Post by Calib on May 21, 2009 17:39:06 GMT -5
Written and owned by Calib please do not steal
The Role Players’ Manifesto
A comprehensive and understandable guide to becoming an adept Role Player throughout the RP world.
Section 1: What Is A Role Player?
In its simplest form RPing is part of the art of writing, therefore when approaching RP for the first time, an interest in the creative world of writing is vital. If you have no preference to writing then choosing to pick up the responsibility of a casual role player really isn’t going to work for you.
Due to RP being a form of story telling it is also dyer that you join the world with a keen interest in creating an epic adventure for both you and your fellow RPers. Again if you don’t indulge in the idea of getting yourself out there and creating a story line, then proceeding to interact it in, RP might not be the thing for you.
To all of you out there however who don’t think of yourselves as an elite writer, by no means does this mean that the world of RP is scaring you away. Even Orwell started somewhere, so therefore more than anything we encourage the curious mind to come along, make a character and plot and learn as the experience develops. Your skills in writing may only be very medial at your start point; however I can make you a promise that if you stick with the craft, put in the effort and make the best of your experience, your development will be drastic even in a matter of months.
Now as stated, RP is another form of creative writing but it is also a mixture of team work and enthusiasm. In my time working with RPers, I often encounter very skilled writers who I am often very impressed with. Of course this is only one of the many things that helps build a brilliant RPer. Another causal occurrence I often see when RPing is how the adept, masterful writers are often subject to lack of activity and therefore lack the skill of punctuality. This is a drastic problem with a lot of boards across the web and ultimately the reason why so many fail to get off of the ground. Again to all of those people who do not value themselves as a master of words, I can speak for us all when I say that we would rather a role play built of active, cooperative, moderate writers rather than master words-men who hardly find the time to post.
And if you have assessed yourself at this point and find that you meet the criteria, being an individual who enjoys creativity and writing, has time on his/her hands and likes to work in a team for group development, then you already know what it is to be a role player. Remember however, RPing takes up time depending on how dedicated and how interactive you are with the storyline, so you must be realistic when taking on new responsibilities within the game. Of course if you are limited to posting twice a week then it’s not such a good idea to take on more than one character and not such a good idea to adopt an important, reliable role such as a canon character.
Section 2: The Basics…
If you have proceeded to this section then you have already told me that you meet the requirements to be an RPer, so let’s get cracking shall we.
The basics to role playing are basically the basics to any kind of writing. Remember that it is not like writing a diary or doodling, so therefore you can’t create new grammatical and spelling rules as you see fit. This of course brings me to my first point. The basics of RPing begin with the rules of the English language. This being the stuff you are learning/have learned from school, such as capitalization, the use of commas, placing periods in the correct place and of course apostrophes. If you include all of the basics into a sentence then you will find that other players can understand you with greater ease rather than if you decide to write in the Da Vinci Code. An Example:
The rules of English: Piccolo whisked his large cape to one side. There he revealed a glistening, metallic blade that appeared almost golden in the solemn sunlight of Earth.
Contemporary art: Piccolo wiskd iz big cape to one side their e reveeled a shiney metal sord that lucked gold in the sun of earth.
As you can see, exhibit A is much nicer on the eyes and the brain. Deciding to phrase things as they are phrased in exhibit B will just get you nowhere fast, as not only will no one want to game with you but you will disappoint yourself also.
Of course once you tackle the writing in English, you have to then consider what writing is. A good book in my eyes consists of the opening, the bulk of the content and finally the drawn conclusion. This applies not only to fiction but factual pieces also and most importantly, it is going to apply to you as an RPer.
Structure is important and therefore so is planning. Now if you have decided to go ahead and jump right into a role playing post then that’s fine, however you will find it much easier if you take some time to run through a few steps.
Step 1: What are you going to write? At least have a general idea of the events that will occur in your post. Therefore you will be able to create a mental structure before starting with the battering of the keyboard.
Step 2: How long is your written piece going to be? It is nice to get a balance, making it too short such as a few lines long to just over a paragraph won’t work in most cases. This is going to be seen as lazy and therefore your fellow players aren’t going to want to game with you, plus you will be under achieving by not displaying your true abilities. As well as small posts causing a bit of trouble, the super huge six pages of size ten font is also a problem. While we encourage enthusiasm, you will find that most of the time other players don’t want to read reels of pages for medial story playing such as casual chat. Keep the bigger stuff for the more important instances.
Step 3: Don’t rush when getting your writing down on paper. The more you rush the less quality your work will be and the more mistakes you will find. Remember, people constantly look for detail and excitement in the world of RP, that is why they are here, so make it your business to blow their socks of… so be sure to take your time.
And if you have proceeded to read this then you are telling me that you are fine with every point being made here and you will or already do try your best to achieve this during RPing. So therefore we are ready to move on to a more exciting lesson, this being the lesson of description.
Description is what makes or breaks a post. Have you ever been completely astounded by a writer’s ability to bring a scene to life before your eyes? This is because they have had a bit of practice with the description side of things. But why does description contribute so dearly in the world of RP? Well it’s simple, we are trying to bring our own world to life, and what better way to do it than to make the words jump out at you and do a little dance on the way. Of course again, if you don’t value yourself as a master writer then that doesn’t mean that you can’t display some measure of skill with description. An example of one of my previous posts:
“Swirls of tropical cloud drew in over the vast beaches of the jewel like planet of beautiful Lehon. Each mystifying shape transfiguring and morphing into unique and audacious designs that graced the horizon in somewhat of an extraordinary and remarkable manner. One could see for perpetual miles ahead, past that of the torrential, fierce and beast-like ocean, past the gargantuan, daunting ship wrecks that boldly peaked out of the raging waters, polishing the substantial skyline with the poetic refinement of planetary warfare. Even the great outlying, undomesticated vegetation of the untamed forests was crystal clear from this remarkable viewpoint.”
I use this example because I have been told multiple times that it brings the planet and its surroundings to life. However without the frills, I (and all of you) am still perfectly capable of being descriptive enough to create a mental imagine in my peers’ minds. Without putting too much effort in you could replace these common adjectives with something more exciting:
Her cape was red: Her cape was an enticing shade of fierce crimson.
His eyes were green: His sparkling eyes radiated a striking shade of hypnotic emerald.
Her blade was sharp: Her ravenous blade appeared razor-sharp.
If you take my previous advice and make some time to plan your posts, this level of description will come easily to you.
Section 3: Your character!
Your character is the key to role playing as a whole. Without this conduit of the game you would be unable to involve yourself with the action, which is why creating the right character is by far the most important thing you will find yourself doing during your time role playing. Of course there are things that moderators, administrators and even other members do and do not want to see when you have created your own character to role play with.
One of the biggest and absolute peeves of more experienced role players’ is reading the biography of a character that is basically designed to be indestructible. This can be via their alien like increased bodily strength and senses or even their god-like mental power. What people don’t want to see is your character being made ‘epic’ from the word go. There are of course multiple reasons for this, and it does happen to display quite a few personal things about you as a role player. If you were to make a god-like character then obviously other members are going to detect that you are more than likely new to the concept of role play. And in the case that you aren’t new and you create one anyway, well that just makes you look like a poser, the type of poser that other players do not want to socialise with in game. And if no one wants to socialise with you within the game then you won’t be granted access to plotlines and major storylines and thus, you will have lost out, all because you thought you would give your character an unnatural boost.
Another negative with the creation of a character is the over portrayal of history. It is indeed nauseating to watch a stereotypical movie that consists of the son living his life drenched in revenge as he tries to find and kill the man who murdered his father brutally. So why in the name of everything good would anyone want to give their character the same nauseatingly stereotypical history? Well… if you really think about it, they wouldn’t, and for this reason neither would you. So when creating a character history, don’t strive to make it the most ‘epic’ or the most overly ‘extreme’, no… in fact try to make it the most believable for the storyline. Of course I understand that some role playing takes place in a supernatural universe but that doesn’t mean that your character can’t fit into there naturally and normally? Instead of saying that he/she is a super hero spy for the planet Vegeta, why can’t they be a farmer? Instead of saying that your character has spent his/her life in the wild, fending for him/herself by killing off hundred feet dinosaurs, why not say they were born in New Zealand to a pretty uneventful life? You have to remember that your character history is what creates the foundation for your character, what happens in game is more than likely going to be very different. Therefore I propose that you should strive to create a character that will come into his/her heroship or villainy, one that will take character development and plenty of dedication to almost become a living, breathing entity. This is your aim and this is what you want to achieve as a role player.
The final note on creating your character is that a role play is not a single player game in this context. It is a game that is shared and enjoyed by everybody who is involved. So therefore you are not the most important entity that will exist within the written universe. This means that your character has to make room for others and as a consequence is not what Spartan 117 is to the grunts in Halo. This means that your character is a mortal, a beatable flawed mortal, meaning that they have the weaknesses of any other living, breathing being and in some cases are less or more than others. What you must come to terms with it that your character MAY NOT EVER be number one in the game, and may never be bowed down to as a god. If this is what you want but also have hopes of joining a democratic game… don’t, for obvious reasons.
Closing notes
After reading this, I am safely assuming that you are able to involve yourself fairly and responsibly into the game. I am assuming this because really, it doesn’t take long nor does it take that much effort to apply this type of reasoning and skill to your role playing. In most cases you will find that if you apply this simple knowledge of grammar, spelling, description and character development, you will be revered as a top notch role player, even in the case that you still consider yourself to be mediocre.
Please note that in writing this guide I am by no means declaring myself to be a master of all forms of writing. I like many others can at times struggle to pull together a creative piece or even simply have my off days, that is why all that you and I can do to improve ourselves is work at it. And the more we work at it, the better we become.
Regards
Calib
The Role Players’ Manifesto
A comprehensive and understandable guide to becoming an adept Role Player throughout the RP world.
Section 1: What Is A Role Player?
In its simplest form RPing is part of the art of writing, therefore when approaching RP for the first time, an interest in the creative world of writing is vital. If you have no preference to writing then choosing to pick up the responsibility of a casual role player really isn’t going to work for you.
Due to RP being a form of story telling it is also dyer that you join the world with a keen interest in creating an epic adventure for both you and your fellow RPers. Again if you don’t indulge in the idea of getting yourself out there and creating a story line, then proceeding to interact it in, RP might not be the thing for you.
To all of you out there however who don’t think of yourselves as an elite writer, by no means does this mean that the world of RP is scaring you away. Even Orwell started somewhere, so therefore more than anything we encourage the curious mind to come along, make a character and plot and learn as the experience develops. Your skills in writing may only be very medial at your start point; however I can make you a promise that if you stick with the craft, put in the effort and make the best of your experience, your development will be drastic even in a matter of months.
Now as stated, RP is another form of creative writing but it is also a mixture of team work and enthusiasm. In my time working with RPers, I often encounter very skilled writers who I am often very impressed with. Of course this is only one of the many things that helps build a brilliant RPer. Another causal occurrence I often see when RPing is how the adept, masterful writers are often subject to lack of activity and therefore lack the skill of punctuality. This is a drastic problem with a lot of boards across the web and ultimately the reason why so many fail to get off of the ground. Again to all of those people who do not value themselves as a master of words, I can speak for us all when I say that we would rather a role play built of active, cooperative, moderate writers rather than master words-men who hardly find the time to post.
And if you have assessed yourself at this point and find that you meet the criteria, being an individual who enjoys creativity and writing, has time on his/her hands and likes to work in a team for group development, then you already know what it is to be a role player. Remember however, RPing takes up time depending on how dedicated and how interactive you are with the storyline, so you must be realistic when taking on new responsibilities within the game. Of course if you are limited to posting twice a week then it’s not such a good idea to take on more than one character and not such a good idea to adopt an important, reliable role such as a canon character.
Section 2: The Basics…
If you have proceeded to this section then you have already told me that you meet the requirements to be an RPer, so let’s get cracking shall we.
The basics to role playing are basically the basics to any kind of writing. Remember that it is not like writing a diary or doodling, so therefore you can’t create new grammatical and spelling rules as you see fit. This of course brings me to my first point. The basics of RPing begin with the rules of the English language. This being the stuff you are learning/have learned from school, such as capitalization, the use of commas, placing periods in the correct place and of course apostrophes. If you include all of the basics into a sentence then you will find that other players can understand you with greater ease rather than if you decide to write in the Da Vinci Code. An Example:
The rules of English: Piccolo whisked his large cape to one side. There he revealed a glistening, metallic blade that appeared almost golden in the solemn sunlight of Earth.
Contemporary art: Piccolo wiskd iz big cape to one side their e reveeled a shiney metal sord that lucked gold in the sun of earth.
As you can see, exhibit A is much nicer on the eyes and the brain. Deciding to phrase things as they are phrased in exhibit B will just get you nowhere fast, as not only will no one want to game with you but you will disappoint yourself also.
Of course once you tackle the writing in English, you have to then consider what writing is. A good book in my eyes consists of the opening, the bulk of the content and finally the drawn conclusion. This applies not only to fiction but factual pieces also and most importantly, it is going to apply to you as an RPer.
Structure is important and therefore so is planning. Now if you have decided to go ahead and jump right into a role playing post then that’s fine, however you will find it much easier if you take some time to run through a few steps.
Step 1: What are you going to write? At least have a general idea of the events that will occur in your post. Therefore you will be able to create a mental structure before starting with the battering of the keyboard.
Step 2: How long is your written piece going to be? It is nice to get a balance, making it too short such as a few lines long to just over a paragraph won’t work in most cases. This is going to be seen as lazy and therefore your fellow players aren’t going to want to game with you, plus you will be under achieving by not displaying your true abilities. As well as small posts causing a bit of trouble, the super huge six pages of size ten font is also a problem. While we encourage enthusiasm, you will find that most of the time other players don’t want to read reels of pages for medial story playing such as casual chat. Keep the bigger stuff for the more important instances.
Step 3: Don’t rush when getting your writing down on paper. The more you rush the less quality your work will be and the more mistakes you will find. Remember, people constantly look for detail and excitement in the world of RP, that is why they are here, so make it your business to blow their socks of… so be sure to take your time.
And if you have proceeded to read this then you are telling me that you are fine with every point being made here and you will or already do try your best to achieve this during RPing. So therefore we are ready to move on to a more exciting lesson, this being the lesson of description.
Description is what makes or breaks a post. Have you ever been completely astounded by a writer’s ability to bring a scene to life before your eyes? This is because they have had a bit of practice with the description side of things. But why does description contribute so dearly in the world of RP? Well it’s simple, we are trying to bring our own world to life, and what better way to do it than to make the words jump out at you and do a little dance on the way. Of course again, if you don’t value yourself as a master writer then that doesn’t mean that you can’t display some measure of skill with description. An example of one of my previous posts:
“Swirls of tropical cloud drew in over the vast beaches of the jewel like planet of beautiful Lehon. Each mystifying shape transfiguring and morphing into unique and audacious designs that graced the horizon in somewhat of an extraordinary and remarkable manner. One could see for perpetual miles ahead, past that of the torrential, fierce and beast-like ocean, past the gargantuan, daunting ship wrecks that boldly peaked out of the raging waters, polishing the substantial skyline with the poetic refinement of planetary warfare. Even the great outlying, undomesticated vegetation of the untamed forests was crystal clear from this remarkable viewpoint.”
I use this example because I have been told multiple times that it brings the planet and its surroundings to life. However without the frills, I (and all of you) am still perfectly capable of being descriptive enough to create a mental imagine in my peers’ minds. Without putting too much effort in you could replace these common adjectives with something more exciting:
Her cape was red: Her cape was an enticing shade of fierce crimson.
His eyes were green: His sparkling eyes radiated a striking shade of hypnotic emerald.
Her blade was sharp: Her ravenous blade appeared razor-sharp.
If you take my previous advice and make some time to plan your posts, this level of description will come easily to you.
Section 3: Your character!
Your character is the key to role playing as a whole. Without this conduit of the game you would be unable to involve yourself with the action, which is why creating the right character is by far the most important thing you will find yourself doing during your time role playing. Of course there are things that moderators, administrators and even other members do and do not want to see when you have created your own character to role play with.
One of the biggest and absolute peeves of more experienced role players’ is reading the biography of a character that is basically designed to be indestructible. This can be via their alien like increased bodily strength and senses or even their god-like mental power. What people don’t want to see is your character being made ‘epic’ from the word go. There are of course multiple reasons for this, and it does happen to display quite a few personal things about you as a role player. If you were to make a god-like character then obviously other members are going to detect that you are more than likely new to the concept of role play. And in the case that you aren’t new and you create one anyway, well that just makes you look like a poser, the type of poser that other players do not want to socialise with in game. And if no one wants to socialise with you within the game then you won’t be granted access to plotlines and major storylines and thus, you will have lost out, all because you thought you would give your character an unnatural boost.
Another negative with the creation of a character is the over portrayal of history. It is indeed nauseating to watch a stereotypical movie that consists of the son living his life drenched in revenge as he tries to find and kill the man who murdered his father brutally. So why in the name of everything good would anyone want to give their character the same nauseatingly stereotypical history? Well… if you really think about it, they wouldn’t, and for this reason neither would you. So when creating a character history, don’t strive to make it the most ‘epic’ or the most overly ‘extreme’, no… in fact try to make it the most believable for the storyline. Of course I understand that some role playing takes place in a supernatural universe but that doesn’t mean that your character can’t fit into there naturally and normally? Instead of saying that he/she is a super hero spy for the planet Vegeta, why can’t they be a farmer? Instead of saying that your character has spent his/her life in the wild, fending for him/herself by killing off hundred feet dinosaurs, why not say they were born in New Zealand to a pretty uneventful life? You have to remember that your character history is what creates the foundation for your character, what happens in game is more than likely going to be very different. Therefore I propose that you should strive to create a character that will come into his/her heroship or villainy, one that will take character development and plenty of dedication to almost become a living, breathing entity. This is your aim and this is what you want to achieve as a role player.
The final note on creating your character is that a role play is not a single player game in this context. It is a game that is shared and enjoyed by everybody who is involved. So therefore you are not the most important entity that will exist within the written universe. This means that your character has to make room for others and as a consequence is not what Spartan 117 is to the grunts in Halo. This means that your character is a mortal, a beatable flawed mortal, meaning that they have the weaknesses of any other living, breathing being and in some cases are less or more than others. What you must come to terms with it that your character MAY NOT EVER be number one in the game, and may never be bowed down to as a god. If this is what you want but also have hopes of joining a democratic game… don’t, for obvious reasons.
Closing notes
After reading this, I am safely assuming that you are able to involve yourself fairly and responsibly into the game. I am assuming this because really, it doesn’t take long nor does it take that much effort to apply this type of reasoning and skill to your role playing. In most cases you will find that if you apply this simple knowledge of grammar, spelling, description and character development, you will be revered as a top notch role player, even in the case that you still consider yourself to be mediocre.
Please note that in writing this guide I am by no means declaring myself to be a master of all forms of writing. I like many others can at times struggle to pull together a creative piece or even simply have my off days, that is why all that you and I can do to improve ourselves is work at it. And the more we work at it, the better we become.
Regards
Calib
