Please read our newest one:
http://community.keiichianimeforever.com/w...ion_to_roleplay





















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OLD GUIDE:

Welcome to the world of roleplaying - an interactive writing game that involves its participants in different ranges of emotions while accomplishing a complete plot.

Roleplaying, itself, is simple. You may want to check out some of the current roleplaying threads currently active to see an example.

Joining

To first get started, you will need to join a roleplaying thread, and then establish your character. As long as you don't join the thread at the "wrong time", you should start out with a post stating the following information:

• Your Character's Name
• Your Character's Age
• Your Character's Class (if applies; i.e. Mage, Monk, Knight)
• Your Character's Personalities, Weaknesses, and Strenghts
• Your Character's Look
• Any Other Useful Information

Make sure your character does not have super powers, or some god like or unfair advantage over other players. This is called godmoding, and it will be explained further as you continue reading. Try to handle only one character at one time, or it becomes very confusing. Of course, you may have a pet or some sort of tag-along, as long as it doesn't give you any unfair advantages.

Now that you've joined, stay active. Don't drop out of the RP or stop checking in one day. It becomes very annoying. But, if you want to leave an RP, do it without causing disturbance (i.e.killing your character). You can always come in at a later time, but remember, don't cause a disturbance! Do not continue joining and dropping out of an RP though.

Also, you can create more than one character, but it's not recommended because it only causes confusion most of the time.

Now, it's time to start posting.

Posting

To get started, you must get accustomed to the style. Here, at Keiichi Anime Forever, we have a preferred style that is generally accepted throughout many roleplaying forums on the internet, and we have a set of rules to prevent overpowering or "cheating".

Medium length descriptive paragraphs should be written for every post, as preferred. Do not use (for example) two new lines after every sentence. It looks very "unprofessional" and many roleplayers do not do this. An example of a good post would be:

Ashi walked slowly up to the cabinet, and with a quick pull, she opened the door, spilling its contents onto the floor. Rummaging through the mess, she found a bright golden key, marked with "DOOR". In her mind, she said to herself, "That's it! That's the key we've been looking for!". With no delay, she ran down the stairs and screamed to the others "Hey! I found the key!"

Paragraphs can be longer, and there can be more than one (just don't overdo it). Remember, this is not a one-person story. It's active, and other people will need time to catchup on what they miss while they were absent.

Also, very importantly, do not switch point of views, or tenses. It becomes confusing. 1st person with present tense or 3rd person with past tense are two great combinations.

General Posting Syntax

• Normal text represents actions (i.e. I ran up to him and handed him a sword.)
• "Quoted text" represents speech (i.e. He said to her "I need your bag") - Remember to address the subject and the receiving character clearly
• (Text surrounded with one parenthesis) represents clearing up of something (i.e. He walked to Nask (a village in Geron))
• ((Text surrounded with two parenthesis)) represents messages to be said outside the roleplay (i.e. ((Hey, that was a smooth move)))

Battle Scenes

Now, battle scenes. There may be battle scenes. Now, this can be a very touchy subject. Following these guidelines will prevent abuses and such. First of all, try to keep battles within 2 to 10 posts of length (but it can be longer or shorter if needed). Do not use numbers and calculations (i.e. the monster lost 5 HP). No one will want to calculate all of this. The monster will die when the monster dies. Just go with the flow, but don't use super powers that kill strong enemies in one blow. Stretch out posts or give other "team members" their own function.

There will be cases where your character has some special magic or technique. Here are some cases and what you should do.

• Duplication Spell - If in such a case, duplicate (but not too many), but don't attack right away... wait a few posts
• Super Powerful Technique - "Charge up" for the attack with a few posts

Rules

Now it's time for the rules. You've been waiting for this, haven't you?

• No godmoding (more information below)
• Do not control other people's characters
• No spamming
• No damage-calling / auto-ing and calling a death of another character controlled by another user
• Read and post regularly if you join an RP

Godmodding has many types (source):

• Version One: Standard Godmoding -- Ash summed up this type by describing this type godmoder as; "Super Duper Unbeatable Unkillable Omnipotent Being. They crap fireballs and cast devastating attacks in their sleep. They will always dodge or survive any attack thrown at them, no matter what their opponent says." In other words, this person never misses, never gets injured/hit, never has a bad hair day, et cetera. Other godmoding skills might be incorporated into this persona: an infinite supply of items; possession of vast amounts of money, training, or experience; well developed skills in all areas. For the latter, see also version three.
• Version Two: Badly Disguised Standard Godmoding -- Basically the same as version one, only watered down in an attempt to not appear godmodey -- they may allow themselves to be hit once or twice, for instance. These players still have the problem of outclassing the other RPers, drastically changing and/or ruining plot with their god-like mad skillz, and overall taking all the challenge/fun out of an RP, while also having the added annoyance of [censored]ing off everyone else with their constant cry of "I'm not a godmoder!"
• Version Three: Twinkage -- These are characters with enough flaws of skill and personality to potentially make a good character, but they have too many, well developed, all-encompassing powers (like the person who's a Master Martial Artist Summoning Hair Stylist Librarian).
• Version Four: Perfect Team -- This godmoder, instead of bringing in an excessively powerful character, prefers to bring in a team of weaker characters. When one member of this group is faced with danger, the others all work together to form an unbeatable team which overcomes a great deal of, if not all, adversity.
• Version Five: Gazel Ministry -- Instead of directly overpowering a character or group of them, this type godmoder prefers to snipe at them from behind their great wall, be it a high social status, or an inaccessable location. What this results in is that they can do whatever they want as far as making another character's life hell without any consequence whatsoever. Named after the Gazel Ministry from Xenogears, as they did *spoiler* and *spoiler*.
• Version Six: Charisma Godmoding -- This is the art of creating a character who is so persuasive, so suave, and so smooth, that he could convince any enemy he "doesn't really want to fight." Charisma godmoders hack and slash through RPs using a social sword rather than conventional weapons, making themselves impossible to hurt by preventing confrontation altogether. Furthermore, some charisma godmoding takes place when characters make themselves completely untouchable -- the character simply cannot be hurt or threatened because the backlash would be too great, or because others simply cannot bring themselves to hurt the character.

These are only guidelines. We don't have any limits on freestyle roleplaying neither if you decide to start such an RP type.

Sidenotes:
- Killing off your character or other poster's is possible but highly not recommended. Exceptions are rivals and villians.
- The number of characters u control are not limited. However, a high number is not recommended.
- If u do wish to drop out of the RP, do it in a way that doesn't affect anyone. Do not do this simply to kill off your cahracter and make a new one.
- You may rejoin the RP if several real days have gone by or if the RP has added more pgs of posts. Valid reasons, are that the u now have more time in the real world or that the RP has changed so that u like the storyline now.
- Continually joining and dropping out of an RP is NOT recomended.

Posting Itself

-Regular Text. Action or Description
Example: Vahn was a swordsman. He went over to the tree and chopped it down.

-Quotes. Speech. Make sure u adress who u are speaking to and who is sayin what.
Example: Vahn says to his friend Ash, "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

-Parenteses. Sidenote. These are added to clearify the post without ruining the sentence of your post.
Example: Vahn said to Ash, "Lets go to Natsume (the first town we went to) and use the spell (the fire one).

-Double Parentesess. Sidenotes. Use this to talk to the poster directly. Not part of the RP. Usually found at the top of the message.
Example: ((Hey sk89q, this is where you can come in))

The following Roleplaying guide stolen from Mega Mina-chan without her permission OR knowledge!

How do I roleplay?

You can role-play by creating a story, but in this type of role-play on the forum you are interactive with your character and others around you.

Examples:

(Name of your character or gender) stands up, only to move to a different section of raised land where the purple flowers are. She sits there, but lays down so she is sitting and laying at the same time. (He/She) picks a few of the purple blooms around her to smell their fragerence.

How to improve your role-playing style?

-->
First off, to improve your role-playing style you have to know a few basic rules.

--> What Not To Do <--
1) Adding more spaces and dots to your role-playing does not make you look proffesional, it makes you look dumbfounded, and for a way to take up space in your post!

2) Do not be blunt! For example: He stared, "Ok." - That would also be considered SPAM.

3) Everything is not capitlized!

4) Avoid abbreviations! Ex: Mrs., Mr., Ms., Prof., Dr., Gen., Rep., Sen., WTF, omg, u, 4, ect.

-->What To Do<--

1) Make sure you use proper punctuation!

2) Have up to five sentences in your post.

3) Use a lot of Verbs (a verb is "what you do").

4) Period at the end of every sentence.

-->
Grammar
<--

Use commas to space out your sentences, because you don't want your paragraphs to be one large sentence.

Mixed up words:
They're - They are.
Their: Shows possesion. Ex. That is not my hat, that is their hat.
There: Where an action is taken place. Ex. They did that over there.

Additional tip: SEPERATE DIAGLOUGUE WITH ACTIONS! LIKE THIS!
(action)
"blahblahblah" he/she/(name) said/asked/screamed/etc.
(more actions)
"blahblahblah" (action) or he/she/name said/asked/etc.
So...Free twinkies to all *throws twinkies at everyone* and to all, a good night.)

Moved to: http://community.keiichianimeforever.com/w...ion_to_roleplay
(Completely new article!)

Once the points in this thread are transferred to that article, this thread will go away.