So, you want to write Roleplaying posts, eh? (by Valalerin)

So, you want to write Roleplaying posts, eh?

Well then, you’ll have to pay some attention.

Writing Roleplaying posts is not something you can churn out in two minutes, if you do, then… Please don’t. Writing a good post needs something more than a long string of talking followed by the word ‘said’.

This little guide here, I put stress on little, is going to give you a healthy handful of tips and tricks to writing splendid, spondiferous and arty-farty roleplaying posts.

Section I: Characters.
Part I: What is a Mary-Sue?
Part II: Action, Reaction.
Part III: So, what can I do?
Section II: Hostility and combat.
Part I: More on Action, Reaction.
Part II: Combat.
Section III: The Post.
Part I: Length.
Part II: When to Post.
Part III: More on them there posts.
Part IV: Over-Description.
Part V: God-Emoting.
Section IV: End.

Section I: Characters.

Part I: What is a Mary-Sue?

A Mary-Sue is the nickname given by Roleplaying communities for characters that are… Well… Laughable. A Mary-Sue is a character that is often invented by newbies to roleplay (I use newbies not offensively, I use it as a term for someone new) and they usually involve a great deal of God-emoting (more on that later) and general poor thought.
Things you think are cool and original, are usually over-done, droning and boring now. Originality is no longer in cool and amazing, it’s in the subtle undertone.

Things that are common to Mary-Sues:

A name consisting of two words put together. Killstab, Nightrogue and Shadowdagger might all sound thrilling, but they are not names your mother or father would give you, ever. Feel free to have nicknames for your character, but put a clear distinction between nickname and actual name.
For instance: Clarence “Thunderface” McRawdy. Not just Thunderface, as Thunderface is not a name.

Extreme amounts of good looks. Having an attractive character is OK, having an attractive Pirate is devilishly odd, having an attractive Orc is ridiculous. If you’re going to have a good-looking character, be sure to have a damn good reason they’re good looking, like they’ve never fought a day of their lives, or their parents are rich lords who pamper them with beauty potions.
You do not just ‘be’ beautiful, you need a reason to be so.

Hideousness is equally daft. Having a gorgeous character is disappointing, having a moldy, festering pile of scum is almost as. If your character is overtly ugly, you need a reason. He was burnt in a fire, he got crushed by a stampede of Kodos… He bashed his own face in with a mallet. Any reason, so long as there is one.

Imperviousness to weakness. All races have a weakness… Blood Elves have an unstoppable lust for the Arcane, Gnomes are short, Dwarves love beards, Humans have biceps bigger than their heads. Make sure your character’s racial disadvantages are also there, you can use methods to detract from them, but they must still be there.
Also, for those who will undoubtedly say “My Blood Elf doesn’t crave Arcane” he is not a Blood Elf, he is a High Elf.

Cross-Breeds. Don’t exist. There is only one recorded type of inter-bred creature in Warcraft lore, the half-Ogre, half-Orc variant. No other type exists. There are no Halflings, half-Elves or Dwarf Trolls, as interbreeding is NOT something that happens in Warcraft.
But, if you want to make a half-Ogre, half-Orc character, you MUST read up on their lore and how they’ve either all or mostly all died out now.

Cybernetics. Cybernetics don’t exist in Warcraft either, so trash that bionic arm, robotic eye and electronic leg. Gnomish technology, as far as can be discerned, is not at a human/cyborg level. They can make mechanical suits, but I haven’t seen any Gnomes that are actually part machine.

Pointless wealth. If your character is rich: He needs a reason. I can’t stress this fact enough, a character with a great deal of money must have a well-paying job. Your farmer will not have the money to buy a solid gold suit of armour, so bin that idea pronto.

Telepathy. Please, no. However cool and neat-o this ability is, it isn’t something your character should ever have. It can be used and abused in so many different ways.

Always succeeds. Never failing is something nobody can do, your character cannot succeed at everything they try, they must fail sometimes.

Relations to canon (Lore) characters. No. No, no, no. No. You are NOT Uther’s son, you are NOT Arthas’ brother and you are NOT Illidan’s grand-daddy. Your character is not related to a major lore character. Minor ones you can get away with like son of the innkeeper of Goldshire, or brother of that crazy guy in the Wetlands. But not major, ever.

There, that’s about all I can think of… Also: It’s ok to be a good guy. Not everyone has to be bad, you can be good too. Personally, my characters are usually bad because I’m good at being a bad-guy (I know when to fail, and when to succeed), but if you wanna make a good guy – Please do!

Part II: Action, reaction.

A character must react according to the character’s current state of mind and personality. Not your own. If you don’t like someone’s character you cannot suddenly make your character challenge that one to a fight to the death. Characters need motives, a good story lays down a lot of possible motives, a bad one has none and results in characters doing nothing, or acting out of character.
If somebody just punched your character in the face, but you yourself like the character that did so, your character will not chuckle and smile, he will get angry. I’ve seen too many stories where the guy stirring up trouble simply can’t because people are… Immune to irritation.

Part III: So, what can I do?

Well, almost anything that isn’t ridiculous. Your character CAN be powerful, but not infinitely. Your character CAN be beautiful, but not infinitely. Your character CAN be lucky, but not infinitely. Basically, your character can be absolutely anything… Just not too much.

You know you’re going too far when: Your character can take on massive legions of hellish demons un-aided… And win.
Your character hates everyone and everything… For no particular reason.
Your character has unimaginable amounts of wealth… And sells flowers for a living.

Keep it sane.

Section II: Hostility and combat.

Part I: More on Action, Reaction.

Your character will not suddenly start attacking someone for looking at them funny. Some of you might point to my character and how he’s always picking on people, that’s because my character really does want nothing to do with anyone at all. He wants everyone to be against him so that nobody misses him when he dies. And he’s also mentally unstable, he truly believes his only purpose is to fight until something kills him.

Back on topic… A character will fight someone if they have deeply offended them, or that character is obliged to attack them. (A Paladin sees a Warlock summoning demons for example, or a Scarlet Crusade sees an Undead). A character will not start smacking the face off of someone because you don’t like the person writing.
Your character will not suddenly insult someone because you think the story is boring. Those sorts of things tear the story in random, often poor, directions and usually result in the story… Collapsing sadly. Do not ever kill an Open RP, please.

Part II: Combat.

Fights should always commence in a form relative to this one:

Character A begins an action.
Character B evaluates whether or not to be struck OR how badly to be struck by the attack.
Character B begins an action.
Character A evaluates whether or not to be struck OR how badly to be struck by the attack.

And so on until one character is victorious, or the other runs away.
Cutting corners is unacceptable. You can NOT decide whether or not your attack lands, how severely it lands or if it kills someone. You can IMPLY the strength of an attack, the accuracy of an attack and the lethality of an attack through your writing.

“Strikes with deadly accuracy”
“Lunges with feral might”
“Darts forward, aiming for the neck”

Those describe just how the action rolls out, and gives the other writer a better idea of how the event should happen. As another note on this: You cannot have every single attack really strong, really accurate or really lethal. Nor is it nice to simply alternate. Think about how real fights happen: There are fake-out punches, and there are damage-dealing punches. Quick shots meant to do nothing, and big smacks meant to do punishment.

Section III: The Post.

Part I: Length.

As a simple rule, an introduction to your character should be approximately 5 paragraphs long. This gives you chance to describe your character, and your character’s initial actions.
A post after the introduction should usually be about 3 paragraphs long, as your character’s physical status has already been described.
The opening post to start an Open RP should be about 7 paragraphs or more, giving time to set the scene, describe the character and the actions taking place.

Deviate from this as much as you may, it is only a guideline.

Posts should NEVER be: One line, one paragraph or one word.

Ever.

Part II: When to post.

You should never post if there is nothing to post to. If you can’t think of about 3 paragraphs of text to post in, simply don’t. It doesn’t matter how frequently you post at all, as long as you post when you’re… Posted to? I suppose.

Also, do not turn Open RPs into one-on-one RPs. A good, polite rule is to have a maximum of 4 posts between two people before waiting for someone else to post… To clarify:

Person A posts.
Person B posts.
Person A posts.
Person B posts.
Person A and person B wait for Person C to post before posting any more. 

A one-on-one RP is tricky to involve your character into, as it involves simply watching the actions unfold, and that is… Boring.

Also, when joining Open RPs, to avoid situations where it becomes a one-on-one, you MUST have your character interact, either directly or indirectly. Posts like:
“Character observes character from the shadows, completely unseen.”
Basically mean that the character being observed… Can’t post, as he doesn’t know he’s being watched.

Part III: More on them there posts.

A good post is not all dialogue. In fact, a bad post is all dialogue, a good post is primarily description, as that is what keeps a story flowing. Nobody likes reading conversations, people like imagining what is happening. If the scene only seems to involve a lot of talking, then include the actions your character performs whilst talking, their expressions, the surroundings and how they reflect on the situation… Anything!

Also, if you’re RPing a combat scene, we all know that it’s hard to fill out 3 paragraphs based on one action, so you fill it out with other decorative things like exactly how your character strikes, what damage your character hopes to inflict, the footwork of your character, how the character’s weapon of choice shimmers in the surrounding dim light cast down from an Eastern sun.

You can make even the simplest actions beefy.

But…

Part IV: Over-Description.

Over-Description is when you dive into far too much detail about a particular object, situation or action. For instance, you could overly describe your character’s hair by comparing it to far too many things, or you could overly describe the surroundings by going into the exact detail of the kinds of birdsongs you can hear, or anything like that.
As a general guideline, three sentences, complex or simple, describing a single ‘thing’ is over-description.

Over description is almost as bad as under-description, so try to avoid it. Yes, this somewhat contradicts the above, but that’s about using filler for posts ;)

Part V: God-Emoting.

God-Emoting is enforcing a particular reaction upon an opposing character. God-emoting can be very slight, or very major. Some major God-emotes are:
Character kills opposing character.
Character kicks opposing character in the face.
Character steals money from opposing character.

Some minor God-emotes are:
When you look at character, your character feels happy.
Character’s smile makes your character think of childhood.
Character’s hair reminds your character of the ocean.

You cannot inflict action nor thought unto another character, only your own. You can imply the effects, however.

Character attempts to kill opposing character with a strike through the heart.
Character leaps in the air to try and kick opposing character in the face.
Character slowly tries to sneak character’s hand into opposing character’s pocket to steal opposing character’s wallet.

Character has an interesting gift of making most people around her happy.
Character’s smile is reminiscent of that of a child’s.
Character’s hair looks like a wild ocean wave.

So remember, be suggestive, not imposing.

Section IV: End.

Well, that’s about all I can think of for a guide to posting RP posts on these here forums… If everyone were to take heed and understand, then these boards might return to quality similar to that of the Golden Age of the boards, which was flushed away when they were updated.

Such a shame… So many epic Open RPs…

Ah well, we can always make some more.

Also, if there is anything you feel needs adding, or you think needs correcting or improving or is just not clear or not right... Please, don't hesitate to tell me. I'll try to keep this guide updated, no promises though.