G E T T I N G S T A R T E D

The how to.
And the what not to do.

New to London Bridges?
Confused?
No problem. In this short beginners' guide we'll get you moving towards being an active and efficent member of our team.
And maybe with this aid we won't hate you as much.
[JUST KIDDING. WE LOVE YOU ALL.]


TABLEOFCONTENTS

Gettingstarted.
Step by Step.
Literacy. A must.
Where to post?
Make Your Posts Pretty

S T E P B Y S T E P


|| So you've registered. Now what?
|| Most of you already have your characters planned out, pictures uploaded, you're set.
|| If not, the easiest thing to do is to use yourself as a character.
|| Of course you can change the name, and some of the background details,
|| but when dealing with an actual character, personal experiences and
|| memories are the best fodder for an excellent roleplay.



s p e c i a l b i t s

Just a note-
If you think you want your character to be an animagus or a
metamorphagus, think again.
Animagi are highly skilled witches and wizards. Only about ten people
get registered as animagi a year, and that's out of the entire wizarding
population. And if you think you're going to be one of those kids, a kin to
James and Sirius, you have to remember, becoming an unregistered
animagi is ILLEGAL. You slip up and you're a gonner. <3. Now it's still possible
of course, but you have to have a killer excuse to be accepted by the admins.

Metamorphagus. Thooper duper rare. There is only one J.K.Rowlings ever
mentions and that is Tonks. So you'd have to be a direct relation to Tonks
[as in her child] to be considered one. Though there are no doubt a few others
wandering about. This is like a genetic mutation in wizards, it's very very rare.
And think, if you were a metamorphagus you'd probably not want it to be know.
It's a dark time, though Hogwarts tries to remain untouched by the war, there
is the risk that metas are useful to Voldemort, seeing as they can change their
appearance, so you probably wouldn't walk around popping out different
haircolors every three minutes.

Just a note. <3.
If you would like to apply for something of the sort go here: HOMG



s p e c i a l g r o u p s

Along with that there are some groups that need to be brought to attention. ||
Mainly ||
The Order of the Pheonix and ||
The Death Eaters. ||

Now students can't be a member of either yet, but it is possible ||
to say that you are in training for one or the other. ||
In that case post it here: ||OMFG ||


c h a r a c t e r p r o f i l e s

|| Now. Once you have your character planned out, the initial step is to post your character's profile.
|| Now, it doesn't have to be a novel or anything, but we want detail, these are
|| practically living breathing people [though obviously not, but you get the jist.]
|| It doesn't have to have that much detail, but it's prefered. Just so we can get
|| to know the basis of your character before we actually roleplay with you..
|| [So our characters can have an insite of your character's personality, since most
|| of the students have known eachother since 1st year. <3.]
|| To post your character profile go here:
|| <3 and pick your house of choice. <3.


c h a r a c t e r p l o ts a n d i n v e n t o r y

The next step would be to post a Character Plots and Inventory. ||
The purpose of these are to let members know what you think about their ||
characters. It's just spiffy if you want to know how to enterpret character's ||
reactions and the such. ||
Along with that you can post what items your character is in possesion of. ||

Set yours up here: ||
| RIGHT HURR ||
On that page there is a layout that you can use to create yours. <3. ||



f i n a l l y

After making your character known to the already active members
here, feel free to make your own posts around the school and grounds,
chat it up in our Out Of Character roleplays, and have a good time.
I've been here since this place has started up, and from what I've seen,
people are eager to take in a new face!

Welcome Aboard Mate. <3.

L I T E R A C Y
A must!

This usually isn't a problem, but I'd just like to get this out for newcommers to see.
Literacy is a must here on London Bridges.
Now we aren't asking you to write a book every time you post, but more then one sentence is prefered.
Along with that, we ask you roleplay in full sentences. It's alright to step outside of this when in the student chatrooms, but other then that, leave the AIM speak for AIM. <3

That's about it on this matter.

|| But of course: Literacy also refers to 'Godmodding'
|| Description taken from Wikipedia

|| Godmoding can occur when a character describes an event or a series of events
|| he or she has taken against another character or interactive object, most
|| often with the purpose of rescinding negative effects previously encountered
|| or granting some other effect inconsistent with an innocent view of the narrative.
|| Godmoding is thus often used like a "Get Out of Jail Free card" when things don't
|| go the way a player wants, rather than working with previously unfolded events.
|| It is also used to describe the act of creating or playing with an invincible
|| character or unbreakable armor, limitless power, etc.

I'd suspect that you all know that godmodding is wrong and unfun. If you're caught godmodding, you will be asked to stop. However, if you ask permission to make something happen to another's character, then you'll be excused !

W H E R E T O P O S T ?
Lost?

Well. If you're completely lost on how to post in an invisionfree-like forum, it's actually quite simple!
If you're used to Gaia or Neopets, or even AIM-based roleplays, fear not. Roleplaying is Roleplaying no matter where or how you do it.


P i c k i n g a L o c a t i o n

The board is split into sections depending on it's location. There are places such ||
as the lake, the great hall, and even the common rooms. This is where you pick ||
the setting of your roleplay, so that you don't always have to say 'Hermione then ||
walked into the Library' and describe it all. If you post a topic in the library, ||
everyone will automatically know that that roleplay is going to take place in ||
the libary. xD Straight foreward enough. ||



P o s t i n g A T o p i c & & R o l e p l a y i n g

|| When clicking on 'The Library' for instance, you'll probably see a number of
|| roleplays open. It's best to join some of the more recent roleplays if the
|| topic says [OPEN] underneath it. However, if you don't want to join
|| a topic, you can always start one.

|| Personally, I like starting roleplays more then joining exsisting ones. To
|| start a roleplay you simply click 'New Topic' and then just start one! Make
|| sure to put the topic name, aswell as if it's open or not. If you've asked
|| someone to roleplay, put the names of the two characters there who'll be
|| roleplaying. If you're already roleplaying, you still have the choice to make it
|| open or closed, depending on if you want others to join or want it to be private.

|| When you begin a post, simply write an introductory post. All roleplayers should
|| recognize this, but if you need an example here's one. :]


• 'Kaddie trailed down the long narrow hallways of the dungeons boredly. She didn't want to go back to the common room- just because she wanted to go somewhere different. She was deathly afraid of the dark.. and because of this phobia she made sure not to go too far. She stayed in the main area, mostly, and had never really ventured all that deep through her five years there.
  
  Her tongue stuck out a bit and her full lips puckered as she blew a large bubble before allowing it to pop before she returned it to her mouth. This probably wouldn't be that interesting to Kaddie- normal bubblegum seemed to bore her. Instead, as she blew the bubble it let out a small ray of neon light around her, acting as sort of a torch that would turn on and off as it expanded. The colours changed from neon green, to pink, and then to blue. It was quite clever, actually, but Kaddie probably wouldn't be chewing it unless she was in such a dark place.
  
  Finding her way to a small bench, she sat herself down before positioning herself so that she was laying down on it. She blew her luminous bubble upwards before popping it. Actually, noone would be able to even tell it was her there if it wasn't for the continuous light and popping noise. Kaddie began to daydream.'
  
  || An old post, but you get the idea. This post describes what your character's
  || doing, aswell as allowing room for someone to post to you. :] This post was
  || posted in the dungeons, and therefore it gives the roleplay a different atmosphere.
  
  || After that, just post it! Feel free to decorate your post however you want.
  || Add colour to it, bold the speech, whatever you want!
  
  || After that, simply wait for someone to post back, and then reply to them
  || by clicking 'Add Reply' and replying.
  
  
  G e t t i n g s o m e o n e t o R o l e p l a y w i t h y o u
  The best way to find a roleplay is to either join a new one, PM a member- ||
  or post in the 'Roleplay with me' thread, which is located here: <3 ||
  
  In this thread, you simply describe your character and ask if anyone is willing ||
  to roleplay with you. If someone replies, roleplay away. :] ||
  You ARE allowed to bump your posts, but only if it's bumped down ALOT by ||
  other members. If you bump your posts when you're the first one in the topic- ||
  it'll do nothing. :[

P R E T T I F Y Y O U R R O L E PL A Y
Tips and Hints on how to make every post fabulous.

These are just some HTML hints to making a spiffy looking post.

f o n t
Most of us are familiar with fonts on here, as it often gives you an option to ||
pick from that neat little list. The thing you might not have known is that ||
you can put in your own fonts. Here are just some of the fonts offered: ||

Lucida Console ||
Century Gothic ||
Vrinda ||
Kartika ||
Comic Sans MS ||

Above, when you're about to post a topic, simply select your font from the ||
font list. Or, if you only want a bit of your text a certain font, highlight your ||
text and then select the font. :] ||

s i z e

Size makes a big difference. Big sizes tend to make it look young,
mmature, and a bit corny, no matter the subject of the post.
Smaller sizes [I prefer sizes 1-3 myself.] make everything look neater.

The code for those are on the top of the posting section
when you go to post.

c o l o r

|| Color also is on the editing section of a post.
|| However, don't use colours that will burn out the eyes of the
|| readers. Trust me- if you type up your posts in neon green font,
|| noone'll join it. You're allowed to make everything as colourful as
|| you want- but make it actually readable.

a l i g n m e n t

Alignment is just a spiffy little thing to make things look neater.
There are four main alignments.
Center- Centers everything within your post.
Right- Aligns your text to the right.
Left- Aligns your text to the left. This is the default.
Justify- This stretches out your font to fit the text box. It leaves
large gaps, so you may or may not want to use it.

The code for this is:

WELCOME ABOARD AND GET GOING MATES!