I can’t really tell you how to be a good roleplayer, like descing it’s largely due to taste and style. There aren’t rules so much as conventions, but those conventions should still be learned. Then there are just a few tips to keep in mind, but, as with anything that I can tell you here, the best way to learn is to watch and practice. Some people take to RP like a duck to water, some take a bit longer and most people RP better with some than with others. Everybody improves and continues to improve as they go on, so where possible, just relax and go with the flow.
Finding RP The best way to find RP if there isn't any, is to go out and start some up yourself or ask on the area channel. Don't pester people who've already said that they can't. Remember too that it's always possible to go to another area where there is RP, as long as you make up some IC excuse.
Powerplaying Never include another character's reactions in your own pose. This includes hitting them with a snowball. Throw the snowball at them, and let them decide whether they're going to dodge it, or if it'll hit them.
Angst and Selfishness Don't try to make RP for your character by fainting or having an accident. It drags all the RP into helping your character which is irritating for the people who were playing something else. Try joining in with another's RP first, and ask before you force somebody into yours.
Tips on Poses Always try to make your poses interesting and let them contain 'cues' for the other players to play off. Try to keep them between one and eight lines long: they'll be noticed and they won't take up too much screen room. Watch for cues in other people's poses, and include yourself in the ongoing RP naturally. Don't sit in the corner doing nothing, and don't immediately try to hog the limelight.
Waiting for Others Some people may take a long time to pose. Please wait for them, rather than posing again (which is distracting when you're typing up your reply to the initial pose) or leaving the room. If they are taking an abnormal amount of time to reply, try asking them about it.
Grammar Make the effort to keep spelling, punctuation and other grammatical bits and pieces straight. You don't have to spend ages correcting each typo, but make sure your poses are legible. A client is vital for this as raw telnet won't let you see what you're typing and/or won't let you use backspace.
The sad truth is that most of the time, the majority of characters connected will not be out in public areas of the game RPing their hearts out, they will be in their rooms idling or working on OOC matters. They're probably not even interested in RP at that moment. So what do you do? Well, get out in a public room for a bit. It may be that there are people who will come and RP if they see that somebody else is out. If nobody shows up, ask on channel if anybody's interested in RP. I admit that that doesn't work as often as it should, but it's always worth a try. If you know somebody who is on, you can try paging them and asking if they'd like to RP. The important thing is to leave somebody alone after they have told you that they don't want to RP right now. If they say they're busy, they're busy, and whining isn't going to help. Finally, you can have a look at what's happening in the rest of the M* and perhaps go visit a place where there is RP and make up an excuse to be there.
This is probably the worst part of being a newbie that I remember, because nobody knows you so they don't know what they're missing by not RPing with you. Still take heart, as you go on and make friends, finding RP gets easier and easier. You've just got to get over this first hurdle. There never will be a guarantee that you can find RP though. I've seen extremely popular, fun, experienced players with leadership positions sit in a public room for awhile and not even have somebody come out to suck up to them. But as you get more involved with the game, you do get more options. Just remember your own newbie days when you do and be willing to get out and play with others even if your favourite people aren't on.
Powerplaying. A very thorny issue, this. In a nutshell, it’s saying what somebody else’s character is doing. Courtesy demands that you let that character’s player decide what their char is doing. Simple, right? Except powerplaying has more forms and subtleties than you might believe. Most obvious is something like Foofoo hugs Goober who hugs her back warmly. Goober might not want to hug Foofoo back warmly. Goober might not want to touch Foofoo with a ten-foot pole. What's more, Goober might not have let her hug him in the first place. It's safer to say Foofoo opens her arms to Goober, offering him a hug—as you get to know people and their character it’s easier to judge what they will and will not let you do—but never presume to say what Goober’s reaction is. Leave that for his own pose.
Probably the most commonly cited example of powerplaying goes along these lines: Foofoo throws a glass of water all over Goober, thoroughly soaking him. Even if you’ve been having a water fight or Goober was already wet, you can’t say that the water actually hit him. Let Goober decide that. Foofoo throws a glass of water at Goober is the standard way to handle this. Similarly Goober swings a punch at Foofoo’s face. Foofoo can choose for herself if she wants a black eye. But don't say that Foofoo ouches as Goober's hand bashes her cute little nose unless Goober posed actually aiming for you. Even if he's waving his hands around wildly, it's considered powerplaying to say he hit you unless you get permission first.
But people’s own definitions vary—and it extends to their pets too. With pets, I wouldn’t touch them at all without checking with the owner first, unless it’s Rover wags his tail at Foofoo, eyes begging for a pat. If they haven’t been so openly friendly, stick to just offering your hand—they might ICly bite anybody who touches them, which would be forcing the other player to powerplay you, oh what a tangled web! In most cases like that however, the owner would and should warn you in plenty of time, if only by poses. If Rover is growling at Foofoo, RP keeping your distance from the scary dog, or something similar. If you want to touch them and take the IC consequences, check with the other player. This goes for any case where you're incurring IC punishment: check that the person who would ICly be punishing you is alright with RPing that.
Finally, don’t include yourself in somebody’s background history. You can’t say to somebody that you’re their half sister, or that you had an affair with their brother once, unless you’ve checked it out with them first. Certainly don’t announce that their father killed yours or vice versa. Likewise, don't say that you're pregnant with their child without their permission even if you intend to have a miscarriage. That sort of thing tends to affect a character's development and therefore must be discussed fully by everyone involved.
The main rule here is ‘if in doubt, page and ask.’ And if you’re RPing with somebody you trust, you can always page them and tell them that they can do anything they want to you. Sometimes it enlivens the RP if you’re free to plant a kiss on the other char’s lips, or push them into the lake.
Another obvious form of powerplaying is killing another character. I’m fairly sure that you figured that out for yourself. You can kill or maim your own character if you really want to, and here’s where the problems start. Picture a group of people sitting at a bar and RPing merrily away. Suddenly Foofoo staggers in and collapses in a dead faint on the floor. Now, if this happened RL, everybody in the room would immediately focus on Foofoo and try to help her, therefore, to keep IC everybody should focus on Foofoo in this instance too. The trouble is that everybody was enjoying the evening as it was—perhaps one had just reached a climactic point in their character’s life. They probably want to follow that RP to its conclusion rather than forget about it in favour of helping somebody who they might not even know. Often, in that case, Foofoo will simply be ignored, or if they’re feeling a little more indulgent, they’ll RP helping Foofoo but OOCly resent her for interrupting them. Unless Foofoo somehow manages to RP lying unconscious in a really gripping way, she’s not going to be popular. Frequently people will make no bones about telling her off for trying to grab the spotlight with angsty RP.
This doesn’t mean that you can never have your character faint or have an accident—just warn the other people first. Let them say whether they’re happy with that, or whether they’d rather continue as they are. While we’re on the subject, this would be a good point to remind you that if you see that a healer/medic is online, or even in the room, don’t assume that they’re ready to drop what they’re doing and rush to help you when you break your leg. Page them about it before you break your leg, not after. The same applies to anybody you want to draw into your RP to fulfil a certain function. That person may have better things to do than marry Foofoo to Goober, this dragonrider might want to sit on the beach for awhile instead of flying you home. As much advance notice as possible is always appreciated. And always remember, that there is one heck of a lot more you can do than suffering, and lighter RP is far more agreeable to other players.
Finding RP Powerplaying Angst and Selfishness Tips on Poses Waiting for Others Grammar
Give me something to work with here!
So, you’ve found somebody to RP with, and you’re not fainting or tipping water over the other person. Now what? Well, this is where you have to remember that RP is all about give and take, and the best RP that I’ve ever participated in are sessions where everybody is bouncing off each other. So when you pose, put enough in there to give the other person something to respond to.
For example: Foofoo says “Hi.” Now, Goober can say “Hi” back, but let’s be honest, it’s not exactly riveting stuff. You need more detail. Foofoo smiles and drinks her juice really doesn’t help Goober out either. Foofoo waves to Goober, taking a few moments to pour herself some juice, before remembering her manners. “Oh, I'm sorry! Would you like a drink as well?” Now she’s contributing. Goober can choose whether to be grumpy about the late offer or politely decline or couch his response in a variety of ways. Admittedly these are banal examples and it's still fairly bland RP, but you get the idea. If you're really totally clueless about whether or not your pose will keep up your end of the RP, then as a rough guide, try to keep your poses above one line long. That way, you should include enough for Goober to find something to say back. Don't go over eight lines though... You'll probably include too much information and Goober will have to struggle to figure out how to respond to all of it. Also it's very spammy for group RP, and takes a long time to write, which means you'll be missing stuff in the meantime. Three or four lines is usually the best.
Give people something to pick up on. Foofoo enters and flashes a smug glance around the people in the room. Smirking away to herself, she takes a comfortable seat and positively trills, “And how is everybody else, today?” People can now ask why Foofoo’s looking so pleased with herself, but it’s not so intrusive that everybody feels obliged to stop their RP mid-flow and focus on Foofoo. Just be sure that you have an explanation for Foofoo’s behaviour, and watch out for cues in other people’s poses as well. It's only polite to join in with what is already being played, rather than creating a new tangent.
This sort of thing is why it's a good idea to pick a relatively outgoing character, at least to start with. If your character is more likely to actually do things, it's easier to keep the RP moving. If Foofoo enters, panics at the sight of people, and sits nervously in a dark corner posing that she's too shy to join in the conversation and too scared of anybody noticing her to move, the others in the room are going to have to really work at it to draw her into the RP. Now I have seen a couple of shy and quiet characters that were played beautifully and managed to include themselves in RP without putting people out of their way to pose to them. I don't know if I could RP a shy character successfully though, and I would thoroughly recommend starting off with somebody a little more ready to talk to people, whether it's to bubble over with friendliness or to bite their heads off.
Sometimes, particularly when you start and you have just one
character, only a few channels and no OOC obligations, you may find that the other person
that you’re RPing with seems to take an inordinate amount of time to pose. In the
meantime, you’ve thought of something else for your character to do, so you pose
again. Try to avoid doing this. Firstly there’s no fun in RPing with yourself, and
secondly Goober may have been about to finish his response to your first pose. Now
he’s got to account for your second as well, and that’s assuming he even notices
it before he hits enter. Also, it’s extremely annoying if you’re writing out
your pose and you keep getting a string of:
Foofoo says “Hi!”
Foofoo smiles.
Foofoo sits down by the fire.
Much preferable is: Foofoo says “Hi!” to Goober and smiles at him as she
sits down by the fire. It may be plain, but at least it’s all in one piece.
If you do think of something else that you want Foofoo to do after you've hit enter, wait
for Goober to pose and then you may be able to incorporate it into your next pose. Maybe
you won't, but still, it's no great loss. You will most likely be able to use that missed
pose another time.
Even so, you may feel that Goober is taking a ridiculously long time to pose. He could be distracted with pages, he could be lagged, he could be afk (away from keyboard). Whatever it might be, just try and be patient. Sooner or later, he will pose again, be disconnected or make his apologies and leave. Of course, don’t feel compelled to wait twenty minutes or more for somebody—that you shouldn’t have to do. You can make your own excuses and go anytime you like. If somebody is forcing you to wait more than five minutes for them to pose, it's perfectly acceptable to ask them OOCly if they're still there. But do give them that five minutes though, we're not all touch-typers! And try never to walk out on RP without letting the other person know why. It's only polite, after all. You wouldn't just get up and leave in the middle of a conversation with somebody, so don't do it in RP.
If you're playing with more than one person, in a group of three or more, it's more of a judgment call when you should pose. You should still let one person pose in between your own poses, and it's a good idea to let at least two people say something. If you are RPing in a group of three, you can take turns, although people are rarely stringent about this, especially if one person's idle or distracted and slow. With four and above, you can practically come in when you feel like it if you see a pose that you want to respond to, but try not to pose as many times as everybody else put together or only once every ten minutes. If everybody can contribute pretty much equally, that helps the RP to flow more naturally.
At least earn brownie points for grammar
The only real textbook method of improving your RP is to improve your grammar. The content of your pose may be tosh regardless, but it's going to be unbearable tosh if the spelling and punctuation are all over the place. Keep your verb tenses straight, you'll probably want to use the present tense: Foofoo is smiling not Foofoo was smiling. Definitely not Foofoo coughs a little as she poured her cup of tea. The coughing and tea-pouring occur at the same time, but according to that pose she's coughing now and poured the tea in the past. Obviously this happens from time to time by accident—the D key is right next to the S key on all keyboards that I know of, after all. Also, everything is happening in the third person: that's he, she and it, not I and you unless Foofoo's talking. Often when just two people are in the room, they'll lapse into calling the other person you, e.g. Goober moves closer to you and wipes your hair out of your face. It's not a big thing, but he should technically say Goober moves closer to Foofoo and wipes her hair out of her face.
Don't use emoticons: Foofoo is so much smarter than Goober ;) You should be able to make yourself clear without them. Foofoo is so much smarter than Goober--well, in her own warped little mind, anyway. In fact, if you know Goober fairly well, or you're already RPing lightheartedly, you could just get away with Foofoo is so much smarter than Goober. You never see emoticons being used in books, do you? Even if online RP is rarely bestseller novel quality, go for that sort of style above the online chat look. Obviously emoticons are fine in OOC chatter, but don't use them in RP or descs. That's my opinion anyway, I've seen some perfectly respected people add a ;) to the end of their pose, but I find it irritating and I assure you that I'm not the only one.
Obviously, if you're on raw telnet (where you can't actually see what you're typing in most cases and also can't delete if you do realise that you've made a mistake), nobody's going to expect you to produce a flawless pose. Even if you're not on raw telnet, nobody's going to jump down your throat for typing teh instead of the. But at least make the effort. People don't like having to stare at a pose for a few minutes before they can figure out what that word is or who it was meant for. Fortunately players are skilled in reading 'typoese' so you usually don't need to bother correcting yourself after you've hit enter unless it's really confusing, such as typing in the wrong person's name by mistake. Don't bother with OOC: Foofoo says "teh/the" since people will have quite easily got that one, and it just adds to spam to add in a correction pose. Also, if you are on raw telnet, my advice would be to download a client so that you can both see what you're typing and delete mistakes, which should help matters considerably. You can find links to clients on the links page.
Finding RP Powerplaying Angst and Selfishness Tips on Poses Waiting for Others Grammar