hippocripes (hippocripes) wrote in rp_tutorials, @ 2010-07-31 22:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | resources: character creation, resources: general |
This is a slightly modified and expanded version of a conversation I had with dea_caelesti where I was trying to explain to her what RP was. If you have any suggestions on how to improve it let me know!
While this can't be easily answered, the basic answer is that it is the act of two or more people playing out scenes of a story with characters either of their own creation or ones they have taken from a fandom eg book, movie, comic, tv show etc. It can be done in first person or third person depending on what you prefer and the situation that you are playing in.
A way I found good to look at it, is when you compare it to co-writing a story with someone. For example user1 and user2 are playing character1 and character2 respectively. In this case the characters are Harry and Ron from the Harry Potter series and the setting is the first Harry Potter book. user1 and user2 would then precede to play out all of the Harry/Ron scenes within the book and if they need character3 say Hermione, user3 would then join into the scene and play Hermione as need be.
At the same time user4 and user5 could be playing their respective characters - say Draco and Pansy in a scene of the book- perhaps plotting how to target Harry and his friends next. Individually each of these scenes tell their own story but at the same time tie into the overal plot of the game- which in this case would be telling the story of the first book.
Confused? I don't blame you!
Another way to look at it is like a real life conversation or scene between two or more people. Take you and your group of friends for example in real life. All of you are heading the the movies- that is the setting of the thread or scene. The people in the thread are you and your friends. The content of the scene? It is the group of you meeting up, talking about whatever you talk about, watching the movie etc. Of course you wouldn't have to play all of this out if you did not want to- time skips are allowed in roleplay in some situations.
Want an example of what the hell I'm going on about? Click here for a conversation between James and Lily Potter in an AU World.
This is another really important aspect to be covered. If you don't know how to roleplay... well then you're kind of stuck. The main type of roleplay here on Insanejournal is a third person storybook style. Don't know what I mean? Pick up the nearest ficion book you have and see how that is written? That is a third person story book style. In some games there are journals as well - whether a network of computers like Insanejournal or linked hand written journals (more commonly found in Harry Potter games).
To roleplay, you will need to find a game, choose a character and a face to represent it, apply and make a journal for the character which I will go into futher detail about below.
Once in the game or PSL if it is a group on (which will be explained about in part 2 of this post) you need to figure out the plot individually for your character that will work with the over all game plot. This can be with characters you think would be friends with yours are friends with in canon, family members, co-workers etc. just people for you to interact with within the game. This is best done by introducting yourself and your character in the Out of Character community (majority of games have an in character community which is used for threading and the like as well as an out of character community for all your OOC needs- intro, hiatus notices etc).
From there, depending on how the game is set up you can either set up a thread- with someone or an open one (this is done by signfying Who: your character name and OPEN) this means that anyone can join the thread. Another idea is to set up an individual narriative which is JUST your character doing something but I wouldn't recommend these for starting posts as they won't get you any interaction.
Another way to get started in a game is to make a journal entry if the game allows these. Games can do this differently- these entries can be in your characters journal and not in a community or the game might have a third community for this type of posts. These are usually called network or communication communities- or even journals eg name_network [Bad username: name_communication] or name_network.
First of all, before you start roleplaying is to find a game that you are interested in. This can be done by looking in communities such as rpwanted wanna_rp vampiregames hpads pimp_my_game and a million other communities- best way to find some? Do an an interest serach for roleplay. This will bring up all the communties that have roleplay listed as an interest which includes roleplay ad communities as well as some roleplays as well. Or just look in the Recent Asylum posts on the homepage, there always seem to be at least one there.
Once you have found a game that you are interested in the next step is to figure out what character you want to apply for. This of course vaires from game to game- some games will have a character available, some won't. Some games don't have character lists at all if they are completely original characters (eg avalonis/avalonismods) while others will have a list of available characters (eg ageofdarkness/moderatus golden_world/golden_mods). To hold a character, comment on either the available page or the cast page (depending on how the game is set up) with the character you would like to hold or the face you would like your character to have. This face is known as your played by or a pb.
To place a hold you will need to create an insanejournal if you do not have one already. This can be a character journal or a personal insanejournal for your own use. If it is a character journal it is usually recommmended that it has something to do with your character. This can be their name, a nickname, something to do with their personality or a mixture of them. For example some character journals are susanamelia (Susan Bones), lucy_malfoy (Lucius Malfoy) arroganced (Narcissa Malfoy) heir_bass (Chuck Bass) or dragonhandler (Charlie Weasley). If your character is an original character it can follow the same ideals though I personally recommend that it is your characters name eg frankmoon or jonathanmarsden. If you are having trouble coming up with usernames this post has some useful links or you can look in tradingspaces hpjournalswap or here.
Now, you might be asking what are holds? That is actually a very good question. While you don't have to submit a hold to submit an application they are helpful in that they let the mod and other people know that there is not only interest in the game but in a specific character/played by being used at the game. Some games will allow you to challenge these holds while others don't. If they do allow challenges the general stance is that the challenger (the second person to hold the character or face) has to the end of the first hold to get their application in.
Part 2 will come tomorrow as I am about to crash and I'm sure you all want to understand what I am typing here and considering I stuffed up all the LJ tags... well that is fast approaching!