Role Play Guide

This is a nice little guide I found somewhereabouts on the internet. Whatever you do in private IM roleplays is your business but this was written for role play on a forum and is a rather nice little easy to follow guide.

I would like to avoid drama with this unlike the last time I called attention to this very problem. All I am trying to do is make your role plays a more enjoyable experience. I am not being mean by doing this and I would appreciate no one say that about this guide. In the end I am doing this for you, the role players of KHV.

So without further ado, here are these simple guidelines:

1. If you want to show that your character is saying something, then do it as if you were writing dialouge out for a story. Example:

"How are you?" George asked her.

2. If you want to show your characters thought you may place them in italics, or like so:

"I wonder why I've never seen her before" George thought to himself.
OR:
I wonder why I've never seen her before. George thought to himself.

3. If you want to show your characters action, then simply write the action down. Do NOT use asterisks (*) dashes (-) or any other symbols to show this. Example:

George smiled, standing as he did so, extending a friendly hand the girls way to shake.

4. RP posts are ALWAYS done in third person. Do not use the phrase "I" in relation to your character. Example:

George laughed, reaching down to help the girl pick up her things, he was clumsy himself and so thought nothing of it.

5. Use proper grammar and spelling when typing a post, no chat or text speak. Vary your sentence length as well. Example:

Once her things were gathered George offered them to the girl, waving off her thanks, "Don't worry about it." he assured her. He helped her tuck her things back into her bag, motioning over his shoulder to the Cafeteria, "Care to join me?" he asked with a charming smile. He, of course, was hoping for a yes.

*If a mod wishes to move this somewhere, they may do so.

 

Rule 5 applys to nobody

 

LEAVE US ALONE!!!!!!!!

U MEANIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

wow very nice ^^

 

Mish found L_F's post rather helpful and suggested it be copied and pasted into the RP section. Perhaps in this thread, to prevent an annoying increase in the number of stickies.

"Man, Kitty sure is a fool." Mish randomly thought to herself.

 

I do everything in this guide , good for me . It's like you were stalking me or something . . . >_> < _<

*runs away and hides *

scary . :o

 

I was thinking the same thing 0_o *runs and hides with you*

 

Not necessarily. In IM roleplays, a 1st person interaction with another character is most formal. This also applies to community roleplays as well. Not a forum community per se, one more like insane journal or el jay.'

It also depends on what kind of RP you're doing on the forum. You have to define the story as a first person or third person. Number 4 should state that when starting a new RP, you should state whether the story will be in 1st or 3rd person.

Oh, also...

The moment her things were gathered, George handed them to the girl, waving off her thanks. "Don't worry about it", he assured her. He helped her tuck her items back into her bag, motioning over his shoulder to the Cafeteria. "Care to join me?" he asked with a charming smile. He, of course, was hoping for a yes.

Fixed. Also, it's wise to mention the character's name instead of "he" or "she" to prevent confusion. Another thing to mention is godmodding. If this were truly a RP post, I can point out a few points where you are godmodding a character.

 

Notice in my original post that I said: 'What you do in private role plays is your business'. So long as you and the other person have a set style that works for you, more power to you. I was speaking forum role-play in general. This set of rules is not completely set in stone and can be altered to work more in accordance where they will be put into place.

The 'Dungeon Master', if you will, has the right to set up his/her role play forum as he/she likes. They can say: 'Make your posts 3rd person' or 'post in 1st person.' That is their right alone since it is their rp. Again this is a general set of rough guidelines and not perfect by any means.

I can see what you were saying but 'offering' implies that the girl has the option of taking the things or not from George. 'Handing' implies that she doesn't have that choice.

Also, since the situation is dealing with 1 male and 1 female, there is no need for specification since George and the girl are the only ones mentioned. If there were more characters involved then I can see where you might want to include names. The examples are kinda meant to continue with each other. Like a broken apart example post.

I didn't write this guide and if I did I would have replaced the godmodding with something different.If I had been the girl to respond to this post, I would want to respond with something at least. I could see how I could reply to what was provided quite easily.

 

"One of kitty's many skills is her being able to read minds. She read Mish's thoughts,but was shock from what she read. Kitty's heart was crushed, so she placed herself in a car crusher, waiting for her demise. "

 

LF is correct. You, Mari, were the one who made the post into a godmod the moment you changed "offered" to "handed", which implies what LF already stated. Choice of words are obviously important in avoiding godmodding; passive statements are sometimes intentional and very necessary--changing them to something more definitive doesn't always mean it's correct.

Other than that, you can't definitively claim that sample post was a godmod in any way since context could be missing. For all we know, the person who RP'ed the girl might've stated she had been packing her things in her previous post--which then the male character (George) simply reinstates that particular action, *then* adds his own detail in saying he assisted her with it. In this sense, George didn't 'suddenly' make her start packing her things; it was something she was already in the process of doing.