they branch off. I could have doctored them together, but I was doing enough adding and omitting to make it so that they applied better to here and now. So, please read and rate.

NOTE: NO ONE WAS TARGETED WITH THESE. THESE ARE FOR THE PURPOSE OF BENIFITTING THE SITE AND THE RPING WORLD HERE, NOT FOR SOLVING SOME GRUDGE. IF YOU FEEL YOU HAVE BEEN TARGETED OR DISLIKE WHAT I SAY BECAUSE YOU DO IT, DON'T VOTE ME DOWN FOR IT, FOR THAT IS A PETTY FORM OF REVENGE, MAKES PEOPLE LOOK DOWN ON YOU EVEN MORE, AND THE ADMINS CAN FIND OUT WHO VOTED WHAT.

As I sit here in front of my computer and read topics, I notice large differences in the qualities of the RPers. Some people have posts that seem like novels compared to some other people's posts. I believe I speak for many when I say that it might annoy people when they have 3 or 4 paragraph posts, and yet someone else only posts 2 or 3 sentences. Back on old Avaren, I asked Kalim, and he said, "Unless the person actually addresses everything I said effectively, it really annoys me." Very often, it is difficult for a person to address everything in a short post. Of course, sometimes you don't have to address everything, but I think we get the gist of what Kalim is saying. And I agree with him, it can be frustrating when you put a lot of hard work into a post and have to chop it up because of a reply.

That's what inspired me to type up this tipsheet on how to RP well, not just covering posts, but how your character should be and also a little unspoken rules thing so you know when you can reply and when you can’t.

Now, some of you may be reading this and wonder, "What is there to gain from RPing long posts? It just cuts into my time." Well, I can tell you one thing: if you post long and have really high quality posts, loads of people will want to RP with you. Also, you got to look at the advantage in fights. If there were a fight, I believe that if you had a higher quality post, your post may cover more situations, so you don’t get into a fight with the other RPer if they try to dodge an attack or attack you when you couldn’t miss/be attacked. Now, I can think of loads of people who have said, "Why is it so difficult for me to find someone to RP with?" or "What do you mean I can't do that?". Here is your answer.

First, we got to understand what a good quality post is. Here is my definition, and other RPers agree with this: A 3-4 paragraph post, or 2 long paragraphs, that address everything in the post(s) before, with plenty of detail, and good grammar and spelling. In a fight, a good quality post can be 1 paragraph long. Now that we have established what a good quality post is, we can get down to figuring out how to turn a 2-3 sentence post into a good one.

Some of you may be giving up already, thinking, "How am I supposed to make a post 3 or 4 paragraphs long?" Well, a lot of it is detail. If you pack in detail, you can easily make a nice long post. In my entrance topic, I even went as far as to mention the dust raised by Protégé's footsteps. When you put in a lot of detail, people take notice, and higher quality RPers will be happier with you. Also, if you put in detail, more ideas will come to you, and you can put those in. Pack them all together and you got a fairly nice looking post. However, to make it, as the GMC commercials say, "professional grade", you got to add in the good spelling in grammar. I'm not talking pulling out a thesaurus and using the most complicated words that come to mind, I'm just talking about checking your spelling, keeping correct verb tense, and having capital letters and apostrophes and stuff like that. And as a final note, read over your post once or twice. Look for areas where you can input detail, or typos, or spelling or grammar mistakes. Do all I've said, and I would be suprised if you don't have a really good post.

Now, what about your character? Some things that you may regard is unimportant are actually very important. For example, the username. Whenever I am searching for a topic I may be interested to post in, the first thing I do is scan the list of topics there, instead of checking each topic. I use the title and the username to help me out. A good title is important, for it gives insight into what the topic is about, and also it may show if the person is good with grammar and spelling. But the username is something I notice most. I have seen 3 different styles for a username: use your AIM name or something like that, create a name, or use a name from a book. The AIM name I frown on, unless it is changed so the display name is an actual name. I never post with someone who has numbers in their name, unless the number is of some relevance. Creating a name is good, for it leaves you free to build your character however you want because of its lack of connection to anything. Using a name from a book can be good or bad. If you use a name from a book but don’t RP as that character but instead just use the name, I’m okay with that. However, if you use a name from a book and RP yourself as that character, I will never RP with you, and others might not either. Using a name and the character from the book makes people think you are unoriginal, and that means that people will very likely look down on you and not want to post with you unless they really want posts. I do not value status that much that I will go for lower quality.

Also, when making your character, I would advise that you make the personality original, not a stereotype, and then work from there. However, I would advise that you make a personality that people will enjoy dealing with. I have a feeling people might be a little concerned about RPing with a person who cut their wrists and OD on drugs. Yes, that is original and not often seen, but it isn’t exactly the most charming of characters. I’ve seen a homicidal maniac get more posts. And on his board, it was allowed for him to kill your character without permission. You can give your character a negative attitude, they can have bouts of depression, but don’t make someone who the only cure for is alcohol or death.

Now, you want to maintain a presence on the site where people would like you, so they’d want to RP with you. This means that you obey a few unspoken rules of RPers. One, if you are in a topic with someone, don’t godmod their actions. At all. Even if it’s not a fight, it is still not a good quality and can frustrate people, who may have to bend themselves to do what you said. If this ever happens to me in a topic, I will not go along with what you said, I will yell at you till you change it. Also, if in a topic, a person has posted, a person replied, and the first person posted, the topic is really too far along for you to join in without permission. The two people may be planning a way for the topic to go, so by that time, you should ask both members of the topic for permission to butt in, although I would advise actually making your own topic elsewhere. The third rule I have is take what happens. If something doesn’t go how you want it to, don’t complain and annoy everyone. If an instructor rejects you, he had good reason to. If events in a topic don’t go the way you want, you have suddenly discovered that people aside from you have free will. If you can’t take a plot and shape it how you want, then you’ve discovered that you ain’t the boss. So just deal with what you get and don’t be an annoyance to the world about it. Those are the rules for now.

As I browse around the site, even though I know I should be posting, my nitpicker side takes over so I start looking for mistakes in other people's posts. As I read through them, one error jumps out at me, which vastly annoys me. It is what I call overempowerment, which means "giving oneself a large amount of power in some way, shape, or form due to a lack of restrictions in the ways they can empower themselves". I have seen it happen in a few forms, but I will give you the most basic forms it comes in. I assume that if you are smart enough to RP here, you can take and figure out what other forms of overempowerment there are. Of course, since the administrators have told me that they would like to reduce this and would be willing to crack down harder on it, I think if there is any doubt you will learn.

First, let me explain the main ways that overempowerment can occur. First off, it can occur through the character's past, as in training or experiences they say they have had. Secondly, it can occur through the way of how the person is now, as in race, effects of the past, things like that. Thirdly, it can occur through exploiting the lack of restriction on what the class of character can do. That's why I'm typing this paper up for free, to see an end to this stuff.

Let me explain the first one, which I don't see that often but you can tell its there through how people will use incredibly complicated techniques in their first fight in the site. I am talking about the past influences. Okay, I understand it is possible for your character to have been trained in every school or magic and can turn the earth into a smoldering pile of ash in an eyeblink. Too bad, you ain't allowed to do that. That's what I think should happen. I have seen a character post that they were trained by elves and got gifts from elves. Unfortunately, that means nothing. I understand your need to make yourself feel special, but I don't give a damn. Yes, it is human nature to want more power, to be more dominating. But you control that in real life, don't you? If you wanted to be powerful and dominating, you would probably lift weights and eat little to become a huge hulking intimidating figure, and then beat people up to show you think you are the boss. But with RPing sites, you believe you can do that with no work. Sorry, but I say that ends. I believe you should be allowed rudimentary skills, but if you want more, its a trade off. You want your character to be more agile and flexible, able to run quickly? Fine, I will allow you more of that than average, but you gotta give up weapon skill or strength for that. You cannot say that your character if much faster than anyone else and your weapons have a life of their own and you can destroy everything (at another site, I once got in an argument and a person said that to me using those exact words. I'm suprised they managed to spell "a" right.). Imagine that you came to Avaren with nothing except a basic weapon (like a sharpened stick or an iron sword) after having some small training but mostly just sitting at your house eating, blinking, and breathing. It's like playing a game where you design the character: you can make yourself any way you want within reason cosmetically, but you can't have them so skilled that they can beat everything with a single blow.

Now for the second point, the way the character is now. I have been wanting to rant about this "elf" stuff for awhile (e.g., my character is an elf, my character was trained by elves, my character has elvin stuff). Even though what the elf thing I am about to say will seem as if it applies only to elves, it doesn't. It goes for anything other than human (elf is just such a good example, because then the people who do this will see me referring to them and get pissed off about it, thus arguing with me and I can shoot down what they say with administrator support probably, and then they can either fix it or leave). The admins have not referred to any specifications as for what an elf is or can do. I could have Protege be an elf, and say that they have dog like hearing, the speed of a cheetah, the dexterity of an Olympic gymnatist, the strength of God, the magical skill of a master, and unbelievable powerful weapons made from some metal unknown to man through secret forging ways that give them special powers and allow them to chop through anything. Why could I do that? Because B.T.A. (Before This Article), the administrators did not think too much of it so they did not map out restrictions about it. I am. It is as I said before, no elf stuff, nothing other than human. And as for other things about the way thy are now (maybe born with a special magical spell contaminating them that made them more skillful, or junk like that), I'll say that you can probably maybe have something special in your history, but nothing that gives you an advantage over regular man.

Lastly, and my favorite part, exploiting the lack of restrictions on class things. First off, let me point out something. Read the damned level thing in the positions thread. Anyway, onto the other forms. I have seen an RPer (coincidentally, one of the offenders of what I just said, the level 4 but not level 4 thing) who apparently is studying neuromancy, yet apparently can shapeshift into at least 2 forms and can control water. For one, I would say even a level 3 person who is going to go on the shapeshifter tree could not change anything other than their human appearance. Two, I would say even a person who is planning on having water as the element they master fist in the elementalist skill tree is using too much control for not even being an elementalist, but, then again, I think a level 3 elementalist would only be able to work with pre-existing materials (they cannot automatically use it, like a level 3 person planning on freezing a tree with no water around) and even then only loosely. To my knowledge, you can only go on one path on the skill tree. It is something that exists, it's called specialization. A person cannot be a doctor of everything, so they are a brain surgeon or a heart surgeon or a doctor of diagnostic medicine. Therefore, a mage cannot use powers from more than one skill tree, and a member of the militia can only use their chosen weapon on the path, though I think we could allow maybe a small knife around level 4. ((NOTE: This next part was something that had happened on old avaren, hence the judges. So you can ignore this or take wisdom from what this says and not repeat this guys mistakes.)) Also, as a final note, I know the admins will agree with me on this, the spells created by Justin are not official spells and therefore do not work. I have asked judges and they agree, if you say your character used one of his spells the admin will say it does nothing, anything after the spell is null and void, and you are completely open to attack, or you have lost because you used a spell of his to protect yourself from an attack but they don't work and you are hit.

Thank you for taking your time to read this. Have a nice day.


Lot of typing there.

EDIT: If you have anything to add, say it. But don't just restate what I said to sound smart. It has happened before, and it vastly annoys me.

[Delia Ellatar]

I thought I ought to address a few things in this little tip sheet. I do certainly hope that as a Grand Magus and thus one of the so-called administrators, my opinion will hold some weight with the masses.

"Well, I can tell you one thing: if you post long and have really high quality posts, loads of people will want to RP with you."
That holds some weight, to a point. However, if your post is so incredibly long and boring, and your character randomly picks up a leaf and procedes to discuss the kind of tree it comes from at great length, people will likely NOT want to take the effort of reading and responding to it.

"A 3-4 paragraph post, or 2 long paragraphs, that address everything in the post(s) before, with plenty of detail, and good grammar and spelling."

That's by no means an unrealistic length, however, I wouldn't call it a requirement for a good post. One can easily address the contents of a 3-4 paragraph post in a few sentences, in the case of the many RPers I've seen who create those long posts but really don't say all that much. I really enjoy a good long post if something interesting is being said throughout it. However, if you're constantly repeating the same thought or stretching it out with pointless details, it's really no fun to read.

"If you pack in detail, you can easily make a nice long post. In my entrance topic, I even went as far as to mention the dust raised by Protégé's footsteps."

Pointless details can add interest to a post, to a point. There's nothing wrong with mentioning the way things look around you, but when you go into a paragraph long rant about the exact shape the dust took in the air, nobody is really going to be interested in reading about it. It's in the shape of a butterfly? Oh really. Who cares?

"Some things that you may regard is unimportant are actually very important. For example, the username."

People will definitely take you more seriously if your character has an actual name. Just in case you don't know, you can change how your name appears in your profile. In case you don't know how to modify your profile, go to your profile and click "modify profile" at the top. It's really quite simple.

"However, if you use a name from a book and RP yourself as that character, I will never RP with you, and others might not either."

Characters taken directly from books or movies are against the rules.

"I have a feeling people might be a little concerned about RPing with a person who cut their wrists and OD on drugs."

Since this is a medieval setting, behavior like that wouldn't really be time appropriate. I would like it point out that when creating your character, you should be trying to create someone that makes sense in the setting. As in, your character shouldn't show up wearing jeans and a t-shirt, they shouldn't talk "gangsta", and they probably don't dye their hair burgundy with hot pink highlights either. (However, if you were to say their hair was like that naturally, there technically wouldn't be anything wrong with that, but people might not take it very seriously. Your character doesn't need to have a really exceptional appearance to be noticed. He or she should be noticed for his or her personality, instead, or by his or her actions.)

"One, if you are in a topic with someone, don’t godmod their actions. At all. Even if it’s not a fight, it is still not a good quality and can frustrate people, who may have to bend themselves to do what you said."

Any instance in which you dictate the actions of a character you are posting with that is not yours or you do not have permission from, you are god modding. God modding, powerplaying, and God RPing, all different names for this kind of RPing no-no, are against the rules of this site.

"The third rule I have is take what happens. If something doesn’t go how you want it to, don’t complain and annoy everyone."

Just as life, things in the RPing world do not always go as planned. You cannot control the actions of those around you, and if you don't like them, as long as their actions are within the rules of the site, there is nothing you can do about it. You can pleasantly ask them via PM to delete their post if you were planning a private plot, but if they refuse, don't come crying to the administration about it. They are well within their rights.

"As I read through them, one error jumps out at me, which vastly annoys me. It is what I call overempowerment, which means "giving oneself a large amount of power in some way, shape, or form due to a lack of restrictions in the ways they can empower themselves"."

Overempowerment is definitely an issue. Though it is hard to truly control the amount of power characters have through rules, I do have somewhat of a rule of thumb. If you are in a confrontation with someone of much higher rank, the person you are fighting is going to have more power than you in general. Not to say that the cause it utterly hopeless, for if you can out-RP or out-smart them with your more limited powers, you do have a fighting chance. Secondly, your odds of winning decrease greatly if you are outnumbered.

"Of course, since the administrators have told me that they would like to reduce this and would be willing to crack down harder on it, I think if there is any doubt you will learn."

I don't remember ever having that conversation with you, and I haven't heard of any of the other admins doing so. I am quite intrigued to know who these administrators you speak of are.

"Let me explain the first one, which I don't see that often but you can tell its there through how people will use incredibly complicated techniques in their first fight in the site. I am talking about the past influences. Okay, I understand it is possible for your character to have been trained in every school or magic and can turn the earth into a smoldering pile of ash in an eyeblink."

When you come to this site, you are automatically a militia or an apprentice. This means that you have had very limited experience with your field, or are an incredibly slow learner. If you had developed such abilities, you would have been promoted to a higher rank. Since you cannot reach a higher rank without increasing your post count, you cannot show up with skills like these that do not fit with your rank.

"It is as I said before, no elf stuff, nothing other than human."

I'll quote a conversation I had with the primary admin:

Me: oh, are there ONLY humans on this planet?
Cain: no
Cain: there's whatever people really want their character to be
Cain: BUT
Cain: it can't be used as an excuse for powers
Me: ah
Cain: like saying you're superior simply because you're an elf, for example

So there you have it. You can be whatever you want to be, but you don't get special powers because of it. If you want to be an elf, that's fine, but you have the exact same abilities that you would have if you were human.

"I think a level 3 elementalist would only be able to work with pre-existing materials."

There is no such thing as a level 3 elementalist. At level three, if you choose to follow that path in the skill tree, you are a sorcerer. On that note, to my knowledge, you do not master any particular element until you reach level 4. It does not matter the order in which you master them.

"I know the admins will agree with me on this, the spells created by Justin are not official spells and therefore do not work."

Then I suppose you "know" incorrectly, because there are no such things as official spells. You are limited only by your rank's abilities and your own imagination.

Seriously, this is an RPing site. We are here to have fun. Although there are some limitations to what you can do, it is best to keep them to a minimum because when there are so many ridiculous rules, RPers become stifled by them. Sites like these are about fun and imagination, not about competing for who can make the longest post, and making people who are new to RPing feel bad or inferior.

While I do encourage improvement, I do not insist that it is something that happens overnight. Slowly, you will learn how to write better quality posts, and one day become one of the esteemed RPers that everyone admires.

Just have fun! Never tell yourself that a post is not long enough to be suitable, because a short post that is interesting and says everything that needs to be said is far better than a drawn out novella that is boring and full of repetition and pointless insignificant details. If you mention a detail, it should be to paint a better image in the mind of the reader, or it should become of significance later in the thread or plot. Just for reference's sake, imagine if you were watching a movie, and the protagonist randomly decided to discuss a blade of grass at length, when it has no significance to the story and doesn't come up again later. You would be bored out of your mind! If it would bore you in a movie, you probably shouldn't be putting it in a post.

[Mira Nightingale]

It has its uses. I know I can't stand 1-2 sentence posts, since I don't feel they get everything across that needs to be said. Some people think that it enough, though, so I guess it's just as matter of personal opinion in the end.

[Luke Fletcher]

i hate huge posts, because its too much to remember when youre writing a new one, but i also hate tiny posts, because it makes me thinktat the other person is thinking that i am anoying and that they dont want to RP, i prefer 1-2-3 paragraph posts


[glow=red,2,300][shadow=red,left,300]i rated it the best one i could click, because it is a place to show what sizes of posts to post, also to help new peeps understand threads, im fairly good for i am on new hogwarts aswell[/shadow][/glow]

[Dakota Atwood]

It's a little long....and it gets a little tiresome to read...

[Protégé (Gone)]

Well, it originally was two separate guides, and then there are the parts I added which originally were going to be part of something separate. I just decided that it'd be better to post it all at once, though its kinda obvious I was in different moods when writing the two of them.

[Aleph il'Aranroth]

One thing I would like to add that I think is important (and I'm sorry if it's been said already and I missed it) is that you should broaden your vocabulary. I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't like reading posts where someone uses the same word over and over again. Sometimes it's inevitable, but most times you can just go to a thesaurus and look up synonyms. If you don't have a thesaurus around, use dictionary.com and click on the thesaurus option. Don't just use a word because it pops up, though. Make sure you know the meaning of the word and that it's really the word you want to use. Sometimes a different word has a meaning that fits better.

[Lessien Mithrandír]

I read it but I kinda started seeing double a bit. The paragraphs are very involved and you kinda repeated yourself a couple of times. Oh I'll shiza up this is what i get for being current studing teacher! Sorry not really being picky but sometime being outright doesn't hurt. Sometime Rpers who write the long posts leave less room for the development of a thread. Detail is necessary as is explanation but the quity is in the use of language rather than the length of a post. You've mostlikely said all this but as i said early not easy to read when you start seeing doubt, useful information though.

[Delia Ellatar]

lessien said:

Oh I'll shiza up this is what i get for being current studing teacher!

Oh dear. *giggles*

[Lessien Mithrandír]

delia said:

lessien said:

Oh I'll shiza up this is what i get for being current studing teacher!

Oh dear. *giggles*

Yes it's horrible! I hate English but i have to teach it! *cold shiver*

[Aleph il'Aranroth]

Then why didn't you choose a different subject to teach? Unless things are horribly different where you go/went to college, you don't generally get forced into doing a certain subject.

[Delia Ellatar]

You missed the point.

She said she would shiza up. o.o

[Lessien Mithrandír]

lol so i did but it was after midnight!!.....I do apologize

[Aleph il'Aranroth]

Actually, I didn't miss the point. I just prefer to go for the subtle jokes more often than the obvious. Or a pun. Irony, puns, and sarcasm are more my type of humor.

[Lessien Mithrandír]

lol I kive downunder and i'm studing primary teaching so i have to teach all/majority of subjects one being english...so yeah well i missed that point but hey sleep does wonders i have realised!