Beginners Roleplaying guide

~~ Romance ~~

Everyone knows that just about every story on the bookshelf has an aspect of romance on it, but in a forum where all readers and writers are welcome, we all have to be careful about what we post in the romantic division.

Before we get started on my tips, I’d like to quote a section from the Forum-Specific rules:

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Q: I wanna have my characters fall in love, can I?

A: Yes, however you must keep all romance PG-13, you also may not use a time-skip to hint at non PG-13 content within your roleplaying.

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Essentially, this means is that while you’re free to have your characters be in romantic relationships, you cannot have content that is more mature than PG13.

On individualized threads, you may see player-made rules from thread owners that welcome players TS over such non-PG13 content. Please note that this is a misconception. You should never do this, nor should you simply post the content that you would have previously skipped.

If you wish to have content that is beyond PG13 in your story, you should consider finding a non-RuneScape forum that permits such activity.

Beyond that, here are some tips to help you with the topic of romance:


1. Be realistic.

Relationships do not happen within the course of a few posts, a few hours, or even a few days. Make sure you build the ground for a relationship before just diving in. It will make everything much more realistic and your characters will have a stronger bound. Hook-ups do happen in real life, but they should not be the norm in writing if you intend to have a meaningful relationship come from the situation.



2. Make sure the other player is okay with it.

If you wish to have your character be in a relationship with another, you cannot do so unless the other player is on board.



3. Let there be a little controversy.

Very rarely will you ever find a Cinderella happy ending in a story—toss a little trouble in there. Unless you literally mold them to be perfect for each other, people in a relationship should have an argument every now and again—think different thoughts and have their own opinions. Just because they’re together does not mean they are going to have identical thoughts and feelings.



4. Just because a character is in a relationship does not mean they’re off-limits.

That’s not to say that you should tempt them with a secret romance (although that could be interesting for the plot). Just remember that if your character has feelings for someone, they’re not just going to disappear the moment that person goes into a relationship. It’s okay to let your character get hurt. Don’t make them forget about the person immediately, or chase after the next available character solely for the purpose of being in a relationship.

5. Overdone/unnecessary romances.

While sometimes romances add something to the plot and definitely to the depth of characters, not every story needs a relationship—nor does every character need to be in one. Relationships should never be forged ‘just for the heck of it’, they should always add something to the story. Not every thread needs to have a romance, particularly if the plotline does not make it likely that there should be one.


(( Feel free to suggest more tips to be added. ))

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~~ Some General Tips ~~


* Make sure when you’re posting bios, you reserve the spots you are going to need ahead of time. Write your document in Microsoft Word, Microsoft Office—whatever you have—and see how many characters it is.


* Always, always, always check for spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization, especially when you’re dealing with a character’s name.


* Try to get into the habit of typing your posts into a Microsoft document before copying and pasting them into a post. That way, they look more professional and you do not risk losing them if your internet crashes.


* If you are ever asked to edit your bio to put it out again to be reaccepted, do NOT post it again unless they ask you to or unless your word characters do not fit in the posts that you originally had. Go back and edit your old one. It can be extremely irritating to role-players when they’re trying to write and have 6 different versions of a bio being posted every few minutes. That’s what the edit button’s for. Granted, if you posted the bio on a previous thread (and it has been remade) or the bio is at least 10 pages back, chances are good that a repost would be acceptable.


* Oftentimes, writers in this forum tend to develop a certain character that they enjoy the most. When going from thread to thread, instead of making a new character, or finding a new name, they use the same person over and over again for different stories, editing where necessary. While this is convenient, it is also not the greatest idea. Originality is very important and copying and pasting a character from thread to thread limits what you can do drastically. Try to branch out and go out of your comfort zone—your writing will only benefit from the experience.

-------Player Added--------


* When considering your word choice, be sure to keep an eye on words at both ends of the spectrum. Too many little, simple words takes away from the integrity of the writing, whereas too many large words can take away from your meaning and confuse the reader. Try to use a healthy blend of both, and watch repetition, unless you’re using it for emphasis.

-Courtesy of Vlad III and Inferi



* Don't let people on the forums get to you. Some of them think they're better than others and have rights to tell you what you can and can't do, even though it's not their place to say.

Remember, the forums are a place for fun, if you ever feel it's making your life *worse* it's your option to stay. The drama that fires up can be awful sometimes, and at that point it's better for you psychologically to take a break.

-Courtesy of Agile Scout




* Having friends on the forums is great! Especially when you find a group on the Roleplaying Community that you like to roll with, but don't invite them specifically to every single thread you join, because it does become a loop.

I've made a lot of friends, while also a few enemies (I'm not going to lie, everybody has at least one person that they don't really want to Roleplay with), and I've been with several groups, but I find that sometimes I like to break away and meet new people on a new thread.

So it's great to join a thread with a friend sometimes, it makes it easier to play on, but don't get caught in a loop or you won't ever improve on your skills.

-Courtesy of Agile Scout

* Take note on the role-play times that people hop on, if it's a role-play that is usually highly active at one time only, I'd suggest not worrying about joining it, for like many others I've seen, you will most likely be left behind and leave within one or two posts.

For people like this, that can't role-play often enough there are certain role-plays you can find that aren't always highly active or you can ask someone like the Thread Master, to create a character specifically for you and others so you can join the storyline.

-Courtesy of Hacjer

~~ Player Additions ~~

This section is more or less what you readers have added. The list will be compiled without regard to section (it will go in chronological order, based on who posted what when), but references will be made in the section where this information is most useful.

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~~ One-Liners (Expansion) ~~

Okay, here are some tips on improving your posts when you cant think of how to improve them. Often times, the roleplaying will lax off, and there will be less to talk about. This often happens when most of the main players, those who are active the most, leave. There can be awkward lapses in dialogue and action, leaving the remaining roleplayers struggling to keep up several-line posts. Sometimes, people just cant think of how to improve their posts so that it keeps the roleplaying floating.

Well, try these tips. Think about these questions, and then write responses to them. Try to make each response two to six lines long, or even longer if you can write more. The longer, the better.

1. What is your character thinking right now? What is he thinking about the people he/she is with, the place he/she is in, or the situation he/she is in?

2. What is your character feeling? Has he/she had a recent important event happen to them? Has he/she interacted with another character that could affect his/her emotions.

3. What is your character going to do? What are your characters plans about the immediate future? What actions will he take to reach a certain goal?

4. How will the actions taken in Tip#3 affect the future? How does your character intend for these actions to affect the future?

5. Is there anything around your character in which to interact with? Any tools, books, papers, pens, even other people. Describe these people, especially if they are NPC's. If they are NPC's, describe them fully, and in detail if you approach them, or even pass by them. Tell about what they are doing, and how they are acting.

6. If you feel the need, and if it is allowed by the Thread-Master, take control of a near-by NPC, and describe his appearance, personality, thoughts, and even history if you feel the need. Make sure it is relevant to the current or future plot. There is no point in rambling on about a pie shop owner if it will have no significance at a later point.

-Courtesy of Lord Airiose.



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~~ Weaponry ~~

Weapons, you love to arm your character with them, whether it be your favorite gun, or one you made up on your own, seeing your character in that badass pose with it in your mind’s eye is all too satisfying.

But a common misconception I see among the newer people is that weapons must be ungodly powerful in order to be cool, or have unlimited ammo, or have multiple barrels. Well, the truth is, they DON’T need that, not at all.

For a gun to be uniquely yours, designing one from scratch is often rewarding. Take my latest creation, Cerberus, for example. It’s a triple barrel revolver that uses magic (or mana as I have use with it) to fire three balls of magical energy at a target. It is also decorated with dog heads, even having a dog head style ironsight.

Now, the entire revolver is a giant reference to Greek mythology, or specifically, Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guarded the gates of the underworld ruled by Hades. This is actually okay to do. Why? Well, for one thing, you’re actually entering common ground. Everyone knows Cerberus. At least, everyone that hasn’t slept through all their history classes should.

Entering common turf with a weapon may not sound appealing, but if weapons are the main reason your character has been denied a lot because, you should consider doing so.

Normally in the actual medieval ages, people DID carry around excessive amounts of swords and weapons because they didn't have advanced ways of taking care of them (no rust removing chemical baths, tempering your sword was rare, and the swords of old dulled often). The role-plays that center around medieval ages on these forums normally don’t require you to be too realistic with your weapons conditioning.

Back on topic, if you are giving your character excessive weaponry in a medieval role-play, try mellowing it down by giving them a single katana, and have your character know how to care for it and repair it. Bingo! Issue gone.

-Courtesy of Dragoness4

~~ What Not To Do in a Biography ~~

Name: Kilyan Windrider
Age: 19
Gender: Male

Weapon: A two-handed claymore that is heavy to most people, but Kilyan holds it with one due to his training

Appearance: 6'3" tall, blue eyes, pale skin, scar over his eye where he once got cut, short black hair

History: Kilyan ran away from home when he was 8 and has not seen his family since. He learned to survive merely off of the land and can climb almost anything due to his need to hide from certain animals, but he can fight well because he had to defend himself and he can hunt well because he had to eat.

Clothing: Boots, a sheath on his back for his claymore, pants(Green), short-sleeved shirt (black)

Personality: Conceded, nice to people who are nice to him, does not open up to anybody, hates talking about his past, and rarely talks to anybody

Other: Pi is not round, it is 3.14


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What's wrong with this bio:

1. Detail, detail, detail, it can never be stressed enough how important it is. Starting with the weapon you need to describe what makes it unique? Every character has something to define them, perhaps a decoration or gem in the hilt or along the blade? Also, the appearance (along with everything else) has no sentence structure, you don't *list* attributes, you describe them. *See the example bios for better explanation.

2. Power-playing: The character has a two-handed blade, but only uses one hand to fight with it, it's a ridiculous thing but some people do it. Remember: Your character is NOT one of the Tutors from the original tutorial island. 6'3" is a real height, though not every person is that tall, so don't make every single character you make that tall, people don't appreciate it when everybody is abnormally huge.

3. Aside from the length being so short, the bio is extremely generic. How so, you ask? This is how:

a. Firstly using training as an excuse for his extreme strength. Don't do that, especially because the bio mentions nothing about *how* he was trained.

b. His history hides everything about him, and cuts ties to family so he has nothing to explain. He also left at eight, ridiculous also, keep your bio grounded. It's unnecessary, not everybody else's bio does it, so don't worry that yours will be worse, sometimes it's nice to have the weaker character so you can build on them.


- Courtesy of Agile Scout

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You may now post!

Quote by Mod Aquadragon99:

"Each post can handle 2,000 characters"


*cough* They have a cap of 20,000 characters. *cough*

Sorry I thought I had 2,000 character limit!

- Moved to Roleplay -