How to RP, A Guide for Beginners

[Sathe]

I’m hoping for a huge wave of new members, and it’s entirely possible that some of them may be beginners. For their benefit as well as for those of us who have been out of this for a while, I’ve compiled a simple guide to forum-based role playing. I'll spread it out over several posts to make it a little more manageable. As always, PM me with any questions!

[Sathe]

What is RPing?

RP stands for “role play.” There are many different ways that people role play: role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, live action role playing (LARPing), forum-based role playing, chatroom role playing, and countless other derivative forms of the same basic concept—pretending to be someone you aren’t. LARPing especially is very similar to improvisational acting, but all RPing is acting, in a way.

Estah is a message board that almost exclusively hosts forum-based roleplays, or para RPs (that’s short for “paragraph,” you know). Many of us started out in chatrooms and ended up here because we wanted to be able to put more time and energy into our roles.

A forum-based RP allows for posts that would unreasonably long in a live chat. When posting on a forum you also have more time to go back and edit your posts for grammar or continuity. Because of the time that we put into our RPs, they move more slowly than those taking place in a chatroom. Instead of events unfolding over one evening, they may take weeks or months to play out. This allows for more intricate stories, but also means you spend a lot of time waiting.

[Sathe]

How does it work?

Every forum you visit will have a slightly different way of managing their RPs, tailored to suit their needs and preferences. Estah is no different. We group our RPs into four different categories: historic, modern, futuristic, and themed or other. Any user (that means you!) can create a thread in any of these categories. Of course, RPs wouldn’t go anywhere if everyone only posted in their own topic. You can post in any of the RPs in any section. You might want to read a few of them before deciding which ones to join.

Any RP started in these sections is open for any member of the forum to join. It’s best to join an RP at the beginning, but it’s not the end of the world if you show up in the middle. I’ll cover that later. We ask that the first post of any RP topic contain the rules and setting for the story, or that a topic be created in the RP Discussion section with all of that information stated clearly in the first post. This is helpful for other RPs to refer back to as the story progresses.

Every post is a response to the posts before it. A poster should take into account everything that happened since he or she last posted. Also, it’s important to make sure you leave sufficient time for everyone to react to what has happened to their character before posting again. Posts don’t necessarily go in any order; there are no “turns,” exactly, but it’s common courtesy to make sure everyone has their chance to speak. Obviously if someone is absent for a long period of time, there’s no reason you should have to wait for them, but it’s good to let the majority of the posters act.

The creator of the RP topic usually has control over what happens to the characters. They’ve obviously written this story, and they have a specific idea about what’s going to happen. They can control the weather, the non-player characters (NPCs) and the main plot action of the story. That being said, no one, not even the RP’s creator, has the right to control the actions of someone else’s character. This is called “god-moding” and is a big no-no. It’s alright to suggest in your post an obvious action for the other poster, but never to actually take control of their character. For example, you might type “Jason walked off in a hurry, looking over his shoulder to see if the others followed” instead of “everyone followed Jason as he hurried off.” This allows the other posters to control the action of their characters, giving them the choice of running, following slowly, or not following at all. It’s up to them.

It’s important to follow the rules set by the creator of the RP. If they say there’s no magic in this world, you can’t use magic—period. If the character you wanted to use is a magical one, you might just have to create a new character—which leads me to my next post.