via Why Immersion Matters – We Fly Spitfires – MMORPG Blog.

via When Inspiration Is Not Enough: Time Travel in RPGs, Part 1.

2.) Every post must be exactly and only as long as it needs to be. You hate it when you ask how long a teacher wants an essay to be, and he responds "As long as it needs to be." Well, he’s right. Get the point across. Make the plot point. Fill in a few details on the character by means of showing them. Make it long enough to do those things, but no longer.

3.) Be sure there is a sense of place. You don’t have to write four rambly paragraphs about the location. One or two sentences will often suffice, so long as you provide the other roleplayers/reader with an idea of where this is, what the atmosphere or milieu of the place is, and the like. It can be as simple as the character’s perception of a room/area/etc.

4.) Be sure there is a sense of person. With few exceptions, there is no need to spell out the exact details of a character’s outfit and physical appearance, but carefully chosen details can serve you very well – i.e. ink stains, coffeestains, uncombed hair, STYLE of dress (i.e. "He was dressed in soft, muted colors", or "She wore a flowing white skirt"), manner of speech (i.e. mumbling, avoiding eye contact, staring, commanding sharply, etc.), and such, when dispersed throughout the post, can paint the picture of a person without spending unnecessary paragraphs on verbose descriptions.

5.) Avoid discussing a character’s memories or dreams too much. Done in moderation, in small dosages, and without the ever-annoying ‘telling’, memories or dreams can further shape your character in a roleplay. I suggest that if you include snippets of a memory or dream, they be exactly that – snippets, no longer than two sentences, average length ones, at that. Further, that these not be used in every post. More like once, possible a few times, in the course of a roleplay, at PIVOTAL moments, not whenever you feel the desire to include them.

6.) Write what needs to be written. What happens here? What is your purpose in writing this post? Fulfill it. Portray what needs to be portrayed. Don’t worry if it is too short or too long. Proofread for grammar and spelling (and inconsistencies), and post.

7.) Typically, roleplay posts are in the third person, past tense. Use of the future conditional is advised against. Use your discretion when departing from the standard point of view in roleplay posts, and when in doubt, ask the GM of the roleplay in question – or simply refer to the rules.

8.) The roleplay post is typically expected to contain the point of view of one character only – yours – and if you are playing multiple characters who are not in the same location or conversation, it is considered considerate to clearly separate the segments. Sometimes, there is a need to include the actions or dialogue of NPCs as well, and in some roleplays, dependent on the GM and the other players involved, light forms of puppeting are considered acceptable for longer posts.

9.) Good roleplay posts are good writing. While there are some differences in the ways in which one is permitted to portray actions, thoughts, and characters’ points of view, a good roleplay post will also demonstrate a good handle on vocabulary, syntax, effective use of detail, and other elements of style.

The GMs of the dice games relied heavily on planning – but after an intense planning session, they could fill out most of a storyline complete with several foreseeable forks. After the (admittedly intense on the creative lobes) preparations were done, the GM role involved guiding players such that they could discover that GM’s genius plot. Some improvisation was necessary.

The GMs of the play by post roleplay are up against a set of completely different expectations, ones that are not always explicitly clear to them. While dice-rollers knew that the GM of their games would lead the story, the writers in a play-by-post RP all appear to be on equal footing (but have unequal strengths and weaknesses). Some players expect the GM to create the plot and move the players along it, while the players themselves plan to just fill in the gaps. There are also those who wish to exercise their creative spark, veering the plot off of the GM’s course for their own devices – so as to make the story more fun and dynamic for everyone (they think). How are you, the GM of a play-by-post roleplay, supposed to cater to an audience whom you cannot gauge as the static, dynamic, or mixed until the story is already underway? There are no proven methods that work, but I have been having a pretty good experience so far with Verdanus and Tertius: War of the World (see the Activity tab for the actual roleplaying) and want to share my “good practices”.

Create a setting and plot that you are interested in. As writers, we often have creative sparks that we can whip into an introductory post to a roleplay – but ask yourself, could you see yourself enjoying another plot in the same setting? Another character? A world that isn’t intrinsically interesting to you will eventually sap all of your creative juices, leaving you contemptuous enough to abandon it. I’ve experienced that quite a few times – but not so with the Verdanus story: I want to novelize it. It’s the kind of story I would (did, and will) keep writing even without others.

Give yourself (and others) leeway. While dice-roleplays had to be linear (straight, curved, zig-zagged, but always moving from A to B to C), there is no such necessity with play-by-post. Players posting in the same roleplay need not have their characters interact, or even appear in the same location. The mere possibility of one affecting the other in the distant future is enough to warrant coexistence within the roleplay. Give your players multiple starting points, and as the GM cycle through all of them, periodically adding content. This lets players avoid interacting with those with whom they don’t jive – and lets you, the GM, use some untouched segment of the roleplay as your idea spawning pool. It also allows for more writers to participate, disintegrating the ~6 player limit in dice games.

Emphasize writing over anything else. If you were inspired by a fantasy great like Tolkien or Zelazny, or a sci-fi grandmaster like Heinlein, Asimov, or Dick, you probably judged their writing as top notch. Their grammar, literary devices, and dialogue were the sugar that helped the medicine go down during the slower bits between critical plot events. Imagine if their spelling was shoddy, their punctuation misplaced, and their sentences run-ons or fragments? Would that have deterred you from reading? I assure you that having to trudge through poor writing from your players will kill your creative appetite, and vice versa for them if you’re careless.

Fight the “role playing” mentality. When dice rollers came together, their character sheets gave them an identity that they had to maintain. It was an escape from their daily lives into a wondrous world where a natural twenty saved you from the direst poison. Well, escapism isn’t as worthwhile a hobby as is writing (which has gotten some writers very very rich). Rather than focusing on a single character to live vicariously through, encourage your players to make active use of NPCs. When a character walks into a convenience store to buy a twinkie, the clerk is the NPC. No player’s character needs be present for someone else to write about that clerk’s run-in with the local gang, all of whom are also NPCs. In fact, if there are no “player’s characters” then every character is up for grabs – the plot becomes the focus, rather than the metagame. (With seven players in a traditional roleplay, all seven are trying to turn their characters into the “main” character. With seven players in a plot-centric roleplay, all seven have a hand in the “main” plot, yielding collaboration rather than competition.) However, some players might have an affection for some characters – let them reserve them, so long as they remember to focus on plot.

Find the perfect posting length. If you’ve had the chance to read my article on Building Mood through Preconceptions you will know my stance on both one-liners and fluff-hills: they make for crappy writing. When I wrote that article, I had no idea how to achieve the perfect medium. Having spent over a year on Ficly.com however, I think I now have the solution: a 1024 character limit. The number is somewhat arbitrary to use with writing, since it only carries significance in data storage, but it is less than the ~350 words of a paperback page (actually a little more than half on one page). As an experienced reader, you likely recognize how difficult it is to expand on several different topics in only half a paperback page. And as a roleplayer, you know that a post without a punchline is boring to read. By imposing a limit, like the 1024 of Ficly, you force yourself and your roleplayers to keep your posts focused, concise, and interesting. The strain of fitting into 1024 characters forces some ideas to be put on hold – yielding only more raw material for the next “microstory” to add later into the roleplay. And, with a limit being imposed, players will feel a subconscious yearning to get as close to that limit as possible – I myself fall between 1017 and 1024 every time, after some revision and syntax decisions, and I’ve found that my roleplayers do the same (unless they forget about the limit, in which case they feel bad enough for breaking the simple rule that they avoid breaking it again). The limit also makes for easier reading – no one has to suffer through walls of text like this article that are tl;dr.

In summary, I encourage you to use (or modify) my rules for roleplaying, especially if you are using Eric Martindale’s Roleplay Tab system. I use them in Verdanus and Tertius, and my friend uses them in Despot (both of which are open for your participation!). Here they are:

0) The plot is more important than any character.
1) Write no more than 1024 characters per post, or no more than ~ one paperback page at a time.
2) Make every detail count – don’t fluff it up, but do make it sound interesting.
3) Any character that appears in the Characters tab is reserved by that player.
4) Any character NOT reserved is then free reign to roleplay as anyone wants.
5) Avoid contradictions, and correct them if you are made aware of them.
6) Spelling and grammar make everyone happy.
7) Talk things out with others over PM or in OOC when involving their characters.

When you decide to roleplay, a whole new world of imagination opens up to you — soon you realize that all the World of Warcraft is a stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players.

There are degrees to roleplaying. Some people like it "light," so that it never gets too intense, you never have to actually "work" to make your character profound or lore-worthy, and it's generally just a fun way to pass some time. Others like it "heavy;" they view their characters as works of art, taking special care to make their characters believable and interesting, and sometimes planning special roleplaying events for their guild to enjoy. Some even try to do everything in-character, from repairing armor to marking out targets with raid symbols.

Recently I joined just such a full-immersion roleplaying guild, and have been trying out their particular style. To be fair, I still have a number of friends on my server that I usually speak out-of-character with, because that's what we're used to, but for everyone in this guild, I do my best to stay in character at all times, with everything my character says and does. To some this may seem like an unnecessary pain, but to others it's a fun experience. Here are a few of the advantages and disadvantages of this type of roleplaying.

via All the World’s a Stage: Pros and cons of total-immersion roleplay.

One of the things that gave me pause when considering the move to Chrome from Firefox was having to give up the wide range of add-ons that the Mozilla service provides. But while Chrome can’t yet match Firefox’s huge extension ecosystem, it’s rapidly catching up, and many of my favorite “must-have” Firefox add-ons are are now available as Chrome extensions, or at least have Chrome equivalents. Here are the five Chrome extensions that I wouldn’t be without in the course of my daily blogging work:

Read the full (original) article here: 5 Must-have Chrome Extensions for Writers and Bloggers/

This image explores the literary motivation behind many popular video games.

This image explores the motivation behind several of the most popular video games. Explore it and keep these things in mind when designing your roleplays!

Where to Start

First and foremost, you must decide what sort of character you are creating. This will depend largely on the roleplay. For example, you wouldn’t create a space pirate in a Tolkien-esque fantasy roleplay. So you need to ask yourself a few questions:

• Is my character of a race that ‘fits in’ with the roleplay?
• Will my character be a lead character or a supporting one?
• What role does my character have?

Of course, these are very basic questions to ask, but they allow an initial outline idea of your character. By answering these questions, you’re on the way to creating an awesome character.

Names

For myself, I start by naming my character. Certain races have expected naming conventions, but that doesn’t always matter – your character’s name needs to simply fit in with the roleplay.

Names can be difficult to make up, but help is available! Check out the following links to name generators:

• Seventh Sanctum has a good name generator section, with many generators for all kinds of situations
• Dragon’s Mark is another service that offers multiple name generators, focusing mostly on fantasy names
• Another good name generator can be found at fantasyrole.org which again focuses on fantasy names
• PHP Geek is another site with a name generator. It’s pretty basic and works based on your own information – surname, first name, mother’s maiden name and the name of the city you were born in. Of course, you don’t have to enter real information though.

Others exist, of course, and you can use Google to search for them.

Appearance

Your character’s appearance is important. Often it can be a reflection of your character’s personality, an indication of their position, or simply what they look like. A few things should be considered:

• How tall is your character?
• What build? Slim, muscular, chubby, some alien-looking abomination?
• What does their face look like? Hair colour, eye colour, ugly, pretty, handsome?
• What clothes do they wear?
• How does your character ‘carry’ themselves? Do they seem confident, nervous, arrogant, flirtatious? This is often directly linked to the character’s personality.

Personality

A character’s personality will determine their of the world, how they interact with others, and predominantly, how you play the character. A personality can also change over time, as in real life. Often, the character’s history will link into their personality – perhaps being the cause of the personality.

• What is the general attitude of your character? Fun-loving, happy, enthusiastic, serious, stoic, loud, bashful?
• In what way do they view others? Friends, acquaintances, enemies?
• How does your character view the world they are in?
• What standards/morals/principals does your character have?
• Is your character liked by others? Immediately, after getting to know them, not at all?
• What is your character motivated by?

History

A character’s history is one of the keystones in character creation. It is what ties everything together. Much like a real person, a roleplay character will inevitably be moulded by the events in their life. The history of a character can also explain why there are where they are in a roleplay. A few things to consider, when writing a character’s history:

• What was their childhood like?
• What events in their childhood helped to shape them, if any?
• What have they spent their life doing up to this point?
• Are there any influential people they’ve met ‘along the way’?
• What jobs has the character had?
• What trials helped to make the character stronger, weaker, less trusting etc?
• Has your character moved from their home town?
• If so, why?
• If not, why?

Some people like to have a very detailed history, some don’t. The choice is up to you. If you write a history, try to keep at least to the key points in their life that led them to ‘now’.

Abilities and Equipment

A character’s ability and equipment needs to again fit in with the roleplay. Your character wouldn’t have a phaser in a fantasy roleplay, typically. A few things, without going into specifics, should be considered:

• Do the abilities and equipment match the roleplay?
• Are the strength of my character’s abilities too strong? (After all, you don’t want to god mod.)
• Where did the character learn these abilities? Do they match up to the history?
• Do the abilities coincide with other character points? (For example, would a 15 year old really have mastered a technique that takes fifty years to do so?)
• What equipment does my character have?
• For what purpose?
• How many of each item?
• Is it realistic for my character to carry all this equipment?
• How does the equipment assist in my character’s role?
• Are these abilities and equipment necessary, or do I just want an ‘uber character of doom’?

Part 2

We’ve looked at the basics of creating a character here. But, we’re not quite finished yet… We need to keep balance. A balance character is generally more interesting, and helps to suspend disbelief.

In the second part of this tutorial, we will look at how to maintain balance in your characters.

Lord Saladin is an experienced veteran RolePlayer and wordsmith, and long-time tutor of RolePlay and writing. He runs his own proof-reading business and has been published on several websites for his articles about sales and business.