Role-playing, From Staff

[Watcher]

This is a thread meant for staff to post, but for members to read. It was suggested by one of your staff In-Trainings. Basically, staff members will post here with Role-Playing tips of your own. Don't feel offended or anything that we are posting it here for you, but we are just trying to make this board attractive to other members and experienced RPers who are looking for boards. So please, read and learn. If members what to post tips on their own, please PM me (username: kurogane), Argon (username: john25), Valen (username: kadaj) or Cher (username: clause). Thank you.

Rules Of Thread (members):-
-No one, except for staff, is the post here.
-If a member posts here, their post will be deleted without hesitation.

Rules of Thread (Staff):-
-Staff members, feel free to post tips on your own. A single post for different staff members to post tips on your own (except for me, Jawn, Nick and Cher). Please be neat.
-If any of us four finds your 'tips' inappropriate or has been repeated, we will inform you and you MUST change ASAP, for the members' consideration.

Alright. Let the tips begin.

[Jenesis "Ex"]

Tip Number One.
Spell out your words.
- Okay guys, this gets really annoying on my part. Out of character, I don't care if you type "lyke dis", but in character, it would be nice if you spelled out your words. Yes, that means no "u" for "you" or "2" for "two/to/too". It'll help you surpass the character-requirements, and your post will look more neat.

Tip Number Two.
Spell check.
- Guys, the button is there to help you with your spelling. Sometimes, when you guys type, it's often spelled incorrectly and I have to refrain myself from hitting the "Modify" button just to fix it.

Tip Number Three.
In-Character OOC inserts.
- In your posts, some people tend to have conversations through "OOC". Now, I don't really care about this, but it does get a little annoying sometimes, especially when your OOC-insert part is longer than your post. Take it to the PM's. I also noticed that some members of the board put in an OOC message for no particular reason. I know it's easier to just put "OOC: [insert message here]", but if it has nothing to do with the thread, or your post, take it to the PM's.

Tip Number Four.
Dialog.
- Most people, if not some, have some sort of "special" way to show their persons thoughts, speech, etc... Like Hyunie, my first character on Alice, has an alternate personality. To show the thoughts of the alternate, it would be shown like this.[/color] Hyunie's thought alone would be shown in italics, and her speech would be left alone. Some people, that I've noticed, use the same thing for everything, making it look a bit...confusing. For example, I saw a couple of posts that don't do anything to their thoughts; it's simply typed out, in the same paragraph, resulting in making people think that the person spoke, and just forgot to insert quotation marks. Which brings another tip.

Tip Number Five.
Punctuation.
- Punctuation is important. It helps the reader understand more of what you're trying to point. For example (taken from Wikipedia), "Woman, without her man, is nothing." and "Woman: without her, man is nothing." have greatly different meanings. If you're character is asking a question, put a question mark in there, instead of just leaving it alone. At the end of every sentence, put a period so it makes more sense. Put quotation marks around the speech when your person talks. Etc..etc... See here for more information.

Tip Number Six.
Quality posts.
- Some of you wonder how some people manage to put in a decent post. I noticed a lot of you guys put in an OOC message, apologizing because the post is "crap" quality, or because it's too "short". A lot of you aim to get a longer post by just putting in random crap that comes out of no where, but let me tell you, size isn't everything. Some ways to make a better quality - not quantity - post is to add your character reactions and detail it. Some just put in a sentence of reaction, and then you have your character talk. After that, you just put in a thought, and voila, your post is done. And after your post is done, you think, "Hm...it's a little short/not good enough, I should apologize for the bad quality/quantity post." Now, I understand if you were in a rush, and I, myself, used to put, "sorry for bad quality etc., etc...", but instead of apologizing, why not do something about it? I know it requires more effort, but come on! It's a game! Make it more challenging.

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Edit: I'll elaborate more on all of these categories later, because I have brunch to eat! If any of you guys have any suggestions/questions that have to do with the tips I already made, feel free to send a PM and I'll be more than happy to reply with my own thoughts.

[Sa.Cre.D.]

Just two tip also for me xD.

Grammar check
Just use correct grammar so people would understand.

Do not control the character except yours
Do not control the other like, Vipera kicked me. Ask permission first before controlling it.


I learned a lesson on that. I also did that but I tried to change. Oh, and please, do not post very short,why? It's like cheating.

[Damion Kasai]

Ok, my tip is this. In character, If your describing what they are doining, use proper grammar and spelling, But for Dialouge, You can insert accent type words like Y'all and wanna, Because people actually talk like that.

Thats about it right now, I will add more to This post if I need to.

Soul Archer

[Shugo Yuy™]

I have but one tip for you guys.

Don't give a damn about the size of your post or the so called "quality" of it. Don't rp to impress. You'll get no satisfaction out of it. RP for yourself and only yourself. Rp to have fun. Don't rp "good" for others.

[Althea V.]

Being a good RPer isn't about the post length, post quantity or length of stay in the board. It's about how your characters develop. It's about how they grow, how their life happened in the board. And of course, character development just don't happen by themselves. You character can only develop through the story lines you create for them.

A good example of a good storyline is an event where your character would experience a life-changing event, like a death of a loved one (An NPC) that would cause him/her to change life point of views, illness, alice problems. You know, you could always get ideas everywhere ^_^, Even from an Encyclopedia, a movie or TV.

And of course, if you want more fun, think of a storyline that would involve other characters.

I'll update as long as I think of other ideas. ^_^

[Otaku]

Not posting overly in 3 or more person roleplays.

Okay, to put it simply, some people have to leave during roleplaying threads right? So they leave, the other two people continue to roleplay, until their posts amount to lets say, ten. And theyre very long posters with unnecessary details. So when the person that left comes back, he has to read ten ridiculously long posts. See how horrible it would be to have to read so many? Think about it. If you really want to roleplay, then go make a new thread! There are many other people you can roleplay with!

No smileys.

Lets be blunt. No smileys in IC posts. Ever. They're yellow vicious annoying little critters.

Do not apply your OOC knowledge to your character.

Hey, ever feel that since you know something, your character should know it too? Well too bad, thats godmodding. Knowing something out of character shouldnt mean that your character knows it.

For example, if you know that, from the other RPer's post, that he plans to punch you, or kick you, or burn you in pipin' hot flames and turn you into a crispy piece of human meat, you shouldn't make your character go think I know hes going to punch/kick/fry me! I must dodge! If that happens, then how the heck will it be a fair fight? Same with OOC. Just because you know the other RPer plans to fall in love with your char, dont start going "You know you want me!" It's godmodding. Boo to godmodding, right?

Stick to your alice!

Ill be blunt again. Don't mix up your alice with another alice. For example, if you have Telekinesis, you CANNOT read minds, so do NOT read minds! And also, stick to your limitations of the alice until you feel you've done enough training to be stronger at it.

Mark your OOC and IC posts

We sometimes forget to mark the OOC part of your post, which confuses many many people. Double check your posts, this also goes for : Punctuation, grammar, spelling and smileys. Demonic yellow balls!

No weapons

No weapons like bombs or knives or shurikens are allowed, I think... umm. Yeah. No spectral blade thingies unless you made it with your alice. Mmkay?

[Watcher]

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Big No-nos

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[li]Meta-gaming
Now, what is meta-gaming? A simple example can be seen from Nick's post. Applying OOC knowledge to your IC posts. This can be classified as god-modding, where you seem to know every single thing that your opponent is doing.

But this is not all, more than once, I have seen quite a number of characters knowing a lot more than they are supposed to know. For example, when an OOC thread has been made and discussions that are found inside seem to be only for a group of people, and when a person who is not targetted or is involved in the discussion reads it, he will tend to 'tell' his character about it. Imagine someone telling you OOC that they are coming for you, but your character has not yet been informed by a reliable source (Screw talkative and busybody NPCs. They're gay.). You cannot make your character seem to be more careful and aware that he is being hunted.

Also, when you have discovered a secret about some sort of organisation or whatever OOC, you are NOT to let your character know. Although you are controlling his life, the two of you and going through completely different things.

In other words, what is Out-of-Character information STAYS as Out-of-Character information.

[/li][li]God-modding
The evillest of all no-nos, but I believe I don't have to elaborate on this, now do I? If you disagree, you deserve to be eaten by a flesh-eating zombie rabbit.[/li][/ul]