The Extremely Basic Roleplay Basics
This post will explain the basics of Roleplay, and by basics we’ll be assuming you know how to type English, and use a keyboard in a public setting. That’s it. This is for people just being introduced to the idea of roleplaying more than anything. Afraid of the amount of writing? Roleplaying may not be for you. It is a text based thing after all. Let’s start off shall we?
What Is Roleplaying?
Roleplaying, or RP, can be described as just what is says! Playing, or pretending through describing things in writing, to be a role or character. These are sometimes called persona, muses, mentalities, or more odd little nicknames. There are some rules, but usually your creativity is only limited by the rules of the society and culture you are from on Gor, the rules of the community/RP, and what you think you can manage. It’s pretty free flowing.
RP usually starts out with people writing in what can be thought of as “Multi-player notepad”. Did you ever write a Round Robin in school? One of those stories where one kid wrote a sentence, and the next wrote another and it just kept going from there? It’s like that, you write what your character does, and someone responds to that with what theirs does. You only control your own character, but it’s a very similar concept!
How does this work? Well you write! Just like in any book you can pick up you write dialogue and actions through words. You simply describe what you want to do, and it magically happens through the power of roleplay!
Why Would I Roleplay?
Well, have you ever wanted to do something you can’t? In roleplay you can. Ever see a character do something stupid in a horror movie and think “Well gosh darn it, I can do better than that!”? A roleplay gives you the chance to act out scenarios like a text based video game. It’s multi-player, so you get real time reactions from real people, and develop social scenarios that help you make friends and learn new things.
In some RP online, if you know the character really well, you might even pick up a canon character. A canon character is a character found in an already existing world, like Batman exists in Batman comics. If you made up a character to live in that world it’s called an Original Character, not a canon one. In Wolf Brother RolePlay this too exist in that you can become a Wolf Brother but you have to earn it through a process.There are other canon characters for example a Ubar or leader of an opposing city or group would also be considered cannon characters. There is a process for obtaining those characters and those interested in a canon character should contact us directly. We do have some available on both side of the coin.
As a world to expands at your fingertips, making you a better writer and a more creative person with extensive ability for constructive thinking and witty banter. You’ll learn to type quicker, spell better, learn faster, and adapt to quickly changing situations. You will, depending on your role, learn more about yourself or about a character you might not normally be anything like. You could fall in love, without ever having to risk anything. You can live, die, and pay taxes from the safety of your keyboard and monitor. You get to experience things you never will through roleplay.
As you do these things you move up in ranks which we will discuss later on the specifics of this.
How Do I Post?
The simple answer. You type what you want to say and do in the chat room and then click the Talk/Listen Button. To see responses again click the Talk/Listen button to refresh the page.
There are three parts to a role play post:
Thoughts, Verbage, Action
These 3 parts can be in any order in your post.
EG: *He walked down the crowded street and saw his old friend and waved.* (action)“Hey Joe. Good to see you.”(verbiage) ~His mind wondered where Joe got that new gladius sword at his hip.~(thought)
How Do I Do Actions?
The simple answer is: you just do it. Even if you simply write them without marking them off some people can understand you but it is considered one of the most stupid ways of roleplaying ever so I better give you more advice than that. There’s two standard methods of defining actions in roleplay; I’ll give a better run down in the actual basics what does what and how it causes you to be perceived. But for now I’ll just introduce the ideas.
First, there’s star roleplay. It can be done with basically any non-standard symbol but * and - are the most common. Simply use them to bracket your actions and show where they begin and end.
*Waves!* Hi there! This is an example of it. *Big grin.*
Pretty easy huh? You can pretty much stick them at the beginning or end of any sentence. Even in the middle occasionally although it interrupts the flow so be careful with that unless it’s the intention. (Like a Yawn in the middle of a word, or a hiccup while drunk, or your voice catching.)
The other quick and dirty way is novel style. Really simple, you just write like pretty much any book laying around.
The man waves to the audience. “Hi there! This is an example of novel style,” he grins big to everyone.
Novel style is better for serious longer roleplay, but we’ll get to details like length and mood later. For now, you’ve just learned how to encompass actions into the casual internet experience! There are a few more ways to describe actions, but they can be uncommon, whereas these can literally be found everywhere online.
What is a Character/Persona?
Now who the hell is talking huh? After all, if you’re writing actions for someone, you must have someone in mind right? That would be your character/persona. The person, or role, or mask, or muse, that wants to get out there and talk. A lot of players (also known as muns, authors, owners, voices, roleplayers, or puppetmasters) consider their roles as basically coming to life. It’s a writer/actor thing, the characters are so richly filled in we think of them as living beings with their own wishes and ideas. This is not weird in the least, writing is the only profession in which multiple identity disorder is commonplace.
So you need to come up with what character you are describing things for. Who is doing this? What does this character look like, how do they feel who are they? This is the important idea here. You need to find someone to be, find the mask you were born to wear to get way too dramatic about it. We at Wolf Brothers RolePlay are happy to help and even have some preset characters if you wish to use them.
How Do I Know What Character To Use?
Really that depends on you, and the scenario you’re entering into. Try to pick a character that fits in with everyone else, instead of say a sci-fi Gundam pilot in a realistic Gorean peasant village. Use common sense, what fits in with the world of Gor, what looks nice. Don’t build characters with a ton of strengths without any weakness, you think it’s cool but everyone else will be outclassed and not have any fun. You’ll be like that kid who always get 100% on the tests while everyone else gets 50% and hates him because he broke the curve. Don’t be that person.
You can make a character up, following the rules of Gor (Gor is a world with no magic, assume you have no magic, but there are illusionist) and the rules of the roleplay. Make a character be similar enough to you that you can feel comfortable understanding their point of view and maintaining their personality without making them feel OOC (that’s “out of character”) when you can’t focus. Try to choose some of your basic traits and play them hard and make your character well rounded and realistic. Let them feel, so to speak, on their own.
Then research. This is extremely important, because you are expected to be that character, for all intents and purposes you have to know their life story (we can help with a back story), who they are, how they react to things, their favorite foods, their hair color, eye color, everything. You have to compensate for how they write, what they do in their spare time. You have to know them well enough to fill in the blanks.
Where Do I Get RP/ Story Ideas?
You will be joining cities. Camps, groups with main storylines already going hat you can get involved in. It is also a good idea to create your own side storylines to the main story of the cannon character of your group. So where do you get ideas to do this?
Everywhere! Everything can lead to an idea if you try to brainstorm with it. Like a certain kind of animal? Well you can do tons of things with that idea alone! Take a shark for example. You can make it the animal who represents them, and change their look to fit it. They could have a shark crest, or maybe their family is well known for being dangerous as a shark. They could swim regularly with sharks to study them, or control them somehow. Maybe they simply wear only shark leather because it is so tough. Maybe they eat sharks? What if, you had a character whose weapon was based on shark teeth.
A single animal comes up with all sorts of ideas. Now imagine if you used a pen, or a book. If you looked up something neat and made it into a concept. Ideas are everywhere! That spice sitting in your kitchen could make them like hot stuff. That pen sitting next to you could make them an artist. Your favorite book might influence what they like or hate, or the characters could contribute a like or dislike. Think like an artist: Borrow concepts and reinvent them in such a way as to make originality indistinguishable from ideas based on other ideas. If nothing else, ask your friends for a couple of ideas to start with, or google some random word and wander Wikipedia for a few hours until you find yourself with something good.
How Do I Respond To…?
Has someone tried to interact with you? Think of how a character would respond and do that. Simple as can be! Make sure you follow concepts of Gor and not earth; based on the social conventions. Always research the role you are playing and place you are in before doing anything that could get you set up for attacks, and be willing and open to learn about everything.
Now, since someone has obviously said hi or hugged you or something remember: Only control your own character. While it is occasionally okay to assume someone will glance over, do not think it is alright to control another person’s character. You can escape the hug, accept it, or smack at someone but you cannot say it hit them, and you can’t do anything that involves their consent. This is a tricky issue. My suggestion is to say “if” something “then” another thing. It lets them see what direction a course of action will take them in, and they might just follow along!
This is can be hard to figure out an edge to. Some people who have been friends for a long time can simply shove each other and accept that neither will push their character further than they want to happen. This is not an invitation for you to do that same. You need to keep an eye out for wording and mood in a conversation, so that you can play along in this fantasy world without causing issues.
Where Do I Go From Here?
Simply chose a link below that best suits your next step you want to take.
What Is Roleplaying?
Roleplaying, or RP, can be described as just what is says! Playing, or pretending through describing things in writing, to be a role or character. These are sometimes called persona, muses, mentalities, or more odd little nicknames. There are some rules, but usually your creativity is only limited by the rules of the society and culture you are from on Gor, the rules of the community/RP, and what you think you can manage. It’s pretty free flowing.
RP usually starts out with people writing in what can be thought of as “Multi-player notepad”. Did you ever write a Round Robin in school? One of those stories where one kid wrote a sentence, and the next wrote another and it just kept going from there? It’s like that, you write what your character does, and someone responds to that with what theirs does. You only control your own character, but it’s a very similar concept!
How does this work? Well you write! Just like in any book you can pick up you write dialogue and actions through words. You simply describe what you want to do, and it magically happens through the power of roleplay!
Why Would I Roleplay?
Well, have you ever wanted to do something you can’t? In roleplay you can. Ever see a character do something stupid in a horror movie and think “Well gosh darn it, I can do better than that!”? A roleplay gives you the chance to act out scenarios like a text based video game. It’s multi-player, so you get real time reactions from real people, and develop social scenarios that help you make friends and learn new things.
In some RP online, if you know the character really well, you might even pick up a canon character. A canon character is a character found in an already existing world, like Batman exists in Batman comics. If you made up a character to live in that world it’s called an Original Character, not a canon one. In Wolf Brother RolePlay this too exist in that you can become a Wolf Brother but you have to earn it through a process.There are other canon characters for example a Ubar or leader of an opposing city or group would also be considered cannon characters. There is a process for obtaining those characters and those interested in a canon character should contact us directly. We do have some available on both side of the coin.
As a world to expands at your fingertips, making you a better writer and a more creative person with extensive ability for constructive thinking and witty banter. You’ll learn to type quicker, spell better, learn faster, and adapt to quickly changing situations. You will, depending on your role, learn more about yourself or about a character you might not normally be anything like. You could fall in love, without ever having to risk anything. You can live, die, and pay taxes from the safety of your keyboard and monitor. You get to experience things you never will through roleplay.
As you do these things you move up in ranks which we will discuss later on the specifics of this.
How Do I Post?
The simple answer. You type what you want to say and do in the chat room and then click the Talk/Listen Button. To see responses again click the Talk/Listen button to refresh the page.
There are three parts to a role play post:
Thoughts, Verbage, Action
These 3 parts can be in any order in your post.
EG: *He walked down the crowded street and saw his old friend and waved.* (action)“Hey Joe. Good to see you.”(verbiage) ~His mind wondered where Joe got that new gladius sword at his hip.~(thought)
How Do I Do Actions?
The simple answer is: you just do it. Even if you simply write them without marking them off some people can understand you but it is considered one of the most stupid ways of roleplaying ever so I better give you more advice than that. There’s two standard methods of defining actions in roleplay; I’ll give a better run down in the actual basics what does what and how it causes you to be perceived. But for now I’ll just introduce the ideas.
First, there’s star roleplay. It can be done with basically any non-standard symbol but * and - are the most common. Simply use them to bracket your actions and show where they begin and end.
*Waves!* Hi there! This is an example of it. *Big grin.*
Pretty easy huh? You can pretty much stick them at the beginning or end of any sentence. Even in the middle occasionally although it interrupts the flow so be careful with that unless it’s the intention. (Like a Yawn in the middle of a word, or a hiccup while drunk, or your voice catching.)
The other quick and dirty way is novel style. Really simple, you just write like pretty much any book laying around.
The man waves to the audience. “Hi there! This is an example of novel style,” he grins big to everyone.
Novel style is better for serious longer roleplay, but we’ll get to details like length and mood later. For now, you’ve just learned how to encompass actions into the casual internet experience! There are a few more ways to describe actions, but they can be uncommon, whereas these can literally be found everywhere online.
What is a Character/Persona?
Now who the hell is talking huh? After all, if you’re writing actions for someone, you must have someone in mind right? That would be your character/persona. The person, or role, or mask, or muse, that wants to get out there and talk. A lot of players (also known as muns, authors, owners, voices, roleplayers, or puppetmasters) consider their roles as basically coming to life. It’s a writer/actor thing, the characters are so richly filled in we think of them as living beings with their own wishes and ideas. This is not weird in the least, writing is the only profession in which multiple identity disorder is commonplace.
So you need to come up with what character you are describing things for. Who is doing this? What does this character look like, how do they feel who are they? This is the important idea here. You need to find someone to be, find the mask you were born to wear to get way too dramatic about it. We at Wolf Brothers RolePlay are happy to help and even have some preset characters if you wish to use them.
How Do I Know What Character To Use?
Really that depends on you, and the scenario you’re entering into. Try to pick a character that fits in with everyone else, instead of say a sci-fi Gundam pilot in a realistic Gorean peasant village. Use common sense, what fits in with the world of Gor, what looks nice. Don’t build characters with a ton of strengths without any weakness, you think it’s cool but everyone else will be outclassed and not have any fun. You’ll be like that kid who always get 100% on the tests while everyone else gets 50% and hates him because he broke the curve. Don’t be that person.
You can make a character up, following the rules of Gor (Gor is a world with no magic, assume you have no magic, but there are illusionist) and the rules of the roleplay. Make a character be similar enough to you that you can feel comfortable understanding their point of view and maintaining their personality without making them feel OOC (that’s “out of character”) when you can’t focus. Try to choose some of your basic traits and play them hard and make your character well rounded and realistic. Let them feel, so to speak, on their own.
Then research. This is extremely important, because you are expected to be that character, for all intents and purposes you have to know their life story (we can help with a back story), who they are, how they react to things, their favorite foods, their hair color, eye color, everything. You have to compensate for how they write, what they do in their spare time. You have to know them well enough to fill in the blanks.
Where Do I Get RP/ Story Ideas?
You will be joining cities. Camps, groups with main storylines already going hat you can get involved in. It is also a good idea to create your own side storylines to the main story of the cannon character of your group. So where do you get ideas to do this?
Everywhere! Everything can lead to an idea if you try to brainstorm with it. Like a certain kind of animal? Well you can do tons of things with that idea alone! Take a shark for example. You can make it the animal who represents them, and change their look to fit it. They could have a shark crest, or maybe their family is well known for being dangerous as a shark. They could swim regularly with sharks to study them, or control them somehow. Maybe they simply wear only shark leather because it is so tough. Maybe they eat sharks? What if, you had a character whose weapon was based on shark teeth.
A single animal comes up with all sorts of ideas. Now imagine if you used a pen, or a book. If you looked up something neat and made it into a concept. Ideas are everywhere! That spice sitting in your kitchen could make them like hot stuff. That pen sitting next to you could make them an artist. Your favorite book might influence what they like or hate, or the characters could contribute a like or dislike. Think like an artist: Borrow concepts and reinvent them in such a way as to make originality indistinguishable from ideas based on other ideas. If nothing else, ask your friends for a couple of ideas to start with, or google some random word and wander Wikipedia for a few hours until you find yourself with something good.
How Do I Respond To…?
Has someone tried to interact with you? Think of how a character would respond and do that. Simple as can be! Make sure you follow concepts of Gor and not earth; based on the social conventions. Always research the role you are playing and place you are in before doing anything that could get you set up for attacks, and be willing and open to learn about everything.
Now, since someone has obviously said hi or hugged you or something remember: Only control your own character. While it is occasionally okay to assume someone will glance over, do not think it is alright to control another person’s character. You can escape the hug, accept it, or smack at someone but you cannot say it hit them, and you can’t do anything that involves their consent. This is a tricky issue. My suggestion is to say “if” something “then” another thing. It lets them see what direction a course of action will take them in, and they might just follow along!
This is can be hard to figure out an edge to. Some people who have been friends for a long time can simply shove each other and accept that neither will push their character further than they want to happen. This is not an invitation for you to do that same. You need to keep an eye out for wording and mood in a conversation, so that you can play along in this fantasy world without causing issues.
Where Do I Go From Here?
Simply chose a link below that best suits your next step you want to take.
